Rift / Vive / VR General

[Dexter]

"When I fired up Half-Life: Alyx, coming from Index, the G2 nearly felt like looking at the game with new eyes. I was drawn to details that never caught my attention before, like scratches in the shotgun’s metal, letters printed on the side of the pistol, and innocuous stickers covering a gutter pipe. I also quickly noticed that many of the game’s textures don’t quite hold up to G2’s resolution (too soon!)."

And what exactly do you need to run it properly at 2160x2160 per eye or 4320x2160 rendered twice? On my 1080GTX when I tried the 120Hz Mode the Dynamic Resolution sometimes dropped it down to 861x861 per eye to keep the target framerate. I heard people even had issues on 2080Ti's at Max Details. What do you need to run it at anywhere near acceptable levels at that resolution?

Consider that most High-End PCs still have problems running 4K@60 and this is above 4K (4320x2160 instead of 3840x2160), renders the game twice (2x) and expects the game to render stable at 90Hz/FPS at the very least (1.5x).

 

[Venser]

 

[Dexter]

Coming to PC:

 

[Dexter]

World of Darkness VR Horror Game Announced:


This came out of Early Access over a Week ago:

 

[Venser]

It has PC and PSVR support.

 

[Dexter]

VR Demos Available during the Steam Summer Game Festival: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/gamefestival?tab=12



World of Darkness Game Early Footage:


Operencia is getting a VR port:

 

[Dexter]

 

[Dexter]

Republique got ported to VR and just released on Steam:

 

[Venser]

To say it was underwhelming show would be an understatement. Not a single game I'd be moderately interested in. Extreme Escape looks kinda cool but I don't remember it being part of the show. But I guess this was more of an indie show so I hope for some AA games to be announced on other conferences.

 

[Venser]

Image courtesy Admix
Admix Secures $7M Funding to Bring “non-intrusive” Ads to VR & AR Games
By Scott Hayden

Admix, the in-game advertisement platform, today announced it’s raised $7 million in its series A financing round. The news was first reported by TechCrunch.


Admix has created a platform that lets developers insert advertisements into their games, something the company says can be done non-intrusively across all device types, AR and VR included.

While putting ads in games is nothing groundbreaking, Admix says it’s co-opting traditional ad-buying techniques. Its platform also allows them to do it at scale thanks to its Unity and Unreal-compatible SDK, which essentially lets game developers forgo popups and other interstitials that may otherwise ruin the gaming experience.


Example image courtesy Admix
The London-based startup’s penultimate funding round brought them $2.1 million in 2018, led by Speedinvest and Sure Valley Venture, Crunchbase says.

The company’s Series A was lead by investment firm Force Over Mass, with participation by Speedinvest, Sure Valley Ventures and angel investors including former Dentsu Aegis exec Nigel Morris.

“The concept of putting ads in games is obviously not new, but the scalability of our solution is what is revolutionary, delivering instant and consistent revenue to game makers, or streaming platforms,” Huber said in a statement obtained by TechCrunch. “This coupled with the fact that 1.5B people play games globally every day, means that gaming is becoming a truly mainstream advertising channel.”

In the realm of VR headsets, Admix also says it uses gaze tracking to verify how ads are consumed, something that’s bound to change once a majority of VR headsets include eye-tracking. Most today don’t, which is why companies like Admix can only tell the general direction you’re facing.

The company already counts 5,000 advertisers among its ranks using the platform.

https://www.roadtovr.com/admix-secures-7m-funding-bring-non-intrusive-ads-vr-ar-games/

 

[Venser]

 

[Dexter]

VR Demos Available during the Steam Summer Game Festival: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/gamefestival?tab=12

Paper Beast: Holy fuck. Not sure one can call it a game, but it's impressive how much they got out of relatively simple landscape and interaction. You walk around a valley following a huge paper animal and can grab and throw stuff, including the "animals" - also terrain deforms and changes around you, think From Dust and then a windstorm starts all around you. And the sound...

Blunt Force: Very disappointing and broken. The game has some nice Unreal assets that look very good, but everything from level transitions to interactions is pure jank and close to broken in the Demo build.

Rinlo: 3rd person Adventure Platformer, not that much to say about it either very positive or negative, relatively unremarkable. It has a crafting and lockpicking mechanic I guess and there's some interesting puzzles. Moss this ain't. They could improve a lot with relatively minor changes though.

Naau: The Lost Eye: Made by Turks with some broken English and "issues" and Bugs. Visual design isn't bad though.

 

[Venser]

Interesting

 

[Dexter]

inXile's VR game is cheap:


Also SPAZ2 and some others:



https://store.steampowered.com/app/448850/Overload/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/436320/Raw_Data/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/680400/Light_Tracer_VR__NONVR/

There's also lots of VR Bundles:
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/14236/The_Wonder_of_VR_Collection/
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/14013/The_VR_Adventure_Collection/
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/5610/Swords_and_Sorcery_VR_Bundle/
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/9184/VR_Essentials/
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/11133/VR_PIONEER_BUNDLE/
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/14893/VR_Fitness_Bundle/
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/9637/The_Survios_Collection/

 

[Venser]

kayak stealth lol

 

[Venser]

 

[Dexter]

https://www.roadtovr.com/rockstar-vr-game-open-world/

Rockstar Starts Production on AAA Open-world VR Title
By Scott Hayden - Jul 6, 2020

According to the studio behind L.A. Noire: The V.R. Case Files (2017), Rockstar Games is producing a new game which promises to be a “AAA open world title in VR”.

Video Games Deluxe, a Sydney, Australia-based studio working exclusively with Rockstar, released word via LinkedIn recently, stating that the company is currently hiring staff to build the VR game.

“Having finished the critically well received L.A. Noire: The V.R. Case Files we are now gearing up for a new project, a AAA open world title in VR for Rockstar. 2020 marks our 7th year of working exclusively for Rockstar in Sydney and we are excited to taking on this ground breaking project,” the studio writes.

Video Games Deluxe worked on both the PC VR version of L.A. Noire: The V.R. Case Files and the PSVR version, which arrived on PS4 late last year.

By the sounds of it, the small studio will be expanding by a fair bit too, as it’s currently hiring for Senior Programmers, Engine Programmer, a Designer and Animator.

It’s difficult to estimate the scope of the project from just this information alone; Video Games Deluxe may be handling only a portion of the game’s development.

Whether it’s a completely new IP or a continuation of the GTA series also remains to be seen. The dedicated VR studio cut its virtual teeth on adapting the non-VR version of L.A. Noire (2011) to the medium, so it’s also possible we could be seeing a VR-adapted re-release of an extant Rockstar title such as GTA V (2013) or Red Dead Redemption.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vide...l-received-activity-6681012394250117120-y4El/

Video Games Deluxe
286 followers

Having finished the critically well received L.A.Noire: The V.R. Case Files we are now gearing up for a new project, a AAA open world title in VR for Rockstar. 2020 marks our 7th year of working exclusively for Rockstar in Sydney and we are excited to taking on this ground breaking project. We have a number of job openings in our Sydney studio including Senior Programmers, Engine Programmer, Designer and Animator. If you are interested in one of these positions or would like two speak to someone who works here about VGD please get in touch.

 

[Dexter]

 

[Venser]

Seems to be the best headset ATM

 

[A horse of course]

Venser thanks for the review. I noticed a lot of sites were praising the R2's IQ even though in terms of specs it didn't seem that different to other high-end models:

RoadtoVR:

Boiling all of this down, Reverb G2 is the king of clarity, and I feel confident that this will be the headset’s defining factor.

When I fired up Half-Life: Alyx, coming from Index, the G2 nearly felt like looking at the game with new eyes. I was drawn to details that never caught my attention before, like scratches in the shotgun’s metal, letters printed on the side of the pistol, and innocuous stickers covering a gutter pipe. I also quickly noticed that many of the game’s textures don’t quite hold up to G2’s resolution (too soon!).

This seems to explain it, combined with the lenses themselves being better:

I was considering getting a Valve Index, but it seems like on the important points G2 beats it at everything except the lower FOV (on paper), lower refresh rate and the controllers. Tracking seems like something you have to actively go out of your way to break for most users. A couple of sites mentioned the audio wasn't as good, despite the hardware being identical to the Index, and HP said it was because they hadn't finalized it. And it's about 400 dollars cheaper for the whole package. That comment about it looking just about like a 1080p monitor screen is a biggie for me, because it bothers me when trying to do the "Cinema experience" on HTC Vive that the qualty of the 2d picture is noticably lower. The RoadToVR preview mentioned that you can still see aliasing and such, but they compared that to the "retina resolution" meme so I assume they mean it has about the same as a 1080p screen a few inches from your face.

Of course, considering how closely HP and Valve worked together on the G2, I wonder if Valve are taking notes for an Index V2 next year... All the same I'm definitely tempted to grab this in September.

 

[Venser]

Yeah I want at least 120HZ and Index controllers. Gonna buy a new PC next year so hopefully something better comes out by then.

 

[Dexter]

Oculus "Director of Display Systems Research" talk on Varifocal displays being able to properly display depth, depth cues in general, how far they are with their research and a few other things:


Onward seems to have had a PC Update that brought the graphics down to par with it's new Quest version in an attempt to implement Crossplay between the two:


This doesn't seem to have gone over well, and there's an awful lot of recent Negative reviews because of it and people generally complaining in the forums and whatever: https://store.steampowered.com/app/496240/Onward/
Although there was apparently at least one article trying to make this sound like "a good thing": https://uploadvr.com/onward-pc-downgrade/

InXile's Multiplayer VR Shooter:


MS Flight Simulator to get free VR support for Reverb G2 Release: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/07/30/microsoft-flight-simulator-steam-track-ir-and-vr-support/

Microsoft Flight Simulator to Launch on Steam on August 18; TrackIR and VR Supported
by Jorg Neumann, Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator • Jul 30, 2020 @ 12:01am

In addition to availability on Windows 10 and Xbox Game Pass for PC (Xbox Game Pass for PC is currently in Beta), Microsoft Flight Simulator will also be coming to Steam on August 18. We are thrilled to announce that Steam pre-orders for the Standard, Deluxe, and Premium Deluxe editions of Microsoft Flight Simulator start today!

Listening to the community has been a priority for the development team since the announcement of Microsoft Flight Simulator in June 2019. Two of the most requested features we’ve been hearing about from the Community are TrackIR and VR support. Today we are excited to announce that Microsoft Flight Simulator will have TrackIR support available on day one, and VR support will be available later this year in time for the launch of the HP Reverb G2!

TrackIR

TrackIR is the premier head tracking solution delivering full six degree of freedom (6DOF) camera control for an ultra-immersive simulator experience. TrackIR allows simmers to enjoy a low latency mouse free look around with Microsoft Flight Simulator in full 4K/HDR, while still allowing easy interaction with a suite of hardware peripherals.

HP Reverb G2

Created by HP in collaboration with Microsoft and Valve, the upcoming Reverb G2 headset has a bright, high resolution display, excellent tracking, and immersive audio to take maximum advantage of Microsoft Flight Simulator’s incredible visuals and fully 3D soundscape. The HP Reverb G2 will be available later this fall and the VR update will be a free update for all Microsoft Flight Simulator players.

In addition to Track IR and VR, we also continue to work with partners like Honeycomb Aeronautical, Logitech G, Thrustmaster, Virtual Fly and many other manufacturers to further improve your Microsoft Flight Simulator experience. We are excited to support Honeycomb’s upcoming Bravo Throttle Quadrant and Thrustmaster’s new TCA Sidestick and Quadrant Airbus edition peripherals. We are also committed to supporting existing peripherals and home cockpits via an updated SimConnect.

Xbox Game Studios and Asobo Studio are committed to the community, and the ongoing support of Microsoft Flight Simulator with experience enhancing features like those we’ve announced today. But we have even more planned post-launch! In the future, we will update our development roadmap with continued simulator updates such as themed DLC bundles, free world updates and more. We will be sharing more news in the coming months.

 

[Dexter]

 

[A horse of course]

This doesn't seem to have gone over well, and there's an awful lot of recent Negative reviews because of it and people generally complaining in the forums and whatever: https://store.steampowered.com/app/496240/Onward/
Although there was apparently at least one article trying to make this sound like "a good thing": https://uploadvr.com/onward-pc-downgrade/

The article didn't seem to be trying to defend the move at all. They just said it was clear the decision was made to chase the larger Quest audience's normiebucks at the expensive of PC VR enthusiasts, and compared it to developers downgrading their games to make them work on Switch.

 

[A horse of course]