Author:
madcows
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Date:
5/30/2013 9:48:12 PM
Subject:
RE: Got Oculus Rift
All the current devices are dev kits. I backed it on the last day of the Kickstarter campaign, and got it about two months after they started shipping, and about 5 months after the initially planned December ship date (I knew they weren't going to make it).
So far I only tried the two variations of the Oculus "Tuscany" demo, each which uses a different engine. It's a simple little demo of a country-side house along an ocean (SO SMOOTH!). Not much to do there except walk around, but more on that later.
My gpu sucks. It's integrated on the motherboard, and I believe it's an ATI 3000 series. With the warp shader enabled (necessary in order to correct for the distortion caused by the optics) I get around 10fps :((((( with it disabled, I get a more respectable 40, but that's still 20 less than the recommended minimum of 60. So, yeah, that sucks. I'll go buy a better one soon.
So some quick impressions, ignoring the shit frame rate - field of view is HUGE. It's actually better than I expected. The sensation it gives you cannot at all be compared to what it's like using a monitor or big screen TV. It really is a whole new experience, and nothing like using 3D glasses either. The resolution is somewhat less than 640x800(!) per eye, and given that it's spread out almost 110 degrees you would think that it's really bad. I'm not going to say it's great, but once again it was still better than expected. You can easily make out individual pixels as well as some spacing between them making it appear like you're looking through a screen door, so the image will never come in super sharp. Still, it's far from making it unplayable except for something like a MP twitch shooter, or some game where you need to detect distant objects.
It may seem silly, but so far the coolest experience was being out in the sun in the Tuscany demo and walking into a shaded area covered by a low tree towards a corner of the house. Just the transition from light to dark, as well as being slightly enclosed was an interesting sensation - almost as if I was actually there.
Not every type of game would be ideal for VR obviously, but I think a lot of them could provide a very compelling experience. I rarely play games, but I think I'd want to play them in VR when I do from now on.
