VR the champions of the world?

[Skybird]

Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill Club released. Will play tomorrow.

[Skybird]

Sony considers openign the PSVR2 headset for PC use.

https://www.racedepartment.com/news/...r-pc-use.1805/

The second virtual reality headset from PlayStation launched in February 2023, ditching the combination of LED lights, Move controllers and an external camera for tracking used in the original. Instead, it utilises the more traditional headset camera set-up combined with new Sense controllers or a Dualsense gamepad.

Inside, it makes use of eye-tracking to implement foveated rendering, in theory optimising performance by prioritising what you are looking at. OLED screens are also used, running at a 2000 x 2040 resolution per eye.

It is currently priced at £529/€599.99/$549.99 and connects to a PS5 via a single USB Type-C cable. Close rivals include the Meta Quest 2 and 3.

Note: Sony did not confirm they will do it, they say they are "testing" the possibility.

If they would bundle it with Gran Turismo 7 for PC, they would have a very tasty bait on offer for PC players. But i do not expect that to happen - GT7 is an advertizing and teasing heavyweight argument for PS5.

[Skybird]

And this news is very important, I missed it ten days ago: Microsoft ditched support for Windows Mixed Reality (WMR)-based headsets, they will not work under Windows 11 from update 24H2 on.

So, if you considered to buy a WMR-based VR headset for pC, you better don't.

https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-...4h2-and-newer/

How much I love Microschrott. I stay with W10, but wonder how long my G2, which is WMR, will continue to work. For racing, my PC is not strong enough to reliably support my Quest 3 linked to PC. I have just done my yearly (!!) update to W10, and plan to block further uopdate suhto,next year anyway. i wonder whether I should risk to ever update it again at all. Think I will not.

The best is that it is again Microsoft's own fault. They never cared for fixing the often erratically working WMR system and its inherent unreliability, but accused their customers of not being grateful for the mediocre mess they released at overpriced conditions. I hate to say it but: typically Microsoft.


It seems that the mnarket doe snot see several manfacturers agrreeing to unify their diferrent standards for VR, but that all developers except just Meta and maybe Valve simply will drop out. And what becomes of Apple's Vision Pro remains to be seen. A gamer's first choice it is not. Sony step to maybe open its PS headset for PC maybe is just born out of despoair: VR doe snot go too well on PS, but that is due to a lack of attractive VR games on VR. They better go all the way - or do not even care to follow it any further, but half-hearted.


The day when I lose the G2 workability and must use Meta's headset even on my 7 years old PC may be the day I get a new PC capable to run the Quest 3 even with complex sims. Or the Quest 4 or 5 or whatever it may be by then.


Moral of the story: I have one argument more for not voluntarily buy anything with the Microsoft label on it. Windows however is hard to avoid. But beyond that? No, thanks, even if they would pay me for using their stuff.

[Skybird]

[Skybird]

The author is rated as one of the top virtual golfers out there.





Two of three drives for me end up in involuntary fades/slices, Half the last third goes in a straight oine, but too far to the left then, due to overcompensating stand, grib and so forth. Only one is six drives goes straight and wher ewi want it to go. But then it lacks the range, my carries usually are only in the 200-220m range (plus rolling distances then). - The eternal battle that every golfer knows and fights - optimizing your swing culture! Its ridiculous how realistic this simulator is (with a DeadEye VR attachment).

On the DeadEye golf clubs, I would reocmmend to always prioritize the models with added weight at the tip. They are lohger than the short one, but the short one lacks the real swinging feeol fo the long sticks with wight, trhuzs lacking stability, precision and power. You must balance the stick length versus your room characteristics.

I now have a handicap of a bit under 16 over par. Played my first full roudn at Bay Hill yesterday, anoehgt beautiful course that has some really challenging - if not to say: mean - hole layouts, set in a nice environment with penty of water and its own chatracterisc feel and mood and atmospher,e settign it apart form the other course sin Golf+. That is very important for me, that the computer graphics with their - compared to reality - reduced visible detail do not become monotonous and repetitive. You do not want nor need three courses that all look and feel the same.

I play most days at least a 9 hole session, but most days a full 18 holes course. I improve but slowly. I play music via the included youtube player and have some silent, slow bar piano playing in the background. Such a session lasts 70-80 minutes or so, I sometimes may take a short brake after the 9th, and it really always is an experience, enjoyable. I really treat it like a stroll through the park, and a comedian's voice in my head comments my shots.

Damn sarcastic basterd he is.

[Skybird]

In real golf, there are for example screws that can be put in and out of the clubheads, they are made of different materials and allow to alter the weight of the head in the low single-digit gram range. I always thought they are crazy.

No more.

My mom got a new golf adapter, the follow up model to the one I use. This new one, the shortened "mini"-version of the current top model by DeadEye VR, is four finger widths shorter than my own club, and has, with controller attached, a maximum weight of 536 gr. My own club with controller has around 585gr, is heavy. Now, keep in mind that they calculate the weights they add to the head of this stick according to the need to reach the clubhead speeds of a real golf club - but with a shorter stick length. Its not that they are stupid when adding these overload weights, it is heavier than a heavy golf club in real life, but that is for a reason. People who know both VR and reality golf however swear that the swinging and the feel of it in VR feels 90-95% the same like the real thing.

Now, the clue here is, the new stick has nine washers in its head, each weighing ~10 gr, in total they weigh 92gr. If you take these out, you reduce the weight of the total combo from 536 to 438gr. Also added was a separately sold 75gr weight, a ring attached to near the top of the stick, so there is another reduction to 336gr, with controller attached. So, you can tailor the stick's weight in nine 10-gr intervals, and additonally combine that with that 75 gr ring weight on or off, adding even many more degree of weight tailoring. All in a range of maximum 538 and a minimum of 336 gr (controllers already attached).

Now, does it all make a difference?

Hell, it does!! My old club simply was too heavy for me, that simple. I struggled to reach the driving distances I now have with my first strike, by lowering the weight by around 60 gr I gained immediately 30-45m in driving. I also have less stress with my left side muscles (that pull the club when driving the first strike from the Tee).

I experimented with the club the past days, and found that I can feel a perceivable difference in the way any short or long range strike feels, and in the accuracy by which i dose the power when changing the weight by intervals of 20-30gr. I am stunned by this, I had not expected this. Its also a big compliment to the realism and the physics calculations in the simulation. I think they are breathtaking.

The club is with my mom now, she has changed the weights to her liking already - and immediately jumped forward in performance and range, too.

The clamp holding the controller, also has been slightly improved with this model. The line is used for fixing, too. It holds controllers of the Quest 2, 3 and Pro.

The difference between the normal edition and the "mini" version is length, and weight. The normal club is significantly longer, even longer than my old one. In cramped spaces and living rooms, that is a factor you must carefully consider. But I can fullheartly recommend the shortened version, it feels great when swinging it, absolutely believable. The mini stick is available with a stick made of polished stepped steel, with the normal club you have the choice between the stick made of that stepped steel, or carbon fibre. Costs are the same for both matzerials. The 75gr weight must be ordered separately. But i recommend to get it, shipping to Europe is very expensive (they ship only via expensive Express option, and customs get added on delivery, so you can easily almost double the costs for the club), the weight ring itself costs less than 10 coins. You want to experiment with it, I promise you, so get it with any main order of yours, and do not have it shipped it separately: the shipping would cost twice as much than the ring.

Its unbelievable how close to real golf you get with all this gear and stuff!



Price for the normal club length is 85 Euros. Normal is 28"/71cm long, empty weight bare evertyhing 290gr, mini is 21"/53cm long, empty weight 250gr. They explicitly recommend the long stick for large play spaces only. We use the shortened version over here.





----------------------------

BTW, I have dropped my handicap further to now 13.4 I play at the middle of three settings, usually with medium winds, fast greens, middle tees and medium pins. The handicap gets calculated like this (they orient themselves at the WHS: the World Handicap System, which is a standard in Golf:

Adjusted Par

We adjust the course rating to reflect different pin, tee, wind speed, and green speed settings. On a real golf course, scorecards don't assign a different rating based on anything but tee location, since players do not have control over these different conditions. If the course’s greenskeeper cuts a green shorter and then tucks the flag into a tough pin position, a hole might play much harder that day than the next despite still having the same rating. You can get a sense for the difficulty of each combination of settings by looking at the adjusted par value that is displayed when starting a round. Adjusted par is our estimate of the score that we expect a scratch (0 handicap) golfer to shoot if they are playing well on the selected settings.

Handicap Eligible Rounds

A round is only included in handicap calculations if you have the Affects Handicap box checked when starting a round and do not use any mulligans during the round.

Calculating Your Handicap

Values are provided for your handicap at all three difficulties, novice, amateur, and pro. Your handicap is a number representative of what you'd shoot on your best days rather than an average of your rounds. We follow the World Handicap System, considering your last twenty 18-hole rounds and using the best eight to calculate your handicap. Pairs of 9-hole rounds are combined to form 18-hole rounds, and scores are capped at a maximum of a net double bogey per hole. We provide graphs of your handicap history over your last twenty rounds and the breakdown of your current handicap, which you can view on the stats section of the GOLF+ website.



Net Score

Your net score is your score in relation to the adjusted par. For instance, if you shoot a double bogey-free 42 on the front 9, and the adjusted par for your settings is 38, your net score would be +4. You can view the net score and adjusted par for all of your rounds on the rounds section of our website.

Here you have a general Q&A and so to speak the manual for Golf+:

https://www.golfplusvr.com/frequently-asked-questions


It goes without saying that if an adapter is used, it must be callibrated with utmost care and precision in the options. That can be tricky and time consuming, but one cannot overestimate the importance of doing a super perfect job here. Have the real and the virtual club shaft deviating from each other by just one degree or 1cm, and it makes a signficant difference for your strikes and may turn straight drives into crazy fades and slices. Really, callibrate with utmost care and precision!

[Skybird]

I always thought that my driving distance were a bit on the low side of things. But I did some reading, watched two videos on age and handicap affecting driving distance, and found that I quite well fit into the general scheme they describe, with dropping handicap increaisng distance, it and age decreasing it. My age is what it is, but my handcap I improved quite dramatically while playing repeatedly on a dozen different courses, and when I am through with them all I start again with all of them, so I use each of them frequently, except maybe Pinehurst No.2, which I just do not like as a place.

This is one chart that generally describes typical representative ranges in yards (meters into yards: add 10%) for three handicap levels and various ages. I am age 57 and usually do not exceed around 220m, with my carries (drive in air, without rolling on the ground). In yards that would be around 240, so actually where I thought I did inferior with my drives, actually I do pretty well. Well, not the aiming...

Anyway, I switched from Amateur level to Pro level, the highest of three skill levels in the game. actually its just about switching off aids and aiming lines, which I did all not use anyway and already had switched off individually in the options, so de facto its no change at all for me - just that statistics get restarted from scratch, being maintained separately in both skill levels. Just me and the club and the ball and the green - thats how I like it.


Last handicap on amateur level +13.4. I will need time to build the stock for the new on pro. 20 completed rounds minimum.

[Skybird]

In Golf+ : Its good that I switched from medium difficulty level "Amateur" to highest level "Pro". Because they describe the differences usually only in the ammount of aids and helping lines available. What they do not say is that the playing, the swinging itself becomes even more difficult on Pro level, I mean every single degree of the clubhead's face turning, every minor deviation in your movement flow when swinging, mercilessly gets translated into effects in the game, where before the game may have assisted with subtlety to forgive minor flaws and errors (I did not realise that, maybe because I never played real golf and could not compare). My aiming thus has detoriated, my precision has suffered, its all pretty messed up, the last three days were increasingly frustrating, and I must add many strikes per round, on average 10-15 strikes more. It does not help that I also made it a habit to start form back tees now.

I did not immediately realise that the game mechanics had changed as well, its not mentioned anywhere, usually. That was cause for mounting frustration and also growing anger, it really were three very discouraging days, and I slipped into a gloomy mood.

I now by chance stumbled over one of the devs commenting several years ago, when the game was in early access, revealing that not just the aids and help lines get switched off, but that the game becomes very unforgiving regarding your play, your swinging of the club. It doe snot just delete optinal assists, but it really unchains the full difficulty of playing golf.

I felt better a bit when realising that. My play still is messy and I realised that i have plenty of work to do, but I now know that I did not turn bad all of a sudden, but that now I probably meet the game on a setting where it really is the hardcore simulation of the real thing. Or was I really to believe that after just 3 months or so i already would have improved my handicap from 56 to 13?

I have not detoriated - the software on Pro has just set the challenges to realistic marks and no longer forgives minor mistakes. And thats something I can live with. Back to square one, start new from beginning.

Why that is good? Because I do no longer waste time with learning bad habits and techniques on Amateur/medium level (I never played on easy/Novice).

I think this title has gotten me hooked on it in all seriousness. I have formed some real ambition and motivation to improve, far beyond the motivation I usually would build for a new computer game. And the answer to qhy this is so, is simple:

The illusion of doing the real thing, Golf, is so convincing.

[Skybird]

From handicap 13.7 on Amateur level to - well, not enough rounds played to calculate a handicap on Pro level, but on the 18 hole rounds I played so far I needed 35-42 above par.

Plenty of work to do... Pro level is the real deal. I played 9 holes without a Deadeye VR attachment/grip adapter, and then it was even much worse... On pro, its just you, the ball and the club and the green - no cheating, no easing, not assistance. Its pure. Its merciless. I love it. I hate it.

[Skybird]

Olympia Fields 111.
Riviera Country Club 110.

Sobering.


First handicap rating on Pro level: 31.


But much fewer people seem to play on Pro, probably due to the difficulty. With the 13 handicap on Amateur and the scores on the courses I ranked in the jhigh 5 digit range and low 6 digit range. With the higher strike count per course on Pro, I rank amongst the first low hundreds. I reach the sam ediatnces with drives and disanatcne shots, but the aim is all over the place, the body swing needs to be brought to much greater perfection and continuity. The longer I play on Pro the more obvious it becomes that the sim was helping the player on Amateur level with mild corrections of easy, slight errors and faults. I did not realise it, they implemented it quite well, and with subtlety. But I will now stay with Pro level. I tasted the blood. I want more. Next goal would be to do the courses with not more than +18 over par. But that will take time...

[Skybird]

After Kapalua yesterday with 105 and Sawgrass with 110 the day before, today I had to swallow the worst round I have ever played, a humiliating 115 at TPC Southwind. Quite frustrating, tbh.

I identify three big weaknesses in my play, and I so far cant hammer them out. First, I lack consistency in my strokes, both in terms of accuracy and power. Secondly, I am constantly fighting back against a horrible slice off the tee, and in trying to correct this through grip, stance and movement, this error compensation often results in even worse results to the left. Thirdly, I don't get enough distance in my shots.

The "Pro" level of difficulty is tough - and so very much so!

[Skybird]

Meta has launched a recall campaign for its separately sold Elite Battery Headstrap.

Shortly after the release of the Quest 3 and the Elite Battery head strap, there was a lot of feedback reporting problems with the external Elite battery headstrap. Many people sent theirs back and got them replaced with new ones without any problems. Officially, Meta said they were working on an update to the software.

This option seems now to have ended in a dead end, it doesn't seem possible. Meta is currently sending emails to Elite Battery Headstrap customers to check online the serial number of the purchased set. If you qualify for a faulty set in this way, you will be notified immediately online and they will send you a new one "within eight weeks" (quote). It is not necessary to send the old one back.

They took their time, but now this customer service act works.

I've only noticed that when it's off, the external Elite headstrap battery drains 25-30% per day if you don't unplug the connector between the battery and the headset. Plug it out, and there were no issues at all for me. Otherwise I had no problems, and I usually use an external power bank anyway. But many users reported that the headset no longer recognized the battery after a few charging cycles. It was dead, while holding a charge, or being unable to be recharged.

Assuming the new ones work flawlessly, its an alright item then. Still extremely overpriced, but lacking a few issues reported on other alternative products, and the headstrap itself wears very comfortably, i must admit that. I can wear it for an hour or two or longer, without any pains or headaches. Very comfortable. The only pains I currently feel is from swinging that golf club like Conan.

You will definitely need an external battery solution for the Quest 3. May it be the Elite battery headstrap, or that of another manufacturer, or a powerbank.

To be clear: the issue is with the Elite battery headstrap, not with the Quest 3 headset itself.

[Skybird]

A new update for Quest 3 increases battery life while using Steam Link or Meta-PC Link by 30-50% - while at the same time unlocking 120Hz for such PC-streamed games. This may sound paradox, but isn't, since the real work is done not by the Quest, buit the PC, and higher resolution images just get sent to the Quest 3 and must not be calculated by it.

Support for the new branch of 4000 series gfx boards by nVidia also is added, up to the 4090 series.

Some more changes and new features were added, that for most people probably are not that relevant.

Quest 2 and Pro also got lying modes, you cna use them while lying flat on your bed or couch, and still watch movies or play, or whatever. Its expected that this mode gets re-added to Quest 3 at a later time (it was planned or even implemented, but then was taken away for some unknown reason).

[Skybird]

VR needs discipline and spatial awareness - and if you dont have that, you better stick to mixed reality games (which works fantastic if done well, as I learned).

[Skybird]

Tja. No bright side of things without a dark side of things.



https://www-nzz-ch.translate.goog/te...x_tr_hist=true


Its rumoured that the next generation of Quest headsets will have eye tracking, too. I never craved for it, could happily do without it. But Facebook would not be Facebook if they would pass on this golden opportunity.



Back to golf. I play my rounds on Pro now with 105-115 strokes per 18 holes. My near future plan is to get below 100 strokes. My long term plan is to bring my handicap to 18 or better. Possible that I will not succeed with that, I really ran into a tough challenge here.