Is VR dead?

Miguel Batista · Jul 21, 2019

Andrew_WOT said:
State of VR in 2019, good read.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/gizmod...ve-and-well-its-just-not-ready-1836538458/amp

Interesting article. Disagree with it as VR, At least in the uk, is present in a lot of arcades and cafés. Sure, some experiences are terrible (inmotionvr sim racing experience for once... tried it and if it was my first taste of VR it would put me off) but others are amazing. And it is a very nice entry level for many people who want to try it but can't afford a new headset (which is still a sizeable investment).

RCHeliguy · Jul 21, 2019

Miguel Batista said:
Interesting article. Disagree with it as VR, At least in the uk, is present in a lot of arcades and cafés. Sure, some experiences are terrible (inmotionvr sim racing experience for once... tried it and if it was my first taste of VR it would put me off) but others are amazing. And it is a very nice entry level for many people who want to try it but can't afford a new headset (which is still a sizeable investment).

That's pretty cool. I hadn't kept track of VR arcades since I looked before getting my Rift. At the time almost 2 years ago there was not much of anything. The nearest VR arcade 45 minutes away shut down and had horrible reviews.

However that was 2 years ago. I just googled and found out that there is now a VR arcade in my local mall and apparently from the picture below, it does have an entry level sim racing rig with the cost being $5 per race.

Not only that but this company called "Wild Dimensions" has franchised out all over the country. They have 8 VR arcades in my state and are currently in 9 states. The reviews for my local franchise were mixed but the one in a more tourist trap area 45 minutes away appears to be run much better and has fantastic reviews on both Trip Advisor and Yelp.

From the various pictures it appears they use a combination of Rifts, Vives, and PS VR headsets.

Deleted member 197115 · Jul 21, 2019

Is that a vomit bucket on the first picture?

RobertR1 · Jul 21, 2019

Pimax 5k+ review from a simracer.

I agree with him and that's how I'd state present it anyone else looking.

Deleted member 197115 · Jul 21, 2019

After Rift S, Reverb, Index, and all the news about upcoming Cosmos and Samsung, we don't hear a lot about Pimax.
Is it over or they still have bigger plans besides that ridiculous 8K X?

RCHeliguy · Jul 26, 2019

"Facebook wants VR to reach the masses. And for all its strengths, the Index is not a mass market price device. And we don’t want to get into a world in which…

There are amazing things we could do for $2000 right now. I will tell you that. We would blow you away for $2000. You would leave the show and write a awesome article about what we could do for $2000. For ten grand, we would change your life — and exactly a thousand people would buy it. And so like there’s this interplay between the price point and what we can deliver rationally into an audience big enough to give developers an ecosystem. That we’re very cognizant of."

I don't know about you, but I think I would have trouble with a $10K price tag even if it would change my life. LOL!

m_mirk · Jul 26, 2019

Alternate (germany) is selling Oculus Rift S for 334€ today as outlet articles. So I had to buy one for this price. I am looking forward to compare it with CV1. I will also decide whether to keep it or wait longer for Valve Index.

They also sell pimax 5k+.

Edit: price changed now. Hope they dont cancel my rift s...
Edit2: Prices show only using this link

RCHeliguy · Jul 29, 2019

Tuesday..... Tracking says that is when my Valve Index will arrive

Edit: It's Monday and I removed everything Rift related from my Media room and then spent a bit of time tidying up wiring to make everything convenient. Base stations are mounted with power wire out of sight, just need the HMD and controllers to arrive...

Deleted member 197115 · Jul 31, 2019

After successfully testing foveated rendering in HTC Vive Pro Eye, Tobil is opening tech and SDK for everyone else.
https://uploadvr.com/tobii-foveated-rendering/
Partners are not announced yet, but benchmarks look promising, almost 50% load drop.

RCHeliguy · Jul 31, 2019

Cool, that's a substantial pay off if you are talking about skipping a $1200 graphics card generation.

So far the Index is living up to my expectations. ReVive for Dirt Rally was a little challenging, but it does work and looks great and I'm hearing things I didn't know were in the sound track.

What's really funny is that I was looking at something in Dirt Rally that I thought was some kind of artifact, but it was the reflection off of a glossy CF dashboard into the window that I had never noticed before. I switched cars and it was gone, but the instruments looks great.

Eve Valkyrie absolutely blew me away. So vibrant, and the special effects smoke, fire, explosions are vivid and look amazing. I spent time standing up to look at my ships and the detail I never noticed before. Crazy since EV was an early VR release for the 1st gen headsets.

Steve D · Jul 31, 2019

RCHeliguy said:
Cool, that's a substantial pay off if you are talking about skipping a $1200 graphics card generation.

So far the Index is living up to my expectations. ReVive for Dirt Rally was a little challenging, but it does work and looks great and I'm hearing things I didn't know were in the sound track.

What's really funny is that I was looking at something in Dirt Rally that I thought was some kind of artifact, but it was the reflection off of a glossy CF dashboard into the window that I had never noticed before. I switched cars and it was gone, but the instruments looks great.

Eve Valkyrie absolutely blew me away. So vibrant, and the special effects smoke, fire, explosions are vivid and look amazing. I spent time standing up to look at my ships and the detail I never noticed before. Crazy since EV was an early VR release for the 1st gen headsets.

Mark, I'd be really interested in your Revive / Dirt Rally.exe set up procedure please as whilst I have it working with Revive 1.7.1, I'm getting very frequent micro stutters at 90hz and regardless of how low I set SteamVR video and in-game graphics settings. I've yet to try motion smoothing though, (at 120hz or 144hz) so that might be worth a go. Feel free to PM me to avoid the thread going off topic. Cheers.

Deleted member 197115 · Jul 31, 2019

HTC keeps playing some game heating up public interest by rereleasing old videos.
Guess they are about to drop some "real" news.
https://www.roadtovr.com/htc-vive-cosmos-trailers-q3-launch/

RCHeliguy · Jul 31, 2019

Steve D said:
Mark, I'd be really interested in your Revive / Dirt Rally.exe set up procedure please as whilst I have it working with Revive 1.7.1, I'm getting very frequent micro stutters at 90hz and regardless of how low I set SteamVR video and in-game graphics settings. I've yet to try motion smoothing though, (at 120hz or 144hz) so that might be worth a go. Feel free to PM me to avoid the thread going off topic. Cheers.

OK, we can take that one off topic, but before we compare notes, I need to test some more to make sure I'm not having the same issue and just haven't noticed it yet. I've been bouncing around between different games trying everything out.

Eve Valkyrie at 120fps is amazing( and helpful

) !!!! However for DCS World I sometimes wonder what if anything will ever be enough to drive it. I ended up backing it down to 80fps so I could get a little more SS to read the gauges well.