Oculus Rift

Genghiz Cohen

Life plans altered!

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/valve-s-virtual-reality-headset-blows-oculus-rift-away--1215666

Robert ninja

^ This is why I'm gonna wait it out. Companies are going VR mad and there's a slew of new monitors and monitor technology in really competitive areas (higher res, faster refresh rates, panel tech etc) but only time will tell who truly makes the best product. The thing is we don't have any standards set by graphics cards or games regarding VR unlike we do with monitors, cables, encryption (HDCP) and other things. And I'm sure none of these Occulus Rift games are even remotely compatible with any of the other new VR systems in development, but maybe new games that come out will be. Choosing your VR set could be just like choosing your monitor, a matter of preference that won't stop you from playing any type of game on them.

stevenmu

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Life plans altered!

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/valve-s-virtual-reality-headset-blows-oculus-rift-away--1215666

FWIW Valve have no plans to produce and release those, they're for their own internal research only.

Genghiz Cohen

Robert ninja wrote: »

^ This is why I'm gonna wait it out. Companies are going VR mad and there's a slew of new monitors and monitor technology in really competitive areas (higher res, faster refresh rates, panel tech etc) but only time will tell who truly makes the best product. The thing is we don't have any standards set by graphics cards or games regarding VR unlike we do with monitors, cables, encryption (HDCP) and other things. And I'm sure none of these Occulus Rift games are even remotely compatible with any of the other new VR systems in development, but maybe new games that come out will be. Choosing your VR set could be just like choosing your monitor, a matter of preference that won't stop you from playing any type of game on them.

I think Valve are laying down some rules for VR, fi they enforce them for Source then hopefully TitanFall will support them fully.

ScumLord

As much as I like the idea of VR taking off I'd be a bit upset to see some big company come along and pull the rug out from under Oculus after all the hard work they've done.

Fnz

ScumLord wrote: »

As much as I like the idea of VR taking off I'd be a bit upset to see some big company come along and pull the rug out from under Oculus after all the hard work they've done.

But... Valve is an indie developer.

Grimebox

ScumLord wrote: »

As much as I like the idea of VR taking off I'd be a bit upset to see some big company come along and pull the rug out from under Oculus after all the hard work they've done.

I think its inevitable. I've been waiting for Microsoft, Sony and Valve to unveil their own incarnations

Myrddin

stevenmu wrote: »

FWIW Valve have no plans to produce and release those, they're for their own internal research only.

It has to be being developed to analyse its viability as a product though, otherwise, what would be the point? I'd say it'll happen at some stage...that all the big hitters will release their own incarnations of vr headsets

ScumLord

Grimebox wrote: »

I think its inevitable. I've been waiting for Microsoft, Sony and Valve to unveil their own incarnations

I suppose they can just wait to see how Oculus get on and then steal their thunder.

The other problem may be that Sony and Microsoft wouldn't bother making one for the PC market and the consoles may have difficulty running the hardware if they hadn't prepared for it when designing the consoles.

lmimmfn

Lets be clear on the Valve headset( cos i want one too lol, but..... ), its rumored to cost around $20K and one that they heavily modified themselves, same FOV as the rift, doesnt have protective plastic( i.e. circuit boards etc. ). For positional tracking its using camera's mounted on the HMD( which makes it heavier ) which track symbols on the walls( theres an old engadget article which shows pix on the walls of shapes which the camera can track ).

The intention of the valve HMD is to show where consumer level VR will be in just a few years. Theres no way consumers would stick stickers of shapes on their walls to support a HMD's headtracking so thats not really a viable solution for the home( i would do it but im sure most wouldnt )

I dont think Sony/Microsoft or anyone else in the next year or 2 will be able to do much better than Oculus if theyre going for the same price point and similar or better specs, but the more competition the better.

Skerries

I'll definitely hold on till the consumer OR and that will be the standard for at least 2-3 years until the big boys have bandwagoned

Duggy747

Yea, I'm going to go with the Rift when it's eventually released considering the amount of time developers have had with it and what the team themselves envision for it. Plus, considering how much I like it in it's dev kit form I can well imagine how fantastic the end product will be.

While the bigwigs are chiming in with their own products, I don't think any are actually near the relatively lower price the Rift is aiming for which is in or around the €300 mark.

McSasquatch

So Valve's tech is amazing, but won't be released anytime soon. Instead they're going to work with Oculus in pushing VR forward?

lmimmfn

McSasquatch wrote: »

So Valve's tech is amazing, but won't be released anytime soon. Instead they're going to work with Oculus in pushing VR forward?

yep, it wont be released ever by the looks of things but they've said that all along that they have no interested in bringing VR HMD's to market and they have a good relationship with Oculus so it would get kinda messy.

stevenmu

Myrddin wrote: »

It has to be being developed to analyse its viability as a product though, otherwise, what would be the point? I'd say it'll happen at some stage...that all the big hitters will release their own incarnations of vr headsets

I'm guessing that they're primarily interested in developing VR games, and they have developed the prototype hardware just to let them do that.

Myrddin

stevenmu wrote: »

I'm guessing that they're primarily interested in developing VR games, and they have developed the prototype hardware just to let them do that.

True, though if you were going to develop games for VR systems like the rift, why not just use that? Rather than dumping money into r&d for a device which would never be used?

ScumLord

Duggy747 wrote: »

While the bigwigs are chiming in with their own products, I don't think any are actually near the relatively lower price the Rift is aiming for which is in or around the €300 mark.

I still can't believe that price.

Myrddin wrote: »

True, though if you were going to develop games for VR systems like the rift, why not just use that? Rather than dumping money into r&d for a device which would never be used?

Maybe because the rift is still in development and could change at any time it might be easier (and more cost effective in the long run) to use something that may be closer to the finished rift or that doesn't have restrictions so they can test their theories and work it back for the rift.

stevenmu

Myrddin wrote: »

True, though if you were going to develop games for VR systems like the rift, why not just use that? Rather than dumping money into r&d for a device which would never be used?

Again I;m just guessing, but I think they would want control over the hardware so they could develop according to what feel consumer VR should be. While the rift is amazing by all accounts (still haven't tried it myself yet), it's still far behind what a perfect consumer device should be.

By building their own prototype devices, they aren't constrained by what Oculus have on offer at the moment, they can easily alter their device themselves to see the effect of different resolutions, different levels of head tracking or latency timings etc. And they can develop the games to work with the levels that consumer devices are estimated to be at in a year or two rather than where they are now.

lmimmfn

Myrddin wrote: »

True, though if you were going to develop games for VR systems like the rift, why not just use that? Rather than dumping money into r&d for a device which would never be used?

Youre missing the big Valve picture, it was never about VR and still isint. Valve are in a unique position of being the platform on PC competing with Sony/M$ and their platforms.

Valve has a very unhealthy dependency on M$ windows which theyre trying to rectify. If we look back on valves history to push Steam they forced HL2 gamers to use steam, which resulted in a huge gaming/marketplace on PC and pretty much the standard on PC.

Theyre only pushing Steam Machines to try and get devs moving away from Windows, VR is the perfect instigator of this move and hence the investment. Theyve no interest in VR tech other than trying to become the defacto gaming platform on PC sans windows and potentially skyrocketing userbase with VR.

ScumLord

lmimmfn wrote: »

Valve has a very unhealthy dependency on M$ windows which theyre trying to rectify.

I don't see how it could be considered an unhealthy relationship, Microsoft have created a market place with billions of computers that's open to anyone that wants to make programs for it. Valve can take advantage of that marketplace Microsoft's OS inherently allows.

Going out on their own is risky, most people aren't going to take the risk on something that might do what they want when they know Microsoft can do what they want.

If we look back on valves history to push Steam they forced HL2 gamers to use steam, which resulted in a huge gaming/marketplace on PC and pretty much the standard on PC.

I still have sour grapes over that too. I have a copy of half life 2 on my shelf that I can't use, I gave up trying to get through to steam at the time. The service is great and I'm completely converted now but I avoided it like the plague for years and wouldn't buy valve games.

Windows is a great operating system, it's had it's ups and downs but I still think it's the best all round solution.

Baked.noodle

ScumLord wrote: »

I don't see how it could be considered an unhealthy relationship, Microsoft have created a market place with billions of computers that's open to anyone that wants to make programs for it. Valve can take advantage of that marketplace Microsoft's OS inherently allows.

Going out on their own is risky, most people aren't going to take the risk on something that might do what they want when they know Microsoft can do what they want.


I still have sour grapes over that too. I have a copy of half life 2 on my shelf that I can't use, I gave up trying to get through to steam at the time. The service is great and I'm completely converted now but I avoided it like the plague for years and wouldn't buy valve games.

Windows is a great operating system, it's had it's ups and downs but I still think it's the best all round solution.

Things are changing nevertheless. People can do things much cheaper if they go open source. One example is Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council in the UK. They reckon they save approximately £94,000 a year, more than £1 million since 1999.

EDIT: Another interesting example is LiMux by the city council of Munich. In November 23, 2012 a report shows that the savings brought in using LiMux environment are over 10 million euros.

I had no end of grief with Steam when trying to play Half Life 2. I had no internet connection, and getting it to work in off-line mode had me pulling my hair out.

ScumLord

Baked.noodle wrote: »

Things are changing nevertheless. People can do things much cheaper if they go open source. One example is Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council in the UK. They reckon they save approximately £94,000 a year, more than £1 million since 1999.

EDIT: Another interesting example is LiMux by the city council of Munich. In November 23, 2012 a report shows that the savings brought in using LiMux environment are over 10 million euros.

There's a big difference between implementing a large scale bespoke computer network for a council or multinational that has specific needs and fears. Systems like linux make sense there because they can tailor it to the needs of the client.

For the consumer market and even small to medium sized companies Windows still makes much more sense.

Baked.noodle

I agree. I was just pointing out that things are evolving slowly but surly. If Metro is anything to go by, Microsoft are obviously trying to reinvent themselves because they see the danger ahead, whether it be mobile, PC etc. But even Microsoft with all its experience and might makes critical mistakes. Nobody in there right mind would use Metro in a serious business environment, and their mobile OS is an ugly mess. I believe Microsoft approached Munich city council to offer them a better deal and were turned away. I'm sure in the long run open source is the way to go in the third world, and Asia and China. It may never happen, but I'm looking forward to a time when software works on whatever hardware and OS I choose to run, I'll just pay for the level of support I require (and the programs).

Genghiz Cohen

ScumLord wrote: »

Windows is a great operating system, it's had it's ups and downs but I still think it's the best all round solution.

I agree with this, but SteamOS isn't designed to be an all round system. It's for the living room with a focus on games and media, in that order.

Baked.noodle

http://www.bluesnews.com/s/148327/michael-abrash_s-vr-talk-slides

Valve's Michael Abrash has posted the slides from his Steam Developers Day talk about Valve's work on bringing headset-based virtual reality to gaming (thanks IncGamers). Here's word:

It was a lot of fun talking at Steam Developer Days; the whole event was a blast, the virtual reality talks drew a large, enthusiastic crowd, and everyone I talked to had good questions and observations. Here are the slides from my talk, in PDF form. They include the text of the talk as the per-slide notes; I don’t ad-lib when I give talks, so the notes match what I said almost exactly.

Here are some of my previous posts that discuss points from the talk in more detail.

Resolution
Latency
Global and rolling display
Smearing and other artifacts of eye motion relative to the display: this, this, and this

You may also find the slides from my Game Developers Conference talk in 2013 to be useful.

Joe Ludwig’s slides from his talk about Steam VR are here, and related links can be found here, here, and here

As I said at the end of my talk, I look forward to continuing the conversation with you in the comments!

Doge

Myrddin wrote: »

True, though if you were going to develop games for VR systems like the rift, why not just use that? Rather than dumping money into r&d for a device which would never be used?

Remember CastAR?

http://www.roadtovr.com/first-hands-on-with-castar-hd-prototype-ces-2014/
(The vid looks amazing btw)

This was originally being developed at Valve, until Jeri Ellsworth was fired along with a lot of others.

She gives a good bit of insight into the problems she had while working at valve in this interview:

http://youtu.be/zxRWW4CYLSI

Skip to 11 mins exactly.

Worth checking out, the interview is split into multiple parts.

smithy1981

lmimmfn wrote: »

Lets be clear on the Valve headset( cos i want one too lol, but..... ), its rumored to cost around $20K and one that they heavily modified themselves, same FOV as the rift, doesnt have protective plastic( i.e. circuit boards etc. ). For positional tracking its using camera's mounted on the HMD( which makes it heavier ) which track symbols on the walls( theres an old engadget article which shows pix on the walls of shapes which the camera can track ).

The intention of the valve HMD is to show where consumer level VR will be in just a few years. Theres no way consumers would stick stickers of shapes on their walls to support a HMD's headtracking so thats not really a viable solution for the home( i would do it but im sure most wouldnt )

I dont think Sony/Microsoft or anyone else in the next year or 2 will be able to do much better than Oculus if theyre going for the same price point and similar or better specs, but the more competition the better.

palmerluckey 50 points 1 hour ago:
"CV1 will meet or exceed the quality of Valve's demo". :D:D

I wonder does mean a 2015 release??

lmimmfn

smithy1981 wrote: »

palmerluckey 50 points 1 hour ago:
"CV1 will meet or exceed the quality of Valve's demo". :D:D

I wonder does mean a 2015 release??

He didnt really say that though, he said CV1 will exceed the baseline which Valve showed in its slides, but that baseline wasnt the spec of Valves HMD.

smithy1981

lmimmfn wrote: »

He didnt really say that though, he said CV1 will exceed the baseline which Valve showed in its slides, but that baseline wasnt the spec of Valves HMD.

Erm..... he did really say that, thats an exact quote :cool:

lmimmfn

smithy1981 wrote: »

Erm..... he did really say that, thats an exact quote :cool:

lol, well he changed his mind then i guess because if you look at Palmer Luckeys post history he posted:

Mentioned this in my talk at Steam Dev Days, hopefully it gets posted online soon.

I want to note that the Rift will not be designed for experiences that allow you to walk around a room like the SDD tech demo, but the specifications and quality will be above the baseline level Michael Abrash outlined in his talk. Valve's prototype hardware and software are very well integrated and calibrated, more so than the Crystal Cove demos we got together for CES, but the actual components are not all that different. All the pieces are there.

http://www.reddit.com/user/palmerluckey

Abrashes slides - http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/Abrash%20Dev%20Days%202014.pdf

He specifically avoided a direct comparison and Abrash's slides dont say that whats in the Feasible 2015 consumer HMD" is the specs of Valves headset
That thread is no longer accessible and if you click on it it takes you to the thread where he says "CV1 will meet or exceed the quality of Valve's demo."

So i dont know what went on there.