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Lenovo’s new App brings VR to every game (New VR Headset also revealed)

Shadowmask72
Honored Visionary
You can read about the new prototype $400 VR headset from Lenovo here.

https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/03/lenovo-vr-headset-windows/



Quote Techgeeks article.

Today at CES Lenovo revealed a new App called  Entertainment Hub, a single VR-based application for your games and media library. Lenovo’s Entertainment Hub turns all your TV shows, Movies, and even games into VR content. Even the games that are not natively built for VR platform can be played in Virtual Reality environment.

There is nothing groundbreaking with media playback mode while watching  TV shows and Movie the app turns your surrounding into a movie theater.Pretty much the same thing that all VR headsets are doing. The real surprise comes in the gaming department, the app can scale and turn your Non-VR games into the VR material. The VR headset tracks your head motions and you can use a standard Xbox controller to interact with the game.

It is not clear how many games will actually be playable using this app, but according to Lenovo every game can be transformed into the VR content. One of the biggest problem with the VR platform is the lack of content availability and it is good to see companies like Lenovo coming up with the smart ways to fix this problem.



System Specs: MSI NVIDIA RTX 4090 , i5 13700K CPU, 32GB DDR 4 RAM, Win 11 64 Bit OS.
18 REPLIES 18

Anonymous
Not applicable
Looks like the PSVR strap won the comfort design 🙂

I'm really interested to see how well it tracks compared to the rift/vive.

I couldn't see much else about their app...is it just a virtual cinema or more like VorpX? I find VorpX games horrible to play, always get motion sick 😛

Anonymous
Not applicable

FrozenPea said:

Looks like the PSVR strap won the comfort design 🙂

I'm really interested to see how well it tracks compared to the rift/vive.

I couldn't see much else about their app...is it just a virtual cinema or more like VorpX? I find VorpX games horrible to play, always get motion sick 😛


I'm betting virtual cinema - maybe with 3d. Trying to get old titles to play well in VR is a tough nut to crack, and each title has to be analysed and a code-injector profile created so the right features in the graphics pipeline are tweaked to work right. This is the way VorpX and (I gather) Vireio do it, and the results are often problematic.

Vorpx has just (a few days ago) released a new version with much, much better profiles for some games. Hugely reduces the nausea factor, I was able to play Skyrim without feeling any nausea. But only a very few games have had these improved profiles created for them so far.

Even with perfect profiles, there will still be performance issues because the games were never designed for the kind of low latency, high framerate that VR demands. Also, the menus are never scaled right (with Skyrim in Vorpx you have to switch to a view with visible borders to shrink the menus down to be fully visible), and the control schemes are VR unfriendly. As well as the speed of movement and turning being usually too fast and so nausea inducing.

[edit]
Hm. The Techgeeks article does sound as if Lenovo are trying to do a full VR conversion. I have my doubts about how successful it'll be...

kevinw729
Honored Visionary
I too have serious concerns about how well this approach will achieve a "suitable" level of immersion from the content not created for VR - and also a lot of the current editorial about his platform seems to skirt the main question of "is it good VR"!

I want to believe that this is not the 2017 version of VRHead - but at the same time, I also want to feel safe that this is a serious contender.

All that aside the system has been well presented. Borrowing heavily from the Sony Glasstron/HMZ form factor.
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959

Warbloke
Superstar

Before I got my Rift, while I was experimenting with Google Cardboard (on my iPhone 5 at the time)
I downloaded a free app called 'Intugame VR' for my phone and my Windows PC, creating a client and server relationship.

This free app took anything I could see on my PC, including even games not designed for VR, and turned it into a split screen VR experience.

I played Left for Dead 2 on Steam, in Windowed mode, and I was able to look around the map like I was inside the game while playing.

While I found it a bit darker than normal, it did work, and I was mildly impressed.
It was nowhere near the quality of immersion I now have in my Rift, but this was a long time ago... and cost nothing to try.

I did think at the time, its a matter of time before someone picks up this type of 'streaming' into a better dedicated device, perhaps done in a much better way even.

I wonder if this is it ?


edit - Im also not sure if skirting the question 'is it good VR?' is not wise.

Who decides what is and isn't 'good vr ' - it might be an individual preference, based on what you can afford.

I thought that Intugame thing was good VR... for the price of 'free'.
Obviously there is better VR... depending on how much you want to spend.

If someone out there decided a Rolls Royce is a 'good car' and therefore anything that wasn't a Rolls was a lesser car, then I'd call shenanigans.
There are lots of cars, that are still perfectly good cars, and cost less.

I think this is why I found the discussion on a 'VR standard' interesting... although it might have been on the wrong thread, and getting a little heated.

If a standard of what is the minimal spec of acceptable VR could be agreed, then anything less than that could be considered below standard, or above standard.
I think companies could still seek to better the 'standard' to move things forward.


"You can't believe everything you read on the Internet " :- Abraham Lincoln 

Stryker1000
Heroic Explorer
a Lenovo VR headset ! .... oh goodie !!!  does it come with superfish preinstalled ???  

Anonymous
Not applicable

Warbloke said:

[snip]

I think this is why I found the discussion on a 'VR standard' interesting... although it might have been on the wrong thread, and getting a little heated.

If a standard of what is the minimal spec of acceptable VR could be agreed, then anything less than that could be considered below standard, or above standard.
I think companies could still seek to better the 'standard' to move things forward.



In the absence (so far!) of any critical safety issues around VR, I think that the 'standard' will either be driven by what consumers are prepared to pay for, or by one company or consortium managing to dominate the industry and make their 'standard' the de facto one 🙂

kevinw729
Honored Visionary

AndyW1384 said:


In the absence (so far!) of any critical safety issues around VR...


I think you may find that a number of consumer game associations are calling for a standard after initial reports of safety issues (so far). There is also a report in one media service that a number of customers are "investigating" a legal claim for damage/injury incurred while using a VR system [hardware not known].
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959

Anonymous
Not applicable

kevinw729 said:


AndyW1384 said:


In the absence (so far!) of any critical safety issues around VR...


I think you may find that a number of consumer game associations are calling for a standard after initial reports of safety issues (so far). There is also a report in one media service that a number of customers are "investigating" a legal claim for damage/injury incurred while using a VR system [hardware not known].


It'll be interesting to see if severity and/or frequency of issues raise this up to the level of government safety standards being imposed. If not, then we may be back to a market-domination scenario, as any manufacturer that can shift the vast majority of headsets will have great influence on any voluntary industry safety standards that emerge.

Back on topic, I was cynically amused that Lenovo weren't actually able to demo a working device to Engadget! 😄 

kojack
MVP
MVP


according to Lenovo every game can be transformed into the VR content.


Hmm, Baldur's Gate? Original Zork?
🙂

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