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Augmented & Virtual Reality Headsets

Discussion in 'Electronic and hardware generally' started by telfel, May 2, 2014.

  1. telfel

    telfel Active Member

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    Hi All

    Link to

    Review of Augmented & Virtual Reality Headsets on Toms Hardware

    http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/ar-vr-technology-discussion,review-32940.html

    regards Terry
    • Like Like x 2
  2. eaorobbie

    eaorobbie Well-Known Member SimTools Developer Gold Contributor

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    Its amazing to watch vr kits becoming a reality, 20 years ago we were just dreaming about them, never thought in my life time they would become a reality or as cheap as a dev kit is avail. I must get one, one day.
    Thanks.

    Ill put a question out there,

    How many members here are using them or plan too ?
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  3. ferslash

    ferslash Active Member

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    about a year a go i was willing to make one of this beautys, i got an old lcd, and i got some instructions to build it... but... now i see that the price of the actual "oculus riff" is almost the price of the piezes you need.

    i wonder how good would be the helmets the uses your cell phone... i mean... now you have a cellphone it should be cheaper.

    best regards

    fer
  4. AceOfSpies

    AceOfSpies Living the Dream!

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    I certainly plan on using the Oculus Rift when it is released commercially, for the immersion value and weight saving - no monitor on the sim to move. :thumbs
  5. telfel

    telfel Active Member

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    Hi
    @eaorobbie I have backed the castAR on kickstarter, hoping to be able to use it on my sim (if I ever get it finished) & with a 3D camera for FPV.

    @ferslash A while back I contacted the developer of the Dive, problem with the cell phone is the game runs on the phone, using the phones sensors, I was to told that there would be to much lag to use the phone as a screen for a PC.

    regards Terry
  6. Gilby

    Gilby New Member

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    Hi telfel, please let us know how's castAR going to be like when you get it. I am very keen about the design.
    • Agree Agree x 1
  7. SilentChill

    SilentChill Problem Maker

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    I have a Oculus Rift on pre order should arrive in a couple of weeks, can't wait just need to get a motion sim sorted
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  8. Scratch

    Scratch Active Member

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    I use Oculus Rift DK1, skipped DK2 but eagerly waiting commercial release. So excited about vr stuff.
    About a year and a half ago I thought the other day, what happened to the 90's vr stuff, why no-one is trying to revive consept with modern technology? Would be sooo cool to play modern games with VR headset! Googled, and oh my god, they actually are trying to bring vr back, this time for good! We are living exciting times.
    • Like Like x 1
  9. telfel

    telfel Active Member

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  10. RacingMat

    RacingMat Well-Known Member Gold Contributor

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    thanks @telfel: very interesting article!
    • Agree Agree x 2
  11. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    A recent Oculus Rift DK2 demo with the DCS F15...looking good!

    My DK2 order is still "awaiting inventory" :(

  12. Macka

    Macka Member

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    My DK2 arrived last week.....Was hoping it would be a good addon with Simtools and DCS...alas it needs a lot more work to be suitable for flight sims. The resolution just doesn't cut it for all but joyrides. Put the rift up for sale over at reddit tonite and will wait for my CastAR and hope it will be better suited to a flight sim. :(
  13. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    Personally I don't rate DCS as all that good a rift implementation, but that is based on the DK1 as my DK2 has still not arrived. Prepar3D is even worse with lots of glitches.

    Have you tried any other flight sim? Based on my DK1 setup I am expecting Wings Of Prey will be pretty good via the TrisDef drivers and can't wait to test it on the DK2.

    I guess it also depends on your expectation of developer tech. I came to sims because it was a fun way to explore and experiment with the rift, not the other way round. So I spend way more time messing with and optimising the rift than I do on serious sim time.
  14. Macka

    Macka Member

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    In DCS with the early DK2 SDk the implementation is good. The latency is poor as is the necessity to run at 75 fps. The 6DOF Tracking is great. Once the new 0.41 SDK is injected I think it will be quite good especially with direct to rift mode. Unfortunately getting 75 fps and essentially rendering two images is going to be a challenge for any computer to achieve successfully to get a smooth feel. If you turn down all settings in DCS to achieve this frame rate, you are back to a pre turn of the century quality flight sim as far as graphics quality go. Add the very poor resolution and its just not fun. Of course keeping in mind that this is a dev kit, then the mechanics are all falling into place and shows great potential.
    • Informative Informative x 1
  15. Tino

    Tino Member

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    Hi all, just got my DK2 last week.
    Tracking works great, but low resolution is a real deal breaker.
    It's really hard to see the road in the distance.
    I guess one solution would be to use different lenses which would distort the image even more and force much more pixels to the center of the screen.
    This way we could have higher resolution at least in the middle of the screen.

    P.S. tried LFS, DCS, Warthunder, but the best game for rift atm is Half Life 2 :)

    P.P.S. one of must do things is to super sample games, this means running games at 2560s1440 and then downsampling them on the gpu, this helps with the image quality although you have go have good gpu (I'm using GTX 670)
    http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=509076
    http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/2cnas5/supersampling_the_dk2_2560x1440_in_elite_dangerous/
  16. Macka

    Macka Member

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    I found HL2 to be somewhat disorienting as I couldn't get the aim and move together with the mouse only and look with head.....the aiming deadzone makes it to hard for me. Anyhow after finding DCS a bit dissapointing in its current state I tried P3D after Daniel Church knocked up a fix for DK2 acouple of days ago.....its not bad and far better than DCS at the moment. LINK HERE
  17. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    Looking good, did you have any issue with the frame rate?
  18. Macka

    Macka Member

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    If I set everything to low and comfortably 80-100fps on monitor and 75 in OR.....so started ramping up to med ...ie auto gen trees and Buildings, fps averaged 60. Tried a couple of more complex cockpits and stayed about 60ish and lowest dropped to 50. Which is ok for a flight sim as its not a first person twitch type game and the OR handles it ok. Am running an Intel ivybridge core i5 @ 4500mhz and 2x GTX 760s. SLI makes no difference in P3D at moment so was only running on one card. Been reading about some guys trying downsampling from higher resolutions and getting great results in other games......will try tomorrow unless someone buys the rift and I have to send it bye byes, lol.

    LOL...sorry Tino, just realised I linked to the same downsampling thread as yours...Doh!!!!
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2014
  19. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    That sounds way better than my P3D experience with the DK1, which has artifact and latency issues. I have had good results with downsampling with the DK1 and expect the DK2 would equally benefit.

    I am still waiting on my DK2 and am not at all impressed with Oculus business processes, which seem to be getting worse rather than better: https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=12161&start=1500#p178452
  20. Macka

    Macka Member

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    If you were charged, its on its way....just read 3 posts on reddit at 8pm Wed that they got shipping notification and they ordered on 24th. Now you will need to get someone to do a Simtools profile for Elite Dangerous....and get it :)
    Oh forgot to mention that instruments are much easier and clearer to read in P3d than DCS. Also the flying with Simtools and seat is quiet a realistic and very immersive feeling. Pulling a hard bank and yank turn, looking down at the dirt, in an F1-11C at 500kts at 1500ft through the Numinbah Valley Training range took me back to my RAAF days in the 80s :) :)
    • Like Like x 2