- Joined
- Mar 23, 2006
- Location
- US West Coast
I had this posted on another thread and decided to cross post it here since it's pretty general in nature:
I recently picked up an Oculus dk2 for use with Elite Dangerous. There are certainly other games it can be used for (though, not many), but ED is the only MMO in the group.
Before you can order the thing you have to agree that it's not meant as a consumer item and they're not kidding. Though it's sleek enough setting up, hardware wise, it's a definitely not plug-n-play. It took me 2-3 hours to get it configured well enough for ED. I tried updating my gpu driver, then I rolled that back, later found there's a bug with the latest driver. The ideal situation of letting the goggles sit around and only get activated when you enter a game they're designed for didn't work for me so I had to configure them as a secondary display to one of my vid cards (I have 2 cards, one for a 23" monitor and the other for my 46" LCD). That said, I feel I only had to jump through a few hoops to get everything set up, doable, little annoying and I'll be getting calls if any of my friends buy one. Probably the most difficult for some people is where to put the tracking camera. The manual has this pic that makes you think you can just prop it on top of your monitor...but then you read the print and it needs to be FIVE FEET away and facing the center front where you sit. Fortunately I have a camera tripod - it's even made so you can mount it this way and there was just enough space between my computer table and the wall that I could get the 5 foot distance. I have the tracker about 6 feet off the ground so I get get a direct line of sight over the top of my monitor. What else...well, you'll need 2-3 free USB ports for it - best news for this is all the cables are really long, which they'll probably cut when the consumer version comes out, seems like companies never give you long enough cables.
The goggles feel pretty comfortable wearing them. Like ski goggles but little heavier (not so heavy that you really notice the weight), and with a strap over the top of your head. There are 2 sets of lenses, one set for normal or sorta near-sighted people. and the other for people with glasses and really near sighted people. The lenses screw out and you put in the other set. I haven't tried the lenses for glasses as I don't wear them, but a friend will be by to test them out. The lenses can be customized with the software utility, to make minute, milometer adjustments to your eye, but I haven't gotten to this. The goggles are also on a sort of ratcheting system and can be adjusted about half an inch towards/away from your face when you put them on. The wiring harness is thin, durable, and exits out the back of the goggle straps. I find the goggles a little hot though and imagine in a warm room you'd be sweating up these things pretty fast. Some sort of cooling fan might be necessary in the future as the padding that secures them to your face and cuts off all light also blocks most of the ventilation. The cable from the goggles to the computer is about 10 feet long, which should give you plenty of motion. My tower is about 4-5 feet to the right of my monitor and I have plenty of slack with the cabling.
Playability...on ED it's pretty cool. There are several great advantages, one being the ability to look around. Your starting ship has a see through canopy overhead and wide vision on the right/left. So, before, w/out the VR when a ship flew over me I had to slowly bring my ship around until I could see the other ship which of course is trying to get away, but now I can just move my head and see where it's gone or is. Also, when I turn my head to the left and hold it there an in-game menu pops up. In space dock, turning my head to the right brings up another one. When I'm in these menus my HOTAS controls change defaults, it's all pretty slick.
Now the cons. Biggest problem for me is the resolution. You'd think 1920 x 1080 would seem good, really good on a 5" screen, but then that screen is about 1.5 inches from your eye. Also the screen is split, so it's really 960 x 1080 per eye. Biggest problem with this is reading text which just isn't too sharp and can be difficult to read at times. You can see the pixels pretty easily at game start up. That said, you don't really notice them during play, but things just aren't that sharp. Another problem I've run into is on start up. It seems if I'm not wearing the goggles, facing forward to the tracker when the game starts the "screen" inside the goggles will be off at some angle. I'd like to have the goggles at my side since game start up is a couple minutes, but instead I have them on making me blind until the game starts, then the splash screen and it's just tedious, no escaping past this part. When I say off at an angle...I mean you'll have the goggles on, facing forward, but the tracker read something different so the screen is now 30 or 90 degrees to one side and you'll have to restart the game to get it set up correctly. I haven't found a way to move the screen around in ED, though you can in the set-up utility software you get from Oculus.
Other uses? I've only begun exploring that facet. I found a handy little program called Virtual Desktop that looks intriguing, but haven't installed it yet. According the the web site, "You can browse the web, watch movies or even play games on a giant virtual screen.", though I wonder about if the text problems I have in ED will also be there.
Update on Virtual Desktop: It's pretty incredible. Your desktop floats in a sea of stars with just your task bar and desktop icons showing. It also appears about ten times or more bigger than your monitor. It's customizable and I have it set to just barely bigger than my field of view. SDE (screen door effect) is still the biggest problem but for viewing pictures or watching videos it's pretty awesome, like sitting in front of a 120" monitor. Looking around past the desktop is one of five 360 degree backgrounds with space themes - the one I use has a gas giant behind me, with a ring system similar to Saturn.
Porn? Yeah, they're setting up too.
I recently picked up an Oculus dk2 for use with Elite Dangerous. There are certainly other games it can be used for (though, not many), but ED is the only MMO in the group.
Before you can order the thing you have to agree that it's not meant as a consumer item and they're not kidding. Though it's sleek enough setting up, hardware wise, it's a definitely not plug-n-play. It took me 2-3 hours to get it configured well enough for ED. I tried updating my gpu driver, then I rolled that back, later found there's a bug with the latest driver. The ideal situation of letting the goggles sit around and only get activated when you enter a game they're designed for didn't work for me so I had to configure them as a secondary display to one of my vid cards (I have 2 cards, one for a 23" monitor and the other for my 46" LCD). That said, I feel I only had to jump through a few hoops to get everything set up, doable, little annoying and I'll be getting calls if any of my friends buy one. Probably the most difficult for some people is where to put the tracking camera. The manual has this pic that makes you think you can just prop it on top of your monitor...but then you read the print and it needs to be FIVE FEET away and facing the center front where you sit. Fortunately I have a camera tripod - it's even made so you can mount it this way and there was just enough space between my computer table and the wall that I could get the 5 foot distance. I have the tracker about 6 feet off the ground so I get get a direct line of sight over the top of my monitor. What else...well, you'll need 2-3 free USB ports for it - best news for this is all the cables are really long, which they'll probably cut when the consumer version comes out, seems like companies never give you long enough cables.
The goggles feel pretty comfortable wearing them. Like ski goggles but little heavier (not so heavy that you really notice the weight), and with a strap over the top of your head. There are 2 sets of lenses, one set for normal or sorta near-sighted people. and the other for people with glasses and really near sighted people. The lenses screw out and you put in the other set. I haven't tried the lenses for glasses as I don't wear them, but a friend will be by to test them out. The lenses can be customized with the software utility, to make minute, milometer adjustments to your eye, but I haven't gotten to this. The goggles are also on a sort of ratcheting system and can be adjusted about half an inch towards/away from your face when you put them on. The wiring harness is thin, durable, and exits out the back of the goggle straps. I find the goggles a little hot though and imagine in a warm room you'd be sweating up these things pretty fast. Some sort of cooling fan might be necessary in the future as the padding that secures them to your face and cuts off all light also blocks most of the ventilation. The cable from the goggles to the computer is about 10 feet long, which should give you plenty of motion. My tower is about 4-5 feet to the right of my monitor and I have plenty of slack with the cabling.
Playability...on ED it's pretty cool. There are several great advantages, one being the ability to look around. Your starting ship has a see through canopy overhead and wide vision on the right/left. So, before, w/out the VR when a ship flew over me I had to slowly bring my ship around until I could see the other ship which of course is trying to get away, but now I can just move my head and see where it's gone or is. Also, when I turn my head to the left and hold it there an in-game menu pops up. In space dock, turning my head to the right brings up another one. When I'm in these menus my HOTAS controls change defaults, it's all pretty slick.
Now the cons. Biggest problem for me is the resolution. You'd think 1920 x 1080 would seem good, really good on a 5" screen, but then that screen is about 1.5 inches from your eye. Also the screen is split, so it's really 960 x 1080 per eye. Biggest problem with this is reading text which just isn't too sharp and can be difficult to read at times. You can see the pixels pretty easily at game start up. That said, you don't really notice them during play, but things just aren't that sharp. Another problem I've run into is on start up. It seems if I'm not wearing the goggles, facing forward to the tracker when the game starts the "screen" inside the goggles will be off at some angle. I'd like to have the goggles at my side since game start up is a couple minutes, but instead I have them on making me blind until the game starts, then the splash screen and it's just tedious, no escaping past this part. When I say off at an angle...I mean you'll have the goggles on, facing forward, but the tracker read something different so the screen is now 30 or 90 degrees to one side and you'll have to restart the game to get it set up correctly. I haven't found a way to move the screen around in ED, though you can in the set-up utility software you get from Oculus.
Other uses? I've only begun exploring that facet. I found a handy little program called Virtual Desktop that looks intriguing, but haven't installed it yet. According the the web site, "You can browse the web, watch movies or even play games on a giant virtual screen.", though I wonder about if the text problems I have in ED will also be there.
Update on Virtual Desktop: It's pretty incredible. Your desktop floats in a sea of stars with just your task bar and desktop icons showing. It also appears about ten times or more bigger than your monitor. It's customizable and I have it set to just barely bigger than my field of view. SDE (screen door effect) is still the biggest problem but for viewing pictures or watching videos it's pretty awesome, like sitting in front of a 120" monitor. Looking around past the desktop is one of five 360 degree backgrounds with space themes - the one I use has a gas giant behind me, with a ring system similar to Saturn.
Porn? Yeah, they're setting up too.
