Zuckerberg Teases An 'Affordable' Standalone Oculus VR Headset (techcrunch.com)

At the Oculus Connect developers conference today, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg teased a standalone Oculus VR headset that fits somewhere imbetween the Gear VR consumer headset for Samsung Galaxy users and the high-end Oculus Rift headset designed for professional gamers. TechCrunch reports: The hallmark feature of the new prototype standalone headset is positional tracking. In a brief demo video, the headset appeared to be a modified Rift with a compute module embedded into the back of the headset. This positional tracking technology allows the headset to understand where it is in physical space and adjust the onscreen content accordingly. With 360 videos, you're limited to a spherical viewpoint from a fixed point, but with positional tracking enabled you can walk through an experience and see a story from every angle. There's a reason that plenty of enthusiasts refer to this as the hallmark feature of "real VR." Zuckerberg said development is still incredibly early, but that it's on the product roadmap. Unbelievably the word "affordable" was mentioned at some point. Oculus did also announce that its Oculus Touch motion controllers will be coming out on December 6th. They will cost $199, and will put the combined Oculus Rift price at roughly $800. Pre-orders for Touch start on October 10th.

Comments

We've heard this before

[kuzb]

I'll believe it when I see it. Oculus was supposed to be half it's current asking price.

Re:We've heard this before

[HornWumpus]

Doing new things harder than expected! See also: automated cars.

Oculus is still cheap. Not long ago, a 21 inch CRT display cost about 4 times the price of a high end, consumer headset today.

Don't even ask how much I spent on my first headset, IIRC it was '98. I paid almost half retail (it had become clear it was going nowhere).

Re:We've heard this before

[Immerman]

Not to mention suffer from obvious "screen door" effects, and lag times that rapidly nauseated all but the most iron-stomached of gamers.

Instead they decided to dramatically upgrade the responsiveness and release something most people can actually enjoy using for a normal-length gaming session, and had to increase the price accordingly.

I'll admit I'm disappointed, as it means I can't afford to get in on the first generation of decent VR, but I think they made the right choice. They are kind of the flagship name in VR, and if they released something nauseating they'd risk having a lot of dissatisfied customers and souring the public on VR for a second time. Better to create a decent experience at a premium price, and wait for component prices to drop for the V2. Even if that does mean it will be a niche product for a few more years.

I think the only real losers are the developers who invested heavily in producing VR titles based on overoptimistic promises. Then again, they're now faced with very limited competition for the next few years, so it may work out all right even for them, so long as they weren't counting on massive up-front sales to stay afloat.

Re:We've heard this before

[BigBuckHunter]

Doing new things harder than expected! ... Don't even ask how much I spent on my first headset, IIRC it was '98

Something that was being done in 98 is a new thing?

FWIW, I had five of the Virtuality pods in my shop back in 96. 2 Dactyl, 2 Boxing, and one Zone Runner. the only new thing that Oculus did was....... Um... Nothing.... Nothing at all.

Re:We've heard this before

[kuzb]

Allow me to show you why your comparison doesn't make sense. Keeping in mind that this is talking about CRTs in the era where they were the best choice.

A CRT works even with cheaper/lower end graphics adapter provided the adapter supports the standard. A rift requires a very expensive graphics adapter to work properly.

A CRT was essential to a home desktop computer. A Rift is only essential for VR which is a niche novelty at this point.

A CRT could be found in a number of less expensive configurations that worked well. Good VR can be found in one of two flavors (Rift or Vive), and both are hideously expensive. Other options for PC VR aren't worth considering.

A CRT didn't require you to install a custom app store. The rift forces you to install their store in order to have access to the drivers, and attempts to convey the idea that it's essential to run rift-enabled software.

A CRT will work with any software that has a display mode it supports. The Rift requires that software be specially developed to work with it and doesn't work out of the box with legacy software.

VR is failing. Again. Because you can't peak consumer interest when the barrier to entry is that high. For most people, just buying the headset isn't enough. They also need to ensure they have a very modern video card an CPU/Motherboard. For many this means they need to spend an additional $400+ on top of the VR asking price.

Re:We've heard this before

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1996 I bought a 21" CRT for $300.

Re:We've heard this before

[AC-x]

But by that logic why would anyone buy a $700 GTX 1080 when you can game (even VR) on a $200 GTX 1060?

Re:We've heard this before

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe it right now. The Oculus Rift already requires one to install Facebook spyware. This new, "more affordable" model will undoubtedly just come with even more requisite spyware. You won't pay them in cash, you'll pay them in personal information and intellectual property.

Re:We've heard this before

[kuzb]

When someone does have disposable income to throw at a luxury item, they're going to go for the item that gives them the most bang for their buck. In this case, a higher end video card has far more application than a VR headset. Are you going to drop $700 on something that improves all your games, or are you going to drop $800 on something that only benefits a limited subset?

Re:We've heard this before

[grumbel5969]

While DK2 had some lower specs, it didn't have the god-ray problem, red-tint problems and it had exchangeable lenses that made it possible to use without glasses. Meanwhile CV1 didn't brought any new features (still no passthrough camera, no tracked controllers on launch), just a general bit of polish and upped specs. Given the drastic price increase of CV1 and all those problems it felt rather lackluster overall, especially since Vive pretty much stole the show with roomscale and tracked controllers. Oculus is just slowly catching up to that.

I am really not sure that the $600 price was a good idea, as the biggest problem VR has is not the quality, but a lack of content. A lack of VR gamers due to the expensive price isn't helping there. That said, the Oculus launch was a rushed clusterfuck with many month of waiting time anyway, with a $300 price people would probably still waiting for their Rift.

With PSVR now out and christmas not so far away, I am wondering who will make a price cut first. VR really needs that if it doesn't want to die a slow death again. Expensive VR hasn't worked the first time around in the 90's, I don't expect to work it this time around either.

Re:We've heard this before

[Immerman]

I agree that a more affordable VR platform is important, especially at this time. I'm not altogether certain that either the Vive or Rift can afford a significant price cut at the moment - not enough to make them competitive with the Playstation kit.

Honestly though, I think the PSVR might be *exactly* what is needed to seriously jump-start a VR software base - good enough specs for a decent "first gen" experience, superior in comfort, and only $500 instead of $800 for the Vive or Rift+touch. Perhaps even more importantly, it runs on a completely predictable developer-mature hardware platform that's available for half the price of an entry level VR PC (and half that price used). And I strongly suspect that anyone developing for the PSVR will port their games to the PC VR market as well.

Even as a dedicated PC gamer the PSVR system is very tempting - especially if it could be used with a PC as well. Which it does sound like Sony might be open to.

Palmer Luckey

[bazmail]

Fire that douche nozzle Palmer Luckey and we'll talk.

Re:Palmer Luckey

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not good enough, they need to find all Trump supporters in the organization and fire them.

Re:Palmer Luckey

[ryanmc1]

Good to see you are enjoying your free speech rights, glad that you are giving the same consideration to others.

Re:Palmer Luckey

[bazmail]

Its not because he's a Trump supporter you moron.

Its because he is using his wealth to bully and to surreptitiously distort political discourse at a time when we really don't need it.

Re:Palmer Luckey

[bazmail]

C'mon man. He's obviously a false-flagging Trump supporter. They have a certain smell, you can't miss them.

Re: Palmer Luckey

[Anonymous Coward]

He's still a much better person than Zuckerfuck

Re:Palmer Luckey

[WaffleMonster]

Its not because he's a Trump supporter you moron.

  Its because he is using his wealth to bully and to surreptitiously distort political discourse at a time when we really don't need it.

So... like Facebook.

Re:Palmer Luckey

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing he works in California: a state so progressive that it made "Expression of political viewpoints and engaging in political activity on one's own time" an explicitly Protected Class of activity. (That's right, in all but three or four states in the US, it is legal for an employer to fire you if he doesn't like your politics... regardless of whether or not your political activities have an impact on his business.)

Re:Palmer Luckey

[Anonymous Coward]

"Its because he is using his wealth to bully and to surreptitiously distort political discourse at a time when we really don't need it."

Lolwat. The guy gave a little more than three months' rent ($10,000) to an organization dedicated to shitposting because he thought that their mission was lulzy.

a) That money will probably cover the salary of one of the company's employees for one to five months.
b) Do you even _watch_ TV? Multiple six and seven-figure ad campaigns are a regular thing for the major players, and their content is always significantly more worrisome and deceptive than anything a shitposting firm puts out.
c) Have you even _looked_ at opensecrets.org ?
d) As a low-six-figure-aire, I would think quite a few times before dropping 10k on something, but spend absolutely no time thinking about dropping $10 on something that amused me. For a ten-plus-figure-aire, 10k is chump change, just as $10 is chump change to me. (And to most businesses who receive it, it's most _definitely_ chump change.)

Re:Palmer Luckey

[rtb61]

Consider that main stream media attack and now consider the main stream media blatantly buying election, George Clueless, blatantly ugly hundreds of thousands of dollars blue plate special, the ultimate fuck you to us nobody voters and this arseholes launched an attack on a computer geek (oh look it's the empty head cheer leaders and jock strap douche bags on the attack against nerds and geeks thing all over again).

So what the fuck was he doing that was so evil, taking the piss out of politicians that lie. Problem was they are the corruptly protected darlings of main stream media, what a crock of shite and hence the full on attack. The warning to all the other geeks and nerds, main stream media will hunt you down and publicly destroy you.

Re:Palmer Luckey

[bazmail]

Shit-posting is political activity now? Listen to yourself man.

Re:Palmer Luckey

[Holi]

Not sure what his comment has to do with the first amendment, he has not asked the government to do anything. But hey not understanding your rights is such an American thing,

This is not a good next step

[JMZero]

The clear next step, to me, is wireless connection to a computer.

A good VR experience takes way more grunt than you're going to get in a low-power head mounted device anytime soon. Current VR experiences benefit from any extra bit of GPU horsepower, compute speed, or basically any improvement they can get. Using a Rift or Vive, you're working with i7s and GTX 1080s, and still you're not able to run consistently at the supersampling levels you want. Ideally, you'd also have a higher resolution screen with less latency than you're getting in current HMDs. To work well, VR will need even more resources going forward, not way less.

Also, making a standalone device, such that you're not able to reuse your current cell phone or home computer, isn't the path to making your overall device less expensive. For right now, a wireless connection to a computer is the most sensible solution from a technical and economic perspective, assuming they want a reasonable quality experience in the end.

Anyway - yes, wireless would be great, positional tracking is absolutely necessary (and the current "professional" Oculus Rift isn't good enough - the Vive is way better - and yes I've used both of them a lot), and it's all too expensive. Eventually obviously we should expect fully standalone devices, but for now it's just not going to happen, so this is not a reasonable step forwards at this time.

Re:This is not a good next step

[sandmaninator]

GAH! I just wrote a long reply disagreeing with your assertion that wireless connection to PC is the future.
Then I changed from html to text option and it pissed away my response.
Anyway, check http://www.movidius.com/ Gyro-based positional detection is going away. It will switch to image-based. That is some graphics processing being done on the HMD. There will be "synergies" when the display processor is also moved onto the HMD. Got to shorten runs on the bus - just like in the good old days on a PC.
Having to be connected to a separate graphics processor is not the direction the industry is leaning towards and consumers will always prefer a simple HMD setup if it can get the job done - and it will, as incremental improvements continue to be made.
Note that we already have HMDs. Current usage of wireless transfers of HD video are limited to places where some latency is acceptable (drones) and where wires are not possible.

Re:This is not a good next step

[JMZero]

I agree that eventually a standalone option will be preferable - I just don't think you can make a good enough one now, and I think attempting it is going to mean either huge costs (since you're not reusing current hardware) or huge compromises (ie. terrible performance).

I'm currently running a Vive with a 1080, and I still often can't keep framerate perfect (which you really want) at good supersampling (which makes a huge difference too). Sure you'll get some advantages with a dedicated device and integration, but it won't nearly make up for what you're losing in raw horsepower. Worse, requirements still have a ways to go up before they settle - a HMD really wants ~4K/90FPS at very high quality (well, and very low latency). Even without the extra wrench of 2 perspectives, most normal PC games still can't hit that, even on very large advanced hardware that draws big watts. VR needs more raw power, not less. If there were easy shortcuts to get this stuff, PCs and consoles would be using them; turns out sometimes you just need a bajillion transistors and a big power supply.

While I don't think positioning is the hardest problem for a standalone solution to solve, it is a real problem and you could improve current GearVR solutions 10 fold and still have something that's garbage. Tracking needs to be pretty much perfect or else VR is a barf-fest. Eventually inside-out camera based positioning might be good enough - but it has a tough hill to climb to match current state of the art. SteamVR's spinning lasers and fancy algorithms are magically good - crazy accurate, fast, and even cheap to build. They completely outclass current camera based solutions (like the Oculus uses) even though those solutions are much simpler than inside-out (because it's easier to track a diode you control than random surroundings you don't). Tracking tech really is the magic of Vive, and even a small downgrade could really break the experience.

And yes, currently there's nobody doing wireless video with low enough latency, but that's not because it's an insurmountably hard task - it just needs dedicated work, and VR is a good reason to get around to that work. The hard part - bandwidth - is already there, you just need to trim out some protocol transitions and latency would be very good, perhaps better than wired HDMI by the end (assuming that we can start the wireless chain directly from the GPU). Even current Rube Goldberg setups - HDMI->WiFi->HDMI, often on general purpose computers - are close to good enough. I think this is solvable, but it does remain to be seen whether someone with enough juice (eg. NVidia) will give it a proper go.

Anyway, I'm getting a lot of fun out of VR already, and I think it's going to progress really fast over the next couple years. I'd be pleased as punch of someone came out with a great standalone solution, I just think that's still a ways off.

Re:This is not a good next step

[Immerman]

For wireless, have you heard of the Quark VR adapter being worked on for the Vive? http://arstechnica.com/gaming/...

Sounds... unimpressive to me, especially seeing how as it streams over WiFi instead of a more optimized, higher bandwidth protocol, practically guaranteeing inadequate bandwidth and excessive lag. (though I don't know - if it only faked a dedicated wifi network well enough to not interfere with anything else, while mostly using a more optimized protocol...) But I think the basic concept is sound - make the currently-niche expensive specialty hardware of the helmet use the lowest-latency connections available, and then "graft in" a comparatively cheap modular wireless adapter for those who find the wires a bigger problem than the lag. And if/when you find it disappointing, well, just unplug it and go back to the low-latency wiring. At least you're not stuck throwing away the expensive part because the problematic cheap part is fully integrated.

I'm not sure I completely agree with your characterization of the processing demands though. Yes, trying to put the latest not-quite-photorealistic games into VR demands... well... everything you can throw at it, plus way more than you can afford. But that's not necessarily integral to the VR experience - numerous indie projects have shown that compelling VR experiences can be created with relatively simplistic cartoon graphics which can be rendered by comparatively slow hardware. And that might well be a market worth tapping into. Not everyone has been completely jaded by modern gaming systems, millions of people are are quite happy playing Farmville and the like - and might find great enjoyment in a relatively crude but extremely immersive gameworld. Heck, as a serious gamer it's been a decade since I made the drunken claim that graphics had reached the point where further improvement could no longer substantially contribute to gameplay, and nothing has happened to change my mind since then. And my smartphone has considerably more processing power than my gaming rig did back then.

Re:This is not a good next step

[Anonymous Coward]

VR will need even more resources going forward

wireless connection to a computer

But you still need power and most people don't have much space to move around anyway, wireless is a shit solution.

Re:This is not a good next step

[JMZero]

You may well be right on graphics and how this will play out; I don't know what kinds of things people will make and what will catch on. I'm sure a lot of my opinion is just informed by what I want personally: the same setup I have now, but wireless.

And yeah, I'd be surprised if the HDMI->WiFi->HDMI type things end up producing something good (even though these guys in particular seem confident). Like, you say, I expect a proper wireless solution will require a custom protocol.

Re:This is not a good next step

[Immerman]

I was thinking back on this, and I should have made explicit that I don't think this is a step *forward*, more a step sideways. Analogous to how technologies developed and refined for high-end professional race cars end up being spun off into consumer vehicles as well. The cutting edge appeals to (or at least is affordable by) a very small percentage of the total car market.

As for wireless.... I'm not sure there will aver be a decent solution - seems like they still haven't even made a wireless mouse that is as responsive as the corded variety for hard core gamers, and that's trivial in comparison. Still, for more sedate VR experiences the lag might be acceptable, especially if coupled with a monster of a machine (or lower rendering settings) that takes maybe half the normal time to render a frame.

Re:This is not a good next step

[JMZero]

I don't have anything to add, and I don't mean to be weird... but, uh, thanks for posting. For the first time in a while, I've come away from a discussion on Slashdot with something new to think about.

Your perspective makes sense... and I am going to be wondering all day why wireless mice still perform so poorly.

Hey Zucker....

[Anonymous Coward]

How about no telemetry?

I will never buy anything to do with facebook.

Because Oculus does what, that cardboard doesn't?

[orallo]

Seriously,

A $10 chinese plastic "cardboard" rig does a more than decent job at VR with your phone...

Google's Daydream for about $80 gives you a comfy headset and a controller...

Oculus is soo F'd is not even funny... all that money that FB sank into Oculus is about to turn into virtual shit. /My 2c

Only Works with Facebook.

[sycodon]

Enables you to view videos of your neighbors cat in full VR!

Beau HD the H1B

[Anonymous Coward]

Did any one reading this did also wonder where the fuck Beau HD did be learning the Engli'sh?

And yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone continued to give zero shits.

Re:no thx

[WaffleMonster]

I refuse to have anything to do with Oculus after the Palmer Luckey revelations...

Looks at Facebook.... looks at Palmer.... .. looks at Facebook.... looks at Palmer... looks at Zuckerburg... looks at Palmer...

I get it now.. your joking.

Zuckerberg representing Oculus, Luckey absent

[ffkom]

So they finally ended pretending that Oculus is still that "hip little startup trying to make the world a better place by building cool VR-stuff"?

New in Oculus: technology, not features.

[DrYak]

the only new thing that Oculus did was....... Um... Nothing.... Nothing at all.

There's hardly a new *thing* that the Oculus does.
It does the exact same thing as old VRs back then, only it tries to said things better, thanks to *new technology*.

- It tries to dramatically cut down the price of optics and display:
- For display, instead of relying on small very specialized displays (e.g.: like the LCOS found in some) it relies on displays that are now extremely popular and mass produced thanks to smart phone (simply high resolution OLED displays from smartphones)
- For it goes for the "almost none" option : instead of a very complex (and very expensive) high quality lens assembly that is able to keep a picture straight, it uses the cheapest solution available and compensate the shape distorsion using (shader-) software.
- Thanks to the above, the field of view is dramatically increased.

- It makes the display less blurry (using high fps OLED, instead of the LCD used by some displays back then)
- It makes the interface more responsive (instead of using accelerometers only like older headsets, it supplements them with optical tracking for more precision and faster tracking - just like the human balance system, btw).
- Both of these drastically reduce the risk of headaches/motion sickness and help a bit with the immersion

- All of the above costs a fraction of what VR headset did cost back then.

So basically Oculus doesn't add any feature, it strives to do the same feature better and cheaper.

If you were quite happy with the VR headsets in the 90s, don't go for the occulus, try to get one of the older for cheap on ebay.
If you complained about motion sickness/headache or wished the whole thing to be more responsive/immersive, go get an Oculus, and you'll happily find that it costs a less significant part of your income.
If you don't give a damn about VR, then keep your current screen/keyboard/mouse configuration. Whatever rocks your boat.

automatic memes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there goes the whole Indonesian VR market.

That what was the point

[DrYak]

A CRT works {...}

So you've successfully proven the point of the poster you're replying to:

- a CRT was a vital part of a PC installation back then.
- taking into account inflation, CRTs did cost an arm and a leg back then

- a VR is a novelty. A gadget for hardcore geeks to play with
- VR headset cost a fraction of the above mentionned CRT price.

So a modern toy for a couple of people to experiment is less taxing on your wallet, than a vital part of an installation used to be back then.

And that's at a time when headset are still niche product for hardcore gamers to experiment with.
(After a some time, if the technology move more mainstream, it could even get cheaper, with the production scaling up)

Re:That what was the point

[HornWumpus]

Back in the day, a 21 incher was the height of luxury. Insanely expensive.

Before that, Tektronix graphics terminals cost as much as houses.

Re:That what was the point

[Hadlock]

I remember when I got a NEC 17" display that was capable of displaying 1600x1200! Used! In 1999! Only $250! What a steal.
 
I was the envy of all my friends. And it only weighed half as much as I did when I was in high school. 3 inch bezel was great for attaching sticky notes to. There must have been twelve analog dials along the bottom of that screen to adjust for various things.
 
I never did own a 21" CRT, I don't think I owned a table sturdy enough (or large enough) to house something of that nature. Easily weighed 100 lbs.

Re:That what was the point

[kuzb]

The difference is you had more choices. You could get the insanely expensive 21" or you could get something much cheaper. You needed one either way in order to use a computer which was fast becoming necessary for a variety of reasons. This drives sales which in turn brings down cost.

With VR you have two choices: expensive, and more expensive, and it's something nobody really needs. The two are not reasonably comparable, and the argument is stupid.

Just say no to stalking and walled gardens

[WaffleMonster]

Reasons I don't like Facebook and don't intend to purchase Touch or CV2:

- Oculus runs 24x7 and connects 24x7 to Facebook servers constantly wasting power, network and system resources to stalk people by at the very least uploading list of every VR program they've ever ran even third party software totally unrelated to Oculus home.

- Random forced updates of low quality and no back out with proven track record of breaking shit.

- North Korean style privacy policy granting insane rights including rummaging through your computer and extracting complete inventory of all content and software.

- Online install without any offline download. This is intentionally engineered to allow Facebook to retroactively waltz in and fuck everyone over with more draconian bullshit at their pleasure as if existing updates were not bad enough: Random breakage, introducing hardware DRM, retroactively imposing artificial system requirements that turn working systems into broken ones for no reason other than laziness and indifference.

- External sources toggle is a FU hoop intended to artificially advantage Oculus home.

- Oculus home required to run whether you want it or not.

- Account required to install CV1 even if you don't want one and don't intend on using their app store.

- CYA warnings show up every time you use it and can't be stopped even with registry hacks.

- Facebook legal department asserts physical product is in fact a "service" and only recourse for not agreeing to new service terms is stop using product you paid >$600 for.

- Instantly killed off all community shit that made Oculus and attracted attention to the platform the very second CV1 rolled out.

- Facebook is incapable of having a vision for VR HMD beyond cyber stalking, advertising and walled gardens. It's what they do.. it's what they are. It's all they care about.

Re:New in Oculus: technology, not features.

[HornWumpus]

For the record: 90s headsets weren't much pukeyer than the Oculus (once you got them running on GHz+ machines and got the frame rates up). It all comes down to content.

90s never reached anything like critical mass. And no killer app (VR porn).

You were suckered, Zuckerberg

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam's VIVE headset has beat the Occulus in the reviews. Sorry Zuckerberg but you've wasted $2B.

Mod up Wafflemonsters post.

Re:You were suckered, Zuckerberg

[GuB-42]

The biggest reason the Vive beats the Oculus Rift in most reviews is because of the controllers and room scale VR. For the headset itself, Oculus has a slight edge (more comfortable).
The proper controllers for the Oculus are arriving now, and it seems like it is also capable of room scale, so maybe things will change.

Re:Because Oculus does what, that cardboard doesn'

[SpaceDave]

I manage a museum that has both Oculus Rift and Google Cardboard available for the public to use. The unanimous opinion of hundreds of people who tried both is that there's no comparison between even the best phone versions and the Oculus. I can only assume that your experience with the Oculus has been with a substandard computer because seriously... there is no comparison.

Fuck Oculus & Fuck Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

"The headset currently requires Oculus's software suite to operate, which headset wearers must use to load games and find more software in the online Oculus Store. The software requires an Internet-connected process called OVRServer_x64, which sends and receives data even when you're not in a game, and the privacy policy spells out at least some of what's included in those transmissions."

"Oculus Rift’s privacy policy allows the company to gather information on users’ locations, physical movements, and interactions with games and services. The policy notes that Oculus may use that information for marketing and promotional purposes."

http://uploadvr.com/facebook-o...
http://www.pcworld.com/article...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

Oculus = Trump = F4 O3 ... go away !

[Anonymous Coward]

So Zuckerberg supports schools that only pay teachers who teach girls ... and Donald Trump.

Sexism sucks, dude. BOTH WAYS.

Deflation...

[DrYak]

Back in the day, a 21 incher was the height of luxury. Insanely expensive.

Before that, Tektronix graphics terminals cost as much as houses.

At this pace, the next generation will be loudly complaining that their luxury gadgets cost a whole pair of chocolate candy bars worth more than normal goods and therefore are never going to catch up because of the crazy price.

Luckey Palmer and his five lovely daughters

[Anonymous Coward]

Palmer Invented Oculus for virtual sex but now Facebook's "Always Watching" privacy policies have turned it into a threesome with you and Palmer rolling around in the cybersheets while Zukerburg whispers advertisments in your ear "FLESHLIGHT! FLESHLIGHT!" Eeeeewwww...

ha ha! good luck getting that out of your head!

Professional Gamers?

[Anonymous Coward]

and the high-end Oculus Rift headset designed for professional gamers.

Err...? That's an odd target demographic?

Does OP misunderstand what a professional is, or is he actually saying it was designed for people to pay me to play VR?

If so, I've clearly missed the gravy train.

Millionaire

[MoarSauce123]

What a millionaire considers affordable and what I consider affordable and two drastically different things. As soon as people like Zuckerberg pile up the cash they lose all ties to reality.

Re:New in Oculus: technology, not features.

[Holi]

I'd rather get a Vive

It's definitely personnal preferences

[DrYak]

For the record: 90s headsets weren't much pukeyer than the Oculus (once you got them running on GHz+ machines and got the frame rates up).

It definitely depends on the user.
I've never had any problem, neither with the VFX1, no the Virtual IO I-Glasses.
(Neither the blurry display, nor the significant latency did bother me).

(The 2 that where demoed at a local computer shop)
But friends of mine got quite dizzy and disoriented while playing Descent on the same hardware.

It all comes down to content.90s never reached anything like critical mass. And no killer app (VR porn).

Because back then, adjusted for inflation they did cost an arm and a leg.
As stated above, we only played using the demo hardware at a computer shop.
We couldn't manage to afford them.

Whereas mid 2000s, I managed to get eMagine Visor Z800 for a bargain price (I think I managed to catch it for nearly have the official retail price)

Nowadays the Dev Kit 2 of the Occulus Only cost 350$ that's cheaper than some gaming consoles.

So back in the 90s only a few ultra rich could afford VR at home. And thus there wasn't a big enough market to justify producing a lot of content, hence no killer app.
Now, they are much more affordable, meaning nearly anyone interested could grab one, with a big enough market, lots more of content producer might by tempted to experiment with it. Including the pronographer. And we all know (VHS, Online-Streaming, etc.) how THIS is going to influence the market.

Re:It's definitely personnal preferences

[HornWumpus]

Descent (actually Descent 2) was the most pukey terrible VR experience ever implemented. It's everything done 'wrong' for VR.

I got a VFX1 at about half retail (IIRC at was about $700) and played with it for years. It was much better a couple of years later when GHz machines drove frame rates to 200 (games supporting the VFX1 having been made in the 200MHz era). Yes I know it refreshed at 30Hz, clear vSynch.

I should dust off the VFX1, and see how it feels next to the Oculus. I bet Descent on the Oculus is still a puke fest. The devs likely never tried it on the VFX1, just went for it.

The thing that will keep VR around this time is VR porn. It's the killer app, even if nobody figures out how to make money on it directly.

DK2 was only $350 and is NLA (except ebay), the release version is more.

No pukey here...

[DrYak]

Descent (actually Descent 2) was the most pukey terrible VR experience ever implemented. It's everything done 'wrong' for VR.

Well, *I* didn't have any nausea or whatever while playing it. I even though the 3D effect added a bit to the immersion.

My only complain was the accelerometers input weren't that resposive and a bit too cumber some for this game.
Dual joysticks (with optionnal pedals) was and is still my preferred control setup for 6-DOF games.

But well again, I'm not the one crawling on the ground after each play. (I don't suffer much from sea sickness) So your mileage might vary...

I got a VFX1 at about half retail (IIRC at was about $700) and played with it for years. It was much better a couple of years later when GHz machines drove frame rates to 200 (games supporting the VFX1 having been made in the 200MHz era). Yes I know it refreshed at 30Hz, clear vSynch.

I should dust off the VFX1, and see how it feels next to the Oculus.

Finding compatible drivers (and even a compatible machine) for the ISA board (handling the accelerometer) will probably a real pain-in-the-ass.

(On the other hand, given that the VFX1 was one of the few VR headset to get popular - should I say the only major popular from that era - I'm sure you should find at least half a dozen of projects on github with Arduino firmware and schematic so you can drive it over USB).

On the other hand, modern GPUs are capable of so much processing, that you could clearly bump up the quality of the low resolution of VFX1's eye pieces.
(You can probably turn FSAA and Anisotropic Filtering to the max to reduce the pixelation a bit).

You'll just need a way to setup the correct display mode to send whatever format the headset needs (I think VFX1 was side-by-side ? I don't remember... I even remember write a quick couple lines of code on the built-in QBasic of MS-DOS to test, but I really don't remember what it did use).
Most modern-era "Stereo 3D" openGL drivers tend to rely on VESA DDC pin hardware swap (hello, anything on Nvidia), or auto-swap (hello eMagin Visor Z800), or swap command on a separate channel (hello, USB emitter from Nvidia).

I bet Descent on the Oculus is still a puke fest.

I *hope* the Occulus' 3D Stereo openGL driver can correctly patch into Descent's rendering stack.
The problem is that Descent's own built-in stereo stack was designed at a time where you output images straight to the display, and complex (really expensive) optics assemblies make sure that you can see the image distosion-free, whereas on current-era "smartphone screen" VR Headset (Occulus, Vive, Google Cardbox, etc.) rely on cheap simple plastic lens and on the graphics engine outputing a pre-distorted image to compensate for lens aberrations.

Otherwise: I didn't feel any pukey at all when I tested my Visor on Descent (don't remember the source of my driver) and on Quake3 (used Wicked's 3D stereo patched openGL).
But then again, I didn't have any problem with the original experience neither.

But I hope for you that increased quality of modern headset will help.

The devs likely never tried it on the VFX1, just went for it.

Given the high price and the rarity of stereo hardware: I'm sure that's probably how it happened indeed.

So some random dev at Parallax did spend some time for the mathematical model of stereo display (get the parallax correctly),
wrote some generic code for "get the correct signal output" (side-by-side, vertically interlaced, etc.)
Tested it shortly 5min on actual hardware made available to them for a very short timeslot at the office of some stereo headset maker.
Saw that it basically works (yes, I have a stereo image, the depth seems correct at first glance),
and then worked all the support for various headsets "by specs" (headset XyZ needs a vertically interlaced signal, so use this one when the player picks it up on

Re:No pukey here...

[HornWumpus]

I put the VFX dedicated machine in the closet with the VFX1. It should just boot once I hook a battery to CMOS and setup the motherboard. Didn't need to be reminded of all the effort I put in finding an early VooDoo (rush) ISA board with a VESA feature connector. Waste of time, couldn't render in 256 color mode.

IIRC the VFX did stereoscopic by suppressing the interleaved images on either side.

I never get motion sick, but Descent 2 on the VFX1 was 10 minute maximum playtime. The lack of 'up' was the killer. The 30 Hz frame rate (from deinterleaving the left/right images) on the screen couldn't have helped.

They are making a new descent, with Oculus support. No chance in hell of getting the old one to work.

Yes I am a packrat. Also have a pre-release Amiga and dev kit. Someday it might even be worth something.