The HTC Vive just had a price cut, VR just became a little more accessible

I watch people using VR helmets all the time, almost always they comment about the jittery stuff that goes on often, and when you see them wield a weapon like sword, its painfully clear.

I'm a 4k gamer, if you put me in from of a 1200p screen from 3 feet away I will vomit at the sight of seeing a pixel. So while you may find it acceptable at 1inch from your face, I certainly don't.
When you've been living with high fidelity images for as long as I have, its ultra hard going back, couple that with the issue of not being able to see distance objects coming at you(or shooting you) in current VR, just play war thunder VR to experience that.

PS. I watch people play with VR all the time, so its not like I'm somehow basing this on some initial consumer response, I can see how well it works today, and hear complains from users today.


Last edited by TheRiddick on 21 August 2017 at 11:29 pm UTC

If there is any jitter, they probably are trying to run it on a machine just not cut out for it, or quite possibly they tried to up the super sampling too high.

Ha, unless you're gaming on a 50" plus screen you wouldn't be able to see a pixel on even a 2k monitor. It's like people who beg for 4k on their phones... By the way the distance thing is on purpose. I noticed on my Gear VR that you can actually adjust the focus so it's closer to what you could see with 20/20. But the Vive and Oculus apparently try an auto distance as if you're in real life (ended up getting lasik partly for the reason of being able to see correctly in VR without needing glasses, but of course it's great for other reasons)

Considering people with even 4k TVs (let alone monitors) are a very small amount of people, 1200p resolution is quite amazing.

Now you say you watch other people play around on VR and complain. Have you ever played any VR personally? or even watched a video in VR?

Quoting: badber

Quoting: WorMzy

QuoteHas this price cut made you more likely to buy one

Nope. :P

Still can't see VR taking off. The PS4 variant's "only" ~£340, and that's still too much to pay for such gimmicky tech in my opinion.

I think it's far from gimmicky but if you're a really active gamer the content can still be a little limited (even on Windows). The tech itself has a fairly wide variety of uses. Not just your traditional gaming but fitness, meditation/relaxation, new kinds of cinematic experiences, social... What it adds to even just the gaming is not some one-time trick as far as I'm concerned. Being able to look around and interact with the game world with your own hands that are perfectly tracked (as opposed to the hopelessly inaccurate Wii-style motion controllers) is a very powerful interface.

Personally I had pretty much stopped playing games because I no longer found them all that interesting and then came along VR. For me it's been a revelation. I do admit it may not be for everyone but that doesn't mean it's a gimmick either. The recent Oculus price drop has sold a lot of headsets so I wouldn't be so sure about it not catching on either.

I felt exactly the same, games were starting to get boring, same genres different skins. But VR, yeah it has re-ignited gaming for me.

Some not so great devs, not taking care of the 'comfort' settings. But then there are those really polished titles, that make it amazing. I have problems with the Zombie-like games cuz when those hoards keep creeping right up to you, or sneaking up behind you, WOW!

Even a few old gems in the library, old games with VR tacked on. On of them was a lunar lander like one. Still had to use the keyboard, but what an experience actually having to fly/float around in a lander, worrying about physics and of course fuel.

Then there are the educational like titles, Google Earth is pretty spiffy. I looked George Washington on Mount Rushmore right in the face!

Btw, I recently moved and left my 46 LCD tv behind as I really stopped watching it. Replaced it with a VIVE, no more expensive than a decent TV.

And as far as hardware to run it on, still using the rig I built in 2010, with RAM upgraded to 24GB, and a Radeon R9, 390. Not the top of the top, but haven't run into too many performance issues.

One caveat. Had to setup a Windows partition just for the VR.

I believe this edition of VIVE will be around for a couple of years still. Definitely can't wait for the next addition for some 4K per eye resolution whenever that comes around. Lighter headset, etc. By that time it will probably be time for a new computer build as well.

I will be all in!


Last edited by Rolz73 on 22 August 2017 at 12:13 am UTC

I have a 40" 4k curved screen, from 2-3ft away I can detect a pixel matrix but its not bad. With 1080p screen I can see the individual pixels from that distance.

VR itself might be just a gimmick that would pass with time under its own merits.
However I still think VR is here to stay because of how its driving controller innovation.

The 3D aspect isn't the reason, it has more to do with the fact that it's a screen strapped to your face rather than sitting on a desk. That simple change is already causing some interesting new controller designs with positional sensors which could really revolutionize some genres like FPS games.

For example, games wouldn't even have to program in "cover" mechanics, because you'd get them for free with these controllers. Just duck behind something and raise your arm up to shoot from behind cover for example. Or toss grenades with complete control over angle and strength

I haven't tried VR yet but from what I can tell it looks mostly like the movement systems are what's holding it back. I think some games don't even let you move around freely at all. If so then they really need to work on that.


Last edited by ison111 on 22 August 2017 at 2:25 am UTC

We have still yet to see many VR helmets come from all the other companies yet, I think there is a decent attempt by Pimax and a few other cheap options from China. But I remember all these other companies with real interesting products back in the demo show ground days we saw on youtube, no idea what happened to them.

Quoting: haagch

Quoting: mike44Once X-Plane supports it, I'll have a look again. But I might wait for the next gen.

https://www.reddit.com/r/flightsim/comments/6oalkh/xplane_11_vr_vive_rift_native_support_coming_this/

But there's a good chance it won't support OpenVR on Linux and you won't have to spend money.

X-plane VR support will be out long before their Vulkan support is finished, and as Linux SteamVR needs Vulkan, we will not see Linux supported initially. I really hope they add Linux VR support together with the Vulkan release though, because X-plane is one big reason I would get a VR headset.

Quoting: MintedGamer

Quoting: lucifertdark

Quoting: GoboThere are two major trade fairs in Germany this week and the next: Gamescom will start on Wednesday and the IFA consumer electronics unlimited will follow suit Friday next week. Both have been used to introduce new hardware in the past, so I call it likely we will see some announcements soon.

I'd be willing to shell out 700€ once the support for Linux leaves its infancy. That said, I also bought a Wii U for example and only played 3 games on it, so I might be easy to win over :)

I bought the original Wii & ended up only playing a single game, the ten pin bowling that came free with the machine.

A little off topic but you guys really missed out on some gems for the Wii and WiiU, you can pick up the games really cheap now, too many for me to list individually but you cant go wrong with Nintendos 1st party games. I've just bought a Switch and absolutely love it.


I've still got a bit of an interest in VR, I think it still needs a "must have" game for it to really take off, as far as I've seen all the games so far are experimental and not really that compelling once the wow factor has worn off.

I sold my Wii a couple of years ago to help fund my other hobby, photography.

Back on topic I tried out the Oculus a couple of years ago when my son bought one (before Facebag got hold of it) & playing Half-Life 2 on VR was a revelation, BUT it's way out of my price range & will stay that way till it's under £100, I just can't justify paying £500+ for what, right now, amounts to a neat gimmicky toy with VERY limited support.

Quoting: haagchUnfortunately nobody cares about OpenVR on Linux.
...
The sad truth is, until there is a complete (unity, unreal) and proven ecosystem, pretty much nobody will care to make their VR application work on linux.

There is hope: Godot v3.0
https://godotengine.org/article/progress-report-april-may-2017

Quoting: FredOX-plane VR support will be out long before their Vulkan support is finished, and as Linux SteamVR needs Vulkan, we will not see Linux supported initially.

Quoting: slaapliedjeFor what it's worth they have to actually use Vulkan. It's required for it to broadcast through the Headset.

No. SteamVR has been using EXT_memory_object for a while now. It allows efficient sharing of rendered frames between OpenGL and Vulkan.

Granted, almost all OpenGL games have terrible performance (at least here on my RX 480 with radeonsi/radv), but High Fidelity really surprised me with great performance.

Quoting: slaapliedjeBut so far, the Vive seems to work like it should in Arch Linux. Except I haven't tested the bluetooth shutdown of the Lighthouses yet (though I found out the firmware file was missing for the bluetooth that the Vive uses, now it's installed I should test that function.)

Lighthouse Basestation firmware update and power management is not implemented on Linux. Why? Who knows. You can pair with the stations without issues, steamvr just won't do anything with it.

The protocol for power management has been (mostly?) reverse engineered and if your bluez still has gatttool you should be able to use that (on archlinux it doesn't, they deprecated it): https://github.com/nairol/LighthouseRedox/blob/master/docs/Base%20Station.md#bluetooth-le-communications

Pretty sure I managed to find the firmware for the bluetooth within an AUR for Arch. Haven't tried SteamVR in Linux yet to see if that fixex the issue though.

Interesting note on EXT_memory_object. From my last experimentation, about the only software that worked correctly outside of the Vavle demo stuff (Destinations... and now called SteamVR Home..) was Serious Sam: The First Encounter, which could arguably be said to be the best Game for VR right now. Considering 95% of the other stuff out there is extremely short, or simply lacking polish. Granted the one other that is a full game would be Elite: Dangerous... which we need a Linux port for..

I'd love to get one once there's games. And I mean proper games, not "experiences".
Too bad they killed HL2 VR support, that was awesome.

There will be a new version of the hlvr mod http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=923491647 https://www.reddit.com/r/hlvr/ but - you guessed it - only for windows.


Last edited by haagch on 22 August 2017 at 10:18 am UTC

By the way, Fallout 4 VR was announced as being released on December 12th (at least I think that is accurate.) I think Doom VFR is to be released a bit before that.

Sadly I doubt either will come to Linux. I wonder if Bethesda has thought about switching all of their engines over to Vulkan, Doom looks fabulous on it.

If they use Vulkan, https://github.com/roothorick/WineOpenVR could become viable.

Still, I prefer no tux no bux.

[quote=haagch]

Quoting: mike44Once X-Plane supports it, I'll have a look again. But I might wait for the next gen.

https://www.reddit.com/r/flightsim/comments/6oalkh/xplane_11_vr_vive_rift_native_support_coming_this/

But there's a good chance it won't support OpenVR on Linux and you won't have to spend money.

No X-plane will support all os, no doubt. They also move to Vulkan.