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Valve and HTC Reveal "Vive" SteamVR Headset

Posted by samzenpus on from the is-it-real? dept.

An anonymous reader writes Today Valve and HTC revealed the "Vive" SteamVR headset which is designed to compete with Oculus and others, which aim for a high-end VR experience on PC. The Vive headset uses dual 1200x1080 displays at 90Hz and a "laser position sensor" to provide positional tracking (head movement through 3D space), and also includes a pair of motion input controllers. The companies say that the Vive headset will be available to developers in Spring and receive a proper consumer launch holiday 2015, though no price has been announced.

15 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Please take my money now Steam!!! I Want!!! by jagoop · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Please take my money now Steam!!! I Want!!!

  2. I'm a cyclops, you insensitive clod! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hopefully, they won't crap it up with all kinds of fancy 3D or stereoscopic viewpoints, or at least have an option to turn it off. Some of us who are blind in one eye really have a hard time dealing with some of this technology.

    1. Re:I'm a cyclops, you insensitive clod! by NotDrWho · · Score: 2

      If you're blind in one eye, why would you ever buy this in the first place?

      --
      SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    2. Re:I'm a cyclops, you insensitive clod! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why not? The immersion is the same.

    3. Re:I'm a cyclops, you insensitive clod! by Cley+Faye · · Score: 2

      The head tracking, being sort of cut from outside visual noises, and the overall immersion? Stereoscopy is a very little aspect of a VR headset.

  3. Nice resolution by Melkman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But remembering interviews with Occulus developers there is more to VR than a good resolution and tracking. Things like ridiculous low latency needed to prevent motion sickness and screen artifacts caused by rapid panning. Has Valve solved these things in record time in secret or will this be a better specs on paper but worse in practice product ? Or maybe I'm just falling for Oculus marketing: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/...

    1. Re:Nice resolution by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 2

      They had one guy blogging about nothing but VR stuff so you can see for yourself: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com...

    2. Re:Nice resolution by quintesse · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Michael Abrash relegated to "one guy blogging" ;)

      And he now works for Oculus!

    3. Re:Nice resolution by 3.5+stripes · · Score: 2

      Ah yes, that's why my office has plastic sheeting down everywhere..

      Motion sickness happens in 3 cases.

      1. You get motion sick playing FPS games on a normal monitor.. VR isn't for you
      2. Crappy refresh rate on the VR screen, or high latency between physical and VR movement, both Occulus and Vive have pretty much fixed that.
      3. Loss of tracking.. DK1 didn't have it, DK2 does, Vive does, but that's because they have things to occlude.

      --


      He tried to kill me with a forklift!
    4. Re:Nice resolution by dinfinity · · Score: 2

      I've always wondered to what extent it is possible to just get used to the disconnect between your senses (which is something that will never really go away with just optical VR). I'm pretty sure that people who are at sea often don't get seasick (anymore).

      Given the plasticity of the brain, it seems that it should be possible to train it to accept the disconnect in general, although you could ask yourself whether you want to go through a month or more of daily sickly training sessions, just to be able to use a(n admittedly pretty cool) piece of technology.

      Any no-longer-motion-sick-VR-users in the house?

    5. Re:Nice resolution by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      Raises hand.

      I mostly got over motion sickness with my old VFX1. Never for Descent II though. It is about software more then anything. Up should remain up. Heli and driving sims work pretty good. Fixed wing less so. 3d shooters are OK but the devil is in the details.

      In my experience the DK2 is no better then the VFX1 for motion sickness (Both working side by side). When the VFX1 shipped it was terrible, but once the VFX1 was running on a GHz processor and refreshing at 200fps, which is much faster then it's old interleaved 30Hz screen, it became OK.

      The problem people working the motion sickness problem face is they are naturally being desensitized. So whatever they think will help with nausea does.

      That said: I never get motion sick IRL. VR has mostly been no big issue. Two exceptions: Descent II (VFX1) and Alien Isolation (DK2, I have no explanation for why Alien Isolation is so bad, but it's very pukey. Still not hours for recovery, but 15 minute gaming limit.)

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  4. Re:Jeez by Shoten · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Dude, did you SEE the video? It was awesome! Never has the back of someone's head looked so incredible! HypeHypeHype! WantWantWant!

    --

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  5. Re:Uses a 15x15 room, it's a Holodeck by Immerman · · Score: 2

    "All that junk"? I'd imagine a "dedicated VR room" would mostly be an empty room free of junk you could bang in to while flailing around blindly. Maybe featuring an undersized rug/mat that gives your feet some warning when you're wandering too far from the "sweet spot" and risk punching the wall. The sort of room which would double nicely as a meditation/yoga/aerobics/etc space. (and yes, I'm sure there's a "padded room" joke in there somewhere...)

    Unless you're going the omnidirectional treadmill route, but in that case you're kind of locked in place anyway, so you really only need one corner of a room that could otherwise be dedicated to less virtual pursuits (maybe a use for some of that horribly wasteful "master bedroom" space?)

    --
    --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  6. Dead in the water by 7bit · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is dead in the water unless they quickly find a way to add the glove-free hands tracking that Oculus is presently adding to the Rift. Oculus just bought a company that was about to make an add-on for the Rift that sits on the front of the Rift and tracks your hand/finger movements (very precisely) and mirrors them in the VR world so that you can interact with VR without any controllers or gloves.

    This is a "Game Changer" that HTC/Valve are dead in the water without.

    This was my post, I didn't have my password at work. The company Oculus bought was Nimble VR. Here are links including a video of the tech in action, it just works and has a larger FOV than the Rift:

    Original Kickstarter (With VIDEO): https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
    CNET Article about the Aquisition: http://www.cnet.com/news/oculu...
    Oculus Blog announcement : https://www.oculus.com/blog/ni...

  7. Re:Because that's what 3D visors are these days by ArsonSmith · · Score: 2

    What are these "major" issues with Occulus? Right now they are just refining the details. They will be on smaller and smaller incremental improvements from now on. The days of nearly everyone being sick has been whittled down to really only the small minority of people that are very susceptible, which like with 1st person shooters may never be able to be resolved. It still creates an experience that I have found nobody yet that doesn't think it's anything less than amazing.

    --
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