Deadjasper
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Can you watch movies with a VR headset ?
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The state of VR - Lost it's steam?
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Yes. You need some sort of software, such as Bigscreen, but it's totally doable.
Deadjasper
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scrappymouse
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That's mainly what I use my Oculus go for(works great), you didn't use to be able to stream content with the Go, but with recent updates(as long as you have windows 10), you can stream your desktop directly into the Bigscreen App(in the go), which is a virtual movie theater, makes the screen feel huge just like you're at the movies. I then play a movie in fullscreen on my laptop and it works flawlessly, really nice way to discover old movies again
Deadjasper
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Can you watch a movie that's parked on you HD or are you restricted to the sources they allow?
scrappymouse
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Anything you can see on your computer is mirrored into the bigscreen app, I have a plex server on my NAS, they don't(at least not yet) seem to be any restrictions on it
Deadjasper
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Thanks. One step closer to taking the plunge. Love my projector but not looking forward to the day I have to replace the bulb.
Bigscreen on Steam is really cool:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/457550/Bigscreen_Beta/
Write up about it:
https://www.provideocoalition.com/see-paramount-pictures-2d-and-3d-pictures-in-vr-with-bigscreen/
Its free, you can watch TV shows with a bunch of other folks, pick your seat etc. Supposedly able to throw popcorn and stuff, have not figure that out yet. A number of channels were available and I started watching an older James Bond movie, free.
3d movies are also available which I have not watched any yet, some cost money as well. Private or with a bunch of others represented by avatars, the theater with the James Bond movie was about 1/3 full.
I was using a Vive Pro (2880x1600 resolution) and the quality was actually really good, the closer to the screen I got the better it was, text/words were very clear. This was fun and took me away from the current home environment I've been stuck in. I also have a Samsung Odessey+ headset which has the same 2880x1600 resolution at a rather cheap price if you can find one. I've have not tried that headset out yet with this application.
Deadjasper
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Awesome. I'll check it out.
scrappymouse
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Bigscreen is one of my favorite apps(and it's free!), the best time i had on it was for a UFC fight, there where a whole bunch of rooms that where sharing the fight(for free!) and since you're in there with others you can talk to them and comment as well,
The other App that I love is "Wander with friends"($4.99), which is essentially Google street view in VR, except you have the ability to join partys(not too many people currently using it but if you have a friend with VR it's great), where you can talk with them and "follow" them, so they control the navigation and you're just along for the ride, my mom has always wanted to go to Jerusalem and showing her how it looks now she was amazed, The app can be improved a bit, but still a lot of fun, and a lot of potential for it
You can also play 2D games on Bigscreen. Playing Breath Of The Wild through Cemu into absolutely massive Cinema screen was amazing experience.
But this kind of VR use, where you sit staticly and stare at the screen, is also where I personally find low resolution and Screen Door Effect really distracting with my original Oculus Rift. I either have to sit really close to the screen where things have great clarity, but I have to move you head all the time which is annoying. But if I move away from the screen (the best spot, middle and center of the cinema and beyond) text becomes harder to read and SDE is painfully visible, in both movies and games.
Bigscreen is probably the biggest reason why I want to upgrade my VR rig.
But this kind of VR use, where you sit staticly and stare at the screen, is also where I personally find low resolution and Screen Door Effect really distracting with my original Oculus Rift. I either have to sit really close to the screen where things have great clarity, but I have to move you head all the time which is annoying. But if I move away from the screen (the best spot, middle and center of the cinema and beyond) text becomes harder to read and SDE is painfully visible, in both movies and games.
Bigscreen is probably the biggest reason why I want to upgrade my VR rig.
Deadjasper
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Bet it would be a trip playing Doom II.
I haven't tried playing games, but even with a Vive Pro, the low resolution is a real bummer for anything that isn't a native VR game. Bigscreen is pretty cool, but trying to watch movies with it is like watching old VHS tapes on a huge screen.
serpretetsky
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lol, got curious and found this. Not bigscreen mode, but would be fun to try
I already knew they have opengl ports of doom, so i figured somebody had probably written some software library that takes any opengl/direct3d game and make it work on VR headsets. But apparently there is an entire doom port dedicated to VR
http://rotatingpenguin.com/gz3doom/
elvn
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I've used my oculus quest for regular movies and a bunch of 3D movies. it's usable but definitely not great clarity for distance/small things and backgrounds due to SDE/resolution limitations. Close ups or average room scenes look good.
I made the imgur gallery below from screenshots of the youtube video linked within:
Pimax 8K X Resolution and SDE compared in Macro Shots (zoom larger)
Unfortunately the pimax company is still small. Their headsets have had some durability issues and they can't make enough of them to fill the units promised to their backers and pre-orders (and now coronavirus probably isn't helping either). They are also very expensive. For the full kit with the better headstrap/headphones, index controllers and index lighthouses/room motion cap sensors, it's $1800+.
I'm very happy with my oculus quest {with some modifications/additions and a usb3.1 to usb cord to link it to my pc) as an entry to VR for now. Games and workouts un-tethered like SuperHot, BoxVR, Thrill of the Fight.. tethered "oculus link"'d steam games like heavily modded SkyrimVR (wabbajack ultimate vr list lets you one click download and install the whole mod compilation), The Wizards, Half-Life Alyx, etc. It's a lot of fun. There's no way you can show what VR is like by showing a video on a flatscreen to someone. It's like being inside of a hologram. The resolution and SDE are the major tradeoffs for now but most games designed for VR from the ground up take this into account by either using larger stylized graphics (like consoles tend to), and/or by using shorter view distances. That is most likely why HL Alyx is generally small areas, cramped between buildings or on balconies between them, and in underground hallways and rooms or small yards/lots.. but they did it very well and it is a great experience.
Once the generation of VR after this comes out I'm hoping that some other big name players will make 4k per eye more standard in competing models along with some other VR advancements like AI learning upscaling, etc. At that point I'll probably stop buying into gaming monitors and go all in on $1200 - $2000 worth of a VR headset. Hopfully more toward that lower end of that with larger manufacturers making more units and competition. For now I spent some money on mods/upgrades for my quest but the base unit was $400 (it was $350 on sale before xmas at one point), plus a $35 usb 3.1 powered ext cable and a short usb 3.1 to usb C cable.
I made the imgur gallery below from screenshots of the youtube video linked within:
Pimax 8K X Resolution and SDE compared in Macro Shots (zoom larger)
Unfortunately the pimax company is still small. Their headsets have had some durability issues and they can't make enough of them to fill the units promised to their backers and pre-orders (and now coronavirus probably isn't helping either). They are also very expensive. For the full kit with the better headstrap/headphones, index controllers and index lighthouses/room motion cap sensors, it's $1800+.
I'm very happy with my oculus quest {with some modifications/additions and a usb3.1 to usb cord to link it to my pc) as an entry to VR for now. Games and workouts un-tethered like SuperHot, BoxVR, Thrill of the Fight.. tethered "oculus link"'d steam games like heavily modded SkyrimVR (wabbajack ultimate vr list lets you one click download and install the whole mod compilation), The Wizards, Half-Life Alyx, etc. It's a lot of fun. There's no way you can show what VR is like by showing a video on a flatscreen to someone. It's like being inside of a hologram. The resolution and SDE are the major tradeoffs for now but most games designed for VR from the ground up take this into account by either using larger stylized graphics (like consoles tend to), and/or by using shorter view distances. That is most likely why HL Alyx is generally small areas, cramped between buildings or on balconies between them, and in underground hallways and rooms or small yards/lots.. but they did it very well and it is a great experience.
Once the generation of VR after this comes out I'm hoping that some other big name players will make 4k per eye more standard in competing models along with some other VR advancements like AI learning upscaling, etc. At that point I'll probably stop buying into gaming monitors and go all in on $1200 - $2000 worth of a VR headset. Hopfully more toward that lower end of that with larger manufacturers making more units and competition. For now I spent some money on mods/upgrades for my quest but the base unit was $400 (it was $350 on sale before xmas at one point), plus a $35 usb 3.1 powered ext cable and a short usb 3.1 to usb C cable.
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elvn
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The products in this gallery I made up of pictures from various sources on the web are supposed to come to market eventually. They are more for media consumption via glasses rather than full VR environments and games since their FoV is very narrow. You could likely watch 3d movies, 2d movies, use it as a desktop, play some 2d and 3d "monitor" games on a virtual desktop, and perhaps even play some head on VR arcade type games rather than environment based ones.
Smaller Virtual Screen "VR" Glasses 2020
Smaller Virtual Screen "VR" Glasses 2020
Wow! Very Cool! Like the Panasonic 4K goggles, bring them on.
scrappymouse
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It was my understanding that you don't have to be "tethered" in order for Half-Life Alyx to work on the Quest?
Or am I incorrect in assuming that?
Out of the Pimax headsets the one I am most interested in is the new Pimax Artisan. It uses the same panels as 5K+, but FOV is reduced somewhat (still bigger than Index) which apparently makes the picture much sharper and reduces SDE. Some say Artisan has made 5K+ completely obsolete, thanks to the sharper picture and lack of distortions. The price is interesting for a standalone headset, less than 500. If I would have the original Vive set the Artisan would be a no brainer upgrade. But I because I went with Rift originally I would have to start over and buy lighthouses and controllers, and then suddenly we are in Valve Index price range.
elvn
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Technically you can play almost any game you can stream in a window/fullscreen via virtual desktop since it duplicates your monitor(s) views on your pc. Wireless virtual desktop will definitely have more input lag and less clean performance (potential frame rate dips, stutter/ judder) overall so most people who are able to play tethered without much trouble usually stay linked to the pc. It's kind of like using nvidia game streaming from your pc to a nvidia shield - it also works decent over gigabit ethernet but wireless has bad input lag. Neither will perform as well as connecting a monitor or a headset directly to the pc.
That said, Half-life alyx is playable with very little space. If you use the controller stick to move around you don't even have to spin your body at all, and you can crouch in place or use a button to toggle crouch. So you can stand near your pc and play it without needing more room than your arms reaching. You could even play it sitting down if you wanted to.
Of course there are a bunch of oculus games that can play off of the oculus quest phone chip hardware built into the quest, and many of them are cross-buy which means if you buy the title from oculus you get both the stand alone "lite" version for untethered play off of the headset hardware as well as the tethered higher fidelity version of the game you can stream off of the quest app on your pc over your link cable/usb-c cable. Since Half-life alyx is a Valve/Steam game it's made for tethered gameplay only and has no "lite" version of the game to play on the quest hardware. Besides they wouldn't do that as they would keep it a steam exclusive. Oculus has it's own exclusives similarly.
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rfit cv1 owner since launch - recently acquired a quest - vr is [insert long string of amazing things here]
i've demoed beat saber to 15 or so people and every single one comes out with the same look on their face *[omg that is what an orgasm feels like]
things definitely hit a small slump after launch of the cv1 and vive. but there has been a steady stream of content for the curious... every gamer owes it to themselves to experience half life alyx on something like the valve index ... holy hell guys. trust me 1000000%, vr is going to have a profound impact on entertainment/media consumption.
*yes it's a real look.
i've demoed beat saber to 15 or so people and every single one comes out with the same look on their face *[omg that is what an orgasm feels like]
things definitely hit a small slump after launch of the cv1 and vive. but there has been a steady stream of content for the curious... every gamer owes it to themselves to experience half life alyx on something like the valve index ... holy hell guys. trust me 1000000%, vr is going to have a profound impact on entertainment/media consumption.
*yes it's a real look.
honestly i was interested in the artisan as well but after seeing the index vs the quest i'm going to hold off until something truly epic hits. the artisan and index are both amazing, and the full setup will indeed run about $1000 in a normal world, $1500ish in this current market.
but neither of those ... are worth the premium over the oculus quest. $400 for a quest is a gargantuan deal compared to the $1000+ units
That seems to be the wisest choice. Samsung and HP have both teased about a new VR sets. Even if they are not the jackpots the 3rd gen of VR sets are clearly coming soon.
scrappymouse
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Just ordered my quest! (64Gb was back in stock on the Oculus webpage ) Thanks for all the info people.
) Thanks for all the info people.Just ordered my quest! (64Gb was back in stock on the Oculus webpage
Liking it so far? Used oculus link?
scrappymouse
Limp Gawd
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I'm loving it so far, I haven't used the oculus link yet, I originally thought you could use Virtual Desktop natively in place of the link cable and use SteamVR, but it turns out that feature was removed...at least officially. There is a process that gets that back through side-loading but I haven't messed with that yet. I have a few favorite games, I'll list them below
Paid Games
RealVR fishing, I played this on the Go, but had to repurchase on the quest...which is more expensive than the go version, but the mechanics are different, you actually have to reel....still worth it imho
Of Course BeatSaber,
Thrill of the fight this one gets your heat rate up!,
The Climb weirdly this one is quite tiring as well,
Free Games
Echo VR - this game is AWESOME!, I'm surprised it's free probably one I've been spending a ton of time in. Basically a SCI-FY version of ultimate frisbee/football....awesome game.
BigScreen(on the Go as well)
Alt VR(Again available on the Go)
Things that aren't native on the quest...that I'm kinda bummed about(can play with a link cable/side-loaded virtual desktop....but i haven't yet)
Half-Life Alyx
TableTop Simulator
DCS World.
Just thought I'd throw in some suggestions in case anyone is still looking. Overall I'd say it is worth it...I'll probably like it even more once I get the link cable/side load Virtual Desktop
So side loading is pretty easy to do once that is complete you would then install the streamer on your desktop and you are good to go. Make sure you desktop/laptop is physically wired in and you are close to you AP/wireless router etc...
I saw a difference between wireless and wired, that may have been to bad tuning or not the best wireless hardware was used. But it worked and provided a playable but enjoyable experience for me.
I believe Lone Echo is the single player story that spawned Echo VR, highly recommend checking it out when you get a chance.
ToTF is amazing glad I grabbed that over Creed.
I saw a difference between wireless and wired, that may have been to bad tuning or not the best wireless hardware was used. But it worked and provided a playable but enjoyable experience for me.
I believe Lone Echo is the single player story that spawned Echo VR, highly recommend checking it out when you get a chance.
ToTF is amazing glad I grabbed that over Creed.
I might be hijacking the thread a bit, but do any or all of the headsets support dual gpu, one for each eye? With my next build I’m considering going dual gpu again (3080 planned) and I’m looking for a reason beyond just folding at home. If VR fit the bill, I would be so in for dual GPU.
Dayaks
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Not that I’ve seen.
Hagrid
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I believe some games used SLI. I would get the fastest single first.