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Oculus Store update ties DRM to headset

Durante

Member
My Rift has literally been collecting dust (can post pics of layer of dust) since I got it. I used it for a total of 4 hours myself, showed it to two people until it made one of them nauseous, and then boxed it up. Room scale VR is the only type of VR that does make sense right now. Even from the Rift's camera based hardware perspective, it's the only way to experience VR. Seated, or even standing experiences with a traditional game pad, are awful.
Heh, this post made me run a finger over my CV1, and yes, there is a slight layer of dust there :p
 

Trouble

Banned
Plugging in four USB cables and an HDMI is pretty simple.

I would have had to get a USB hub. My PC only has 4 USB ports total on the back and KB/M take two. I would wager the proportion of PC users that don't have 4 free USB ports is pretty high.

My Rift has literally been collecting dust (can post pics of layer of dust) since I got it. I used it for a total of 4 hours myself, showed it to two people until it made one of them nauseous, and then boxed it up. Room scale VR is the only type of VR that does make sense right now. Even from the Rift's camera based hardware perspective, it's the only way to experience VR. Seated, or even standing experiences with a traditional game pad, are awful.

I love roomscale, but right now I'm spending more time with seated experiences (Project Cars, American/Euro Truck Simulators). Cockpit view for racing/driving just feels so right. Using a Steam controller because I don't have a wheel.
 

vermadas

Member
My Rift has literally been collecting dust (can post pics of layer of dust) since I got it. I used it for a total of 4 hours myself, showed it to two people until it made one of them nauseous, and then boxed it up. Room scale VR is the only type of VR that does make sense right now. Even from the Rift's camera based hardware perspective, it's the only way to experience VR. Seated, or even standing experiences with a traditional game pad, are awful.

This is the kind of shit I get tired of reading from some Vive owners. It reminds me of the cess pool that is /r/pcmasterrace and the holier than thou attitude it fosters. Yes, we get it. Room scale is amazing, transformative, yadda yadda. I can't wait to try it when Touch comes out. There are plenty of non-roomscale games and experiences out there that still qualify as VR, and offer a compelling immersive experience over flatscreen counterparts.
 

Sky Chief

Member
Overreaching much? :D I think the Oculus thing is just a device that's more targeted towards the mass-market and that's a good thing. Again, I doubt many non-hardcore people will put the lighthouses up into their rooms and use room-scale VR. It's just not going to happen and I don't think room-scale VR makes any sense right now. It might at some later stage when tracking is figured out within the devices instead of a camera-based solution. And I have yet to see a game that actually makes good use of room-scale VR.

And yeah, I'm using Oculus Touch right now and only have these two sensors on my desk - No wallmounting or nails required.

1. Vive tracking IS "figured out within the device". It is an inside out tracking system unlike the Rift's.

2. The Vive lighthouses are not cameras.

3. I'm using Vive room scale right now in a 10'x10' area and it required no wall mounting or nails.

You clearly do not understand how the Vive works and I don't understand your arguments.

EDIT: You can also setup the Vive to use just one lighthouse on our above a desk for a seated VR experience.
 

la_briola

Member
My Rift has literally been collecting dust (can post pics of layer of dust) since I got it. I used it for a total of 4 hours myself, showed it to two people until it made one of them nauseous, and then boxed it up. Room scale VR is the only type of VR that does make sense right now. Even from the Rift's camera based hardware perspective, it's the only way to experience VR. Seated, or even standing experiences with a traditional game pad, are awful.

I only have a Rift, but Elite: Dangerous is an AMAZING seated experience and because you are in a cockpit, standing wouldn't really make sense.
Sitting in my chair, hands on stick and throttle, feets on pedals... incredible, there is nothing quite like it.
 
My Rift has literally been collecting dust (can post pics of layer of dust) since I got it. I used it for a total of 4 hours myself, showed it to two people until it made one of them nauseous, and then boxed it up. Room scale VR is the only type of VR that does make sense right now. Even from the Rift's camera based hardware perspective, it's the only way to experience VR. Seated, or even standing experiences with a traditional game pad, are awful.

Sadly, this is true for me too. Mine is still all hooked up, and every time I look at it I kind of want to play it, but I know I'll end up bumping into something :/
 

StudioTan

Hold on, friend! I'd love to share with you some swell news about the Windows 8 Metro UI! Wait, where are you going?
likely.

Occulus doesn't support room scale so there isnt any walking around in rift games, so the cable wont get twisted / stepped on / kicked.

This is false, you can walk around if you want. I can walk around in Farlands for example. I can walk around the living room at the Oculus home screen. I can even walk around the levels in Lucky's Tale. Not a problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_HlXzELHgo
 

pj

Banned
This is false, you can walk around if you want. I can walk around in Farlands for example. I can walk around the living room at the Oculus home screen. I can even walk around the levels in Lucky's Tale. Not a problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_HlXzELHgo

Unless oculus ships touch with a 15' USB3 cable for the second camera, an extension cable for the rift itself, and some sort of chaperone system, then the statement "oculus doesn't support roomscale" seems pretty accurate to me.

Oculus is telling people and developers that they are targeting standing 360 experiences with touch and the recommended camera configuration will be two front facing cameras. I am sure rift will provide a good roomscale experience for people who do opposing camera setups and play SteamVR games, but that is not remotely the same as oculus supporting roomscale.
 

Armaros

Member
This is the kind of shit I get tired of reading from some Vive owners. It reminds me of the cess pool that is /r/pcmasterrace and the holier than thou attitude it fosters. Yes, we get it. Room scale is amazing, transformative, yadda yadda. I can't wait to try it when Touch comes out. There are plenty of non-roomscale games and experiences out there that still qualify as VR, and offer a compelling immersive experience over flatscreen counterparts.

As equally tiring is the snotty 'look at at how shitty the vive looks, they give you nails' present in this very thread.
 
Unless oculus ships touch with a 15' USB3 cable for the second camera, an extension cable for the rift itself, and some sort of chaperone system, then the statement "oculus doesn't support roomscale" seems pretty accurate to me.

Oculus is telling people and developers that they are targeting standing 360 experiences with touch and the recommended camera configuration will be two front facing cameras. I am sure rift will provide a good roomscale experience for people who do opposing camera setups and play SteamVR games, but that is not remotely the same as oculus supporting roomscale.

He said "there isn't any walking around in Rift games". Which is false, as demonstrated by the video.

As equally tiring is the snotty 'look at at how shitty the vive looks, they give you nails' present in this very thread.
As said once by one person.
 
This is the kind of shit I get tired of reading from some Vive owners. It reminds me of the cess pool that is /r/pcmasterrace and the holier than thou attitude it fosters. Yes, we get it. Room scale is amazing, transformative, yadda yadda. I can't wait to try it when Touch comes out. There are plenty of non-roomscale games and experiences out there that still qualify as VR, and offer a compelling immersive experience over flatscreen counterparts.

As a Vive owner I can agree with this. Yes, room scale and motion control is arguably the most exciting aspect right now because it feels the most "new" out of all this, but there is definitely a place for both. Elite Dangerous with a HOTAS is one of my favorite experiences right now for instance. I was kind of blown away by Chronos (before compatibility was broken :[ ) and because of it, I really want to play Edge of Nowhere. Plenty of the people playing Project Cars will tell you how awesome that is. These things can and will coexist because VR adds so much even to a seated controller experience as long as it's built with VR in mind.
 

StudioTan

Hold on, friend! I'd love to share with you some swell news about the Windows 8 Metro UI! Wait, where are you going?
Unless oculus ships touch with a 15' USB3 cable for the second camera, an extension cable for the rift itself, and some sort of chaperone system, then the statement "oculus doesn't support roomscale" seems pretty accurate to me.

Oculus is telling people and developers that they are targeting standing 360 experiences with touch and the recommended camera configuration will be two front facing cameras. I am sure rift will provide a good roomscale experience for people who do opposing camera setups and play SteamVR games, but that is not remotely the same as oculus supporting roomscale.

Vive's definition of "room scale" begins at 5'x6'. The Rift can handle that easily. I currently have about 4'x6' of space between my computer desk and the wall and I have no problems walking around in that space with the 1 camera.

When I get my Vive, hopefully this week, I'll be setting it up in a much larger space but that's because I'll need more room for swinging the wands around.

Anyway, as Wrestlemania said I was mainly commenting on his assertion that you can't walk around in Rift games which is clearly false.
 

RedFox85

Member
Just wanted to chime in that anyone who thinks VR can't have great seated experiences needs to GTFO right now. Before they broke compatibility I was considering the purchase of Chronos based on the fun I had with Luckys Tale. Seated experiences are awesome too, it's variety that makes VR special after all. I have also started playing through Wind Waker in VR and that uses a similar set-up.
 

pj

Banned
Vive's definition of "room scale" begins at 5'x6'. The Rift can handle that easily. I currently have about 4'x6' of space between my computer desk and the wall and I have no problems walking around in that space with the 1 camera.

When I get my Vive, hopefully this week, I'll be setting it up in a much larger space but that's because I'll need more room for swinging the wands around.

Anyway, as Wrestlemania said I was mainly commenting on his assertion that you can't walk around in Rift games which is clearly false.

Yes, I said the rift can handle it, but unless you want the max of rift roomscale to be the minimum of vive's, the headset is going to need a longer cable. Even 5'x6' requires a much longer camera cable than what is being shipped with touch dev kits.

Rift is positionally tracked so of course you can move the tracked object around, but that is not the same as supporting roomscale, which was the first part of the sentence that you bolded and claimed was false.

Oculus supports roomscale = false
you can move around in rift games = true
 
Yes, I said the rift can handle it, but unless you want the max of rift roomscale to be the minimum of vive's, the headset is going to need a longer cable. Even 5'x6' requires a much longer camera cable than what is being shipped with touch dev kits.

Rift is positionally tracked so of course you can move the tracked object around, but that is not the same as supporting roomscale, which was the first part of the sentence that you bolded and claimed was false.

My Vive is set up with the minimum space for roomscale, and the Rift cable is long enough to me to walk around the entire space. It would struggle with anything more than that though.
 

StudioTan

Hold on, friend! I'd love to share with you some swell news about the Windows 8 Metro UI! Wait, where are you going?
Yes, I said the rift can handle it, but unless you want the max of rift roomscale to be the minimum of vive's, the headset is going to need a longer cable. Even 5'x6' requires a much longer camera cable than what is being shipped with touch dev kits.

Rift is positionally tracked so of course you can move the tracked object around, but that is not the same as supporting roomscale, which was the first part of the sentence that you bolded and claimed was false.

Oculus supports roomscale = false
you can move around in rift games = true

Unless devs are going to ignore the minimum recommended play space and only tailor their games for people who have the largest available play space to spare then it being able to support room scale is completely true.

You're not wrong that if you want a 15x15 space you'll need a long USB cable but that isn't really the argument I was making.
 

Tain

Member
EDIT: You can also setup the Vive to use just one lighthouse on our above a desk for a seated VR experience.

Yeah. The fact that you can pretty much get a PSVR/RiftDK2-style experience out of the Vive with a single sensor that you slam down on your desk and plug in to a power outlet is pretty hugely overlooked.
 

pj

Banned
Unless devs are going to ignore the minimum recommended play space and only tailor their games for people who have the largest available play space to spare then it being able to support room scale is completely true.

You're not wrong that if you want a 15x15 space you'll need a long USB cable but that isn't really the argument I was making.

You will need a long USB cable regardless of roomscale size. A 5x6 space would likely need a 15' cable, if not longer. If my lighthouses used USB cables it would be about 30' for the far one to reach the computer at the opposite corner of my 10'x7.5' space.

I'm not saying this is a huge deal, but if it's not in the box then I wouldn't call that support. Another big issue people seem to overlook is that the easy setup of rift cameras also means they are easy to accidentally move between play sessions. If there is no fixed mounting then you will have to setup your room bounds every time. Also not a huge deal but it implies roomscale is not a priority.

If you want to set the minor technical stuff aside, the biggest problem with rift's future as a roomscale device is oculus.

Our tech is perfectly capable, we just don't think most consumers are going to want that kind of setup (opposing camera), or the fine-interaction occlusion problems that can result. We have to pick a default target, and both sensors on the desk with fewer occlusion problems is the bet I am making. It works much better for some interactions, and worse for others.
Occlusion is not an issue that is specific to Touch, Vive, or most other tracking solutions. It is mostly a matter of sensor placement.

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/3pnkfi/preview_job_simulator_on_oculus_touch_office/cw86aw3

Whether you can believe anything Palmer said more than 2 weeks ago is another matter, though..
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
Overreaching much? :D I think the Oculus thing is just a device that's more targeted towards the mass-market and that's a good thing. Again, I doubt many non-hardcore people will put the lighthouses up into their rooms and use room-scale VR. It's just not going to happen and I don't think room-scale VR makes any sense right now. It might at some later stage when tracking is figured out within the devices instead of a camera-based solution. And I have yet to see a game that actually makes good use of room-scale VR.

And yeah, I'm using Oculus Touch right now and only have these two sensors on my desk - No wallmounting or nails required.

You can put the lightboxes in the same way on your desk for the same experience (180 degrees tracking). I have my lightboxes just sitting (no nails, no nothing) on some shelves on two adjacent sides of my gaming space (a 3.2 * 2.2 meters) and they work pretty much flawlessly. One of them is not even above my head, but at around 1.5 meters high. For seated gaming you can use one lighthouse. The set up is actually very flexible.
 

SerratedX

Member
Just wanted to chime in that anyone who thinks VR can't have great seated experiences needs to GTFO right now. Before they broke compatibility I was considering the purchase of Chronos based on the fun I had with Luckys Tale. Seated experiences are awesome too, it's variety that makes VR special after all. I have also started playing through Wind Waker in VR and that uses a similar set-up.


I'm not sure people are arguing that a seated experience in terrible or the end of the world by any means. As a Vive owner myself, while I do spend a lot of time in Roomscale games, I do enjoy sitting to play ED or Time Machine from time to time. I think that Roomscale absolutely adds to the experience and allows the Vive owners a wider range of experiences, but things like having a Teleport option helps tremendously for those with limited or standing space only.

Personally, I am sad that I cannot play Lucky's Tale (a seated game) with my Vive right now because of the added DRM, but it's not a game changer for me by any means. I still have SPT and HJ to eat up my time and energy with.
 

OBias

Member
This is curious: http://www.pcgamesn.com/steamvr-performance-test/i-would-call-oculus-the-first-steamvr-licensee-says-valve-employee-on-rifts-vive-based-tech

In a Reddit thread, Valve employee Alan Yates responded to a comment that suggested the existence of the Rift drove innovation in the HTC Vive. Yates disagrees, because according to him the two headsets share the same architecture, developed by Valve.

"Every core feature of both the Rift and Vive HMDs are directly derived from Valve's research program," Yates said. "Oculus has their own CV-based tracking implementation and frensel lens design but the [consumer version one] is otherwise a direct copy of the architecture of the 1080p Steam Sight prototype Valve lent Oculus when we installed a copy of the "Valve Room" at their headquarters.

"I would call Oculus the first SteamVR licensee, but history will likely record a somewhat different term for it."

It's no secret Oculus have hired ex-Valve staff members in the past, including Michael Abrash, an outspoken advocate for VR. Here he is blogging for Valve on the subject. And here he is blogging for Oculus.

According to Yates in an older Reddit comment, Oculus tried to secure many of the creators of the Valve Room, but they were mostly unsuccessful.
 

Sky Chief

Member

Oculus didn't really steal or copy Valve. Valve freely shared all their VR research with basically no strings attached and was grooming Oculus to produce consumer VR based on their tech. But then Facebook bought Oculus and Oculus cut off all communication basically stabbing Valve in the back for all their goodwill. This has been discussed extensively in the run up to the consumer HMD launches.
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/23/11743590/oculus-piracy-revive-drm-update#_=_

Last Friday, Oculus released a software update blocking Revive — a piece of software that allowed users to port Rift games they'd bought from the Oculus store onto HTC's Vive headset. However, it seems Oculus's intervention may have backfired, with an update to Revive not only allowing users to port titles again, but also bypass the Rift's DRM in the process, opening the door to easier VR piracy.

In posts on Reddit and GitHub spotted by Motherboard, Revive developer LibreVR said their intention was not for users to steal games. "I really didn't want to go down this path, but I feel there is no other way," wrote LibreVR. "I still do not support piracy, do not use this library for pirated copies."
 

aeolist

Banned
this will get dmca'd soon. the point of drm isn't really to block mods but to make it easier to take down/sue modders.
 
Newest Revive patch went out because the dev said they removed it. Since he was the one who reported the DRM check I'd say it's a good source. Didn't want to make a new thread until it's 100% confirmed

Sounds good actually.

I would rather have an official answer by Oculus though. Like "We saw you didnt like it, so we removed it." Something like that.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
If they say that the DRM wasnt the ideal thing to do, do you think that they suddenly would incorporate it again?

Well, Luckey said just that less than half a year before the DRM was implemented, so I wouldn't rule out the possibility of it being reinstated at a later date, should the Rift find mainstream success.
 
It's been said before, but if Oculus really is selling the rift at a loss, it shouldn't matter what headset people are using, as long as they buy games through the Oculus Store so that Oculus gets a cut.

So maybe they just came to their senses?
 
Imagine they just do it during the sale they have now and then put it back in.

I actually would want some gaming journalist to ask them about it...
 
Did not expect this. And don't really trust it to stick before somebody says something officially, even if it's just a vague thing acknowledging the change.

Also, we should probably have a new thread for this.
 

Zalusithix

Member
Actions speak louder than words, but for all we know they removed it because it was utterly ineffective and they plan on implementing a more thorough version soon. Until an official comment is made, there's far too many what ifs to trust that it's been done in good faith.

With a comment officially retracting their previous stance, I'll view it as progress to a more open store, but still harbor some doubt as to how long they'll keep that stance. They've been... less than consistent in both messaging and actions for quite some time now, so the cynic in me has trouble just accepting things from them.
 

mitchman

Gold Member
They are likely tying the DRM to their free games, games they have invested significant money into making for the Oculus. So presumably Lucky's Tale and others will only be playable on the OR in the future which makes sense.
 

test_account

XP-39C²
Well, Luckey said just that less than half a year before the DRM was implemented, so I wouldn't rule out the possibility of it being reinstated at a later date, should the Rift find mainstream success.
Sure, i was thinking more about if they publically announced this news and said that they changed their mind. If they do it in silent, its always possible to change back, indeed.
 

Wallach

Member
It's not a bug:

Sam Machkovech said:
Shortly after publication, Oculus representatives confirmed to Ars Technica that the company had indeed removed any Rift hardware check from its runtimes in the latest update. The company further insisted that it "will not use hardware checks as part of DRM on PC in the future," even though Ars hadn't asked about whether this was a short-term change. "We believe protecting developer content is critical to the long-term success of the VR industry, and we’ll continue taking steps in the future to ensure that VR developers can keep investing in ground-breaking new VR content," the company told Ars.
 

StereoVsn

Member
Actions speak louder than words, but for all we know they removed it because it was utterly ineffective and they plan on implementing a more thorough version soon. Until an official comment is made, there's far too many what ifs to trust that it's been done in good faith.

With a comment officially retracting their previous stance, I'll view it as progress to a more open store, but still harbor some doubt as to how long they'll keep that stance. They've been... less than consistent in both messaging and actions for quite some time now, so the cynic in me has trouble just accepting things from them.
Yeah, even eith the official statement, I don't know how anyone would trust them now. They have been running around in circles and putting out all kind of BS PR.

At this point buying Ocukus headset or games from Oculus store is a risk. Nobody knows of games will work in a year with non Rift headset and Oculus could also lock Rift to their store only. Don't trust them at all.
 
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