Oculus Rift VR Headset

Jamezinho

Steve: I've been following the Oculus Rift thread over at GTPlanet and read your comment "I wanted to come out and say it'll change the sim racing world, but IMHO it wont." Is this because you really need to see your wheel and controls in a racing sim (same goes for a flight sim).

I guess Oculus Rift will be better suited to control pad based games as there is no need to look at the pad when playing.

museumsteve

I know I've struggled to get Dirt running properly but I have had it working and it's a great experience. It does feel awesome when you're sitting in the cockpit and you feel like you are actually there but for me racing needs to be perfect and I think that will be a hard one to crack. Things like the fact the wheel has to move perfectly with your wheel movement or you'll break the immersion.
I still cant imagine not being able to see my own equipment either, the wheel's okay but I have touch screens for motion and tactile which I use regularly
It may be a bit unfair at such an early stage and perhaps when some of the devs release official updates it'll be a different story.
I can imagine with proper support it'll be great and maybe something I'd do every now and then but I wouldn't get rid of my screens for it. Saying that, I haven't had my rig on since getting the Rift so I may be gutted when I turn the screens on

Combat flying games are probably the same as racers. Should be cool for if you just have 2 joystick setup maybe but a proper flight sim with cockpit controls would be hard.

I still have this vision of some kind of augmented solution where you take a digital pic of your cockpit and overlay it somehow in the game. This would need very accurate hand tracking

Jamezinho

That's along the lines of what I'm thinking. Maybe a camera on the front of the unit that can film your hand movements.

Cha1ky

Well the new Kinect comes out next year for Windows so perhaps support for both will be sorted.

museumsteve

ooooooh..and so begins a dilemma.

Tonight I hooked my normal setup again after messing the Oculus for a couple of nights..
The first thing I did was put on DiRT 2 and boy was I surprised.
Whilst my DiRT2/3 testing in the oculus weren't a resounding success, the first thing I noticed back on my 3 screens was that I knew I was sitting in my room with 3 screens around me. I could see everything in my peripheral vision, my coffee cup, my remote control for the amp, a bit of cabling here, the top of the rig where the roof meets the screens, keyboard stands etc etc and all I could think of was that when in the oculus, I felt like I was in the actual cockpit.

It's a real eye opener

mitor

Hi guys

I've only had a quick chance to try the rift thanks to a chap called Jazz, (he's been creating the HL2 mode with Nathan Andrews) who was kind enough to demo it.

Just to echo everyone's first impressions; I was holding out on a consumer model with 1080p and full positional tracking but I immediately broke down and ordered a dev-kit! August can't come soon enough!

What struck me most was that the screen it the Dev-Kit was so rubbish (in terms of resolution, contrast, black level and saturation) and yet the effect was so utterly compelling. I play all my games on a JVC HD100 106" fixed frame about 10 feet away and it's got nothing on the immersion of the Rift! The Rift image is a fair bit wider, much, much taller and with perfect 3D. I've always hated 3D in films before but this, thanks to the total lack of cross talk and adjusted IPD is utterly perfect. So compelling.

Also worth mentioning that it's really surprisingly well made for a dev-kit, incredibly light and comfortable (leagues better than Sony's HMZ-T1)

For maybe an extra 6-12 months of playing Skyrim, HL2 etc in an early VR form I think the $300 is well worth it.

Oh, and MuseumSteve's point is well made, even my Batcave is nowhere as dark as wearing Ski goggles!

museumsteve

I'm spending time just messing around with all the various 3rd party options for racers and I get more excited as I try something new.

I really hope someone comes up with a way to replace the screen with a higher res unit..I know many early adopters would pay good money for it. I think I'd happily drop £100-£150 on a better screen, only because then I'd be interested in properly gaming with it.
At the moment it's awesome for tech demos, little projects and the endless release of community made oddities ...but I cant imagine gaming in it purely because of the low res. I wish I was a HL2 fan..I really should try it, because I bought it last week when I got caught up in the excitement of the official VR support

Smurfin

did you say skyrim?

Does anyone have one of these near me?  i.e. east anglia way?

Smurfin

..and what does HL2 look like on it? Struggling to comprehend what the experience is like...

Synchronicity

Any chance one of you could try it with War Thunder?

                               
Its a free game, which also happens to be awesome, and I think it would work perfectly with the Occulus. If you can get it working half decently, I may splurge on a dev kit.