HTC Vive is $799, ships early April 2016

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Dineren said:
This is probably a really stupid question, but is there anyway VR titles would work over something like Steam Link? I've got my gaming PC setup in my bedroom and there isn't much free space so I wondered about either running cables to a different room or preferably using a steam link (wired) if it was possible.

I've also toyed with the idea of building a second PC, but that seems kind of insane especially when I've already got the costs of an Oculus and Vive to deal with.
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Right now? Only if you like heavy nausea. Latency is king, and Steam Link will add latency.
 
Chairmanchuck said:
Thats really strange. I havent tested any other than the DK1, but I heard that the Screen Door effect is almost not noticable at Oculus and the Vive.
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I can't tell which version of the Vive was used. It looked like the ones you see on google images and it was def. no prototype/ super early thingy.

SD was far...far from not noticeable. In fact it was the only negative aspect the group i was with had with the unit.
 
Yeah, I hung around the Vive area at EGX when I got to use it for a fair while talking to people


I didn't notice much screendoor effect, certainly less than on the DK2 kits I tried & nobody I talked to said so either.

It's definitely better than the DK1, what a ridiculous thing to say.
 
sankt-Antonio said:
Like i said in the post above, I can't tell which version of the Vive I used.
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I thought that also the developer edition was 2160x1200. Isn't it? I don't think the FOV has a huge relative impact either. Very odd.

Are you sure you didn't see some kind of fresnel lens artifacts due to calibration
 
The Pre supposedly came with some nice $80 Pro Studio earbuds, but there's been no confirmation the CV will come with them, I guess.

The Vive has a headphone jack afaik on the top, so I'll just tie my earbuds or the included earbuds to the side of the headband.
 
Alo81 said:
Fwiw, I used the first edition of the HTC Vive when they did their summer tour. I had it on + headphones for ~15-20 minutes and the second it was on my head it was like there was nothing there at all. Even at it's heaviest, I didn't realize it was on me.
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Same. It felt about the same as wearing headphones with a cap (if you've tried running like that), which is basically that I know I have something on, but there is no noticeable feeling of added weight. I can't speak for Pre and CV1, but I do know that Pre is lighter than Vive DK1, but I'm told CV1 is lighter than Vive Pre. So ultimately I can't imagine there being some game changing difference between the two in terms of weight
 
bj00rn_ said:
I thought that also the developer edition was 2160x1200. Isn't it? I don't think the FOV has a huge relative impact either. Very odd.

Are you sure you didn't see some kind of fresnel lens artifacts due to calibration
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Im the first guy to admit that i have no clue what the specs are, and what versions of the Vive exist.

Had to look up what fresnel lens artifacts look like, if they are meant to be circular - thats not what it was.

The second i tried it on i though to myself "wow, the therm fits perfectly". I use mirrorless cameras so i am somewhat used to look thought optics at screens.
 
v5yjrxiw0enuftqmud2i.gif


Market oversaturation incoming... niche items fall by the wayside...
 
As someone who owns a DK2 and had tried an earlier version of the Vive I can confirm that the screen door effect is much less obvious on the Vive than the DK2. No idea what the other poster is talking about.

However, I am also of the belief that screen have to get to 8k or so before resolution is no longer an issue in VR.
 
mrklaw said:
This is a weird situation that I'm sure many of us are in. Vive or OR. On the face of it, it seems silly to be considering spending $1500 getting both, just because one might have better tracking and the other one might be a bit more comfortable. How much more comfortable does it have to be to justify an additional $600 Vs just buying a Vive? (caveat: if you have money to burn, knock yourself out)

Plus all of these impressions are obviously subjective and based on limited exposure via controlled demos etc. Maybe the reality of the comfort/optics is so small you can filter it out readily - we simply don't know and disappointingly I doubt we will know until a few weeks after both have launched and we have a meaningful number of impressions to refer to.
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The most important thing to consider, like with any new game platform, is software. Developers have had access to Rift devkits for 3 years now, HTC haven't been getting enough devkits to developers and they've only been available for, what..? A year at the most.

And then you've got to consider the Oculus-funded exclusives - EVE Valkyrie, Lucky's Tale, Chronos, Edge Of Nowhere and The Climb.

And if that wasn't enough then you've also got to take into account the fact that if you own a Rift you can buy and play games from the Oculus Store AND Steam, whereas if you buy a Vive you're limited to buying Steam games only because Valve aren't playing nice with their SDK and won't allow Vive games on the Oculus Store.

Content is King at the end of the day and the Rift is going to be the best at that, at least in the beginning. There are supposed to be 70 Rift games/apps/experiences and only 12 Vive games/apps/experiences on launch day. :o/
 
I have the opportunity to pick a VR headset. I've been reading stuff all day but am still trying to decide between rift and vive. Is it true that if I preorder a rift today it won't ship until July? :/ I don't want to wait that long.
 
fred said:
The most important thing to consider, like with any new game platform, is software. Developers have had access to Rift devkits for 3 years now, HTC haven't been getting enough devkits to developers and they've only been available for, what..? A year at the most.

And then you've got to consider the Oculus-funded exclusives - EVE Valkyrie, Lucky's Tale, Chronos, Edge Of Nowhere and The Climb.

And if that wasn't enough then you've also got to take into account the fact that if you own a Rift you can buy and play games from the Oculus Store AND Steam, whereas if you buy a Vive you're limited to buying Steam games only because Valve aren't playing nice with their SDK and won't allow Vive games on the Oculus Store.

Content is King at the end of the day and the Rift is going to be the best at that, at least in the beginning. There are supposed to be 70 Rift games/apps/experiences and only 12 Vive games/apps/experiences on launch day. :o/
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The concern I have with Rift is the tracking. Oculus insists that both cameras be in front. But if you want roomscale, the cameras have to be in opposite corners. Sounds like a chore, moving cameras on a per-game basis. Will they sell extra cameras? Will games have to opt-in to support >2 camera setups?
 
*Adds to shopping cart*

Glad I built a rock solid base system. 2016 is looking to be a very expensive year of overhauling my computers visual components. upgrading two of my monitors to pg348q's, getting vive, and upgrading to one or two 14/16nm flagship GPUs depending on how good the scaling, support and frame times are.

Exciting times ahead people do many new technologies software andto delve alike up to early adopters to drive things like VR forward and it's price down.
 
cakefoo said:
The concern I have with Rift is the tracking. Oculus insists that both cameras be in front. But if you want roomscale, the cameras have to be in opposite corners. Sounds like a chore, moving cameras on a per-game basis. Will they sell extra cameras? Will games have to opt-in to support >2 camera setups?
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I was pretty set on getting the Rift, but room scale looks too good to pass up on. I liked my Oculus dks well enough but a xbox controller is lacking as an input device. Even Palmer himself said game pads are shitty VR controllers.

Problem is nobody really knows what the prospects for room scale are with the Rift because it hasn't been publicly demonstrated and it obviously wasn't how Rift + Touch were designed to be used. Oculus was recommending developers focus on 180 degrees in front of the player. The head set cables are shorter and don't include a breakout box. The cameras cone makes set up an issue. The touch controllers design makes them easier to occlude. You have to get a usb 3 cable to the back of the room.

I think the touch controllers look great for what they're designed for but I have no idea how well it will do room scale.
 
cakefoo said:
The concern I have with Rift is the tracking. Oculus insists that both cameras be in front. But if you want roomscale, the cameras have to be in opposite corners. Sounds like a chore, moving cameras on a per-game basis. Will they sell extra cameras? Will games have to opt-in to support >2 camera setups?
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There is only one camera with the OR. When touch comes out it comes with another camera. Until touch comes out we don't know what the official line is from oculus - all we've heard is what they've said during demos etc - I wouldn't take that as gospel, especially as they've just delayed the touch by six months.


I hope and expect that oculus cannot ignore the overwhelmingly positive imoressions of room scale tracking on the Vive, and the delay is - in part at least- to ensure they have something that offers a similar experience.
 
While room scale sounds amazing, I do have concerns about how that will be applied practically in games. All of the demos we've see so far have been carefully designed around a 15x15ft demo space and so we haven't really seen what they'd be like in small spaces (the kinds of spaces that still qualify as 'small room scale' for Vive but are more likely in consumers' homes)

Eg what happens if you're walking around a space and hit the edge of your bounding area? That will happen a lot in a smaller room. You can't continue to move in that direction unless you physically move in the opposite direction to give yourself some space. So there will presumably need to be some equivalent of when you press a button to recalibrate the wiimote when it loses tracking. I can imagine that being pretty clumsy.
 
IMACOMPUTA said:
I have the opportunity to pick a VR headset. I've been reading stuff all day but am still trying to decide between rift and vive. Is it true that if I preorder a rift today it won't ship until July? :/ I don't want to wait that long.
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That is true, but they don't charge until they ship so there's no harm in pre-ordering now, and then pre-ordering a Vive if you decide to go for that and cancel the rift pre-order. By the time the Vive starts shipping Oculus will be out so you'll have plenty of impressions with which to make a more informed decision.
 
mrklaw said:
While room scale sounds amazing, I do have concerns about how that will be applied practically in games. All of the demos we've see so far have been carefully designed around a 15x15ft demo space and so we haven't really seen what they'd be like in small spaces (the kinds of spaces that still qualify as 'small room scale' for Vive but are more likely in consumers' homes)

Eg what happens if you're walking around a space and hit the edge of your bounding area? That will happen a lot in a smaller room. You can't continue to move in that direction unless you physically move in the opposite direction to give yourself some space. So there will presumably need to be some equivalent of when you press a button to recalibrate the wiimote when it loses tracking. I can imagine that being pretty clumsy.
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The max recommended distance between the lighthouse units is 15 ft. That's in dual opposing corners so you're talking about 12 x 9 or 10.5 x 10.5 or whatever other arrangement you want to make with that as your hypotenuse.

Games like Job Simulator arrange the layout based on your room size so everything is within your play area. The developer compared it to people who don't have enough space for a side-by-side washer and dryer. Do you shrink the washer and dryer? No, you stack them on top of one another. Hover Junkers changes the platform size based on play area.

Games with teleportation I'm sure you can run into the edges more frequently because the developer can' t always find ways to naturally reset you, but good game design should eliminate this as being a real issue.
 
InaudibleWhispa said:
That is true, but they don't charge until they ship so there's no harm in pre-ordering now, and then pre-ordering a Vive if you decide to go for that and cancel the rift pre-order. By the time the Vive starts shipping Oculus will be out so you'll have plenty of impressions with which to make a more informed decision.
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I apologize if this has already been asked/answered, but are Vive preorders being handled like Oculus, in that you are charged when it ships rather than at the time of preorder?
 
mrklaw said:
While room scale sounds amazing, I do have concerns about how that will be applied practically in games. All of the demos we've see so far have been carefully designed around a 15x15ft demo space and so we haven't really seen what they'd be like in small spaces (the kinds of spaces that still qualify as 'small room scale' for Vive but are more likely in consumers' homes)

Eg what happens if you're walking around a space and hit the edge of your bounding area? That will happen a lot in a smaller room. You can't continue to move in that direction unless you physically move in the opposite direction to give yourself some space. So there will presumably need to be some equivalent of when you press a button to recalibrate the wiimote when it loses tracking. I can imagine that being pretty clumsy.
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Most of the demos are actually pretty small in scale. The Portal demo is the only one I recall people running into walls. A solution could be to have your boundaries trigger analog-stick-like movement in that direction, similar to Wii FPS bounding box turning. Since you'd only have a vestibular disconnect for a short distance, it shouldn't be super disorienting.
 
KatamariOnTheRocks said:
I apologize if this has already been asked/answered, but are Vive preorders being handled like Oculus, in that you are charged when it ships rather than at the time of preorder?
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Yes. If you use a card, you'll get a temporary hold. Use PayPal, and they'll take the money right away (a PayPal policy that applies to all preorder situations).
 
Looks like HTC's site has performance problems now even with just the price announcement post. I'm a bit afraid what will happen tomorrow when the pre-orders open.
 
cakefoo said:
The concern I have with Rift is the tracking. Oculus insists that both cameras be in front.
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Citation needed. Seriously.

There is no reason for camera placement to be game specific. You place the cameras where you feel they will be the most effective. If you want to play room-sized experiences, then keep those cameras in opposite corners of the room. It doesn't matter as long as both cameras are able to get a good track on you. Why you'd place both in front of you beats me.
 
cakefoo said:
The concern I have with Rift is the tracking. Oculus insists that both cameras be in front. But if you want roomscale, the cameras have to be in opposite corners. Sounds like a chore, moving cameras on a per-game basis. Will they sell extra cameras? Will games have to opt-in to support >2 camera setups?
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Yes, they will sell extra cameras (though you'll need an additional USB port for each one). But Oculus does not insist that both cameras be in front, they did that for their Touch demos because what they were demoing was two people facing each other in a room full of toys, so they wanted no possible occlusion problems when interacting in front of the user (occlusion problems even Vive would have with just two lighthouses at opposing corners). Palmer Luckey himself showed that cameras in opposing corners will work with room-scale at the same size room as the Vive. Games just have to be built for that setup (the developers of Job Simulator said they would consider adding that as an option, depending on if Oculus advertised that type of play as a feature for the Touch).
 
Herr Starr said:
Citation needed. Seriously.

There is no reason for camera placement to be game specific. You place the cameras where you feel they will be the most effective. If you want to play room-sized experiences, then keep those cameras in opposite corners of the room. It doesn't matter as long as both cameras are able to get a good track on you. Why you'd place both in front of you beats me.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/3pnkfi/preview_job_simulator_on_oculus_touch_office/cw87tnx

I've seen too many Vive demos that convince me occlusion is not going to be a (significant if any) issue with Vive, including this demo where the user does several interactions where his hands are close together, a scenario Palmer suggests will have occlusion issues unless you have to sensors in front of you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_PL4_D6ggU#t=25s

KatamariOnTheRocks said:
Thanks for the quick answer :D

Do you know if the temporary hold is for the full amount?
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99% likely. That's always been my experience with preorders.

Dreamwriter said:
Yes, they will sell extra cameras (though you'll need an additional USB port for each one). But Oculus does not insist that both cameras be in front, they did that for their Touch demos because what they were demoing was two people facing each other in a room full of toys, so they wanted no possible occlusion problems when interacting in front of the user (occlusion problems even Vive would have with just two lighthouses at opposing corners). Palmer Luckey himself showed that cameras in opposing corners will work with room-scale at the same size room as the Vive. Games just have to be built for that setup (the developers of Job Simulator said they would consider adding that as an option, depending on if Oculus advertised that type of play as a feature for the Touch).
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Luckey says room-scale tracking with cameras in opposing corners works "fine," but the side-by-side configuration is strongly recommended. Occlusion issues associated with fine hand tracking have never been brought up to my knowledge regarding Vive, and it's always been demoed in the opposing corners configuration. My understanding is that Vive doesn't need as big a pattern of controller diodes to be within sight of the corner base stations. Each diode is a sensor in itself, whereas Touch can't tell one diode from another and requires multiple diodes to be viewable to determine what it's looking at.
 
I get the feeling room-scale is going to be the gimmick. Even standing around is going to be uninteresting after a while. Comparing it to the Wii, everyone jumped around like crazy at first, then started standing around, then ended up just sitting down. I think games most conducive to that kind of play are going to end up being the lead played over interesting room experiences.
 
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