Chivas

I didn't get the 90% from anywhere, its just speculation based on VR content being developed two years before anyone new for sure that Oculus would develop VR inputs, or anyone knew that Vive was coming to the market with inputs. All of it would have been developed for xbox type controllers. Its going to be awhile before VR input content catches up. Icarus just posted a link to a developer poll, that suggested that by far most devs were developing for the Rift, with all the other headsets far behind. I've been suggesting that for along time only because of Oculus's two year head start, but I certainly didn't think it would be by that kind of margin. Vive and Sony are making a very good headset, so we can expect those margins to change.

I think its possible, maybe not likely, that HTC Vive could be thinking of selling an option that didn't include VR inputs. That way they would have a better chance of competing with the Rift on pricepoint, and taking advantage of all the VR content made for Xbox type controllers. Atleast 90 percent of VR content over the last few years has been made for Xbox type controllers. I suppose it would depend how many devs creating that kind of VR content would have implemented support for the Vive.

Its all very simple, Palmer first announced the 200 to 400 price tag with mostly smartphone parts, before the Facebook acquisition. Facebook resources allowed Oculus to custom make most of the parts with much better VR qualities. During that process, they couldn't possibly know for sure what the final cost would be, other than saying at one point before the preorder announcement that it would be over 399 dollars. That said they could have made a better guess sooner, but there were other factors in play, waiting for more info on the Vive price, which was supposed to come first, and quite possibly significant fights in the board room, whether or not to sell their hardware near cost. There are so many factors that we can only speculate, but I'm fairly sure looking at the final product, that I will be receiving a Rift near cost, and very happy it isn't made from stock smartphone parts.

I agree most of the writers concerns are unfounded, other than the cost of entry. Your also right that VR has many other problems to solve, that the writer didn't mention. Although the FOV problem looks to have a decent solution with eye tracking, and only rendering 5K plus where the eyes are focused. This solution could allow all the FOV necessary in future versions of VR hardware. I also have concerns that early VR content, like new flight sims will be dumbed down to hit the 90fps mark. The fact that DCS could be successfully implementing time warp to allow momentary drops in frame rates, and still allow smooth gameplay is very promising.

Nice, but unfortunately a couple of years too late. Flight simmers will be spending, or saving their monies to spend on VR headsets with built in tracking, with ten times the immersion of TrackIR.

Perfect solution...I've thought of a fan for sometime, but didn't think of wiring it to the canopy button. :thumbup:

A higher resolution display isn't the answer "YET". There is a reason that Oculus and Vive settled on a lower resolution displays for their first consumer versions. People already need a Nvidia 970 or higher just to drive those displays in VR. I know that Samsung developed a custom VR display for the Rift, but no word yet on the type of display Vive is using, other than both developers are using displays with the same resolution. Oculus is also using custom hybrid optic lenses, that have normal and Fresnel properties, while Vive is using a Fresnel lens. That said users don't seem to be seeing much difference in the Vive and Rift displays/lens combinations other than some banding on the Vive Fresnel lens when looking at the sky. Its very early days in VR, so anyone could develop the killer hardware., as there are still a lot of problems to solve. The more companies developing these units the better for us all. I never thought much of the StarVR hardware, with its huge 210* FOV, as I didn't think it would be possible to drive that many pixels at high frame rates. StarVR is now working with an eyetracking company, which could allow them to only render 5K where the eyes are focused in that large FOV. This type of tech could allow FOV's of almost any size.

Yes its been patently obvious for years, but some people actually believe his constant misinformation. I don't have a problem with him preferring the Vive as its a very good HMD, but he usually has to throw in some misinformation about the Rift to support his Vive argument.

Last minute??? The vast majority of VR content has been made for Xbox type controllers for the last few years. Your obvious dislike of anything Oculus has clouded your perception of reality.

The inclusion of the xbox controller made most VR content developers very happy, it didn't cost Oculus anything to do it, and it didn't cost the Rift buyers anything. If you already have one sell the controller to offset the Rifts price. A failure NOT.

The Xbox controllers were added because 99.9% of the VR content was made for that type of controller. It cost Oculus very little, as it was part of a very limited partnership deal with Microsoft. I doubt Oculus paid anymore than ten dollars for the controller, and would have very little effect if any on the price of the Rift.

That's very important, and will have a cup holder designed and firmly memorized in muscle memory, at least for the first few drinks. :)

I bought into VR to remove the real world. The last thing I want is the real world encroaching into my 1940's world. I personally won't be standing up, and waving a wand around putting myself and everything else around me in danger. I can also program my Hotas, and Voice control to do everything I want without ever having to look at it or the keyboard. That said the front facing camera could be good for some peoples VR activities, but atleast in the Vive Pre prototype, the very low detail 2D camera won't be very good for looking for control inputs. Muscle memory will do it faster. That said future versions of the Vive and Rift will likely have more detailed front facing 3D cameras.

I have a difficult time reading these forums with the dark grey background and thin font. I know we can change the font etc when we post, but is it possible to change the font on this particular site. I don't want to change my computer size and font as I can read all the other site forums with no problems.

Its relatively obvious that VR hardware will get better and cheaper, but devs won't be renewing their hardware annually. I'll enjoy what the first versions of VR bring to the table, and upgrade to better hardware when it comes, if I'm still here. :)

Good luck with that, Vive and Oculus haven't even released their first ones. But I understand completely why you'd want to wait, but a yearly turn around is highly unlikely from any of the VR devs.

No, I'm not kidding, I was referring to newer versions of the Rift and Vive. I own the DK2 and its just ok, no where near good enough for a consumer version, and it was never intended to be a consumer version. There are still huge questions if the quality of these headsets are good enough for flight sims, and how well DCS has optimized their software for the Rift and Vive, and which one they prefer to use.

I'm way too old to wait for the next generation of VR, which is likely to be a couple of years down the road. VR headsets are very unlikely to have a one year turn around. Palmer suggested that new models will take longer than smartphones, and shorter than consoles. It will depend on what breakthroughs are made in the R&D department.

Team Fusion will be looking at the possibility of implementing VR in COD. Don't hold your breath however, they already have their hands full trying to finish Version 5.0 this summer, strongly rumoured to be the Med. Its just good to know that they are interested enough to look into the the future of flight sims. If your primarily a flight simmer don't fooled by those that suggest HTC Vive is the better experience. It might well be in the end, but by far most of the reviewers were influenced by the Vive demos which focused more on movement, which is an immersion multiplier. This is not a major feature for flight simmers. The Rift appears to have slightly better displays, optic lenses, possible larger sweetspot that allows some eye movement without having to move our heads, and FOV, which are features far more important to flight simmers. Especially since flight sims require the best possible display/optic features, to be useful at all until higher resolutions are possible. Just be aware, of which features best suit your interests. I don't care which unit is better, and will end up with the one that works best for my needs, which is currently in flight sims. Luckily I should receive the CV1 in March, and will sell Rift if the Vive ends up being better, even if its more expensive. If not I can buy the Rift VR Touch inputs later if I see any interesting content that would require that type of input. Not to mention my strong suspicions that the Vive will be delayed again.

+1 although I think you meant that the Rifts FOV was wider in the horizontal not vertical. A few reviewer felt the FOV was larger in the Vive. I can only assume they prefer the more vertical FOV of the Vive. The Rift screen also covers more area, as the view is more rectangular, while the Vive is circular. The Rift lenses might also have a larger sweet spot where you can move your eyes more without having to move your head. I haven't heard to much about the Vive lenses in that regard yet. The Rifts custom lenses mix the good points of normal optical lenses with the good points of Fresnel lenses. The Vive uses primarily a Fresnel lens. What was disappointing about CES, was there was little talk about the quality of the VR displays, and lenses, atleast from people who knew what they were talking about. Many people assume they both use the same displays which is highly unlikely. Both have the same resolution, but Samsung developed custom VR lenses for Oculus in pursuant with their partnership. That said I'm sure Vive are having custom displays made from other manufacturers, and have even hinted at some sort of HDR breakthrough. Although I don't think you will see that breakthrough in their first consumer version. There was still a lot of misinformation from reviewers, and still isn't enough valid info to make an informed decision, so I've bought the CV1 sight unseen, and will buy the Vive, and sell the Rift only after getting a hands on test of the Vive. Even if the Vive is more expensive.

Vive will have to improve the prototype camera to be useful for finding switches etc. The camera doesn't have depth, and the keyboard etc won't be in the location that the camera shows it to be in. The camera "as is" is primarily a safety feature, but could easily evolve into something far more than that. Muscle memory/feel will be faster, and more accurate, to find switches etc. Especially when you have to activate the camera with a button on the headset or the VR controller. It would help it we could assign the camera activation to the Hotas. No word on that yet.

DCS is in the process of implementing support for the Rift and Vive. No word yet how well VR works in DCS for either unit, but DCS is probably implementing VR with earlier Rift and Vive prototypes, so the experience can change dramatically with consumer level VR headsets. I don't think you can go far wrong by buying either unit, but if your primarily a flight simmer the Rift should be the cheaper solution. I have no doubt that Rift was sold near cost, and its highly unlikely that Vive would be able to match that price, even if we had the option to buy their headset without the VR inputs, so expect the Vive unit to be over eight hundred dollars.

With Vives current cash flow problems, and smartphone sale problems, they say they are going to concentrate more on VR. It also appears that Vive could be bought out in the near future by companies like ASUS. This could be very good for the Vive headset. Vive is still saying they will begin preorders in February, and ship in April, but there are a lot of alarm bells. Even features like Audio haven't been added yet to any prototypes. I wouldn't be holding my breath waiting for the Vive to ship. That said people ordering the Rift now have to wait until June, but I wouldn't be surprised if Vive slips past that.

Interesting, I have an Asus motherboard and have wondered if I had enough USB3 ports, as I have a mixture of USB2 and 3 ports. Luckily after a little research I found out that the four blue USB ports on the back of the motherboard are USB 3. I hadn't heard about the compatibility issues, so I downloaded the test from Oculus, and thankfully my Asus motherboard passed, with the obvious exception of my 580 GTX. So far things are working out well for me, my cataract surgery is scheduled just before I receive the Rift in March. It should also help me notice my spelling errors, that you enjoy pointing out, maybe one of the reason my muscle memory works well. :thumbup: The only thing I need is a new gpu. I'm hoping the Pascal gpus, or even an AMD equivalent gpu comes out before the second half of 2016. I don't want to buy the 980TI unless I have too.

Another reddit post to take with a grain of salt. CES thoughts (self.oculus) submitted 2 hours ago * by donkeygravy Just my 2 cents. Thats all. First off - Wow is this light. Seriously light. Could have worn it for hours no problem light. Second - I could not notice any screendoor effect. The weight and displays are drastically better than DK2. I could manage maybe 45min tops in my DK2 and 15 in DK1. I could wear CV1 all day. As for crescent bay - No clue. Never tried it. Motion tracking was crisp. I would get to the point of puking in DK1 really fast and DK2 less so. CV1? Nada. They nailed it. Display quality was phenomenal. Colors seemed to be as good or better than my Panasonic TX-P60ZT65B. I will be using my CV1 to watch movies. My plasma is going to be doing NFL detail in 2016. Would I pay $600 for it? Yup. I would be ok with 800$ honestly. I own a couple of High end gaming monitors which cost more and do less. Sure the price made me wince but I bought one and had my wife order a second one for her. I guess I had my expectations calibrated poorly. Palmer owned up. Good enough for me. This backlash about the price reminds me of the facebook hissy fit. Oculus had to get this right out of the gate. It looks like they did baring any major complications with component sourcing. I was promised affordable consumer VR and that's what I got. This thing is a showpiece. Friends come over and I will be shoving it at them. Until this CES I was very skeptical about Oculus being able to get it right out of the gate at any price. HTC and others have a VERY high bar to cross and getting over it at a cheaper price wont happen for a while. Oculus did everyone in the community a huge favor by setting this baseline. CV1 is the reference point now. Everything will be contrasted against it and consumers win in the long run. Palmer delivered big time. VR is here. /rant edit - accidentally a decimal and zero