Be Excellent To Each Other

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Grey Thursday.

Probably not anyway, they've just been released.

I guess we'll find out tomorrow

Bah, the HP one is down to £300 on Amazon. Never mind, it's probably sold out anyway.

Either way, mine has been delivered!!

Ask them to refund the difference. After all, you could return it under the distance selling act and rebuy at the lower price.

https://www.groovypost.com/howto/reques ... ge-refund/

I bought the Lenovo through Curry's though. Which hasn't changed in price.

Currys?! Oh. Well, if you're just gonna jam the fork right into your eye and wriggle it around, there's not much we can do to help

We could push on the fork.

I like pain.

"Hello is that Currys?"

It's good! More details later.

So first impressions.

The inside out tracking works really, really well. I didn't notice any difference between it and Dave's Vive. I managed to get to the extent of the cable (4m) just strolling around and it works great.

The controllers do lose tracking, but the have to be pretty far outside your fov for it to happen. The controllers themselves are a little bit slick and weirdly, light. Fully mapped to Steam VR stuff though, with proper models and everything.

The image is crisp and clear, with one problem: the sweet spot is quite small. Looking down with your eyes instead of your head shows a bit of blur. Otherwise though, much less screen dooring than the vive, and a lighter helmet overall.

I haven't done any gaming yet as I've only had one evening at it and Google earth VR took up most of that. Stomping around new York at skyscraper eye level was superb!

I had a longer go last night (until 1am on school night, naughty) and got a bit of gaming in on Space Pirate Trainer. Man, I forgot how intense that game is when you see laser blasts arrowing at your face. It looks really bloody nice in the WMR headset too. You can see where the extra pixels have gone over the vive with distant objects and smaller text.

One downside is the extra faff involved in launching Steam VR games, but being able to flip up the visor is a godsend. I reckon there'll be a windows store app along soon enough to launch Steam VR direct from the "Cliff House ®". I hope so, anyway. Yay, Windows!

Also annoying is The Lab from Valve refuses to launch for some reason. I get the initial room full of valves (which is strangely intimidating), but the game craps out at the first loading screen. As does the Steam VR tutorial.

I've stumped up for a few games (a golf game from the Windows Store and Job Simulator because I'm a masochist) and I've made a list of free stuff to get from Steam. I'm going to introduce the kids to it one evening this week, so I need something friendly and non-intimidating to show them. Arizona Sunshine is not that. Any recommendations?

Also, it turns out if I want to play Dirt Rally in VR, I'm going to have to involve the Occulus ecosystem at some point.

Could a kindly mod pull all of my WMR waffling into a separate thread please?

Doom VFR

This could just be the "PC VR thread." I don't think we need multiple threads for that.

I think the main point is to look down upon xbox one owners and their inability to VR it up. And that.

True. Could a nice mod change the title?

Extra res would be nice, but really I need a decent FOV increase to tempt me.

Oh and as I haven't mentioned it yet, Minecraft in VR made me sick as a dog. To the extent that I was still mildly dizzy the following morning. Might need to work up to free movement.

I definitely wouldn't go for a WMR set if you already have a rift or vive, but it's awesome to have a another option for buyers.

Cue Occulus and HTC announcing new, wireless, 4K sets in January

Assuming that WMR shares drivers with one of the others, otherwise it's yet another thing to code for (and will become obsolete as one of the others "wins").

The FOV is ok for racing isn't it? Kind of feels like peering out of a crash helmet.

From what I've seen, Steam has fully embraced it in the same way that it embraced Occulus. There are updated controller models and everything

My money is on WMR being the standard that prevails.

Interesting. Can you expand?

I hadn't even heard of WMR until DavPaz mentioned it in this thread. Still not sure what it does - I could search, but ...

Given the photos of food he keeps posting, I would say it’s inevitable.

It already has backing from Steam + Microsoft and has multiple OEMs behind it. It's immediately the standard to beat in terms of "building a VR ecosystem." Vive is tied into HTC's failing fortunes, and will probably die with it. Oculus is backed by deep pockets but ultimately can't have the same clout on the desktop as the company that literally makes the desktops.

Remember what happend to broad OpenGL adoption after DirectX shipped? WMR is the DirectX of VR. Watch for when Oculus ships some software update that makes it WMR-compatible (or does that already exist?) That's a key turning point.

Oh, bravo.

Yeah Davpaz, how about some pictures of the thing? I'm intrigued and no... I haven't googled it.

It's pretty boring to look at but...

Needs more googly eyes.

So do you not have the cameras set up around the room then?

I don’t know, a choke chain and some furry handcuffs and you’re good to go.

It doesn't use any, that's what "inside out tracking" means.

It uses voodoo and ketchup.

Not really. A crash helmet gives you more peripheral vision than these currently. I have to turn my head to look in the wing mirrors, rather than being able to glance for a split-second. It's why I haven't ditched the iRacing virtual mirror just yet.

Hey, the lab works tonight. That's good news.

I tried a rollercoaster sim. I wish I hadn't.

Just spent far too long dicking about in the Oculus First Contact thingy. I'm loving this.

Introduced the kids to the Technohat this evening, with a session in Job Simulator. The boy child needed zero instruction beyond locating the trigger and the girl was almost as quick to pick it up. I was astonished how easily they took to it. The adjustable headstrap on the Lenovo kept everything snug even on their tiny noggins.

Amazingly, Job Sim has a 'short person' mode. Very handy

In case you're allergic to the iRacing thread because it's even admittedly boring for me some days, here's a video I made of being a VR passenger during one of my replays.

It's a bit dark. Does the driver's head move when you move yours? It would be a nice touch if you could look at cars next to you on the grid and give them a little nod.

Yes, it's very dark. It won't be at all scary when the DPs charge up behind you, nosirree.

Not yet. They've only just implemented hand over hand animations for the steering. It used to lock at 90 degrees either side.

Tried Dirt Rally in VR last night in admittedly non-optimal circumstances (sat on the floor, keyboard controls, no sound). Fuck me, but that's convincingly immersive! I was doing Rally cross in the rain and just sat on the start line for a while taking it in (and trying to find the accelerator).

Once I was going, I had some mild motion sickness, but it helps you by not jostling the horizon too much when the car goes over bumps and the like. Slightly unrealistic, but better for my stomach.

8/10 would really again

If you want to experience proper motion sickness try the view where the camera is fixed relative to the interior of the car. That was when I first got my PSVR and I just had to rip the fucking thing off my head, turn everything off and crawl straight into bed.

Fine with it now, though. In fact nothing makes me queasy anymore.

Yep, you soon find your VR legs.

In your VR trousers.

I can't work out what you mean.

How else would an in-car camera work?

It locks the horizon so if the car tilts, your head doesn't. Well, not as violently as the car.