Dispelling misinformation and myths about VR to foster better community understanding
- Thread starter VR Jay Le Chardon
- Start date
How many acclaimed Fps games do you know, that allow both flat and VR gaming, have a VR implementation like that?
Because the VR market had around 2 billion USD turnover in 2019. Also 3% of all Steam players is a significant portion of all ED licenses sold.
Texture resolution is basically unrelated to display render resolution. Only some games have a LOD system tied to render resolution. But I assume you are referring to the resolution per degree of FOV. While the old Vive and Rift were on par with a 720p 32" screen viewed at around 30cm, the more recent generations of HMDs are noticeably better. I don't have any numbers on hand, but the main criticism of more recent headsets like HP Reverb (2) or Vive Pro 2 (or even Index) is not the resolution or the pixel desity anymore.
Depends on what you consider rich. A 120€ Ryzen 1600/ 2600 in conjuction with something like a GTX980Ti/ 1070/ 1660Ti, which were availabe for 250-350€, is hardly something you are being considered "rich" for owning.
I don't think Odyssey will ever be an acclaimed FPS, so it would be almost irrelevant to go looking for them, however, for RPGs that support both VR and 2D, there are quite a few. Besides, how many FPS feature spaceships as the core of the gameplay?
My PC isn't state of the art and can easily run the Vive VR gear as well as a Tactot Haptic Vest.
Intel i5 3.4Ghz
Nvidia GTX 1060
32Mb Ram (although the VR ran comfortably with 16Mb before I upgraded).
Textures and so on depend on the quality of your headset. Normally the better quality ones cost more, but Decagear are releasing one soon that competes with the best for quality but costs as little as the cheaper ones, (around 500 bucks) and has a few more features as well that make even the most expensive ones look bad. https://www.deca.net/
As for motion sickness, playing seated to begin with can alleviate most of that. Also pressuring through it can also make you less prone. I played seated because of the falling illusion when I walked in VR, now I can stand because my brain hs gotten used to my eyes seeing movement while my body remains still.
The flat screen that doesn't move with your head can cause dizzyness at first, almost like a brief dazing effect, but that also goes away in time.
Haptics are better, but if you can't afford such things, the full immersion can often trick your mind into "feeling" things. I often "feel" the shock of being hit by weapon fire in ED as my ship shudders. It's a mind trick, but the nature of VR is all about tricking the mind.
Those who have never tried it often make up stories, but hardly any of those stories are true. Most of the disorientation or "motion sickness" goes away quite quickly once you get used to it, but there are various things you can do to avoid it from the start. A fan that blows on you will allow you to remain orientated in the real world. Playing seated to begin with allows you mind time to adjust. However, the fact that you get this motion sickness is testament to the realism you experience in VR.
If you've never tried it, give it a go, but persevere for a while, it takes time to get used to it. It's like standing on a ship at sea, it takes time to get your sea legs.
Intel i5 3.4Ghz
Nvidia GTX 1060
32Mb Ram (although the VR ran comfortably with 16Mb before I upgraded).
Textures and so on depend on the quality of your headset. Normally the better quality ones cost more, but Decagear are releasing one soon that competes with the best for quality but costs as little as the cheaper ones, (around 500 bucks) and has a few more features as well that make even the most expensive ones look bad. https://www.deca.net/
As for motion sickness, playing seated to begin with can alleviate most of that. Also pressuring through it can also make you less prone. I played seated because of the falling illusion when I walked in VR, now I can stand because my brain hs gotten used to my eyes seeing movement while my body remains still.
The flat screen that doesn't move with your head can cause dizzyness at first, almost like a brief dazing effect, but that also goes away in time.
Haptics are better, but if you can't afford such things, the full immersion can often trick your mind into "feeling" things. I often "feel" the shock of being hit by weapon fire in ED as my ship shudders. It's a mind trick, but the nature of VR is all about tricking the mind.
Those who have never tried it often make up stories, but hardly any of those stories are true. Most of the disorientation or "motion sickness" goes away quite quickly once you get used to it, but there are various things you can do to avoid it from the start. A fan that blows on you will allow you to remain orientated in the real world. Playing seated to begin with allows you mind time to adjust. However, the fact that you get this motion sickness is testament to the realism you experience in VR.
If you've never tried it, give it a go, but persevere for a while, it takes time to get used to it. It's like standing on a ship at sea, it takes time to get your sea legs.
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I would kinda assume almost everyone here has that already if they wanted to play Elite in some sort of quality. In short if your computer is relatively new (up to 4 years) and has a dedicated GPU, you can run VR. And the cost of the Quest 2 in the US is $299 and 349€ in the EU. That's hardly bank breaking. And if it is bank breaking, I'd say that there are bigger problems to worry about than computer game peripherials. But by no means "rich boys world". There are also used headsets for sale, plus there are prev-gen WMR headsets for sale etc...
There's not so many of them, in fact I can only name Serious Sam which has 3d-pancake crossplay. And you can control it however you want, but guys from Croteam advised to use the motion controllers - it's part of the fun.
You sure it supports mouselook in VR?
Why would you want mouselook when you can look wherever you want by just moving your head like you do in real life?
I'm guessing irony
Sadly can't agree with that. It's an old atavism from our hunter-gatherer times, where if the "hunter" part failed, you moved to "gatherer" part, and ate random things to survive. If the yummy looking berries you ate caused your world to spin, but your body wasn't registering movement, it was time to puke out the nice berries from your stomach. That's basically all it is to it. And according to common consensus you shouldn't force yourself if you feel nauseous because you might develop an aversion to the headset. I don't know anyone who suffered from that though.
If you want a testament to realism, this is:
When the illusion is so good you try to lean on a non-existent furniture. I had a moment like that twice, luckily no faceplanting
https://steamcommunity.com/app/552450/discussions/0/1692659135909681255/ response from the Developer himself.
The first time I warped into a system, I could feel the heat from the sun. A lot of times I still have that sensation if I'm fuel scooping. It's sort of like when you're driving down the road and the sun is shining on your face.
![[VR] Mad Mike](https://d2aefvhu2f0gi9.cloudfront.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
Sorry but that is offensive horse .... I don't mind if you don't like VR. The reason I want vr in ED is because for me personally the game is 10x better in VR. I think the moment FD chose to market the game as made for VR and sold it on a VR only store they set an expectation and made sales off that.
Also I know that ED O CAN work in VR even legs because some have done it. It just needs a bit of polish.
Now maybe it will never come to ED:O and my elite journey is coming to an end..... Sucks if so but that is the way of the world.
But anyone who wants to talk VR in ED:O and their disappointment is more than entitled to do so, it does not make them junkies or zealots.
Imagine of HOTAS support or triple screen support was removed ? And yet these are pretty niche features.
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You have a very fixed and skewed view on people you don't know.
And don't sharing your opinion but like to have their own doesn't make them behave like drug addicts. This is your rather strange speculation.
IMO Elite without VR isn't worth playing. I've only ever played in VR and when I've tried it without VR it's just a dull pretty planet picture taking game.
VR is the only reason I purchased the game and VR is the only reason I still have the game installed.
FD choosing to remove VR from the game is game breaking for me. They're basically saying "thanks for taking the risk and supporting us at the start when we needed your money but fnck you we now have console revenue."
I don't give a monkeys if you like or don't like VR. I usually find people who don't like VR are console players who haven't ever tried it, laptop players who have no chance of running it or people who tried it on a low spec GPU and low res headset and got put off by the poor experience, and once you show them it running on a decent rig their mind is blown.
Look around the forums, look around the Steam discussions and look around Reddit. We're not some small group of whining people. We're a large percentage of the player base which unfortunately for you aren't going to just shut the fnck up about it because it doesn't apply to you.
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But if it's not worthwhile then why has ED always said "built for VR from the ground up"? It was one of the big selling points in the kickstarter, and actually pushed many of the players into the world of VR. In fact the popularity of the CV1 with Elite may well have had a positive contribution to the general uptake of VR by the industry.
They thought it was worthwhile enough to be pioneers in VR gaming...
But Elite WAS designed for VR.
Which is exactly what they did to Mac players. When I joined Premium Beta it was because they offered exactly the same gaming experience on a Mac. Then one day "poof... gone", and it was all Apple's fault. "Fair enough" I thought, "maybe Apple are being unreasonable... I'll buy a PC. And since I'm buying a PC I'll buy one that can support VR and save up for a headset."
And now "poof... gone".
And before the flames begin, I know VR is still there, but for how long? How long before it gets kicked into the "too hard" bucket and dropped like the Mac version was?
Hey Mods you may wanna close this one up; it's turning into a chimpanzee poo throwing contest.
Exceptionally well formatted post. Have no stake in VR personally, so will check opinions. Regardless, I appreciate the time/effort to make a complex post readable. Well done!I'm currently reworking the formatting and adding new points to this post, so expect to see changes, I'll reply to the thread when I'm done with the updates.
VR gets a lot of flack, often based on misinformed opinions from NON VR players, so I thought it would be good to start a thread to dispell those myths, basically now is a good time to chime in with a mistaken presumption about VR you've seen someone present, and corrections of that myth. If you post them here, I'll update this post with the myths and the corrections, and it will hopefully form a FAQ/Wiki if we get enough of them...
Each titled "spoiler" below expands with the answers to the question asked in the spoilers title:
In real money, any new gaming PC, or anything built to a decent standard of equipment in the last three to five years can run VR.
- VR isn't particularly CPU intensive, but requires a decent, not awesome, graphics card,say GTX970 or above...
- Nearly all GTX10, GTX16, or any RTX series cards can run VR
- Standalone headsets need fibre optic internet connections to function
- Typically standalone headsets are just that, standalone, although they can be linked to a PC for use on PC VR games
- Standalone headsets download games over any wifi and or USB to install them and run them locally like any smart device or games console
- SOME, but not all games require an internet conneciton if they are a Multiplayer experience and or for copy protection, but those games will run on normal wifi
SOME people are more susceptible to motion sickness than others, that applies to non gaming stuff as well as VR
- Certain people will find certain things in VR will trigger motion sickness, while others might find those same things OK, and or other things trigger them instead
- For example, the current VR on foot in Oyssey is rendered as a virtual floating window that is fixed in 3d space and doesn't move with the headset.
- I personally find that when playing in this mode, when my head moves but the view does not, this triggers motion sickness response in me, and I've seen others express similar opinions and experiences.
- I've also seen others express the exact opposite opinion, stating that the more immersive VR experience offered in an SRV, even driving sensibly triggers them and the ViRtual flatscreen is an absolute godsend for them.
- Many VR players have very robust "Virtual Legs" (akin to sea legs as sea sickness is motion sickness, and sea legs is the resilience against this) and aren't in the least bit bothered by such games / experiences.
VR lenses have a sweetspot centred around the Intra Pupular Distance, the distance between the players eye's pupils, in most headsets this is adjustable either with a software adjustment, or a mechanical slider as found on the Rift CV1 and Quest 2. however the Rift S was a software-only solution and wasn’t as good for many - the “sweetspot” in my right eye ended up being slightly different than the left.
- IPD adjustment ranges vary from headset, and typically cover most head sizes, however some people with unusually large or small heads will sometimes fall outside the range offered by some headsets.
- Any optician can measure IPD accurately, or you can measure it yourself with a ruler held up against your nose and using a mirror to see the distance between your pupils and makesure this ballpark measurement is covered by the range of the headset you are looking at buying.
Adding basic VR headlook to a game is little more than adding a new display configuration, the VR API asks for the pictures. Although, there some things, such as curved UI, that do work better in VR than flat screen, but it doesn't have to be done that way in order to work. Horizons does have nice curved UI displays for some areas. Although these things are noce to haves rather than necessities, so VR doesn't require anything new in actual design.
Adding VR into an already fully 3D game is very little dev work at all, and the design can usually stay as it is.
- Modern games a re typically made with everythingyou can see being a 3d model, that is placed into a scene, and rendered to a 2 dimensional picture to be displayed as a frame on the monitor, VR just asks for two pictures at a time, one for each eye's slightly different view point
- Modern VR api's do most of the heavy lifting for the developer, acting akin to direct X.
- Back in the old DOS gaming days of the early nineties, games had to be programmed with not only the games mechanics, but coding to address the hardware at a pretty low level, so often had a limited list of peripherals they could support then direct X gave developers a way of asking the direct X to send instructions to the hardware, and directx did just that, regardless of whether it was a turtle beach, creative labs, realtek or what ever sound card.
- Same thing for graphics cards etc
- Most, if not all current headsets for PC VR can be accessed through steam VR, and or open XR, these are API's that present the games developer with a hardware agnostic interfact to code to, that allows their game to be deployed on nearly all headsets without tailoring to each individual model
- Elite's implementaiton of Steam VR API is slightly screwy and doesn't play as nicely as it could with headsets such as those from Pimax which have two screens canted at a shallow angle as it does with the more typical design of one screen covering both eyes.
Many people still see VR as a “gimmick” and that the “being amazed” effect will wear off after a short time. However, with the Oculus DK1 being seven years old at the time of writing this, and the VR market still going strong, it would appear that the gimick hasn't worn off yet. Nor does it look like wearing off any time soon to the passionate VR enthusiasts. -
To quote @Arioch: I’ve been using a headset since 2017 and I still get awestruck stop-and-stare moments in the games I playThat’s with VR being my default way to play games these days, so perhaps two hours per day.
I concur with that having got into VR in 2016, and I am still very passionate about it, and often awestruck by some of the virtual experiences I have.The feeling of being “in” the game is not an exaggeration - with the precise one-to-one 6 DoF tracking, most players brain's are instantly fooled into thinking they are in a “real” place, albeit one that was sometimes obviously computer generated. Reality is a fair approximation of the experience
I think one of the main problems between VR and non-VR players is our inability to convey the experience to them.It's just something you have to try, keep a while at it until you get accustomed to it and have your nausea in check and then you will feel the difference. It is often equaled to Track-IR but that doesn't cut it.
One key feature that is missing from any head tracking set up is the 3D stereo vision VR users experience, which works in conjunction with the 360° tracking and correct 1:1 scale the VR player sees the virtual world in to become uterly mesmerising.The word Immersion gets banded about far too often, but to play on a head tracker is still playing a game, to play in VR is to transport your mind IN TO an alternative reality. If you don't believe in the depth of immersion VR offers its users, check out these clips for a giggle:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMceVbo3Tm4
Source: https://media.giphy.com/media/12X043D59oas36/giphy.gifThat's a good question, I'd suggest "smooth locomotion", ie NOT teleporting, for Elite for a number of reasons:
There’s also the third-person teleport option that can be seen in some VR games - bringing up the teleport arc causes your avatar to run off towards where you’re aiming, and when you let go of the control, you instantly leap to the new position. The avatar is vulnerable while moving, so you can sometimes watch yourself get shot
- It's less development work to add FPV VR with the existing smooth locomoiton (walking rather than teleporting)
- Teleporting presents a balancing issue, for example in a CZ a VR player could find themselves pinned down and simply teleport out of trouble, where as a non VR player would have to run the gauntlet under fire to break free
- It's more immersive to see / "feel" the journey than it would be to leapfrog your way across the scene
Another teleport method is like the sprint-dash thing from Half-Life: Alyx - a normal teleport arc but you then do a swift jump to the new position. To other players it just looks like you’re doing a normal short sprint between moments of standing still.That would depend on which headset we are talking about, but I'll give you some comparisons for "budget" "midpoint" & "premium" headsts.
There are some pros and cons to both screen and VR, for example:
- An original first gen headset, like my Original Oculis Rift (CV1) (~£100 ebay used) is probably on par with a 1080p large screen, but not as good as a 4k TV screen
- A second gen headset, like an Oculis Rift S (CV1) (~£170 ebay used / £400 new) is probably slightly better than a 1080p large screen, but not as good as a 4k TV screen
- An HP Reverb G2 (£600 new / £450 used) is reportedly almost as good as a 4k TV
- I can pick out a lot of exquisite details in my old headset that I cannot see on monitors, like at the thargoid structures, the texture of the chitin shell has an iridescence to it that I can see and admire its beauty in VR, but don't really see or notice it on monitor.
- Because my headset is lower res being an older generation I find aiming at a distance harder because the reticule for the fixed werapon is a larger dot than I'd like, menaing with long range rails for example, at 5km out, the enemy's enture ship is smaller than the dot for aiming the weapon. Of course newer headsets have better resolutions and mitigate this.
That's a few points to start this wiki style article, let's get some more Q & A collated here, and or any corrections needed in the examples above. I'm hoping if we get enough informaiton in this thread we can dispel alot of the myths about VR that poison peoples opinion of it, so as to heal the division between NON VR players who think VR needs to get kicked aside to save the game, and people like myself who believe that it is perfectly viable to continue supporting VR in elite with only a couple of days of work, rather than a couple of years rewriting the entire game to support it.
Messaged a Mod about this thread, this is getting out of hand.