VR the champions of the world?

[Skybird]

Hm. I just checked and realised that I have run out of games that could qualify for this cinema screen trick and do not already include a native stereoscopic 3D real virtual reality option. The Hunter and Call of the Wild were the only ones installed that could make sense to be tried.

[Skybird]

I thought I start updates in loose sequence about the state of things with VR games, those titles that I know and that I think work reamrkably well. I do so by trying to find videos that by their format allow assessment of what to expect and whether VR compromises or enahces gameplay. Needless to say: its always the latter.

Starting with Eleven Table Tennis, I posted it yesterday in another thread and was off topic with it, so I put it here, for the sake of completeness.
The game has just seen a long-standing Beta now being turned into the new mandatory standard for everybody, with new physics, imo even better realism (would not have thought that possible), and a need to get used to a few new adaptations to resetting options. They plan more changes and new things to come, amongst them a nice new match arena. Eleven for me still is one of the best exmaples of how unbelievably well VR can work if matched with the right software projects. Allows SP and MP. Different to court tennis, table tennis allows you realostic runni8g movements in VR since you do noit nee a whole centreeocurt in your living room. That is why table tennis in VR stresses me physically almost identically to playing it in reality, I really jumpo and run a lot, do not just stand and return balls. But then, I am no good table tennis player at all, and never was. AI can now be set on a percentage scale, from boring to flak-firing challenger beast. Weaknessyes in physics model of the predecessing version, which most players did not notice anyway, have been left behind now.

Superb, excellent simulation.

[Skybird]

And the big cousin, First Person Tennis. It too is in slow but constant improvement, and has changed noticably over the past two years, and content got added. Like Eleven's developer, this one too cares for his baby. The gameplay obviously makes compromises, all leg work necessarily must be worked around by game mechanisms, since real tennis depends a lot on running the line up and down, and that is hard to do in a living room. The method by which FPT does it, works surprisingly well, but gets a little bit used to. Since you do not swing a real racket with real mass and weight, swinging the VR grip feels differently and needs more discipline in beign precise in holding it to correctly appaly Topspin and Slice as you wish to see. A real racket stabilises your strike by its mass, a VR grip is more instabile since it is so light in weight.

You can run this as a relaxed ball-returning entertainment game, but if you want to play competitive, you need the force and speed in your strikes, and that means you need to apply according power to your swings, and then it indeed becomes sweat-producing. Also your foot positioning to the ball when striking, is as important as it is in reality. I use to have a small round tile laying on the centrespot of my playing space that I can search for and easly find with my foot to recentre myself after every ball exchange - else I would be in serious danger of bashing my living room into tiny pieces. Youtube videos usually show guys just standing there and do slight, almost desinterested movements with their right arm. Believe me, if you want to powerserve and play with force, that is not enough, you really must put power into your moves, seriously. And then it changes into a completely different ballgame. The legwork is not there (the computer slides you instead, the alternative is a sudden zoom to a new position but I find that disorientating), but arms and shoulders, hands and muscle in your sides copy quite some of what the real sports would see in needs and efforts. Also you must quickly jump into the correct stand according to what you play next: Backhand or Forehand. I tend to follow runnign the same drills like I did in real tennis 30 years ago - the sim is easily good enough to reward that by noticable raises in precision of your strikes. No complete replacement for the real sports, though, but still - impressive enough if you play it seriously. You sweat, you need to train your precision and discipline, and it is superb fun. Not for those who want maximum success easily after just learning for 30 minutes.




For comparison: this is first person footage from a real tennis player with a GoPro on his chest or head. It looks quite similiar in perspective.

[Skybird]

For the time being, this video where the author presents hs ten top picks of VR games one year ago. It seems I am a bit out of synch, some of what he shows looks very interesting and well-crafted. I think it gives oyu a good overview on some of the top cream in VR gaming. Ten games in 15 minutes, thats one and a half minute insight into every game. Look yourself, and imagine what you see to be stereoscopic 3D. Myself I will check out No Mans Sky in VR, and that chnace to skin myself as John Wick and shoot a little amok in Pistol Whip. That Medal of Honour thing also looks very immersive. Or Half Life. Or The Living Dead. Does one really want to play this in 3D and get the creeps...?




And for the purpose of another quick overview of the VR game scene:

[Skybird]

One of the most unknown and underrated VR shooter games imo is still one of the best and straightest out there: A10 VR. Its from 2016, and the yhave not chnage dit since then just added some of the newer headsets. And there is no need toi chnage anything in the forumla: it is transparent, it is straight, and it is marvelously well executed. Draw two pistols and fire away, period.

You get a laser beam wepaon with a fully functional holoscopic aiming sight - it is needed sinc ethis wepaon is a preciison wepaon with single shot per trigger pull. The other is a automatic plasmaball MP sort of thing, with iron sights. Often overlooked: the angle at which the weapons sit in your hands and the sights lining aup when you raise the hand as if yo were hlding anormal wepaonl can be altered in the menu, setting this value up correctly so that it fits your hand anatomy, helps trmedously in precision and also allows oyu qucker and better use of the sights where you use them .

You either fightagainst increasingly frantic waves of attacker that either will explode once they ended their drifting journey and contact you position, or the blitz by and fire projecticles at you while they do. you can and should didge them. The attack zone is 360° around you, though there are some fewer attacks from your back, but you have to watch out. You either buy energy or time (in countdown mode) when hitting or acchieveign a combo. Thats all.Sounds simple? It is simple. But it is tremendous fun, and works flawlessly. Just do not use the trainign mode: it starts lame, and it stays lame, it doES NOT IMPROVE SPEED OR ACTION INTENSITY, AND SO PEOPLE CAN GET A VERY WRONG IMPRESSION OF TRAINING IS THE FIRST CONTACT WITH THE GAME THAT THEY HAVE, i READ THAT SOME PEOPLE GAVE UP ON IT DUE TO THE TRIANING MODE, beign bored, later learned about the real gaming modes: and got baptise dinto believers immediately.

I use to play this for 5-10 minutes after I had my 1 hour table tennis session (which i have 2-4 times per week), its a nice way to cool down again.

Also, it is cheap. Very. The low price for this simple but flawless game is why I am tempted to call this a must have. But maybe it is just personal taste, so I don't. I am chuckling about myself that I still like this, since I usually do not play such pure action games anymore. Oh, and one word on the shooting: it works precise and very very good. I have tried a few other shooting gallery games that were free or could be refunded over the past two years, I found the virtual weapons always remaining to be artificial, unfitting extensions of my hands, the aiming never felt natural, shooting from the hip was even more "strange", unsatisfactory. Not so here. I raise the arm and hand and shoot and the bullets just go where I want them to go (without the game cheating or influencing the targetting in my favour). It all feels just so very right.



Space Pirate may be close, and better known, contender, but I like this one much better.


You need a setup where you can turn 360°. In case of a headset with external sensors: two sensors. One works unreliable, I found.

[Skybird]

Racket NX is one of my all time darling games in VR, and quite some people dare to claim this to be the best vR game they know. Its a flawless execution of a simple concept: play Squash with a mild flavour of Pinball spice added and smack that ball against the half-sphere of a dome you stand in. Play at all directions, 360°, up and down, high and low.. Have targets to be hit that give you energy or time, have penalty targets that you want to avoid to hit. Play single player or multiplayer. Swing the racket, and play gentle and slow, or smack it to crash throuhg that enegry obstacle, or play with spin and effet.


If there is a game that remindsofo the lightgames in Tron, this it is.


Its one of the sports games that can only be realised in a virtual reality, not in the real world. The ball is an energy ball, the playing field interacts with it in a way a rubber ball thrown against a stone wall never could. The feel of smackinjg the "ball" with your racket is incredibly satisfactory. Everything in this game is about right, its close to perfection. A clever indicator below your feet shows you your centering psoition and whether you are in threat to get entangled by your cables or not by spinning aorund your axis too much. You need good space and full 360° movement freedom, this game really gets played at ALL directions. The game has levelled challenges, the action ranges from fair and lazy to insanely hot, time pressure can become mean on highest levels. The crystal looks of rackets have somethign very addictive to them.

The game impacted on the scene when it came out, and became a great success from annoucnement day on. If you play it ambitiously, it can brign your heartrate up a little bit. I do not want to exaggerate the sporting effects of VR sprt games, it always depends on how much heart and ambition you out into it and how good the game is, but good VR games can give you a mild to medium workout. Nothing to repalce reality with, but then also nothign to just look down on. Most people however play these tigns quite relaxed, and standing. When i play these games and swing a racket, I tend to rewally let my racket fly with power. For one simple reaosn: I enjoy it much better this way if I put physicla effort into it, and do not just stand there and move my hand occasionally.

The first video illustrates cooperating in multi player from external view, the second shows how it looks form player's POV.

A must have for VR.

[Bilge_Rat]

Anyone try Half Life Alyx? the new VR only Half Life game.

I had it on my wishlist and picked it up on sale.

I was not sure what to expect, but so far it is the best VR game I ever played, beautiful, immersive and terrifying!

I was not sure my system was up to it (RX Vega 56, Oculus Rift CV1, Ryzen 3700x), but gameplay is smooth and graphics 1st class.

I use VR mostly to play DCS and IL-2, but you can't beat a game which was designed from the ground up in VR.

[Skybird]

I do not play it/have it, but I saw a video about it and heard only very good things about it. Many seem to agree it is the best VR game out there currently, so you are not alone with your opinion.

[Skybird]

[Skybird]

When FB renamed itself to Meta some weeks , soon after that they seem to have announced (I missed it) that they want to get rid of the enforced FB account for Oculus users. In Germany, several lawcases are runnign against them due to several violations of German and European laws that forbid doing so, the EU also runs two cases against FB over this issue. I mean against Meta. Hach, to hell with it, its Facebook no matter how much psychobabble and glossy advert-talking they do.

That is nice news if true, it may happen early next year and would allow me to stay with my Rift beyond end of next year. My system now is four years old and by the end of next year would be five years, and actually I am not craving for anything new and more powerful performance, it still runs smooth and stable and gets all done that I throw at it. I have just invested in a midlife extension update and migrated my secondary HD with all the games on it via Macrium rEflect to a new HD twice as big and being new, and I would not oppose the idea to stay with this system for several more years to come. When I finally one day get a new one, Windows 11 birthing issues hopefully have been dealt with, and the more serious later-coming issues already have shown up to make my boring life more interesting again.

Still, will not recommend never again no more to buy no Oculus not. Technically they might be good and I was satisfied with my Rift (until recently the earphones stopped working and I must use external ones), but I absolutely dispise the Zuckerberg corporation and its customer hostile policies.

[Skybird]

A ncie vidoe that films throughn the lenses of headsets to illustrate the difference in resolution, screendoor effect and colours. The comparison starts at 2:30.

A lot has chnaged since the Oculus Rift. I damaged mine yesterday, and the cable conneciton is no more reliable. I need to replace the set . I ordered the G2 with two contorllers - for 500 coins. I hope my system can make use of it: it 8700K, 32 GB RAM, 1080TI (13 GB). The graphics board is the possible weakness in the setup. I must wait until next week and until then: pray. I will miss the Rift controlelrs, they were very, very good. The g" is my chpice due to the superior reslution and lowest screendoor effect. Its inferior colour in parts can be compensated for with according colour profiles and contrast settings, I hope.

[Skybird]

The Facebook nightmare seems to be confirmed now to be over. According to this text from end of October, the mandatory FB account to use Oculus devices, has been cancelled or will get cancelled soon for sure.

https://kotaku.com/hooray-oculus-que...ook-1847963909


Would not get another Oculus device again anyway. They are not bad, but I hate the company behind it. If all goes well, tomorrow I can hold a G2 in my hands. Then see how it runs. I hope the framerate remains well.

[Skybird]

Holla die Waldfee, that really makes a difference! I connected the G2 today, and different to so many others I had no problems and my rig recognizes it nicely. I needed no cable replacement and had no issues. Thje cable is 6m by default, btw.

The image is - I had not expected this, it is really very good, very sharp, and no recognizable mosquito mesh/screendoor effect, its really very impressive. Colours are nice, too, so is the sound. It wears more comfortable than the Oculus Rift, not that the Rift was bad, but this one wears better. The controllers are not as good, do not look as sturdy, and I so far fail to get them work properly with Google Earth VR.

So far I am pleased. Raceroom worked fine. I have not yet tested the hardware killer applications like ACC and FS, possible that there I need to tune down things.

But the image quality for itself - very very good. No comparison when you come from a Rift.


For the prices you usually pay vor VR headsets with controllers, it also was cheap, 500 coins. Compare that to a HTC Vive.

[Skybird]

Time for a brief review, just in case any other updaters read here.

I run an i7 8700K with 32GB, and a GFX-1080TI (factory OC, 11 GB). Bought in autumn 2017, together with the Oculus Rift of that time.

Mind you, the Oculus Rift has a resolution of 1080x1200 per eye. The G2 Reverb has a resolution of 2160x2160 per eye. That is a hefty much more in pixel loads that have to be calculated. Any concerns about getting stuttering when not also upgrading 4-5 year old PC and gfx hardware, are valid and understandable.

At "simple" titles like Google Earth VR, A-10 VR, Katana X, Derail Valley, Eleven Table Tennis and Pinball FX2 VR, it just does not matter, at highest resolution there is just smoothness, no stuttering, far deeper-reaching depth of view and the obvious absence of the feared screendoor effect (the mosquito mesh you see in older headsets). God rays are also almost completely absent. Contrast and colours is at least as good, I think even better. Compared to the Rift, its almost new ball game!

Now the challenging titles: racing sims. Especially the new ones are well-known notorious hogs on hardware, and here especially the G2 has a reputation to also be the hog of hogs.

I first tested with Dirt Rally 2. I had to slightly reduce ingame graphics options, and in dense forests with plenty of trees close by I have a very mild ghostign effect when turning sharply in tight 90° turns and hairpins, thats all. I get better resolution and black colours at night. The overall experience is better, you see more from the world, the sky, the clouds. Passed!



Next, European Truck Simulator 2. Oh that dramatically imporoved immersion! The betgter textures in the beautifully rendered skies! The visible traffic signs that actually can be red form a disdtance now! Its all fanfares and vivid flags in the stormx wind, its great. A very, ver ymild ghosting when you look 90° to the left and right, havign items there moving by very fast. Usually youz look forward when riding on the Autbahn, so that is a minor issue you almost never get reminded of. Passed! The ETS2 world and weather and sunsets look beautiful!


Then came Wreckfest, running in 2D on a huge 3D VR cinema screen . Higher resolution, plenty of more details to be seen, brighter images - FANTASTIC. In sharp turns and dense packs, again a very mild ghosting, nothing that irritates me. Its a feast to the eyes. Passed!

Next level, Raceroom Racing. And again I had to do just very minor options adjustements and again got a playable experience with much better depth of view and details and again a very mild ghosting only in tight, fast moving turns, the ghosting is visible at the horizon, not on cars close by, or buildings. I am stunned! Passed!

Now came the critical candidates, the two Assetto Corsas.

Classic AC - I did not expect it to run too well, but actually, it does run marvellously well, i did not had to tune any options, and it ran nicely "out of the box". And that with the now much more detailed display of dashboard and outside world, and longer viewing distances and no screendoor effect! It looks great! Passed!

Finally Competizione. Here is where the complications began.

When you switch from an Oculus set to a non-Oculus set, you also switch from the Oculus VR-interface to the the Open VR/Steam VR interface. And ACC seems to hate openVR, I am not the first who ran into troubles. In Oculus VR, the Rift worked nicely, but the same low-res Rift headset in Open VR already stuttered like hell. But the G2 in Open VR (does not work in Oculus VR, obviously) declared immediate war on me: 2 fps and a latency of 1-2 seconds spoke volumes. It was a desaster. Reducing options in game and in nVidia driver and in Steam VR interface, also reducing resolution in Steam VR to that of the Rift, almost, all that did not help. Not before I tested 9 different nVidia drivers and finally found an older 45x.xx one, I managed to get it running, at drastically reduced resolution. The image in the G2 in ACC now is as good or bad as that I got in the Rift, and the resolution is as low, but the title is playable, and that is what I hoped for. As I said, ACC is a hardware hog, a real mean pig for any computer system, I hoped for and did not expect to get more than just what I had in the Rift. And that is what I finally got: no gains, but then also no losses. Passed. Just so, but passed.

In FS20, another title that almost rapes the hardware, I had to reduce graphics options in general, and am limited to flying in simple planes with simple, non-complex cockpit-avionics: open cockpits and such. Small planes with "unmodern" avionics. Then it indeed is great. Well, in FS2020 I could not expect more than what i now get. Honestly said I am surprised that my 1080TI and the G2 can even get FS20 running at all.

So, in a summary: almost all titles I play in VR with the Rift do not just run in the new headset as well, but - sometimes more sometimes less expected - benefit from it, even the more demanding racing sims. Its all gains and plusses, until ACC, where I at least managed to maintain the status from the Oculus Rift, so while there are no gains, there also are no losses in ACC's case, and playability assured. In FS20, I had to trade visual details for playability, but that is not really surprising for me. Heck - its a GT-1080TI only, and it needs to push 3.6 times as many pixels as before!

I like the new headset. It wears more comfortably, and needs no external sensors, but the controllers are bigger, and feel less quality-like. However, they work, but because the tracking is done by headset's own cameras and not external sensors, you need correct light conditions in the room and the headset must "see" the sticks. I can play table tennis with it, but learned to change hand position and hold the hand accentuated before my body, to make sure the helmet sees them. Thats a difference to the Rift, the Rift system is more complex a setup, more cables and connectors, but regarding tracking of handpieces it works a bit better. In cockpit of cars however, this is irrelevant.

I bought the bundle of helmet and two grips for 500 coins, which is 150-250 less than what it usually costs over here. I am satisfied and actually quite happy with the improved visual quality. The resolution is, roughly rounded, twice as high for every axis. that really makes a huge difference!

The viewing angle, btw, is 4° more than the Rift, so practically the same. Pimax headsets have wider viewing fields, but then costs a while lot more and are not as comfortable to wear, I read, also image quality is not as good. In genertla the G2 is the by far sharpoest resolitiuon, but also one of the headset with the most narrow viewing field. It means no change for me, since I am familiar to it from the Rift.

The G2must be placed on your head with precision, the sweetspot is a bit small. Once you found it, its very sharp. The set does not move. It wears better than the Rift.

The sound is better than I expected after the bad reviews I red. Actually, I find it very good. No complaints from me.

I read that not rarely customers using AMD-based chipsets ran into troubles with the headste not beign recongised. It seems to be an issue with the default cable, HP provides an improved new cable for such customers contacting them. Whether the HP service is working good and fast I cannot tell you, but I know that many people hate their printers. If you own a motherboard with AMD chipsets, its your call.

With 500 coins (where available for that price), the G2 is one of the most competitive price offers on the market currently. You can spend easily three times as much.

[mapuc]

The Oculus Rift has a resolution of 1080x1200 per eye. The G2 Reverb has a resolution of 2160x2160 per eye.

As I see it you could say that Oculus Rift is High Definition and G2 Reverb is 4K.

I've looked at the prices for this G2-The price is to high for me. No doubt at all that G2 is way, way better than Oculus.

Markus