cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Waiting to try the vive

Malkmus1979
Explorer
So I drove down to San Diego this morning to try the Vive via their tour bus at Comic Con. And guess what, I'm the only one In line! Granted I'm here two hours early so I could get back to work as soon as possible. Anyway they're all setting up right now. I've read a lot of reviews from Yesterday complaining about judder and the volcanic temperatures in the "bus", actually a truck. So anyway, I'll be sure to give my own impressions as soon as I can!
35 REPLIES 35

ThreeDeeVision
Superstar
You get to try all the cool stuff, lucky!
i7 5960X @ 3.8 GHz | Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 PC2800 | GTX Titan X Pascal | Win 10 64 bit | Asus ROG PG348Q | EVGA X99 Classified

snappahead
Expert Protege
Looking forward to your report. I heard the same about judder. They need to straighten that out pronto. The whole point of this tour (so I assume) is to show people how awesome VR is. Showing a hot, juddery demo isn't how you do that.
i7 3820 16 gigs of Ram GTX 780ti

Malkmus1979
Explorer
Some quick impressions as I just got back to work, but I'll briefly list my main takeaways from demoing the Vive. First, it was amazing. best VR experience I've had, and yes, I felt presence but only in the Portal demo. I also did The Blu and that was ok.

1. Vive is heavier than Oculus Rift CV1, felt some pressure on my bridge that caused me to push it up a couple times.

2. Vive FOV felt wider than CV1.
(EDIT: I think this was due to the screen being closer to my eyes than CV1. And CV1 at E3 did not have functional IPD slider)

3. SDE seemed even less than CV1 as I saw zero pixels. On CV1 in Eve Valkyrie I could make out pixels on certain things like lasers.

4. No judder. Although the wands in Portal did flicker a couple times. Occlusion?

5. The wands were wireless, but weren't as ergonomic as they seemed like they can be. Felt a little clunky.

6. Most important! The space in the HTC truck was roughly 8x8 and it was a problem, big time. I couldn't look over the sides of the ship in The Blu and in Portal backing away to get a good look at things often caused the grid to pop off, very often. I feel like a couple more feet would have been perfect. I think 10x10 will be the minimum to enjoy these experiences.

7. The wire was cumbersome, and immersion-breaking. Almost as much as the chaperone grid constantly appearing.

8. Audio was very low, and the environment noisy, also breaking immersion. (This is more just a criticism of the demo environment than anything else)

9. No gap under the eyes like CV1 or Morpheus.

10. Portal was extremely realistic. I felt like I really was in that Aperture lab.

VizionVR
Rising Star
That's great you got to try it, and only, what, two weeks after CV1? Too bad the room was smaller than optimal.
Was the volume too low to gauge audio quality?
Built in headphones?
Any weird artifacts from the fresnel lenses?
Chromatic aberration?
Sweet spot comparison?

Thanks for allowing us to virtually experience the Vive. 😄
Not a Rift fanboi. Not a Vive fanboi. I'm a VR fanboi. Get it straight.

Malkmus1979
Explorer
"vizionvr" wrote:
That's great you got to try it, and only, what, two weeks after CV1? Too bad the room was smaller than optimal.
Was the volume too low to gauge audio quality?
Built in headphones?
Any weird artifacts from the fresnel lenses?
Chromatic aberration?
Sweet spot comparison?

Thanks for allowing us to virtually experience the Vive. 😄


Headphones were separate- I prefer the Rift built-in ones. There's enough wires as it is.
Volume was way too low. This made enjoying The Blu difficult. That combined with the inability to explore much really broke the impression. I asked the rep to turn it up and she tried, but I didn't notice a difference.
No weird artifacts, and though there really was no visible SDE, there was as another dev has described "a grain" or noise to it. It was hardly noticeable. Really only during the start-up screen when it's all white.
No sweet spot issues. Overall it was great, but using the Vive wands does feel like you're holding two prosthetic hook hands like you get for a pirate costume. I have a feeling Touch is more natural feeling.

pedrw
Expert Protege
What is the difference of the size of the FOV relative DK2 ?

Malkmus1979
Explorer
"pedrw" wrote:
What is the difference of the size of the FOV relative DK2 ?


Well, if the Vive is 110, the Rift then felt like 105, and DK2 is 100, right? So 10 degrees, which really did help. On my Gear VR S6 the FOV is closer to 90 degrees and I usually notice when I first put it on, and it gradually goes away when in an app, but still intrudes my vision occasionally. The Vive is the first headset where I felt no disappointment whatsoever. I'm still holding out hope that the Rift FOV could match the Vive once the IPD slider is functional (and also the fact that it was put loosely on me by the rep.)

pedrw
Expert Protege
If you could keep one of them now, which would you choose? The Rift or Vive HTC ? It's because ?

Malkmus1979
Explorer
"pedrw" wrote:
If you could keep one of them now, which would you choose? The Rift or Vive HTC ? It's because ?


I'd say the Vive, because it was closer to my eyes, therefore wider FOV, and no light leakage. But I really need to try them again back to back.