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An in-depth analysis of the current state of virtual reality

arman64
Honored Guest
(My original article was on Reddit, I just thought to post it here for the people who do not use it)

To the developers, enthusiasts, consumers and the Oculus team.

I have received my rift several days ago and I have been excessively tinkering, reviewing and testing virtually all the DK2 compatible demos. I have been demonstrating this device to many different people from all walks of life; kids, doctors, IT enthusiasts, gamers, athletes, mothers, the elderly and the average 80kg male who watches AFL on Friday. Additionally, I have demoed the device on numerous differently equipped PC’s with power ranging from the classic ATI 9800XT to the exceptional NVidia Titans. The peripherals I have used the Oculus with are the Thrustmaster T500 wheel/pedal combo, HOTAS Warthog, Pagnian Imports Ultimate V2 cockpit, Buttkicker V2 transducer and the Razer Hydra.

Personally, I am a medical doctor who has been modding, programming and developing games since I was a child and VR has been, what I believe, the magnum opus of the technological world, a truly paradigm shifting concept that has been resurrected by oculus. I simply do not know and cannot even fathom where this technology will lead us in ten, twenty, fifty years from now but I can grasp what criteria this technology needs to meet in order to obtain a certain momentum in the consumer market.

I have used several HMD’s including the DK1 and been in simulators which are beyond the financial means of many so I do have some experience of what technology is out there. Whenever I am not burdened with the stressors of my work, I daydream about the future of VR and how to make the experience better. I am sure we all do in this wonderful community, we really do care about the success of the Oculus.

I completely understand that this device is a developer kit, however, its flaws are certainly apparent and it is crucial that oculus rectify certain hardware/software issues which I will now discuss in depth:

1. The Resolution: Currently the resolution is what every single person I demoed the device to complained about. At 1080p, the screen door effect is extremely observable, even though it is definitely a major improvement relative to the DK1. However people have been recently accustomed to and spoiled with not being able to pinpoint each individual pixel and certainly not see the spaces between the pixels for a while now. Practically everyone became frustrated by observing this phenomena and it really impacted their collective opinion on the Oculus. Furthermore, resolution is one of the biggest factors in picture quality and virtual reality demands this factor to be emphasized. Therefore, I believe 1440p for the CV1 to be insufficient. 4K should be the bare minimum for consumer VR. It is irrelevant if the PC demands for this is high as upscaling can easily be achieved without a significant increase in hardware demand.

2. The Flow: The term that I coined as ‘flow’ is simply an amalgamation of latency, refresh rate, smearing, tearing, judder etc…. basically how close to real life the device is at providing a convincing, dynamic image. Many of these issues are overcome by software and I am confident oculus have solved/solving this at the present. A break in ‘flow’ is catastrophic for VR, inducing unpleasant nausea, breaking immersion and presence, and plummeting image quality. Nevertheless, the ultimate limiting factor into achieving an acceptable rate of ‘flow’ is hardware constraints, especially modern GPU capabilities. There is a simple way to greatly improve this: benchmarking and adjusting the graphic setting parameters automatically to ensure an acceptable frame rate aligned with the consumer’s hardware. This is not an easy task to achieve but for the average consumer it is imperative.

3. The Aesthetics: I have always loved the Xbox 360 controller. I think it’s a stunning success in the world of gaming. Hence I was ecstatic when I discovered that oculus bought the team who designed the controller. Currently, the number of cables, weight and size need to be reduced and comfort needs to be improved dramatically. The setup was a major hurdle for the majority of people, especially the elderly, and this needs to automated and streamlined. Thus internal eye tracking and simplified customizing options need to be established.

4.The Input: While I absolutely loved the HOTAS and wheel, there needs to be a standard VR input. Controllers, mice, keyboards are all well and good but hand tracking and haptics are essential. A CV1 without this is a mistake. Omnidirectional treadmills are not for the consumer and will not be for several years, the STEM is very expensive and lacks proper haptics and hand tracking, and all the other motion trackers are unlikely to ever gain the required momentum to establish a wide consumer base. It is up to oculus to develop a medium which is cheap, accurate and aesthetic. Camera tracking is not sufficient as it lacks haptics, gloves with inducers or mechanics are most likely the best bet. Extras which aren’t necessary but would be beneficial are stereoscopic cameras on the front of the device because other than the obvious uses, they can be used for positional tracking (therefore getting rid of the external camera), a microphone, programmable buttons on the device itself and transducers in the rift.

5. The Optics: I was rather disappointed by the quality of the lenses, they are very easily scratched, the sweet spot is very small, the chromatic aberration is apparent even with software compensation and the FOV is diminished. There should be no compromise here as several people gave up on the device due to headaches, nausea and dizziness directly caused by issues from the lenses. Contact lenses are not going to work either as they dry up and become uncomfortable while gaming so Oculus needs to invest and add different lenses (as an optional extra) for people with focusing pathologies. Glasses in the rift is not a feasible option.

6. The Nausea: I am one the unfortunate people to experience nausea when even something very minute is off. Simulator sickness is still not %100 understood in the medical literature and I am personally going to establish some formal epidemiological research into causes and possible management. However, time in the rift is a tried and true remedy but 3-4 people refused to go back in the rift because of a difficult first experience (with a very basic demo).

7. The Software: There is no question that right now it is a mess, but that is OK, it will be resolved in due time. Oculus share is a fantastic idea because it centralises and ensures a degree of quality control in the content. The rules of VR content creation are rapidly evolving and better experiences are being constructed in unique and astonishing ways, I am truly impressed by some of the minds out there passionately working in this field. There is no doubt that there is a AAA title out there that will be the decisive reason for the consumers to buy the rift and whatever it is, I look forward to playing it. One thing I would love is the desk demo being replaced by something akin to the construct in the film ‘Matrix’. It worked as an VR intro for Neo, I’m sure it would work for us :p.

I know I’m being very critical for a developer kit, yet I believe that these are the changes that need to be performed for a successful launch. There is a solid chance that the CV1 will be a glorified DK3 and not a ‘real’ consumer version, however, in any case, I have a lot of faith in Oculus. They have certainly made my dream of VR come true and for that, you have my sincere gratitude.

Arman
2 REPLIES 2

Anonymous
Not applicable
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here Arman, because I'm not on Reddit much.

As a glasses wearer I especially agree with you on point 5 (The optics).
I have tried:
1) Glasses with A-cups: not comfortable at all. Fear of scratches. Only tried it once.
2) Contact lenses with A-cups: it's ok for short periods, but wearing contact lenses always annoy me with (PC/TV) monitor activities.
3) No glasses/contacts with B-cups: I have -3,00 (both eyes) and slight astigmatism, but I'm lucky my IPD = 63. Although I'm not seeing as sharp as with contact lenses & A-cups, it's still about 90% and this is the way I'm gonna use the DK2.

I hope that it will be possible to have fully customised Cups & hardware IPD adjustment in future versions of the Rift.

aiwaldmeister
Honored Guest
First of all, thanks for your review. You managed to write from a critical point of view without looking like you are whining.

On 1 - Resolution:
While i agree that resolution is very important and most VR-gins complain about it, a lot of them are not really aware of how much of their discomfort comes from low-res and how much from the screen-door effect. So i think most of them would be surprised how much better the same res would look without sde.
Im not going to make any set-in-stone suggestions about what resolution is the bare minimum.

On 3 - Aesthetics:
Signed

On 4 -Input:
I have to disagree here. I would love to have a gread VR-Input device included with the rift but i am afraid it is not possible without raising the costs of CV1 sigificantly. (not even thinking about haptics here)

On 5 - Optics:
I dont have my DK2 yet, but having read a lot of complaints about scratched lenses i hope they go back to a more resistant material for the lenses for CV1. It seems noone had issues with srcatched DK1-lenses. (including me)

On 6 - Nausea:
This one is now up to the game-developers i think. Oculus can´t do more than encourage developers to obey the best-practice suggestions for VR-applications. Even theoretically perfect VR makes you dizzy if the same experience makes you dizzy in real life... (unnatural movements/accelerations/turning/etc...)