Fool me, this is real good shit ! [the VR thread]

[Jamesac]

70Hz on this headset, 60Hz on another brand that was announced with a 4K resolution monitor, and that's two failed headsets and counting. 90Hz really needs to be the floor for this. The tech needs to go up, not down, and cutting corners is just going to result in a lot of systems that are the VR equivalent to those knock-off game systems you sometimes see cluttering up drug store shelves.

[gilesgoat]

70Hz on this headset, 60Hz on another brand that was announced with a 4K resolution monitor, and that's two failed headsets and counting. 90Hz really needs to be the floor for this. The tech needs to go up, not down, and cutting corners is just going to result in a lot of systems that are the VR equivalent to those knock-off game systems you sometimes see cluttering up drug store shelves.

My opinion is that "there's a lot of shit to happen", but "shit" as in really shit.

There will be - I suppose - :

1. a various amount of "knock off systems", so and so to crap with various specs all "on the borderline of not very good"

2. possibly something ( but not too many ) "middle range" stuff that hopefully will be at least "adequate for what you pay"

3. some really good "more high end oriented" systems

Now .. VR is VR .. is NOT exactly like "ok I can go for a thing with less rez or stuff and be happy" there *IS* definitely a set of circumstances where "if you don't meet those it's just crap".

Give 75 Hz on the DK2 is "so and soesih" .. I agree with you 90 Hz should be the minimum and after been SO SPOILED with the 120 Hz and the fantastic 120 FPS "native" we managed to take out with our thing is really SUPER HARD to "get back to less".

Obiviously also, if we don't get into something like "DirectxVR" or "a true standard OpenVR" at least "for the very basic operations" this is going to be a jungle of blood and tears.

Honestly ?

I hope all that shit will last little, that all that has to die will die pretty soon and "may the best system remain" .. then we can focus on doing really nice stuff rather than chasing this headset or the other that claims to be "the new big thing" and having specs marginally better ( or worse ) than others.

Well .. we'll see how it goes, as I said I think "shit will be let's hope it will pass soon enough".

[ThetaReactor]

There's already OSVR, an open source hardware and software package for full-fat, PC-tethered VR.

[gilesgoat]

There's already OSVR, an open source hardware and software package for full-fat, PC-tethered VR.

HAVE YOU TRIED TO USE IT ?

I DID ....

.. I mean the library for the Oculus ...

[Chirpychicken]

I have just discovered new retro arcade I was excited for vr before but my anticipation has just increased 10 fold this is amazing (sorry if it's already been mentioned but this thread is huge)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CFpRF4Z41WE

It can even be used without vr

[Dio]

Performance is the big question, but I think time and the technology is on their side.Phones and tablets have been catching up with PCs in recent years. the iPad Pro in particular on release offered performance comparable to PCs released only 12 months before.

Can you point me at a link on that one? I found this graph:



which indicates it's half the performance of a pretty awful Intel integrated part (ours are still twice as fast for 3D) which is itself well over 10x below the minspec that PC VR is setting. So assuming it's a factor of 10 behind and that the 2x-performance-every-2-years version of Moore's Law still holds, a pretty dubious proposition in itself, it needs at least 6 years to catch up to the level that PC is at now.

[pogo]

I was remembering Apple’s own PR at the time of its launch, and that it was factchecked and not found to be too outlandish. Here is one such test:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9766/the- ... o-review/4

Ultimately I think it’s reasonable to say that Intel’s Core M processors hold a CPU performance edge over iPad Pro and the A9X SoC. Against Intel’s slowest chips A9X is competitive, but as it stands A9X can’t keep up with the faster chips. However by the same metric there’s no question that Apple is closing the gap; A9X can compete with both Broadwell and Skylake Core M processors, and that’s something Apple couldn’t claim even a generation ago. That it’s only against the likes of Core m3 means that Apple still has a way to go, particularly as A9X still loses by more than it wins, but it’s significant progress in a short period of time. And I’ll wager that it’s closer than Intel would like to be, especially if Apple puts A9X into a cheaper iPad Air in the future.

Apple were in particular comparing it to MacBook iterations I think, so not the highest end CPU and GPU combinations.

[Dio]

So Apple's graphics are nearly as good as Intel's worst graphics? Given that Intel's best graphics suck, that's hardly a glowing recommendation, right?

I stand by my comment about mobile class VR not really being suited to much beyond VR cinema and abstract. My rule of thumb is that it's 5-10x behind console class which is 4x behind PC class (a £500-600 PC) which is yet another 5x behind workstation class (the money-no-object multi-£1000-GPU market).

[pogo]

My contention is you don’t need cutting edge graphics for great game experiences – just look at all the innovation that’s happening on mobile devices. And this is especially true of AR, where you are only rendering to part of the screen, with most of the display filled with whatever is beyond the screen/seen by the camera.

In the end the most important platforms are the ones with the most users. I doubt that will be Rift or Vive. Sony’s VR device should easily overtake them and dominate this cycle, but even that will only sell to a minority of PS4 owners. For VR really to take off it needs to be untethered and AR-capable.

[gilesgoat]

Just saying ... " it's NOT finished yet " .. we are still IN A LIMBO with that CV1 order .. is .. INSANE ...

[UPDATE] - THIS IS FUCKING GOING MENTAL, we are getting absolutely NOWHERE, again the order is someway "not going through" the "support" basically telling us to do "the same identical things" ( i.e. trying to change stuff and nothing happens ) and the order still "stuck".

We did talk with VISA, the FIRST time the stuff actually triggered a "security alert" that caused the card to be "locked" because "of a bit of strange way that SW works" ( which I cannot explain you here but let's say it does something to test your card is actually working ) so when they say "someone was trying to access an old card too many times" they stopped all.

Which means that the "update card data during checkout" DID NOT WORK AT ALL, which to me means "that part of SW must be bugged".

With VISA on the phone, very nice guys, after a number of blah and blah to confirm/explain it was all ok, they said "ok, just re-do the thing and it should be fine" .. except that you CAN NOT "re do it manually" you have to ask the "support" to do it for you.

So we did cancel the order, the order was cancelled, and we did start BRAND NEW with a NEW order this time UPDATING ( and checking they were updated ) the CC data BEFORE to place a new order.

Did it work ?

NO FFS NO IT DID NOT WORK !

So first we do the thing and "nothing seems to happen", not even notification of "a new order" the only laconic thing we had is the old email saying "you order was on hold".

Then basically nothing seems to change and goes to "on hold again".

At this point "support" is telling us to change/update something in the order, which we did, but .. nothing works again.

At this point I HAVE to say :

*&$%"£&$ Oculus Rift YOUR COMMERCE SW IS A MONUMENTAL PIECE OF CRAP !!!

FFS we are trying to give you almost 600 pounds to buy a thing to make "a good showcase" and we get all this pile of crap back ??

If it would be NOT for the fact I don't have a thing working with that - other too weird thing - of OpenVR I'd be already on the line of "fuck all that I am going to buy a VIVE"

FFS WHY has to be such a complex thing ? WHY that SW IS SO CRAP

Boys would have been not for time constraints we'd be waiting to buy one in the shops, when it will finally get out.

At THIS POINT I REALLY "need to ask" if there's any good soul that would be happy to lend us a CV1 "as soon as possible" so I can finish to test/work on the CV1 version in time for Manchester Play expo because at this point I don't have a clue if we'll ever be on time for that ... it's "fucking frustrating" ..

Hell they'll have to convince me VERY HARD before I'll order anything else again from that SHOP, it's SUCKS that SW

[Dio]

Facebook are better at selling you to other people than things to you I guess .

[Whiteball]

Maybe try tweeting something to one of the Oculus people?
They tend to sort shit out quicker when the public can see their shortcomings.

[rowan]

THIS IS FUCKING GOING MENTAL
snip
NO FFS NO IT DID NOT WORK !
snip
*&$%"£&$ Oculus Rift YOUR COMMERCE SW IS A MONUMENTAL PIECE OF CRAP !!!
snip

FFS WHY has to be such a complex thing ? WHY that SW IS SO CRAP

I feel for you. As someone who's more involved than I'd like in backend systems [which is still relatively distant thank goodness] I'd guess it either got outsourced to a bunch of Yes Men in goat-knows-where, who have only just about cobbled something together, that maybe works without any load testing or whatevers, for a handful of test cases and only the simplest failure states. My experience in almost everything I've worked on/seen has developers just swallowing exceptions at all levels or turning them into some generic meaningless errors

Or if they built up the store themselves, they just didn't anticipate the difficulties of your typical global online marketplace, internationalisation is *really* tricky [and boring] to get right, never mind robust payment processing...

Haven't other people already solved this problem? Can't you just buy a sales service from Amazon or Paypal or something?

[gilesgoat]

This SW looks "absurd" it looks "so simplified and devoid of anything" that you'd almost feel like "it sends an email to someone that does stuff by hand".

Unfortunately it's not like that .. there's some "automation" that miserably fails, I mean the ONLY "different thing" done here is that someone entered some data during the checkout process, thing that BTW is allowed by the UI and the only thing was changed was 2 silly data.

Also I don't quite understand why that SW does "a CC test" that basically says "it's ok or it fails" as it could still fail after it , in theory ( and probably in practice too ) , and actually if it really fails locks itself up.

So basically it's like "I want to fuck you up, all I have to do is give you a wrong CC something and your SW will lock up".

The UI is very confusing in the sense YOU do something with it but it's completely UNCLEAR if what you done is been done or you just are in a loop of "you pushed an OK button and nothing did happen, should I push it again ?".

This is IMHO a case of "we wanted to simplify it SO MUCH that we simplified it TOO MUCH".

I *STRAFUCKING HATE* things where there's money involved, and not even little, and there's no email contact and/or no phone line and/or not any feeling that "actually someone cares" but "we are just hiding behind screens"

I mean we are talking of a company that in theory is backed up by "one of the biggest sources of money in the world", that want to become "the VR in the world" and this is what you get ?

Man ! There are companies with TINY fractions of money compared to FB that provide far better customer service !

Where is "the human factor" ?

Fook me is a good thing that the HW is good and actually works because if it would be not so good I would not be here now messing about to get one

Oculus, listen to me, it's NOT FB that "saves" you, it's the fact you managed to create a nice piece of HW that works .. but beware, even the developer patience has a limit !

And not it's not all/only about money, there's a lot in "the feeling" you get from things.

I want the feeling I am working with something nice, reliable, affordable, that does what it says on the tin and is backed up by people that knows what they are doing and want to do nice stuff ( and possibly are a bit nerdy too ) .

You got the idea.

[Muttley]

Giles, why don't you just order one from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oculus-301-002 ... culus+rift