Chivas

For those people who will need a VR capable computer system, might want to check out the Rift preorder pages next month or even sooner. Oculus will be bundling the Rift with various levels of VR ready PC's, that at first blush appear to have substantial savings. Its rumoured the prices will start at the 950 level which sounds way to cheap if it includes the Rift. I've always built my systems, as its so much cheaper, but If I needed a new computer I would certainly check it out.

I was surprised, and disappoint as anyone else at the Rifts pricepoint, and it did price many people out of the market. BUT if people asked if I'd take an slightly improved DK2, at four hundred dollars or the CV1 at six hundred US dollars, I'd buy the later. The Canadian dollar has taken a major fall since the price of oil went down the tubes. The six hundred dollar Rift converted to nine hundred Canadian with shipping so I'm not sure how people think its Oculus fault. I wouldn't expect Oculus to sell their unit to me for six hundred Canadian, which would be well below their cost. The Europeans have always been shafted on electronic prices for some reason. Usually paying atleast double the price, even though their Pound, and Euro or worth more than the US dollar. I would be pissed.

second one, again take with a grain of salt. " I just tried the CES Rift CV1 demos (self.oculus) submitted 19 hours ago * by vgf89 Final Edit: no way I'm getting an Oculus Touch demo, according to the desk they're all spoken for. EDIT: DETAILS AT THE SUPER DUPER EDIT BELOW Honestly it makes me feel much better about spending $600 on the headset. I played demos of the included preorder games Lucky's Tale and Eve: Valkyrie. They were smooth, felt great to play, and the resolution was such a non issue that I stopped noticing it after the first 30 seconds of having the headset on (also there was plenty of text in Oculus Home which was very easy to read, better than my bro's GearVR for sure). The headset was freaking lightweight too! I couldn't even notice the weight once it was on. I'm still at CES and on my phone so I'll update tonight with more details (or just make another post) when I get to a computer. The short of it is that if you bought the Rift, you should rest easy knowing that $600 is well spent (though I won't argue that Aussies and some euopeans got shafted, as I still wouldn't have spent $800 USD on this VR headset) SUPER DUPER EDIT: I tried both the Rift CV1 (no Touch) and the Vive. Rift CV1: SDE: no problem. It wasn't nearly as bad a GearVR. There were still some Pentil artifacts (sometimes slightly visible pattern of bright dots in the image), but they were only noticeable on some text and sharp gradients (like in Oculus Home). In Eve: Valkyrie and Lucky's Tale, it wasn't noticeable, so I ended up just being swept up in the experiences. Tracking was perfect, 3D was near perfect (it wasn't quite calibrated to my specific face, but it was pretty close and you can adjust it, the demo time just doesn't allow for personal calibration). The Xbone controller felt fine, nothing to complain about honestly. The headset is very light, I didn't even notice the weight of it when I was whipping my head around in Valkyrie. Lucky's Tale felt very very natural. I could judge my jump distances perfectly, and the slowly moving camera felt fine. They hid things in the periphery and over the shoulder which encouraged looking around. I can totally see platformers being massively benefitted by VR. This isn't even just 3DS's 3D levels of better platforming, it just works. I can't wait to play through the whole game when I get my Rift! Eve: Valkyrie really felt like a tech demo, but certainly a demo with promise (FYI it's basically the same as the pre-alpha footage). It was fun. Flicking my head around to look at and find other ships was great (no neck/head strain, seriously the headset is light, definitely doesn't feel like the DK1, and even feels better than Crescent Bay). I did feel a little limited by 3 axes of ship movement (plus a boost button), as I'm use to a full 5 or 6 in Elite, but I see this the game working very very well for multiplayer. If I didn't get it with the preorder I would probably end up buying it, but I want to see the full game before completely judging it. Honestly, I have nothing bad to say about the Rift. Would I have liked the $600 price tag to include Touch? Sure. Would I have liked it to hit my expected $550 price tag? Yes. But $600 is good enough for the headset IMO. It works, and it works damn well. Vive Pre: I'm conflicted. I feel like my demo specifically was less than par for a multitude of reasons, but I'll start with the positives. Once I point out negatives, take them with a grain of salt unless other people who have tried both the Vive and CV1 report the same issues. When the Vive works properly, it works well. Their Controller tracking works very precisely (just like the Vive and Rift headsets). Aiming down the sights of a gun felt natural. The touchpads functioned (though they weren't used too much in the demos for anything but swiping). Room scale VR is nice, but so is sitting down with a controller in hand playing a slightly more familiar game with a gamepad and head tracking. I see both applications taking off. The Chaperone system seemed OK but really nothing special, basically just a wireframe box that shows up when you get close to the edge of your preprogrammed space (Oculus could do something like this in their SDK if they wanted, it was really really really simple). The ocean scene was nice. The blue whale that came looked pretty sweet. Aside from that, the textures in the scene were mostly pretty meh. The zombie shooter (did everyone else try this or was my demoer being nice?) was actually pretty cool, though the controls for ammo and gun switching felt a little unnatural. It felt awkward like pulling a game controller trigger, not like grabbing and dropping something. Tiltbrush was fun. Nothing to really complain about, aside from a bug on one of my controllers. I could honestly see artists picking this up. That video of the Disney artist painting Ariel in 3D was no joke. Now for neutral and negative comments about the Vive: The resolution seems kinda around the same, or maybe slightly worse (I know, same res screens, but optics do a lot) than the Rift CV1. However, the kit was blurry. I had my demoer (actually, both of them, since the first one had technical issues) clean it but it didn't really help. The lenses looked sparkly clean but it was blurry when I put it on.. Maybe my head is too small or too big for their one-size-fits-all stuff, but seriously, it was pretty bad in the center (I tried adjusting the position of the Vive on my face, the tightness of the straps, it didn't help). Surely these problems will be fixed by a consumer release, but the blur was certainly problematic. After I was done and noted the blur, my demoer tried it on and noted the same problems, saying it was weird as hell (I assume he's tried it before). Probably just a problem with that unit or my head. I didn't see any pentile artifacts iirc, but those didn't bother me in the Rift anyways. Second, a whole host of technical issues had me waiting another 15-20 minutes before I had a working demo. The first Vive I tried, the visuals were tilted. One reset and recalibration later and that was fixed, but now the motion controllers weren't connected or weren't tracking! Ew. Also it was blurry as I said above. So I waited some time for another demo room to open up. Luckily that one worked. It still had the blur of my first headset. The controllers again didn't work but a restart of the software fixed it once and for all. Shooting my guns accurately was harder than it should have been due to the blur. One of the controllers had a bugged touchpad that would glitch the hell out if I lifted my finger off of it, which made the menu all jittery in tiltbrush. Keeping my finger on it fixed it, but it still shouldn't be happening. Finally, the ergonomics of the Vive Pre were just not up to snuff. They're still using elastic bands, and the headset was heavier than the Rift. This allowed it to move around a little while on my face, even when the straps were relatively tight. Also due to the elastic, the padding didn't feel as "invisible" as on the Rift. I couldn't whip my head around without the headset moving, so I occasionally had to adjust it to get in the almost-sweet-spot again (which was awkward while holding the motion controllers). While I don't have any Oculus Touch experience to compare against yet, the controllers didn't feel quite as ergonomic as I was expecting, but they were good enough to where I would feel comfortable using them at least for a few hours without complaint. I'll compare tomorrow if I get Touch in my hands. TL;DR, Rift CV1 gets an A+. The tracking seems perfect, the game demos were fun (and Lucky's Tale wasn't "oh cool demo" fun, it was "I want more of this" fun). I still need to see Touch, but I really like what I see so far. Given the technical issues I experienced and the ugly blur that I couldn't seem to get rid of, Vive Pre gets an A-. Maybe I'm just unlucky, but my experience with the Vive Pre didn't seem to be as great as everyone else's -------------------------------------------------------------

Its hard to find comparisons of the CV1, and HTC Vive Pre, but found two on reddit. Take them with a grain of salt, especially since it compares a consumer version against Vive's latest prototype that may or may not reflect the final version. CES CV1 Impressions vs Vive (self.oculus) submitted an hour ago by ptpatil Ordered my CV1 in the first 5 mins, but I finally got done trying the Vive and CV1 here are my thoughts as someone who owns DK1, DK2 & GearVR: The CV1 was the best out of the two in terms of VR presence and experience, here are the reasons and what I noticed as differences - 1. Optics Quality: I got a chance to view both the Vive and CV1 lens, the CV1 has a superb sweet spot for aberration and distortion free viewing, there is no noticeable chromatic aberration like the DK2. Fellow DK2 owners who hate having to tighten your straps and carefully position the lenses w.r.t to your eyes to avoid a blurry mess will be pleased. I also played around with the physical IPD mechanism which is fan-****ing-tastic, feels high quality and long lasting and the position adjustment is detailed and stays where you leave it. Another part of the optics that definitely helps is the non-circular shape. If you have the DK2, try looking at your nose or the left and right edges of your visual field when you have the headset on, you will notice that things quickly become blurry and colors seperate a LOT. If you have also played FPS games like Fallout 4 and Battlefront using VorpX w/ the DK2, you will know that unless your eyes are pointing in the same direction of your head/face that clarity is quickly lost which makes tracking targets that come into view and move away from the center of your vision is hard to get used to because you have to move your entire head instead of naturally moving your line of sight in your field of view. The new lenses make this natural and seamless in a bigger area of your FOV. Which brings me to the final point about the lenses, the FOV, oh god damn the FOV, its in that sweet spot. From the DK1 to DK2, the VFOV and HFOV were sacrificed and thus you got this "scuba mask" feeling which at least for me substantially reduced chances of achieving presence for a large continuous amount of time. From my demo, this scuba mask effect is greatly diminished to the point that your peripheral area of vision is sufficiently filled with pixels to give you better feeling of presence. Palmer, you made a good decision splurging for these new lenses, at least for me. Displays: The CV1 also had an advantage here when compared to the Vive IMO but a much smaller margin then the lens, the pixel fill density was noticeable better and the low persistence kept light from bleeding and blur from being a problem, the Vive also does this pretty well but there is more noticeable smearing in the Vive. The other big difference is the noticeability of SDE and pixels. DK2 owners know when playing something like Assetto Corsa, if you focus really hard on an upcoming turn, you often times get pulled out of the immersion because your brain actually notices that what you are seeing is just pixels that are changing color, rather than a cohesive image in a wide field of view. This effect is significantly diminished w/ CV1's screen as compared to the Vive, in EVE Valkyrie, even when I focused on a ship to lock on, I never fully lost immersion with the "oh this is just a shit heap of aliased pixels I'm looking at" feeling. Because of this, large scale objects in the background also feel more "3D", the planet I was fighting above in EVE actually felt like a massive body under me as I flew around dog fighting. Weight: The CV1 was margially more comfortable than the Vive, but the most annoying thing was still the cable and how it sometimes pulled on your face when walking around in both the Vive and CV1 (the CV1 was more standing so I noticed the cable less and stepped on it less often). Motion Controls: The Vive does a little bit better here when it works, I found the Vive controllers to be more comfortable and natural to hold than the CV1 Touch, both the Touch Vive sometimes would skip or reset a bit when enough of the controller for a hand was ocluded (when hugging your hands to your chest and hunching for example), but when it worked the Vive and Touch were solidly 1:1 with a slight edge going to the Vive. Audio:CV1 is a clear winner in this regard, I am a bit of an audiophile and have 10+ different headphones including a Bang & Olufsen set, the CV1 was comparable to most high end audiophile headphones I own in terms of sound stage and balance of sound. The usefulness of the uniformity of the CV1 headset's cans were apparent, directionality and "positioning" of sound in the CV1 demo was noticeably better than the Vive, which felt like the crude circular directionality and distance drop off in magnitude that we are used to in regular games. In the CV1, 360 degree spherical directionality and much better distance differentiation was possible. Conclusion: All in all, in addition to my $2k PC and $5k gaming chair setup, the extra $200 for the CV1 made sense, I am very happy with my future purchase based on my demo experiences. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A question on the Rift custom optic lenses. "Palmer Luckey....Can't get into the details now, but they are essentially hybrid lenses that combine the best of traditional optics and fresnel lenses into a single element."

Still no Rift specs, even in the current reddit AMA question and answer session with Palmer Luckey. Other than saying the specs will be released soon, and all or most of the Rift parts are custom made. The OLED displays are custom made with VR specific features, as are the Optics lenses. One of the reasons the price went up significantly. Vive and Oculus are still being very tight lipped on the final specs.

As the Rift development progressed Luckey later said the Rift would be more than 399, which is true. Certainly not as much as I thought, but still true. But we can also count on you to quote old news if it suits your agenda.

There are switches and rotaries on my Stick, Throttle, and another Triple throttle setup with switches. My right hand usually stays on the stick, and move my left hand to the three different switch banks on the three inputs. In a cockpit you just have more banks of inputs, each could easily have a landmark lever/rotary, to make the switch you want easier to find. In your case you would probably move your left hand to all switches and lever/rotary banks on the front/left of the cockpit, and your right hand to all the switch, levers on the front/right of the cockpit. If your cockpit is built correctly, I doubt very much that all your switches are located in one spot, where it might be difficult to differentiate one from the other. The switches are usually dispersed in the levers, and dials, where you know the switch you want is two over from that particular dial, lever. It would be relatively easy to learn to move your hand to a landmark in each bank of switches/levers/rotaries and find the correct one, quicker than moving your hand up to your HMD to engage the see through camera. There are still questions on the quality of the see thru camera. So far its been suggested that people and chairs are just shadowy images, and you can read your watch if you bring it up close to your face. So that would suggest you'd have to aggressively lean into the cockpit to actually see the switch, and read the gauge. Also how accurate is the relationship between where you see the switch in the camera and to where it actually is. You'd still probably have to use some muscle memory, and feel. Still a lot of unanswered questions. Hopefully the camera will be clearer for you, than what it appears to be in initial reports.

Just another review comparing the latest Vive HMD prototype to an old DK2 Oculus prototypes. I suggest you wait for reviews comparing the CV1, and HTC PRE, even that wouldn't be relevant review, as the HTC PRE is still a prototype without audio, and the CV1 without Touch.

You did nail it, I figured when they last said the Rift would be over 399, it might be in the 400-450 range, and around 600 including the Touch inputs. I was way out of the ball park. I still believe the six hundred is below cost. I guess when they're payroll went up to three hundred +, relatively highly paid techs, and all the new custom parts, it adds up quickly. I'm also surprised that more specs weren't announced at the start of preorders. BUT its easy to cancel, or not even pre-order until more facts are known.

I have over fifty switches/levers/dials in my Hotas system, with mode switches that could triple those functions. All are quite easy to use without ever having to take my eyes off the target. Real pilots were also easily trained to find all the switches etc without having to look for them. I understand your angst, but with a little effort, people shouldn't need to use the camera in flight sims. If you prefer to use the camera that's OK too, but you might want to learn to find your switches, without looking during a dogfight. The see thru camera is good option for many functions, but its also an immersion killer in VR.

Gauges are irrelevant, you will be able to see the actual cockpit gauges for that particular aircraft in the VR cockpit. Most people would be able to use muscle memory to find their switches, in about the time it might take you to reached up to double tap and engage the see thru camera. I understand your problem, but I don't believe the see through camera is as big a deal as you'd like to suggest for most people with complex cockpits.

They must of had a lot of preorders as the March bunch is already sold out, and the next batch will come in April. I preordered one, but almost choked on the 900+ dollars Canadian. I thought the price would have curtailed orders, but certainly not as much as thought. Atleast I managed to make the first batch. I was thinking of buying the Vive aswell, but I also need a thousand dollar gpu, so I will cancel the Rift if Vive ends up having better specs for flight sims. Not holding my breath on that one. Apparently next month Oculus will be bundling a Rift with a VR ready system, which might provide more saving for some. The high Rift price, should help Vive. I still think the Vive will be more expensive, but their price should be far more competitive than I first thought.

I agree, the Vive Pre doesn't appear to have any audio, but Vive suggested a few months ago that their consumer version will have it. Time will tell. 3D sound is a huge part of VR, and Oculus hired some the brightest sound technicians sometime ago. Personally I like the idea of integrated sound, that will make it easier for content software developers to know exactly how their games will sound, and adjust accordingly.

450 US dollars is a good guess, but still a guess. I was thinking 399 to 450 myself. I also think the Rift will ship before the 16th of March. We should have the true numbers, and dates tomorrow.

So what I've gathered so far, the very very big breakthrough, is a combination of the forward facing camera enhancing room movement safety, and a brighter display with some sort of filter system, to improve clarity. From what I've read, I'm not so sure yet, that the forward facing camera will be clear enough for those with problems finding their cockpit switches, but it should help get them into the general area. Muscle memory would probably be more accurate for most people, and it wouldn't kill immersion which is the whole point of VR. It might be a problem if every switch in a cockpit were exactly the same, and you'd have count how many across, and how many lines down, but that's not how cockpits switches, levers, and rotaries are setup in a cockpit..

I haven't read much about SDE problems, that wouldn't be quickly forgotten with the latest version of the either headset. I read somewhere that one person suggested that there is still distant object blurriness in both headsets, which isn't optimal for flight sims. One person also suggested that they could see the ridges on the Vive Fresnel lenses, and the glare off them in certain lighting conditions. No word yet on glare with the Rift custom built lenses.

Since the Rift has been coming off the assembly lines for sometime, and Oculus suggested they like the IPhone preorder/delivery timeframe, its been assumed that the start of shipping will be between one and four weeks. Obviously, how far you are away from the distribution centers will also be a major actor.

The Vive has made some definite improvements with ergonomics, the pass through camera, and chaperone system. Some initial reports are suggesting the Vive display has improved slightly, but the Rift's combination of optics, and display are a little better. I haven't read any reports yet that suggests the Vive display is better than the Rift, but I'm sure they will come out. It will be almost impossible to know which reports are unbias, so trying the different units ourselves would be the best option. I won't require a pass through camera to use my Hotas system, or want VR inputs at this point in time, so I'm still leaning toward the Rift , "if in fact" the Rifts optics and display are slightly better. We should know all the facts on the Rift tomorrow, and it may even include a pass through camera. Unfortunately we probably won't know the final specs, and price of the Vive until their preorders open in February.

Not sure why people think they will have to preorder without knowing the cost and specs. Didn't Lucky's announcement suggest that all we need to know will be stated on Jan 6th when preorder starts. I would think "all we need to know" would have to include Price and Specs. There is nothing more important than that. We would also have to think that Vive will announce their "very very big breakthrough" before the Rift preorders start. If they don't, that suggests that their "very very big breakthrough" isn't as big as they would like us to think. That said, I'm hoping its a very very very big breakthrough. :) We would also have to think that the Rift NDA will be lifted, and DCS might be able to give us a hint at the Rifts performance if they have one that's recently come off the assembly line.

I agree the issue is overblown. I'm not sure how Oculus is in trouble with the delay of their Touch inputs. For the last few years the vast majority of VR content has been made with Xbox type controllers in mind. There are very little if any wand or Touch input content finished, and ready to be released. Software Devs have only be working on content that requires these types of inputs for a few months. Not to mention the fact that Vive and Oculus are still changing the specs of their inputs, that could easily require changes to the software currently being developed for these inputs.

Nvidia is now speculating that PC hardware will need a seven fold increase in raw power to drive VR properly. I hope they are referring to the power that will be required to drive the much higher 4K/8K/16K} resolutions that VR headsets require to look more real. Currently I'm hoping to just upgrade my GPU to next level above the 980TI, to run flight sims on the lower res CV1, and Vive.

The creation of Avatars with over a hundred cameras was interesting, and I wonder if Oculus is working on creating rudimentary Avatars with their single or dual tracking camera system. It wouldn't be perfect, but you'd probably be able to recognise the person, from atleast the face front perspective.

Vive at CES 2016 http://blog.htcvive.com/2015/12/the-vive-heads-to-ces-2016/

It almost seems like Vive realized they couldn't compete with the Rift, without some major controller improvements, and now Oculus got wind of Vive's new improvements, and have delayed their controllers to better compete. It now looks like the delays will continue for the foreseeable future. :D