The Index thread (please keep to subject)

RuneSR2 said:

Space Engine with more than 2000 ratings and a 10/10 average rating (96% positive) seems to be - maybe - the best app for showing space and the universe in VR. It now has Index support and I'm thinking about buying it - anyone tried it?

K, as promised, here are my thoughts after spending some time with it. It's definitely cool flying through the universe and checking out different celestial bodies. If you're into Astronomy, this would tickle your fancy. On the downside, it's an early access and it shows it. Pick a speed too high, and you'll be dropping frames. Pick an IPD too high, and you'll be dropping frames (it has a "god mode" option where you can set the distance between your pupils ranging from 60 mm to light years apart). Whip your head around too fast, and you may be dropping frames (depending on your system - for comparison, mine is a GTX 1080Ti, 4GHz i7-4790K with 32 GB of RAM and I was not dropping frames only at human scale when whipping head around).
It's a clunkier Google Earth VR's (much) younger brother. Ultimately, given the current discount, it's worth buying if you're a science nerd like me.

Comrade_Ivan said:

RuneSR2 said:

Space Engine with more than 2000 ratings and a 10/10 average rating (96% positive) seems to be - maybe - the best app for showing space and the universe in VR. It now has Index support and I'm thinking about buying it - anyone tried it?

K, as promised, here are my thoughts after spending some time with it. It's definitely cool flying through the universe and checking out different celestial bodies. If you're into Astronomy, this would tickle your fancy. On the downside, it's an early access and it shows it. Pick a speed too high, and you'll be dropping frames. Pick an IPD too high, and you'll be dropping frames (it has a "god mode" option where you can set the distance between your pupils ranging from 60 mm to light years apart). Whip your head around too fast, and you may be dropping frames (depending on your system - for comparison, mine is a GTX 1080Ti, 4GHz i7-4790K with 32 GB of RAM and I was not dropping frames only at human scale when whipping head around).
It's a clunkier Google Earth VR's (much) younger brother. Ultimately, given the current discount, it's worth buying if you're a science nerd like me.

Great review - I just bought it - now I'm considering Synth Riders too - it has Index support - and also 90+ % average rating on both Oculus Store and Steam. 

kojack said:

$750 for a pen is a bit much though.

BTW, $750 is a steal!  :D

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Montblanc-Princesse-Grace-of-Monaco-L-E-1-1-Unique-Atelier-Prive-Creation/231279017878?hash=item35d94dbf96:g:yh8AAOSwRUhY--wP

Comrade_Ivan said:

RuneSR2 said:

Space Engine with more than 2000 ratings and a 10/10 average rating (96% positive) seems to be - maybe - the best app for showing space and the universe in VR. It now has Index support and I'm thinking about buying it - anyone tried it?

K, as promised, here are my thoughts after spending some time with it. It's definitely cool flying through the universe and checking out different celestial bodies. If you're into Astronomy, this would tickle your fancy. On the downside, it's an early access and it shows it. Pick a speed too high, and you'll be dropping frames. Pick an IPD too high, and you'll be dropping frames (it has a "god mode" option where you can set the distance between your pupils ranging from 60 mm to light years apart). Whip your head around too fast, and you may be dropping frames (depending on your system - for comparison, mine is a GTX 1080Ti, 4GHz i7-4790K with 32 GB of RAM and I was not dropping frames only at human scale when whipping head around).
It's a clunkier Google Earth VR's (much) younger brother. Ultimately, given the current discount, it's worth buying if you're a science nerd like me.

My download is soon finished - can't wait! 

RuneSR2 said:

One of my favorite VR games just got Index support  <3

https://store.steampowered.com/app/906120/POLYBIUS/

https://youtu.be/viWjIBDSF_k

https://youtu.be/gDV-dOvqKzQ

More about the game here:

https://forums.oculusvr.com/community/discussion/comment/658616

I just spent some time with the game - using the Index. It's works fine, but only if you use a XBox controller - neither the Steam controller nor Index controllers work. 

If you try to open the game inside SteamVR with Index controllers activated, you'll get an error message that your active controllers aren't supported. Just ignore and start the game - now choose VR mode. The game will start, and nothing happens. Now click on the Desktop button in SteamVR - you'll see a window, and here you'll need again to choose VR mode. Now the game should start - and remember to turn on a XBox controller in order to play the game.

I got solid 90 fps forcing res 200%, but you need to restart the game to activate any change in res. The music sounds awesome, I was thinking that it might lack bass compared to CV1, but it really doesn't. Graphics are so much better even than CV1, because the CV1 SDE was extremely pronounced in this game - Index res 200% is a dream - and the fov. 

Now if we only could get some support for the Index controllers, sigh. The change to Polybius means that native Oculus support has been removed - now you need to start SteamVR to play the game using Rift.  

First a word of caution - headbanging for longer periods of time may not be a great idea, unless you've tightened the Index really good - and remember that Index may put some strain on your neck muscles due to the 800-900 grams of weight  ;)  

That said, this really is a great song, although I'm normally not that much into this kind of music:


- and, btw, Synth Riders worked perfectly, I got solid 90 fps even when forcing res 200% - the average rating is beyond 90 % (both Steam and Oculus Store). It may be some kind of Beat Saber copycat, but it works just fine (you can play in first person too):

RuneSR2 said:

Space Engine with more than 2000 ratings and a 10/10 average rating (96% positive) seems to be - maybe - the best app for showing space and the universe in VR. It now has Index support and I'm thinking about buying it - anyone tried it?

https://youtu.be/_IXjirybQRw

https://store.steampowered.com/app/314650/SpaceEngine/

PS. I think it has native Oculus support: "I’ve got an Oculus Rift CV1 a few weeks ago and already implemented its full native support (with Touch controllers)." 
Source: http://spaceengine.org/news/blog180302/

Maybe this is the greatest VR app created so far, somehow it manages even to dwarf Elite - maybe. You can set the speed to like 0 and up to about 653 million light years per second. And when the latter happens, thing you thought were non moving objects suddenly start to move, lol. Using this app you're able to leave our own galaxy (the Milky Way) and travel to other galaxies. I think I read that travelling with the speed of light, it'll take about 30,000 years to travel from Earth to the center of the Milky Way. This means that if a spaceship left Earth 30,000 years ago (think mammoths, Ice Age, saber tigers etc) - and travelled with the speed of light to the center of the Milky Way - it would just now have arrived, and would of course need another 30,000 years for the return trip :D Good news is, using Space Engine you can now do the trip in seconds!  B)
In short, Space Engine lets you travel with speeds beyond your wildest dreams, goes way beyond the solar system,  and may get you a glimpse of things you'll never be able to experience first hand in real life. Like @Comrade_Ivan wrote, Space Engine is taxing on the rig - but using Index res 100% it worked great with minor stuttering when visiting planets. Res 200% made everything look much better, but I'll probably need a 3080 Ti for that... I ended up using res 150%, which did increase stuttering compared to res 100%, but away from planets and stars I often got 90 fps - and res 150% did look better than 100%. It's a 4GB download, and will take up about 5GB, but as free DLC you can download high-res textures for some planets (like Earth), and Space Engine with all DLCs may require 50GB.
Do try this utterly amazing app if you ever dreamt of leaving Earth and experience the universe  B)

RuneSR2 said:
... I ended up using res 150%, which did increase stuttering compared to res 100%, but away from planets and stars I often got 90 fps - and res 150% did look better than 100%. 

@RuneSR2 - what kind of a rig do you have? As in what GPU/CPU combo?

Comrade_Ivan said:

RuneSR2 said:
... I ended up using res 150%, which did increase stuttering compared to res 100%, but away from planets and stars I often got 90 fps - and res 150% did look better than 100%. 

@RuneSR2 - what kind of a rig do you have? As in what GPU/CPU combo?

It's all in my sig - you have a faster gpu than mine - I have a heavily oc'ed "MSI GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Gaming X (oc 2100 MHz gpu boost, 11 GHz mem speed)" - using an i7 7700K cpu (4.5 Ghz) with 16GB 3200 MHz mem (going from 2400 MHz to 3200 MHz gave me nearly 10% more cpu speed in 3D Mark processor tests).