Oculus Rift - New immersive 3D VR Virtual Reality headset

I order one instead of investing in a three screen setup, which would have been quite expensive and really a bit silly with VR now so close. When the consumer version comes out and it is worth the change then I will just purchase it and hand the D2K to one of my sons/wife. I still think I will be in front or at least equal costs wise compared to a good three screen setup. I'm actually quite happy that a big investor has got on board, as it will focus the company and ensure a consumer product is actually developed.

@SeatTime : that makes sense as well. Eager to have your feedback

Hi @SeatTime ,
I realise you have to wait awhile until D2 kit is sent out, but please keep us informed of your progress with it when you get it.

Mike

Just my opinion but I think the multi millions they already raised (over 90 million) would be plenty enough to bring a product like this to the marketplace without Facebook’s money! But hell, take the money! It’s really about Facebook getting something to compete with against Microsoft, Sony, and others imo. And now Oculus has given control of it away! That’s not what they’re saying but time will tell if that’s the truth or not!

Here’s another short article on the Oculus timeline.

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/28/oculus-rift-from-2-4-million-kickstarter-to-2-billion-sale/

I'm thinking that Oculus would
continue developing Rift in the way they wanted, but Facebook would make them do another similar product to build alongside, maybe something like Google glasses for communication and stuff. That would be fair, if they don't put their hand in Rift development, just leave it for what its ment to be.

Are there any racing games compatible, would like to know before I would preorder.. I guess this would be the ultimate setup.. 2DOF seat and Oculus.. !!

From what I'm reading the ISR forums, the Assetto Corsa will have it compatible in the near future. Let's hope so.

That is a good game... hope it will be !!!
Speaking if games.. which one is the most popular?

It's already a selection in the setup menu, of course I have not been able to try it.

SeatTime,
That's great........may be an option "used by few" now, BUT if they get the Oculus to production, AND it will do what they're saying - "me" will be using the Rift in Assetto Corsa...

Thanks for the update.

Tom

I couldn't resist anymore after seeing IRacing vids with the Oculus.. So cool and IRacing has native support for the Oculus. Emerging fully into the racing seat.. So I've pre-ordered, with hopefully delivery in July.. At least I got some time to build me a decent 2dof rig

And like 'SeatTime' also mentioned.. or a 3 screen setup or the Oculus..

Hi Michael,
I'm real "happy" for you friend. Let us ALL know when you get it this summer... I want to go with the "released to market" version.
I "dallied" in 3D three or four years ago with the glasses and 3d monitor - nice effect, BUT, was not there yet - made me sick to my stomach after about 30 minutes - hard on the eyes also....
from all I can read, there's no problems like this with the "Rift".

Tom

@cthiggin Hey Tom, I was just curious what you were using for 3D, Nvidia or ATI? And what were you using for a monitor?

BlazinH,
How you doing friend??? Fine "me" hopes.....
I bought a 22" monitor, 3d - a special monitor with two glass fronts - and you wore a special pair of glasses - Iz3d IF memory serves me. It was good, but if you went to outside spot (FSX), your close up would be in focus, but 50 ft away, you would start seeing yellow/red banding - which was an out of focus situation - IF you adjusted for that, then your close-up would be screwed up......plus it made you sea-sick.....proprietary software / drivers............

After about a year, the monitor just fried???? - they wanted like 300.00 to fix it..........I "fixed" it real good in the trash can!!!

I've played around with the Nvidia 3d Drivers and the blue/red glassed (good pair) - but you just can't get the close up and far away in focus at the same time - the Nvidia gives you a darkening effect and the colors are washed out and dull........no matter what you do... So, I gave that crap up until "someone" gets it perfected and "guarantees it".

Hopefully, Rift will be a very good answer???

Tom

Thanks @cthiggin for satisfying my curiosity my friend! Well 3D can be finicky that is for sure! I can tell you how to get close to perfect 3D though but I don’t have any experience trying to do it with 60-year-old plus technology using the colored lens glasses. And I haven’t experimented with ATI’s 3D at all. However, Nvidia’s 3D vision with active shutter glasses will do the job quite well when using the right type of viewing equipment for most game titles. I say most game titles because while most all games made after around 2002 will work with 3D regardless if it was intended for 3D viewing or not, many of them have one quirk or the other. The reason most of them will work from 2002 on is because around this time the video cards started rendering graphics based on three dimensional data instead of two dimensional as more of the processing was being moved to the graphics card. So all the required data for true 3D rendering was already being used to render the 3 dimensional images in 2D on a regular display before 3D was even available! And with Nvidia’s technology you don’t need separate drivers for each title either since it uses already available data.

Now I haven’t used the newest lightboost monitors so I don’t know how well, or not, those work. But it’s true that when using shutter glasses the light passing thru is diminished since one of your eyes is always blocked when the other eye is active. But is can be somewhat overcome be increasing the contrast and brightness but at the cost of some color washout so you have to find a balance that works for best for you. The only type of monitor or projector that I have experience with though and could recommend uses DLP technology. This is the same technology used at the movie theaters for a reason. First, it doesn’t rely on leds turning on an off fast enough to not leave a trailing (ghost) image. Second, it is also fast enough to be still be rendered @ 60fps in full 1080p HD (120htz which = 60htz at each eye). Nvidia 3D vision has a special setting just for DLP use that allows this. Any other type of monitor, to my knowledge, uses what is known as Nvidia 3dtv Play and only renders 720p @ 24htz. 24htz may be fast enough to render 3d movies that aren’t just filled with action scenes, but it just doesn’t do the job for gaming imho. And rendering pc games in 720p is crap also. 3D is just like a motion simulator, if it’s not done correctly, you will get vertigo or motion sickness! May people don’t like DLP units because most use a lamp which is quite expensive and will burn out quickly. It also loses it brightness over time even before it burns out. However, while DLP television technology is now dead, the best monitor you can get (as use in my simulator and videos of it), and the last year it was manufactured, is a 2008 Samsung DLP set that utilizes LED technology. It uses 3 led arrays of red, green, and blue that emits a high intensity laser like light instead of using a bulb and is brighter and doesn’t diminish. Estimated life is 50,000 hours vs 1000 to 2000 for a bulb at avg of $100 each. If you want to have a real 3D experience before the Rift is a commercial reality, try to pick up one of these Samsung sets on Craigslist here in the USA. TIP: If you live in the Dallas, TX area your chances are great that you will be able to find one of these nearby. Since DLP technology is a Texas Instruments invention and both TI and Samsung are in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, the market there was saturated with them. There were also LED DLPS manufactured in years 2006 and 2007 but the 2008 model has the best tech before they were discontinued. The 2008 67" model I use retailed for $2500usd but you can now buy them for less than $500 on Craigslist.

Now some people will just be sensitive to the shutter glasses and while their eyes can’t actually see the switching of the glasses, they may become tired by it and also become nauseous! I don’t have any advise for you guys to remedy this!

Since you’re a flight sim guy Tom, FSX for example renders beautifully in 3D except for at night. At night the lights are not rendered in 3D and you will see two sets of runway lights for example. One set two the left, and one to the right, that converge in the distance. With proper rendering you would see one 3D line down the middle of the runway. But you can over come this by either just making your approach between the sets of lights, or make your eyes as cross eyed as possible. I don’t recommend the latter however! Lol. It greatly diminishes the experience for me though. Also Nvidia 3D vision allows you to adjust the depth of 3D so it will render correctly with different games. I only need two settings for all games. One is the normal setting and the other is 100% setting.

Well this turned into a book almost but hopefully this information will be of some use to some who take the time to read it.

WOW,
What information - NOT a book - just good information to have.
3D has always fascinated me - I didn't go the shutter glasses route as I read some negative info on them from several different sites lite - Tom's Hardware etc.
Again, and hopefully, the Rift will be the closest we will have gotten - sure hope so.
Thank you Tom

Well the good news is that it sounds like the Rift will require native support from game developers so they will fix any issues with 3D rendering I assume. The bad news is that is sounds like the Rift will require native support from game developers so you can only use it with supported games I assume!

Again, Nvidia 3D vision does a good job rendering 3D on almost any title made after 2001. The reason is was given bad reviews by Tom’s Hardware and others has more to do with the monitors at the time that were touted to work with it but were not there yet! Ghosting of the image and low light levels were the norm. That’s why they invented lightboost as a way to overcome the light issue. And newer monitors have faster leds too to reduce or eliminate ghosting (but still not as fast as DLP which is absolutely ghost free). But there is still the 24htz and 720p issue with non DLP monitors as far as I know unless they now have a special setting for lightboost etc.

The only issue with DLP and Nvidia 3D vision is that sometimes everything in the game is not programmed to use the GPU’s native 3D rendering. With FSX for example they choose to render lights at night using sprites instead (a predefined two-dimensional image) so there is no 3D information included with them. Therefore 3D vision can’t render them correctly. That is one reason I believe ATI went with individual drivers for each game so they could try to correct some of these issues with different games (but ATI still fails in may other ways imo). All of my racing titles are rendered in perfect 3D though except for the mirrors. My assumption is that this data is not rendered by the GPU using 3D data either. As I recall the only racing game I use that renders the mirrors perfectly as well as the rest is GT Legends. The mirrors in my other games are still usable however but they have some misplaced graphics and an odd rendering of some of the colors.

Now while the immersiveness of the Rift should be outstanding, I’m wondering about how immersive it will seem if you have to use a camera in order to see your keyboard, driving controls, etc. And I still enjoy some of the older game titles very much which the Rift will probably never work with! So for now at least I will stick with what is proven technology for me at least, Nvidia 3D vision with TrackIR5 and DLP! The mirror rendering issue is not intrusive so it doesn’t really affect my siming experience. And while the FSX light issue is very annoying, it is rendered perfectly in daytime lighting. Lockheed may have addressed this issue already also in Prepar3D.

BlazinH,
Continuing your great overview on 3D - "you da' man".
I do know LM Prepar3d 2.0 and up versions have/will have the Rift compatibility AND Assetto Corsca has it already........those are the primary two titles I use - along with RB Rally.
I use the Saitek x52 Pro and I know my toggles and buttons by memory and what they're mapped for - BUT I still need to use the mouse etc and see the keyboard - that's a biggie that
Rift is going to have to come up with an acceptable method to rectify - and I don't mean 3 extra cameras on your head or some "gizmo" that will "just get us by"...........been there, done that, and it's just
too late in the game (for me) to accept that..............you know, in my maturing years, and it's scary, I just don't accept much crap of any kind, any more.....
Let's at least hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Thanks for your continuing information bud.

Tom

One thing I think I would try is putting some type of sensors on each hand of a person so that when they move them, the corresponding actions are taken by the game rendered hands. It would have to be calibrated to each individuals setup but once completed you should be able to easily find your shifter or aircraft throttles etc. Maybe it could automatically turn on a camera when your hands are reaching for a keyboard too. Or this could just be another one of my half baked ideas also!