Are you Ready for Virtual Reality?

[Troy Spiral (13)]

No current console will run 'real"  (Occulus Rift, HTC and Razer will be the competing 'formats')  VR as far as I'm aware, not fully.  X box One and  PS 4 will run them more as "movie theaters" not fully interactive experiences.  Most PCs  are not powerful enough to run VR "games" (not all the totally kick ass VR is gaming, but that is whats pushing it).

VR is coming, by 2020 it will be ubiquitous.  Its just too good.... finally.

VR takes something like 8 times the power of current higher end PC games (even more for console games). 

But for now its just starting.  

 

Have a look here to see if your PC can handle the soon-to-be-juggernaut known as VR ... (it probably has no chance).

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3023354/hardware/how-to-know-if-your-pc-is-ready-for-virtual-reality.html

 

I've been waiting for this shit since like 1992.   Took them long enough, just in time for me to become broke and unable to afford it.  GOD DAMN IT.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

 

[Destroit]

What about the Microsoft Hololens?  You seen that shit yet?

[Scary Guy]

First off FUCK Facebook for buying Occulus Rift, and fuck consumer VR in general.  Closed sourced proprietary trash I say.  The Avegant is what I want but the FOV sucks and there is no head tracking as far as I can tell.

Anyway we've had VR since Wolfenstine 3D.  What we want (and isn't said) is immersive virtual reality with a head mounted display (preferably with tracking.)

I've been also very into 3D online worlds and have been on Cybertown, Goonietown (formed when Cybertown started changing for the worse), worlds.com, Second Life, Vivity, and now JanusVR (which is closed source but the worlds are pretty open.)

We also don't have enough people working on input devices like the Leap Motion, or something like the p5 (outdated USB powered Power Glove successor.)  I want something like this with power glove like abilities built in too.  I have an old serial Spaceball but good luck getting that to work apparently (I have a few if someone wants to try.)

Also our computers run VR great if the code isn't sloppy.  Shit our PHONES are even doing VR!  Some like the HTC Evo 3D have done that and taken 3D photos too.  The problem really is the raster graphics.  What we need is vector like the Virtual Boy had (but not red, eww.)

Edited April 12, 2016 by Scary Guy
Forgot SL in list of VR worlds.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

On 3/31/2016 at 8:06 PM, Destroit said:

What about the Microsoft Hololens?  You seen that shit yet?

Its what google has already been working on for years but for some reason has been keeping it more "secret" lately for some reason.   "Augmented Reality" instead of "Virtual Reality".   AG is much longer and further away than VR.  VR will be widespread in a few years.   AG will probably be much longer just due to what needs to happen for it to become anything other than a rich mans toy.  (The tech just isn't there yet, and what is, is crazy $$$,  VR is $$ too, but not to that level.  

 

 

[Troy Spiral (13)]

22 hours ago, Scary Guy said:

First off FUCK Facebook for buying Occulus Rift, and fuck consumer VR in general.  Closed sourced proprietary trash I say.  The Avegant is what I want but the FOV sucks and there is no head tracking as far as I can tell.

Anyway we've had VR since Wolfenstine 3D.  What we want (and isn't said) is immersive virtual reality with a head mounted display (preferably with tracking.)

I've been also very into 3D online worlds and have been on Cybertown, Goonietown (formed when Cybertown started changing for the worse), worlds.com, Second Life, Vivity, and now JanusVR (which is closed source but the worlds are pretty open.)

We also don't have enough people working on input devices like the Leap Motion, or something like the p5 (outdated USB powered Power Glove successor.)  I want something like this with power glove like abilities built in too.  I have an old serial Spaceball but good luck getting that to work apparently (I have a few if someone wants to try.)

Also our computers run VR great if the code isn't sloppy.  Shit our PHONES are even doing VR!  Some like the HTC Evo 3D have done that and taken 3D photos too.  The problem really is the raster graphics.  What we need is vector like the Virtual Boy had (but not red, eww.)

 

 

Things I've thought about, but in the end ..... I WANT MY 'real'  VR and I want it now. 

 

As far as I can tell the cheapest way to be able to get it will be to get a PS4 or whatever that Steam Media/Gaming platform is and run whatever is the cheapest full-fledged VR on them.  

 

I spend crazy amounts of time following VR progress... since the 90s lied to me, hopefully by 2018 or so I won't feel like my ass is chafed at all the promise they lied to me with.   Damn aerosmith video, damn Lawnmower Man... Damn Neuromancer.   Not a single "real" "consumer ready"  VR system is available yet as far as I know.  They are all soon-to-be-released as in like VERY soon or are "developer" versions.  AKA , not really done yet.    The HTC one seems to be the closest to prime time as of this writing, but all the big kids are involved now so it will be a sooner, rather than later. 

 

Google cardboard / Occulus Halfass is fun/interesting for a little bit, but its more of a "proof of concept" even the strongest phones on the market turn to hot lava after a while (have tried it, got excited, then pissed), and the VR isn't "real" VR the way you would envision it.  Really need a dedicated setup. 

[Class-Punk]

On 4/12/2016 at 6:29 AM, Scary Guy said:

I've been also very into 3D online worlds and have been on Cybertown, Goonietown (formed when Cybertown started changing for the worse), worlds.com, Second Life, Vivity, and now JanusVR (which is closed source but the worlds are pretty open.)

I think I might've been around Goonietown but I don't know for sure.  

Cybertown will be burned in my head forever.  I got to leave from school early, and I was messing around on there.   I noticed people talking all about the same thing in the chat, so I turned on the television.  It was 9/11 and there was live news footage of one of the smoking buildings, minutes later, the second plane hit.

[Scary Guy]

That's cyberpunk as fuck, lol.

Anyway I plan on giving a 15 minute talk on the history of VR at the mug.org meeting in October.  Should be fun for those into UNIX/Linux.

[Trene4000]

I received an email introducing the new VR video game connection for PCs.  I would love to use it. It looks like fun. As a member, I can get discounts.

[sekhmet2002]

I wish I could say I was VR ready but I'm not. I have a pretty nice computer but I don't think it's quite VR capable. Would definitely need a new video card which is the main part in the first place.

[Michael8402]

I am looking at a phone upgrade and I know that most of the new smart phones are VR ready.  I don't think I am vr ready though.  I still love old school tech and I seem to be the person that modern tech goes to when it wants to die for no reason.  Lol

[Troy Spiral (13)]

On 8/12/2016 at 3:46 PM, Trene4000 said:

I received an email introducing the new VR video game connection for PCs.  I would love to use it. It looks like fun. As a member, I can get discounts.

As a member of what trene? Also there are several competing 'types' of VR did it say what?

[Troy Spiral (13)]

This and a good drone have been on my mental wish list since forever. Drones didn't even exist for the average tech nerds mind (and are now prime time ready.)  Just in time for both to be basicly unattainable for me. G.D. universe... the timing! Why God why??

VR is out now finally, but probably still needs a year for the different tech to settle down and make a clear 'buy this' path.

Drones are hell... DJI Phantom 4 or their newer smaller version.  Half a mind to ruin my credit to get one. But apparently I'm too smart nowadays to do that...damnit.

[Scary Guy]

Computers today should be able to run VR just fine.  Hell I was doing VR back in 1990 (just without the headset) with Wolfenstein 3D and a few different flight sims.  The bar for virtual reality is super low.

Internet based VR again, Cybertown back in the day.

Right now you can run it with http://janusvr.com and/or the alpha version of Firefox https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/#developer and then checking out https://mozvr.com

Both should work with a standard video card/monitor.  Phones still aren't as possible as desktop systems so chances are the desktop you have now should be able to handle it (depending on the complexity of the world and how well it has been coded/the engine running it works.

What irks me is both Facebook's Rift and HTC's Vive are both closed source proprietary pieces of hardware (although the Vive is slightly more open than the Rift apparently.)

Currently the best option is http://www.osvr.org by (gah) Razer.  But at least that will work on all operating systems and is developer friendly.  Unfortunately some people want your computer to work like a fancy gaming console where it will only run certain applications under appropriate conditions.  With things like DRM and TPM locking out competitors software in the name of "safety" or "fighting piracy."

Unfortunately given the choice between two devices, people often pick the easier rout which involves less work.  I will give examples.

iPhone you don't have to think about and has an app store that is heavily curated, while Android is more open and unlocked but their app store has a lot of crap in it... A LOT of crap.  Most people don't even pay attention to the permissions an app asks for when installing (because dumb) and would probably be better off with an iDevice.  I've ripped out all the Google from my phone though and only use apps I feel are safe.  If I want to I can even code my own apps or even modify core parts of the operating system on my phone.  The people who make phones/apps don't like this AT ALL because we can do things like add in features phone companies charge for (call blocking/tethering to/from devices) and blocking the adds of other apps.

Likewise computers make it super easy to pirate games, movies, music, and other media.  Where a console just displays it to you as consoles are basically just locked down computers that forgot they were computers.  Emulation software can let your run almost any old ROM game these days.  There are cracks out there for software that costs anywhere from $2-$10 all the way up to $10,000 video and CAD software.  Obviously companies want to lock these down as well.

So when it comes to VR it's the same thing.  There will be competing formats much like the VHS/Betamax war.  Surprisingly the one that most wins out with content delivery is whatever has more porn available for it.  This is why while Betamax was a far superior format VHS won out.