General VR and AR chinwag - The Bear and Badger

SpaceGazelle

Nice list, will comment.

Budget Cuts is really good if you have the space. Buggy as hell on launch though so I'm not sure how many updates it's had. So immersive though and builds the teleport mechanic into good gameplay.

Ultrawings is lovely. Lacks depth but the flying sensation is wonderful, just turn off all the comfort stuff on the wall.

Eleven Table Tennis is indeed great.

SpaceGazelle

I forgot to say, if you like pinball then it's perfect for VR. Get yourself a slim table you can lean on one end as if it were a real machine.

SpaceGazelle

isanbard wrote:

The Valve Index sounds pretty swish again but I sat on my specs last week so that'll have to be full amazeballs unfortunately to justify even more expense at the minute.

It's so going to be amaze and you just know it.

isanbard

I have that fear SG..

SpaceGazelle

We'll know soon enough. Upgrade your experience is such a tease.

b0r1s

Thanks for that massive update Daq. Will check them out over the next week. When I get more space in the lounge I’ll be able to break out Superhot.

jdanielp

SpaceGazelle wrote:

I forgot to say, if you like pinball then it's perfect for VR. Get yourself a slim table you can lean on one end as if it were a real machine.

Is any game particularly good and do any of them have a VR mode in the standard game rather than selling the same tables yet again in a VR package?

SpaceGazelle

I use Pinball FX2.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/547590/Pinball_FX2_VR/#app_reviews_hash

It's a separate VR package but I got it cheap during a sale - £5 or something. Works great with Vive wands but there seems to be some concern in the reviews above that Oculus Touch is not fully supported, but there are always ways around these things. It really is a convincing experience.

SpaceGazelle

Also, it's sort of expensive and cheap at the same time. It's £5 for the standalone Walking Dead table but in VR it really feels like you're buying a pinball table for £5, it's that convincing. Worth building a controller for and I'll get round to it as a project one day like these chaps.

And this is a good overview on why VR is best digital pinball...

SpaceGazelle

Found this.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/444930/Zaccaria_Pinball/
Free basic pack and has VR support but I can't vouch for the quality.

jdanielp

I also found that recently on Xbone and bought the cheap 'retro' table bundle... It doesn't feel quite as slick as the likes of Pinball FX and Pinball Arcade in some ways, and mostly focusses on more simple tables, but I've been enjoying it quite a lot. It has a generous demo mode for unpurchased tables too. Will ask a friend with Vive to download on Steam.

SpaceGazelle

Boris, also check out Destinations. It's just a bunch of environments but some are really great. Lots to discover.

b0r1s

I now have a list of 29 games and experiences to try out! In addition to the dozen I have already downloaded.

SpaceGazelle

I like all that stuff, the early free stuff or just things people have done in their spare time with Unity.

Go to the Reddit VR threads, they're great.

b0r1s

I don’t think I can go back to 2D games!

voices

They've got their merits. VR is great, but sometimes I can't be bothered to be bashing around and just want to sit down and make a 2d motorbike go brm brm.

b0r1s

See that’s the thing. I could rarely be bothered to setup my PSVR but my Rift is just there ready to go. And if I want to sit on my arse I can just do some fishing. I’m sure it’ll wear off eventually but still too much to experience and every moment is a wow moment.

SpaceGazelle

So, Valve Index reveal is tomorrow, probably. Typically, Valve haven't actually said anything about how it's going to be revealed and even the link on the steam store seems to have been taken down.

For a multi-billion dollar company they certainly do things differently. Maybe they'll give us some details when they've fed the cat and had lunch, but maybe not.

SpaceGazelle

VNN are speculating it's going to be very good and very expensive but no game yet. Take a bag of salt with that, but if it is 4K per eye and with foveated -so I don't need to upgrade my graphics card, I might be in if it's comfy. And less than $1000.

SpaceGazelle

They've got foveated up and running on the Vive Pro Eye.

https://zerolight.com/news/tech/foveated-rendering-on-the-vive-pro-eye

It suddenly doesn't seem so outrageous that it's used by the Index.

djchump

Current foveated needs the Turing-only variable rate shading.

isanbard

Abrash and the last Oculus talks suggested they aren't happy to go for Foveated for a few years yet. Lots of problems both physical and digital to get up to five 9 reliable for 95% of human faces is asking one hell of a lot for consumer grade hardware.

Valve might have sprinkled some pixie dust and somehow fixed a lot of problems and made it cheap enough but I'm not holding out hope for that.

135deg fov with Vive Pro screens would be a big enough leap and still be usable for stuff that isn't 2080Ti.

Edit: And holy sheeite SG.. they're using Quadro RTX 6000s and 9 times supersampling in that link.. that's asking just a smidge there. Having that fancy dancy new VRS running must still be truly impossible if that recommended 970 leak was anything to go by?

SpaceGazelle

djchump wrote:

Current foveated needs the Turing-only variable rate shading.

Boo.

SpaceGazelle

I wish they'd give some indication on how they're going to reveal it. Seems likely journos don't have kits or somebody would have leaked something by now, even if it's to say when they're going to publish.

isanbard wrote:

Edit: And holy sheeite SG.. they're using Quadro RTX 6000s and 9 times supersampling in that link.. that's asking just a smidge there. Having that fancy dancy new VRS running must still be truly impossible if that recommended 970 leak was anything to go by?

But the 970 min spec seems strange anyway, even though Valve confirmed the "leak" was accurate. The Pro is 1070 min so it would seem they're doing something unusual. I expect magic.

SpaceGazelle

I think I might shit myself with excitement. I'll just keep spamming F5 on Reddit until something informative leaks.

Unlikely

You have informative bowel movements?

Unlikely

Maybe it's like reading tea leaves.

SpaceGazelle

$499 for just the headset, $999 for complete bundle.

https://uploadvr.com/valve-index-hands-on/

b0r1s

Happy with that price. That means by next year I’ll have the kit for probably around £750. Good read too.

SpaceGazelle

The earphones don't touch your ears! Can go up to 144hz too.

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