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Author Topic: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?  (Read 36588 times)

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Howard_Casto

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Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« on: January 03, 2019, 02:53:40 am »
So Walmart has this pos(?) on sale for 20 bucks:

https://slickdeals.net/f/12576460-vr-tek-windows-vr-glasses-fhd-resolution-2560x1440-black-free-shipping-to-bm-22?src=SiteSearchV2_SearchBarV2Algo1

I'm assuming it's fairly terrible for vr with bad optics and no motion tracking but I'm wondering if it might still be useful for limited use and/or hacking.  Assuming the info is correct it's 4k per eye, so it must have some decent lcds inside at least.  It might be a good source of parts for projects or something.  I've had a hard time finding info on it.  No reviews ect. except for the mouth breathers on Walmart.com.  I'm just curious if it works on games manually added to steam... then it might be a decent toy. 
« Last Edit: January 03, 2019, 01:27:38 pm by Howard_Casto »

RandyT

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #1 on: January 03, 2019, 11:01:17 am »
It's probably not 4k per-eye.  I would guess that for the price though, it's a no-brainer.  It may be worth the 20 bux just for the wireless controller packaged with it. Someone took a short video through the lens, and the image looked surprisingly good.  He felt it was worth more than  the $50 he paid for it.  The limited info I have seen on it makes it seem decent, but being only 3DOF there are only a few things it's good for:

Seated experiences with a game controller.  There are some, but it's usually not the focus of VR developers.
Cockpit-type games like racing, flight sims, Elite Dangerous!
VR Videos (you know the type)

You'll get only 60hz refresh and no room-scale.  You'll also see IMU drift, due to it having no external sensors to track the actual headset position.  It's not a deal breaker, but you will need to re-center occasionally.  Also, these things, like other PC-based headsets, will require a beefy system to drive them.  Do you have a graphics card and PC capable of it (or plan on getting one soon?)  If not, then save your money.  But if you do, you should have ordered one before they change their mind.  I just bought a couple just to play with :)

On a side note, don't use CD autorun and run the drivers through every virus, adware, malware and trojan checker you can find before you install them.  I always find Chinese hardware a bit fishy when only CD-based drivers from executable launchers are used, which seems to be the case here.

pbj

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #2 on: January 03, 2019, 11:04:00 am »
Just spend the $200 and get a PSVR bundle, bro.

RandyT

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2019, 12:06:44 pm »
Just spend the $200 and get a PSVR bundle, bro.

Also not a bad option, but then again, it's lower resolution (but OLED, higher refresh rates and better comfort) and no Steam access, without some extra cash for paid drivers and hacking.  Also more like over $300 if you want Move controllers, unless you find a nice deal somewhere.

For $20, including a wireless game controller, maybe do the PSVR route after deciding whether one likes the VR stuff.  Hard to go wrong at the price.  But if the PC isn't up to spec, there's no point.  Go straight to the PSVR.

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #4 on: January 03, 2019, 12:51:07 pm »
Go to Wal-Mart and get the $5 clearance VR glasses.  Put them on, sit cross legged on the floor.  Close your eyes and imagine you have an oculus rift with all the dodads.

You would get a better experience.  Don't laugh, as it is a form of meditation, without judgement.






« Last Edit: January 05, 2019, 11:25:45 pm by ark_ader »
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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #5 on: January 03, 2019, 01:26:11 pm »
I'm thinking for 20 it's probably worth playing with.  I do intend to get a psvr eventually, but I've got like 6 or 7 AAA titles still in my backlog so that'll probably last me until around Easter when they do the $100 off deal again.  Since apparently the hacked drivers for psvr don't work well on the pc I was thinking this would be a good alternative for the few steam games I would want to play.  VR fps games just seem like a vomit fest for me.  If I didn't just hack the thing apart and use it for parts, I would most likely use it for stationary games like racers and flight games.  There's some drivers out there for repurposing wiimotes and/or the Kinect to add in additional motion tracking but it's most likely a mess to setup so I'm not counting on it. 


I think my pc is on the cusp, so I'm not sure if it'll run or not.  I've got an overclocked R7 in this machine... not sure what the nvidia equivalent is. 

pbj

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #6 on: January 03, 2019, 01:42:06 pm »
I think you are setting yourself up for frustration and failure, frankly.  We all love a challenge around here, and I think you're capable of making it worthwhile eventually...

But $200 PSVR is plug and play and a nice experience.





05SRT4

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #7 on: January 03, 2019, 02:14:35 pm »
I've got an overclocked R7 in this machine... not sure what the nvidia equivalent is.

About a GTX 9800

RandyT

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #8 on: January 03, 2019, 03:36:15 pm »
I think you may have a bit of a struggle with that card.  Some things may work ok, but an awful lot won't.  You might pick up some slack from the 33% refresh rate loss, but I get the feeling that this won't be enough, given the resolution of the device.  What does the SteamVR Performance Test tell you when you run it?

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #9 on: January 03, 2019, 07:13:12 pm »
I've got an overclocked R7 in this machine... not sure what the nvidia equivalent is.

About a GTX 9800

More like a GTX 9500 2GB and I'm being generous here.
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BadMouth

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #10 on: January 03, 2019, 07:23:51 pm »
I looked at it this morning and passed.  Without motion tracking, it's just a pair of little monitors in a helmet.  Still worth $20, but uncertainty about whether the monitors could be used separately in other projects kept me from buying.

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #11 on: January 03, 2019, 07:52:21 pm »
I looked at it this morning and passed.  Without motion tracking, it's just a pair of little monitors in a helmet.  Still worth $20, but uncertainty about whether the monitors could be used separately in other projects kept me from buying.

There has to be a gyro sensor or two in there as well.  It looks to me like it's basically a GearVR with a built in screen, SteamVR support and higher resolution than most cell phones can deliver.  I'm the most curious about the execution of the device (optics, etc.).  If nothing else, maybe I can use the face pads and/or head straps for modding one of my other units.

Howard_Casto

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #12 on: January 03, 2019, 08:37:15 pm »
I just tested this pc and yeah, the video card is too slow.  Surprisingly the other components of the pc aren't a bottleneck and this rig is getting pretty old.  I've been meaning to get a new pc, but I decided to put it off another year or until I see a good sale.   

But yeah it has tilt sensors, just not motion tracking. 

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #13 on: January 04, 2019, 01:33:57 am »
I just tested this pc and yeah, the video card is too slow.

I can't remember, did it give you any other info?  Like I stated earlier, it should have a reduced requirement, due to being limited to 60hz refresh, as the test probably comes to it's conclusions based on the standard 90hz.

The PSVR probably is the best option for you at this point.  It pretty much just works when you plug in all the wires.

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #14 on: January 04, 2019, 02:16:30 am »
I ordered one purely to see if I can make a better personal environmental development system, which I stupidly got interested in while researching for my doctorate.  I have a design with my Note 5 and the Samsung VR, but I am having problems with heat.  The Gear VR has no way to lose the heat without adding small fans that make a crap amount of noise.  If this device turns out to have better heat management and a reduced resolution, to prevent eye strain, then I can add head tracking later on either via Kinect or Wii Mote if necessary.

If anything this device could be a cheaper way to play dig dug or watch a decent movie in bed without waking the girlfriend up.  Unfortunately the reviews do not give much optimism, there again they could be millennials wanting/complaining  something for nothing as usual.   We will see.  :lol

Howard, would this device not hinder/impair your vision/condition further? 
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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #15 on: January 04, 2019, 02:52:02 am »
I had surgery on my eye.  I'm no longer 20/20, and I have a decent astigmatism but I'm ok now in that dept.  It took well over a year for it to fully heal though.  The 3d effect is slightly diminished for me because of the distortion in that eye, but I can see it, especially with rigs where I can wear my glasses. 

Randy the results screen, if you can call it that, wasn't very informative.  All it told me was that 100% of the tests scored under 90 fps, which I could have told them myself.  I might just get one for the hell of it.... if we were talking a couple of hundred I would take pause, but I wouldn't feel bad about trying it once and throwing it in a drawer.  The only thing giving making me second guess it is I think this video card only supports 1440p.  Strangely enough I think it supports full 4k when spanned across multiple monitors.  AMD cards can be weird. 

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #16 on: January 04, 2019, 06:09:52 pm »
This 11 year old idea might be the solution to the head tracking problem.

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #17 on: January 05, 2019, 10:53:49 am »
This 11 year old idea might be the solution to the head tracking problem.



That's pretty much how the PSVR and Rift do it.  The challenge would be incorporating the IMU data and writing a driver so the whole thing puts out something meaningful to SteamVR.

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #18 on: January 05, 2019, 12:07:36 pm »
I looked at it this morning and passed.  Without motion tracking, it's just a pair of little monitors in a helmet.  Still worth $20, but uncertainty about whether the monitors could be used separately in other projects kept me from buying.

There has to be a gyro sensor or two in there as well.  It looks to me like it's basically a GearVR with a built in screen, SteamVR support and higher resolution than most cell phones can deliver.  I'm the most curious about the execution of the device (optics, etc.).  If nothing else, maybe I can use the face pads and/or head straps for modding one of my other units.
Ok.  I misunderstood and thought no tracking=no motion sensing at all.  I get it now.

Now I''m tempted to order one and try it with a VR racing setup.  As long as the sensors could register your head turning to look around, there isn't much need for other tracking.  Virtual hands will move with the steering wheel.  45 degree field of view isn't great for racing though.

I'm blind in one eye so don't need a stereoscopic setup.  Hopefully someday there will be a flexible lightweight screen that could wrap halfway around a helmet for a wide viewing angle.  Add tracking to that and I'd be set.

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #19 on: January 05, 2019, 01:17:30 pm »
This 11 year old idea might be the solution to the head tracking problem.



That's pretty much how the PSVR and Rift do it.  The challenge would be incorporating the IMU data and writing a driver so the whole thing puts out something meaningful to SteamVR.

There are some drivers floating around already... mind you I think you have to pay a little for them, but they do exist.  It's just a question of how well it works. 

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #20 on: January 05, 2019, 01:35:36 pm »
If I didn't just hack the thing apart and use it for parts, I would most likely use it for stationary games like racers and flight games.

My experience with sim games and VR is they tend to need higher-than-average system requirements for a good experience. Otherwise you end up having to trade off a lot of visual fidelity which can make sim games not overly playable in VR.
« Last Edit: January 05, 2019, 01:39:32 pm by shponglefan »

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #21 on: January 05, 2019, 04:22:40 pm »
It stayed in stock too long (which is probably a bad sign).  I just ordered one.
Here is some more info and what the controller looks like: http://direkt-tek.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Direkt_Tek_PC_WVR_QSG_Oct17.pdf

I have a 6GB GTX 1060.

My expectations are that it be better than the plastic VR cell phone goggles I got for $3.50.


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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #22 on: January 05, 2019, 11:14:59 pm »
It stayed in stock too long (which is probably a bad sign).  I just ordered one.
Here is some more info and what the controller looks like: http://direkt-tek.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Direkt_Tek_PC_WVR_QSG_Oct17.pdf

I have a 6GB GTX 1060.

My expectations are that it be better than the plastic VR cell phone goggles I got for $3.50.

Well that is encouraging.  So my RX580 will "just work" eh?  I wonder why the requirements are so high?  Well your 1060 might just scrape by.  I am hoping I can add this VR to my setup as a mirrored 4th monitor.  Not sure I can do that with eye infinity enabled....

This is getting more interesting by the post.  Thanks Howard.  Excuse my earlier skepticism ;D
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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #23 on: January 06, 2019, 08:43:26 am »
The reviews say it isn't 4k per eye and only one video connector is required.   A 5.5" screen is mentioned somewhere else, so pretty sure this setup only has one screen.  I'd think the video card requirements would be much lower than VR setups with two separate screens.

Not sure how much weight I'd give to the manufacturer's system requirements since they also list 256GB of hard drive space.  I can't imagine what that would be for.


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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #24 on: January 06, 2019, 01:10:25 pm »
The reviews say it isn't 4k per eye and only one video connector is required.   A 5.5" screen is mentioned somewhere else, so pretty sure this setup only has one screen.  I'd think the video card requirements would be much lower than VR setups with two separate screens.

I'd say you were correct.  I think the real "gem" (if there is one) is likely to be the 1440x1440 model.  It's $10 more, but it seems to be the better model, with physical IPD adjustment (important if you don't fall within the "norms").  This, and the smaller screen size spec, seems to imply that there are two panels of that resolution, one for each eye.  But it's a crapshoot at this point.

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #25 on: January 06, 2019, 02:39:08 pm »
I'm going to pick one up even if I can't use it until I get a new pc.  Should I get the $30 one then?  I know with those cruddy cellphone housings I always have to adjust the lens placement a little. 

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #26 on: January 06, 2019, 10:22:51 pm »
I'm going to pick one up even if I can't use it until I get a new pc.  Should I get the $30 one then?  I know with those cruddy cellphone housings I always have to adjust the lens placement a little.

More pixels will (likely) need more grunt. You may have a better chance of using the 1920x1080 model with your current PC (same res as the PSVR) if that's what you want to do. 

But the 1440x1440 (2880x1440?) model which I assume from the photos has IPD adjustment *may* be a better choice, if you plan to get a new graphics card.  The difference between the models is mostly conjecture at the moment, due to there being little information available. 

IOW, you would be taking a chance, no matter what you decide.  If you have $50 to blow, maybe get both.  The lowest res one to try with your current card now, and the higher res one for later.


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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #27 on: January 07, 2019, 12:22:57 am »
Thought about it again and common sense finally kicked in.  Only the 4k one is on sale, so I ordered that one.  If it works great, if not I'll get one of the other ones.  I mainly want to see if the "must use steam VR" limitation can be worked around.  Much like badmouth I'm not so interested in the 3d effect but rather having a portable 4k screen.  I found the camera data in outrun 2006 so I might be able to add a head controlled mode if it's in 2d.  It'd probably work for stuff like future pinball even on this puny rig.   

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #28 on: January 07, 2019, 11:37:59 am »

All of the units are heavily reduced.  The UHD version started out at $99 a few months ago.

I've had the Vive get confused at least a couple of times, which caused it to show as a second desktop in the headset.  The issue is that when this happens, you get half the image in each eye, which is then overlaid.  It's counter-intuitive, but even "2D" has to at least be stereoscopically represented.  And, more often than not, you would want to shrink the images and offset them to make it appear to be a distance in front of you.

It's probably the least processor intensive way to make things appear properly in a headset, but it still needs to be done for a usable image.

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #29 on: January 07, 2019, 12:49:40 pm »
I pickup mine tomorrow so I will run a batch of test and update, luckily the main PC is 2 feet away, I will also have been to day one of CES, so I should sleep pretty good that night.  It will be nice to see if this VR rig has no heat issues or it will modded for cooling (I have a frigging big heatsink) and I'll stay with the Samsung VR for Elite Dangerous.  This device seems to be online only. My super center at wallyworld is not in stock.  But I picked up a EVO VR controller for $9, which has more buttons the the Zeemote (remember that?) and it has mouse support so I should have fun playing Starwars Vector and getting wrist cramps.

Since I got the 1080 version, I will test it with the Tinker and a Windows slate.
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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #30 on: January 07, 2019, 01:17:54 pm »

All of the units are heavily reduced.  The UHD version started out at $99 a few months ago.

I've had the Vive get confused at least a couple of times, which caused it to show as a second desktop in the headset.  The issue is that when this happens, you get half the image in each eye, which is then overlaid.  It's counter-intuitive, but even "2D" has to at least be stereoscopically represented.  And, more often than not, you would want to shrink the images and offset them to make it appear to be a distance in front of you.

It's probably the least processor intensive way to make things appear properly in a headset, but it still needs to be done for a usable image.


Well for outrun at least, I can get the render target to show up as only half of the screen (or a quarter or whatever) and just blank out the rest.  That should be good enough I would think.  I get what you are saying though, you can't just display a regular image on the screen and expect it to work. 

I don't think these are going to sell out anytime soon (thus the heavy discount) so we've probably got enough time to play around.  Hell if they are junk just take them back. 

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #31 on: January 07, 2019, 02:45:31 pm »
So just for the hell of it I threw the steam vr test on a much newer i5 dell laptop I have as a backup.  The results didn't make a lick of sense.  It also said this one wasn't up to snuff, but it also said that it ran above 90 fps about half of the time and the cpu, which is generally considered faster than the cpu I have in this desktop, was partially to blame.  Now keep in mind the laptop has a crappy integrated intel hd graphics card and the desktop I tested before passed in the cpu dept and failed in the graphics. 

Long story short I'm just going to have to try.  It's throwing up the wrong culprits for things not running smoothly.

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #32 on: January 08, 2019, 07:40:21 pm »
Picked mine up.  Just starting to fiddle with installing Steam VR and the drivers. 
Only complaint so far is that the HDMI cord is short.
User manual is attached.

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #33 on: January 08, 2019, 07:47:25 pm »
So it came today.  Decent packaging well protected.  HDMI needs a usb for power and my rig is next to me and a good job too as the cable is about 6 feet.  Shows up as a portrait monitor in windows so I will scan the ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- out of the supplied CD for nasties and then try and get it going.  The controller is not that bad really.  Almost like a PS2 controller.  So I hope I can mirror the 4th display with the eye infinity setup or it is going to be an interesting half an hour.

I'm having problems upping images put I will post a few.  If I was you I would order the 1920 x 1080 version unless you have dual GTX 2080.   :lol
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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #34 on: January 08, 2019, 07:48:39 pm »
So I played around with it more.  I managed to get the controller working and Steam thinks this is a Vive.  I am getting a nice purple image from the right side, but no video.  Since the required settings are less in the accompanying documentation, I will try it on the laptop as the PC is not liking things.  Head tracking is working, so either I have a duff unit or I need to tinker more with it.

Any suggestions please shout out.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2019, 10:09:22 am by ark_ader »
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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #35 on: January 08, 2019, 08:40:13 pm »
For $20, the wvr2 has to be the deal of the century.  Yes, no motion controllers, only 3DOF, some smearing when moving your head, some chromatic aberration and I have yet to get a seamless experience starting up SteamVR (still working on figuring out the magic order to do things).   

But seriously, this thing is worth much more than that if all you did was play Lucky's Tale and watch VR video.  The controller feels good and works well.  The headset isn't too heavy or uncomfortable.  The image is bright and colorful, and very sharp even beyond the center of the lenses.  Almost no "screen door" effect.  Steam is reporting this thing as 1440 x 2560 (IIRC) per eye, at 100%.  Based on how nice it looks, I can't tell for certain that's an error.  The 1070 also seems to handle it fine (just).

My Odyssey is much smoother, has a larger FOV, etc.. but man, for image quality, this one is better.

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #36 on: January 08, 2019, 09:22:56 pm »
I got the WVR2.  Steam VR kept starting in Safe mode.  Not sure how I finally got through it, but in a dozen attempts at disabling safe mode and enabling direct mode, it finally started working.
It works OK with the one Steam VR compatible game I already had (race the sun).

This is my first VR device other than a cheap cell phone holder.

Does the Steam VR room and tutorial work without the VR controllers?
The gamepad doesn't seem to cover all the functions.  I can't seem to do much or even click "next" on the menu.
I'd like to be able to walk around using the gamepad.
Seems like too much is dependent on having other handheld controllers.

I guess the screen is clear, but when watching a video the blur at the edges of the lenses starts too close to the center for me to enjoy it as a real option.

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #37 on: January 08, 2019, 10:27:08 pm »
I'm new to VR, but so far...meh. 
Neither steam media player nor Holoview recognize most of my ripped media (mp4).
The media that it did play was lower quality, so not a good test.
Watched a few videos on the youtube steam app.
It seems to be pretty useless outside of Steam.
Any free games worth trying to check out the VR experience?

The screwdriver is probably coming out tomorrow.  >:D



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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #38 on: January 08, 2019, 10:46:33 pm »
Does the Steam VR room and tutorial work without the VR controllers?

Motion controllers are required. That's the major selling point of current PC VR; the ability to use room scale and motion controllers. Consequently a lot of VR games/experiences you'll find on Steam are designed with those in mind.

The WVR2 seems highly limited if all it has is tilt tracking, but no positional tracking or motion controllers. Probably usable for 180/360 video but I can't imagine too much else it would be useful with. Maybe some seated games that don't rely on motion controllers?
« Last Edit: January 08, 2019, 10:49:42 pm by shponglefan »

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Re: Highly Discounted VR toy... what do you guys make of it?
« Reply #39 on: January 08, 2019, 10:55:33 pm »
Any free games worth trying to check out the VR experience?

Install ReVive and Oculus.  Lucky's Tale is free (or at least it was) and it will show you that platformers in VR can be legit.  As long as you are there, check out Aircar.  Both work with just a controller.