HardOCP News
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Holy cow! I guess that $800 price tag didn't matter as much as people thought. Moving fifteen thousand units in ten minutes is just insane.
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15K HTC Vive Headsets Sold In Ten Minutes
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Armenius
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From a technical standpoint that might be true, but Oculus is pushing for console-like exclusivity.
But that does mean I won't be able to play some games on the Rift that work on the Vive?
Armenius
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More going the other way, that Rift-exclusive games won't work on the Vive. Valve is pushing OpenVR to try to avoid a hardware war with an open standard, but Facebook and Palmer Luckey appear to be having none of it, pretty much saying their way is the best way. Depending on the greed level of game developers and publishers, this is why I'm waiting VR out at least a year to see if it can survive all this corporate bullshit.
Youn
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Yes, Vive will have some exclusives. So will Rift. Lots of devs will try for cross-comparability though, so it's kinda hard to go wrong with either option at the moment, especially with Touch just around the corner and reports saying those controllers work well too. Maybe Vive will be best in the long run, but it doesn't seem overwhelmingly clear yet...
Not at all what's going on. You have to keep in mind, Oculus has been developing the tech and community for VR for three years now. When they started on this path, the idea was to minimize the potential for VR to fail again. To this end, they created baselines to ensure the minimum requirements allowed for a satisfying experience in both hardware and software. They developed their SDK to work for their headset because they were the only name in the game at the time. HTC/Valve came out of the blue, comparatively, with their HMD and seem to just be dropping it into the market and letting the consumer fend for themselves. Oculus's store will only have titles on it that have the Oculus SDK integrated into the game and adheres to Oculus' guidelines BUT the Rift will still work on ANY VR content outside of the Oculus Store. The intent here is to have a consumer that is not one of us, see and try VR in a big box store, buy the thing, take it home, put it on, and instantly have access to quality experiences. Anybody that's tried VR knows how much a bad experience in VR can physically hurt and Oculus is trying to avoid that. To say that Oculus doesn't want to play with the other kids in the yard is wrong, especially with articles like this and the fact that nobody is trying to patent any of the technology.
It's great that the Vive is doing so well in pre-orders...or at least the first 10 minutes of pre-orders. I'd be curious to know where they currently stand and where Rift pre-orders stand as well.
I'm not jumping in unless either someone adds decent support for my catalog of existing games or until a bunch of must have new titles come out supporting it. Is anyone working on getting VR to work on already released games like they did with stereoscopic 3d?
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Zarathustra[H]
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To a certain extent it SHOULD be possible to do without much difficulty.
You could use stereoscopic 3d cameras to feed the two eyes in a headset, and you could use the headset motion sensors as mappable mouse/keyboard input...
It might not be very playable in many cases, but it shouldn't be too difficult to get to work
Zarathustra[H]
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I've gotten used to my 4k monitor. I'm not going to take a reduction in resolution to go to a VR Headset.
I'll be waiting until I can get 2160px height resolution in each eye.
I'll be waiting until I can get 2160px height resolution in each eye.
Yes, existing games have worked for years on Rift DK1 and DK2 with drivers like VorpX. But adapting to old games is tail wagging dog - the real compelling experience is in new games built for VR. There will be plenty.
While I get what you're wanting, pure resolution isn't as important as you might think. They (HMD makers) are finding that higher refresh rates can make up for lower resolution panels, one of the reasons both Vive and Rift run at 90hz.
Thanks for letting me know about VorpX... that's exactly what I was looking for. New games built for the experience would be awesome I'm sure, but I already have thousands of dollars of awesome games that make it a much better value if they work with it.
i am not surprised, if you are able to track pre-orders, you will see that 80% of them are developers, reviewers etc, and the rest enthusiasts, personnaly i give all VR headsets about 500k units, then slows down maybe up to 1mil units, then good luck selling anymore of them, untill they drop the price.
15K is nothing. This stuff has been hyped for years, so naturally some early adopters would be salivating to get one.
Wake me when they hit a million.
Like every company everywhere they're as serious as the number of products they end up shipping. If they sell a lot of something then it will be important to them. The fact that they make phones is irrelevant to the VR business, many companies have started selling one thing and ended up being known for something completely different.
crusty_juggler
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A smartphone company in financial distress too.
Here we have a joint venture between a mobile device maker who is hemorrhaging cash, and a digital distribution company best known for their horrendous customer service, inability to ship games and whose first foray into hardware was a complete flop.
The Vive launch library consists of Indie titles no one's ever heard of from devs no one's ever heard of. A consumer is expected to spend upwards of 2K for the hardware to play these games, almost a grand if he already has the rig to drive the headset. This is Steam Machine all over again, except it costs twice as much and has a fraction of the games.
Wow, talk about a cynic...
HTC IS in financial distress to be sure but they have a tried and true ability to market products, anybody remember the HTC One and the commercials for it at the time?. Valve may have failed with the Steam machine, I haven't really followed it at all so I can't say with any certainty that it really has failed but I know it's not what they expected it to be, but Valve is doing just fine. Not every product has to be a success when your F2P titles are raking in nearly half a billion dollars a year. Indie titles are a great way to get solid content out quickly AND develop talent in VR, which the industry has been finding out over the last couple years, is much different than developing a game for a 2D screen. If you haven't tried VR yet, you really don't understand how great it can be. Check this guy out with his first Vive experience, he's a bit (a lot) annoying at times but if you skip to 8:45 he takes off the HMD and gives his impression of the Vive and how it compares to the Oculus DK2 (Which is not the consumer release of the Rift). The majority of people that try VR have the same, albeit less flamboyant, reaction in that it is an amazing experience.
Keep that salt coming..
I think the big drive here is what kind of support valve intends to provide the vive. Take a look at the first list of Rift games, they all look like they will suck with maybe an exception for some space sim game that none of us have played. Meanwhile you have a decent catalogue of Valve titles that would work fantastically in VR. Already Portal and Half-Life beat anything the rift has, if they gain support. We all know what's going to drive VR, and thats content. The Rift itself is lacking in 2 key areas for VR, and that's FOV and spatial freedom. The rift is designed to be played from a chair, the Vive is designed to be played in an empty room. The vive has a larger FOV and may end up with some AAA title support. Plus steam has finally gained enough in popularity that there are people who use it as their only front for finding and purchasing video games. The Rift meanwhile will require you to actually research what games are available and figure out how to buy them yourself, via box copy, gamestop, or direct download which will likely be done through some crap 3rd party app trying to be like Origin.
It just seems to me that the Vive has everything they need for a successful launch while the Rift is still figuring things out.
It just seems to me that the Vive has everything they need for a successful launch while the Rift is still figuring things out.
Impressive list of FUD *golf clap*
So, the Rift and Vive have the same FOV.
As far as I know, the Vive has no integrated store like the Oculus will have...as soon as you put the Rift on, there's your content. The Vive may have Steam and SteamVR but I haven't seen how tightly it will integrate. Additionally, the Oculus store will only have games on it that were built with or have the Oculus SDK integrated into the game and has been certified to meet certain criteria to ensure proper performance. Again, I haven't seen how tightly Steam will integrate with the Vive so this may be a moot point.
The Rift can play all the same games the Vive can, even though the Rift has the Oculus store, it's not locked into the Oculus store. So...SteamVR will work with the Rift.
The Vive DOES have the upper hand in terms of being designed with room scale interaction but, as you can see in this video, it's not perfect. You can see him bump into the physical walls with the controllers. It's still definitely cool and I'm sure that bumping into your RL walls can be minimized once you're acclimated, but it's not perfect. The Rift is 'said' to be able to do room scale, that's just not what it was targeted at being able to do, we'll have to wait and see how far it can really go, if at all.
Oculus has been hard at work for three years developing a community and getting VR game development kickstarted. They've partnered with Samsung to get a quality screen along with the Gear VR out to the masses for a budget entry point for Samsung phone owners (not much mass there though...). They have educated the public and worked with competing companies to ensure VR gets developed into a meaningful market. I definitely don't see where Oculus "is still figuring things out."
KazeoHin
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I have personally experienced Occulus at the Roomscale. it should not have any issues doing large-scale VR.
Which is often cited as a criticism of the Vive, not a feature. "I don't have the space", "I don't want to rearrange my furniture", "I don't want to have to install the lighthouses".
Ultimately they perform the same functions (at least once Oculus pulls their finger out and releases their controllers), so there's no reason why a title should be exclusive to one or the other aside from marketing BS. And I'm sure if there's a killer title for one which isn't available on the other, then the resourceful internet PC elves will make it right.
Huh? Are you seriously claiming Valve has an inability to ship games? Unless you're counting HL3, in which case every company in existence has an inability to ship games they haven't admitted making, including Oculus/Facebook.
Having pre-ordered both, I have the luxury of not being partisan.
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Regarding FOV - Oculus Rift v HTC Vive: Which high end VR headset is worth your cash?
The rift actually has a different aspect ratio thus reducing the overall fov relative to your eyes. The Vive will feel more immersive. Carmack himself even indicated this not too long ago. Cant remember where, just some Q&A he did.
Vive's integrated store is presumably going to be steam, a trusted reliable platform that we all have and can vouch for. As far as I know the Rift doesnt have any kind of store for the PC, and if it does, that means an additional piece of software that you will have to run, which will probably be horrible compared to steam and something they have no experience in. If they dont have a store then you are off to the Rift forums or homepage scouring for content to buy, but then how do you acquire it?
And while the Rift is capable of room scale VR, that is not their focus, which means the games that will be available for it will probably avoid it. Meanwhile Vive is going to push this hard, so chances are you will find more games meant for Vive that utilize this.
The only experience Oculus has in this competition is designing VR to begin with. But they've already done the hard part, which was bring prices down on low latency screens and gyroscope technology. Remember the original Rift utilized mostly cellphone quality materials, and did a pretty damn good job out of the gate with it too. Thats how they became so popular, because they showed the world we are really ready for this and it is no longer some pipe dream. They basically did the hard work for all of their competitors, and now anyone can slap together a reliable quality VR headset.
Youn
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Oculus Store:
Also here is a recently revealed Oculus exclusive similar to Hover Junkers, seems just as good:
of course, Vive may be better for many people, especially at first, but the competition is healthy so we can't predict too far into the future...
Also here is a recently revealed Oculus exclusive similar to Hover Junkers, seems just as good:
of course, Vive may be better for many people, especially at first, but the competition is healthy so we can't predict too far into the future...
I sniff something funny with that article:
So, 2160 divided by two is.....1080...which means they both have the exact same resolution per eye or total or pixels per second...not sure why there's a whoosh for one and not the other...nor do I even know how to really interpret that as a good or bad reaction. Next up, I question the nod to the Vive having the better screen quality while still maintaining the same FOV. I guess it all depends on the optics but it's awfully presumptuous either way to award a winner here. Regardless, this paragraph exposes some potential bias in the writer.
Steam is not locked to the Vive only, the DK2 works just fine with Steam and the Rift will as well. Oculus' storefront, per their website:
It has been stated that the Rift is meant for a seated experience and that's what Oculus is targeting, but that doesn't mean the Rift can't do room scale, and they even made that point at least year's E3
My understanding is that the lens on the Vive is tweaked so that the vertical FOV is higher, so there's a little more viewable area. You're right though, the resolution is exactly the same. You'll have to wait for the Asus or Gigabyte models (due sometime Q2 this year) for a higher resolution (2560x1440).
StarVR is the reason I hope a open standard happens. From what I've seen it's the best VR headset so far. That FOV and resolution O_O
REALISTIC IMAGE QUALITY
REALISTIC IMAGE QUALITY
- Dual 5.5" Quad HD Displays
- 2560x1440 pixels per eye
- 5K total Panoramic definition
- Custom Fresnel-based Optics
- Crystal-clear image across the entire field of view
- 210-degree Horizontal FOV
- 130-degree Vertical FOV
- Real-time 6 Degrees of Freedom
- 360° Submillimeter Optical Tracking
- IMU and Optical sensor fusion for a low-latency experience
blackacidevil
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Cmon, we all know the OR Store, or whatever they'll call it, will be integrated into Facebook, and probably require a Facebook account. Lets be real.
Candy Crush VR and Farmville VR are going to be HUUUUUGGGE!
Candy Crush VR and Farmville VR are going to be HUUUUUGGGE!
Yikes! what do you need to drive that. It is essentially a 5K VR headset. Dual Titans?
Well considering the combined resolution is over a million pixels less than a 4K monitor I don't think the needs would be quite that high. Plus, remember, most games can gain some pretty insane FPS increases by disabling things like AA, max shadows, etc. My single 290X hasn't had any 4K issues so far with a little tweaking (which is often times unnoticeable anyways).
I don't have the link right now, but Valve released Developer PDF that showed the Vive/Rift actually require about as much GPU as driving a 4k monitor.
(3840x2160)/(2160x1200) = 3.2 factor more than the resolution.
(2560x1440x2x3.2)/(3840x2160) = 2.8 4K monitors.
By the same factor, this would be almost like driving THREE - 4K monitors simultaneously. They probably make the extreme sides a less sharp peripheral vision area, keep it down to only TWO 4K monitor equivalent.
Yeah, but there's no time estimate at all on them, it could end up being vaporware for all we know. Oculus, HTC, Asus, Gigabyte, and AMD have all stated they'll have VR units by the first half of this year.
Not saying I know everything (cause I most definitely don't) but, I can't wait till VR literacy catches up so people can spot the bs. All the headsets (excluding Cardboard and Gear VR) use "Custom Fresnel-based Optics", have "360 degree submillimeter Optical Tracking", "Real-time 6 Degrees of Freedom", and "IMU and Optical sensor fusion.."
I read somewhere that 210 degrees is game engine breaking right now, it was over my head but I think it had something to do with games only rendering 180 degrees from the viewpoint or something like that. I can't recall clearly and never had a full understanding of it though so take that with a grain of salt.
That's called foveated rendering. Essentially, everything outside our fovea is rendered less sharply, mimicking how we really see the world. According to the article, we'd see GPU performance increase by "a factor of two to four..."
A ton of great tech came along at this E3 supporting VR that I think, as long as VR isn't a complete bomb, the 2nd generation will have solutions to all the issues this generation will face.
Yeah I read about Foveated rendering before, but it requires precise high speed eye tracking. I am figuring they would just down render the extreme sides as a shortcut to save some render. it probably wouldn't be anywhere near 2X.
210 degrees does seem like it might be a bit of overkill. If Game engines break at 180, it seems like a waste to chase the extra 30 degrees.
Heck I wear glasses. I probably don't get much more than 120 before it's all a blur.
These first couple of years of VR, is going to be a fever pitch of change as it all shakes out.
210 degrees does seem like it might be a bit of overkill. If Game engines break at 180, it seems like a waste to chase the extra 30 degrees.
Heck I wear glasses. I probably don't get much more than 120 before it's all a blur.
These first couple of years of VR, is going to be a fever pitch of change as it all shakes out.
They are? I thought Vive and Oculus were using traditional round lenses?
Problem with this is that it's made by a game studio, and a pretty good one at that. So I doubt they'd made this 210 degrees if it wasn't possible.
Possible for them, they wrote there own game engine to work with it. General purpose engines like Unity may not.