Virtual Reality

[Brad]

Got a quest 2 for work:

The setup and overall onboarding experience makes windows mixed reality look like a 2 man open source project. Really polished, very impressive.

The resolution of the quest is lower than my hp reverb, but not that much lower. I didn’t imagine I’d really be able to tell. I was wrong. Very obvious screen door effect and noticeably lower resolution.

Also the headset is very front heavy and not comfortable to use for more than a few minutes. I’d have to mod the crap out of it to make it usable for any length of time.

The untethered nature of it is superb and the controllers feel good too, although I like the touchpad thumb things on my reverb and those are missing here.

Overall, for general vr quest 2 would be my choice, as long as I could make the headset comfortable. For simulation use the resolution is lacking. I wonder if it’s in a low res mode and goes higher when plugged into a PC. The visible screen door makes me think no, but I’ll give it a go tethering I think.

Oh, these were £350 for the resi 4 pack at Argos which is where I picked mine up.

[Asura]

Levitation workshop mod is out.

Started this just now, and it started well, especially for a fan project.

Also the headset is very front heavy and not comfortable to use for more than a few minutes. I’d have to mod the crap out of it to make it usable for any length of time.

If you're looking to fix this, I've tried a lot of the accessories so I can vouch for a few of them.

The Bobo VR Pro headstrap, the latest one. This has a magnetically attached battery and this rear weight balances the headset, which makes it much more comfortable. This is very similar to the design of the PSVR in terms of how it feels on the head.

For the facial interface, VRCover's interfaces are an enormous improvement. They're wipe-clean for starters.

Finally, KiwiVR make these jackets for the controllers where they have a strap which goes over your knuckles. I actually got a knock-off similar pair from AliExpress for about £10. These are great because you can let go of the controllers without dropping them, which really improves immersion in games like Alyx.

Given, it's crap that Oculus shipped the Quest 2 with such a terrible headstrap design to shave some money off the cost (this is their "Nintendo selling the new-3DS without a charger") but at least the headset is easy to mod (all the parts; the facial interface, the strap) are designed to pop off, so you can change them easily, unlike the Quest 1 where you had to damage the headstrap to change it, and hopefully they'll stick to this approach.

The resolution thing, I mean, the Reverb G2 is always going to feel better as it's much-praised for the quality of its panel and optics. But if you're on a powerful PC, supersampling will improve this - a bit. Personally I don't struggle with it but then, I have two mitigating factors - I wear glasses but only have a mild prescription so haven't bought lenses for the Quest 2, and I'm not switching between multiple headsets regularly.

[concretesnail]

I'd also recommend the bobovr head strap units, it's so much better and wasn't too expensive. I also use the knuckle type straps so you can open your hand, inthink mine are kiwi but I'm not 100% sure.

[Asura]

Sony have announced they're working on a set of body-trackers for VR, called Mocopi:

https://gizmodo.com/sony-mocopi-full-body-motion-trackers-vtuber-vr-virtual-1849831283

These are still marketed at people with specific needs rather than general-use VR right now, but they're a step in the right direction, being as they look small and very easy to use, and not requiring base-stations, they may in the future even work with the Quest or PSVR2.

[Asura]

My Meta Quest Touch Pro Controllers have been dispatched! It looks like they'll be here on Wednesday.

[Asura]

Compound came out on Quest 2 this weekend:

Played half an hour and while at first, I thought it was style-over-substance with quite simplistic gameplay, after 20 minutes when I got into a difficult situation, I realised that there's more to it. I'm looking forward to trying again!

Meanwhile, been playing with my Meta Touch Pro controllers.

A few downsides first (aside from the price); the battery life is shorter (though they come with a charging cradle and it's still 6-8 hours which is long enough for most people) and I had to order a new set of knuckle straps (after owning them for the regular controllers, I see them as a necessary bit of kit). They also take longer to start up from asleep, though that's comparing the Q2 regular controllers, which are near-instant, to a duration of ~10-15 seconds.

The only real problem I've found is that they can sometimes lose calbration, mainly if the room is a bit darker. Though then again the Quest 2 headset itself has the same problem, in that it can't be used in the dark. Sometimes they seem to lose the plot a bit, though a quick shake of the hand tends to fix it. Though this is a concern, I'm keeping note of how often it happens.

But the upside; I mean, they do everything they're quoted to do. The tracking is exceptional; even if you put your hands behind your head, or at your sides, or behind your back. In truth I'd gotten to the point where I'd just internalised the issues of the Q2 controllers and seemingly often didn't notice this problems, but they were obvious in some games like Bonelab, or even in things like Golf+ where you would expect to be able to see your clubhead out the corner of your eye at the top of your swing.

Take the lightsaber dojo in Vader Immortal. First time I was surrounded by three of the droids, and looking at the front one, blindly threw my sabers out to my sides, then caught them and threw them forwards - or blindly blocked shots from an enemy by reaching behind my head, the improved tracking was clear to see. Even generally the ability to throw grenades or other weapons, over-arm, and it's totally natural, going where you expect 9/10 times, as opposed to the regular controllers (and PSVR) where you had to do a weird push motion, it's a massive improvement.

Plus the lack of a tracking ring makes two-handed rifles, bows etc. in various games feel much better. Like in Bonelab, when fighting hand-to-hand you can throw up a boxer's guard and not bang the controllers together.

Though you can't get away from the expense. They're £300 and I bought them as my Christmas present to myself, as a VR enthusiast, and while the tech in them makes the price not unreasonable from a construction perspective (and because I knew, if they were a modest upgrade, I could probably sell them on), whether or not it's just too high a price will be down to the buyer. But in and of themselves they're fantastic.

[wakka]

Sounds really good. It's a shame the PSVR2 didn't implement this technology. A bridge too far to hit the price point they wanted to maybe.

[Asura]

Sounds really good. It's a shame the PSVR2 didn't implement this technology. A bridge too far to hit the price point they wanted to maybe.

The prototype PSVR2 had a camera on the rear of the headband, which was meant to help alleviate this issue. Though I guess that was seen as too much of an expense.

This will be an issue on some PSVR1>2 games, though. Take RAW/DATA, a game I played both on PSVR and SteamVR-via-Quest. In that game, you store your weapons over your shoulder, and on the PSVR, reaching for them is easy. But on the Quest, I would haveten reach over my shoulder and try to draw the weapon, only to fail and be left empty-handed.

Plenty of Quest games have had over-the-shoulder weapons; it's not the feature that's at fault, just that in RAW/DATA the weapon is so far over your shoulder that you can't reach it. So it's totally fixable.

EDIT: I haved edited this 3 times to say "often" but for some reason it keeps coming out as "haveten"?

[Brad]

You needed to edit it 4 times mate ;-)

[Brad]

Vive Pro 2: Higher res than a Reverb G2 and has outside in tracking. Bit pricey of course, but nice to see work is still being done outside of meta.

[fishbowlhead]

I saw this the other day, absolutely nuts, emulating old consoles in vr.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMFGN9ppP/

[Lebowski]

I saw this the other day, absolutely nuts, emulating old consoles in vr.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMFGN9ppP/

i feel violated, thats my jansport back pack! thats my old room!!! why are they treating my games like that

[MartyG]

It's EmuVR - https://www.emuvr.net/beta

Bit of a hassle downloading it though as you have to sign up to their Discord and jump through a couple of hoops first. It's still beta tho, so no doubt the full release will not require the same.

[huxley]

Embedded Tweet

His full statement

This is the end of my decade in VR. I have mixed feelings.

Quest 2 is almost exactly what I wanted to see from the beginning – mobile hardware, inside out tracking, optional PC streaming, 4k (ish) screen, cost effective. Despite all the complaints I have about our software, millions of people are still getting value out of it. We have a good product. It is successful, and successful products make the world a better place. It all could have happened a bit faster and been going better if different decisions had been made, but we built something pretty close to The Right Thing.

The issue is our efficiency.

Some will ask why I care how the progress is happening, as long as it is happening?

If I am trying to sway others, I would say that an org that has only known inefficiency is ill prepared for the inevitable competition and/or belt tightening, but really, it is the more personal pain of seeing a 5% GPU utilization number in production. I am offended by it.

[edit: I was being overly poetic here, as several people have missed the intention. As a systems optimization person, I care deeply about efficiency. When you work hard at optimization for most of your life, seeing something that is grossly inefficient hurts your soul. I was likening observing our organization's performance to seeing a tragically low number on a profiling tool.]

We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort. There is no way to sugar coat this; I think out organization is operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy. Some may scoff and contend we are doing just fine, but others will laugh and say "Half? Ha! I'm at quarter efficiency!"

It has been a struggle for me. I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I'm evidently ot persuasive enough. A good Fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. I think my influence at the margins has been positive, but it has never been a prime mover.

This was admittedly self-inflicted – I could have moved to Menlo Park after the Oculus acquisition and tried to wage battles with generations of leadership, but I was busy programming, and I assumed I would hate it, be bad at it, and probably lose anyway.

Enough complaining. I wearied of the fight and have my own startup to run, but the fight is still winnable! VR can bring value to most of the people in the world, and no company is better positioned to do it than Meta. Maybe it is actually possible to get there by just plowing ahead with current practices, but there is plenty of room for improvement.

Make better decisions and fill your products with "Give a Damn!"


It sounds like a rant at Zuckerberk. His new startup is in A.I.

[Neon Ignition]

Clearly frustrated, I don't think he's going to see Meta move VR too much further though