NOLO VR: Play Steam VR Games on Your Smartphones

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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While I am not a big Kickstarter guy, and we all know that Kickstarter can be a big gamble, I think this project is worthy of mention. What NOLO VR seems to be doing is first of all, having you use your cellphone for a Head Mounted Display, instead of buying a pricey Vive or Oculus. What you are buying from NOLO VR are the motion controllers, and tracking system for your HMD and controllers. You then use your current PC much the way you would with traditional VR in that your system's GPU powers the frames to your smartphone....or "HMD" in this case. One of the drawbacks however is that it is a "front-facing room scale motion tracking system." This would not allow you to turn around and look behind you, as the tracker on top of your phone/HMD would lose line-of-site with your base station tracker. This would extremely limit you from playing a lot of VR games, "the way they should be played." Still this will surely appeal to some folks and allow them to get into real VR gaming without meeting the current, and rather large, monetary barrier to entry. You can find our VR coverage on this page, and see just how expensive real VR can get. The video shows the system parts and in action. Thanks to talk2troy for the heads up!

The world’s first front-facing room scale motion tracking system that is both compatible with mobile and Steam VR game play. Put on your mobile headset and interact with the environment naturally, turning the usual passive VR experience into an active one.

There are some more videos to check out over on the NOLO VR YT Channel.
 
Very cool, but will wait for a real product. Homie don't play dat dig a hole and fill it with money and cross your fingers crowdfunding game.
 
Yeah, I am typically suspicious of Kickstarter projects too.

My kid actually sent me this via email w/ his subject line: Backed in a matter of hours...

Their goal was 50K & they are at 100K already.

Minimum pledge / pre-purchases is $99 & MSRP is $149, so the cost diff. can be dealt with.
 
While not exactly identical my, experience with the Samsung vr and using various apps and applications to vr pc games through to my samsung note 5 have been less than stellar.

More akin to a novelty, not a whole lot of wow factor. maybe if paired with a decent fine pitched phone and head piece where the resolution is not so course, thus improving the image fidelity.

So far the only thing i found palatable was watching movies. the rest of the virtual experiences tend to suffer.

and i really had high hopes for project cars . it was almost but not quite the awesome experience i had hoped for.
 
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I would be wary of this. Alan Yates offered to help them and THEY NEVER GOT BACK TO HIM. Thats flat out ignorance in my opinion.
 
Why wouldn't they just use the gyroscopes in the phones like Google does for their Daydream/Cardboard?

It's a nice idea, but the quality using cellphone resolution is probably going to be limited.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Why wouldn't they just use the gyroscopes in the phones like Google does for their Daydream/Cardboard?

It's a nice idea, but the quality using cellphone resolution is probably going to be limited.
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Word is the S8 from Samsung, which has the excellent Gear VR headset, will be 4K multi-resolution (so it will drop res when out of VR mode). That would put it higher than any other VR headset currently on the market.
 
Ducman69 said:
Word is the S8 from Samsung, which has the excellent Gear VR headset, will be 4K multi-resolution (so it will drop res when out of VR mode). That would put it higher than any other VR headset currently on the market.
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what worries me, is that the note 5 gets freaking hot at its resolution. id hate to see how hot the G8 will get trying to push 4k... might end up welding its self permanently to the samsung vr headset.....
 
chaos4u said:
what worries me, is that the note 5 gets freaking hot at its resolution. id hate to see how hot the G8 will get trying to push 4k... might end up welding its self permanently to the samsung vr headset.....
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The existing Gear VR headset piece has a fan built in to prevent fogging internally. No reason they couldn't just put a fan over the phone too. There are some very slim 5V fans that are essentially silent these days.

Edit: BTW, I don't think it'd really be doing much work at 4K anyway, since its really just streaming video feed and the computer is doing all the work.
 
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We were lucky to be able to test an Oculus and a Vive at work, but I'd really like to be able to compare the low-end VR solutions, like this one for $200 + possible phone upgrade, the OSVR for $300, and maybe the $400 iWear and HDK2.
 
kju1 said:
Right now I view VR as a gimmick. I am not a fan of having to put glasses on in the first place let alone the headset. After all I did shell out a nice chunk of change to NOT have to wear glasses in my day to day life. That being said I would be more interested in VR if it was more prevalent, and more immersive. I.E. it involved hands and even better feet (go ahead and make your jokes you pervs). Right now it doesnt seem like the cost is worth it for the gaming that I do now.

I am even less interested in it for mobile games. Since I dont play any mobile games...
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What VR have you personally experienced?

Have you tried a flight simulator with and without headtracking on a traditional monitor? That alone is like night and day to me, and its really hard to go back to playing those without the immersion of head tracking. VR is like headtracking in steroids, and its to the point where scary stuff makes me poop myself or jump, which I don't do even playing at night on my big projector screen.

Or like comparing stereo sound vs surround sound. Its not that surround sound actually sounds any better than a good stereo unit (in fact the opposite is often true), its the immersion factor when you hear a helicopter zooming in from behind you and bullets whizzing by.
 
kju1 said:
Right now I view VR as a gimmick. I am not a fan of having to put glasses on in the first place let alone the headset. After all I did shell out a nice chunk of change to NOT have to wear glasses in my day to day life. That being said I would be more interested in VR if it was more prevalent, and more immersive. I.E. it involved hands and even better feet (go ahead and make your jokes you pervs). Right now it doesnt seem like the cost is worth it for the gaming that I do now.

I am even less interested in it for mobile games. Since I dont play any mobile games...
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PC VR is far from a gimmick. Of course there are many issues to be dealt with and the market hasn't yet etched VRs success in stone but I think the technology when well implemented is very compelling even at this stage. I never tried anything beyond Gear VR until I got my Vive for Christmas and it's lived up to the hype for me. I've even enjoyed some of the simple stuff, like basketball free throw shooting games. I'll play 10 to 15 minutes most days now and it's just simple stupid fun.
 
Ducman69 said:
What VR have you personally experienced?

Have you tried a flight simulator with and without headtracking on a traditional monitor? That alone is like night and day to me, and its really hard to go back to playing those without the immersion of head tracking. VR is like headtracking in steroids, and its to the point where scary stuff makes me poop myself or jump, which I don't do even playing at night on my big projector screen.

Or like comparing stereo sound vs surround sound. Its not that surround sound actually sounds any better than a good stereo unit (in fact the opposite is often true), its the immersion factor when you hear a helicopter zooming in from behind you and bullets whizzing by.
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I am a real life pilot so flight simulator is so dull to me. I cant stand the video game. There is so much more to flight than what you see.

I have tried it out in the store demos and it was cool but just didnt do it for me. Ive seen it for elite and think it would be cool for Star Citizen but not really something I want to put out the required money for right now.
 
heatlesssun said:
I've even enjoyed some of the simple stuff, like basketball free throw shooting games. I'll play 10 to 15 minutes most days now and it's just simple stupid fun.
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Which is exactly the kind of games I dont play...
 
kju1 said:
There is so much more to flight than what you see.
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Yeah, but how many Germans have you killed in a real airplane? Hmm? You can do that in a game, until you have kraut coming out your ears.

On a related note, "enhanced reality" is something that Microsoft is counting on being big. With that, you could for example have a race course for pilots that isn't so dangerously close to the ground (and yet still has a false ceiling/floor) and has rings to fly through without actually having to dodge around physical objects. And if the airspace is safe without any traffic around, perhaps one could also have enhanced reality dog fights with a virtual fighter where you hear and feel your machine guns firing and smoke coming off the other plane, doing all the maneuvers, but without the risk of a mid-air collision.

Lots of ways to mate the real world and virtual world with enhanced-reality VR.
 
Ducman69 said:
Yeah, but how many Germans have you killed in a real airplane? Hmm? You can do that in a game, until you have kraut coming out your ears.

On a related note, "enhanced reality" is something that Microsoft is counting on being big. With that, you could for example have a race course for pilots that isn't so dangerously close to the ground (and yet still has a false ceiling/floor) and has rings to fly through without actually having to dodge around physical objects. And if the airspace is safe without any traffic around, perhaps one could also have enhanced reality dog fights with a virtual fighter where you hear and feel your machine guns firing and smoke coming off the other plane, doing all the maneuvers, but without the risk of a mid-air collision.

Lots of ways to mate the real world and virtual world with enhanced-reality VR.
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Oh I used to love flying games shooting Germans etc. But then I learned to fly and it ruined the games for me. I cant stand them now.

The enhanced reality is something Ive been keeping an eye on. I think that would be very useful. And I will be much more interested in VR when it involves more than just my eyes. I really would like a game where I can use my hands at a minimum with VR glasses. Do you remember the PowerGlove? I was so excited when that came out...but it flopped (and for good reason). Combine something like that with VR and a good implementation in games that I enjoy and I will be more interested.
 
kju1 said:
I am a real life pilot so flight simulator is so dull to me. I cant stand the video game. There is so much more to flight than what you see.
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