HTC teams up with Valve to make HTC Vive

[TomGot]

Its a new VR-Gear that HTC and Valve is making and the development kit should be out this spring.
They promise that the consumer product will be out before the end of this year.



1200 x 1080 per eye
90 hz refresh rate
110 degrees FOV
3 ms pixel persistence
360 inside-out audio tracking
Wireless hand-tracking hardware
Headphone jacks on either ear side
Laser positioning for head position accuracy down to 1/10 degree accuracy
VR base stations for 15 x 15 feet tracking for VR world movement
Controller for each hand, allowing for interactivity within the virtual world.
Source FR3D/http://gamesided.com/2015/03/01/vive-virtual-reality-htc-valve-coming-year/


"A 1,200 by 1,080 pixel screen in front of each eye, with refresh rates of a blistering 90 frames per second."

"A gyrosensor, accelerometer, and laser position sensor combine to precisely track the rotation of your head on both axes to an accuracy of 1/10th of a degree, allowing you to look around the virtual environment naturally. Couple the headset with a pair of Steam VR base stations to track your physical location (in spaces up to 15 feet by 15 feet) – get up and walk around inisde the virtual world! "

"The Vive headset was developed in conjunction with Valve, creators of such ground-breaking games as Portal and Half-Life. HTC manufactures some of the finest consumer electronics on the planet and Valve is an unrivaled architect of virtual worlds, so you know the collaboration is something special. Vive is powered by Valve’s SteamVR so plenty of games that take advantage of its capabilities will soon be available on the Steam service. "
http://www.htcvr.com/

[RirtualVeality]

First video of a SteamVR game:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/watch-one-of-the-first-steamvr-games-job-simulator/1100-6425608/

...glove controllers?

[opamp]

"saviornt" wrote:
As an Oculus fanboi... this is great news.

One concern I have is, well, developing games or apps for VR. With the 3 headsets now, is thd specific or propietary distortion shaders? How exactly do I support the Rift and Valve's?

If they do release, say, a UE4 plugin, how do I say: if player is using rift, then use these settings.. or if pkayer is using a valve, then use these settings? And speaking of any HMD.. What are the best settings to even use?

The costs for an indie dev(and to a certain degree larger studio's) are definately increasing if you want to cover your bases.
Now you'll need the CV1, GearVR, HTCValve and Morpheus plus possibly additional HMD's.
And after you've initially invested that money you have the additional investment of time/money making sure that your app works on all of those chosen platforms.

I can see certain apps being HMD exlusives(or limited to a few) with possible ports later down the line.
If all of these HMD's come to fruition(along with possibly more!) then the manufactures really are going to rely on the developers(indie and AAA). And you could argue that Oculus currently have the strongest hand in that regard.

[tzuvela]

The king is dead, long live the king!

[davidjc]

Ah you mean Valve is not targeting the seated experience.....walk around...

Well Oculus has its competition and its a solid competitor who knows VR. Screen is a practical high resolution display, good FOV, great tracking solution. Practical practical practical.

That is how you get things done. Anyways let us see what unfolds, until Valve really puts anything physical into our hands its just talk.

[davidjc]

"EarlGrey" wrote:
Valve is the first company to announce a "consumer VR" product. If that isn't a slap in your face, a wake up call, I don't know what is.

Oculus has waited too long. If they don't announce something decisive at GDC then a lot of people will start to wonder. In effect, Valve is forcing Oculus's hands, Oculus must now announce their D-Day.

Yes Oculus DID wait too long, they wasted a lot of time trying to woo Samsung for a screen deal. And the state of the SDK at this point is really terrible. Oculus should have already established themselves as a known brand by now. Valve is already on Oculus heels, and honestly I doubt Oculus can do much more than what Valve has announced.

Whatever, I was telling people that Oculus needed to release EARLY this year at the latest. Getting to be too late now, Oculus has to almost play catch up with Valve now who is coming off as much more confident and capable where that is the case or not.

[andrewtek]

"davidjc" wrote:
Ah you mean Valve is not targeting the seated experience.....walk around...

I wonder how they will accomplish the walking around part. When you are transported into a VR space, your sense of position within the real world is somewhat lost. Walking around without a spotter seems like an opportunity to run into things, trip, fall, etc.

I like the idea, I am just curious how they plan to solve that.

[Anonymous]

"davidjc" wrote:

"EarlGrey" wrote:
Valve is the first company to announce a "consumer VR" product. If that isn't a slap in your face, a wake up call, I don't know what is.

Oculus has waited too long. If they don't announce something decisive at GDC then a lot of people will start to wonder. In effect, Valve is forcing Oculus's hands, Oculus must now announce their D-Day.

Yes Oculus DID wait too long, they wasted a lot of time trying to woo Samsung for a screen deal. And the state of the SDK at this point is really terrible. Oculus should have already established themselves as a known brand by now. Valve is already on Oculus heels, and honestly I doubt Oculus can do much more than what Valve has announced.

Whatever, I was telling people that Oculus needed to release EARLY this year at the latest. Getting to be too late now, Oculus has to almost play catch up with Valve now who is coming off as much more confident and capable where that is the case or not.

No dey did not. Samsung deal can be actually huge now that there is products coming left and right(none still not announced anything special). You just cannot underestimate such a partner that Samsung is. They can make Oled that Oculus need for sure. Also 3ms persistence sounds like there LCD on this one? Sure they would at least 2ms with 90hz?

[davidjc]

"andrewtek" wrote:

"davidjc" wrote:
Ah you mean Valve is not targeting the seated experience.....walk around...

I wonder how they will accomplish the walking around part. When you are transported into a VR space, your sense of position within the real world is somewhat lost. Walking around without a spotter seems like an opportunity to run into things, trip, fall, etc.

I like the idea, I am just curious how they plan to solve that.

Maybe but at least they left it up to us to decide if its too risky or impractical rather than use "safety" as a reason to settle for a much more scaled back device as far as technical capabilities are concerned. I have never been happy with the DK2 as I am required to stay glued to one spot and not move to much, not stand, also bloody wires every where, also the bloody SDK and that it never works reliably or always has quirks and performance issues. Like JUDDER! Which seems like it will never be solved.

Although valve most assuredly is going to have problems with their dev kit device. I am curious to see how they match up with Oculus. Also I get bloody tired of everyone telling me when there is an issue with the DK2 or SDK that it is always on my end, regardless of whether or not I am on a different computer, or the fact I computer savvy, or how powerful my rig is there is always somebody saying its my hardware or software that is the issue.

Whoever puts out a HMD that works properly without quirks or all these incompatibilities will steal the market. Bloody excuses and point at the people who are buying your tech is silly. Anyways as long as Oculus can match Vavle I will stick with them, but I do believe they farted off a lot of time with the Samsung Gear thing.

[RonsonPL]

Another hint for "the only VR that matters for the business and marketing people, is mobile VR"

More on this:

I guess PC VR gaming died before it was born. It'll be crippled by Smartphone VR the same way as PC games were crippled by 7-year old consoles recently.

Just a few days ago Oculus spent $1.000.000 dollars on prizes in a competition for Gear VR devs. This was a hint number 143, since Oculus said "we'll just help Samsung with their smartphone VR, we'll help them a little, and get back to our thing - PC VR".

It seems Carmack isn't even helping with PC SDK.
I see absolutely no chance for proper PC VR gaming in 2015-2016. Proper would mean designing with higher-end PCs in mind, something like a gtx770-970 price point (which would give twice as fast as gtx980 GPU a year from now thanx to HBM). HMD for $499 instead of $250 and a proper controller instead of "f...k it, let's rething our focus on games and switch to the "experiences" since we cannot create a controller suitable for mobiles and/or under $99 per unit, and there are sims (joystick/wheel) games so get lost, sucker!"
No wider FOV, no higher resolution, no custom non-smartphone display, no controller, the plague of de-saturation and blur effects in games etc.
Well... at least this one would have 90Hz, so maybe we'll get some games not crippled by "no, let's throw this out, because it will flicker too much at 60Hz LP mode".
I would like to have some hopes for the controller quality/possibilities of this Valve HMD, but I can't. Too many shattered hopes.

I saw a great future once, the one where PC led the way, pushed VR forward, and where people saying "Oh hell no! I won't buy a PC for 3x as much as a console costs" switch to "It requires quite expensive PC, but I WANT THIS VR SO MUCH! I'll buy!"
It's not going to happen :cry:

BTW. I was right about possible "more than 1920" by 1080 display. I'm still betting on a similar idea in CV1. After all, 2400x1080 is still "more than DK2", isn't it? 😐
.

[FR3D]

If Valve releases HL3 etc. on christmas too and supports LCD screens and Vive only -

Or Valve sells a VR bundle - Vive + HL3 + Steam controller etc ...

Valve will make the show instead of Oculus.

best regards FR3D