I'm a bit depressed that the Index is 1) completely unavailable and 2) even if it was, for some stupid reason unavailable to (easily...) acquire in Canada.
Anyone have recommendations for a top-end PC VR system other than the Index? I was hoping to try out NMS VR, but I don't want to settle for a sub-par VR headset.
At this point I can't say that the Index is really worth the price of admission. It's a hefty price tag, and I genuinely don't feel like it improves much beyond the other options out there. I particularly feel like the issues with the controllers put the Index into a distinct "Wait and see" or at least "Wait for the price to drop" category. My controllers are clearly defective with regard to finger tracking at this point, and the replacement/repair path is becoming a pain to navigate.
I honestly feel like the image quality isn't that much better on the Index at all compared to either the Oculus or the Vive. In fact, given that the Oculus Touch controllers are so good, I'd hazard to say that Oculus is what I'd consider my favorite VR headset at the moment. That comes with some huge qualifications, though - The tracking is much better on the Index, and the Oculus storefront is something I really don't want to have to deal with at all. The Oculus software isn't very fun, either, given how invasive it is. It's not perfect, is what I'm saying. None of the VR options are.
But my point is that the Index isn't the killer that it's being hyped up as right now. The LCD screens REALLY struggle for deep blacks compared to the OLED competitors, for example. And that's before we even start talking about the controller failures.
Either the Vive or the Oculus are going to give a very, very good experience. The extra cash for the Index isn't going to be worth it, in my opinion, so I'd snag whichever of the other two strikes your fancy and feel confident you got a much better value.
I was thinking of waiting and seeing if there was a Black Friday deal or something...
For the Quest? It's possible, but I'm not sure I'd count on it. Supposedly Facebook is selling them as fast as they can make them. They don't need to goose demand at all by offering a sale. But who knows, VR has historically rotted on retail shelves, maybe demand will fall off around Christmas season, and they'll feel motivated to get it back into people's consumer consciousness.
I didn't want to wait all the way to Christmas! Black Friday was stretching it! :P
I disagree with the optics on the Index -- it's quite a bit better than the Vive was for me. It's immediately noticeable in even stuff like Superhot, and super noticeable in more graphically intensive and text intensive stuff for me and my friends that have tried both.
The headset does come at an enthusiast price, and it definitely isn't "$600 better" than a Rift S or something like that, but it's great if you're good with the entusiast pricetag in my opinion. It is dumb so many countries are excluded from shipping -- it's apparently due to lack of warehouses to service RMAs and stuff in those areas, and is rumored to be something they're working on fixing. I hope so, as excluding countries as close as Canada is silly.
I mean I have a 2080ti so I am willing to pay a premium when it comes to higher end stuff
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TetraNitroCubaneThe DjinneratorAt the bottom of a bottleRegistered Userregular
Admittedly I haven't touched the Vive in some time, and the Vive always felt a little less visually stellar (more screen-door) than the Oculus. So maybe there's a bigger jump from Vive to Index than I fully appreciate? But with regard to what I'm used to on the Oculus, it's just my opinion that the Index doesn't look that much better.
It may be also because the haloing/outlining on the Index is horrendous compared to the OLED offerings. You absolutely notice it in darker applications.
I mean I have a 2080ti so I am willing to pay a premium when it comes to higher end stuff
I'm willing to pay a premium as well and was initially looking at the $1400 Vive, so the $1000 (USD) Index seemed a bargin to me. I've been very happy with it so far, but considering I'm stepping up from PSVR it's no surprise the visuals wow me. I like the knuckles, but then I've largely ignored the finger tracking, so I'm not sure how well that works on my pair.
I personally am an Index fan now, but I can not speak to the quality of Oculus. I did advise my coworker to get the Oculus Quest because he is looking for a cheap no hassle entry into VR. I'm actually considering one myself as a side unit to travel with! Haven't actually used one or any of the other Rifts though.
I guess my other question about the Quest, is it possible to have what the player is seeing in the headset show up on a TV screen in the room as well?
One of the things I am looking for is a way to do more VR on my vacation, and part of that experience is the other people in the room (who are patiently waiting their turn) being able to see what is going on.
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I guess my other question about the Quest, is it possible to have what the player is seeing in the headset show up on a TV screen in the room as well?
One of the things I am looking for is a way to do more VR on my vacation, and part of that experience is the other people in the room (who are patiently waiting their turn) being able to see what is going on.
Yes, but it's a bit faffy. You need to cast it to a device. Supported devices are phones and Chromecast (v3 and Ultra). They require an internet connection too, frustratingly. Well, a phone doesn't, but you can't just have a Chromecast plugged in to a tv if there's no active internet connection, you'll need to set up a hotspot on a phone too.
There's also a little lag, maybe a second? Depends on the router being used. It can also impact performance slightly in some games. Also there's a static red dot that comes up when you're casting.
I guess my other question about the Quest, is it possible to have what the player is seeing in the headset show up on a TV screen in the room as well?
One of the things I am looking for is a way to do more VR on my vacation, and part of that experience is the other people in the room (who are patiently waiting their turn) being able to see what is going on.
Yes, but it's a bit faffy. You need to cast it to a device. Supported devices are phones and Chromecast (v3 and Ultra). They require an internet connection too, frustratingly. Well, a phone doesn't, but you can't just have a Chromecast plugged in to a tv if there's no active internet connection, you'll need to set up a hotspot on a phone too.
There's also a little lag, maybe a second? Depends on the router being used. It can also impact performance slightly in some games. Also there's a static red dot that comes up when you're casting.
So basically "yes" with a few caveats.
Lag on the Quest? Lag to what it's being casted to doesn't matter I think, that's just for observers. If the act of casting makes it lag for the player, that's annoying.
Lag for what it's casting to, not for the actual Quest, the player is unaffected. The worst you get in Quest is in SOME games the performance might dip ever so slightly. Generally you won't notice though.
Does the Quest support custom maps for Beat Saber yet?
I looked it up a couple weeks ago. It's not an official part of the app, you have to "sideload" or whatever, but it looks like it's well-regarded and works fine. Pretty sure people here have also said it works.
I guess my other question about the Quest, is it possible to have what the player is seeing in the headset show up on a TV screen in the room as well?
One of the things I am looking for is a way to do more VR on my vacation, and part of that experience is the other people in the room (who are patiently waiting their turn) being able to see what is going on.
Yes, but it's a bit faffy. You need to cast it to a device. Supported devices are phones and Chromecast (v3 and Ultra). They require an internet connection too, frustratingly. Well, a phone doesn't, but you can't just have a Chromecast plugged in to a tv if there's no active internet connection, you'll need to set up a hotspot on a phone too.
There's also a little lag, maybe a second? Depends on the router being used. It can also impact performance slightly in some games. Also there's a static red dot that comes up when you're casting.
So basically "yes" with a few caveats.
Perfect. Thank you.
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Does the Quest support custom maps for Beat Saber yet?
Custom songs and sabers. Mods have come on quick, you can now download songs in the headset (previously you had to remod the game and upload from a pc to add new songs)
NMS VR is live on steam! I am going to be reponsible and go to the gym first, booooo. Have fun in my stead.
I'm about 20-30 minutes in on my cv1 and so far it may be the best vr game I've played.
Edit:scratch that it definitely is
Fuuuuuuck I can't wait to play this, but know I won't really have a chance to get into it until Friday at the earliest. Look forward to hearing all of your impressions until then!
NMS VR is live on steam! I am going to be reponsible and go to the gym first, booooo. Have fun in my stead.
I'm about 20-30 minutes in on my cv1 and so far it may be the best vr game I've played.
Edit:scratch that it definitely is
What is the movement like? I’m also slightly concerned about putting your hands on the flight controls. The one game like that I tried was hard because there was no feedback. Was hard to center the stick without looking at it
Sadly I wont be able to try this for myself until I get home Friday night!
I keep dying because of lack of oxygen in No Man's Sky and this is fucking stupid
There's a pretty serious learning curve to NMS. If you're on a hostile planet, you're going to need to keep heading back to your ship in order to detox/re-oxygen until you've got oxygen you can use.
Not all that different from other survival games, like Subnautica.
How much "gameplay" is there in the no-survival mode?
I'm not huge on survival games, so I'd rather not have to micromanage resources, but I'd still like there to be some sort of "gameplay," if that makes sense.
Taking a quick break to mess with supersampling in NMS, so quick review:
The VR support is a mix of very good and weird/bad. I'm trying out smooth movement and playing it standing with motion controls, and it took me awhile to figure out that movement is hand relative -- your forward on joystick is whatever direction your in game hands are facing Not bad once I figured it out, but it was confusing at first. The bad part is that the HUD seems to be "stuck" in the direction you face to start with. Turning around 180 degrees will result in the HUD being completely behind you, which seems silly. There's a hotkey (clicking in on both joysticks for index) to reset your position, but you're going to be doing that tons in an exploration game if you want access to your vitals. And, the reset hotkey doesn't move the HUD to where you are -- it blacks out and teleports you to face where the HUD is. Inventory and stuff is handled a lot more elegantly and is where the implementation is great, but your oxygen/health is sort of a pain to access at a glance.
There's enough great stuff in there that I'll deal with it. I'm excited for natural locomotion to support it as I prefer that to the hand-relative joystick movement, but that's not a big issue at the moment. If someone has a fix for the HUD or if I'm just doing it wrong, let me know!
Also, as anticipated, it's a beast to run. That's being confirmed by basically everyone -- they optimized it with the patch apparently, but NMS has always run fairly poorly.
Fiatil on
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Drake ChambersLay out my formal shorts.Registered Userregular
How much "gameplay" is there in the no-survival mode?
I'm not huge on survival games, so I'd rather not have to micromanage resources, but I'd still like there to be some sort of "gameplay," if that makes sense.
I abused myself playing Survival for too long because I had this idea that the “chill” experience was casual. Someone in the NMS thread corrected me and I enjoyed the game so much more as a result.
Survival is really punishing. The level below that is a fun game.
How much "gameplay" is there in the no-survival mode?
I'm not huge on survival games, so I'd rather not have to micromanage resources, but I'd still like there to be some sort of "gameplay," if that makes sense.
If you're in the creative infinite resources mode, there's very little gameplay to speak of. Exploring planets, blowing up sentinels. The progression is entirely based on resources and money, not RPG skill tree style.
What Drake is talking about is the "Survival" mode vs. the "Normal" mode. Survival is brutal and hard for a survival game, whereas the normal mode still has survival elements and resource management but isn't actively punishing.
How much "gameplay" is there in the no-survival mode?
I'm not huge on survival games, so I'd rather not have to micromanage resources, but I'd still like there to be some sort of "gameplay," if that makes sense.
If you're in the creative infinite resources mode, there's very little gameplay to speak of. Exploring planets, blowing up sentinels. The progression is entirely based on resources and money, not RPG skill tree style.
What Drake is talking about is the "Survival" mode vs. the "Normal" mode. Survival is brutal and hard for a survival game, whereas the normal mode still has survival elements and resource management but isn't actively punishing.
Have they changed survival significantly since abyss? I tried it back then and played for 20 hours or so then stopped because I realized..it wasn't actually that much harder than normal, I just had to spend 10x as long farming resources, which wasn't fun. I love tough survival-y games, but I didn't love just having to farm everything for more time because it drains faster/requires more
edit:also to whoever asked about flight movement, it's a lot like ultrawings if you've played that. It takes some getting used to but it's functional, and I kinda find it more immersive
How much "gameplay" is there in the no-survival mode?
I'm not huge on survival games, so I'd rather not have to micromanage resources, but I'd still like there to be some sort of "gameplay," if that makes sense.
If you're in the creative infinite resources mode, there's very little gameplay to speak of. Exploring planets, blowing up sentinels. The progression is entirely based on resources and money, not RPG skill tree style.
What Drake is talking about is the "Survival" mode vs. the "Normal" mode. Survival is brutal and hard for a survival game, whereas the normal mode still has survival elements and resource management but isn't actively punishing.
Have they changed survival significantly since abyss? I tried it back then and played for 20 hours or so then stopped because I realized..it wasn't actually that much harder than normal, I just had to spend 10x as long farming resources, which wasn't fun. I love tough survival-y games, but I didn't love just having to farm everything for more time because it drains faster/requires more
edit:also to whoever asked about flight movement, it's a lot like ultrawings if you've played that. It takes some getting used to but it's functional, and I kinda find it more immersive
I don't think the meat of Survival has changed since then, no. I forget which patch, but at some point they did decouple Survival mode from the galaxy map being harder -- originally Survival made good planets always spawn with aggressive Sentinels and they thankfully switched that.
I really enjoyed the harder Survival-ey aspects of the mode, but for the genre they were pretty rough to start with. Starting off on a planet and only being able to move for about 60 seconds because it's ultra hot, and having to hide in caves to get anywhere in the day is brutal, but a lot of fun! I'm with you that the increased resource requirements were kind of blah and something I wanted decoupled just like with the galaxy map.
Since this is the VR thread, I'll bore everyone with VR performance stuff here instead of the NMS thread:
The VR mode suffers from being pretty clearly designed for PSVR first, and other stuff to follow along with that. That is, front-facing and not much love for moving around your room. The HUD staying stationary is by far the worst sin of that, and you would hope they can patch that relatively easily. Aside from that, the game will yell at you that you've left your playing space if you take more than a step or two in one direction, and prompt you to reset your area.
The performance is bad for a VR game. It's playable, but runs worse than Subnautica for me and the general feedback on performance is bad. I can do Subnautica at 150% Index res, and this one is at 120%. After turning it to 120% it does still look pretty nice and is immersive, but overall it's going to perform worse than most stuff you play in VR. Someone said turning off motion smoothing in SteamVR may help -- I did do that and it seems to be running a lot better, but that was alongside the 120% drop and we're still in the early phase of random voodoo magic to fix performance.
Aside from that, the VR implementation is really cool. They've done a lot of slick stuff with the interface and menus outside of what I mentioned above, and it's definitely the type of game made for VR.
How much "gameplay" is there in the no-survival mode?
I'm not huge on survival games, so I'd rather not have to micromanage resources, but I'd still like there to be some sort of "gameplay," if that makes sense.
If you're in the creative infinite resources mode, there's very little gameplay to speak of. Exploring planets, blowing up sentinels. The progression is entirely based on resources and money, not RPG skill tree style.
What Drake is talking about is the "Survival" mode vs. the "Normal" mode. Survival is brutal and hard for a survival game, whereas the normal mode still has survival elements and resource management but isn't actively punishing.
in my opinion there's no reason to play NMS in survival mode. play normal or permadeath. permadeath has the same hellish resource inefficiency as survival mode, but you get the intense thrill of meaningful combat and survival that only comes from knowing your save will be deleted. and getting the 'to live forever' trophy for getting to the centre makes you feel like a boss. highly recommended.
i really enjoyed my new game on PSVR this morning - definitely made a quick swap back to 2D feel stupid. i quickly discovered teleport movement had limitations, though - i couldn't even get to my ship - so i recommend getting your head around normal locomotion, and how to sprint and jetpack
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Drake ChambersLay out my formal shorts.Registered Userregular
Since this is the VR thread, I'll bore everyone with VR performance stuff here instead of the NMS thread:
The VR mode suffers from being pretty clearly designed for PSVR first, and other stuff to follow along with that. That is, front-facing and not much love for moving around your room. The HUD staying stationary is by far the worst sin of that, and you would hope they can patch that relatively easily. Aside from that, the game will yell at you that you've left your playing space if you take more than a step or two in one direction, and prompt you to reset your area.
The performance is bad for a VR game. It's playable, but runs worse than Subnautica for me and the general feedback on performance is bad. I can do Subnautica at 150% Index res, and this one is at 120%. After turning it to 120% it does still look pretty nice and is immersive, but overall it's going to perform worse than most stuff you play in VR. Someone said turning off motion smoothing in SteamVR may help -- I did do that and it seems to be running a lot better, but that was alongside the 120% drop and we're still in the early phase of random voodoo magic to fix performance.
Aside from that, the VR implementation is really cool. They've done a lot of slick stuff with the interface and menus outside of what I mentioned above, and it's definitely the type of game made for VR.
Performance issues make me a little sad but it’s also good to have my expectations tempered.
Still excited to stay up late tonight playing!
So, is it worth starting a new game? Is new VR integrated into the beginning of the game?
I'm starting up fresh as they supposedly streamlined the path to getting all of the blueprints and stuff from the story, and to do the whole thing in VR.
The start of the game gives you tons of VR specific info, yeah. It's the first part of the tutorial essentially, and is super useful.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
I disagree with the optics on the Index -- it's quite a bit better than the Vive was for me. It's immediately noticeable in even stuff like Superhot, and super noticeable in more graphically intensive and text intensive stuff for me and my friends that have tried both.
The headset does come at an enthusiast price, and it definitely isn't "$600 better" than a Rift S or something like that, but it's great if you're good with the entusiast pricetag in my opinion. It is dumb so many countries are excluded from shipping -- it's apparently due to lack of warehouses to service RMAs and stuff in those areas, and is rumored to be something they're working on fixing. I hope so, as excluding countries as close as Canada is silly.
This is my feeling about the Index as well. It's so far beyond what my OG Rift was capable of, it's like going from a CRT to HD. I can totally see how it's not 600 dollars better than the Rift S (disclaimer: I have never used a Rift S), but as an upgrade from my OG Rift? It's been worth every penny for me. I also have a very specific primary use case that is not "play normal VR games", so it's possibly it shines in my specific use case. It is so much clearer in titles like iRacing that it's the difference between counting braking boards and actually reading the numbers on them. In DCS it's the difference between having to lean in and squint to read MFD's to just being able to look down at them and read them clearly.
We'll see if the controllers are worth their shit tonight, I'm going to be firing up No Man's Sky.
Are there many games that use the grip/finger sensing in a useful way? I was excited for the controllers for a while, but then I realized I could modify my WMR controllers to attach to your hands the same way anyway, which was the aspect I was most into.
Since this is the VR thread, I'll bore everyone with VR performance stuff here instead of the NMS thread:
The VR mode suffers from being pretty clearly designed for PSVR first, and other stuff to follow along with that. That is, front-facing and not much love for moving around your room. The HUD staying stationary is by far the worst sin of that, and you would hope they can patch that relatively easily. Aside from that, the game will yell at you that you've left your playing space if you take more than a step or two in one direction, and prompt you to reset your area.
The performance is bad for a VR game. It's playable, but runs worse than Subnautica for me and the general feedback on performance is bad. I can do Subnautica at 150% Index res, and this one is at 120%. After turning it to 120% it does still look pretty nice and is immersive, but overall it's going to perform worse than most stuff you play in VR. Someone said turning off motion smoothing in SteamVR may help -- I did do that and it seems to be running a lot better, but that was alongside the 120% drop and we're still in the early phase of random voodoo magic to fix performance.
Aside from that, the VR implementation is really cool. They've done a lot of slick stuff with the interface and menus outside of what I mentioned above, and it's definitely the type of game made for VR.
Performance issues make me a little sad but it’s also good to have my expectations tempered.
Still excited to stay up late tonight playing!
So, is it worth starting a new game? Is new VR integrated into the beginning of the game?
The performance issues are really weird and have me scratching my head, my computer isn't a powerhouse (i5 and gtx 1060 6GB) but I can run NMS non VR maxxed out no issue, and i've never had an issue w/ any other VR game, that being said NMS stutters to hell when it's loading things in and i'm moving, if i'm not moving a billion things can be happening on screen no issue. whether my graphics are maxxed or minned; and it doesn't seem to be pinning my CPU, GPU, or more than half my ram so I have no idea why *shrug* that being said, the experience is still awesome even w/ the performance issues.
Yeah this is prob my fav VR game. I'm not hitting any performance issues but I've got a decent card - 2070 - and on a regular Rift. It seems pretty smooth so far. I didn't actually notice the HUD thing as I was sitting while playing, so it never became apparent I couldn't see it.
They should hopefully patch that in to be bound to your head movement.
Landing on planets has been my favorite thing so far. Now I really want a better headset, but I really like my rift controllers. I think i'll still be waiting until the next gen.
I'm playing with cv1 and touch controllers. The locomotion is good enough for now (because it lets me look around while walking) but the UI is really dense and I died from heat even before I could understand what I was looking at or what to do. That's not a fun first impression, especially when I picked "normal" difficulty. I'm through the tutorial all the way to landing on a second planet. Mining stuff is okay, inventory management is made difficult by the constant popup overlays when I'm trying to pick what to point at, and there's some very bad "press button with this label" where... uh, I can't see my controllers and I can't remember the layout right now.
Performance is not great (especially when you get to a planet with grass) but I've played enough badly optimized VR at this point that I don't even care anymore.
I managed to play the flight part how I wanted by first entering the ship, then sitting on my real-life floor (clipping through the seat in-game), then holding in both sticks to reset the camera. Without doing that I would have fallen over the moment I took off and the horizon tilted.
I think I like the game? Maybe? It's probably too early to say for sure, but the contrast of different spatial modes (outside, in a cave, in a building, in a ship, in space) is at least novel.
Where is the save button? I went to quit, and there were two buttons for reloading auto and manual saves, but no button to manually save? And no option to save before quitting? And I just sat there, with it telling me I'd lose 10 minutes of progress, then 15 minutes of progress... But I had just activated a language monolith before going into the menu! Then it said 12 seconds ago, and I quit.
save by exiting your ship or finding a 'waypoint' on planet surfaces. you can also craft a save point anywhere on-planet, but i'm not sure if the blueprint is unlocked at the start
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited August 2019
Performance in NMS has been fine for me on a 2080 Ti. Not sure what the graphics settings are at, but it looks great, no complaints. I was watching a YouTube video earlier of a guy with a 2080 Ti and he said it didn't run well for him, but it seems fine to me?
Immediately jumped to smooth movement/smooth look. I know it makes some people sick, but I guess from doing all the high speed racing and stuff I do I'm really acclimated to a quick moving image. Doesn't make me feel queasy at all. So far the controls seem really well thought out, at least on the Index controllers. Sometimes the "pull to interact" can be a little finicky, but never to the point of annoyance. It's been very intuitive for the most part and I picked it up really fast. Overall I'm really pleased with it so far in VR. I played about 60 hours of NMS across the various updates before VR, so I'm happy to play more in VR. It's a fun relaxing little game that I wasn't as down on at release as some others, but I understood the feedback. I think Hello Games has done a great job updating the game and bringing it much closer to their original vision.
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At this point I can't say that the Index is really worth the price of admission. It's a hefty price tag, and I genuinely don't feel like it improves much beyond the other options out there. I particularly feel like the issues with the controllers put the Index into a distinct "Wait and see" or at least "Wait for the price to drop" category. My controllers are clearly defective with regard to finger tracking at this point, and the replacement/repair path is becoming a pain to navigate.
I honestly feel like the image quality isn't that much better on the Index at all compared to either the Oculus or the Vive. In fact, given that the Oculus Touch controllers are so good, I'd hazard to say that Oculus is what I'd consider my favorite VR headset at the moment. That comes with some huge qualifications, though - The tracking is much better on the Index, and the Oculus storefront is something I really don't want to have to deal with at all. The Oculus software isn't very fun, either, given how invasive it is. It's not perfect, is what I'm saying. None of the VR options are.
But my point is that the Index isn't the killer that it's being hyped up as right now. The LCD screens REALLY struggle for deep blacks compared to the OLED competitors, for example. And that's before we even start talking about the controller failures.
Either the Vive or the Oculus are going to give a very, very good experience. The extra cash for the Index isn't going to be worth it, in my opinion, so I'd snag whichever of the other two strikes your fancy and feel confident you got a much better value.
I didn't want to wait all the way to Christmas! Black Friday was stretching it! :P
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
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The headset does come at an enthusiast price, and it definitely isn't "$600 better" than a Rift S or something like that, but it's great if you're good with the entusiast pricetag in my opinion. It is dumb so many countries are excluded from shipping -- it's apparently due to lack of warehouses to service RMAs and stuff in those areas, and is rumored to be something they're working on fixing. I hope so, as excluding countries as close as Canada is silly.
It may be also because the haloing/outlining on the Index is horrendous compared to the OLED offerings. You absolutely notice it in darker applications.
I'm willing to pay a premium as well and was initially looking at the $1400 Vive, so the $1000 (USD) Index seemed a bargin to me. I've been very happy with it so far, but considering I'm stepping up from PSVR it's no surprise the visuals wow me. I like the knuckles, but then I've largely ignored the finger tracking, so I'm not sure how well that works on my pair.
I personally am an Index fan now, but I can not speak to the quality of Oculus. I did advise my coworker to get the Oculus Quest because he is looking for a cheap no hassle entry into VR. I'm actually considering one myself as a side unit to travel with! Haven't actually used one or any of the other Rifts though.
One of the things I am looking for is a way to do more VR on my vacation, and part of that experience is the other people in the room (who are patiently waiting their turn) being able to see what is going on.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Yes, but it's a bit faffy. You need to cast it to a device. Supported devices are phones and Chromecast (v3 and Ultra). They require an internet connection too, frustratingly. Well, a phone doesn't, but you can't just have a Chromecast plugged in to a tv if there's no active internet connection, you'll need to set up a hotspot on a phone too.
There's also a little lag, maybe a second? Depends on the router being used. It can also impact performance slightly in some games. Also there's a static red dot that comes up when you're casting.
So basically "yes" with a few caveats.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
Lag on the Quest? Lag to what it's being casted to doesn't matter I think, that's just for observers. If the act of casting makes it lag for the player, that's annoying.
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
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PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
I looked it up a couple weeks ago. It's not an official part of the app, you have to "sideload" or whatever, but it looks like it's well-regarded and works fine. Pretty sure people here have also said it works.
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
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Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
Perfect. Thank you.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Custom songs and sabers. Mods have come on quick, you can now download songs in the headset (previously you had to remod the game and upload from a pc to add new songs)
Safe to say I love my Quest.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
I'm about 20-30 minutes in on my cv1 and so far it may be the best vr game I've played.
Edit:scratch that it definitely is
Fuuuuuuck I can't wait to play this, but know I won't really have a chance to get into it until Friday at the earliest. Look forward to hearing all of your impressions until then!
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
What is the movement like? I’m also slightly concerned about putting your hands on the flight controls. The one game like that I tried was hard because there was no feedback. Was hard to center the stick without looking at it
Sadly I wont be able to try this for myself until I get home Friday night!
Not all that different from other survival games, like Subnautica.
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I'm not huge on survival games, so I'd rather not have to micromanage resources, but I'd still like there to be some sort of "gameplay," if that makes sense.
The VR support is a mix of very good and weird/bad. I'm trying out smooth movement and playing it standing with motion controls, and it took me awhile to figure out that movement is hand relative -- your forward on joystick is whatever direction your in game hands are facing Not bad once I figured it out, but it was confusing at first. The bad part is that the HUD seems to be "stuck" in the direction you face to start with. Turning around 180 degrees will result in the HUD being completely behind you, which seems silly. There's a hotkey (clicking in on both joysticks for index) to reset your position, but you're going to be doing that tons in an exploration game if you want access to your vitals. And, the reset hotkey doesn't move the HUD to where you are -- it blacks out and teleports you to face where the HUD is. Inventory and stuff is handled a lot more elegantly and is where the implementation is great, but your oxygen/health is sort of a pain to access at a glance.
There's enough great stuff in there that I'll deal with it. I'm excited for natural locomotion to support it as I prefer that to the hand-relative joystick movement, but that's not a big issue at the moment. If someone has a fix for the HUD or if I'm just doing it wrong, let me know!
Also, as anticipated, it's a beast to run. That's being confirmed by basically everyone -- they optimized it with the patch apparently, but NMS has always run fairly poorly.
I abused myself playing Survival for too long because I had this idea that the “chill” experience was casual. Someone in the NMS thread corrected me and I enjoyed the game so much more as a result.
Survival is really punishing. The level below that is a fun game.
If you're in the creative infinite resources mode, there's very little gameplay to speak of. Exploring planets, blowing up sentinels. The progression is entirely based on resources and money, not RPG skill tree style.
What Drake is talking about is the "Survival" mode vs. the "Normal" mode. Survival is brutal and hard for a survival game, whereas the normal mode still has survival elements and resource management but isn't actively punishing.
Have they changed survival significantly since abyss? I tried it back then and played for 20 hours or so then stopped because I realized..it wasn't actually that much harder than normal, I just had to spend 10x as long farming resources, which wasn't fun. I love tough survival-y games, but I didn't love just having to farm everything for more time because it drains faster/requires more
edit:also to whoever asked about flight movement, it's a lot like ultrawings if you've played that. It takes some getting used to but it's functional, and I kinda find it more immersive
I don't think the meat of Survival has changed since then, no. I forget which patch, but at some point they did decouple Survival mode from the galaxy map being harder -- originally Survival made good planets always spawn with aggressive Sentinels and they thankfully switched that.
I really enjoyed the harder Survival-ey aspects of the mode, but for the genre they were pretty rough to start with. Starting off on a planet and only being able to move for about 60 seconds because it's ultra hot, and having to hide in caves to get anywhere in the day is brutal, but a lot of fun! I'm with you that the increased resource requirements were kind of blah and something I wanted decoupled just like with the galaxy map.
The VR mode suffers from being pretty clearly designed for PSVR first, and other stuff to follow along with that. That is, front-facing and not much love for moving around your room. The HUD staying stationary is by far the worst sin of that, and you would hope they can patch that relatively easily. Aside from that, the game will yell at you that you've left your playing space if you take more than a step or two in one direction, and prompt you to reset your area.
The performance is bad for a VR game. It's playable, but runs worse than Subnautica for me and the general feedback on performance is bad. I can do Subnautica at 150% Index res, and this one is at 120%. After turning it to 120% it does still look pretty nice and is immersive, but overall it's going to perform worse than most stuff you play in VR. Someone said turning off motion smoothing in SteamVR may help -- I did do that and it seems to be running a lot better, but that was alongside the 120% drop and we're still in the early phase of random voodoo magic to fix performance.
Aside from that, the VR implementation is really cool. They've done a lot of slick stuff with the interface and menus outside of what I mentioned above, and it's definitely the type of game made for VR.
in my opinion there's no reason to play NMS in survival mode. play normal or permadeath. permadeath has the same hellish resource inefficiency as survival mode, but you get the intense thrill of meaningful combat and survival that only comes from knowing your save will be deleted. and getting the 'to live forever' trophy for getting to the centre makes you feel like a boss. highly recommended.
i really enjoyed my new game on PSVR this morning - definitely made a quick swap back to 2D feel stupid. i quickly discovered teleport movement had limitations, though - i couldn't even get to my ship - so i recommend getting your head around normal locomotion, and how to sprint and jetpack
Performance issues make me a little sad but it’s also good to have my expectations tempered.
Still excited to stay up late tonight playing!
So, is it worth starting a new game? Is new VR integrated into the beginning of the game?
The start of the game gives you tons of VR specific info, yeah. It's the first part of the tutorial essentially, and is super useful.
This is my feeling about the Index as well. It's so far beyond what my OG Rift was capable of, it's like going from a CRT to HD. I can totally see how it's not 600 dollars better than the Rift S (disclaimer: I have never used a Rift S), but as an upgrade from my OG Rift? It's been worth every penny for me. I also have a very specific primary use case that is not "play normal VR games", so it's possibly it shines in my specific use case. It is so much clearer in titles like iRacing that it's the difference between counting braking boards and actually reading the numbers on them. In DCS it's the difference between having to lean in and squint to read MFD's to just being able to look down at them and read them clearly.
We'll see if the controllers are worth their shit tonight, I'm going to be firing up No Man's Sky.
The performance issues are really weird and have me scratching my head, my computer isn't a powerhouse (i5 and gtx 1060 6GB) but I can run NMS non VR maxxed out no issue, and i've never had an issue w/ any other VR game, that being said NMS stutters to hell when it's loading things in and i'm moving, if i'm not moving a billion things can be happening on screen no issue. whether my graphics are maxxed or minned; and it doesn't seem to be pinning my CPU, GPU, or more than half my ram so I have no idea why *shrug* that being said, the experience is still awesome even w/ the performance issues.
They should hopefully patch that in to be bound to your head movement.
Landing on planets has been my favorite thing so far. Now I really want a better headset, but I really like my rift controllers. I think i'll still be waiting until the next gen.
Performance is not great (especially when you get to a planet with grass) but I've played enough badly optimized VR at this point that I don't even care anymore.
I managed to play the flight part how I wanted by first entering the ship, then sitting on my real-life floor (clipping through the seat in-game), then holding in both sticks to reset the camera. Without doing that I would have fallen over the moment I took off and the horizon tilted.
I think I like the game? Maybe? It's probably too early to say for sure, but the contrast of different spatial modes (outside, in a cave, in a building, in a ship, in space) is at least novel.
Where is the save button? I went to quit, and there were two buttons for reloading auto and manual saves, but no button to manually save? And no option to save before quitting? And I just sat there, with it telling me I'd lose 10 minutes of progress, then 15 minutes of progress... But I had just activated a language monolith before going into the menu! Then it said 12 seconds ago, and I quit.
Immediately jumped to smooth movement/smooth look. I know it makes some people sick, but I guess from doing all the high speed racing and stuff I do I'm really acclimated to a quick moving image. Doesn't make me feel queasy at all. So far the controls seem really well thought out, at least on the Index controllers. Sometimes the "pull to interact" can be a little finicky, but never to the point of annoyance. It's been very intuitive for the most part and I picked it up really fast. Overall I'm really pleased with it so far in VR. I played about 60 hours of NMS across the various updates before VR, so I'm happy to play more in VR. It's a fun relaxing little game that I wasn't as down on at release as some others, but I understood the feedback. I think Hello Games has done a great job updating the game and bringing it much closer to their original vision.