My Only Experience of VR is With Samsung GearVR

[deadman_uk]

My only experience with VR is using my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge with 1st and 2nd generation GearVR (Consumer editions) headsets.I find the GearVR low cost, highly portable and pretty powerful with a lot of potential. I've never actualy used a Vive or Rift before and was wondering how much better the VR experience is than what I currently have? I am not asking about any specific app or genre, just VR in general.

 

[bobzdar]

I have both the cv1 and gear vr. I haven't used my gear vr since getting the cv1. Image quality is noticeably better in the cv1 even with the same content as I don't think the gear uses the whole screen, which is a shame because the s7 actually has more pixels. Positional tracking on the cv1 makes a big difference in immersion and the games are better looking on the cv1 due to more computing power. Control (even without touch) is better out of the box as you have to buy a seperate controller for the gear vr while the cv1 comes with it - and there are a ton more pc peripherals out there. You can also play around a lot more with the cv1, for example by hooking a leap motion to it for hand tracking.

No battery life concerns with the cv1.

So, it's better in pretty much every way except portability (and price). It also has a lot more software available and certain genres there is really zero competition (ie racing/flying). If you like the gear vr,you'll love the cv1 or vive.

 

[FrgMstr]

My only experience with VR is using my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge with 1st and 2nd generation GearVR (Consumer editions) headsets.I find the GearVR low cost, highly portable and pretty powerful with a lot of potential. I've never actualy used a Vive or Rift before and was wondering how much better the VR experience is than what I currently have? I am not asking about any specific app or genre, just VR in general.

The general comments I get from GearVR users once they experience the Vive is that GearVR is "not really VR."

 

[tangoseal]

Well I am expecting arrival of my GearVR in the next week or two. In the meantime I have owned a Occulus Rift and it was an amazing piece but I did return mine. There is a thread detailing the reason why. I think after much deep pondering these last few months I am going to get another Occulus Rift with the hand controllers to go along with my new Ryzen 8 core and 490 gpu when it comes out.

Anyways the Rift is truly nice in many ways. Firstly the graphics are driven by the limits of your GPU in your PC and not limited to the phones GPU al;though the Galaxy S7 Edge is a beastly monster of a phone as far as power is concerned. I have a GS7Edge as well. I am excited to have the Oculus for Galaxy so I can lay in bed and watch movies at HUGE screen size and not have cables tethered to me.

One thing Kyle mentioned in aonther thread I agree with was the ability to go wireless with full power VR like the Rift. That will be the day and for now the strongest VR you can get for wireless is going to be the Samsung. Just some food for thought.

 

[deadman_uk]

Thanks guys, I have seen some really impressive VR footage on my GearVR and they look pretty close to feeling real life for me. I also really enjoy watching movies on my GearVR on my bed or sofa. I will one day try a PC based VR option as I am curious.

 

[heatlesssun]

Thanks guys, I have seen some really impressive VR footage on my GearVR and they look pretty close to feeling real life for me. I also really enjoy watching movies on my GearVR on my bed or sofa. I will one day try a PC based VR option as I am curious.

The visual effect isn't really the difference, it's the motion tracking and controllers though the performance of a PC gives much better interactive visuals.

 

[NamelessPFG]

The visual effect isn't really the difference, it's the motion tracking and controllers though the performance of a PC gives much better interactive visuals.

This, very much this.

Without the controllers, you're just an observer at best, and the rotation-only tracking means you can't peer around objects, either (not to mention a good dose of nausea if you happen to slide your head around and the visuals obviously don't match).

I got a Gear VR for my Note 4 to whet my appetite for the upcoming Rift, and it succeeded at giving me an idea of what level of visual fidelity to expect, especially seeing as a 2560x1440 screen has greater resolution than both the Rift and Vive, if only a little. (In practice, they're about the same effective resolution since the Gear VR eye buffers are subsampled for performance reasons, the dedicated HMDs have better subpixel fill, and the Rift CV1's lenses are an improvement in all respects except for those pesky crepescular rays/god rays.)

But once I got my hands on the Rift, especially with the Touch controllers last month... well, the Gear VR's been collecting dust. It served its purpose, but PC-based VR was what I wanted all along, initially for cockpit sims, then for everything else that tracked motion controllers lets you do.

P.S.: heatlesssun? Same dude from Tablet PC Review's forums with the HP tm2 and dedicated GPU option and all so many years ago? Long time no see!

 

[heatlesssun]

It is I, Happy New Year! Haven't frequented that site much in a while. Good observations about smartphone vs PC VR.

 

[Youn]

GearVR and other mobile solutions are just a bit ahead of their time. Once inside-out-tracking and motion controls are ironed down it'll be the obvious choice for most consumers. It would be cool if you could hook your GearVR up to your PC, adding in the extra graphics power and control schemes for what will likely continue to be the niche market that is home VR experiences. Phones being a bit behind in graphics in comparison is obviously not that big a deal for most people, and remember that that gap is closing year by year.

 

[heatlesssun]

GearVR and other mobile solutions are just a bit ahead of their time. Once inside-out-tracking and motion controls are ironed down it'll be the obvious choice for most consumers. It would be cool if you could hook your GearVR up to your PC, adding in the extra graphics power and control schemes for what will likely continue to be the niche market that is home VR experiences. Phones being a bit behind in graphics in comparison is obviously not that big a deal for most people, and remember that that gap is closing year by year.

Since this stuff is so new, I don't know how one determines that the gap is closing. The PC will be a major VR platform because of the computing power that'll simply never get to phones. Phones and other portable solutions however should become good enough in time to be the dominate player in the space. But as VR really has no limits in the amount of computer power it can use, PCs won't go away. I think it'll be much like gaming. Phones and mobile bigger overall but PCs still a major player.

 

[workshop35]

GearVR and other mobile solutions are just a bit ahead of their time. Once inside-out-tracking and motion controls are ironed down it'll be the obvious choice for most consumers. It would be cool if you could hook your GearVR up to your PC, adding in the extra graphics power and control schemes for what will likely continue to be the niche market that is home VR experiences.

Check out riftcat, you can use your gearVR to play rift and vive games with it. I use my note 5 with it and play elite dangerous, its pretty cool.

 

[Trepidati0n]

Samsung confirms it sold 5 million Gear VR mobile headsets.
http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/04/samsung-confirms-it-sold-5-million-gear-vr-mobile-headsets/

I wonder how many of those "entry level" mobile users would purchase an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive after getting a taste of VR lite via something like the Gear VR? Samsung did give a ton of product away for Samsung S7 users though. Wonder how many of this 5 million came from that.

Even 1-2% would be a huge number (50k-100k)..that is in headsets alone is ten's of millions in revenue for the headset alone. 1% crossover, if you added everything up, could be a $100 million in revenue for the parties involved.

 

[heatlesssun]

Even 1-2% would be a huge number (50k-100k)..that is in headsets alone is ten's of millions in revenue for the headset alone. 1% crossover, if you added everything up, could be a $100 million in revenue for the parties involved.

The latest Steam Hardware Survey showed VR headsets at 0.23%, up fractionally 0.02% from November. Cost is still a huge deal here and will be a barrier for some time. But it is a lot of fun and just cool. It's not a fad but it will be niche for a good while.

 

[RogueTadhg]

Cost is a big deal for sure. But for me it's that it seems to be a battle of formats. Correct me if I'm wrong, please. But it seems that if you get games for Rift, you can't use those games on Vive and vise versa. For example Google Earth VR isn't compatible with RIFT. Not to mention that the sensors are also one or the other.

This is my current problem with VR. Compatibility between the two hardware sets. I'd like to see hardware and software work with whichever headset you're using.

 

[bobzdar]

Cost is a big deal for sure. But for me it's that it seems to be a battle of formats. Correct me if I'm wrong, please. But it seems that if you get games for Rift, you can't use those games on Vive and vise versa. For example Google Earth VR isn't compatible with RIFT. Not to mention that the sensors are also one or the other.

This is my current problem with VR. Compatibility between the two hardware sets. I'd like to see hardware and software work with whichever headset you're using.

You can play most games on both, I'm not really aware of any that can't. Yeah, you have to load another piece of software to play Oculus exclusives on the Vive (Revive), but most games are cross platform out of the box so it's not a big deal. There was a way to play google earth on Oculus within a day or two of release, so not a big deal (imo).