I'm Not Impressed

[Exigeous]

I could see people walking around the office with HoloLens (or likewise) devices on the heads.

I also agree with this, to a point. VR would be out of the question, even if wireless, in an office setting. It removes one of the primary reasons to work together in an office, personal interaction. I do think technologies like HoloLense will make their way into the office, in fact a neighbor of mine works for a major energy company and they are already testing HoloLense for teleconferencing. The primary issue right now is the size of the headset and the extremely limited FOV (a bit less than Rift/Vive from what I'm told by those who have tested it). Both of those issues will be solved in time, likely a very short time. When we get to a Google Glass sized device that provides full FOV AR then it would spread rapidly.

ha! Once you go VR you never want to go back.

It really is difficult isn't it? Lately I've been learning a lot about Engineering and as such have been doing the various grind/tasks to acquire the needed materials/data. A few times I decided to play on my 3 1080p curved LCDs so I could easily Alt-Tab between game and EDEngineer/EDDB/etc. While it made it easier than constantly taking off my headset it changed the game so much I just wasn't having any fun. Headset back on, fun back on.

I have some problems with the SDE (I can see it, everytime), but the immersion is really here

The first few hours I spent with my Rift were hugely disappointing. I'd purposefully never tried the DK1/DK2 as I wanted to wait for the "finished" experience. Within the first 5 seconds I was super disappointed by the amount of SDE. I've had projection based home theatres since the mid 90's, as such I'm very familiar with SDE and until my first 1080p projector I just had to deal with it. Second were the god rays, I couldn't believe how bad they were. Finally the worst part by far was FOV. The next morning I posted my Rift to Craigslist for $1k (I was a Kickstarter backer so I got mine in the first batch). I played with it some the next 2 days, leaving each experience disappointed. Then I got an email from someone offering full price. Before replying I thought "I should get my Warthog out and try that Elite Whatever game before selling it" (I had only played Elite a few hours at that point and it was over a year ago). As soon as I spawned in a station my jaw dropped. Okay, okay, let's do a bit more. I did the training mission where to use FSD for the first time - and WHAMMO I'm sitting next to a star. Not it looked like there was star on screen there was an F'ING STAR RIGHT THERE! As quickly as I decided I hated the Rift I decided I couldn't live without it. I removed the listing and emailed the buyer back and told him the story, he replied with "it's amazing isn't it? Enjoy".

I agree. It doesn't matter how big or high resolution a screen is it still sucks because you are standing on the outside looking in.

I couldn't agree more. When I tell other Elite players about playing in VR I put it very simply. "You're playing a cool video game with some very pretty graphics. I'M FLYING A F'ING SPACESHIP". I know many think that's extreme but we know it really isn't.

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

I'm still blown away by VR, even after several months. Its a gmae-changer, even with all the faults.

I'm a bit longsighted and see the screen door effect quite clearly. I too was disappointed by the overall low resolution of the CV1, but I knew it was coming and application of a GTX1080 fixed most of the issues.

Being a long time glasses user, the god rays didn't bother me at all and I only notice them occasionally.
The colour banding does get me sometimes, but luckily I only notice it on leaving a star, and a few other situations.

But the simple immersion, the simple ability to look around naturally is what keeps me in VR.
I recently got Touch and enjoy Dead and Buried, Unspoken and a few other hand-controller-oriented titles. The feeling of having hands is great, but for me its not as exciting as just having your head in the game. Elite doesn't need hands (yet).

What I'd dearly love to see is WarFrame in VR with Touch, gun in one hand and sword in the other. It'd need a level above 'Intense' though!

 

[Exigeous]

I too was disappointed by the overall low resolution of the CV1, but I knew it was coming and application of a GTX1080 fixed most of the issues.

Being a long time glasses user, the god rays didn't bother me at all and I only notice them occasionally.

But the simple immersion, the simple ability to look around naturally is what keeps me in VR.

By application of a 1080 do you mean being able to run higher super sampling thus helping with aliasing? When I got my Rift I was on the previous generation Titan Z 12GB card, the one with 2 GPUs on one card. It was amazing for many games but for those that didn't support SLI, like VR, it was actually a bit slower than a 970 (when running only 1 of the 2 GPUs). I quickly sold it and got a 1080 and as I could run 1.75 SS the difference was huge. Still issues, still SDE, still god rays, still FOV but still amazing.

I'm not a glasses wearer and hadn't considered that making you "use to" god rays, interesting.

And again you are so right that the immersion at this point outweighs the negatives. While I can't wait for devices like StarVR to hit the market with a near full FOV I'm very happy with the Rfit thus far. Hell in 20 years we'll be able to say we owned the first VR devices, you know the big things we wore on our heads, not the contact lenses we have now (now being in say 2035).

Question - do you guys do this. When I'm playing I'm almost always chatting with folks in Discord. I'll constantly ask "anyone have EDDB open and can tell me where to get MODULE near SYSTEM?". Occasionally someone I don't know well is in the chat and they'll reply "uh, do you not have a browser" then those that do know me reply "yeah, he does, he's just in VR and doesn't want to break immersion, hold on X, I'll find it for you". I do this all the time and am happy to say most everyone playing without VR doesn't mind looking it up for me at all ;-)

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

By application of a 1080 do you mean being able to run higher super sampling thus helping with aliasing? When I got my Rift I was on the previous generation Titan Z 12GB card, the one with 2 GPUs on one card. It was amazing for many games but for those that didn't support SLI, like VR, it was actually a bit slower than a 970 (when running only 1 of the 2 GPUs). I quickly sold it and got a 1080 and as I could run 1.75 SS the difference was huge. Still issues, still SDE, still god rays, still FOV but still amazing.

Yes - when I got my Rift I was using a 780GTX. It worked fine but supersampling caused a lot of judder.
Now with the GTX1080, I run pretty much max detail, but keep HMD Quality at 1.25. I keep ASW turned off.

I'm not a glasses wearer and hadn't considered that making you "use to" god rays, interesting.

I'm sort of used to reflections, chromatic aberrations, scattering and other artifacts (and reductions in field of view) since wearing glasses since age 3.
I think it has lessened the impact of god-rays, limited FoV etc.

It might be different for other glasses wearers though - everyone has a different tolerance!

PS @Exigeous - do you own one? (the car Lotus Exige)... Road or track, very nice.

 

[Mack Winston]

I only have a DK2.

I wouldn't trade it for a 4K display.

Despite the resolution, it gives something that a 4K display can't: the feeling of being there, and volume - not to mention the naturalness of just turning your head to look at stuff.

 

[CapuchinSeven]

Got a curved ultrawide and I'm having a lot of trouble playing anything not in VR (ie I don't play anything outside VR right now). Kinda worried because I don't think the new Mass Effect is going to be VR capable and I'm really hooked on VR.

 

[furrycat]

I bought a Vive a few months back. I used it for maybe a week. When people ask me what it looks like I say "it's like someone strapped two Nintendo 64s to your face and put you in a real spaceship."

The sense of immersion is amazing but the image quality is utterly painful to look at even at highest detail.

When we have a rendering pipeline that can drive a Retina display on each eye I'll give it another go.

 

[vic]

I bought a Vive a few months back. I used it for maybe a week. When people ask me what it looks like I say "it's like someone strapped two Nintendo 64s to your face and put you in a real spaceship."

The sense of immersion is amazing but the image quality is utterly painful to look at even at highest detail.

When we have a rendering pipeline that can drive a Retina display on each eye I'll give it another go.

Sorry to hear that and I respect your opinion but its seems you are the only one I've heard of on the ED forum that has abandoned VR to go back to 2D.
Just sayin.

 

[Exigeous]

...with the GTX1080, I run pretty much max detail, but keep HMD Quality at 1.25. I keep ASW turned off.

I run mine with HMD at 1.5 with MLAAX2 AA and get an almost perfect 90 fps all the time. If I run SMAA I can still get 90 everywhere but in stations and on planets, there I'll drop to upper 70's at times.

I'm sort of used to.... ...it has lessened the impact of god-rays, limited FoV etc.

I can absolutely see how that would make a difference.

... do you own one? (the car Lotus Exige)... Road or track, very nice.

Yup, I in fact do. My avatar picture is my car at Road Atlanta a few seasons back. If you're curious here is a video of one of my faster laps at my local Denver track HPR (High Plains Raceway). HEADPHONE WARNING though, it's *rather* loud. I've been racing for about 10 years and have been a certified BMW and Porsche performance driving instructor for about 7. My Exige has been track only for about 4 years now, striped out to 1800 lbs and modified to 375 wheel HP. So yeah, it's sorta silly fast.

Are you a track guy yourself?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9neCzTQozY