OSVR HDK2 VR HMD now available for pre-order

[Roger Wilco Jr]

I've got to thank John Luke for the walk around the Corvette bridge. That made me check the OSVR website, where I saw that the HDK2 went on pre-order on Amazon today. I have no idea when they will be released, yet, but I did put one on order. I'm getting this because I like the idea of the lens system and individual focus for each eye. I just hope I'll be able to get it working with ED without too many hassles.

[JohnLuke]

I looked at OSVR too, Roger Wilko. I like it, but I just wanted something NOW.

Playing E-D in VR is freakin' amazing! You'll love it.

I just spent some time in the buggy in VR. OMG!! It's crazy looking out the sides and watching the tires spin, turn, and go over rocks. Not to mention the view from the turret.

[TorTorden]

I looked at OSVR too, Roger Wilko. I like it, but I just wanted something NOW.

Playing E-D in VR is freakin' amazing! You'll love it.

I just spent some time in the buggy in VR. OMG!! It's crazy looking out the sides and watching the tires spin, turn, and go over rocks. Not to mention the view from the turret.

I absolutely love the turret view in VR.

I seriously can drive and shoot at the same time with it at length.

PS: I recommend doing some base jumping in VR... I once spent three hours just jumping off a cliff, flying back up and going again
BTW, make sure to turn black out and horizons lock off, at least to try.
For some reason I needed horizons lock when I played on screen. In VR not at all.

Not certain of course.
But I think the OSVR can use SteamVR and that works with ED, so in theory you just need to setup for steamVR, start the game and select HMD (headphones) under 3d setting under graphics.

[Roger Wilco Jr]

Damn.

I just realized that I will need to get a new video card to go with this. The Nvidia GTX-1080 seems like the obvious choice, but now I've just heard about AMD's new Polaris card, and Nvidia is coming out with a new Titan-X, though I'm not so sure I want to pay twice the cost of a 1080 for a new Titan-X. Oh well, I probably have at least 2 months before I could even hope to get my HMD, so I do have a little while to get all the reviews.

Damn.

[TorTorden]

Depends a bit of course on what you have now.
The most cautious way is probably the smartest.
In short get the hmd and test it out with what you have now. Then reevaluate future upgrades.

Enter rant mode:
Personally I find the titan x ridiculous. And ridiculously priced .
The largest potential for optimising vr as is now is software. And that will just have to be done by the developers when they get too it.
Brute forcing your way past is kind of possible with a 1080 and cpu overclocking but only kind of.
But reality is we are mostly just waiting for software to catch up.

Back on the titan, well it's twice the price for what I gather is 40% more card and some of the clocks are lower so at best you would get 25-30% better performance, again for twice the price.

And soon probably just a few months away the 1080ti might launch closing the gap even further.

Nvidia also have released an API for utilising SLI in vr and the benefit for that is probably more than 30% when implemented .

"When implemented" being the operative here since ED currently doesn't and nobody knows when that might change, if at all.
I am staying on my 980ti but it does have the 6GB ram which probably saves my bacon compared to just regular 980 or even 970 .
That said reports are that the 1070 is on par, probably a little better than 980ti and that will only increase once SMP is implemented. Again it currently isn't.

In fact we are pretty much "waiting for feature x to be implemented" and quite likely I don't expect it to be until the next generation of cards are almost out..

AMD card i havent looked at for a decade so can't say anything about them.

Seriously unless you just clocked in the euro jackpot I can't recommend the titan x to anyone but you could get a 1080 and a cv1 for the same money so why?

If I was actually suggest a gamble it would be the 1070 at least if money is a concern.

Anyhoo that's my nickel worth of opinion.

[AJH]

I like the idea of the lens system and individual focus for each eye.

It is worth noting that the reason they can do that is that they are using conventional lenses. This means they will have issues with chromatic aberration as the lens prisms a bit on the edges of your field of view. This will result in colors separating a bit if you look off center. This can be resolved if we get to curved screens, but for now, that's why the Vive and Rift both use Fresnels. They are able to prevent the chromatic aberration and a few other issues with bending the light over such a wide FoV, but are not able to be focused. They just have their sweet spot and you have to be within it.

That said, if you use heavy corrective lenses, then it is still your best bet short of either contacts or getting special lenses made that will adjust the fresnels for your prescription since, while the Vive does comfortably allow for glasses, it requires moving the lenses away from the screen (which reduces field of view) and also doesn't quite correct for the light perfectly as glasses collect light from too wide of an area, thus causing some other artifacts and blurring.

[Roger Wilco Jr]

Well, I suppose there's a off chance that my dual GTX-970 SLI setup may work by the time I get my HMD. Or I can probably pick up a GTX-980Ti for $350 in a couple months.

I've never been a fan of AMD, but I have had a couple cards - always old and cheap. My main problem was their Catalyst software. But if their new card kicks ass and is a good deal, I will certainly give it a look. To be honest, my main concern with the Titan-X is the 250W TDP, and I'd probably need to get a new power supply. I'd rather wait until they get these powerful cards more efficient. And as you say, Bob, the biggest gains may be in the software.


As for conventional lenses vs. Fresnel lenses, I'm sure they both have their faults. I've had things with Fresnel lenses before and not been too impressed, but I'm sure the lenses in the Vive/Rift are 100 times better. I imagine I'd be looking straight ahead and moving my head most of the time, not moving my eyes to look at the edge of the screen, so I think I can live with little chromatic abberation. In any case, this is just an introduction to VR. Things have got to improve exponentially in the next several years.

[TorTorden]

I like the idea of the lens system and individual focus for each eye.

It is worth noting that the reason they can do that is that they are using conventional lenses. This means they will have issues with chromatic aberration as the lens prisms a bit on the edges of your field of view. This will result in colors separating a bit if you look off center. This can be resolved if we get to curved screens, but for now, that's why the Vive and Rift both use Fresnels. They are able to prevent the chromatic aberration and a few other issues with bending the light over such a wide FoV, but are not able to be focused. They just have their sweet spot and you have to be within it.

That said, if you use heavy corrective lenses, then it is still your best bet short of either contacts or getting special lenses made that will adjust the fresnels for your prescription since, while the Vive does comfortably allow for glasses, it requires moving the lenses away from the screen (which reduces field of view) and also doesn't quite correct for the light perfectly as glasses collect light from too wide of an area, thus causing some other artifacts and blurring.

Depends on your frames I guess. I can use my glasses without extending the vive from it's closest setting whatsoever.
And the closest setting is still a little roomier than the rift which I also don't have an issue with using glasses.

But as noted. Using glasses in either creates more optical artefacts, and there is much more pronounced amount of lens flares in the rift with glasses than without.
And of course it's also fairly sharper overall with either using contacts.
My current contacts aren't perfect so my entire world view feels skewed when I wear them, it's not a problem with VR but outside of VR doing anything, even just watching tv gets weird, I should get those tweaked and finalized soon

[Roger Wilco Jr]

I just noticed that the Razer Store is also selling the unit and expect shipping from mid August, so I may need to get a new card sooner than I thought - and I don't mind one bit.

[AJH]

Depends on your frames I guess. I can use my glasses without extending the vive from it's closest setting whatsoever.

Good to know. I only ever had people with glasses try it all the way out for fear of scratching the lenses and my wife had corrective surgery recently (in part inspired by usability with the Vive, though she'd been thinking about it for a while), so we don't have anyone regularly using it that needs glasses anymore so I hadn't looked in to it in much more detail beyond her initial impression.