So one of my kids are pushing for VR for his birthday/Christmas present this fall… Is there a general consensus of which direction to go in ? Oculus or Vive . . . I’d be pairing it with a GTX 970 (not looking to upgrade the video card at this time.)
There isn’t really much in terms of games that they have said are “must have” so I wanted to get a feel for what people would say in terms of the call today.
oculus. cheaper, better ergonomics.
everspace is great. that new descent game (overload?) is awesome VR too.
Also, afaik Oculus’ ASW is superior to Vive’s reprojection, particularly for weaker hardware.
And Oculus has better controllers. Only reason to go Vive is if you’re dumping crazy money into the $1,300 Pro version.
There is a lot of good free content you get with an Oculus that your kids can experience before you feel tempted to buy anything. Rec Room is free and is a social experience, lots of kids there. There are various quests you can team up with people and play in addition to content like Dodgeball, Frisbee Golf, LaserTag, etc. It’s also coming out with a Battle Royale mode which I believe is in alpha testing this weekend.
Echo Arena is a free multiplayer game on the Oculus Store, it’s basically Ender’s Game with hockey discs. You play a game of get the disc into the opponent’s goal, they have the best locomotion in VR, you float around with thrusters and grab objects to push off of, very few people get sick from it.
For a single player experience, buying a rift also gives you access to Robo Recall (as well as a few other games). Robo Recall is a great initial experience, you shoot robots and pull their limbs apart. It has high production value.
I keep talking about how amazing DCS is for a VR experience, but have neglected to drop some visuals to show what I’m on about. So here’s a trailer from today’s latest bit of DLC (a map)
If your rig is beefy enough, it will look pretty darn close to that trailer from your VR goggles.
Damn. I can’t afford this! No… musn’t. :)
What settings are you using? Last time I flew DCS (a couple weeks ago) I ran a 2.5 beta quick mission on the Caucasus map and it was not running well at all. Spent a lot of time at 45fps and lower, especially bad at low altitude. I wasn’t even using a ‘real’ plane (F-15).
The settings I’m using used to work okay. Maybe it was the auto mission - lots of objects seem to kill performance pretty quick.
pulls out bag o’ dice, performs saving throw
yeah cook your own in the editor, or ill post some of mine in the morning. i run msaa off. very important as that one will eat all of the frames. rest on high except vis distance on medium. im on a 1070. 45fps is enough. the f-15 is a real plane. the f-5e is just more real lol.
/me Checks recommended system requirements, 120GB of disk space?? Ouch
yup, 125gb on disc with all maps and most of the planes and choppers. its smaller if you add less stuff.
Screens for headsets getting continuing development… This is about much higher pixel density plus a wider fov and foveated rendering. More of a POC than a shipping product but heartening…
You had to make it weird.
Summer sale at Oculus…
The only thing that appealed much to me was 30% off Superhot. I’m waiting for a deal on Lone Echo, and that’s about all the VR specific stuff I want to see. Other than that I’ll try Subnautica and Skyrim.
I came across this little trick to enhance Oculus image quality:
pretty dramatic effect for me. Makes reading the cockpit in DCS easier and Elite a whole lot prettier.
Didn’t do anything noticable for me.
huh. odd. I got deeper blacks and better contrast in all the VR games I play (Il2, DCS and Elite)
There’s always the chance I’m ‘doing it wrong’ but I’m no stranger to regedit, and I brought the service down with Tray Tool before making changes.
edit: I read it may have little effect if you’re already using the ‘full dynamic range’ setting for the Rift in the Nvidia control panel, which I was.
edit2: Okay it is doing something, as I noticed it’s definitely reduced some of the black smear in dark areas!
Latest Technolust 2 “Aircar” demo: