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The devils in the details. Details can make a huge difference in the quality of the experience. We don't know the Pixel count, Sub-Pixel arrangement, color, details on the different VR custom lenses, and how well the VR optic software combines the qualities of the custom lenses, with the particular display used.

 

There are over forty OLED display manufacturers, and Oculus has a partnership with one of them {Samsung} who could manufacturer a custom display with better VR qualities, at a cheaper price point. I don't know if HTC manufacturers displays, or has to contract out the display, and if so is their display manufacturer interested in making displays with better VR qualities at this time. Samsung has manufactured smartphone displays with VR features for their GearVR headsets. We don't know if those displays have any hidden VR features that will also work well with the Rift, or have they made a custom VR display explicitly for the Rift.

 

There are far too many unanswered questions. Many of those questions could be answered when both units are open to preorders near the end of this year. I will preorder the best VR unit for the flight sims I want to fly, even if one cost a few hundred dollars more than the other. I just don't know yet. I jumped on the Oculus bandwagon long before I new Vive would be on the market. I haven't seen anything yet from Vive that would make me think they will be better for flight sims. I could easily change my mind, but will wait for more facts to immerge.

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"My brief spell with the HTC and Valve’s VR effort was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Even having tested out the upcoming PlayStation VR, and a brief spin on the Oculus Rift, the VIVE was an entirely new kettle of fish. It was just way too real. In the best way."

 

http://www.stuff.tv/me/features/htc-vive-hands-1

 

That would mean something to me if the reviewer had stated which Oculus Rift prototype he had a brief spin on. I just did a quick perusal of his review and noted a few mistakes like stating the Vive was only 90hz while the Rift is 120 hz. Both the latest Vive and Rift prototypes are 90hz. No word yet if those specs have changed unless he has some inside knowledge, which I doubt.

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But the fact that the author got the specs of the Rift completely wrong is proof enough that he/she isn't to be taken too seriously. Also, the author most likely have not tested the consumer version of the Rift, which looks like a big improvement over the developer kits. Hell, I have even seen people confuse the Gear VR for the Rift. Would you take the advice of such a person seriously? I know I wouldn't.

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I'm still currently leaning toward the Rift, because of Oculus's huge advantage in human/financial resourses, partnerships, years of content investment/support, and the purchace of more than a few Tech companies that could significantly add to their consumer product. Of course other developers could still develop a better mouse trap with a killer app. At this point knowing which developer will make the best first consumer version is unknowable, and writing off Oculus is folly.

 

By far most of the reviews by professional, and amateur reviewers compared the Vive with earlier Rift prototypes. There is no doubt that the Vive is a very good HMD, but these reviews were truly misleading, especially for people who haven't followed the VR headset progression.

 

The few reviews I've seen that actually compared the latest prototypes, could see little difference between the quality of the headsets, and tracking latencies. The only difference is the amount of freedom of movement, that is not relavent in the combat flight sim contect. The actual amount of movement is still an unknown, until the Touch inputs, Rift dual tracker prototypes are further along in development, and Vive tracking optimized.

 

It would be nice to be able to run from the Ready Hut to our aircraft, or walkaround aircraft checks, but that can't be simulated in a 15x15 room. The teleportation feature in the Rift bullet demo may be an option, or just running/walking on a spot, but that could be simulated with 4x4 tracking. I don't get the 15x15 roomscale movement hype, its actually still too small an area to really simulate much. I suppose it could simulate racket ball/handball or some aspects of submarine sims quite well. Large area/multi room commercial VR arcades could work very well.

 

At this point few people if any actually know which unit will be better, especially for flight sims. Nobody has been able to compare the final versions of either unit. We've seen the latest prototypes, but for obvious reasons they've withheld some of the specs of these devices, suggesting they could change, and other features added. The Rift/Vive developmers currently watching their consumer versions coming off their assembly lines are wondering if their products are actually better. There is a reason the actual final specs/features/content/price are being kept a secret by both developments.

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I don't get the 15x15 roomscale movement hype, its actually still too small an area to really simulate much.
I don't even have a 15 x 15 space. If I tried moving around in that I'd just end up crashing into stuff. It will most likely not be a factor for me in deciding on one of these. I will be sitting in a chair most of the time while playing games anyway.

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My guess is the Rift will be...399.

Rift/Touch... 499

Vive/Wands... close to 600, but no where near 1000.

 

Factors:

Rift will supposedly sell near cost.

Lighthouse is more expensive to produce

Oculus should get a discount price for the OLED displays from Samsung.

I don't think Vive makes their own displays, and would have to contract them out, from the forty or so available OLED display makers.

 

Other Factors:

Headset Specs should be fairly close, but both could still have tricks up their sleeves.

The Rift should have the most content, since Oculus has been funding and supporting VR content for over two years. Most of which uses xbox type controllers which Oculus is providing for next to nothing thanks to Microsoft wanting to get their foot in the VR door.

BUT ,,,, We don't know which developer will have the best available content.

The Vive should come out sooner, but I wouldn't hold my breath trying to get one this year.


Edited by Chivas
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DCS World is now working in Vive and we are currently testing the VR game controllers for cockpit interaction.

 

This got me thinking about the controller use with DCS, which I had all-too-readily written off. The simple thing that I had forgotten, is that I am still able to use the mouse fairly easily with my DK2, without being able to see it. Having wands floating in the cockpit could be a lot more intuitive than I had first thought (especially if they are made semi-transparent when not in active use, or something to that effect, to minimise the immersion impact).

 

I'm really glad they're looking at integrating the controllers too. :thumbup:

 

Vive cant come soon enough for me.

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I'd rather have a vr glove than a controller, so I could virtually press the buttons in the cockpit.

Well done ED for looking into it.

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Wait for one more year and get Star VR with 210° FOV. That will be ultimate imersion, FOV like in real life no black part and tunnel vision.

 

I am very sceptical towards StarVR. They have to make some compromises to achieve such amazing specs as 210° FOV. It will be much larger and heavier than Rift/Vive. It will need much higher resolution displays to achieve even similar pixel density to Rift/Vive. Now remember, that even with the Rift and Vive you will have to turn DCS graphics options to their lowest setting. Even then you need a really fast PC. Imagine if the StarVR is to have the same pixel density as Rift/Vive. That means it will need twice the resolution. With Rift/Vive you will need a PC that can achieve a pixel fill rate that is approximately four times that of gaming on a 1080p monitor. The StarVR would require eight times as much! That is just no feasible with today's PC hardware. It will be a loooong time until we get there.

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Both will have great content since Vive has Steam and $100 difference is not a big deal either way. We will likely be able to choose the best quality gear with no worries at all.

 

HTC has been getting its screens from Samsung. Recently dumped Samsung for AUO. Major customers of AUO are Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Dell, Apple, Asus, Acer, HP, Philips.

 

Vive has Steam, but very little of the Steam content has VR implementation. The Oculus VR store is all VR content, that they have been funding and supporting for two years longer than HTC/Valve. There is no way Steam will catch up in six months. Eventually maybe, so in the meantime they will need a killer app to command the larger market share. If Vive doesn't have the killer app "Most" people will preorder the less costly unit with more content. Better HMD specs will also be a major factor, but I don't see the Vive unit being significantly better than the Rift. Infact its more likely to be the other way around, considering Oculus's considerable resource advantage.


Edited by Chivas
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I hope there won't be too much of "separation of content", that soon there will be a unified API for all VR units.

This reminds me of the early days of audio and graphic cards, each game had to ship with integrated driver for each different board type :music_whistling:

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Both will have great content since Vive has Steam and $100 difference is not a big deal either way. We will likely be able to choose the best quality gear with no worries at all.

 

HTC has been getting its screens from Samsung. Recently dumped Samsung for AUO. Major customers of AUO are Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Dell, Apple, Asus, Acer, HP, Philips.

 

Samsung has a larger display market share than AUO, and makes better displays than AUO. There are reports that Samsung has been putting the poorer quality AUO displays in some of their Samsung monitors/TV's, but that should have nothing to do with the high quality custom VR displays Samsung is currently making. My point is, Oculus a partner of Samsung should have access to these VR featured displays, at a reasonable pricepoint.


Edited by Chivas
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Of the two "current" input prototypes, I prefer the dexterity of the Touch inputs too the Vive wands. Currently Vive simulates something in your hand while the Touch simulates your hand, with should translate better for cockpit use. Final products could change.

 

StarVR looks very good, but current system hardware would have a very difficult time driving that many pixels especially at high HZ. I don't see that happening for a year or two. Once hardware/software is capable of driving dual displays with than many pixels, StarVR will probably have stiff competition from later consumer versions to the Vive and Oculus's at those high FOV's.

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This definitely the future for VR sims. Controllers are just a temporary solution for sims.

Couldn't agree more. Gloves are definitely the way to go. In the mean time, I'll take whatever works.

 

Re StarVR: the irony there is that - at least for flight sims - I've found the limited FOV to be a good facsimile of wearing a helmet!

I'm not saying that extra FOV in general isn't a great thing though... If you have the horsepower.

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List of official "compatible titles" here

"games that work with the HTC Vive or have planned Vive support", more to come in December announcement.

 

Most likely the screens of both units will of be very similar quality on initial release, but, Valves developer, Chet Faliszek, has already mentioned 4k at the 2015 EGX, so it is at least being considered, and my likely guess it is at both camps. But the hardware to drive 4K, maybe $7K (4 Titans SLI'ed?).

 

So after Valve/Oculus takes our cold hard cash for the first gen, they"ll get to do it again in a couple of years....:huh:

 

For some peoples (myself included) latency is a really, really big thing :Flush:, and after evaluating both prototypes, HTC Vive, is personally my only choice for now (see the previous icon for an explanation :(:noexpression:). I'm sure both camps will have improvements for their consumer releases, they will simply have too. And your hardware will have a huge impact on this issue, so keep this in mind, consider the Vive/OR unit as only one part of a complete system.

 

So as suggested here, if your not in the position to purchase both units, I'd strongly advise not to order anything until both consumer versions are released, and you can thoroughly test drive them both, then make your finial decision on what fits you. If you have any susceptibility to motion sickness at all, it's even more important that you do so, as the option to pre-order is quickly approaching, the temptations gonna be there.

 

We have to remember though, that having an initially higher res than current hardware can push is pretty forward thinking (if that's what they are thinking); your pc may not be able to push to native res right now, but having those pixels available will extend the life of the hardware. And, in the interim, the current hardware can just scale the lower res to screen, for reduced SDE.

 

The iterative nature of VR is inescapable - first gen is never going to be the ultimate solution, just as the same can be said for gaming hardware in general. It's the nature of the beast, but especially for nascent tech, in all it's guises.

 

I agree with what you say about waiting to see reviews of the release hardware before making a commitment, but based on all the anecdotal evidence (and my lack of patience), I'm queueing for a Vive, for better or worse :D

 

Hell, I live in Australia, so pre-ordering probably won't ever be available for the Vive, in any case. Sigh.

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Samsung has a larger display market share than AUO, and makes better displays than AUO. There are reports that Samsung has been putting the poorer quality AUO displays in some of their Samsung monitors/TV's, but that should have nothing to do with the high quality custom VR displays Samsung is currently making. My point is, Oculus a partner of Samsung should have access to these VR featured displays, at a reasonable pricepoint.

 

I hope you're getting payment from Oculus at this point, Chivas.

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I hope you're getting payment from Oculus at this point, Chivas.

 

I don't care which development makes the best VR HMD, I just don't buy the hype that Vive is better than the Rift yet. Especially in regards to combat flight sims. Its the usual forum hype that some poster can't suggest how good one unit is without posting some mis-information about the other product, to help sell their argument.

 

Even most of the reviews compare the Vive prototype against earlier Rift prototypes which is misleading. Those that compared the latest prototypes could actually see little difference between the headset, and latencies. I'm suggesting that people should wait and see the final consumer versions, and not write-off the development that has a huge advantage in tech/financial resources, and wants to sell you their units near cost. Its folly to choose one over the other at this point. I'm not suggesting that Vive can't pull it off, but anyone with a modicum of common sense, would wait and see.

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Its the usual forum hype that some poster can't suggest how good one unit is without posting some mis-information about the other product, to help sell their argument.

 

Even most of the reviews compare the Vive prototype against earlier Rift prototypes which is misleading. Those that compared the latest prototypes could actually see little difference between the headset, and latencies.

 

You could say that 6, maybe even 3 months ago, but by this point, the comparisons have been between the Vive (Development edition) and the Rift (near commercial edition) for some time now.

 

You keep going on about misinformation, but you never source it. And who are these posters spreading misinformation? I'm calling your blustering bluff.

 

The most ironical part of that is your denial of mass anecdotal evidence that says what you clearly don't want to hear.

 

And in spite of your 10% weighting of "I'm just waiting for the best", every time, you counter it with 90% weight of "this is why this product is better". It's painful and tedious. Stop it.

 

Yes, at this stage it's anyone's game. But don't be so damn disingenuous by saying you're waiting to see which is best, when all you go on about is how much greater one product is over the other.

 

For what it's worth, I think that the Rift might well be the better product for simmers, but mainly due to the more probable bang-for-buck in the seated experience, but it's certainly not the better tech, in MY opinion.

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You could say that 6, maybe even 3 months ago, but by this point, the comparisons have been between the Vive (Development edition) and the Rift (near commercial edition) for some time now.

 

You keep going on about misinformation, but you never source it. And who are these posters spreading misinformation? I'm calling your blustering bluff.

 

The most ironical part of that is your denial of mass anecdotal evidence that says what you clearly don't want to hear.

 

And in spite of your 10% weighting of "I'm just waiting for the best", every time, you counter it with 90% weight of "this is why this product is better". It's painful and tedious. Stop it.

 

Yes, at this stage it's anyone's game. But don't be so damn disingenuous by saying you're waiting to see which is best, when all you go on about is how much greater one product is over the other.

 

For what it's worth, I think that the Rift might well be the better product for simmers, but mainly due to the more probable bang-for-buck in the seated experience, but it's certainly not the better tech, in MY opinion.

 

Maybe you could post this mass of anecdotal evidence that suggests the latest Vive prototypes are better than the latest Rift prototypes. The vast majority of these reviews say that they've tried the DK2, and find the Vive better, mostly because they could move around. Those that tried the latest Rift prototype said they seen little difference in the quality of the headsets, or latencies in the tracking methods. Its possible that the latencies could be lower with the Vive tracking, but if nobody can see the difference who cares.

 

Most people loved the Rift until it was bought out by Facebook. The usual refrain was that Facebook would dumb down the Rift into a social media headset . It didn't happen, Facebook poured even more money into the Rifts development, and content.

 

Then Vive annouced a very good VR headset prototype with tracking inputs. The same people jumped on that bandwagon saying it was the Facebook killer. I guess it didn't occur to them that Oculus would make improvements to their own prototypes, and have far more money, resouces, and R&D to make it happen than their competition.

 

The Rift is just a sitting experience? A review from last June.

Room Scale Possible: Testing the standing tracking volume on the Oculus Rift

http://uploadvr.com/room-scale-possible-testing-the-standing-tracking-volume-on-the-oculus-rift/

 

Again I don't care which one ends up developing the better headset/input, and will wait for the preorder specs/content/price to be annouced before making my final decision.

 

I hate confusing the issue with facts, and know you find it painful and tedious, but just stick your head back in the sand, and it won't bother you as much.

 

I am surprised that Oculus hasn't gone the Vive route of a travelling demo display. They must be very confident, their preorder package will be obviouly superior in price/content/specs, or they can't compete at the present time.

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Valve has confirmed that the upcoming kit will feature a built-in microphone.

 

Yes, and they've also said the Vive will have built-in headphones. Which I think is a great idea, as it should make it much easier for VR content developers to know exactly how to best tweak their audio software.

:)

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