Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

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Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by Pingles »

On the last Anandtech podcast (PC hardware discussion podcast) they were wrapping up their CES coverage with a discussion of the upcoming PC hardware.

They lamented that there was nothing really driving PC hardware to reach new limits. Other than bumping up graphic detail in new game engines there's less and less incentive to create new, faster PCs.

One of the podcasters hoped that the Oculus Rift might be just what the industry needs to start pushing hardware to its lmits.

I agree. I think when folks get into the current game engines we will find the detail lacking when looking up close with the Rift. I think we are going to see people wanting more and more detail.

While I have grown lazy in my PC-building (I don't overclock any more) I am kind of excited about being driven to update my hardware more often.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by greenknight »

It could drive PC hardware sales. Next gen consoles are probably going to be a little underwhelming compared to current 600 dollar mid range/value pc builds. But they always have more than what a pc could offer at the beginning of the console cycle -- until now. Finally, a reason to stick to PC at the beginning of the console cycle. I never really played very much on consoles when I was younger, and still don't. I guess I am done with them, until VR is adopted by the consoles.

I believe the hardware requirements make widespread adoption harder, since consoles are not likely to use it when they come out. But, that could lead to more people migrating to PC -- which is great. Recently, AMD anounced they won't be releasing the HD 8000 series parts, or at least refused to comment on its release. In essence, yes, the oculus will drive pc sales, but sadly is too expensive to really make a huge impact. There are millions that would rather spend their cash on a cheap console.


I guess the main question is how much more upgrading and sales need to be made to count as 'driving sales'? Its really hard to know without the right data, which is hard to come by.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by TheHolyChicken »

A person who owns the Rift I'm sure would be strongly incentivised to improve their hardware so that it can cope. We've been told that high framerates are crucial for the experience, and we know that stereo rendering is (computationally) expensive. The real question we're talking about here is whether or not the Rift will take off enough to really make an impact in the market.

Perhaps this is just a crazy VR nut talking, but I actually think there's potential for a huge swing in the market towards the PC. To sum it up, the new consoles are coming soon, their hardware is suspected not to be too exciting, and their hardware is fixed until the next generation of consoles. That's a long time (current gen consoles lasted 8 years!). We'll know more relatively soon, but I have no doubt whatsoever that they're not going to have the horsepower required to push a modern game at 60FPS minimum, in stereo, with the fidelity people are used to.

If the Oculus Rift takes off, and the experience is really fantastic and it gets lots of attention from devs, the PC is going to be the most exciting place for gaming by a long way and for a long time. The console market will be unable to do anything but look on with envy, and that will be right after launch, when they are supposed to be at their strongest! If Sony/Microsoft do muster up compatibility with their consoles, they're so slow moving it'll be years before it actually happens. Several years where the PC has amazing gaming that makes a complete mockery of what the consoles can offer? I think the potential for change is huge.

EDIT: to expand this a little... the main reason I would love the market to swing away from current consoles is not because I'm a PC fanatic/white knight, but because the closed platforms and extremely difficult/expensive barrier for entry on consoles stifles creativity and is a bad thing. Consoles like Ouya, or the steambox, on the other hand, are to be welcomed.
Last edited by TheHolyChicken on Mon Feb 11, 2013 1:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by cerulianbaloo »

@greenknight, I can't help but wonder what Sony has up their sleeves for their next system. Maybe I'm just projecting but that one tweet from Shuhei Yoshida where he says "I say Oculus you say ____" has me wondering if they're pursuing a similar path with the new system. As much as they've been pumping the 3d angle lately I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted to use a more game-centric iteration of the HMZ. Also when you look at the Move and how good its been for DIYers for VR testing, I can't help but think it could be all part of some larger plan of Sony's to integrate all these technologies together. Or Yoshida could just be excited for the Oculus tech as an outsider, who knows.

Although the next-gen console specs are mid-range equivalent, I'd expect to see some pretty impressive games nonetheless. That they don't have to work with background processes or a memory hogging OS leaves them plenty of room for excellent optimization on a game-by-game basis. They may not be able to do VR required performance unless they scale down detail/resolution (I think they did this for the 3d enabled titles on PS3) but I think we could be surprised at what they'll be able to accomplish. Maybe I don't have the right pair of eyes but for me some of the work being done on Kojima's new Fox Engine looks damn impressive, and of course now I'm thinking of all the MGS VR training simulations in the Rift :D
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by Kajos »

I hope they think about making it possible for hobbyists to develop for the new consoles, like Ouya. Given that the hardware might be cheaper (as stated above; little performance jump), I hope they consider this. It would make me buy the given console immediately! (Rift support would also be an option then)
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by MrGreen »

No doubt in my mind that Sony has plans for VR. I'd even bet they will announce it at their "See the future" event on Feb. 20th.

A leak MS document (from 2010 I believe) also mentioned VR...

Our boys will probably have known competition even before we receive our dev kits.

Of course, there are obviously a lot of PC white knights here that would love to see consoles disappear into oblivion, but considering the PC has pretty much only seen consoles ports for the better part of the last decade, I'd say that console adoption is crucial for the future of VR. I'm not saying VR can't happen without it, but it would probably remain a niche market with tacked on support from big publishers, if any.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

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TheHolyChicken wrote:A person who owns the Rift I'm sure would be strongly incentivised to improve their hardware so that it can cope. We've been told that high framerates are crucial for the experience, and we know that stereo rendering is (computationally) expensive. The real question we're talking about here is whether or not the Rift will take off enough to really make an impact in the market.


If the Oculus Rift takes off, and the experience is really fantastic and it gets lots of attention from devs, the PC is going to be the most exciting place for gaming by a long way and for a long time. The console market will be unable to do anything but look on with envy, and that will be right after launch, when they are supposed to be at their strongest! If Sony/Microsoft do muster up compatibility with their consoles, .
Actually it seems that one of the president's of Sony is interested in oculus according to a tweet he made a while back. If The next gen ps4 was released with support for the oculus rift, this would create a big fight for PC. Sony PlayStation would not get big right away but they can put console into peoples hands faster then alienware and anyone else. And last time I checked it looks like they are going to have a system out first this time around.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by Oneironaut »

Even if the next consoles are gonna be relatively weak compared to previous gens (they will), that doesn't mean that their introduction won't push PC hardware. For at least three reasons:

1. The bar for acceptable graphical fidelity will be raised by a factor of 5x to 10x. This means that PC makers won't have to cater to the lowest common denominator of the ancient hardware inside PS3 and the 360. No more legacy ports.

2. Consoles are closed systems with many efficiencies that PCs do not share, and those efficiencies can be explicitly leveraged. PS4 is rumoured to allow the devs to code directly onto the metal. Also, there's about 500 GFLOPS worth of compute on the CPU that's even faster than the upcoming Haswell chip from Intel. The specs will, "in effect", be comparable to much higher spec'ed PCs.

3. Even when there will soon be a PC GPU that's 10 times faster, "effectively 3-5 times faster", it will actually have something to chew on thanks to the consoles. If a game runs @ 720p 30fps on the consoles, which many assume will be the case for most next-gen games, pumping that up to 1080p 60fps alone will take a factor of 4x perf. Add all kinds of effects and you'll soon find yourself hungry for ever more POWAH.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

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MrGreen wrote:No doubt in my mind that Sony has plans for VR. I'd even bet they will announce it at their "See the future" event on Feb. 20th.
A leak MS document (from 2010 I believe) also mentioned VR...
Our boys will probably have known competition even before we receive our dev kits.
A little off topic, but to add to your post: Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata has just hinted a suspicious declaration about Nintendo intending to release another platform, a "third pillar" to their hardware lineup along the 3DS and the WiiU, I wouldn't say VR is far fetched considering the WiiU can stream HDMI video to it's tablet controller, it might as well do it to a HMD.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by MrGreen »

Omarzuqo wrote:
MrGreen wrote:No doubt in my mind that Sony has plans for VR. I'd even bet they will announce it at their "See the future" event on Feb. 20th.
A leak MS document (from 2010 I believe) also mentioned VR...
Our boys will probably have known competition even before we receive our dev kits.
A little off topic, but to add to your post: Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata has just hinted a suspicious declaration about Nintendo intending to release another platform, a "third pillar" to their hardware lineup along the 3DS and the WiiU, I wouldn't say VR is far fetched considering the WiiU can stream HDMI video to it's tablet controller, it might as well do it to a HMD.
Really? :shock:

Source?
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by cerulianbaloo »

@Oneironaut, I'm skeptical of the power as well, but after reading the following quote from someone with a Durango dev kit, maybe not,

"Our source even claims to have played some Durango games, describing the graphical leap from current-gen console gaming like going from playing Halo 2 on an original Xbox to playing Crysis on a powerful PC."

http://kotaku.com/5982986/we-know-all-a ... ve-got-one

Could be some MS PR plant, but I heard similar rumors when doing some testing over at MS a couple years ago. I'm wondering if we'll be able to see something like the Unreal tech demo Samaritan running on them. I'm not one for platforms wars, but if it spurs hardware and software innovation for PC then I say bring it on.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

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This is actually something I thought the other day. If the rift takes off like I am guessing, it's going to really cause a sea of investment in new PC hardware. I currently have dual overclocked GTX 280s in my main rig and they are starting to show their age. I will definitely be buying new hardware for the Oculus, and I haven't been able to justify that purchase until I heard about the Oculus. directx 11 effects weren't enough for me to upgrade, but this is definitely a good reason. If gaming goes the way of Onlive (which I really think it will within the next decade), that could mean some tough business in the future for companies like Nvidia and AMD. VR however with it's necessity for ultra low latency will keep alive the need to have serious hardware at home. I think there is a logical reason to push VR even beyond the short term for these GPU makers.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by Oneironaut »

@cerulianbaloo

Oh, I completely agree. Certainly there will be a nice graphical leap. I was talking in terms of jumps in raw processing power from the previous generations and the consoles being bleeding edge, or even exceeding the PCs of their time due to proprietary technologies.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

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Omarzuqo wrote:
MrGreen wrote:No doubt in my mind that Sony has plans for VR. I'd even bet they will announce it at their "See the future" event on Feb. 20th.
A leak MS document (from 2010 I believe) also mentioned VR...
Our boys will probably have known competition even before we receive our dev kits.
A little off topic, but to add to your post: Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata has just hinted a suspicious declaration about Nintendo intending to release another platform, a "third pillar" to their hardware lineup along the 3DS and the WiiU, I wouldn't say VR is far fetched considering the WiiU can stream HDMI video to it's tablet controller, it might as well do it to a HMD.

Yes! This is exactly what I thought when I heard all the specs for the WiiU. Originally they said the system can beam ultra low latency video to two tablets but only 1 tablet at first will be supported. It sends low-latency video, and audio, and can handle dual video, and can do positional and rotational movement with the sensors. And the console is titled WiiU, and they talked extensively about the percentage of players that use the console for just one person. All of those things to me sounded like VR, and I would guess a 3rd pillar would be a major addon for the WiiU (a VR headset). I think VR is going to be in the mainstream market even beyond the Oculus very soon
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by Omarzuqo »

MrGreen wrote:
Omarzuqo wrote:
MrGreen wrote:No doubt in my mind that Sony has plans for VR. I'd even bet they will announce it at their "See the future" event on Feb. 20th.
A leak MS document (from 2010 I believe) also mentioned VR...
Our boys will probably have known competition even before we receive our dev kits.
A little off topic, but to add to your post: Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata has just hinted a suspicious declaration about Nintendo intending to release another platform, a "third pillar" to their hardware lineup along the 3DS and the WiiU, I wouldn't say VR is far fetched considering the WiiU can stream HDMI video to it's tablet controller, it might as well do it to a HMD.
Really? :shock:
Source?
Oh, yeah, I forgot:

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/0 ... the_future
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by MrGreen »

cerulianbaloo wrote:@Oneironaut, I'm skeptical of the power as well, but after reading the following quote from someone with a Durango dev kit, maybe not,

"Our source even claims to have played some Durango games, describing the graphical leap from current-gen console gaming like going from playing Halo 2 on an original Xbox to playing Crysis on a powerful PC."

http://kotaku.com/5982986/we-know-all-a ... ve-got-one

Could be some MS PR plant, but I heard similar rumors when doing some testing over at MS a couple years ago. I'm wondering if we'll be able to see something like the Unreal tech demo Samaritan running on them. I'm not one for platforms wars, but if it spurs hardware and software innovation for PC then I say bring it on.
I'd take that info with a truckload of salt cerulianbaloo. For starters, it's Kotaku and according to people on NeoGAF, they've been trolled.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

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Well I do know when both XBOX'S were released and all of the Playstations..NONE of them beat out the pc...ever. In fact I have a nice little tech magazine that's stashed away somewhere that has and article comparing every game console to its PC counterpart in price for the past 25 years. If I find the article I will post scans!

For real...doesn't anyone remember playing Half-Life and Quake 2 when Goldeneye for n64 was getting popular? I used to think it was funny that everyone liked that game...It was even funnier showing them counter strike for the first time...and then watching the addiction set it...
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by Oneironaut »

Regarding the Iwata quote, he wasn't specifically saying that there will be a third pillar (which, as a funny anecdote, the DS used to be referred to as such in the times of the GBA in case it would fail), but that Nintendo will unify console and portable development under one roof. That probably means common APIs and tools, transferable assets, and such.

In due time, this development COULD lead to a unified console, but for the time being Nintendo are still planning on successors for both the Wii U and the 3DS.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by PasticheDonkey »

i do hope the console are good enough and allow support. sony have allowed mice, keyboards, steering wheels and push 3D on PS3. it'll be nice to have games built around direct x 11.1 level effects rather than just tacking them on to stuff designed to run on DX9. consoles are always going to give the best bang for buck because of economies of scale. and i really don't want to download 50 gigabyte games over my internet connection. really i've only found PC gaming economically and significantly better at reasonable cost in the past year or 2 just cos the console generation has gone on so long. to get a pci 3 card i'd need to get a new motherboard and then that would maybe need a new processor, oh and a new PSU and you end up basically buying a whole new system to upgrade.
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squibbfire wrote:Well I do know when both XBOX'S were released and all of the Playstations..NONE of them beat out the pc...ever. In fact I have a nice little tech magazine that's stashed away somewhere that has and article comparing every game console to its PC counterpart in price for the past 25 years. If I find the article I will post scans!

For real...doesn't anyone remember playing Half-Life and Quake 2 when Goldeneye for n64 was getting popular? I used to think it was funny that everyone liked that game...It was even funnier showing them counter strike for the first time...and then watching the addiction set it...
well i would be somewhat interested. way i see it is that hardware scrolling gave the advantage to consoles and the atari and amigas until pcs got powerful enough to run doom. previously there were the better lucasarts point and click games. but those where again to the end of the gen to get the advantage. so pcs continued with fps being the only thing better. while the playstation and saturn were basically year old arcade boards with less memory. putting out arcade ports that the pc couldn't handle until 3D accelerators overtook them. and nowadays the pc only has an advantage from the start if you pay neogeo prices for high watt parts.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

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I'm pretty sure that the Emotion Engine on the PS2 could do some advanced stuff for its day that the PCs could not match for a while. Then again, might have been all that hype about launching ballistic missiles. :roll:
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Oneironaut wrote:I'm pretty sure that the Emotion Engine on the PS2 could do some advanced stuff for its day that the PCs could not match for a while. Then again, might have been all that hype about launching ballistic missiles. :roll:
seriously i need to find a nice resource to check the second wave games on a console against the best of PC at the time. with the performance you could actually get from the available hardware.

but even today the consoles do effects you'd never get on pc with the graphics cards around on release through an api.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by phort99 »

Remember when the DS was first announced? Nintendo originally said that it was a third pillar alongside the Game Boy line and the Gamecube. It may just be Nintendo wants to try a different portable console, moving away from the dual-screen setup.

Heck, maybe it is VR. Maybe it's a follow-up to the Virtual Boy! :mrgreen:
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

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consoles are always going to give the best bang for buck because of economies of scale
Not anymore, Android graphics:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G_jClt992I[/youtube]

Super Android (ouya box)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq83J1NIqQ8[/youtube]


Consoles are going to have to become full-body VR devices or emit holograms to stay competitive.
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Post by PasticheDonkey »

Direlight wrote:
consoles are always going to give the best bang for buck because of economies of scale
Not anymore, Android graphics:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G_jClt992I[/youtube]

Super Android (ouya box)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq83J1NIqQ8[/youtube]


Consoles are going to have to become full-body VR devices or emit holograms to stay competitive.
ps vita's got them beat for a year at least. they are easily comparable cos they use a lot of the same tech but the vita gets programming to the metal and production cost advantage.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by Direlight »

Ouya is a TV box, and it's supposed to be $100 dollars (unless they change it). Stereo 3d version coming also.

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/49764/3 ... o-confirms

PS Vita is $200-270 and I'm betting it has more expensive games. Bang for your buck.

Better video

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBl-goBrWno[/youtube]
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

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let me know how much a vita costs compared to a ouya when one can actually put out better graphics. the only saving they'll get is on not having a screen. cos otherwise sony could do everything cheaper or have priced things presuming they could do it cheaper, or regaining money when it's selling while not actually as powerful any more.
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cerulianbaloo wrote:@greenknight, I can't help but wonder what Sony has up their sleeves for their next system. Maybe I'm just projecting but that one tweet from Shuhei Yoshida where he says "I say Oculus you say ____" has me wondering if they're pursuing a similar path with the new system. As much as they've been pumping the 3d angle lately I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted to use a more game-centric iteration of the HMZ. Also when you look at the Move and how good its been for DIYers for VR testing, I can't help but think it could be all part of some larger plan of Sony's to integrate all these technologies together. Or Yoshida could just be excited for the Oculus tech as an outsider, who knows.

It comes from the Verge after hours CES show, where the three of them where chanting "I say Oculus...you say: Rift!", as a back and forth sing-song wordplay.

That may be the simplest explanation. It was also the most revealing and interesting public discussion, so far. they spoke on the Rift for a good 25 minutes.
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squibbfire wrote:Well I do know when both XBOX'S were released and all of the Playstations..NONE of them beat out the pc...ever. In fact I have a nice little tech magazine that's stashed away somewhere that has and article comparing every game console to its PC counterpart in price for the past 25 years. If I find the article I will post scans!

For real...doesn't anyone remember playing Half-Life and Quake 2 when Goldeneye for n64 was getting popular? I used to think it was funny that everyone liked that game...It was even funnier showing them counter strike for the first time...and then watching the addiction set it...

It used to be that for every engine release, it was an ~ $1200 PC upgrade. The average being 1/3rd of the cash spent was for the graphics card. Even back when I was doing it with the original ATI VGA Wonder, it was like that.

After a dozen or so of those, I gave up.

What is an N64? Never went near that stuff. My first console was the intellivision, with the intellivoice module.

After that, it was PC all the way. Never looked at another console again. (from 1980-82 onward)
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by PasticheDonkey »

most likely best case scenario is some of their first parties support the rift. worst case is they support their over priced HMZ-Tx only
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by Direlight »

I like big screens, nvidia 3d monitors (or 3d projector), lower price and potential Rift support. I'm sorry you don't like that. I checked the hardware, they're very similar and seem to be competitive with each other.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by PasticheDonkey »

Direlight wrote:I like big screens, nvidia 3d monitors, lower price and potential Rift support. I'm sorry you don't like that. I checked the hardware, they're very similar and seem to be competitive with each other.
from where this conversation started this illustrates how things where when it came to PCs verses console performance. equivalent hardware doesn't get equivalent results when software has to be forwards compatible. in a year ouya will be better. vita will be cheaper, perhaps not as cheap as the ouya. but that'll be half a gen with the console analogous ahead of the pc analogous.

also when it come to ouya i don't see the point of running android stuff rather than pc stuff on the big screen at the moment.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

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PasticheDonkey wrote:
squibbfire wrote:
well i would be somewhat interested. way i see it is that hardware scrolling gave the advantage to consoles and the atari and amigas until pcs got powerful enough to run doom. previously there were the better lucasarts point and click games. but those where again to the end of the gen to get the advantage. so pcs continued with fps being the only thing better. while the playstation and saturn were basically year old arcade boards with less memory. putting out arcade ports that the pc couldn't handle until 3D accelerators overtook them. and nowadays the pc only has an advantage from the start if you pay neogeo prices for high watt parts.
I wouldnt say that. look at quake 1 in 1996 you could buy a 600 dollar computer and play quake and others games which was way beyond anything out there...if you didnt get a computer you got a n64 which was the upgrade from snes...well that system was ok at best....never awesome. Now...after you get the magic top 5 games at 50 bucks a pop for n64 which itself costs around 200 to 300 depending on the bundle...you also start to notice there is a new player in town...the playstation which seems to have a new game being release for it ever freaking week!...sooo 200 bucks for that but oh wait...their games are about 50 60 bucks each! dont forget that extra controller to replace the one you broke...boom another 60 bucks. After its said and done with...you spend maybe 500 for consoles another 100 for controllers and other stuff. Hundreds more on subquality games and on top of that...you still need a computer to type papers for school. There wasnt any negeo price on gamingf computers...its was a bargain. A one stop shop for cutting edge games.

Thats when consoles were less then 300 bucks a pop...and games werent 70. Consoles have always been and still are extremely expensive for low qualtiy. IF you sit down and list bestselling console by the year and look at the computer hardware out at the time...you could almost kick yourself for ever dropping money on a console. Now I did own a PS2 and loved many games for it..but usually they were the ones that were only available on the console..everything else seemed dated the day it came out.

Consoles are only one thing...easy.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by PasticheDonkey »

squibbfire wrote:
PasticheDonkey wrote:
squibbfire wrote:
well i would be somewhat interested. way i see it is that hardware scrolling gave the advantage to consoles and the atari and amigas until pcs got powerful enough to run doom. previously there were the better lucasarts point and click games. but those where again to the end of the gen to get the advantage. so pcs continued with fps being the only thing better. while the playstation and saturn were basically year old arcade boards with less memory. putting out arcade ports that the pc couldn't handle until 3D accelerators overtook them. and nowadays the pc only has an advantage from the start if you pay neogeo prices for high watt parts.
I wouldnt say that. look at quake 1 in 1996 you could buy a 600 dollar computer and play quake and others games which was way beyond anything out there...if you didnt get a computer you got a n64 which was the upgrade from snes...well that system was ok at best....never awesome. Now...after you get the magic top 5 games at 50 bucks a pop for n64 which itself costs around 200 to 300 depending on the bundle...you also start to notice there is a new player in town...the playstation which seems to have a new game being release for it ever freaking week!...sooo 200 bucks for that but oh wait...their games are about 50 60 bucks each! dont forget that extra controller to replace the one you broke...boom another 60 bucks. After its said and done with...you spend maybe 500 for consoles another 100 for controllers and other stuff. Hundreds more on subquality games and on top of that...you still need a computer to type papers for school. There wasnt any negeo price on gamingf computers...its was a bargain. A one stop shop for cutting edge games.

Thats when consoles were less then 300 bucks a pop...and games werent 70. Consoles have always been and still are extremely expensive for low qualtiy. IF you sit down and list bestselling console by the year and look at the computer hardware out at the time...you could almost kick yourself for ever dropping money on a console. Now I did own a PS2 and loved many games for it..but usually they were the ones that were only available on the console..everything else seemed dated the day it came out.

Consoles are only one thing...easy.
the N64 came out after playstation and saturn and it's prices of games where so high because it still used cartridges. CDs cost significantly less to print than roms. it was also a less equivalent tech to PC because PC used CD like saturn and playstation, which did give some disadvantages to N64 games.

playstation came out in 1994 with wipeout very early on. 2 years or a year and a half is a lot in tech.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by STRZ »

The only plausible adoption i see with next gen consoles is Gran Turismo, offering it as sort of luxury feature for console racers. People who buy steering wheels for 300$ (most of the serious console racers) would probably buy a Rift without hesitation. And console racing would make up some of it's biggest disadvatage compared to PC racing, the lack of multi monitoring and other racing periphals like button boxes. Win win situation.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

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KBK wrote:
squibbfire wrote:Well I do know when both XBOX'S were released and all of the Playstations..NONE of them beat out the pc...ever. In fact I have a nice little tech magazine that's stashed away somewhere that has and article comparing every game console to its PC counterpart in price for the past 25 years. If I find the article I will post scans!

For real...doesn't anyone remember playing Half-Life and Quake 2 when Goldeneye for n64 was getting popular? I used to think it was funny that everyone liked that game...It was even funnier showing them counter strike for the first time...and then watching the addiction set it...

It used to be that for every engine release, it was an ~ $1200 PC upgrade. The average being 1/3rd of the cash spent was for the graphics card. Even back when I was doing it with the original ATI VGA Wonder, it was like that.

After a dozen or so of those, I gave up.

What is an N64? Never went near that stuff. My first console was the intellivision, with the intellivoice module.

After that, it was PC all the way. Never looked at another console again. (from 1980-82 onward)

Ah yes intellivision! Excellent choice my friend! I started with nintendo 85 /86 dabbles with Genesis and had a ps2 fall in my lap...but since genesis it was all pc too!

Btw you should try budget gaming boxes...You can do them under 500 bucks sometimes!
you would be blown away what you can do with a 160$ video card! Those big boy 400 and up models...those are for long term investments! How much you wanna bet a 200 dollar video card today will blow anything that PS4 or XBOX will squeeze out in the next year?
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by Diorama »

As far as I remember Wipeout came out on PC at pretty much the same time as Playstation.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by squibbfire »

PasticheDonkey wrote: Consoles are only one thing...easy.
the N64 came out after playstation and saturn and it's prices of games where so high because it still used cartridges. CDs cost significantly less to print than roms. it was also a less equivalent tech to PC because PC used CD like saturn and playstation, which did give some disadvantages to N64 games.

playstation came out in 1994 with wipeout very early on. 2 years or a year and a half is a lot in tech.[/quote]




Yes but no one was jumping on the playstation band wagon the first few years
Many just went out and purchased the next nintendo console like it was expected of them.

To them...the Sony Playstation like the nerdy quiet girl at the back of the party...well a few years later that nerdy girl...started to show off them tattoos and how fun she was ...and thats when all the boys wanted to play.
Last edited by squibbfire on Mon Feb 11, 2013 5:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by PasticheDonkey »

squibbfire wrote:Yes but no on was jumping on the playstation band wagon the first few years
Many just went out and purchased the next nintendo console like it was expected of them.

To them...the Sony Playstation like the nerdy quiet girl at the back of the party...well a few years later that nerdy girl...started to show off them tattoos and how fun she was ...and thats when all the boys wanted to play.
your saying no one bought the playstation early even tho it sold about 80 mil in the end. it was the thing it was the hip thing. wipeouts part of that. the music, the style it was all upstream from anything else that was available at the time. and a reasonable cost cd player. playstation was games for the average teen when that hadn't been availiable before. it hugely expanded the market. N64 sold 20 mill.

here's the story in graph form Image
see how N64 never sold more than playstation at any point. so i think the lets compare PC to N64 price thing is moot.
Last edited by PasticheDonkey on Mon Feb 11, 2013 5:20 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Oculus Rift: Driving PC hardware?

Post by PasticheDonkey »

Diorama wrote:As far as I remember Wipeout came out on PC at pretty much the same time as Playstation.
yeah and i was trying to look for comparisons. what graphic cards where supported etc. but in any case they were both running similar at best and playstation was far cheaper than a pc with a CD drive.
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