Dev Kit 2 Released!

[cgp44]

I just thought I would make another attempt at penetrating a thick layer
of anticipation to put it we are gettting screwed in the resolution department.
So the penTile stuff looks bad when put this way. No wonder there has been
a lot of anger in past discussions on penTiles on oleds.

[cybereality]

Stop fooling yourself. DK2 looks great!

[V8Griff]

@cgp44

What is it you're trying to achieve here?

You've made your point that you believe Oculus have made an incorrect decision with their choice of screen. It would appear that the majority (if not all ) disagree as I don't see anyone jumping to agree with you so I think you're now.

You have promoted the RiftUp! to the hilt. Yes it's interesting and a few months ago I might have been tempted myself but it's not going to make people cancel their DK2 orders. It's an expensive upgrade to the first pass DK1 so it's probably not the best option now even *IF* (big if) it supplies a superior visual experience. (Which I very much doubt) as the DK2 isn't just about the screen.

Maybe when folk who've backed it post some stunning reviews it may gain more support but even then why would you spend the same money as a DK2 on an upgrade?

Time to move on for you I'd suggest and perhaps come back all smug when comparisons have been made between the two and you've been proved right......

... or maybe not.

[cgp44]

I am trying to achieve awareness in people. In a number of forums I have detected an expectation that
dK2 is full HD. I'll leave it at that.

[squibbfire]

It's almost June! The Dev Kits 2 are coming....

[Mystify]

calm down, there, its barely May.

[3trip]

It's almost June! The Dev Kits 2 are coming....

this photo is appropriate on so many levels

[GeraldT]

It's almost June! The Dev Kits 2 are coming....

... great picture. by the way. can't wait for June and even more looking forward to JULY ... when the DK2 is supposed to start shipping

[Unclebob]

Have been luck to have a DK1, have tried a HD version and have also tried the DK2.

The clarity and detail of DK2 is unbelievable.

Yup fewer pixels etc but the image clarity, largely because of the elimination of motion blur gives a better sense of depth, textures and quality.

For me it was like the jump from CRT SD to a HD Plasma.

As for comparisons with other screens available, unless you do a tear down and rebuild and then compare side by side you won't really know.

As it is we have our new tool DK2, and it gives more us more options simply because of the improvements.

No one will be dissappointed in July, its simply that good.

[GeraldT]

Yup fewer pixels etc but the image clarity, largely because of the elimination of motion blur gives a better sense of depth, textures and quality.

I can't wait to try that - the ability to track moving objects whit no blur should be so awesome. That should have the biggest impact on game design so far in the VR evolution.

[Endemo]

Have been luck to have a DK1, have tried a HD version and have also tried the DK2.

The clarity and detail of DK2 is unbelievable.

Yup fewer pixels etc but the image clarity, largely because of the elimination of motion blur gives a better sense of depth, textures and quality.

For me it was like the jump from CRT SD to a HD Plasma.

As for comparisons with other screens available, unless you do a tear down and rebuild and then compare side by side you won't really know.

As it is we have our new tool DK2, and it gives more us more options simply because of the improvements.

No one will be dissappointed in July, its simply that good.

I also ordered my DK2 on day one and cannot wait. I am simmer at heart and know this is the future of gaming.
I am certain the resolution will be enough for carsims and alike. What i am a little worried about is if the resolution will be enough to fly combat flightsims effectively in multiplayer. In this genre its pretty important that one is able to identify pretty small contacts at high range.
when played on a full HD 24" display this isnt really a problem. The DK2 had full HD resolution. Will this be enough?
I know the eyes are pretty far in, close to the display and pixels are magnified by a factor of 6 or so. On the other hand the increased FOV should xompensate for that somewhat - right?
I mean played on a standard display i have to narrow my FOV down to like 10° or less to see a plane like 5 inches big on the screen. When in the rift those 5 inches should appear like a few meters and still the FOV should remain the same.
Any thoughts on this?

[Mystify]

I think the proper comparison to how much detail you can see is pixels per degree; pixels comes from your screen/render resolution, and degree comes from your FOV. This is the FOV rendered in-game. Magnifying the picture doesn't increase the detail, unless the resolution is already extremely high and detail is lost because its far away.

[squibbfire]

I get the feeling that we may not see the kits till august...even though facebook is backing Oculus...that doesn't mean that we are definitely going to see the kits in July for sure...Lots of things can happen between now and july...

[squibbfire]

Any word on the DK 2 shipping status? It's July after all:-)

[squibbfire]

Sounds like it is already starting!

https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/v ... 63#p129463

[slipstream]

Although it does sound like there are delays, some unhappy people posting about it.

[mickman]

people are already seeing DK2 in the post... yes ??
But being in Australia I don;t expect to see anything till Aug.

But hey.. Oculus are efficient.. they get it done. Could be in my post box when I get home .. wishful thinking

I have my fingers crossed that a few games / apps will launch over the next week or two. Couch Knights would be nice as well as a few of the K.S campaigns..

[slipstream]

Also means they'll be on ebay soon at hyper inflated prices.

[equusvenustas]

Compared to oculus forums this place is so calm, in the other place a lot of people are like crazy and complaining about everything due the impatience of DK2 i want my dk2! i can't contain myself any more!!

[OzOnE2k10]

I think I'm quite patient really.

I just assume there will always be delays with the dev kits (which there is now, officially.)
I just make sure to keep the money in my bank account and (try to) forget about it for a while.

If it ships earlier, then that's a bonus. :p

Haven't had chance to even test the RiftUP kit on my DK1 for weeks now.
Hopefully the DK2 will motivate me to get it all working smoothly.

OzOnE

[squibbfire]

No one here is stressing because most people here already have a rift...

[brantlew]

Compared to oculus forums this place is so calm, in the other place a lot of people are like crazy and complaining about everything due the impatience of DK2 i want my dk2! i can't contain myself any more!!

Yeah, it feels nice in here - a bit like these forums were 3 years ago before the bandwagon came rolling through.

[squibbfire]

Date: Mar 19, 2014 08:44 AM PDT

Status:Processing:Your order has been checked out for shipping and will be shipped in the next batch. We'll send you a notification once it's shipped.
Note: If you have multiple items in the order, it might also indicate that the remaining items are still waiting to be shipped.

[Mystify]

I am in the same place, I got an email saying the payment has been processed last night and now my status is processing

[Runbmp]

Just got my confirmation too, it's happening! again!

[Inscothen]

I am trying to achieve awareness in people. In a number of forums I have detected an expectation that
dK2 is full HD. I'll leave it at that.

cgp44- the dk2 res isn't all that different from Riftup.

Here's a pic i took of couchknights through my riftup dk1. The only camera i have right now is an ipad2 cam but it'll do.
http://i.imgur.com/o4tOpYY.jpg?1

compared to

http://i.imgur.com/tyJT7tR.jpg

There are differences obviously but it's pretty much the same and low-persistence makes up for it I think.

[squibbfire]

OMG OMG OMG

Dear Travis,

Your order #DO-0xxxxxx has been shipped.

Please click the following link(s) to access the tracking information:

Carrier Tracking Number Tracking Site
UPS 1Z90X15xxxxxxxx View Tracking Info



Thanks,

You can visit Oculus Order Tracker for more details about your order.

The Oculus Team
www.oculusvr.com




www.oculusvr.com

[squibbfire]

yep!

[daveo2013]

My DK2 arrived today I only had a few minutes to try it this evening, and I woke up this morning with an ear infection causing nausea and headache so not the best day for it! Anyway, first impressions:

- I had to plug the tracking camera into a USB hub or it wouldn't be recognized (Windows 8, desktop PC, not a whole lot of other USB stuff).
- Firmware and setup went fine, though at first I couldn't find the Oculus Config Tool in the start menu (more a windows 8 usability issue, I despise that start screen!) - now that I've found it with explorer and run it once, it's there.
- Really loving direct mode - the 'multiple displays thing' was really annoying with the DK1 - windows popping up on the wrong screen etc., and I never did get an HDMI splitter to work properly - so this is a really good step forward.
- 'Desk demo': I normally suffer pretty badly with VR sickness and today I'm nauseated anyway - the good news is that so far I didn't experience any motion sickness in the simulation, though I was only in a minute or two. The only time my stomach turned was when I reached out to touch the house of cards and my hand wasn't there - my brain didn't like that, which I think says a lot for the immersiveness. Another positive for the immersion is when I needed to find my mouse, I found myself searching the virtual desk looking for it - I don't think I was fooled in the same way in DK1 - I put that down to the full head tracking.
- 'Oculus world' demo: The display is very significantly clearer than DK1, brighter, and the screen door is much less of a problem. It's actually so diminished that it's no longer the most noticeable artefact - edge jaggies were much more prominent than the screen door - I tried forcing some antialiasing and BSOD my PC . I can see clearly the limitations of the textures used in the demo (which demonstrates much improved resolution), and text is very legible. There may be slightly more chromatic aberration, and I think I'm slightly more aware of the limits (horizontally) of the FOV. The 'black smear' is very noticeable on the stairs. I did still get some wooziness with my main 'trigger' which is unexpected head rotation - if I turn with the joypad and don't also turn my head a little in the same direction, my brain doesn't like it - it's certainly no worse than DK1 and may be a lot better (too early to say), but I suspect I still won't be able to whizz around in HL2. I appear to be someone who'll need games designed for VR, where your head is in charge of rotation - just plugging into an FPS and rolling around with the mouse, treating the rift like nothing more than a fancy monitor does appear to make me motion sick even on the DK2. The subtle head tracking means things don't eerily shrink away from you, which is very natural. It's very subtle though - I want to see what it'll be like if it's multiplied/exaggerated a bit.

(Edit) I wanted to add that the hardware improvements are great, and really smart - no more worrying about whether I might kill my rift by accidentally leaving it switched on too much, no extra power required, all the kit is very well designed- cables are perfect lengths, camera sits well on the monitor with no tendency to twist... Lovely work Oculus

Overall I'm very excited to get back to my game which has been on hold a while because I got more interested in another project... I do think the improvements in the DK2 will rekindle my interest.

[Runbmp]

Thanks for sharing Dave, look forward to trying it tomorrow with great anticipation!

[daveo2013]

Just thought I'd post an update on whether VR sickness is possible in DK2. Well... it is possible to make myself feel a bit woozy but very encouragingly I just tried "SPAG RollerCoaster DK2 TEST" and RiftAway's "Cyber Space" ride (nice work by the way especially on that one, it's mad!) - there's no way I could have tolerated those in DK1 - I'd have thrown up for sure. I just sat through both with DK2 and I feel a bit dizzy afterwards but I didn't barf and I didn't rip the rift off my head, and I don't have the VR sweats

[squibbfire]

Everyone I received my DK2 Rift yesterday! (the acronym also reminds me of my favorite game Dungeon Keeper 2=-). I plugged the lady in and she worked great with the Direct to Rift games! Some of the other ones not soo much..(except Vanguard V and Technolust). The best part of DK2 in my opinion is actually the direct to rift function. WOW does that make setup a breezed. No more jacking around with a duplicated monitor or extended monitor… that is until you want to try older outdated demos. Something tells me that this will be a must for any future development. If I were to make a demo it would have to be direct to rift. Making anyone go through the hassle of setting up a second/extended monitor is not even worth writing an app. Bravo to oculus on sdk 0.4.0 it’s a much needed improvement:-)

First Impressions of the rift itself were good. It feels it has better build quality then DK1. Which is always a good thing. The cardboard box that it came in was not as nice as the handy dandy carrying case but I don’t mind it…I’ll eventually get a nice pluck foam case for my setup!

And I’ll need to get a case with all of the cables that this thing comes with. LOL hopefully that will be consolidated more or perhaps some wireless options when the consumer is released. I had to hook up 4 wires that needed to be connected to one another!( I know it’s a silly complaint, but I like a clean desk )

The FOV of the rift itself seems to have taken a hit. But I guess it’s still a work in progress. It does break the immersion a bit for me though. The low persistence is absolutely fantastic and helps out a lot as noticed in the Tuscany demo in the SDK.
The screen door effect is still noticeable and at times can break immersion in certain parts of demos. That as well as the narrow FOV might be an issue for consumers. First timers on my DK2 still see it right away and even point out the narrow FOV. That being said I still give props to oculus for making it higher res. It makes all the demos look WAY better. Can’t wait to see higher res down the road the low persistence and brightness of the screen is right on though! Much smoother and brighter visuals.

And last but not least the position camera tracking. Don’t get me wrong I’m all for position tracking but some of the hassle it caused and immersion breaking with demos makes me wish this was put into a 2nd or 3rd consumer version and not this current version. After all most people that will buy the consumer will probably be sitting down. But right now…it felt like the camera window needs to be quadruple or just flat taken out and this should be a choice by the user. In some demos where you turn your head to look behind you…the camera loses tracking and boom the view is frozen and there is some kind of judder…Immersion broken. It’s not a big deal to me but some of the people that tried my rift noticed it to be very bothersome not to mention it’s an extra cable/peripheral for a consumer to setup.

Even though I wish I could trade the positional tracker in for better resolution or bigger FOV In the end I would say that this DK2 is a still great addition to any devs toolbox can’t wait to see what’s down the pipeline!

[Mystify]

I received my rift yesterday as well, and I agree with squibbfire's review.
I had some issues getting it to work at first. I had to unplug one of my existing monitors to get it to accept the rift as an output, and I had to swap the remaining monitor to a different port, but I think this is probably more a problem with how my graphics card handled things than the rift itself. But if you have problems getting a video signal to the rift, try it out.
The camera tracking bounds were a huge annoyance. Having the positional tracking vastly improved the experience for me, but I frequently hit the bounds of the camera view, which was rather problematic. I had feared these issues would be the case when I found out they went with the camera tracking, and it was even worse than I had feared.
I liked the direct to the rift mode, but I couldn't even get the extended desktop demos to work. I would end up with a window that wouldn't sit on the right monitor.
I did feel like the scale may have been off, specifically in regards to the head tracking. I did calibrate the IPD and such, but it still felt odd.
I also encountered one of the known issues, that multisampling on Radeon cards can cause judder. It took a bit of effort, but I managed to disable that and everything was drastically improved.
One issue was that I couldn't find a great demo that really showed off the rift. I want to show it to friends, but nothing worked well enough.

[squibbfire]

demos such as chilling space, cyber space, proton pulse, technolust(needs extended but worth the hassle) kokiri forest, first law, archivision kitchen, ocean rift, sightline,spirited away, my neighbor totoro are all Direct to rift i believe all great to demo the rift...however the affected and dreadhalls is not ready yet....which sucks cause its nice to scare people with the rift

[ThePhilosopher]

Ifixit has opened the DK2 (to find a superb Samsung Galaxy Note 3 screen with the touch screen controller still attached...) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HoHkFgslJc

[squibbfire]

you know....I know a lot of freaking devs waiting on a damn DK2..no need to make the some who could help VR revolution wait a week just to tear one friggin apart....bastards...lol

[friendlinzh]

if you don't move your head you don't need VR.