Request: Hey Loft! - What do you think of the Oculus Rift? :-)

[SR-F_Winger]

Very welcome! I am so darn excited about this whole VR thing. Since i got to test the rift the first time i was so sure that this is the way in wich gaming and especially simming will go. And now, a few months later ALL gamingworld is talking of nothing else and it actually happens YAY!

 

Winger

[leitmotiv]

Any news on new HD Oculus prototype from LOFT, did they test it in Gamescom?

[JG27_Chivas]

Any news on new HD Oculus prototype from LOFT, did they test it in Gamescom?

That's a good question, there must have been a few HD prototypes at Gamescom.  Hopefully Jason was able to procure one for an hour or two, or have a meeting with an Oculus Rift representative.  

[BFsSmurfy]

It was at Gamescom and Albert let us all try it, the devkit version has low resolution the plane instruments were barely readable, however the sense of depth was fantastic. As I've said elsewhere it literally puts you in the cockpit. The first units to go on general sale are supposed to be getting HD set ups, I'd definitely buy one it was that good.

[Bf-110]

That Oculus Rift looks interesting,but I'm afraid even if it becomes "cheaper" after a long time,it will be a very specific accessory.In other words,hard as hell to find.

[BigC208]

That Oculus Rift looks interesting,but I'm afraid even if it becomes "cheaper" after a long time,it will be a very specific accessory.In other words,hard as hell to find.

 

 

That Oculus Rift looks interesting,but I'm afraid even if it becomes "cheaper" after a long time,it will be a very specific accessory.In other words,hard as hell to find.

If that's the case there will be more companies jumping on the VR band wagon at a reasonable price point. Then again, Track IR never got any serious competition.

[JG27_Chivas]

That Oculus Rift looks interesting,but I'm afraid even if it becomes "cheaper" after a long time,it will be a very specific accessory.In other words,hard as hell to find.

 

Not sure exactly what you mean, but it may well be hard to find,  not because its has a very specific use.  The uses are almost unlimited and it will be in huge demand, by the medical, military, architectural, gamers, etc etc.  

[Freycinet]

Well, they will just ramp up production then, won't they?

[Skoshi_Tiger]

Over the years excitement about VR head sets has come and gone. Hopefully the technology has got to appoint where the OR will be successful this time around (My first experience using a VR head set involved me lining up for an hour in a shopping center to spend five minutes bouncing around cube landscape shooting green pterodactyls many years ago) .

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L60wgPuuDpE

 

In terms of unit sales, if it was just down to reliance one the flight sim community to drive sales it would be a disaster. We're too small a niche to fund a specialized piece of hardware like this. So as far as I can see, the success of the OR will be determined by how well it is received in the FP Shooter  and racing sims communities. We will be riding along on their shirt tails.

 

Will the main market for this product be willing to fork out three or four or five hundred dollars for a head mounted display? I wonder what kind of compromises we (flight simmers) will have to live with using the OR in flight sims?

[DD_bongodriver]

I don't see where a compromise can be made, the function of the OR will be universal across all platforms, it's just a monitor with fancy optics and a head tracker, strap it to your face and see games in 3d, it's up to game developers to facilitate the support for the device.

[JG27_Chivas]

Well, they will just ramp up production then, won't they?

Of course.  I'm just saying that it may be difficult to get at first, depending on demand, a initial product runs.

[=BKHZ=Furbs]

Food for thought i think, maybe were a few versions away from something usable for flight sims and be competitive....

 

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-hands-on-with-oculus-rift

Edited August 28, 2013 by Furbs

[leitmotiv]

now the question is how big improvement was new HD screen?  guy in that video seams to see only big problem with quality of dev screen, i expected LOFT tested new HD in GamesCom, would be nice to here a coment on it in update this friday

[=BKHZ=Furbs]

Agreed, though even the HD screen by the sounds of it will prob not cut it for flight sims, it may be fine for other uses.

If the screens keep improving though then in a few versions time it may be awesome.

[JG27_Chivas]

The HD prototype still had problems with the screen door effect, which could be a huge problem spotting aircraft at a distance.  Also the HD screen was only 5" which created a more visible border, and maybe FOV problems creating less immersion in some respects to the first 7" prototype.

 

That said, now that they have the financing, even more talented people, an possible huge demand from a number of different industries, they could explore a number of different solutions, even having screens made special instead of using current and future screen models being used in smartphones, and tablets.  I have no idea on the technicalities, but a curved Oled screen sounds like an good option.  I know I would pay more than the proposed three hundred dollars for a unit with a resolution much higher than 1920x1080.

 

Considering the number of industries that could have interest in their product, I can't see why they wouldn't have a few different versions unless they are able to incorporate a very high resolution screen at the three hundred dollar price point.

[HagarTheHorrible]

While I agree with Dyslexia,  with the present resolution it is just a gimmick (does he know this is just a proof of concept tech demo ?)  it will be interesting to know at what resolution it does become more than an interesting toy.  I'm not sure about his interpretation of the blurred screen towards the edge of view, it may be the software concentrating the resolution towards the centre of view, which is a bit lost on the low res tech demo, this is supposed to be a feature not a limitation from what I've read.   A lot of interesting, respected people seem to have joined the Oculus team as of late, true,  it proves nothing,  but they seem certain enough that they are willing to invest time and effort into the Rifts future.  The frame rate thing is important, but if the Rift delivers then I can see software and hardware manufacturers tailoring products specifically for it.  It might take a while for all of it to come together but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's a success although I can't entirely dismiss Dyslexia's scepticism.

[=BKHZ=Furbs]

Whilst the screen is a issue, it does seem that will be the only major problem to stop flight simmers getting the most out of it, and with small screens improving at a rapid pace, it will be only be a matter of time before we get a screen that is suitable.

[Freycinet]

It was at Gamescom and Albert let us all try it, the devkit version has low resolution the plane instruments were barely readable, however the sense of depth was fantastic. As I've said elsewhere it literally puts you in the cockpit. The first units to go on general sale are supposed to be getting HD set ups, I'd definitely buy one it was that good.

 

I am even tempted to buy a copy of the devkit... - Really keen on seeing what it feels like to actually use the thing! And if I keep the packaging and everything pristine it should be worth a bit of money ten years from now, don't you think? :-)

 

Since I'm no geek I'd like to know if there is software out to make the devkit just work in a plug-and-play style with various demos and games even? Does anybody know about that? - Or do I need to know code to just be able to turn the damn' thing on? If there are a lot of demos floating around and if BoS might even support it when the sim comes out I'll pick up the devkit ASAP!

 

Any news on OR otherwise?

Edited September 4, 2013 by Freycinet

[JG27_Chivas]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/199361/a_conversation_with_oculus_vr_.php

[Freycinet]

Thanks Chivas!

 

Interesting bit:

 

"One thing you spoke about during your GDC talk is that the reduction of latency is a huge priority on your end -- you want to get as much latency out of the loop as you can on the hardware side, right?

PL: That is absolutely true. And actually, the stuff that we're doing in the lab right now, we think that we've got latency basically solved. We think that, for the consumer launch, we're going to be able to get latency to the point where it's not even an issue -- it's a completely nonexistent issue, completely beyond the level of human perception.

So it is a really hard thing to solve. We think, on our side, we're going to be able to get the latency down to next to nothing. Where the difficulty is going to remain is with game developers, and how they do buffering in their engines, how they do vsync. How their game engines handle rendering and whether they can stay at 60 or 90 or 120 frames per second. And that's going to be the difficulty. Because if we make perfect hardware, developers still have to make low-latency game loops.

 

I got the sense from the talk that you feel very strongly that vsync needs to be there, and that frame rates need to be as high as possible, and that frame rates are more important than complexity of geometry.

PL: That is absolutely true. I think that it's really important in VR to keep in mind that sometimes you do have to sacrifice fidelity for framerate. Because you do want to have vsync, because if you don't have vsync then you have tears in the world. So you'll actually have objects that appear like they're being sheared apart or that they're actually shifted relative to each other. And that takes you out of the game very quickly, as that's constantly happening as you look around. So you do need vsync. 

 

It's worth mentioning that a lot of the hate out there for vsync -- like a lot of people go, "Oh, you should turn it off, because it adds latency in games," [but] when vsync is done correctly, it doesn't necessarily add a ton of latency, or a perceptible amount of latency, in VR. But there are also a lot of games that do a very poor job of vsync. There are even a lot of games where you want to turn vsync off in their control panel and then force it using the Nvidia or AMD control panel because it does a better job through there.

Good vsync -- yes, you really need to do it, or the whole world appears like it's tearing. And you really need at least 60 frames a second. Right now we're saying 60 because that's what our hardware is capable of running, but if we had a display that could run at 90 frames a second, it makes a huge difference. Enough where you're going to want to run at 90 frames a second as often as you can.

 

You already went from 800p to 1080p for the dev kits. How far do you want to push upgrades and improve the tech?

PL: 8k per eye. [laughs] I mean, that's just a number where you could roughly, approximately stop seeing pixels at the current field of view. Realistically, we're not targeting any specific resolution as "this is the right resolution" because until we get to that 8k by 8k or higher resolution, we just want it to be as high as possible. We're at 1080p in the prototypes that we're showing, but we'd like to push it even beyond that.

 

What most surprised me about playing it was the FOV, actually. Yes, I could see the pixels, but that was maybe less unrealistic, because I'm used to pixels. But the FOV stopping was a bit odd.

PL: The HD prototypes that we're showing do have a lower field of view than the dev kit, because we're using the same optics that we used for the dev kit in these prototypes. We just swapped out a panel, we didn't change the optics, or the ergonomics, or anything else.

The field of view for the consumer version, we do plan on increasing. And not just the field of view, but also the clarity of the optics and their sensitivity to adjustment, so that people can have a much more clear view across their entire field of view, rather than having it blurred in the edges.

 

For me, in some way -- and I'm sure you've done much more research, and this is just me saying this -- but the one thing I'd expect to create a sense of reality is peripheral vision, and feeling it wrap around you.

PL: I totally agree. It's a lot of different trade-offs. Optically, as you go past 100 degrees, there are a lot of limits of optics you run into, and it can't just be solved with clever design. They're just the hard limits of refractive optics, and it's very hard to get around those. You can greatly increase the size -- like, if you double the size of the panel, then you can get a little further, but you're not doubling the field of view for doubling the size of the panel. It's diminishing returns. You end up with a huge headset with a slightly improved field of view. There are a few tricks that I am trying that I think that are going to be able to pump the field of view up beyond even where we are right now.

One of the issues with going at a larger field of view -- we're already at a fairly low resolution in terms of pixels per degree -- most of our vision is focused out here [gestures to the sides of his field of view in real life]. Let's say that you wanted to up the field of view to 200 degrees. Not are you cutting the resolution in half, it's actually even worse than that, because you have resolution here that's cut in half, but you're also throwing away all that resolution into the edges where you can't, unfortunately, utilize most of it most of the time. So it's a set of tradeoffs. How much field of view do you have, and what kind of pixels per degree compromise are you trying to make? But, like I said, I have a few tricks."

[JG27_Chivas]

Yes I found this interesting.

__________________________________________________________

"You already went from 800p to 1080p for the dev kits. How far do you want to push upgrades and improve the tech?

PL: 8k per eye. [laughs] I mean, that's just a number where you could roughly, approximately stop seeing pixels at the current field of view. Realistically, we're not targeting any specific resolution as "this is the right resolution" because until we get to that 8k by 8k or higher resolution, we just want it to be as high as possible. We're at 1080p in the prototypes that we're showing, but we'd like to push it even beyond that"

_______________________________________________________________

That's incredible...if I understand right...we might need roughly 8k for each eye to stop seeing pixels at the current field of view.  People are finding they don't notice the pixels even in the first prototype, in a short time during play.  Its amazing how the eye and brain work to fill in the blanks.   It will be interesting to see if the tricks they have up their sleeve will address the field of view/display  pixel spotting dilemma.  I've seen some eye/brain tests that blew me away, where the brain will even ignore something the eyes sees when the person is not focusing on it, and not display it.  

 

I've said before that this could be a nonstarter for completive combat flight sims where we must see incoming dots.    Then I realized the dots will still be there, as the space between the pixels, is just that space.  doh  It will be interesting to see what type of display they base the final version on.    I would be very surprised if its not more than 1080P per eye, and wonder what effect a curved Oled screen would have on FOV in the OR as opposed to a flat screen in the OR.

Edited September 5, 2013 by Chivas

[Freycinet]

Cool article found by hooves:

 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/09/06/best-of-gamescom-il-2-sturmovik-and-oculus-rift/

The important issue now will be plane controls. How are we going to use all the switches, knobs and levers? - The important stuff can be used with a joystick and throttle, but since we cannot see the keyboard how about all the secondary controls?

[DD_bongodriver]

for BoS  the level of CEM and system management will be light enough to map everything to a HOTAS in all probability (30 or so buttons with a 3 stage mode switch = 90 potential assignments and 5 'spare' axes on top of the standard dual throttle, pitch/roll/yaw and independent toe brakes on a G940 system , so a keyboard won't be required, for other more complex sims there is the click pit which again will do away with the need for a keyboard, let's stop this debate about what Oculus have to do to solve the keyboard issue, it's simple get a decent HOTAS.

 

P.s I forgot to include the mini joystick for 2 more assignable axis

Edited September 7, 2013 by DD_bongodriver

[JG27_Chivas]

I'll be able to easily map everything I need to my four piece Hota's, but that said the Oculus Rift development team are well aware of the issue, and will try to implement something that will alliaviate the problem.

[HagarTheHorrible]

High resolution and high frame rates don't go very well together.  Sixty has been suggested as an ideal minimum.

 

I was idly wondering if it would be possible to have a dual layer screen ?

 

The first layer is high resolution while the second, sandwiched onto the first, is of a lower resolution.

 

The high res screen only renders what is required in high def, such as instruments, contacts etc, while the second, lower res screen fills in the background picture.

 

Does it sound like a sensible thought for trying to square the circle ?

Edited September 12, 2013 by HagarTheHorrible

[RAF74_Winger]

High resolution and high frame rates don't go very well together.

 

I may have misunderstood the quote, and I forget now where it comes from, but IIRC correctly the graphics card won't have to render all of the pixels on the screen: the scene is rendered for one eye, then a transformation is applied to that image for the other eye. Not sure how occlusion is handled with that process, but if it works as I understand it the load on the graphics card won't be as great as it would be for rendering a whole image at the full screen resolution.

 

If I'm not correct, can someone explain where I'm going wrong?

 

W.

[No601_Swallow]

for BoS  the level of CEM and system management will be light enough to map everything to a HOTAS in all probability ... it's simple get a decent HOTAS.

 

 

It's trickier if you're a left-hander in this dextro-fascist world...