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[Krejlooc]

I worked on a Gear VR title called theBlu. I thought Gear VR was going to be a gimmick, but its actually pretty great and its a fantastic entry point for people who are new to the VR space. Its easy to just hand it to someone and have them check out the experience. Plus- No wires!

The price feels a little steep to me, but if you're into VR and you don't want to constantly be updating a huge tower rig, this is a great option. As for micro-trans, the fact that it wouldn't be available at launch was a surprise- A lot of devs put in a lot of time and resources before they dropped that bomb in late summer.

I feel like mobile vr is going to carve out a niche in media viewing early on, because it requires lower power requirements, the benefits are immediately obvious, and content is coming, while Oculus rift will serve higher end applications.

Gear vr is where stuff like fox's vr projects or NIN's vr concert will likely drop.

 

[TrojanBlade]

Also on the subject of Google Cardboard, barnes & noble is selling a cardboard kit in stores:

Sells for $9 in store, $17 on amazon.com. Comes with the cardboard kit itself and basically reviews the existing Durovis Dive or Cardboard VR apps available on the google play store.

Does this really work like OcR and gives the VR feeling? Or more like Sony's personal head mount viewer?

 

[Krejlooc]

Does this really work like OcR and gives the VR feeling? Or more like Sony's personal head mount viewer?

It's comparable to an Oculus rift dk1.

 

[Feep]

I worked on a Gear VR title called theBlu. I thought Gear VR was going to be a gimmick, but its actually pretty great and its a fantastic entry point for people who are new to the VR space. Its easy to just hand it to someone and have them check out the experience. Plus- No wires!

The price feels a little steep to me, but if you're into VR and you don't want to constantly be updating a huge tower rig, this is a great option. As for micro-trans, the fact that it wouldn't be available at launch was a surprise- A lot of devs put in a lot of time and resources before they dropped that bomb in late summer.

Yo, straight up, theBlu is pretty much the first thing (along with the VR Cinema) I show to people when I give them the Gear VR. Absolutely fantastic work, man. I really want the "Sandy" option!

I don't know how much I can give away without breaking NDA, so I'm not going to go crazy. I will say that in the VR Cinema app is a new theater, the "Moon" theater, which is awesome because YOU GET TO WATCH A MOVIE ON THE MOON.

My game is called Lunasee, and it's pretty low-hanging fruit (you're basically Cyclops and shoot things with eyebeams). But I think it's fun. = D

Also, Krej, the Gear VR is far above the DK1. 1440p screen helps a LOT, and the latency doesn't seem to be any higher.

 

[Oblong Schlong]

Its a noticeable change in release strategy and one that I think its naïve to suggest that Samsung, who Oculus are indebted towards, have nothing to do with.

You're right, this is Samsung muscling what they can from the partnership with Oculus.

For Samsung, having a product in a new niche (especially one that Apple aren't close to) is like catnip. They can't help themselves. GearVR V1 will be nothing by Samsung product launch standards, but future product will ramp up tentatively. They intend to be seen as leading the mobile sector on this.

For Oculus, they get access to cutting edge OLED tech. This goes beyond reducing the bill of materials on CV1, it means custom parts with defined dimensions and specs- a big improvement on off-the-shelf with overdriven panels etc. Carmack's presentation at Oculus Connect shows he's not shy about making specific demands of Samsung; getting the best product at the best price is a great prize.

GearVR will also gives some gentle impetus to the market and the software scene (although it would help if those guys could actually make money...), but that's a footnote. This deal, combined with Facebook credit, is the thing that puts them in pole position for CV1.

Speaking of which, hi from the Autosport forum! I'm RaySpace over there.

 

[Krejlooc]

Also, Krej, the Gear VR is far above the DK1. 1440p screen helps a LOT, and the latency doesn't seem to be any higher.

I mean in terms of tracking. It's still just 3dof imu-based tracking. It's much more like dk1 than the Sony hmz line.

 

[Krejlooc]

Its a noticeable change in release strategy and one that I think its naïve to suggest that Samsung, who Oculus are indebted towards, have nothing to do with.

So since this didn't actually happen is probably safe to talk about it now, but the rift was originally planned to launch in November. The consumer version. Then the samsung deal was inked and Oculus themselves pushed back the release.

Gear vr is right on schedule. This is where the tech was supposed to be.

 

[Kakulin]

Sign me up! I'll grab a Note 4 as soon as this thing goes up for sale (am still on Note 1). Also, it's obvious that 1st version of GearVR is meant for enthusiasts. Those of us that are willing to beta test it, and then buy the refreshes.

Virtual Reality, where all our dreams come true. What a time to be alive!

 

[Soi-Fong]

Already got the Note 4. Just waiting on pre-orders to open for the Gear VR.

 

[saxman717]

Any chance that we get this delivered to our door by mid Dec, i.e. within 2 weeks from now, as was predicted? I'd really like to play around with this over the holiday break, and hope I don't have to wait til the tail end of it.........

 

[gofreak]

I've been thinking about this a while, and now someone's doing it... kind of Gear VR related, but I think this could be huge for VR in general in the longer run. Basically, cloud+VR can work together...and it could be really big.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/28/o...rtual-reality-app-development-into-the-cloud/

We’re working toward streaming not just a video of what’s happening but almost a hologram. We announced this technology at [graphics conference] Siggraph. The idea is that when you have a holographic video stream, it allows you to look around, like through a window. You have a portal into that world. It’s super low latency.

This is something we’re doing specifically for VR streaming. You can have the ability, whether it’s with Oculus’s Development Kit 2 (DK2) or the Samsung Gear, to connect with this perfectly rendered virtual world and get a stream. It solves a huge number of problems, especially with Gear VR, where you have very low rendering power and you don’t have a lot of storage. That’s the plan. We’ll migrate from streaming existing 2D applications in the browser to doing full VR immersive streams.

I'm not sure about the server side rendering, and network bandwidth requirements of passing down a lightfield rendering at 30 or 60hz, but bandwidth is probably already OK and compute capacity will undoubtedly become economical if it isn't already.Basically it's a pretty 'old' technique to allow you to create new viewpoints from a static set of lighting data, instantly...so, in a VR context, the client can react to head motion instantaneously, while the server updates this data at 30 or 60hz or whatever. It would solve the issue of head input latency for cloud driven VR, even if other input latency would remain...but the latter wouldn't be nearly as critical.

Super exciting, especially given the processing requirements of VR. In the future you could just need the headset and a good network connection (and a subscription ).

 

[Afrikan]

Also on the subject of Google Cardboard, barnes & noble is selling a cardboard kit in stores:

Sells for $9 in store, $17 on amazon.com. Comes with the cardboard kit itself and basically reviews the existing Durovis Dive or Cardboard VR apps available on the google play store.

I've had this for awhile now..and I keep it in the trunk of my car... always show it off to new people...and they are all like WHERE CAN I GET ONE!!!!!

I've shown the underwater demo...roller coster one...and real video 360 sky parachuting one..or what ever it is that takes place in the snow mountains.

 

[Krejlooc]

I've been thinking about this a while, and now someone's doing it... kind of Gear VR related, but I think this could be huge for VR in general in the longer run. Basically, cloud+VR can work together...and it could be really big.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/28/o...rtual-reality-app-development-into-the-cloud/



I'm not sure about the server side rendering, and network bandwidth requirements of passing down a lightfield rendering at 30 or 60hz, but bandwidth is probably already OK and compute capacity will undoubtedly become economical if it isn't already.Basically it's a pretty 'old' technique to allow you to create new viewpoints from a static set of lighting data, instantly...so, in a VR context, the client can react to head motion instantaneously, while the server updates this data at 30 or 60hz or whatever. It would solve the issue of head input latency for cloud driven VR, even if other input latency would remain...but the latter wouldn't be nearly as critical.

Super exciting, especially given the processing requirements of VR. In the future you could just need the headset and a good network connection (and a subscription ).

Otoy has been intentionally vague about their technology which sets off some red flags. Essentially, when posed with the question of whether they are actually rendering a scene and storing it as a lightfield, which would be pretty spectacular, or if they are reprojecting a viewpoint of a stored scene in real time, which is actually pretty mundane, they dodge the answer. Their talk about reprojection and layered 360 degree scenes seem to point to the later. Considering a few months ago they claimed these maps took 3 gigabytes per frame and are now claiming they take 64 megabytes per frame, I'm guessing this isn't quite the technology most assume it is. Essentially, the consensus is that this is offline rendering within 1 foot cube maps at a time which get sent back to a normal computer using information from the rift itself.

Which itself is quite a bit different than the claims they are making, but is still cool. Panoramic reprojections themselves don't require high bandwidth or low latency (since everything around you is stored within the frame even before you move). This, essentially, has a very specific application and would require any games built off this technology to work in very specific ways.

 

[HolyBaikal]

It's really difficult waiting for Virtual Reality, so I might try this out. Maybe it would be better than the first Oculus Rift Developer Kit?

I wonder, is it possible to do something like playing Super Mario 3D World and Mario Kart 8 and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker in a virtual reality theater room?

Like maybe I could buy a aVerMedia Extreme card and use it as an HDMI in, and then put the HDMI in into one of the theater room things? I feel like it would be so much fun to play my favourite Wii U games in virtual reality. Even if it was just a theater room.

 

[Krejlooc]

It's really difficult waiting for Virtual Reality, so I might try this out. Maybe it would be better than the first Oculus Rift Developer Kit?

In terms of fidelity, this will be the best VR kit on the market. It has a higher resolution screen than the DK2. It's still low persistent, but it only refreshes at 60 hz instead of the 75 of DK2.

In terms of tracking it's a step back, 3DOF vs the 6DOF the DK2 affords thanks to its outside-in positional tracking camera, which GearVR lacks. Positional tracking isn't ruled out - as I said earlier in this topic, Carmack is experimenting using high frequency cameras (120 hz on the Note 4 compared to the typical 30 most other cell phone cameras run at) to measure displacement of pixels to use as landmarks for tracking. This is essentially a markerless tracking system that is experimental and untested, and may never quite work correctly. The key component is having a camera with a high enough frequency such that individual pixels don't blur with quick movements so they can be tracked throughout the frame. I've heard Carmack wants a 240 hz camera eventually.

I wonder, is it possible to do something like playing Super Mario 3D World and Mario Kart 8 and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker in a virtual reality theater room?

Not very likely, at least not without loads of lag and there would be no headtracking in general. That said, there is Dolphin for android in development, so who knows - maybe you can run a GCN game locally on the phone in VR (I haven't tried this at all, dunno how well dolphin runs on a phone in general). The phone itself lacks external video input so you couldn't feed a WiiU image to the thing without using some combination of streaming tech, which would destroy the effect due to incredibly high latency.

 

[AegisScott]

Yo, straight up, theBlu is pretty much the first thing (along with the VR Cinema) I show to people when I give them the Gear VR. Absolutely fantastic work, man. I really want the "Sandy" option!

I don't know how much I can give away without breaking NDA, so I'm not going to go crazy. I will say that in the VR Cinema app is a new theater, the "Moon" theater, which is awesome because YOU GET TO WATCH A MOVIE ON THE MOON.

My game is called Lunasee, and it's pretty low-hanging fruit (you're basically Cyclops and shoot things with eyebeams). But I think it's fun. = D

Also, Krej, the Gear VR is far above the DK1. 1440p screen helps a LOT, and the latency doesn't seem to be any higher.

Oh man- Sandy was my section! We all worked a bit on everything, but Sandy was really my baby. It has some neat features, hopefully it'll make the final cut! Thanks for the vote of confidence

Anyway, super excited to see what other folks brew up. It really does feel different from the straight Oculus experience. To me, it felt the experience I really wanted from the Oculus- Freeing, somehow. The weight and lack of wires really add up.

 

[Krejlooc]

Oh man- Sandy was my section! We all worked a bit on everything, but Sandy was really my baby. It has some neat features, hopefully it'll make the final cut! Thanks for the vote of confidence

Anyway, super excited to see what other folks brew up. It really does feel different from the straight Oculus experience. To me, it felt the experience I really wanted from the Oculus- Freeing, somehow. The weight and lack of wires really add up.

I use a boom mic running behind me to free myself of wires on the rift, haha. VR development has been pretty eye opening for me - I had no idea how much I hate wires. I can't stand using the Razer Hydras because of that. If the STEMs did nothing else beyond offering what the Hydras were, only wirelessly, I'd still have bought them.

I'm curious to tinker with the GearVR Oculus Mobile SDK. I've begun building a 2-player shooting game demo for the rift in anticipation of my STEMs ariving within the next month-ish, and it's being built in Unity, so it wouldn't be much work to get it running on GearVR as well.

 

[TrojanBlade]

It's comparable to an Oculus rift dk1.

Can't believe OCR team built it after much research and google just came up with a cardboard one as good as their version lol.

Does it work with iPhone or just Android phones?

 

[not_so_special]

this is just the googlee cardboard but with plastic and more elaborate design?

 

[Seanspeed]

Speaking of which, hi from the Autosport forum! I'm RaySpace over there.

Seen a couple of y'all over here! Hi!

 

[Krejlooc]

Can't believe OCR team built it after much research and google just came up with a cardboard one as good as their version lol.

Most of what the DK1 did wasn't hardware, it was software. The DK1 was just standard IMUs onto a nothing-special 7" screen. Keep in mind the rift itself was born out of Palmer Luckey literally duct taping his cellphone to his face. What made the rift compelling was the way it really facilitated VR development - a whole SDK, unity integration, barrel projection pre-calculated, etc.

DK2 is the result of a lot of custom hardware being created. DK1 is mainly custom software. That google could match their software so quickly - especially when it's been so heavily documented - isn't that surprising.

Also, I said it was comparable to a DK1... but it's not quite as good. Your phone's IMU is not very high end, where the IMUs in the rift weren't bottom of the barrel.

Does it work with iPhone or just Android phones?

So google's VR platform is actually called Cardboard - that's their software development suit. That is exclusive to android, and hence all cardboard apps only work on android.

But there exists another company called Durovis Dive, which is pretty much Cardboard's direct competitor. Their product is a plastic headset that holds your phone, and they've developed their own SDK (branded with Dive) that works on both the iphone and android. So you can use your phone to run cardboard and dive apps if you have android, or you can use dive apps only if you have an iphone.

The Note 4 is extra special because it can run cardboard apps, dive apps, special GearVR apps, and oculus mobile SDK apps.

 

[Krejlooc]

this is just the googlee cardboard but with plastic and more elaborate design?

No. As I said in an earlier post, the IMUs on a phone are not anything special. The GearVR has extra, custom IMUs within as well as a touchpad on the side for external controls.

 

[gofreak]

Otoy has been intentionally vague about their technology which sets off some red flags. Essentially, when posed with the question of whether they are actually rendering a scene and storing it as a lightfield, which would be pretty spectacular, or if they are reprojecting a viewpoint of a stored scene in real time, which is actually pretty mundane, they dodge the answer. Their talk about reprojection and layered 360 degree scenes seem to point to the later. Considering a few months ago they claimed these maps took 3 gigabytes per frame and are now claiming they take 64 megabytes per frame, I'm guessing this isn't quite the technology most assume it is. Essentially, the consensus is that this is offline rendering within 1 foot cube maps at a time which get sent back to a normal computer using information from the rift itself.

What they showed at Siggraph was definitely an offline rendered full 'cubic' volume of light samples, like a static render.

And yes, they're talking also about warping and 'smart' time warping with multiple layers (which could yield good results btw, even if not quite as good as a lightfield!).

But I'm hopefully when they talk about lightfield rendering in a VR context, they mean more than a 'snapshot' that can be viewed, but a dynamic, 30hz lightfield.

Thing is, we don't really need a full lightfield? In 33ms your viewpoint won't change that dramatically. We don't need a lightfield that can support arbitrary viewpoints, but a more limited range around the last reported user position/orientation. That could offer an optimisation path for memory footprint and rendering.

We can definitely get there. Otoy may or may not be the first to do it, but someone will, and they won't be alone, and eventually it will get 'cheap enough' per player. I'm really hopeful of that.

(Head motion input aside though, yes, this kind of VR application would need to account for other input lag...it might require some designing around. The possibilities are wonderful though, and it would be highly significant when we can offer higher end VR experiences out of the box without the need for beefy PCs)

If lightfields are a little further future, I'm still very curious to see what 'smart' time warping could buy us off the cloud.

 

[Refreshment.01]

Krejlooc:

What types of improvements would be made to the GearVR as time goes? Or it will just up to the SDK improvements and the actual smarthphone to carry any advancements?

 

[rezuth]

have they fixed the issues they had with heating?

 

[Krejlooc]

Krejlooc:

What types of improvements would be made to the GearVR as time goes? Or it will just up to the SDK improvements and the actual smarthphone to carry any advancements?

It'll be the improvements to the phone in general. Higher frequency camera, higher resolution eventually, higher refresh rate (90+ hz ultimately). John Carmack wants to take this thing as far as possible - he outlined a revolutionary new type of display that he's trying to convince samsung to build that would change the way display technology forever works.

If you want a peak into where GearVR is heading and what type of display John Carmack wants Samsung to build (interlaced rolling-raster asynchrous time-warp, essentially) watch this absolutely riveting video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn8m5d74fk8

Oculus sees GearVR as their fixed spec platform where they can do some really crazy experimental stuff.

have they fixed the issues they had with heating?

That will ultimately depend on the specific program and how hard it taxes the hardware, but as technology improves, heat dissipation problems should alleviate a well.

 

[EVIL]

It'll be the improvements to the phone in general. Higher frequency camera, higher resolution eventually, higher refresh rate (90+ hz ultimately). John Carmack wants to take this thing as far as possible - he outlined a revolutionary new type of display that he's trying to convince samsung to build that would change the way display technology forever works.

If you want a peak into where GearVR is heading and what type of display John Carmack wants Samsung to build (interlaced rolling-raster asynchrous time-warp, essentially) watch this absolutely riveting video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn8m5d74fk8

Oculus sees GearVR as their fixed spec platform where they can do some really crazy experimental stuff.

Which makes me wonder if this stuff is on the roadmap for the rift in terms of consumer version, or if it would be something doable for the next version of the rift. I mean if this talk is mostly carmack wishes for gear VR then I dont think we will even see it in the rift, am I right?

 

[Krejlooc]

Which makes me wonder if this stuff is on the roadmap for the rift in terms of consumer version, or if it would be something doable for the next version of the rift. I mean if this talk is mostly carmack wishes for gear VR then I dont think we will even see it in the rift, am I right?

Definitely won't be in the consumer version, but the type of display he proposes, he wants to use in a future rift.

Carmack's display has uses beyond VR. He is basically proposing a radical shift in the way conventional screens work, that will have benefits all over. This technology, for example, would render stuff like Gsync pointless and would provide enormous framerate boosts to virtually every application ever. It would essentially do away with the concept of double buffering. Vsync in general would be a thing of the past. Screen tearing wouldn't really exist anymore. You would throw stuff up on screen as soon as it's rendered.

 

[EVIL]

Definitely won't be in the consumer version, but the type of display he proposes, he wants to use in a future rift.

Carmack's display has uses beyond VR. He is basically proposing a radical shift in the way conventional screens work, that will have benefits all over. This technology, for example, would render stuff like Gsync pointless and would provide enormous framerate boosts to virtually every application ever. It would essentially do away with the concept of double buffering. Vsync in general would be a thing of the past. Screen tearing wouldn't really exist anymore. You would throw stuff up on screen as soon as it's rendered.

Sounds like only idiots would not want that. sometimes

Spoiler

all the damn time

I really love Carmacks brain. I hope he pulls it off!

 

[Ziffles]

Definitely won't be in the consumer version, but the type of display he proposes, he wants to use in a future rift.

Carmack's display has uses beyond VR. He is basically proposing a radical shift in the way conventional screens work, that will have benefits all over. This technology, for example, would render stuff like Gsync pointless and would provide enormous framerate boosts to virtually every application ever. It would essentially do away with the concept of double buffering. Vsync in general would be a thing of the past. Screen tearing wouldn't really exist anymore. You would throw stuff up on screen as soon as it's rendered.

How does Carmack's idea go beyond the regular time warp feature? There's not a lot of info about it out there now.

From the videos I've seen, time warp sounds like a nice software solution to prevent stuttering, but it's not like a hardware revolution or anything.

 

[Krejlooc]

Sounds like only idiots would not want that. sometimes

Spoiler

all the damn time

I really love Carmacks brain. I hope he pulls it off!

His speech at Oculus Connect was so amazing. He got cut off because they needed to go for lunch, but he probably could have talked for 3 more hours. It was probably the coolest thing I've seen all year long.

And yeah he dropped the gauntlet on stage. He came out and basically said, "I have a theory for a new type of display, it'll change the world, Samsung currently has reservations about making it, so anybody who wants to build my display come to us and we'll talk."

It takes enormous balls to basically call out your hardware partner as, essentially, a Luddite.

Hearing him talk about how Samsung didn't trust him at all in the beginning, and he had to basically win them over step by step by demonstrating 'the impossible' to them over and over again was absolutely wild. It's pretty crazy to me that there are people out there who still doubt Carmack's genius. And I use that term without hyperbole.

 

[Krejlooc]

How does Carmack's idea go beyond the regular time warp feature? There's not a lot of info about it out there now.

He goes into extreme detail about it in the video. Currently, timewarp is 1 reprojection late in the rendering pipeline across the entire screen. From there, he reasoned that, if he partitioned the screen into essentially two screens, he could perform timewarp on each half of the screen, treating them like independent frames. From there, he reasoned he could arbitrarily slice up the screen into numerous slices - 8 or so, and perform timewarp multiple times on the same screen.

So, from there, he went to the logical conclusion and realized he could slice the screen n times and do n number of time warps across the screen. Then he realized that, by returning to interlaced screen technology, he could isolate the actual drawing raster and use that to dynamically define 1-pixel tall screens across the entire resolution of the screen, all at once. The end result is Y number of timewarps, where Y is the actual vertical resolution of the screen.

The end result is basically real-time screen updating. The very nanosecond a piece of the scene is computed and rendered, it appears on the screen, no matter where it is. This mimics our own vision - we don't see in frames, we actually see in globs of independently updating pieces of vision that our brains stitch together.

With all this in mind, Carmack has long said that latency is what causes VR sickness. So, consider that most normal gamers put up with about 60-100 ms of latency depending on their TV. Carmack challenged VR developers to get their total render time - from projection to render to last photon firing - down to under 20 ms, the magical threshold. Many considered that an insanely low bar.

With a crude prototype of his screen, Carmack has got that time down to sub-4ms. This is mic-dropping technology, in other words.

 

[TrojanBlade]

Most of what the DK1 did wasn't hardware, it was software. The DK1 was just standard IMUs onto a nothing-special 7" screen. Keep in mind the rift itself was born out of Palmer Luckey literally duct taping his cellphone to his face. What made the rift compelling was the way it really facilitated VR development - a whole SDK, unity integration, barrel projection pre-calculated, etc.

DK2 is the result of a lot of custom hardware being created. DK1 is mainly custom software. That google could match their software so quickly - especially when it's been so heavily documented - isn't that surprising.

Also, I said it was comparable to a DK1... but it's not quite as good. Your phone's IMU is not very high end, where the IMUs in the rift weren't bottom of the barrel.



So google's VR platform is actually called Cardboard - that's their software development suit. That is exclusive to android, and hence all cardboard apps only work on android.

But there exists another company called Durovis Dive, which is pretty much Cardboard's direct competitor. Their product is a plastic headset that holds your phone, and they've developed their own SDK (branded with Dive) that works on both the iphone and android. So you can use your phone to run cardboard and dive apps if you have android, or you can use dive apps only if you have an iphone.

The Note 4 is extra special because it can run cardboard apps, dive apps, special GearVR apps, and oculus mobile SDK apps.

Thanks for the in depth explanation.

 

[jack...]

Just got the GearVR OTA update on my AT&T Note 4 and downloaded all of the Oculus apps. Can't wait for this thing to be released.

 

[Linkup]

Just got the GearVR OTA update on my AT&T Note 4 and downloaded all of the Oculus apps. Can't wait for this thing to be released.

ATnT updating before release?! Bunch of people feared they would take longer. Good sign.

 

[Ziffles]

sub-4ms

Damn!

I hope he can make it happen some time soon.

 

[Naked Snake]

Can anyone explain why Oculus Rift is taking so long. I keep checking Amazon for it and nothing.

This almost made me laugh. When it's ready you'll read about it on GAF way before Amazon.

 

[Nakazato]

This is making me thins against nexus 6

 

[M3d10n]

You can do that, too. But doing so naturally limits the maximum size of the screen.



This is the single best VR display ever released to consumers at the moment. It works on a 1440p display, which is even higher than Oculus Rift DK2.

...and it can only run Android games. A complete waste, IMO. Wake me up when we can hook these things up to a PC.

 

[Krejlooc]

...and it can only run Android games

Games and applications that run on GearVR are not really android applications. They bypass several components of Android's operating system, and they won't run on other android phones.

This is really it's own, proprietary solution.

 

[M3d10n]

Games and applications that run on GearVR are not really android applications. They bypass several components of Android's operating system, and they won't run on other android phones.

This is really it's own, proprietary solution.

It's still smartphone hardware, but being worked twice harder to render in 3D plus with the distortion+timewarp shaders. I'd like a bit more than HD Dreamcast graphics and fancy demos with little gameplay because they're exclusive to a low-userbase product.

 

[HolyBaikal]

Not very likely, at least not without loads of lag and there would be no headtracking in general. That said, there is Dolphin for android in development, so who knows - maybe you can run a GCN game locally on the phone in VR (I haven't tried this at all, dunno how well dolphin runs on a phone in general). The phone itself lacks external video input so you couldn't feed a WiiU image to the thing without using some combination of streaming tech, which would destroy the effect due to incredibly high latency.

Awwww. :<

Maybe it will be possible to do without latency on the consumer Oculus Rift thing without latency?

Maybe I should wait..
Well, I do really want to try virtual reality. I guess I could try other things...

 

[Krejlooc]

It's still smartphone hardware, but being worked twice harder to render in 3D plus with the distortion+timewarp shaders. I'd like a bit more than HD Dreamcast graphics and fancy demos with little gameplay because they're exclusive to a low-userbase product.

How can someone who loves to dive into technical discussions willingly post such complete, ignorant bullshit? Especially since it comes down to wandering into a topic about smart phone products just to go "ewwwww smartphones"??

 

[neoexidous]

Kre;

Nice insider info on the November date that slipped - looks like its coming out in the next quarter -

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000333524

 

[saxman717]

Some VR Cinema questions for those lucky few with the Gear VR already.....

How are 3D SBS movies on the Gear VR? Does the vr environment enhance the 3D effects (or make them more pleasing to watch vs. watching them on a TV)? Would you recommend watching movies in 2D or 3D in VR Cinema?

Do you need to copy the movies (especially 3D ones) directly onto the Note 4 internal memory or can you play the movies from your SD card? Some 3D movies are 15+ GB and will swamp the Note 4&#8242;s 16 GB memory limit.

Does playing movies from an SD card introduce any playback lag?

 

[Krejlooc]

How are 3D SBS movies on the Gear VR? Does the vr environment enhance the 3D effects (or make them more pleasing to watch vs. watching them on a TV)? Would you recommend watching movies in 2D or 3D in VR Cinema?

Don't have one yet, but VR Cinema is an updated version of the old Oculus Rift application, so I can answer this. The problem with 3D content on conventional screens is the method they use to send unique images to each eye. Mainly, televisions use polarized glasses so that only certain wavelengths of light enter each eye, and the television will produce two images each using different polarities. This method isn't perfect and introduces what is called cross-talk - the ability to see faint projections of the other image "ghosting" over the image. It's a bit of each eye not seeing only their correct image.

Oculus rift in general has absolutely none of that. Even though, technically, the rift uses 1 screen to feed each eye, each eye's image is completely, physically separate. A nose divider in the middle of the headset housing the lenses physically prevents each eye from seeing the other eye's image. The end result is you get independent images to each eye, which completely eliminates cross-talk. As such, the 3D you get in the rift in general is the absolute best 3D you'd get out of any device.

As for the effect within VR Cinema... it's a bit weird. The 3D effect is almost less pronounced because it feels like everything is in 3D, not just the screen. Perhaps they ramped it up in the newer version, but the convergence in the old VR Cinema didn't feel very great, so the actual cinema screen didn't pop out very far nor did it feel very deep.

VR cinema is fine for watching a full movie in either 3D or 2D. You'd likely get better resolution and playback in 2D depending on your hardware, but it's fine either way.

 

[saxman717]

Don't have one yet, but VR Cinema is an updated version of the old Oculus Rift application, so I can answer this. The problem with 3D content on conventional screens is the method they use to send unique images to each eye. Mainly, televisions use polarized glasses so that only certain wavelengths of light enter each eye, and the television will produce two images each using different polarities. This method isn't perfect and introduces what is called cross-talk - the ability to see faint projections of the other image "ghosting" over the image. It's a bit of each eye not seeing only their correct image.

Oculus rift in general has absolutely none of that. Even though, technically, the rift uses 1 screen to feed each eye, each eye's image is completely, physically separate. A nose divider in the middle of the headset housing the lenses physically prevents each eye from seeing the other eye's image. The end result is you get independent images to each eye, which completely eliminates cross-talk. As such, the 3D you get in the rift in general is the absolute best 3D you'd get out of any device.

As for the effect within VR Cinema... it's a bit weird. The 3D effect is almost less pronounced because it feels like everything is in 3D, not just the screen. Perhaps they ramped it up in the newer version, but the convergence in the old VR Cinema didn't feel very great, so the actual cinema screen didn't pop out very far nor did it feel very deep.

VR cinema is fine for watching a full movie in either 3D or 2D. You'd likely get better resolution and playback in 2D depending on your hardware, but it's fine either way.

Thanks for the feedback, Kre. Are there issues with size limits for videos? Some of the 3D movies I have are 15+ GB, whereas others are less than 2 GB........will there be performance issues with running the larger files?

Right now, I have a 60" TV and 110" projector screen as viewing options (albeit, the projector is not in a very well light-controlled room, so there is oftentimes some washout). If I had the choice between those options and watching a movie on the Gear VR, do you think that using the Gear VR would be the best bet for visuals?

 

[duessano]

Wondering if it enhances the Netflix experience on your phone? Any info?

 

[Krejlooc]

Thanks for the feedback, Kre. Are there issues with size limits for videos? Some of the 3D movies I have are 15+ GB, whereas others are less than 2 GB........will there be performance issues with running the larger files?

Right now, I have a 60" TV and 110" projector screen as viewing options (albeit, the projector is not in a very well light-controlled room, so there is oftentimes some washout). If I had the choice between those options and watching a movie on the Gear VR, do you think that using the Gear VR would be the best bet for visuals?

I was watching videos off my computer, so no file size limit, but that might be different with gear VR.

I have a 50" TV, and when breaking bad was running it's final season, I would watch episodes as they'd come out in VR on an imax-sized screen. However, this was with DK1, which was lower resolution, so there was a definite trade-off. There is no DK2 VR Cinema, and I haven't tried gear VR, so I don't know how improved it is. But with DK1, it was basically like going back to an SDTV.

 

[neoexidous]

There is no DK2 VR Cinema, and I haven't tried gear VR, so I don't know how improved it is. But with DK1, it was basically like going back to an SDTV.

This upsets me the most. I was sooo ready to watch movies in my DK2, but a theater player was never released. Is there going to be any way to take advantage of the Android app, in Windows?