Meant to be Seen

Hi guys,

I just returned from my trip to Gamescom and I was pleasently surprised, when I saw that public Oculus VR booth with about a dozwn 1080p headsets to try out. I was wanting to check out the Rift since the early kickstarter days (I´m a backer, but didn`t pledge enough to get one - I am still holding off for that 1080p headset with full head tracking) so I was stocked to check it out.

There were two demos set up, iRacing (or what its called) and Hawken. I got to try out a Hawken demo for about 5 minutes - it`s crazy when you put on that thing (as most of you already know). But it looked kinda blurry and I hated the blurriness when I was moving with the right stick. Add to that plenty of aliasing issues. To be honest, like it is right now, I don`t think it is ready for mass market. Although it was the 1080p one it looked very low res and all the technical flaws when moving were really annoying and constantly reminding me I was wearing a headset. And I expected a little more out of the 3d - there was a sense of depth, but at no point did I feel like I could just hold my hand out and grab something.

That sounds a lot more negative than it was - it actually was pretty cool (and the best thing I did at Gamescom). Flying around is great, as is falling (with a little vertigo effect) and just looking around. You definetly get a sense of how great this can be with a little fine tuning and better hardware. I will definetly buy one of these, when the next improved edition comes out, since it is a great way to experience a game. I can`t wait to put one of these on again - I might go back to Gamescom tomorrow or the day after that, just to try the other demo.

Oh, and I saw a game that would be great in the Rift: Zoo Tycoon - call me weird, but I`d totally enjoy walking through a VR zoo - and after that perhaps a VR Disneyworld?

Thanks for your report.
Would be nice if you had tried the Devkit before to give some information of the improvement.

The bluriness could be a sign that you might be a bot short sighted. I already heard from a couple of people that tried my Rift
that it's very blurry for them. After I switched to B-lenses their experience was vastly improved.

Actually I wore glasses and am wide-sighted... but now that you mention it, it might be that he had some cups in the kit, because he said something like: you don`t need your glasses if your near sighted - but he didn`t change anything when I said I wasn`t. It actually looked a little, like having near sighted glasses on - perhaps that was it.

I believe the proper translation for "Weitsichtig" is farsighted.

LikeMike wrote:Actually I wore glasses and am wide-sighted[...] it might be that he had some cups in the kit, because he said something like: you don`t need your glasses if your near sighted - but he didn`t change anything when I said I wasn`t. It actually looked a little, like having near sighted glasses on - perhaps that was it.

I guess you had a missunderstanding. You don't need glasses if you are farsighted and you need glasses (or other cups, but I don't believe they are using B or C cups) if you are nearsighted.

There is an important distinction between focus blur which would be present always and motion blur that occurs during movement. It would be easy to mistake the two during a short demo on a show floor.

Here is the Oculus line...

cologne 551 km = 342 miles

So close but still so far away...

RoTaToR wrote:cologne 551 km = 342 miles

So close but still so far away...

You could buy a "Wochenend Ticket" (valid for 5 persons) from DB and make a great party while traveling in the train if you know what i mean. But be sure to arrive sober.

http://www.gamescom.de/de/gamescom/fuer ... kartenneu/

seems that all tickets except sunday are sold out ...

best regards FR3D

Is Palmer or any other staff member there? I'd like to get my DK signed! =)

Popopinsel wrote:Is Palmer or any other staff member there? I'd like to get my DK signed! =)

No. The booth is being manned by autonomous robots.

Looks a lot better than similar vids of this method. I'm excited!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9Rsgsd ... ata_player

cybereality wrote:No. The booth is being manned by autonomous robots.

Cool, because some companies tend to equip their booth with representatives rather than the real people involved with the product.

Seriously, what I meant is whether "himself" is at the booth or just behind the scenes or at podium discussions (already saw him speaking at GDC in the Offenbachsaal). Did Carmack also come out of his programming/twittering cave representing OculusVR at Gamescom? What abaout an attendance list?

The line for the Game show:

Here is a interview from the European GDC (Which takes place just before gamescom, in the same building)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yz2mUsb31U

hmmm..... but powerful Desktop PCs will nevertheless move towards mobile consumption because of the thermal budget. I've heard that with current semiconductor devices the whole chip would just melt because of the ULSI. Intel is already researching in TunnelFET transistors and and a bunch of research groups investigate Single-ELectron-Transistors. Not to forget memristors.
By the way this funky movement at the beginning of the interview, is that the first side effect of VR?

I wanted to see more from Gamescom I expected more hype and showbiz.

Imagine it goes dark, all the spotlights focus on the centre of the floor as it slides apart to reveal John Carmack in a golden cage rise up like a God through the show floor like in the end of Gladiator. He is suspended in the chariot with cables and flashing leds whilst performing blind gimps with oculus headsets dance around it whispering algorithms to the tune of 2001...

All we got was a few crappy interviews and a possible 2014 release date comeon!

only the cool VR guys move like Palmer...

Waited 1 h to get into the Gamescom, two times 45 mins for each demo (iRacing/Hawken). Was worth it to finally experience the Rift, but I have to say, I was expecting more, especially from the new HD prototype. Resolution has definitely to be upped for the consumer market, otherwise it is just an nice technical demo of what could be. And thats most important for middle to far away objects. Instruments within the racing car or mech were quite readable, but you clearly could see the pixels and some anti aliasing issues.

I've noticed the blur quite strongly, it may be focus blur, because I hadn't so much time to fiddle around with the right position (demo duration felt like 3 mins or so). Also with the iRacing demo, at the beginning I quite strongly noticed the lack of field of view. I cleary saw the rectangular screen edges (you begin to forget about that after some time).

For anybody of you thinking about going to the Gamescom: check for tickets! It opened today on 10, and all day-tickets were sold out completely. It was said, that they would sell tickets for the afternoon, if enough people would have left until then.

(didn't were any glasses or contact lenses, do not need any)

But how does it compare to the current DK?

colocolo wrote: By the way this funky movement at the beginning of the interview, is that the first side effect of VR?

Loooooool

Well, there is nothing that can be done about visible pixels structure of a panel. But I wonder why in the demo they do not run super high AA modes. Or the aliasing comes with the textures, and most AA modes can dot deal with this.
So here are some thoughts of mine. We are doing 4k gaming videos on a full field of view covering projection setup There is no aliasing anymore even without AA at this resolution.
If someone with a DVDkit or a HD Rift could test one of our videos with a Rift and tell me if 4k helps with aliasing:
4K Playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... NW2EYwmAC6
4k SBS Playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... tBidV9qHQN

Here is my idea:
If shooting downscaled 4k to the Rift helps get rid of aliasing, why not shooting 4k or at least 1080 to the Devkit. How? Well with the capture solution I posted to get all sources rifted. In the moment I am in contact with Blackmagic about a better capture card enabling 120hz input. But I was told about their 4k card that could help me. So 4k could be captured from the source PC, and realtime rifted and downscaled to the resolution of the specific Rift version. Then aliasing should not be visible anymore, as scaling should work without artifacts today - especially with an even divider present when scaling modern hd resolutions.

Regards

Marc


Edid: I have to add that there is a good chance we are not talking about aliasing in the game, but the low res of the display not beeing able to show a skewed line without combing/aliasing (as the panel pixels are too visible).

Question 3: What is the downsampling record for the Devkit?

LikeMike wrote:Hi guys,

I just returned from my trip to Gamescom and I was pleasently surprised, when I saw that public Oculus VR booth with about a dozwn 1080p headsets to try out. I was wanting to check out the Rift since the early kickstarter days (I´m a backer, but didn`t pledge enough to get one - I am still holding off for that 1080p headset with full head tracking) so I was stocked to check it out.

There were two demos set up, iRacing (or what its called) and Hawken. I got to try out a Hawken demo for about 5 minutes - it`s crazy when you put on that thing (as most of you already know). But it looked kinda blurry and I hated the blurriness when I was moving with the right stick. Add to that plenty of aliasing issues. To be honest, like it is right now, I don`t think it is ready for mass market. Although it was the 1080p one it looked very low res and all the technical flaws when moving were really annoying and constantly reminding me I was wearing a headset. And I expected a little more out of the 3d - there was a sense of depth, but at no point did I feel like I could just hold my hand out and grab something.

That sounds a lot more negative than it was - it actually was pretty cool (and the best thing I did at Gamescom). Flying around is great, as is falling (with a little vertigo effect) and just looking around. You definetly get a sense of how great this can be with a little fine tuning and better hardware. I will definetly buy one of these, when the next improved edition comes out, since it is a great way to experience a game. I can`t wait to put one of these on again - I might go back to Gamescom tomorrow or the day after that, just to try the other demo.

Oh, and I saw a game that would be great in the Rift: Zoo Tycoon - call me weird, but I`d totally enjoy walking through a VR zoo - and after that perhaps a VR Disneyworld?

I was so surprised when I read your review of the 1080p Rift. Oculus must not be demoing these guys to their full potential !! I don't understand
because on my 1st gen Rift I HARDLY notice any low resolution, screen door or aliasing whatsoever. I am forcing Vsync, 32xaa, 16xaf, 8x multisampling in the
Nvidia Control panel, and downsampling all demos from 1920x1080. I have truly never seen gaming worlds look so good. Or real. What's going
on. I'm curious to know exactly what hardware config. and settings the Oculus team is running their demo rigs.

Lookforyourhands wrote:on my 1st gen Rift I HARDLY notice any low resolution, screen door or aliasing whatsoever

I find that hard to believe.
Really you can't see the space between pixels? Can you see things far away? Your eyes must be magical or something.

The current DK is just a tool, not more. And definitely not to play games with it.

A german review about Oculus HD prototype and some interesting hints from OCulus VR session
at GDC Europe 2013.
http://weblogit.net/2013/08/19/oculus-r ... gdc-98682/

Außerdem gab es einige spannende Andeutungen, sozusagen vom Schreibtisch von John Carmack, der mittlerweile als CTO bei Oculus VR beschäftigt ist. Stay tuned!

Translation:
Furthermore there were some exciting hints, namely from John Carmack's desk, who recently was engaged as CTO at Oculus VR. Stay tuned!

Doom 4, as a kind of renaissance of 3D gaming?

Shu about Oculus Rift at 16:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmUxCmGo9I8

cybereality wrote:

Popopinsel wrote:Is Palmer or any other staff member there? I'd like to get my DK signed! =)

No. The booth is being manned by autonomous robots.

Well i actually talked with Palmer on Thursday, i guess if you wait till the near end of the day, he will magically appear

Now regarding the HD Prototype, i was experiencing the same as the OP, I first tried the HD Prototype but it really somehow doesn't look that better...
Then i tried DK1 at the Cyberrith booth, besides the Screendoor being waaay more visible, it felt better.. Despite the low resolution... I have to try the Oculus HD again today to be able to really compare it...

I´am waiting for a higher res version (more than halved 1920x1080 at this low distance respectively high field of view), especially for games with high view distance like plane simulators and other open world games. On the other hand there are so many older games with lower view distance to discover on a new level like half life 2...

I had the good fortune of trying out the HD Rift while visiting Palmer and Joseph at SIGGRAPH. The resolution was a huge step up from the current dev kit. I did not detect blurriness, I did notice black bars left and right but the unit wasn't blurry at all. And once they dial in new optics for the new screen those bars will disappear (still using the DK1 housing and optics).

When people report blurriness its highly likely that their eyes are actually to blame and that they need a different lens setup for the best experience. That's a hard thing to do for people on an individual basis in the chaos of a convention setting.

a guy who tested the Rift said that he talked to an Oculus staff member (0:44):

"....they said....when it will release.... it will be much better....probably there will be games supported like COD and sth like that..."
Not that i am a military shooter supporter, but they are very popular.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPVA0a7n9PU

@colocolo: Video was removed, but was it one of the convention staff members or an actual Oculus employee, he was talking to? Because when I was there, there we just 1 or 2 actual Oculus guys over there, the others seemed to be just hired for the convention ('cause speaking German and probably cheaper that way).

Cathodoluminescence wrote:@colocolo: Video was removed, but was it one of the convention staff members or an actual Oculus employee, he was talking to? Because when I was there, there we just 1 or 2 actual Oculus guys over there, the others seemed to be just hired for the convention ('cause speaking German and probably cheaper that way).

in the video the guy was interviewed by a german online magazine (whatever). And in this german interview the guy told the german interviewer that he recently was talking to an Oculus employee.
I dont know actually who he was talking to. We have to trust the guy in this case obviously....
Perhaps it has been removed because its true or false.

in the video the guy was interviewed by a german online magazine (whatever). And in this german interview the guy told the german interviewer that he recently was talking to an Oculus employee.

In other word - "this guy spoke... in German... with a guy that sat next to a OVR employee's cat!"
Sorry to be so dismissive but there is way too much Chinese whispers regarding the Rift - and its nice to see the company apply some serious "rumor control" over affiliates and staff.

This is a picture taken from the most recent article on RoadToVR, showing an HD Rift from the EVE:Valkyrie Demoing @ Gamescom:


Is it just me or does the front look a little bit different to the other HD prototypes? Are the left and right side of the front (looking slithly darker) tilted backwards or is this merely a lighting effect?

you are right. they have put on anonther front plate. But why? looks like they have made two designs But also could be a weird reflection. Look here. Only one side is reflecting.

colocolo wrote:you are right. they have put on anonther front plate. But why?

Maybe, the have a flexible display in the newest prototype, and they did not tell anyone about it?
Or it´s just because they think it looks better this way?

Marulu wrote:

colocolo wrote:you are right. they have put on anonther front plate. But why?

Maybe, the have a flexible display in the newest prototype, and they did not tell anyone about it?
Or it´s just because they think it looks better this way?

the latter I'd say!

And it does look sleeker

here's a video review of the Oculus HD prototype from Gamescom.
Although i know what VR will be about and i ve watched tons of english reviews, still there wasnt any german review which expressed what VR is truely about. there is always that language barrier. you dont really get that feeling.
So this review is really amazing for the german people here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVi6PTdEK0I

colocolo wrote:Although i know what VR will be about and i ve watched tons of english reviews, still there wasnt any german review which expressed what VR is truely about. there is always that language barrier. you dont really get that feeling.

I also am German, and I think exactly the same about this.
At E3 for example most German sites were advertising the Rift as video glasses, and they only were talking about the 3D.
Almost none of them mention virtual reality, immersion, and that the Rift is not just a screen strapped to your head.
The only German site that has been reporting more accurately on the Rift is in my opinion Game One. (and of course Bloculus.)

-Marulu