Oculus Rift

[Sarsippius]

I was planning to upgrade to a 970 for CV1 but I suggest waiting for the next generation of cards from AMD and Nvidia, each will be optimised in a number of ways for VR. Either look for the 970 equivalent from the next generation or the improvements could even be such that cards a rung or two down are still good enough.

[wobblysauce]

http://www.maximumpc.com/legal-rift-ocu ... rked-with/
Legal Rift: Oculus Founder Sued by Hawaii-based VR Firm He Once Worked With


http://www.gamespot.com/articles/oculus ... 0-6427553/
Oculus Facing Another Lawsuit
Oculus VR and Palmer Luckey accused of breach of contract and fraud.

[Woodee]

The vultures want their cut!

[wobblysauce]

If, he did use information from a business he worked on.. then I would wait a while also, as the claim will be bigger, as it is proof and valuation of the IP used.


http://www.cnet.com/news/meet-the-svr-g ... y-gear-vr/
Meet the SVR Glass headset, a cheaper Galaxy Gear VR
This Chinese virtual reality headset will fit any phone with screen sizes ranging from 4.7 to 6 inches and it costs under $50.

http://www.nextpowerup.com/news/21294/s ... r-headset/
SVR Glass Is A $50 VR Headset

[DarrenM]

Oculus announced that they'll be shipping CV1 with an xbox controller and that their 3D tracked VR controllers will be out later, somewhere in the first 1/2 of 2016. They're also sticking with camera tracking unfortunately.

It'll be the Vive for me.

[smithcorp]

What's the deal with the Vive? Backed by Microsoft as I understand it, but how will game support work do you think? Will developers have to accommodate different standards/platforms?

I want my VR, but i don't want go go through another VHS/Betamax fiasco.

[norbs]

I thought Vive was HTC and Steam/Valve?

[smithcorp]

Yep, i was thinking of Hololens... Oh gawd, another one!

[Duke]

Yep this is my biggest concern to smith... OR sure has gathered a lot of support by developers so far so seems to be the one to grab for now.
But Vive being STEAM's version & so many developers releasing games via it then surely it will get good support.

Darren, why VIVE over OR, just cause of the camera tracking?

[Righteous]

I'm interested in your reasoning too Darren as I'll be getting one, but not sure why the VIVE is better in your opinion?

[DarrenM]

Better tracking. Proper VR controllers out of the box. Available months earlier. Cross platform support. Open nature of the software allowing greater choice down the line. Developed by a game company instead of a social media company.

Oculus may have more games supported initially, so there it that to consider. That's the main thing going for it at the moment.

Hololens is AR which has different applications, so it's not really a competing platform at this point.

Oculus bundling an xbox controller and demoing Microsoft stuff at E3 is making people think we may see the Oculus get supported on xbox as an answer to the Sony Morpheus. The xbox isn't as powerful as the PS4 though.

Games will have to add specific support for the different headsets at this point. Valve have created OpenVR which will allow games developed for it to run on any supported hardware. Including Oculus if a driver is written for it. Oculus are going a more proprietary route with exclusive titles etc.

At this point it seems more like Oculus are going the Apple route of design and marketing, while Valve are going the Android route of making a platform for hardware manufacturers to use. Or Oculus = 3Dfx Glide and Valve's OpenVR = DirectX if you remember the accelerated 3D revolution in the 90's.

[wobblysauce]

Then there is Nvidia VR Headset and AMD's LiquidVR.

[DarrenM]

AMD's liquid vr is a set of driver features aimed at VR. SLI with a card rendering each eye etc. I haven't seen anything about them making a headset yet.

Nvidia have an equivalent called Gameworks VR (formerly VR Direct). They've also filed patent on a headset design so it seems we'll see a headset from them at some point.

There's also FOVE, another kickstarted HMD.

Google are doing a big VR push in the mobile space. Making an optimized version of android, inside out tracking for movement, room scanning and all sorts of stuff.

[Cursed]

I'm still not clear on why camera tracking would be a bad thing. Provided framerates are high enough and the camera knows the difference between the front and back of your head, what's the problem?

Note that I'm not a fanboy for anybody's solution in particular. I'll buy what appears to be best when there's a good side-by-side comparison.

[r8response]

I don't see a problem with the camera tracking. They (HTC) are simply doing the opposite of the OR and Morpheus headsets. Sensor's on the headset will need another two separate sensors placed (and plugged in) in the room for it to work.

Granted it won't be stuck to your desk in a sense. If I had one, I wouldn't be walking around the room.

[DarrenM]

Less accurate and prone to jitter which breaks presence. I'm sure it's fixable but I don't think I've seen a demo with convincingly 1:1 tracking either. It's passable for a sim where you don't move much but for tracking large scale movement and accurate hand movement I can't see it being as good as the Lighthouse solution.

[wobblysauce]

Oculus Touch

https://www.oculus.com/en-us/

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/06/o ... r-headset/
Oculus announces “Touch” controller for VR headset
Dev partners announced; headset, controller will have retail launch in "Q1 2016."

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/games- ... 29359.html
Oculus Announces Games For Rift, Includes Multiple Developers, $10 Million For Indie Games


http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/11/ocul ... t-headset/
Oculus reveals its consumer Rift VR headset

http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/11/oculus-rift-consumer/
Oculus Unveils Consumer Rift Headset With Xbox One Controller

[DarrenM]

StarVR, formerly called Infiniteye, has been announced. 210 degree FOV, 5120x1440 resolution.

http://www.starvr.com/
http://www.shacknews.com/article/89958/ ... lking-dead

Sounds like they don't have low persistence on the panels and some are speculating it's only 60Hz, not 90. Tracking is done via camera, but with fiducial markers instead of LED's.

[wabbit]

Seems like Rift and Vive are going down separate paths. Especially where they plan to deliver their products.

[wobblysauce]

[wobblysauce]

Get ready for Q1 2016..


Oculus Plans to Have Rift Demo Stations in Retail Stores for Consumer Launch
http://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-plans-to ... er-launch/

Oculus wants to demo the Rift in retail locations
http://techreport.com/news/28590/oculus ... -locations

[SE1Z]

Well yeh... this is a problem

[wobblysauce]

http://www.pebblesinterfaces.com/

Oculus buys VR hand-tracking company Pebbles Interfaces
http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/16/ocul ... -tracking/

Pebbles Interfaces joins Oculus
https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/pebbl ... ns-oculus/

Facebook’s Oculus Confirms Pebbles Interfaces Buy To Grow Its VR Footprint (And Fingerprint)
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/16/facebo ... ngerprint/

Oculus will acquire visual computing company Pebbles Interfaces
http://www.polygon.com/2015/7/16/897776 ... interfaces

Facebook’s Oculus to Pay About $60 Million for Gesture-Control Firm Pebbles
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/07/16/ ... m-pebbles/

[Scottie]

I can't confirm ANYWHERE right now... but I heard that Oculus was trying to buy some mob to help their hand controls? or something?

I've googled it and everything though... can't find crap.

Anyone else heard about it?

[Woodee]

I can't confirm ANYWHERE right now... but I heard that Oculus was trying to buy some mob to help their hand controls? or something?

I've googled it and everything though... can't find crap.

Anyone else heard about it?

Nimble?