SpaceGazelle wrote:

yourfavouriteuncle wrote:

Game pass has been good for me so far.  Lonely Mountain, Ori, Outer Worlds, Pedro (bit shit), Ape Out (bit shit), Wolf Youngblood, Outer Worlds and then Savage Planet the other day... Sheesh, that’s before we get to Steam and Epic and whatnot.  It’s ace built it doesn’t half spike my FOMO.

Have you tried TF2 yet? If not, it's a right of passage, and fee. I recommend Payload mode first.

Nope but now i will...  
I had the first 30 mins of HL Alyx on Sunday night and it’s fucking astonishing but I’m not sure the quest and it’s controllers are up to the task.  I’m srsly considering not playing it and waiting for INdex stuff to become available again?  Is it that much better on there than a quest and cable???

Good morning to you too, handsome.
What I was trying to get at was that I’m still feeling pulled out of the experience due to the limitations of the headset (resolution, I guess) and then the control method. Can’t do anything about the not walking about bit and although the Quest controllers are generally fine, here they really really show up the lack of decent finger and grabbing tracking. It seems from the little I’ve played to be pretty intrinsic to the game and I wasn’t sure how much better the Index was, never having played with one? I almost fee
Like I’m spoiling the game by not using the Index. Perhaps overthinking it though?

Those wooden floor look so good though. So grimey.

I didn't find the quest controllers restrictive, I thought the grabbing was fine. The resolution didn't help but I found the setting strong enough to overcome that. I'd love to see it on a better headset though, just to compare

The Quest controllers are nearly as good by all accounts, for the basic mechanics. I really enjoy the freedom of not having to hold the Index ones though, it feels much more natural, although Hair has a mod for the Quest ones. VR is deffo heading full finger but few games right now utilise it well.

The Index is sort of more than the sum of it's parts and was designed to keep you immersed better and for longer. The clarity is pretty amazing but it's by no means the only thing. Fov makes a huge difference, as does comfort. The sound too is amazeballs and there's a much higher refresh rate on the panels. The clarity of the image towards the peripheral is also a big deal. It's not quite clear from edge to edge but it's getting there. That means you don't directly have to stare at something in order for it to be sharp. The screen door has more or less gone and that is a biggie for me coming off the Vive.

The hmd is nicely weighted and I don't notice the wire half as much as the Vive (it never actually tugs on the hmd itself), and Alyx helps matters a lot because of it's less physical grabbity glove solution. Having said that wireless is ace. The good news on wireless is it's possible when the faster wireless standards are introduced next year, and there'll no doubt be an adapter for the Index that fits in the Frunk (they left a usb space at the front so new hardware can be attached). The great thing about the Valve approach is you can mix and match your hardware, so if you fancy a Pimax headset you can buy one and use your current basestations and controllers. Any thing that uses Valve tracking can be swapped about, so you could use a Vive pro headset and Pimax controllers, say.

Having said all that people seem pretty happy with the Quest when it comes to Alyx. I adore my Index but £1000 is a lot of money. It'll be good for a few years though and you'll only need the hmd part for future upgrades, but I wouldn't not play Alyx. I think the current wait time is around 5 weeks if you really want one. You provisionally order it on Steam and you'll be put in a queue, they email you when it's available and you have a week to make your decision and pay before they offer it to someone else.

Here's a breakdown of all the various Alyx setups.



More GPU based than hmd. Although he loves the Index controllers for Alyx.

Still feel the biggest niggles currently are needing base stations and cables. Even if I had an Index, trying to remain rooted when everything your senses are telling you to do is move, pulls me out of the game more than FOV or resolutions. Other more sedate games would probably be fine though. Pays yer £1000...

New 1700mbps Wi-Fi router has arrived. To the Batcave!

Feel we've been here before but are the base stations wired? As for journos, that's their job and convincing your partner to run wires or drill holes for transmitters so you can check out of reality seems a hard sell for many.

bad_hair_day wrote:

And fuck wires generally. Edit: Bad day, ignore me.

Tell that to @monkey

Bit of a cross post but for anyone with the specs the beta RTX Minecraft is just lovely.

bad_hair_day wrote:

Still feel the biggest niggles currently are needing base stations and cables. Even if I had an Index, trying to remain rooted when everything your senses are telling you to do is move, pulls me out of the game more than FOV or resolutions. Other more sedate games would probably be fine though. Pays yer £1000... New 1700mbps Wi-Fi router has arrived. To the Batcave!

How have you found the new router?

Are you getting anywhere near the advertised speeds over wi-fi?

Kow wrote:

What are the specs? I guess my 970 won't cut it.

RTX or possibly an 1080ti. I think DS has a 1080ti and he's running it ok. DLSS is finally doing what it initially promised and it's great.

SpaceGazelle wrote:

Bit of a cross post but for anyone with the specs the beta RTX Minecraft is just lovely.

Is it free?

TheBoyRoberts wrote:

Still feel the biggest niggles currently are needing base stations and cables. Even if I had an Index, trying to remain rooted when everything your senses are telling you to do is move, pulls me out of the game more than FOV or resolutions. Other more sedate games would probably be fine though. Pays yer £1000... New 1700mbps Wi-Fi router has arrived. To the Batcave!

How have you found the new router? Are you getting anywhere near the advertised speeds over wi-fi?

Even with the new router the Quest Wi-Fi settings were still showing 866mbps - turns out that's the fastest it can go! Still, the latest Virtual Desktop update is buttery smooth with motion, but still a tiny bit of lag.

Personally happy with this trade off.  

1. Launch 'Virtual Desktop' in the headset. 
2. Select 'Run Steam VR'.
4. Walk around like you own the place.

It really is. It was Tech Chap’s video made me revisit it. Makes control run really well with all RT on, on my laptop.

Epic game store might be back working for me. I love how flakey it is.