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We've always been a little skeptical of VR headsets but the sheer amount of endorsements from gaming industry heavyweights is enough to pique my interest in this project. Thanks to Alex Womack for the link.
 
Endorsements from the gaming industry aren't worth the bits that were used to type them up.
If the gaming industry has the hots for this technology then they should be paying for it, yet they want you to take the risk funding it while they will profit from it. No thanks.
 
Thuleman said:
Endorsements from the gaming industry aren't worth the bits that were used to type them up.
If the gaming industry has the hots for this technology then they should be paying for it, yet they want you to take the risk funding it while they will profit from it. No thanks.
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This is one perspective, it is also possible the company making the device doesn't want any limitations that come from being funded by a controlled or singular source of investment.

Example: crowd sourced indie funded game vs game funded by EA.


Which is true I can't say with anymore certainty than the next guy.
 
Wow, funded almost double in day 1. I don't think I'll be all that interested until I see these on the consumer market for $300 or less, though. I highly doubt there will be enough developer support unless they somehow become mainstream.
 
todlerix said:
This is one perspective, it is also possible the company making the device doesn't want any limitations that come from being funded by a controlled or singular source of investment.
Example: crowd sourced indie funded game vs game funded by EA.
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That's a decent argument except that in this case the product is worthless to the consumer of the industry doesn't support it. Meaning that unless EA makes games for it the Oculus will remain some fringe gadget. If EA were to make games for it the Oculus people would still need to do what EA says regardless of whether EA paid for the development of the product or not.

What I see is that industry heavyweights (like Gabe would could have paid $250k out of petty cash) are not willing to invest a measly $250k merely saying that this *could* change gaming forever but they don't believe it enough to fork out what's not much cash at all to make it happen.

Looks to me like mainstream hype for a niche product.
 
Thuleman said:
That's a decent argument except that in this case the product is worthless to the consumer of the industry doesn't support it. Meaning that unless EA makes games for it the Oculus will remain some fringe gadget. If EA were to make games for it the Oculus people would still need to do what EA says regardless of whether EA paid for the development of the product or not.

What I see is that industry heavyweights (like Gabe would could have paid $250k out of petty cash) are not willing to invest a measly $250k merely saying that this *could* change gaming forever but they don't believe it enough to fork out what's not much cash at all to make it happen.

Looks to me like mainstream hype for a niche product.
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Yeah, I agree. Epic, id Software and Valve are touting this as the next big thing, yet it still needs a Kickstarter? I don't buy it.
 
They talk about gaming but what about watching movies or web surfing...
 
MavericK96 said:
Yeah, I agree. Epic, id Software and Valve are touting this as the next big thing, yet it still needs a Kickstarter? I don't buy it.
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Would I rather spend $300 on these a new monitor or a new graphics card?
 
S0m30n3 said:
They talk about gaming but what about watching movies or web surfing...
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I don't see how head tracking would really benefit those, so...

S0m30n3 said:
Would I rather spend $300 on these a new monitor or a new graphics card?
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Yeah, true. Though I guess in a way this is like a 3D monitor + TrackIR built into one thing. (I assume these are actually stereoscopic 3D? It wasn't clear...)
 
I think something like this is definitely the future, it's just a matter of - is THIS the one?
It does seem a bit odd that none of these heavyweights are tossing $ directly at it...but did they back in the 3dfx days either?
 
Has the same problem every VR headset outside of the expensive professional stuff has: Low fucking resolution. No, 640x800 is NOT enough, particularly when you are talking something that will be a massive display for your eyes. Get this shit in HD and then give me a call.

I'm interested in a VR headset for gaming, I think it could be really cool. However the resolution has to be there first. Low rez VR headsets suck, I've used them.
 
MavericK96 said:
Wow, funded almost double in day 1. I don't think I'll be all that interested until I see these on the consumer market for $300 or less, though. I highly doubt there will be enough developer support unless they somehow become mainstream.
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This.

I know from owning my Novint Falcon that no matter how cool, revolutionary, or useful some tech is, if it's not priced right or developed for it will fail.

Now that's not to say that something like the Novint has failed, but it certainly is NO WHERE near the level it SHOULD be considering it is by far the best and most fun gaming peripheral I've ever owned.

So my hopes are so-so for the Oculus...I surely hope it is successful and gains a footing, but only time will tell!
 
The resolution kills it. Didn't Sony do one last year which was HD. That didn't get anywhere and I doubt this will either. Unless it becomes standard on widely used games (like vibration packs) no periheral has really even seen wide support. Even something simple like controllers didn't see wide adoption until the crappy xbox controller got plug and play support and lots of people had one (though thats kind of bad because of how cheaply made and mediocre they are, developers don't bother with supporting other better made/better layout pads. :().

MavericK96 said:
Speaking of which, he looks REALLY old in that video. He's not even 50 yet and all that grey hair? :eek:
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He's hoping that if everyone at Valve looks all old, then when compared to Source games the games will look all futuristic. :D
 
So, break it down for me. How is this different than every other failed attempt at "VR" goggles in the past? It looks "larger" to the wearer, but what else? Am I missing something here?
 
Resolution, price and industry support. If the mainstream gets a hold of it, resolution matters less - only true geeks and PC gamers will appreciate a good HD display. Price is very important. I've seen other devices, but they were all >$500. Not something I'd buy. <$300 and I'll be interested. Support is a biggie. I want to play more than just the decade old (and IMO not very good) Doom 3.

Still, I've been wanting a good set of home VR glasses since early 90's when I was playing the ones in the mall (horrible now, but awesome back then!). I've been wondering about the state of these lately. Still sad that it's not HD resolution that close to your eyeballs. That kind of kills it, but I'm sure it will kind of blur to mush together and look ok...... :rolleyes:
 
How the heck is 1280x800 going to give anyone a good 120 fov experience? I guess the only plus side is even lower end cards should be able to display games at 120fps on a res that low.

I'll stick to eyefinity TY very much.
 
awsiemieniec said:
So, break it down for me. How is this different than every other failed attempt at "VR" goggles in the past? It looks "larger" to the wearer, but what else? Am I missing something here?
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I had VR glass once and it sucked balls. Nothing what you would expect. I was hoping to see a full screen picture right in front of me, but it's really a tiny screen far away. This seems to do what I expected from VR glasses, but also included a sensor that knows which way you're looking. So basically it's like a controller and display at the same time, except that it just controls which way you're looking in the game. Which I think helps greatly with immersing the player into the game.

If done right, this could be the next big thing in PC gaming. Would replace the TV or monitor all together. You wouldn't really need a monitor at all with this. Given that it only costs $300 at most and works just as they said it would.
 
And even then 1280x800 is combining both eyes. I could be wrong but aren't both eyes being shown the same image just slightly shifted? So you're not really gaining any resolution you're just playing at 640x800.
 
melteye said:
Haha. I'm 28 and my hair is already turning grey :eek:
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My hair started turning gray at 15. Now at 30, I wish it would keep turning gray and stop falling out =\

Back on topic...that thing looks like a neck injury waiting to happen.
 
Kardonxt said:
And even then 1280x800 is combining both eyes. I could be wrong but aren't both eyes being shown the same image just slightly shifted? So you're not really gaining any resolution you're just playing at 640x800.
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My guess is this is a start. They'll get these out and get a little buzz, then release an HD version for $500 or something. Followed in a year by a new version with a slightly higher resolution screen.

It works for other companies, it should work fine here :)
 
JoeUser said:
This.

I know from owning my Novint Falcon that no matter how cool, revolutionary, or useful some tech is, if it's not priced right or developed for it will fail.

Now that's not to say that something like the Novint has failed, but it certainly is NO WHERE near the level it SHOULD be considering it is by far the best and most fun gaming peripheral I've ever owned.

So my hopes are so-so for the Oculus...I surely hope it is successful and gains a footing, but only time will tell!
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ya novint falcon is cool but too little stuff. games need to build this in.

just think new games using vr and novint falcon as standard. that would be sweet.
 
Spidey329 said:
My guess is this is a start. They'll get these out and get a little buzz, then release an HD version for $500 or something. Followed in a year by a new version with a slightly higher resolution screen.
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As Carmack's pointed out, the displays are going to get better regardless of whether the Rift pans out or not. Display manufacturers are going to keep upping size, pixel density and thin-ness for cell phones, and those displays are going to end up being usable in HMDs. So long as they're non-exclusive and can be sourced by smaller outfits, it shouldn't be a problem.

I haven't seen the Rift prototype in person, but I don't think the resolution is a deal breaker. It's just a facet that needs to be improved at some point.
 
There are a couple of factors here that are critical to understanding how important a development this unit is... One and probably the biggest plus is the key software providers behind it. You see when making a high FOV headset before you had to use heavily distorted optics to achieve the effect which in turn distorted the image so badly thing became unrecognizable in motion . Carmack took a look at the hardware and realized that a software solution had to be paired with the optics.. essentially he created virtual adaptive optics within the doom3 engine itself to pre-distort the image in such a way that it appears natural after being curved to such high FOV. The Fact that folks from Epic/Valve/ Id/Scaleform are pushing this means that this critical piece of support will be available for a solid 70% of all 3d middleware in use at this time! The importance of this cannot be understated... Another major point in the units favor is the use of industry standard small LCDs in the display... These are tablet screens...which means that economy of scale is good . Further more as larger numbers of panels become available so will this product lines resolution increase (they are already looking at the 7inch 2560x1600 7 inch units with drool on their faces) I have felt for a solid 5 years that such a product was inevitable as the price of displays plummeted to such lows that sub 1k$ HMDs would finally become viable.
 
Kardonxt said:
And even then 1280x800 is combining both eyes. I could be wrong but aren't both eyes being shown the same image just slightly shifted? So you're not really gaining any resolution you're just playing at 640x800.
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Your eyes only overlap about 1/2 (or less?) of your total vision. This means the 'true' resolution would be somewhere around ~1000x800. That's similar to the overall number of pixels as 720, so I guess it depends what your definition of 'HD' is. If 'HD' to you means only 1080, then yeah, this isn't that.
 
Why is everyone Pissing on this? It's an idea that has the support of several prominent game developers. unity and epic games are no joke. If they believe it has a shot to catch on, then this could be big.

For people moaning 'it ain't HD', at 3-4 inches away I'd like you to be able to determine the difference between SD and HD on your current monitor. When a monitor screens are shrunk down to the size this gadget is using, it's basically a retina display.
 
djgizmo said:
Why is everyone Pissing on this? It's an idea that has the support of several prominent game developers. unity and epic games are no joke. If they believe it has a shot to catch on, then this could be big.

For people moaning 'it ain't HD', at 3-4 inches away I'd like you to be able to determine the difference between SD and HD on your current monitor. When a monitor screens are shrunk down to the size this gadget is using, it's basically a retina display.
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I don't think you are understanding correctly, or at least not putting it down in words... it is EASIER to see the difference between the SD and HD monitor the CLOSER you get. It's when you move farther away that it is harder to distinguish resolution sizes.

Just based on a quick google search seems like the accepted megapixel equivalent for our vision given a 120* field of view x 120* field of view (not entirely accurate), our eyes can distinguish 576 megapixels. Yes, our peripheral vision cannot see as well as the macula, but in this display you will be able to move your eyes and focus on any part of the screen as well. If you are blowing up this tiny resolution to such a huge field of view, things are not going to be looking that great.

I'm not entirely hating on the concept, I think this is definitely very cool and I hope it gets a lot of support because I know with time, as it has already been stated, the resolution will continue to improve.
 
The display used has more pixels for the primary focal points and fewer in the peripheries, if I'm not mistaken.
 
I hope this shit takes off. I'm thinking a few years down the road when flexible very high resolution OLED "panels" are available, or, what about when QLED becomes available...
 
Its just a matter of time before this gets done & done right so its in all of our hands.. I for one am excited to see it getting closer.
 
Kickstarter - proving that suckers who are born every minute never learn any better.

VR...wasn't that popular in back in the 1990's when we had to go outside and dig a hole to use the bathroom? This is gonna go a lot like those useless 3D glasses TVs that came and went over the last couple years.
 
Showed it to a friend and he dumped $300 in right then and there...sucks that I am not working right now.
 
SkribbelKat said:
VR...wasn't that popular in back in the 1990's when we had to go outside and dig a hole to use the bathroom?
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The idea of VR was popular. VR itself never caught on. Doing it right was technologically infeasible back then. Today? Not so much.

RangerXML said:
Showed it to a friend and he dumped $300 in right then and there...sucks that I am not working right now.
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Shoot me a PM in January. I don't think I would mind loaning mine out.
 
wonderfield said:
The idea of VR was popular. VR itself never caught on. Doing it right was technologically infeasible back then. Today? Not so much.
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http://museum.bounce-gaming.net/vfx1.html

1994. Came with an ISA controller card and a "cyberpuck" device. You even had to calibrate it based on your location on the planet so it could calculate positions when you looked around correctly because some of it was somehow tied to the Earth's magnetic field. Anyway, it was nauseating to use for any length of time and who wants to play a game like that and be potentially like accosted and felt up while you're not expecting it?
 
Huge "high definition" resolutions mean nothing if everything looks like someone smeared paint all over the place. I would rather that the eyecandy gets perfected before worrying about resolution size. Sure, the resolution isn't giong to be there, YET. But it will be eventually, perhaps in a second or third generation. So far this looks like a step in the right direction for consumer level VR gaming.

For me it's like PC gaming. If you compared the games we played in the 90's to the stuff we play now, the resolution wasn't there, and the graphics weren't either for most titles when you compare them to what's out now. It didn't stop us from playing them, now did it? Someday, this too, will get better, and look better than it does now. It's just a matter of time.

That being said, i hope it takes off, and I also hope that it comes out as a solid platform.
 
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