I have just returned from Gamescom with my head still spinning and will present my findings for those of you who asked and for those who are interested. My views are my views and you are free to take them or leave them as you like
Fluff ...
My sole purpose for going to Gamescom was to check out the Rift and the Vive. To be perfectly honest I don't play computer games (with the exception of ED of course). I convinced the wife that a trip to Europe would be a neat vacation destination this year and managed to squeeze both Gamescom and the Elite:meet into the itinerary!
Booking a slot for the Rift was easy enough as there was an app (albeit a glitchy one). Getting to try the Vive was much trickier as registering only got you into the draw. Unfortunately I was not one of the lucky ones picked for a slot so it took days of emails and tweets and Facebook posts before I finally managed to wangle a slot!
The Rift...
The Rift was my first demo of the day and their booth was impressive, showing off both the Rift in private cubicles and the Gear VR in a communal area. Waiting times for those with slots were just minutes, but for those queuing without an appointment the waiting times looked to be quite lengthy.
The first thing I noticed about the Rift was that it looked and felt
smaller and
lighter than the DK2 and attached more like
putting on a cap rather than a ski mask. I was immediately inside the oculus home portal with game options all around me and My first feeling was
a little disappointed. Firstly there was
no manual IPD adjuster, though I was told later that the final version would have one, but as there were lots of white areas in the virtual environment it was clear that the
resolution was not massively improved the DK2.
-I should clarify that by saying the resolution was not as great as id hoped for. Having tweaked my Dk2 beyond all reason (especially with SS) some people on here will know just how awesome and clear it is possible to get ED running with a Dk2.
The
pixels were still noticeable if you looked for them, but
smaller than the Dk2. There was however
NO SCREEN DOOR effect.
I was given a few choices of what I could demo but was disappointed that I could only choose one. I opted for
Eve Valkyrie as i figured it would offer the closest parallel to an Elite Dangerous experience.
I got the impression that if I died it was demo over (which is a stupid way to show off a product) so my experience felt more rushed and pressured than it needed to be. I didn't have the faintest idea what I was doing, so just tried my best not to die too quickly!
In terms of
FOV i must confess to feeling too pressured to look closely. But I would guess it is
slightly larger than that of the DK2. The
tracking was flawless and I squirmed around in my seat, leaning in / out, up and down
without having to reset the orientation once.
There was
no ghosting or chromatic aberration apparent, though i have a large IPD and would have liked to have been able to calibrate it before starting. Despite this, the experience was clear and fluid.
I normally wear glasses or use b lenses in the DK2 but there was
no option to change the lenses for the demo. I decided against wearing glasses as i wanted to check the FOV against my experience of the DK2.
The girl doing the demo was nice enough but was just a kid really and knew nothing about the tech side of Rift, so I waited until after the demo was over to ask some questions to the main guy there. She did though kindly offer to take some photos of me !
Id say I managed to last around five minutes before I blew up and im fairly certain i didn't hit a single thing during that time with the crappy xbox controller! The game itself may be fun if you know what you are doing but I didn't and for me didnt hold a candle to ED in any regard, though the voice comms were nice.
The Rift has a pair of
detachable headphones and these
worked perfectly well, despite not covering your ears in the way big gaming headphones do. I certainly wouldn't have an issue using them.
My fears were realised when I eventually died and she took the Rift off me. It was
over far too quickly and I was left wanting to try so much more... Especially the standing oculus touch experience (which wasn't being showcased). I guess the sheer number of people they needed to get through meant that demos were short and sharp.
So thats it really for the Rift. I did manage to find out that they were running at
90hz on a single 980 which was interesting, but I have no idea what SDK they were using.
The impression I was left with was that the first iteration of the Rift has been designed with compromise in mind... They have boosted performance to get the most out of it to make it more commercially viable (i believe a 970 is the minimum spec) but have sacrificed making huge gains in resolution and fidelity in return. Commercially and financially this makes sense, but for those of us running 980 and 980tis in SLI it seems a shame they are not going to release an "enthusiast" version at the same time with enhanced resolution.
Will i buy it ... Yes
Did it blow my mind... No
Could it blow my mind... I think if I had been given more time and was able to play with the hand controllers then yes.
Short version... Lighter... Smoother... Slightly better res than a supersampled DK2 but not a huge leap. Demo too short.
Ill post the review of the Vive in an hour or so after I've had a drink and something to eat
