VR - Is it really going to be a success? Or, thanks Time for starting a discussion!

[TurinTur]

Ven VR is out. Reviews are positive in Steam

Also in Viveport Infinity

[TurinTur]

Woah, once you get into Gold ranking, Blaston is a different game! Some people are really good, and it makes you sweat in a few minutes. In fact, Oculus Move really isn’t make the best job in guessing calories spent, because 10 minutes of playing Blaston tires me more than 15 minutes of Beat Saber, and still it gives me less calories than not 15, but 10 minutes of BS. Crouching to the ground and jumping around with the full body is more complete excercise than just flailing around your arms.

BTW, I love how creative you can get with the VR equivalent of victory dances/dancing emotes. You can not talk in the game, there is no mic, but you still can express yourself by amusing gestures like:
spinning around
egyptian dance
thumbs up or down
shaking the head
hands to the groin
fist bump
hands to the head
etc. You get the idea.

[jpinard]

I’m not sure I understand the draw of playing a platformer in VR?

[Tim_N]

@jpinard

I’m not sure I understand the draw of playing a platformer in VR?

I haven’t played the VR platformer game Moss but it is highly praised. Maybe it gives the player a better perception of the platform environment as you guide your little buddy around the level?

Someone should make Banjo Kazooie VR!

[paul_chambers]

@TurinTur

You can not talk in the game, there is no mic, but you still can express yourself by amusing gestures

Yeah the range and expressiveness of the gestures people are doing in this is really impressive!

Need to put some more time into it. Only got up to silver rank so far.

[Houngan]

It’s not bad, if you’re a platformer person then it’s worth trying. There’s something extra charming about a platformer in VR, akin to watching real mice in a maze rather than on a TV. It’s not a VR showcase by any means, but it does seem to have a little added to it.

[TurinTur]

@jpinard

I’m not sure I understand the draw of playing a platformer in VR?

I haven’t played Astrobot, but it’s one of the best regarded VR games.

To be honest, VR doesn’t really add anything to the gameplay of a platformer, but it actually happens that the extra immersion factor doesn’t only work with first person games, it also works with third person games like this. You feel as if you are there, watching some guy jump.

[Alistair]

The Ssnctum tower defence games are a bit like that.

[iloveplywood]

Platformers are great in VR. VR adds the same thing to platformers it does for any other genre, immersion. I have a super hard time getting invested in platformers on flat screens, but find the extra immersion of VR does the trick for me. Like all things in VR the immersion comes with the cost of all the negatives of VR (resolution, comfort, blocked off from the rest of the world, etc) so whether extra immersion in a platformer is worth it to you largely depends on why you play platformers, IMO.

***I think I replied to the wrong person ******

[rowe33]

Yeah, it’s hard to explain what VR adds to a platformer until you actually try it. The experience is so much better for it. Or an RTS like Brass Tactics - being able to move around the battlefield and watching your guys follow your orders is immensely satisfying.

[TurinTur]

https://www.roadtovr.com/steam-survey-vr-monthly-active-user-2-million-milestone/

To put the milestone into perspective: it took 40 months for Steam to reach 1 million monthly-connected headsets, but just 7 months after that to reach 2 million. Year-over-year, the number of headsets is up 94%.

The growth of monthly-connected VR headsets on Steam has stuck fairly close to an exponential curve thus far, with an R² value of 0.954. A naïve projection (simply drawing out the line), suggests the number of monthly-connected headsets could hit 4.5 million by the end of 2021.

[TurinTur]

Quest update

These features and enhancements will become available starting the week of February 1st, 2021 . PLEASE NOTE ALL UPDATES ROLL OUT OVER TIME (Usually a week or so)

Messenger

• We’re starting to roll out Messenger on Oculus to people who have logged into Quest and Quest 2 using their Facebook account.
• With this update, you can choose to chat with your Facebook friends anywhere they have Messenger, even if they’re not in VR. You can:
  • Chat with friends anywhere they have Messenger, without taking off the headset.
  • Invite friends to join you in a game or experience.
  • Jump into games together by sending a party invite.
• Please note this will continue to roll out in the coming weeks, so you may not see the update right away – stay tuned as it continues to be released.

Guardian and Passthrough

• Stationary Guardian 2.0
  • We’ve improved Stationary Guardian with the following updates:
    • Updated Stationary Guardian visuals to remove the grid.
    • Adjusted Stationary Guardian to be responsive when you move your headset, no controllers needed.
    • Added a new in-VR tutorial explaining how to use Guardian.
• Passthrough Shortcut
  • We’re moving our Passthrough Shortcut from the experiments panel to general availability. This feature allows you to activate your Passthrough view by double-tapping the side of your Quest or Quest 2 headset. Double-tap again to switch back to your view in-VR.

VR Profiles

• We’ve updated the look, feel, and functionality of in-VR profiles and info. Some of the specific changes you’ll see include:
  • Having profile cards show up directly from your menu bar, so you can look up your friend or check out their new avatar without leaving your current app or experience.
  • We’ve made it so that people who use Facebook to log into Oculus can display Facebook friends and more easily communicate.
    • Keep in mind, you can change or update your privacy settings at any time.

Universal Menu

• You can now access the Universal Menu across any apps, games or experiences you’re currently in.
  • To enable this feature, put on your headset and select Settings > Experimental Features > Universal Menu Overlay.
• We’ve also made updates and improvements to the the design and function of the Universal Menu. These include:
  • A sleeker toolbar design with easier to select menu items.
  • When you’re in a Party, you can now view Party details and leave the Party directly from the Universal Menu.
  • Improved tablet behavior when launching apps, switching panels, or resuming headset use.

Menu Navigation Tutorial

• We’ve added a new tutorial to walk you through how to navigate the various menus and panels from your Quest home environment. The in-VR lesson plan includes:
  • How to use the Universal Menu.
  • How to navigate between the different menu options and panels.
  • Understanding how the different panels and menu bar work together.

Oculus Browser

• You can now resize windows horizontally when using Oculus Browser. To do this:
  • Open Browser and hover over the left or right edge of any window. Use either your grip or trigger buttons to grab the handle and resize the window.
  • You can open up to three Browser windows at a time and adjust each panel separately.

Bluetooth Mouse

• You can now use a Bluetooth mouse while you’re in-VR. To do this:
  • Ensure that your Bluetooth mouse in is pairing mode, then go to Settings > Experimental Features > Bluetooth Pairing
  • Once you select your mouse from the pairing menu, you’ll be able to use it in VR.

Camera roll

• You can now trim the length of your captured videos to share out exactly the right moments by entering the edit mode after opening a captured video.
  • To do this: select your captured video from your camera roll, select the pencil icon in the top right portion of window, and drag your clip to the desired length.
    • Keep in mind, you can only trim a video if it’s more than 30 seconds in length.

PC Build V25 (Link Users)

These features and enhancements will become available starting the week of February 1st, 2021.

Oculus Link

• You can now set your refresh rate to 80hz and 90hz when using Link with a USB-2 cable.
  • Keep in mind, that even with some of the newest and most powerful GPUs, maxing out values for the render resolution slider with a 90 Hz refresh rate may result in dropped or missing frames.
• Fixed an issue causing Link to show a black screen after exit.
• Reduced incidence of “Oculus Link is not working” errors that were happening on shut down.
• Fixed numerous black screen issues that could prevent you from being able to use Oculus Link.
• Fixed an issue where the new graphics settings in the Oculus desktop app weren’t showing for some people.

[Ginger_Yellow]

@TurinTur

Updated Stationary Guardian visuals to remove the grid.

If this means what I think it means, woohoo!

[rrmorton]

So all VR ever needed was a little pandemic??

[robc04]

I’ve been playing the Beat Saber Campaign and it took me a couple tries to get past the disappearing arrows. I don’t like those at all, but everything else has been a ton of fun. I think I’m at mission 11 or 12 now. If there are more disappearing arrows and there is an alternate route I’ll pass on the arrows for sure.

I’ve been playing the quarters minigame of the Eleven Table Tennis and like that quite a bit. I’m almost in the top 1000 after starting off around 16000. I can beat the medium ai in a game but can’t beat hard. I’ve come close a handful of times. Other times it crushes me.

[TurinTur]

@robc04

I’ve been playing the quarters minigame of the Eleven Table Tennis and like that quite a bit. I’m almost in the top 1000 after starting off around 16000. I can beat the medium ai in a game but can’t beat hard. I’ve come close a handful of times. Other times it crushes me.

AI seems to have a weakness, fast shots to the middle of the table. Which I guess in real life it’s also harder to receive there, but with the AI there is a even bigger difference, in comparison with a fast shot to one side.

[Matt_W]

@robc04

I think I’m at mission 11 or 12 now. If there are more disappearing arrows and there is an alternate route I’ll pass on the arrows for sure.

It’s been so long since I played the campaign that I don’t recall exactly, but I think they only (dis)appear on a couple of the early campaign levels. On normal (non-campaign) play, disappearing arrows is a significant point booster and will definitely help you climb the score charts. And it’s not really that bad. You get used to how the charts are laid out. Later in the campaign, I got tripped up by the levels that require you to complete tough charts on Expert with no bad cuts and high score. (I probably played Rum n Bass about 100 times to finish one of the very last levels–and even so I still love to play the song.)

[robc04]

OK, so I’m still a little confused on resolution settings. I was playing Project Cars 2 VR on the Quest 2. The in game resolution is set to 1920 x 1080. It doesn’t have the option to go higher, but it can go lower. I had the Oculus program graphics render resolution set to 5408 x 2736 (1.3x) , the highest it can go for me. It recommends leaving it at 4128 x 2096 (1.0x), which I set it back to. It’s also set at 72Hz refresh rate. I think I left the Steam VR resolution at 100%

Is there any reason to change the resolution in PC2 from 1920 x 1080? Why can’t it go higher if the Oculus resolution is higher? Is it best to leave the Oculus render resolution at the recommended value?

[Profanicus]

@robc04

OK, so I’m still a little confused on resolution settings. I was playing Project Cars 2 VR on the Quest 2. The in game resolution is set to 1920 x 1080. It doesn’t have the option to go higher, but it can go lower. I had the Oculus program graphics render resolution set to 5408 x 2736 (1.3x) , the highest it can go for me. It recommends leaving it at 4128 x 2096 (1.0x), which I set it back to. It’s also set at 72Hz refresh rate. I think I left the Steam VR resolution at 100%

Is there any reason to change the resolution in PC2 from 1920 x 1080? Why can’t it go higher if the Oculus resolution is higher? Is it best to leave the Oculus render resolution at the recommended value?

Resolutions in VR are confusing, yeah…

In most games, resolution settings that you would normally use when playing on desktop only really set the size of the VR mirror and have nothing to do with the VR resolution that you get in the headset.

Many people say to set this as low as possible, though in practice I don’t think it typically has much effect.

Project Cars 2 is one of the exceptions, where I believe the in-game resolution setting affects the quality of the UI. I don’t know why you can’t set it higher, but 1080p is good. You could try 720p as well.

I’m not that familiar with the Quest render resolution setting since I don’t use Link, but I’d start with it high and tweak downwards for performance. I’d try for 90Hz instead of 72.

[TurinTur]

@robc04

OK, so I’m still a little confused on resolution settings. I was playing Project Cars 2 VR on the Quest 2. The in game resolution is set to 1920 x 1080. It doesn’t have the option to go higher, but it can go lower. I had the Oculus program graphics render resolution set to 5408 x 2736 (1.3x) , the highest it can go for me. It recommends leaving it at 4128 x 2096 (1.0x), which I set it back to. It’s also set at 72Hz refresh rate. I think I left the Steam VR resolution at 100%

Is there any reason to change the resolution in PC2 from 1920 x 1080? Why can’t it go higher if the Oculus resolution is higher? Is it best to leave the Oculus render resolution at the recommended value?

Only 1080p and can’t go higher? That sounds like the normal, 2d, non-vr resolution. Maybe the game is picking the VR resolution from the vr api directly, and ignoring the 1080p one.