Well the kit finally hit my doorstep yesterday, after getting it unboxed and familiarising myself with it I set to plugging it all in and positioning the camera, felt at this point that a wireless version had to appear at some stage.
After installing the software I plugged it all in and updated the firmware which went smoothly, tried to fire up the demo scene...no dice!
Restarted the service and this time it fired up, went to put on the headset only to find my glasses whilst minimalist did catch either side of the headset making wearing it uncomfortable, so went and put some contacts in. Back in business!
After putting it on and reading the health warning I clicked on start and 'HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!!'
A desk, like my own but tidier and with a living plant, tried to touch things on the desk only to hit my monitor and my pc. Sat here for about another 10 minutes in disbelief. So simple yet so effective at convincing you that the future of entertainment is really here; albeit in it's infancy, but already I can see the VR industry is going to be 'HUGE', a complete game changer.
Next up is Tuscany, another wow moment sees me standing next to a pillar peeking around it for a good 10 minutes. I had read reviews of ultra low latency and very accurate head tracking but only when you have this thing on your head can you truly appreciate just how damn good the latency and tracking are.
From here I played around with a couple of cinema apps, the resolution at this point showed its limitations, I think a 4k screen or at least one sufficiently high enough resolution to hide the pixels would make this particular experience truly enjoyable. It was also here I really noticed the pentile arrangement on the screen which was a bit distracting.
I then tried 'The Chair' a sightline demo if my memory serves me correctly, this blew my socks off! If you haven't tried it then do, a really clever concept that seamlessly takes you from one experience to the next with a great ending.
I then tried a roller coaster demo which made me feel ill so at this point I stopped for a rest and went to get a drink.
I will say it took a little while to feel 'Normal' again, not sure I would have jumped behind the wheel of a real car at this point as I felt a little 'strange'.
I then tried Warthunder which was epic, the limitations of the resolution however are more apparent when trying to target things in the distance, but this is a Dev kit so not a complaint in any way.
The Sprited Away Boiler Room was another highlight, very nicely done!
To summarize:
- AMOLED screen gives a great picture although its pixel arrangement at this resolution makes me think it probably won't be in the consumer release.
- Latency on games that are not using the low latency mode make me feel ill.
- Still get a bit of light leakage through the air vents, lower ones useful if trying to find the 'Any' key.
- A more comfortable fit for glasses would be useful or a focus feature on the lens to do away with them entirely.
- The headset otherwise is really comfy and once on did not find it too difficult to find the sweet spot.
- Putting the rift on correctly is essentially to avoid smearing the lenses (Put rift directly on face and then pull the strap over your head.
- Large on ear headphones like my Grado SR325i's have to compete with the strap. Removing all of the above after a game without tying yourself in a knot is a task.
- Needs to be wireless.
To all the non devs out there looking to buy one now, especially those without much technical nouse should hold fire for the commercial release.
I also got mine yesterday. Hardware setup was quick except for trying to find a nice spot for the camera. I ended up putting the camera where the wall in front of the desk meets the ceiling and pointing it down. I wish they had put a couple small holes to insert nails into to make wall mounting easier, but I managed it by angling the nails to grip the base on the sides.
Opened up the demo scene. First thing I noticed was a lot of judder. I went to my monitor settings and upped the frame rate of the 4K monitor (my second monitor mounted on the wall above my main monitor) to 60 Hz (the main monitor was already at 60 Hz). I restarted the demo scene and the judder was gone.
The demo scene was great. I had a nice large camera volume to move around in. Everything tracked great. I stood up an looked around and found myself, while just looking around, involuntarily casually attempting to rest my hand on the back of the red chair (which wasn't there). My real-life desk lined up very nicely with the position of the virtual desk so I could put my hand right on the desks in both. My mouse was conveniently where the virtual deck of card were, so that made finding it simple. : ) Very impressed. I'm also liking the direct-to-rift mode (now we need more demos/games/simexperiences to be upgraded with the latest SDK). : )
My next steps will be looking for updated demos/games/simexes to play with, and then to play around with the new SDK.
