Virtual Reality

[Neon Ignition]

Yep, reading around it seems like all the Quest 3 accessories are best left for now to see how third party or cheaper options pan out. Might pick up a AA battery recharger

[MartyG]

The official Quest 2 Pro strap was pretty awful - looking at it it was clear it was going to end up snapping at some point and eventually it did, the third-party ones were better built. I'm pretty certain I'll end up with the boboVR M3, it was massively superior.

And

"your order has dispatched", looks like Meta is using Yodel though :/

[Neon Ignition]

*See's Shipped Text on Mobile*





Curry's is using DPD.
Hoping the controller battery covers feel less prone to snapping

[Dogg Thang]

The official Quest 2 Pro strap was pretty awful - looking at it it was clear it was going to end up snapping at some point and eventually it did,

Yep. Mine snapped.

[Lebowski]

not just UK happening all over Europe France, Italy, Germany all have had waves of 512gb models cancellations according to reddit

[MartyG]

I just noticed on the order page, that I have a Yodel tracking number, but the order page says the estimated delivery date is 30th October.

I know Yodel is absolutely terrible as a courier, but 3 weeks for them to deliver it seems a bit excessive.

Not sure what's going on there, will see how the tracking updates later.

[Asura]

Currys have dispatched mine, still saying it will deliver by noon tomorrow. But it's coming by DPD so I'm gonna have to watch the tracking like a hawk, and make sure to be outside when the van is nearby.

I just noticed on the order page, that I have a Yodel tracking number, but the order page says the estimated delivery date is 30th October.

Incidentally [MENTION=42]MartyG[/MENTION], my unwanted 128gb order from Meta is also coming via YODEL, though mine says tomorrow.

[MartyG]

It's saying due tomorrow on the tracking now, so quite why the invoice from Meta says estimated delivery 30th October I've no idea. It seems to have reviewed pretty well so far, but there definitely appears to be a consensus that the default strap doesn't provide long-wear comfort, so hopefully, the boboVR M3 will be available shortly.

[Asura]

Mine's on-target to arrive before lunchtime apparently.

[Neon Ignition]

Just thinking, given that Quest is the most popular VR headset line and often a default consideration when VR titles are made - and that presumably we now have at least 3 years till Quest 4 releases - the Quest 3 is presumably going to put a fairly big stopper on eye tracking support?

It'll undoubtedly be supported in some titles but by and large there's little incentive for a good while now isn't there which could be a stumbler for PSVR2 releases?

[MartyG]

I doubt it'll make any difference. The biggest benefit of eye tracking is the foveated rendering, which allows better visuals and it's probably baked into the render pipeline on PS5. The eye tracking on Quest Pro just seemed a bit gimmicky outside of this, and unless you're a big VRChat user, the facial tracking is too, I've not seen anything in VR that's made me think eye tracking is an essential feature outside of FR.

Plus Apple is going to come along next year where eye and hand tracking is paramount to making Vision work. The recent update to Virtual Desktop now passes through the eye-tracking data to SteamVR as well.

[Asura]

Just thinking, given that Quest is the most popular VR headset line and often a default consideration when VR titles are made - and that presumably we now have at least 3 years till Quest 4 releases - the Quest 3 is presumably going to put a fairly big stopper on eye tracking support?

It'll undoubtedly be supported in some titles but by and large there's little incentive for a good while now isn't there which could be a stumbler for PSVR2 releases?

Depends on the area.

For foveated rendering, it won't change much. It's supported by the Quest Pro and will remain part of the Quest's API; like, the Quest 3 does support it, just it doesn't track the user's eye so the "fovea" will always be in the middle of the frame. This is really the main benefit of eye tracking. That means a hypothetical Quest 4 could support it, and it will retroactively work with most software.

In terms of in-game features, yeah, it's going to affect that. I think it's a real shame the Q3 doesn't support them; though that being said, I actually turned the menu navigation off in Horizon for PSVR2.

[Neon Ignition]

So what would we expect a theoretical Quest 4 era device to be pushing into beyond physical size, resolution etc?
Just curious as to how close to the end of the road we are major iterations wise with Quest 3.

I know there are big pushes for hand tracking etc without a controller but my interest level in that is very minimal, feels too much like a push toward recreating Kinect which was never satisfying to play with. I'm non-fussed about the revival of MR also, another reheated old idea that is much less engaging than the devices core focus.

[Asura]

So what would we expect a theoretical Quest 4 era device to be pushing into beyond physical size, resolution etc?
Just curious as to how close to the end of the road we are major iterations wise with Quest 3.

I know there are big pushes for hand tracking etc without a controller but my interest level in that is very minimal, feels too much like a push toward recreating Kinect which was never satisfying to play with. I'm non-fussed about the revival of MR also, another reheated old idea that is much less engaging than the devices core focus.

Personally, my predictions are that next year, Meta will release a $300 Quest headset which is a cut-price, slightly cut-down version of the Quest 3. This will come with no controllers but you'll be able to buy them separately. I'm not sure how they'll make that work.

Quest 4... Is tricky. I think face & eye tracking will come back. However, we've reached a weird point with VR optical stacks; the Quest 3's pancake lenses are a huge improvement but there's still the possibility of wider FoV, resolution, framerate.

The problem is that the further steps involve tech that's still largely theoretical.

Light field tech would allow the user to perceive focal depth like in real life, so you could focus on objects close up or far off without eye-tracking trickery. They're like an inversion of those cameras that you can focus after taking the photo. But these are presently very limited as light field photography didn't really take off. There have been some laser projection technologies which also didn't really work out.

In framerate terms, while the human eye/brain receives info at something approximating 90fps, humans aren't computers and our brains process a continuous stream of information. The human eye does tons of things we barely realise; for example, your eyes involuntarily moves, to sample the area around you to make up your peripheral vision (these movements are called saccades). I have seen a suggestion that a headset would not be able to truly match human perception of framerate until it goes beyond around 3,000fps. That's the approximate line where it would be impossible to tell the difference between VR and real life in framerate terms.

There's a lot to be explored in haptics and controls. Research has shown we don't need people to wear Ready Player One bodysuits. People in VR are already experiencing an equivalent of "phantom limb syndrome", where people can "feel" things which aren't there through a form of hypnotic suggestion. This goes to many different places; people have, at times, embraced each other in VRChat and have claimed to "feel" the embrace for a moment before they blink and remember it's not real. People looking at VR pornography have been brought to orgasm with no actual touching of their bodies. Even I once had a moment playing pool in VRChat where, as someone who plays a lot of pool IRL, I sometimes forget I can't feel the cue as I take a shot - but retrospectively, it feels like you can. It has been suggested that we only need to go a bit further than the present haptic feedback systems to cause this effect to "fill in the gaps".

Talking far-out now; there has been neural-AI work involving reading the visual centres of people's brains, then using the data from many people, showing them a cup, a car, a pair of scissors - and trying to "understand" the readings so you can effectively read people's visual minds, and record their dreams as video. In theory that could be inverted for "full dive" technologies where you experience VR neurally, without an optical stack. But that's only slightly less crazy sci-fi **** at this point and there's still considerable debate over whether that will ever work.

[Neon Ignition]

I suppose to a degree in the short term a focus on the controller seems an easy step, not sure how that would work now that some sort of agreed standard seems to have emerged - Possibly a way of (without making it awkward to use) adding extra grip buttons to the controllers