Re: First Impressions From Rift Owners
Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 11:59 am
I finally got mine last Wednesday, and have spent at least 12 hours since then using it, which is more time than I have gamed over the past year. My impressions:
---Edit--- forgot a couple of things that are worth mentioning:
- 100% lives up to the hype. I've never purchased something that lived up to all the hype surrounding it, except for maybe the original iPhone. This is that good.
- The combination of a giant FOV, properly calibrated stereoscopic rendering that only needs to be pleasant from a single viewpoint, and head tracking sells what you are looking at is actually real to your visual system. I was completely blown away by this, and it isn't some novelty that fades after first use. So it is no gimmick.
- The screendoor effect, while pronounced, tends to disappear completely for me after a few moments. I'm guessing its because my visual system is actually seeing the forest, not the trees, for the reasons in the bullet above.
- The resolution, which I thought would bother me, is in fact much less of an issue than I thought it would be. I think 1080/1200p will be a giant leap forward, and will further sell your visual system on the reality of what you are looking at
- Everyone I have shown this has had their mind blown. I normally start them in the cinema then put them straight onto the coaster. Most everyone screams on the first drop.
- I have never been prone to motion sickness, but I definitely have problems with the rift. I made it 10 minutes my first time before my stomach started to go into knots, and now I can usually do about 30 - 45 minutes before I need to tap out for a while. This is mostly playing through half life 2, which is an entirely new experience. I don't get as queasy, but I get hot rolling sweats, which I suppose is motion sickness, which again I've never experienced.
- Things with cockpits (heli-island, one of the space shooters) don't make me nearly as ill since I have a constant point of reference.
- I'm most anxiously awaiting rift support in Project CARS. I saw one of their graphics engineers got his rift a couple of weeks ago, and has been cranking away on it. This will be awesome, especially for the reasons listed the bullet above, but also because it is kick ass
---Edit--- forgot a couple of things that are worth mentioning:
- I actually don't remember anyone mentioning this, but if you have medium/long eyelashes, the optics tend to get covered with eye schmutz and grease every 10 minutes, requiring me to remove the unit from my head and wipe them down as the optics get blurry. My buddy Ryan had to back the thing all the way off his head because of his abnormally long eye lashes. Do they sell eye lash trimmers? Also, women wearing eye makeup will make your optics nasty, be ware.
- Finding the sweet spot is crucial for having a properly focused/resolved image. It normally takes me a few seconds of wiggling to get it; otherwise, everything is out of focus, normally just in one eye. It still tends to be blurry around the outside, but it barely bothers me.
- When getting the sweats from simulator sickness, the foam padding gets really moist. Ewww. I'm sure this thing is going to stink after a while.
- I really only noticed motion blur in the tuscany demo, so maybe it is a software problem with that one demo? If I actually look for it, I can see it, but it doesn't seem nearly as pronounced as others have said. Maybe I got a good panel in mine?
- The SDK really needs to provide developers a way to automatically detect a rift display via EDID or similar, and render to that screen, so I don't need to mess with resolution and monitor settings every time I want to play a game. Possibly, when the rift control panel that will store IPD, lens information, and other calibrations is released, have an option to automaticaly set a profile for your monitor to clone the rift display, and handle resolution changes and everything else automatically.
- The display panel's GUI needs to be rifted so it shows up on both eyes