VR the champions of the world?

[Skybird]

Two things, Neal.


First, VR nausea is for most people an issue that can be trained to lower it. When you say 15 minutes currently is your limit, play 10, and then slowly increase the time from session to session. Your brain needs time to adapt, apparently, and it most likely will. I have read that people who could not stand it at all, after some weeks, three or four, could play an hour, and longer.



Second, FPS imo are one of the worst choices for first time VR experiences. All that hopping and jumping, and then the high velocity angle speeds when dodging to the side. You know it from car driving, if you feel ill, you best look ahead to the horizon, the worst you can do is looking at a 90° angle out the window - then you see things flying by at the highest speed. So first try to adapt to it by playing something where you can sit and that does not involve high speeds of any kind. Or something where you stand, but must not run around a lot. Eleven Table Tennis, for example, or Golf, or - very nice! - FX Pinball VR. Already next come driving sims, again your body sits still in your seat, and the virtual cockpit provides a fixed reference frame again. - Flight sims and FPS and rollercoaster come last!! - I played The Hunter 2D in virtual desktop mode once, and it was very impressive - but due to the head movement when walking, I got motionsick very quickly. Skyrim VR is a marvellous game in VR, but I needed some time to adapt to it, could not play longer than 45 minutes before feeling slightly uncomfortable. I now can play it as long as I want.



It can be trained, the brain only needs some time to adapt. Thats why the Oculus gameshop has comfort level labels for the titles listed. The more comfortable a game is rated, the less any fast, hectic movement or multi-axis movement is usually involved. I also would reocmmend not to try my beloved Subnautica too early, becasue it has three-dimensional movement (diving in an ocean), and sometimes no reference points for the eye.



I think its worth it to try. When you have sat in a 737 cockpit in VR in X Plane for the first time at dawn or night and all the tech stuff glows around you in the twilight, you just must fall silent in amazement.


Google Earth is well for training, too, because you can comfortably vary any speed at which you move around. Too fast - you just do it slower, and smoothly and easily so. You will notice from session to session that your brain grows its adaptation level. Just do not push or try to enforce things. Stop immediately when you feel the first signs of nausea - at the latest.



Oh, and make sure you get steady 90 fps, or with some games that are good at using it: 45 fps with ASW on.



Thw orst thing that happened to me so far, was that incident with the rolelrcoaster thing I described two or three posts above. That rotating in all three space axis was too much, I was ill for hours to come. Seriously so. The world continued to spin around me even hours later. But even that got better a bit since then, I tried it three more times, and now things are not as bad anymore as they had been.

[Skybird]

While I am at ETS 2 - today and tomorrow American Truck Simulator 2 (also VR capable) with very good reviews at Steam costs just 5 Euro coins. 2.3 GB download. I just bought myself in.



Baltic expansion for ETS2 coming this Thursday.

[Bilge_Rat]

I bought the Oculus Rift at the Black Friday sale, $449 Canadian (around 300 Euros). Should get it in a few days, will give a review.


You can go on Steam and download the "Steam VR performance Test", free on the store. Apparently, my PC is VR ready. Will see when it gets here.

[Skybird]

Enjoy! The first days are when the magic is still fresh, so do not spoil it. The free Oculus program "First Encounter" is a nice first contact.


Else, same advise like I gave Neal just above, in case you feel nausea.

[Skybird]

Since above I talked about it a lot recently, just a reminder that today the Baltic area DLC gets relased, which beefs up the European map of ETS2 even further.

Spain, Ireland and the Western Balkan are the remaining regions that got not covered so far.

I understand that ATS2 in America is apparently not as successful than ETS2 is in Europe, development and DLCs seem to go slower there, or not?

Years ago I asked in this forum about ETS2, and was sceptical. I would have never imagined that it would enjoy such a long life on my HD, and that I would play it frequently for such a long time. Its a wonderful relaxation method.

[Skybird]

One of the games that VR was made for!? Could very well be.

[Skybird]

Being an active Google Earth VR and Streetview VR traveller myself, I can easily imagine how true the below is.


https://www.bbc.com/news/av/business...-with-dementia


And no, I have no dementiaa. Though some people sometimes claimed I had.

[Jimbuna]

Wouldn't wish dementia on anyone, I witnessed my father-in-laws passing at the young age of 59.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Wouldn't wish dementia on anyone, I witnessed my father-in-laws passing at the young age of 59.

[JU_88]

I think VR has already sort of flopped this time around, the hype died a couple of years ago - which is a shame.
I think the three big problems were:

1) Cost of all the High end kit needed was still too much for your average consumer to justify it.

2) Lack of innovative ways to really apply it in games, streaming media etc. Making it 'really quite nice to have' but not at all essential.
And it some cases it could be argued it was little more than a gimmick.

3) Some bandwagon companies actually putting consumers off with poor products that cheapened the experience, like a gismo for strapping a Smart phone to your face etc.

So yeah i think it will remain a niche for the time being, but as sky said it will be back - cheaper, richer and hopefully better thought through.

[Skybird]

I would not call it a flop, it jjst turns out not to be the self-running coin-milking super-business that the industry has hoped it would become easily and quickly. Second generaiton devices have been released already. Its a niche for most players, but one that is alive and slowly growing, as far as gaming in concerned. Beyond games, it still is a niche maybe, but a faster growing one.


I am still with it, and I have not regretted it one day. Racign without VR has become impossible for me to imagine.



It defintiely does better than 3D TVs a couple of years ago. Now that were fast-dying fireworks.

[JU_88]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I would not call it a flop, it jjst turns out not to be the self-running coin-milking super-business that the industry has hoped it would become easily and quickly. Second generaiton devices have been released already. Its a niche for most players, but one that is alive and slowly growing, as far as gaming in concerned. Beyond games, it still is a niche maybe, but a faster growing one.


I am still with it, and I have not regretted it one day. Racign without VR has become impossible for me to imagine.



It defintiely does better than 3D TVs a couple of years ago. Now that were fast-dying fireworks.

Oh Ive tried it (a Vive) an its pretty damn amazing. But for now, i can wait.

[Skybird]

While I am familiar with using virtual cinemainterfaces like Cmoar VR or Skybox VR for playing web- and PC-based media files in VR (Mp4 for exmaple), for whatever the reason is I have so far not tried that for playing a DVD movie that way.



In principle, playing a movie in one fo these virtual cinema ambiences, is a great experience, it reallyis pleasant and I like it a lot even if the movie is not as crispy in picture quality as it would be on the real screen or on a TV screen. My parents like to watrch my bicycle videos that way. Virtually, you have a very huge screen before your eyes, mind you. And that adds tremendously to the immersion. The static theatre ambience around the screen helps to relax the eyes.



I now tried that with a DVD movie, yesterday, and found it to be problem-ridden at first. Skybox VR, one of my two favourite movie interfaces in VR, does not recognize disc-based film formats. Cmoar Vr showed the film, but did not allow to alter language and picture aspect ratio, so it was 4:3 and in English. Not nice. Cine VR, the advertised social virtual cinema, did not play disc-based movies at all.



The way to go was via a workaround. I started the movie in ordinary VLC media player, and launched Virtual Desktop for Oculus as well, for which i have a cinemaxx scenery mod installed. From there I maximised VLC player so that it filled all the virtual movie screen that usually shows the desktop. Et voila, I had my nice virtual movie theatre and full screen movie on the virtual screen.



What should I say - its overwhelming again. I tried it with the opening scenes of Avatar. Yes, on my TV at full HD reoslution the image is sharper, of course, crispier - but here in the VR cinema, the pictures are BIGGER. And you always have that feeliing of being in a cinema. The reuslting impresison is extremely stunning. The spaceshiop falling into orb it aroudn Pandora, the sequnce when the shuttle sdeparates, and the mothership almpost flies out of the screen and into your mouth, then the scenry on the ground - iot doe snot compare to a normal TV setup.


I highly rfeocmmend to try this out, evben more so since you may not be as conservative as me and have any stremamign service for movies yourself (I have not), making it much easier for you to play a movie from your virtual cinema interface of choice.



I love my Oculus VR. I will tomorrow look staker again, afetr many years in whcih I have not - and enjoy the mood of sitting in a real small, dark program cinema in West-Berlin again in the mid-80s when I saw it the first time and experienced how it influenced and somewhat changed my life (its hard to overestimate the impression it made on me). And then Blade Runner, of course. I loved to visit cinemas back then, but today there is so much crap filmn stuff in there, and so many cinemas are gone, its a depressing shame.


As usual, using a vent at a comfortable distance is recommended for such long VR sessions.

[Skybird]

Not truely VR-related, but since I got VR mainly for sim-racing two years ago, this news: I am finally complete with my hardware migration. Yesterday, after the other Fanatec stuff that I already have since two years, I finally got the manual shifter as well. Last shifter I had was the G27, as I said: two years ago. In these years: paddle-shifting even in cars with manual gear boxes - Bäääh!

That now delivers the full sim racing hardcore experience. And no, I will not get a motion rig. No space. No cockpit frame or cabin construction - beside the space problem again, why would I? I am racing with a VR mask on my face. Fancy wheel rims or cabin constructions are of no visual use to me.



https://i.postimg.cc/T10YMbL1/IMG-20191111-141027.jpg

Good stuff, this Fanatec gear, btw. Can only recommend it. The shifter is full metal construction inside and outside, easy to switch between sequential and H-pattern (an issue of seconds), and the mechanism can be set from super-light to very hard. It also has serious weight. And a clever mounting that does not need as many screw holes in the outer casing as one would expect, still sits rocksolid.

I used to think in past years that the asking prices for this kind of gadgets is not worth it, is exotic, and too ga-ga. Lets face it, for the costs of these input devices alone other people will buy two ordinary household laptops or one to three ordinary household tower PC. But it makes a difference, really. I allowed myself to change my mind and get convinced. And the wheelbase is not even at the high end of the price index. Their new direct drive bases cost 3-4 times as much as this one.

[Skybird]

I paste and copy my posting here. If you have VR and Wreckfest, you should try this!!!

But before I start: a shifter with hard spring settings is so wonderful in this game. There is some animalitsic satisfaction to be gained from slamming in with raw power the next gear of my new Fanatec SQ 1.5 while bumping into somebody else or accelerating with all the dust and car pieces flying around you. It feels brutal. It feels dirty. It feels fitting perfectly well. Its like letting a fist fly and it lands right in the face of the guy in front of you. It feels like fresh meat before your feet, and the club still dripping with blood in your hand. It feels goooaaad! Note to myself: "Wreckfest. Shifter. Nobrainer. "

----

As we all know, Wreckfest has no VR support.

BUT:

If you have a beefy system (means: strong enough that it can handle both VR running AND Wreckfest running), try to run the game in a virtual cinema mode. I mean launch VR, and start a software like Virtual Desktop. Maybe it also works with the Virtual Desktop of the Oculus app, I have not tried that. I run Virtual Desktop with a Cineplexx cinema mod. And that means: the monitor screen is mirrored on the movie screen, at the (virtual) size of a cineplexx megascreen.

Now: you do not get stereoscopic 3D view that way, of course not but you get the game running in much bigger picture scale than on a monitor. It jumps into your face, so to speak. I can tell you: it is the second best thing to real stereoscopic 3D. It works excellent, and reveals an ammount of beauty in Wreckfest's world that so far had escaped my eyes on a single screen. The wetaher and lighting also worksd out so much better. I am shocked I did not do this earlier.

Why I have not tried that earlier? Because not every game works well this way, on a virtual movie screen. I tried it with The Hunter before, but the hopping movement, the shaking of the view from side to side whenever I walked, gave me VR sickness, although I am usually invulnerable to that. So I had not tried other non-VR games this way, The Hunter was my first and my last experience in "pseudo-VR". So, it depends on the game. Wreckfest works magnificent this way, I did three races á 5 laps each, and I am still alive and well, and stunned by what I just saw!

Try it, its worth it. I will never play Wreckfest on screen again. This is like Wreckfest 2.0 for me.



I will try a few other games in this mode, too, games that maybe promise to be not susceptible to creating VR sickness when played in thsi way. I assume walking simulötors, first person shooters might not be the best choice.