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Samsung announces Gear VR Powered by Oculus

M

Man

Member
Durante said:
Why? Clearly, the expectations will be very different between a cell phone and something which is an add-on to a purportedly high-end gaming console.

Oculus have been open about pursuing Android from the start.
Click to expand...
"Poisoning the well". Most people will have their first VR experience in 2015 using a mobile device thanks to this move. Oculus PC HMD is ultimately restricted to be in the vicinity of a higher-end stationary PC for a worthwhile experience and I'm not sure those even exists in >1% of households anymore.

Just to make it clear: I'm not worried at all about any of this (I *want* Oculus PC to be the highest-end it can be, I want mobile VR asap etc) but it simply hits Oculus in the face in terms of their own words. :)
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
Durante said:
I have informed knowledge about the pricing for the individual components which go into a device like this. We all know roughly what assembling hardware like it costs in China from various reports. That allows me to make an estimate, and I felt I made clear that it was just an estimate by the way I put it. What's your beef?
Click to expand...

No, you have informed knowledge about what you think are the individual components that go into a device like this. That's a pretty big difference. What's your beef?

First of all, I didn't say it was just a hunk of plastic, if you are sitting on a high horse of conversational culture then start by not putting words in my mouth please.
Click to expand...

Durante said:
It's a piece of plastic, two lenses, headstraps and a touchpad.
Click to expand...

oh ok.

Secondly, that same person remarked that they also feel like $100 is ideal.
Click to expand...

Where you feel that is shameless.
 
D

Durante

Member
Man said:
"Poisoning the well". Most people will have their first VR experience in 2015 using a mobile device thanks to this move.
Click to expand...
And they will, by necessity, be experiences crafted specifically for that purpose, not "lesser" versions of high-end games. That's what I meant by different expectations.


Krejlooc said:
Where you feel that is shameless.
Click to expand...
You really have trouble with your reading comprehension, don't you? I'll try to help:
Durante said:
Anything more than $100 for this is just shameless.
Click to expand...
 
G

georly

Member
GavinUK86 said:
Not true. I don't.
Click to expand...

atr0cious said:
Not even everyone in Silicon Valley has a phone.
Click to expand...

Sheesh, I don't mean literally everyone. I meant it in the same way that geico commercials say 'everyone knows that.'

I mean, the vast majority of 'of-age' US citizens own a phone, and 2/3rds of which own a smartphone. Why do you think service providers push right now is to get you to 'cancel your contract' and that they'll pay the cancellation fee? Because there are not enough people who DON'T already have a smartphone or contract to market to them.

Anyway, not worth arguing the semantics, it's pointless. All I was trying to say is 'a lot of people have phones, so creating a product that involves phones is easier than creating a new product that you expect people to adopt instead of a phone' - your potential user base is much larger.
 
K

Konosuke

Member
Feep said:
No, it is not. It contains sophisticated sensors and hardware. You think the Note 4 acceleratometers can do this? Heck no. And it's why every other shitty mobile VR experience at trade shows is fucking awful.

(That said I feel $100 would be ideal)
Click to expand...

Does it have an eye-tracking cam?
 
I

Ingueferroque

Banned
nib95 said:
This might not seem like it'd work well, but it really does. Tested something similar using my friends Nexus and his cardboard Google box (which basically turns the phone in to DIY VR) and it's an amazing experience, even if it is much less refined.

google-cardboard-9902.jpg


Samsung are essentially just taking this concept to the next affordable evolutionary stage.
Click to expand...

Yeah, my thoughts. It's cool that they're doing this though, bringing more attention to VR.
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
Durante said:
You really have trouble with your reading comprehension, don't you? I'll try to help:
Click to expand...

And you seem to have trouble remembering the very arguments you put forth:

Durante said:
I'm not demanding that it costs the, what, $40 it costs to build. I don't think it should cost much more than twice that
Click to expand...

You clearly have umbrage with the price stemming from what you perceived to be low-fi tech. You can stop being coy.
 
F

Feep

Banned
To my knowledge, the camera on the inside is used to simply detect if the user is currently wearing the headset. Not sure, though, I haven't seen it in action myself.
 
D

Durante

Member
Krejlooc said:
And you seem to have trouble remembering the very arguments you put forth:
Click to expand...
Are you now arguing that $100 is "much more" than $80? I'm really not following.

Krejlooc said:
You clearly have umbrage with the price stemming from what you perceived to be low-fi tech. You can stop being coy.
Click to expand...
I dislike hardware being sold for massive premiums, I don't think I've ever remotely been coy about that. I probably have 500 posts in this forum to that effect, be they about Apple phones, or Alienware PCs, or even the initial Wii U pricing. It's not like I'm trying to exclusively pick on Samsung here.
 
B

Bsigg12

Member
I wonder if they'll have them at Best Buys at the Samsung Experience thing they have now? I wouldn't mind trying it out, though I'll probably bring some wet wipes.
 
C

Canis lupus

Member
Ingueferroque said:
Yeah, my thoughts. It's cool that they're doing this though, bringing more attention to VR.
Click to expand...

Ultimately paving the way for Oculus' own downfall? All these companies will want to make cheap, less refined VR products, powered by weak mobiles. The public will see this and their first experience will be on these devices. The novelty will vanish before the Rift comes out, which will be more expensive and less of a plug and play experience.
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
Durante said:
Are you now arguing that $100 is "much more" than $80? I'm really not following.
Click to expand...

Is this what you really wanted to say? Your entire argument to hinge on whether or not a 125% price difference is "much more"?

You can play that semantics game, my point remains the same: you don't know the costs involved in this headset, hence your posts read like an exercise in the dunning-kruger effect.

I dislike hardware being sold for massive premiums, I don't think I've ever remotely been coy about that. I probably have 500 posts in this forum to that effect, be they about Apple phones, or Alienware PCs, or even the initial Wii U pricing. It's not like I'm trying to exclusively pick on Samsung here.
Click to expand...

Cool.
 
K

Kakulin

Banned
As someone that was already planning to upgrade to the Note 4 (i'm still on Note 1), I look foward to trying this VR device out. Sign me up Samsung! :)
 
P

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Feep said:
Soooooooooooooo, this finally happened.

I've been working closely with Oculus and Samsung for the past few months, developing for the Gear VR. I've made a game called Lunasee, which I'll take the liberty of copy-pasting from my press release here:



I think it's pretty rad, to be honest. I'll be happy to answer any questions anymore might have, and I may even make a thread about the Gear VR, but it'll have to wait a tiny bit, I have some stuff to take care of this morning. = D

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Click to expand...

I have long thought a 'Cyclops' game would be a killer app for VR since it is literally perfect in concept. I hope your game comes to er... multiple VR devices and not just this one.
 
D

Durante

Member
Krejlooc said:
Is this what you really wanted to say?
Click to expand...
No, I just wanted to say what I said at the start:
That selling this piece of hardware (consisting of lenses, a touchpad, plastic, headstraps, and, as I was thankfully corrected, a sensor) at more than $100 would be shameless.

You turned that into me stating that selling this "hunk of plastic" at $100 would be shameless. Which you also proceeded to attack.
Since this misrepresents my initial position on two significant counts, I had to clarify. Now you are trying to turn this act of clarification into me making a semantics argument, when in fact my point never changed, and the auxiliary discussion was prompted by you.

Edit:
Obviously, my reading comprehension remark was completely unnecessary. I just get very easily annoyed when I perceive something as attacking a strawman rather than my real argument. I hope we can leave it at this.
 
S

ScepticMatt

Member
Krejlooc said:
DK2 does time warping. Time warping is just reprojection. Morpheus uses a form of it to interpolate 120 fps from the 60 fps the PS4 pumps out.
Click to expand...
Interpolation is much easier to do than extrapolation (e.g. predictive time warp).
You also have to change the rendering pipleline.
 
S

Seanspeed

Banned
Feep said:
Soooooooooooooo, this finally happened.

I've been working closely with Oculus and Samsung for the past few months, developing for the Gear VR. I've made a game called Lunasee, which I'll take the liberty of copy-pasting from my press release here:



I think it's pretty rad, to be honest. I'll be happy to answer any questions anymore might have, and I may even make a thread about the Gear VR, but it'll have to wait a tiny bit, I have some stuff to take care of this morning. = D

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Click to expand...
Megaton.
 
D

Durante

Member
ScepticMatt said:
Interpolation is much easier to do than extrapolation (e.g. predictive time warp)
Click to expand...
Are you implying that Morpheus uses interpolation? I wouldn't think that would be fast enough for VR.

Also, the way I understood timewarp from the documentation, it's not really extrapolation. It simply (well, "simply") reprojects the final rendering using the most recent sensor data. Motion prediction is separate and orthogonal.
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
ScepticMatt said:
Interpolation is much easier to do than extrapolation (e.g. predictive time warp)
Click to expand...

It's not really interpolation, that's actually predictive extrapolation. Real interpolation isn't beneficial for VR because naturally induces lag. However, I'm assuming because the enthusiast press isn't well versed on predictive reprojection, most articles on morpheus call it's process, "interpolation."
 
S

Seanspeed

Banned
Man said:
At the same time Oculus are eating their words about potentially worrisome PS4/Morpheus performance but we all knew that was pr bs.
Click to expand...
No they're not. Their issue was the locked hardware. The PS4 is never going to get more powerful. Its the lack of movement that is the problem. Phones and VR headsets can constantly iterate and improve, year-on-year. Consoles are basically locked down spec and feature-wise, basically remain the same throughout their lifetime. That's the problem. These guys know that VR, in these early stages, is something that is best when in an open, moving environment, which the consoles simply lack.

I'm sure they'd have been fine with providing headsets for console compatibility, because it would help their cause and probably sell fairly well, but its definitely not the ideal environment for them. People making things out to be more than that are just looking to stir the pot.

Canis lupus said:
Ultimately paving the way for Oculus' own downfall? All these companies will want to make cheap, less refined VR products, powered by weak mobiles. The public will see this and their first experience will be on these devices. The novelty will vanish before the Rift comes out, which will be more expensive and less of a plug and play experience.
Click to expand...
You're assuming that these will be bad experiences. VR will be best appreciated with the Rift on a powerful PC, but VR can have many forms and mobile VR, while not inherently ideal at the moment(that can change), can still be plenty impressive.
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
Durante said:
Are you implying that Morpheus uses interpolation? I wouldn't think that would be fast enough for VR.

Also, the way I understood timewarp from the documentation, it's not really extrapolation. It simply (well, "simply") reprojects the final rendering using the most recent sensor data. Motion prediction is separate and orthogonal.
Click to expand...

I'm trying to find the exact lecture or presentation or whatever it was from Carmack that talked about temporal interpolation. I'm fairly certain timewarp includes predictive readings in its reprojection, not just the latest sensor readings. Perhaps some form of fusion between predictive reading and the latest sensor reading.

In any case, true interpolation as we all understand it is basically useless for VR. VR is all about cutting down latency, interpolation adds a full frame of latency.
 
D

Durante

Member
Krejlooc said:
I'm trying to find the exact lecture or presentation or whatever it was from Carmack that talked about temporal interpolation. I'm fairly certain timewarp includes predictive readings in its reprojection, not just the latest sensor readings. Perhaps some form of fusion between predictive reading and the latest sensor reading.
Click to expand...
My understanding is that it uses the latest available sensor reading. If you have motion prediction enabled that includes prediction of course, so it "naturally" uses predicted data. But the timewarp idea itself is really about getting rid of the 13 ms or whatever it takes to render the frame, and it's orthogonal to motion prediction.

Krejlooc said:
In any case, true interpolation as we all understand it is basically useless for VR. VR is all about cutting down latency, interpolation adds a full frame of latency.
Click to expand...
Exactly, that's why I was surprised by Matt's post.
 
G

Gamerloid

Member
Seems like a health hazard with a phone like the note 4 being all in your face. Who knows what effects VR might have on people, but this is a double wammy.
 
F

Feep

Banned
Oh, and I don't know if this has been reported as a big deal, but it was to me:

The top of the Gear VR has a little dial. This dial is NOT used to adjust how close the headset rests from your eyes, but rather, how far the screen itself is from the lenses. It effectively allows a variable prescription from +1 to about -5 dioptics in each eye.

It's been an absolute dream for someone like me, who normally wears glasses and had to basically switch to contacts every time I had to use the damn thing.
 
N

nowai

Member
Daaaag, I had an emotional reaction to seeing Carmack.

It was so refreshing to see him talking about something he's obviously very passionate about.

Welcome back buddy.
 
D

Doc Holliday

SPOILER: Columbus finds America
Heard about this almost a year ago, people that worked on it think it's a legit VR platform. Crossing my fingers. Having no wires is huge deal imo.
 
M

Maintenance

Member
plop said:
100% serious, and what the fuck does Apple's shit have to do with anything?

You people who argue over phone operating systems are almost as bad as people who argue over which console is better.

Samsung makes cheap shit. Read up on their "first to market" strategy that they've employed pretty much since they opened their doors. They care little for quality, and are all about either entering a marketplace first (regardless of how shoddy their product is), or entering a saturated marketplace and overtaking it by undercutting their competitors in price (and also build quality).

I don't buy Samsung products. And it has absolutely nothing to do with Android or any other bullshit. It's from a long history of dealing with shitty Samsung products.
Click to expand...


100% agreed with you. Had shitty Samsung products for a while (monitors, cellphones, HDs) then saw that the "bargain" prices weren't actually a bargain, since they were shitty.

About the topic, I hope that this makes VR even more mainstream, so that other companies get in and make more stuff like this. Will buy one when another company that is not Samsung make it.
 
S

Seanspeed

Banned
Krejlooc said:
Freep, does this have an accessible usb port? Because, if so, positional tracking wont be a big problem :)
Click to expand...
That's an interesting question. You'd think it would hopefully have some of potential controller/keyboard interaction as well. It would be awfully limiting if the extent of the controls were the touchpad, head tracking and a 'back' button.
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
Actually, durr, I was asking about the USB so we could attach a camera to the front, but this already has one, so that was dumb of me. I don't think positional tracking will be a problem with this.
 
R

RCSI

Member
Feep, what's the battery life like when used exclusively for VR? I can imagine it's not good, I'm just curious what the number is.
 
R

R1CHO

Member
Seanspeed said:
That's an interesting question. You'd think it would hopefully have some of potential controller/keyboard interaction as well. It would be awfully limiting if the extent of the controls were the touchpad, head tracking and a 'back' button.
Click to expand...

It has Bluetooth for that.
 
M

mnannola

Member
Samsung missed a huge opportunity here by not allowing a hookup from a PC, treating this as a Oculus Rift light. I have Google Cardboard, and it is mostly a novelty at this point due to the massive gap in graphics between a smart phone and a beefed up PC.

I would like to be able to play oculus rift enabled games on a headset that uses a smartphone as the display only. This cannot be that hard to do, but maybe I am missing something.

I was able to get my PC to stream to my Nexus 4 using this app, but two things are working against it:

1. Wifi latency is almost unbearable for a VR display.
2. Games that support oculus do not work, because an oculus display is not detected.

If Samsung would have offered the ability to hook this up to a PC as an Oculus device, these problems would have been eliminated.

Oh well, hopefully this happens soon.
 
KaiserBecks

KaiserBecks

Member
This will be my next phone. I'm not convinced that it'll have plenty of useful/impressive VR applications, let alone games, but it'll be awesome for watching movies and/or playing emulated retro games.
 
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