virtual-reality

[haughty thistle]

I wouldn't trust those key sellers either way. You may end up with some Volume license key that is not intended for resale. Buying such a key means you didn't actually buy a key, and your license is at danger of being revoked at any time. As of Windows 10, Microsoft has implemented regular license validity check into Windows. Meaning if the key you're currently using has been revoked/invalidated, all of the sudden your Windows is no longer activated.
This does also happen if you used a single PC license on multiple PCs and then updated those to Windows 10. Only one machine will keep it's activation status and trying to activate another one with the same key will result in the previously activated machine to no longer be activated. I had run into this exact issue, so it isn't just a theory...

[hushed pond]

i have used so many gray market license to build random pc and none of them ever got revoked

[haughty thistle]

Lucky you

[hushed pond]

also it kinda doesnt matter if it get revoked just buy another one for 5$ lmao

[haughty thistle]

Matter of the fact, it ain't really legal. And Microsoft is trying to prevent that as they have all the right to do so. You wouldn't pirate a game either, would you?

[hushed pond]

only if its a dogshit game im gonna only play once

[haughty thistle]

The Windows license I'm currently using is fully legal, yet I didn't pay a penny for it. I used to have a Dreamspark license through my school, and through it I have gotten Windows licenses for days. Well enough to cover all the machines I'd ever run in my home

[hushed pond]

pirating is still less harmful than buying game key off third party site

which are mostly money laundering

anyway kinda not the topic for this channel

[haughty thistle]

True

[rustic garnet]

im aware

[rustic garnet]

Is there a channel for virtualization stuff?

[lofty minnow]

mod?

what is the ak mod name

[rapid otter]

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1RiYQACXZR2u_NnL0Te7kUOIfCOcmx2JN

Look in here

It's one of the best boneworks mod ever

Extremely detailed

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=14y3H7Z1f28sflWuiHuUw28TLoGY9WxmV

Should be this file

[neon basin]

I downloaden boneworks from steam and I dont know why but it doesnt work with my Rift. I get this screen and the game doesnt go in vr mode for some reason

Does anyone know a solution?

[haughty thistle]

Are you running SteamVR when starting up Boneworks?

[neon basin]

I think that is the problem

But beatsaber works fine without it

[neon basin]

Do I need to download it?

[haughty thistle]

You can download it directly from your Steam Library. You just have to show Utilities in your library, look for SteamVR and hit install

[neon basin]

Thanks. I found it and I am downloading it right now

Do I have to wear the Rift when I start the program?

[haughty thistle]

Not really. The Oculus Software just needs to be running

[neon basin]

Ok thank you. I assume I need SteamVR for every vr game I donwloaden on steam right?

[haughty thistle]

Not necessarily. Some work directyl with Oculus, even when bought through Steam, but the overwhealming majority works with SteamVR

[rustic garnet]

Wait really? Which ones work through the oculus runtime?

[earnest vapor]

do most vr headsets still suck?

also i heard that Oculus quest 2 has a jailbreak is that true?

[pale wagon]

no, and not really

[harsh niche]

I haven’t heard of that

[haughty thistle]

Audio Trip is one that comes to my mind. Fired it up on my CV1, while SteamVR was running, and once Audio Trip was running, I lost control over the SteamVR Dashboard and the Oculus Dash showed Audio Trip as the running application

Another one would be ETS2 and ATS, which can be configured to work either with the Oculus runtime or SteamVR.

[haughty thistle]

Not really. The CV1 was already a great Headset imo, but I know haters like to differ.
Regarding your second Question: It is true, that a security researcher had managed to get Root Access to the Quest 2 a while back. But he only really had Root Access through ADB, which is essentially just an entry way and I can only guess that this hole has been patched a while back.
Besides that, no one has ever managed to fully bypass the Facebook login requirement. It is possible to remove a Facebook login after the fact, but it makes the headset essentially just a homebrew machine. PCVR would require you to be logged in at least on the Quest (for VD) or on the PC as well (for Quest Link/Air Link). You could use ALVR, but last time I tried it, it sucked a$$.

[glossy ibex]

Yeah. I've tried using ALVR a while back too, but quickly switched to VD, because I couldn't get it to work properly, and the latency spikes were horrible. Altho, hopefully in the future someone will manage to jailbreak q2 and so on.

[neon basin]

What would be a good tutorial for custom sabers in BeatSaber?

[native linden]

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=how+to+make+custom+beat+saber+sabers there are plenty here

@neon basin

[rapid otter]

What's alvr

[glossy ibex]

open source alternative for virtual desktop

[rapid otter]

👍

Just use oculus software

Free

[neon basin]

thanks

[rapid otter]

Love this render

[haughty thistle]

So, I just tried to run my Reverb G2 on my Neo 15, and let's just say, it's playable*.
When it's running at about 70% resolution it's surprisingly fluid. Then again, we're talking i7 10th Gen + RTX 2070 (both mobile variants)...

Now to build my own backpack and I got myself quite a sweet rig lol

[pale orbit]

https://twitter.com/oculus/status/1428027911731392513

Oculus (@oculus)

How’s your schedule looking for 10/28? Pretty free? Perfect. Get hype cause Facebook Connect is coming to you live in Horizon and on Facebook Live (duh). https://t.co/tEO9UevNbh

Likes

165

Twitter · Aug 18, 2021, 4:16 PM

[haughty thistle]

That one got deleted quick

[pale orbit]

guess they weren't supposed to say the date it's happening quite yet

[rapid otter]

Who tf removed my pic

I can remove it if you ask but ?

Just tell me

And btw it's from boneworks a vr game

So perfectly related

[rapid otter]

A 2070 is good for vr tho mobile chip are significantly less powerful. Maybe try to undervolt

Around 20% less powerfull

[haughty thistle]

The G2 is pretty VRAM hungry and the 2070 Mobile has "only" 8GB, while on my 3090 it easily eats up more then 12GB...

[rapid otter]

Ho yeah sure

Also what you consider good experience is certainly different from mine

[haughty thistle]

True. The G2 for sure looks better then the Quest 1 in this use case. So if transport space isn't a problem, I may take the Reverb G2 instead of the Quest with me in the future. Like when visiting friends I mean...

[tawdry dove]

You have a fucking 3090

How

[haughty thistle]

I was lucky when Nvidia had switched from their own Webstore to NBB in germany, the second drop of GPUs still lasted longer then usual at the time, as not all bots had been rewritten at that point. This + the lower demand of 3090s at the time gave me the chance to buy one. 3090 FE mind you

[rapid otter]

Sexy

Imagine a custom high en pcb 3090 for overclocking

A guy did 2.9 ghz with one

Can't imagine how powerful that is

😍

[earnest vapor]

whats a good headset rn

then

looking to get into vr

[glossy ibex]

It depends

[earnest vapor]

i have a very powerful pc

[earnest vapor]

@haughty thistle what do you say

[haughty thistle]

There are tons of options out there. The Quest 2 is a decent entry into VR, but keep in mind that it's not the best option you have for PCVR. The Index I'd say is probably the best all in one box option for PCVR. The Reverb G2 is also a decent option, but it's controllers are less then optimal for social VR applications like VRChat.
If the Index is too expensive, but you don't want to sell your soul to Facebook, you can also try to find an original Vive on the used Market. Despite what some say, the Vive is still a stellar option for PCVR, especially as you can just buy a pair of Index controllers later down the line as an upgrade, without anything else needed.

[topaz bolt]

your still required to have a FB account for the quest 2?

[haughty thistle]

Always has been like that and probably always will be

[topaz bolt]

oh rip

[native linden]

yeah no the index is fucking sick, I hope at some point the fove gets controllers though, that'd be the sickest shit ever

[tawdry dove]

Pimax 8k is the king of all headsets but software falls short

And hardware

[rapid otter]

From Chicken Bread experience it wasn't that great

@tawdry dove

Was blurry

[tawdry dove]

Fov makes the ppi not amazing

I'm sure in the future when it is possible turning up the render scale will help significantly

[rapid otter]

Blurry to a lense level

[haughty thistle]

Pimax has dug their grave trying to work with an outdated lens design and trying to push it's boundaries. Who knows, their headsets might actually be good, if they didn't stick to the same lenses as their initial prototype or something. They tried to fix a flawed lens in software, and that just isn't possible. Chromatic Abberation was all over the place, colors shifted in each eye, IPD adjustment basically meaningless and to get a proper viewing experience, you essentially need to remove all foam and have the lenses as close to your face as possible.
Besides that, their screen calibration is aweful, and while they do offer the option to tweak it, the way you adjust it, just isn't great or accurate.

Oh, everything looks reddish? Let me turn that down one notch. Oh, now everything looks blue-ish green =.=
Another thing you may not know is that Pimax has solved physical IPD adjustment in a similar way as Oculus has on the Quest 2. The lenses move in steps of .5mm in front of fixed in place screens. So while you may indeed have 2 4k screens in front of you, you only see a part of it period.
In my experience, image detail was somewhere around the Reverb G2 running at 70% render resolution. But image sharpness, as detailed on the picture above was atrocious. I think the Chromatic Abberation probably made the percieved image sharpness worse then it actually was, but still...

Also keep in mind that Pimax support is pure 💩, and all their business is actually good at is finding good designs and marketing.
The Pimax MAS is like a crappy off-brand of the Vive Pro headstrap, while the Pimax sword controllers are the initial Valve Knuckles Prototype ordered on Wish.

[rapid otter]

I wish they come up with something better

High five headset are the future more than high resolution i think

Higher res than what flagship provide rn

[haughty thistle]

Honestly, we should more focus on lens quality then either res or FOV. What does the highest FOV bring you when everything looks pixalated and what does a high resolution bring you, when everything looks blurry and is full of glare

Gives us aspherical lenses, before we talk about res or FOV.

But High FOV = High Res. Or else you'll quickly have the issue of things looking more like a downgrade...

[rapid otter]

I don't use my quest at full res, but it's fine, it just lacks fov

[rapid otter]

If we can have both it's better, and surely fov goes with res no matter what but i think you got what i meant

[pale orbit]

https://twitter.com/idTechpics/status/1428393074179387395

id Tech Aesthetics (@idTechpics)

Quake's EULA has been updated and now contains a section related to VR
https://t.co/L3eEG0ukqm

Likes

134

Twitter · Aug 19, 2021, 4:27 PM

[harsh niche]

wtf is that ring around the edge

[pale orbit]

https://www.roadtovr.com/ftc-sues-facebook-monopolization-oculus-vr/

[haughty thistle]

The white ring on the last one was to somewhat represent the glare I got towards the edge of the lens. It's not as bad when you use the thinner 11mm foam, but with neither I'd recommend using glasses under a Pimax

[rapid otter]

Something's wrong I can feel it

[glad sand]

Would you say the 3090 is worth it for VR given the extra VRAM? Does it really make use of that compared to the 10GB 3080?

[humble matrix]

You have a 30 series gpu!?

This is a rare occurrence

[haughty thistle]

Depends on the headset. Like I said, with the Reverb G2 at full resolution, the VRAM of my 3090 is used up more then 50%. 24GB of VRAM are defo overkill for now, but as Nvidia doesn't have anything in between 12 and 24, it's your best bet for high res VR.
The Vive Pro 2 can gobble up similar amount of VRAM in some games btw. But it's not like the Reverb G2, which immediately jumps to 50% and stays there lol

[glad sand]

I've got an Index, sooo 🤷

[glad sand]

Yeah I managed to snag a 3090 FE after waiting in line at Best Buy for 12 hours overnight. Guy local to me is offering $690 + his 3080 FTW3 Ultra for my 3090 FE and I'm debating if it's worth it or not 😄

[haughty thistle]

With the Index, you're fine with like 8GB of VRAM tbh. There the extra VRAM only allows for more headroom in the Super Samplig. Running my Index at 200% render res lol

I'd say the the 3090 is defo more future proof when it comes to VR tho. As FOV is increasing, so does the resolution. And as I said, with higher resolution comes higher VRAM demand

[glad sand]

What are your thoughts then? 3090 FE (effectively for $1650 bc MSRP + tax) or 3080 FTW3 Ultra (effectively for $960)? One thing worth noting is the ICX sensor issue on the EVGA card that led to the whole New World situation, but EVGA has the best customer support so that may be a non-issue

[haughty thistle]

960$ Is still somewhat overpriced for a 3080 tbh

For that kind of money, you'd almost get a 3080Ti at MSRP (if lucky)

I'd stick to the 3090 if I were you

[glad sand]

Keep in mind the 3090 is $1650, so reduce 10% off each one bc sales tax for me is 10%, so really they are both at their MSRPs, which is where the $690 number came from, $1500-$810. That being said, EVGA changed their damn MSRP so I'm kinda eating it on the sales tax side pretty much. Could try asking for $765 since that'd be MSRP - sales tax ig

[haughty thistle]

It ends up being your choice. VR get's more VRAM hungry as resolutions of headsets continues to increase. Not even techniques like FSR or DLSS can help with that, they only help with coping for the computing demand...

[glad sand]

I do non-VR as well (predominantly lol), target res of 4K 120Hz. Mostly wondering if a 3090 FE is worth $700 more than a 3080 FTW3 Ultra

[haughty thistle]

I mean... even in flat-screen games, more VRAM can be super beneficial. Especially at high resolutions. There are already few games who's VRAM demand exceed 10GB at 4k Ultra settings...
And there's another application as LTT has shown here: https://youtu.be/7kSQTJJN0Uo

[glad sand]

So what do you think? Worth $700 extra for a 3090 FE for my use of Index VR (might tap into Reverb G2 as well for work) and 4K 120Hz pancake gaming vs the 3080 FTW3 Ultra?

[thick escarp]

I don't think we can make this decision for you. You'll have to know yourself if you want to spend an extra 700 bucks to potentially have future options... I mean, VR is moving fairly quickly right now, and you might actually make use of that 3090 in a couple of years. But honestly, GPUs are moving as well. If you put those 700 bucks into a decent stock fund or something, they will probably buy you a 3090 equivalent (which will then maybe be a 4080 or something) by the time you feel it is necessary to upgrade your VR headset to something shiny.

If you use your GPU for other things, particularly VRAM heavy applications like simulations, 3D rendering, machine learning, ..., a 3090 might be an option if you have the cash and can get it for MSRP. But just for VR? I wouldn't.

Unless money is not really an issue and you want the "best of the best" experience possible in 18 months time. You can always push a super sampled stream at crazy high framerates into a headset, but you always pay premium for the "top of the line" gear. Today's top games (like Half Life Alyx) on today's top headsets will actually run fine with even a 3070 if you ask me (which is what I sport), and that will heat up your living room way less in the summer. 😉 If 700 bucks doesn't hurt you at all, and you get MSRP, why not shoot for it (oh, get a huuuuuuge power supply in addition), but if it hurts you a bit, you will have to know if that's worth it for nothing but "future proofing the upcoming top of the line headset".

Alright, now we have given you a lot of information. But again: Poor @haughty thistle cannot make the decision for you, and neither can I. But I would be very interested what you pick up and how you like it afterwards.

@glad sand I am very much trying to push people towards staying within the "linear regime" of the price/performance graph for any gear. If you go past that, you will not see the same amount of improvement for your money. A 3080 is really on the edge of that zone, maybe even in "premium" territory already. I personally will not notice a few more frames in the game and find that 700 bucks will be better spent for e.g. a bhaptics tactsuit to immerse you in VR, or for upgraded peripherals on your pancake setup, because you will feel those a lot more, every minute of your gaming experience. 😉

[glad sand]

Thanks for your long and very insightful reply. I actually already have the 3090 FE, and it's doing pretty well overall, but definitely struggles in GTA V for example where sometimes it can do 120FPS but other times nah you're down to 60FPS it's kinda wild actually, that game needs optimization...Also, the VRAM gets really dang hot lol. Other than that, pretty solid and is huuge which is kinda neat, also has SLI which I may never really use on it but I can at least appreciate it not being removed entirely. Honestly, when I was at Best Buy, my goal was to get a 3080, not a 3090, because the 3080 is way better suited to what I wanted to pay while still being usable for 4K 120Hz gaming. That being said, my main hesitation for this deal has honestly been the FTW3 Ultra variant of the card, since it has some issues with the ICX sensors basically bricking the card and needing an RMA as documented online. Also-also, I'm not going to spend extra now for "future-proofing," usually my jam is buying used for ridiculously cheap and rolling with that, then flipping it for profit and getting something better once new stuff comes out. Unfortunately with the 30-series, getting it new at MSRP was cheaper than getting it used, so here we are, paying MSRP for graphics cards lol (took waiting 12 hours at Best Buy to get it, but I got the 3090...couldn't even get the ideal 3080 for $700 since I didn't get there early enough 🙄 ). Unfortunately anything lower than a 3080 won't even come close to running my TV at its 4K 120Hz (which btw I picked up for $600 basically so that was neat, not like I have indefinite money 😄 to afford a LG 77" OLED brand new from a retailer lmaoo). Also, if I do get the 3080, chances are it'll stay in my rig until rumblings of something better come about, then it's getting sold on Reddit and I'll either get it again but for cheaper or get a good value 40-series if that's possible at the time

https://www.igorslab.de/en/graphics-card-problems-at-evga-despite-firmware-update-marketing-vs-technical-reason/

There's the singular article I've really found on the topic, but the "New World" issue on EVGA cards was really popular so that has more reading

[haughty thistle]

Main reason I have the 3090 is because that was what I was able to purchase at the time, I actually wanted a 3080 instead. Now that i have the 3090, I just ended up staying with it.
Like Flo has said, the 3090 definitely surpasses the point of diminishing returns. Heck, the 3080 Ti, with the same GPU die performs better then the 3090, as more of the power is directed to the die, rather then VRAM.
I make use of the VRAM by heavily making use of Super Sampling on all my VR headsets, but beyond 200% SS, it really becomes hard to spot the difference and it also takes extra power to run.
It's honestly really hard to justify the use of a 3090, if you don't know already that you can make use of more then 12GB (or money isn't a problem like it is for me)

In regards to the VRAM temps, that is an issue of the heat of the GPU not transferring quickly enough to the cooler and the thermal pads on the VRAM not being heat conducting enough. The 3080 is also affected by this problem to some degree. I have replaced the thermal pads on mine as well as repasted the die, and the VRAM temps went down to a more manageable 90°C, and with some Fan curve adjustments to 80°C

[thick escarp]

Well, if you already have the 3090, then I can't help you decide all the more. 🤣 But I don't think the value of the 3090 is gonna deplete a lot in the current climate, and if you ever upgrade, you'll probably get a better price on it than a used 3080, so you'll be fine. It certainly wasn't a waste of money. 🙂

[haughty thistle]

The EVGA cards dying isn't necessarily the iCX sensors, but more the way the values for the Over-Voltage and Over Power protections are read out, which makes the card think it's taking less power then it actually does during peaks and the protections not acting because of it. Amazons New World, just happened to have exactly the right load pattern to trigger load spikes quickly and high enough to actually cause damage to the cards...

[glad sand]

Interesting, so do you think it's basically a non-issue?

[thick escarp]

Yep, here we all are, just rocking whatever we got. I also mostly have the 3070 because I went into a tiny local computer store to get a webcam for my wife, and it just sat there for MSRP, one lonely unit. Didn't think twice and just bought it. 🤪 Especially since my 1660 had been struggling with any newer VR games...

[glad sand]

Thanks to both of you for your help btw whether or not to make this deal has been stressing me out for like a week or two tbh :/

[haughty thistle]

Who knows, maybe more titles in the future might trigger that. Then again, Amazons New World might end up being the only title to ever cause it and you might be safe.
I don't have a glass ball to look into, so all I can say what the present brings...

[glad sand]

Got it. If it is basically a non-issue, I guess I'm not really sure what the downside is other than slightly worse performance and less VRAM. Might see if I can negotiate some tho since I paid so much in sales tax

[glad sand]

Aight, sent the guy a message basically saying I'm good to do our originally agreed upon $690 + his card for mine since he tried to negotiate down to $630 since EVGA raised their MSRP 🙄

[rapid otter]

Virtual desktop looks very complicated did you struggle to set it up ?

[haughty thistle]

It isn't. You just install the desktop Streamer on your PC, Enter your Oculus username, and on the Quest your PC should automatically show up and you can already connect

[thick escarp]

Well, yes and no, @rapid otter might have a point... The hardest part for me at the time would have been to put the Quest in Developer Mode and get SideQuest running to patch Virtual Desktop. But I am not sure if that is still necessary? I think I read somewhere that now (with Airlink available), Virtual Desktop does not need to be patched anymore? Then yes, it's really a walk in the park. Does anybody know if this is correct?

Oh, I wrote "would have been" because I already had SideQuest running when I got Virtual Desktop. First thing I did, for the BeatSaber custom songs. 😉

[rapid otter]

Not necessary anymore

[thick escarp]

Oh yeah, then it's really really easy, no worries.

[rapid otter]

@haughty thistle i really want SSW because my hardware isn't very powerful and also i want cpu encoding to free up my gpu power

[thick escarp]

So, I am sure there is already such a post in here, but I am new to the Discord and wasn't there...

Do you have any specific VR game recommendations?

I am not a gamer by any means, hardly ever played computer games until I "inherited" a Quest from my colleague. That's why I like games that most people will probably find simplistic or have played versions of since forever. Examples: I spent most of my VR time either in:
A) Beat Saber, because I don't need to understand controllers and it's addictive
B) In Death Unchained, or Until You Fall, which are Rogue Likes where I could easily and quickly progress.
C) Skyrim VR, because I never played the flat screen game, and it's addictive. Although I cheated in this one via console because it progressed too slowly.

So there you go. I don't have much free time (full time job and three little kids), but if you have any great recommendations, shoot. 😁

[pale orbit]

half life alyx

[haughty thistle]

This ^

[thick escarp]

Oh yeah, that's probably on top of most lists. Already bought it when it was fairly cheap and played a few minutes. It looks breathtaking and is really intuitive, will have to go deeper there next.

[tawdry dove]

Ye

[thick escarp]

So it's decided. This is gonna be my Friday evening. 🤣

[rapid otter]

@thick escarp boneworks

Best vr game

[thick escarp]

I have heard many people say that now, but what I have seen has never really gotten me excited... I'll have to check that out.

[rapid otter]

Yeah

Vids don't describe the game very good

Master piece

[hushed pond]

i consider bonework to be the best game in term of physic

but in term of overall great at everything is half life alyx

[rapid otter]

Yeah

But i still prefer boneworks

[thick escarp]

Does anyone know if it's preferential to get Boneworks on Steam or Oculus? I tend towards Steam to not have it bound to the Facebook platform, but maybe the Oculus version works way better with the Touch Controllers? It might also be a free crossbuy when it comes out natively on the Quest...

[pale wagon]

i both doubt it will come to quest, soon atleast, and it works just the same on steamvr.

[thick escarp]

Awesome, thanks! All Steam then. 😁

[pale wagon]

ye

[rapid otter]

Get it on steam, works perfectly with touch controllers, also it's 4 bucks cheaper

The stream version allow you to mod it, wich is very cool.

[haughty thistle]

If a game is available on both Steam and Oculus, get it on Steam. Only difference being that Oculus Store titles have the menu button on the left controller available to them, which games on Steam don't. And that minor difference isn't worth it, locking oneself into the Oculus eco-system imo

[thick escarp]

Yes, absolutely. But I had one game that somehow didn't run in the Steam version and am careful since. That's why I was relieved to see that it works fine...

[rapid otter]

Asseto Corsa finallyyy works

[bleak night]

another friend of mine ordered a pimax 5k super

going from an index/vive pro

who also had a load of issues with the index

hope she has a good experience with the pimax

i sure have

[thick escarp]

Let's hope they do. Also: Is that your real name? Because my middle child is named "Silva", and we have hardly heard of anybody else being called that so I was really surprised to see that here...

[topaz bolt]

ill happily take it off their hands

[bleak night]

it is o. o

[bleak night]

they got a return sorted out

[topaz bolt]

f

[bleak night]

dead cable n such

[topaz bolt]

id use the controllers for my vive

[native river]

late to this entire conversation but ive heard mixed opinions about the cable the pimax uses

[haughty thistle]

The included cable on Pimax headsets is just way too short and way too stiff for proper roomscale use imo. The 6m Fibre cable should be a must-have if you intend on using a Pimax as a roomscale headset

Other then that, I wouldn't recommend Pimax headsets to anyone who isn't willing to tinker with things and shy away from having to mess in settings for what feels like hours before actually playing a game...

Aka. you'd have to be that kinda guy that would repair their own car for me to even consider recommending a Pimax to you

[bleak night]

6 meter cable is damn nice

and to be honest.. the people i talk to would repair their own var

[earnest vapor]

k i think i may get a vive with controllers

idk tho

[haughty thistle]

It's ultimately your choice with what you go with. Sadly there isn't much in terms of new VR headsets that don't break the bank and aren't from Facebook...

So the used market is pretty much the go-to destination for such HMDs

[thick escarp]

I mean, you could do what I did involuntarily: I got a (smaller) Quest 2 from my colleague, because he upgraded. I essentially installed Virtual Desktop on there and am now running it until something better and non-Facebook comes along. At this price point, if you don't give Facebook app-money, the hardware is essentially being subsidised by them. 😉 It's a decent enough headset if you have a good wireless router. And I have to say, having tried both, I love the wire-free headset!

The thing is: I am pretty sure that VR is expanding right now and some fairly cheap as well as some fairly good headsets will come out in the next 2 years. I honestly thought about upgrading my Quest, but it is serving me fine for now, and I am hoping for a (wireless?) Index 2 or something coming soon... So if somebody asked me, I would say spend the 320 bucks (including Virtual Desktop) on a small Quest 2, game on it until you can/want to upgrade and sell it or make it a cool birthday gift for your mom. 😉

[haughty thistle]

The thing is, you still need a Facebook account to use the Quest 2, even with PCVR. Who knows what they are doing in the background in terms of movement analysis and whatnot

[thick escarp]

Although, "inheriting" the FB-device feels much less dirty than actually paying for it, so I might feel different if I actually gave them more than 20 bucks...

[haughty thistle]

True. Only reason I have the Quest 1 and Rift CV1 is because I can use them without a Facebook account. Wouldn't buy any games on the Oculus store at this point tho...

[thick escarp]

Yeah, that is very true. I mean, I don't use Facebook outside the headset anymore, so I don't think it's much use to them in terms of connecting my account to anything but the VR movement (like ads etc.), but it's still creepy.

[haughty thistle]

Although having hardware tight to a platform that is notorious for banning people because of auch stupid things as "The name doesn't seem like a real one" does leave a sour taste in my mind...

[thick escarp]

I am still kinda hoping that FB will have to roll back some of the data collection on German accounts. The Quest 2 isn't even sold here, since FB is currently in court against the government because joining the VR and other data is against data laws... So maybe (hope, hope, hope), Facebook will agree to not join the data for German accounts. We are not that small a market...

[haughty thistle]

Facebook is literally at court for monopolistic behavior in the states. Let's hope that'll make them split Oculus out to its own company again 🤞

[thick escarp]

Even the WhatsApp data merger is pretty much not marked "okay and done" here. So here's to splitting them all into pieces. 🍹

[haughty thistle]

One thing I just noticed, I never allowed the Oculus app to see my contacts or location (as far as I recall), yet both were active according to Android o.O
I just tired that off, as well as background data. I don't have WhatsApp, Facebook or Instagram on my phone, so that was a bit scary to see

[thick escarp]

Keep in mind though that most people couldn't care less. Sadly. My closest friends and work colleagues e.g. I can contact via other means, but all the kindergarten, school, soccer team, kids' choir, ... groups are WhatsApp, and I cannot convince them otherwise. They really don't give a flying f* about giving away all their data in exchange for some service they can get somewhere else as well...

[haughty thistle]

People that only use WhatsApp can ki$$ my a$$. Signal or SMS is how the can reach me on my phone. I couldn't care less xD

[thick escarp]

Had to install the app on my ancient tablet because I don't want it on my phone, but that's what I am dealing with...

Yeah, that's well and good if you're fighting on your own. But with kids, I do somehow need to keep taps on what is relevant to them... 😦

[haughty thistle]

Yeah, understandable. Image of Facebooks Akquisition of Giphy went through. They'd essentially have a backdoor into most other social platforms, including ones that are mostly used for B2B communications like MS Teams and Slack...

Thankfully that gets challenged in court too

[thick escarp]

Yeah, let's hope they are feeling the pressure. But I don't know what'll happen. Facebooks general direction and policy has always been "more data, bringing everything together", and they don't really have a lot of other means of making money...

[glossy ibex]

Yeah. But then they won't be able to create the same devices and sell them in such prices. And without the fact that Facebook sells q2 with a loss, way less ppl would be playing vr. Less players = less new, good VR titles. If you don't want to give Facebook ur data, then block all traffic to Facebook and oculus, sideload ALVR and have fun configuring it. Then you can have pcvr with q2 without sending any data to Facebook.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And you could even play standalone q2 games, at least those which you could sideload if I'm not mistaken.

[haughty thistle]

The fact that Facebook is underselling the Quest so heavily means less competition in the hardware. Less competition = Less choice.
There's a reason monopoles are always considered bad for the consumer

Facebook has shown time and time again that they want VR for themselves and that they will achieve this, no matter the cost.
Just one example is the heavy price cut of the Rift CV1, conveniently a day after the Windows Mixed Reality announcement from M$

[glossy ibex]

Yeah sure.
The same goes in phones.
There are brands like xiaomi, oppo and so on, which were selling phones with similar hardware to samsung etc., for less.
And so what?
After they've created the market, they bumped their prices up.
The same will happen to next-gen quest.
Why?
Bcs ppl bought q2, bought apps in oculus store, and they probably stay inside this ecosystem.
And then new brand will do the same

[haughty thistle]

I'm not saying that the low price of the Quest is bad, what I'm more saying is the monopoly that Facebook is striving for is bad. And I don't think they'll ever go up in price with the Base-Line Quest. Yeah, the Pro is going to be more expensive, but none of the "Pro" features will actually be required for VR...

[glossy ibex]

I'm quite sure they will.
Most of the ppl will still buy them, after they buy-in into the oculus ecosystem.

If you've already spent like 200$+ for games in oculus store, you will buy their next device.

And they will hope, that ppl will buy quest, because they friends got one and so on.

[haughty thistle]

Facebook is not looking into getting money from VR purchases, all they want the data, and if they'd raise the price, less people would end up getting an Oculus for their first HMD. The whole reason they sell the Quest for so cheap is to get as many people as possible into VR.

[glossy ibex]

Well yeah.
But I still believe that the will bump the price, at least to the point when they're not on a loss.

[haughty thistle]

Their hope is that people will look at the Quest 2 and other options and think

Why should I go for this much more expensive one, when the Quest 2 has most of these features plus standalone for way less

[glossy ibex]

Well yeah.
But I'm saying about next gen quest.

[haughty thistle]

I think 300 bucks is going to stay the baseline price for Oculus, until something comes along that is the same price or cheaper and actually competitive

[glossy ibex]

Ppl will buy it, even on higher price.
Because either they've already bought games in oculus store, or quest has some nice exclusive, and all of their friends already got quest.

[glossy ibex]

Something like q3, when they discontinue q2.

[haughty thistle]

I think you underestimate the importance of the data collected through VR for Facebook. They are willing to loose money on the hardware, as long as they get as many people using their devices as possible. My guess is that they'll only raise the price, once Facebook notices not enough users buy their devices to warrent the loss in money

The whole reason the Quest is sold at a loss is to get new users, not to convince current users to upgrade

[glossy ibex]

Well.
We'll see I guess 😄
Hopefully, we will have a future, with many brands competing for consumers, which will give us big choice of nice, cheap hmd 😛

[dusty vine]

any1 recommd upgrading my cosmos to a cosmos elite and uusing steam knuckles

[haughty thistle]

Absolutely. Cosmos Tracking is 💩
Keep in mind that for the Elite Tracking plate and Index controllers you do need at least 2 lighthouses for room scale tracking. You can get either the ones from Valve on Steam or either the 1.0 or 2.0 ones from HTC. HTC is not including mounting hardware btw

[dusty vine]

just need to wait for steam index to be released in aus so i can get the knuckles

[glossy ibex]

Wait. It's still not released in aus?

[haughty thistle]

Through EB Games I assume

[glossy ibex]

Isn't new Index to be released like next yr or smth like that?

[haughty thistle]

We know nothing about what the next Index will be and when it releases. All we have is Patents to guess a possible feature set. That's it

Besides that, if you hold off from buying something, because a better device is expected for next year, you might as well never buy anything, as there's always the next better version coming at some point

[dusty vine]

late sep

[glossy ibex]

^yeah, I've just heard something along the lines of new Index coming soon, and was just suprised that current version still didn't launch in aus.

[haughty thistle]

Buy things when you have the money and enjoy what you have. That's at least my motto to purchases ^^

[glossy ibex]

Yeah. Btw., how is Index compared to q2 / rift s, in terms of resolution? I've heard some say that index is way better, and other that the index is quite similar to those.

[haughty thistle]

Detail wise, the Index and Quest 2 are comparable in PCVR. The Quest 2 has less SDE, while the Index produces a sharper image. Rift S meanwhile does look more pixalated in comparison

As I've never had a Quest 2, this is only an educated guess, based off the fixed resolution sent to the Headset and my personal experience with the Quest 1

It could very well be that the Quest 2 has less noticable detail then the Index or more (remember on the Index it's over a larger viewing area), but I think any difference in detail would only become noticable in a side-by-side comparison. The difference in sharpness should be much more noticable though, as the Quest 2 has to quite heavily upscale the image, which is not the case on the Index.

[rapid otter]

@haughty thistle i just installed amd fsr in boneworks

A real game changer

Some levels were unplayable

But now it works flawlessly

I set it at the ultra quality preset

Looks good to me

I can't see a real difference

[haughty thistle]

FSR only really helps if you were GPU bound already anyways.
As for the image quality, it might be somewhat hidden by the lower-then-native PCVR resolution on the Quest anyways. FSR is after all just a special set of Post-Processing shaders that are supposed to hide standard bilinear upscaling

And tbh, I don't really see much of a difference between 60 and 70% render res on my Reverb G2, so starting at a certain resolution, you might not notice the lower res anyways...

[rapid otter]

I tried at 50% res to see if it worked

So that i could just see if it did something

Looked awfully but ran very good

Then i tried 65 % better but still looked bad

I settled down for 77

Looked similar to me but ran way better since in gpu bottlenecked with my 2060

I see the benefits for people with 1060ish gpu who are gonna benefit from it greatly

[haughty thistle]

I'm guessing that's with the render res in the Oculus Software and SteamVR set to 1x/100%

[rapid otter]

In oculus it's 1.1 to match the headset res

And 150% in steam vr

[rapid otter]

I'm still testing this

[haughty thistle]

Then you're rendering it, Upscaling the image, only for it to be the scaled back down before sent to the headset

[rapid otter]

Ho

So not useful

[haughty thistle]

Like I mentioned beforey the resolution sent to the Quest is hard limited to something close to the Index, due to limitations on the SOC. 1x in Oculus and 100% in SteamVR is the highest you can get on the Quest. Anything more is Super Sampling. Before going out and using Upscaling techniques to get better framerates, maybe try turning down the super sampling first ^^

[rapid otter]

https://youtu.be/nyehrn9EKIY i saw this but i guess i missunderstood

[haughty thistle]

Rendering always happens at a higher res because of lens correction.

100% render res will result in the image center roughly matching native resolution after lens correction

[rapid otter]

So to match my quest 2 res i need to set it at 100%

[haughty thistle]

As Oculus does its own lens correction and Super Sampling, Super Sampling on SteamVR level can actually clash with the super sampling in the Oculus Software.

[haughty thistle]

Preferably, you'd want all SS happening in one step, rather then 2. So yeah, only use SteamVR SS on Oculus, if you already are maxing out the slider in Oculus

If you want better framerates, maybe consider turning down the SS to 1x (which is then roughly native, or the highest sent to the Quest)

[rapid otter]

I'm at maximum

But yeah I'll set steam vr to 100% and oculus at 1x

[thick escarp]

Oh man. Half Life Alyx is incredible. Thanks for pushing me to try it further! I already knew it looked great, but as someone who has never really "played a computer game", this is some amazing character work and storytelling! Makes one feel all the feels!

Now I'll have to try the other recommendation, Boneworks. Since I am an actual physicist by profession, imma translate "best physics" to "most intuitive interactions" as a description...? 😉 But yeah, excited to try that one as well.

[rapid otter]

I was blown away too

Half life alyx is amazing

When are you in the game rn ?

[haughty thistle]

I can only agree with the two of you. Too bad I'm too scared to actually finish the game 😖

[rapid otter]

What does the physics think about the glass breaking ? I found them incredible

[rapid otter]

Me too i was but i think it's the best way to appreciate them, i remember when i finished the game it was 2 am alone in my house it took my headset off, sweating, i was blown away. I stood in silence in my room knowing this was one kind of an experience.

I am extremely sensitive to emotions in video games, i get really immersed

[rapid otter]

In boneworks the physics on one item or another isn't the best, what makes it good is that everything is simulated, it's a whole...

[thick escarp]

I don't know how far along this is, but I just derailed the train. And it was mindblowing. And everything before in the quarantine zone was incredibly scary and intense.

Oh yes, getting immersed is really what Alyx is all about. And this is even crazier in VR. And if you're not used to it like I am, it is really scary.

[thick escarp]

Very much looking forward to Boneworks. I just get a little triggered by the "physics" word. 🤣 Like, I simulated physics. And what even the best games do is just kinda funny in comparison. Sure, it's simulating physics, but 200 years old physics, just some gravity and action-reaction forces, that why it has a funny ring to it. 😉 Don't take it the wrong way, I'm sure it is actually amazing, and in-game, it's not like I think about physics at all, so it'll be fine.

Probably I just wanted to humble brag that I can physics better than you. 😉

[native river]

[rapid otter]

The underground is stunning, dark and creepy. What's following is cool too

[rapid otter]

I'm used to vr i have 150 hours or so, but i try to roleplay, wich makes you more immersed

[rapid otter]

Sure it's not 100% realistic but certainly the best physics in vr and one of the best in the video game history

[thick escarp]

@rapid otter Apparently, there is a campaign but also a sandbox mode for Boneworks. Since I am short on free time: Would you recommend doing the campaign or rather jump right into experimentation?

[rapid otter]

You unlock most of the sandboxes and their content thru the campaign

But appart from that

You should do the campaign, getting used to the avatar in boneworks is more difficult, because of the physics... The alps you gonna experience everything during the campaign

Afterward you can get into sandbox

[thick escarp]

Thanks! I might try and jump into that today or tomorrow. 🙂 Man, so much ground to cover!

[pale orbit]

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/images1000x1000/panasonic_k_kj17mca4ba_eneloop_4_place_charger_4_1047698.jpg

got my rechargeables for controllers

[thick escarp]

Best rechargeable batteries in the business. I swore by eneloops, even before controllers. 😁

[haughty thistle]

I have exactly those. Really great for Oculus Touch, but a little too less Voltage for WMR controllers

For WMR, you really want ones with 1.5V like the infamous "PK Cell"

[rapid otter]

I preferred to finish half life first, it's how I did it.

But you do what you want

[flat pawn]

@thick escarp I'm actually excited to hear your thoughts on boneworks after you complete it

From a physics perspective

Being a game its primary objective is to be fun of course but having it mimic real physics for additional immersion helps

So maybe you could comment on how well they strike that balance

[thick escarp]

Sure. But as I said, I don't think I'll have physics in mind while playing, and that's probably a good thing. I can absolutely talk about the immersion though, from the viewpoint of someone who doesn't game much. Might still be interesting.

[flat pawn]

I wouldn't want to focus too much on physics while playing either

But afterwards it should be easy enough to assess since it won't be getting in the way of having fun

I think?

[thick escarp]

Probably. We'll see. I don't think I am better qualified to judge the physics in this than anybody else. "Physics" really is just what we see and experience all day in the real world, so we all kinda know what to expect. The extra stuff I learned at university is the stuff that I'll never ever need in real life. 🤣

[flat pawn]

Good point lol

All that matters in the end is if it looks good and feels good

[rapid otter]

I tried

Is won't ever again

Virtual desktop is bad

I had good expectations but it's a poor quality lacks polish, ran poorly, high latency, SSW is very bad, as soon as it turns on it's choppy

Very disappointed

Airlink is way better and it's free

I'm gonna return it tomorrow

[gloomy crater]

Huh. My experience with virtual desktop has been pleasant so far. As long as you run everything on 5ghz, I found it indistinguishable from using a USBC cable, even while playing high speed reaction time based games like Beat Saber and Superhot. Then again, I've never used airlink so maybe I just have nothing to compare it to

[haughty thistle]

Same here. After getting a dedicated router for VD, it was way better then Quest Link ever was for me...

[thick escarp]

I tried Airlink once and it felt worse than Virtual Desktop instantly. So I stuck with the latter. I don't think there is a huge difference, but Virtual Desktop has way more parameters to fiddle with. If not fiddled ideally, you might have a worse experience. Although I have to admit that I changed like 2 things from the default and it kinda worked...

Oh wow, I just discovered a whole music genre that I have never heard of but that is the most fun in Beat Saber I've had in a while! I mean, this is definitely a matter of taste, but have you tried "Electro Swing" in Beat Saber? Just played "Party like it's 1920", and it essentially had me dancing like an idiot monkey and smiling like a madman! What witchcraft!

[haughty thistle]

Oh yeah, Electro Swing is tons of fun ^^

[thick escarp]

Never knew this existed. But it's fast paced and great mood party music. It has "Electro" in the name, which probably just kept me from trying it (I am old, so more into old school music)...

[haughty thistle]

Electro Swing basically tries to combine the fun and joy of the old classic swing music with modern quality instruments, without completely deviating from the old

One of the most prevelant bands in this genre is Caravan Palace.

[gloomy crater]

There are a lot of great caravan palace maps for beatsaber

[thick escarp]

And for Beat Saber, it has the cool property of constant speed, so it's way easier to map. 😄

[haughty thistle]

You may also want to check out the "A Hat in Time" sound track. Tons of Electro swing in there as well, I just love it

[thick escarp]

Thanks for the hint, will definitely check that out!

[rapid otter]

I guess that for virtual desktop it's just unfortunate but airlink is perfect for now so I'll stick to it

[thick escarp]

If it works for you, there is no reason to pay 20 bucks for the same thing. I only bought it because then, Airlink just didn't exist...

[gloomy crater]

So if an 8gb 480 is good enough to run VRChat on a Quest 2 over virtual desktop, it would be okay to assume it would be fine at running less intensive games at a lower resolution right?

[lofty minnow]

i have a 2060 and get 30 fps in vrchat if i dont have avatars hidden

and a ryzen 5 5600X

[gloomy crater]

I've been told by a trustworthy friend that his system with a 2400G + 8gb RX480 has been running VRChat just fine since he got his Quest 2 earlier this year. I'm planning on buying that GPU off of him when he upgrades to a 3070 and wanted to gauge its VR capabilities based off what he's told me

[hushed pond]

"fine" is very subjective to each individual

but from my experience, i can tell its going to be a slideshow in most instance of vrchat except some optimised world and low amount of player

[gloomy crater]

Huh. I guess we'll have to see. I've been able to run other games okay on a 4gb 570 in the past, and this new system will have a 5600X + 8gb 480, so it should at least be able to run some of the less demanding titles, even if it won't run vrchat

[pale orbit]

https://www.roadtovr.com/valve-index-best-selling-steam-products-streak/

[lofty minnow]

that kinda seems like bs

[rapid otter]

I mena it's equivalent to a 1060 but with 8 gb of vram

So it should be fine

[thick escarp]

I played on a 1660 (no Ti or Super) for quite a while, which is a little faster but in the same ballpark. My experience: It "works". A better GPU will give you a significantly better and more immersive experience, but a 480 will give you the option to play at all if you can afford (and find!) one, and it will suit you fine until you upgrade. The 8GB certainly help with the high VR resolution.

But: While most single player games will work OK, VRChat will give "an experience"... Not much more. It's just pretty rough on your hardware.

[haughty thistle]

VRC is mostly CPU bound. Yes it's also super VRAM heavy ('cause peeps just can't stop using 8k textures), but the main reason VRC has on average less then 40fps is because Dynamic bones, which run exclusively on the CPU. So saying a 2400G can VRC at totally playable framerates, I'd like doubt.
GPU wise, the 480 should be able to run less demanding worlds just fine, but I wouldn't wanna visit one of Fins Worlds with that, if you know what I mean...

[rapid otter]

We live in word where we can run this

But not this

[haughty thistle]

HLA automatically scales down the render resolution if your PC can't hit the frametime target.
For example on a 90Hz HMD, HLA will render as low as 50% your headsets resolution if your PC can't meet the 11.1ms frametime target

With VRC, it really is the amount of dynamic bones and unoptimized avatars that make it hard to run. Not the worlds.
Although there are some quite heavy worlds, but they do look the part. If you've ever checked out one of the newer worlds made by Fins, you know what I mean.

Btw. The render scale adjustments work on a SteamVR level, so even if you have set 150% resolution in SteamVR, HLA takes the 100% as a baseline and takes the percentages of that

[thick escarp]

While in theory, that is very correct, and the CPU will do the heavy lifting on the dynamic bones calculation, real world experience somewhat mediates that theory. I.e.: I upgraded nothing but my GPU, and VRChat runs much more smoothly. This might be because before, the CPU would take some of the GPU load, or because some party of the dynamic bones can by now be rendered on GPU... I could theorize all day, but my real world experience is that VRChat is not just CPU bound. 🙂

[rapid otter]

What was your old cpu/gpu ?

[rapid otter]

I guess bone simulation is handled by physx, so it's logically on the cpu. It can run on the gpu but it take gpu power so lower frames. Physx runs faster on the gpu but with less quantity of simulation and slower on cpu but with a greater number of simulation

With an equivalent cpu gpu ratio it's on cpu. But i guess that a very powerful gpu could take the physx if the cpu is too weak, you can do it manually but idk if the software can change it by it's own

• powerful cpu/weak gpu, on cpu low fps
  -weak cpu / powerful gpu, low fps
  -powerful cpu/powerful gpu, high fps

You certainly had a weak gpu for you cpu, better gpu have you better fps because it was gpu bottlenecked

@thick escarp

[haughty thistle]

You sure the Dynamic Bone script used in VRC is using PhysX?

[rapid otter]

Idk

[haughty thistle]

PhysX is Nvidia proprietary. While there are drivers to use it in systems without Nvidia cards (like you said, it would just run on the CPU then), usually these drivers have to be manually installed, or installed by the game on the first run. I haven't seen VRC first time startup mentioning PhysX, so I doubt it actually uses that

[rapid otter]

It runs on unity, unity always use physx

[haughty thistle]

I think what @thick escarp happen to have was a GPU heavy instance with not too many players, in which case the bottleneck naturally is the GPU and not the CPU

[rapid otter]

It's not proprietary

[haughty thistle]

Nope. Unity Physics are done on the CPU by default: source I'm a dev

[rapid otter]

Boneworks run on physx for example

[rapid otter]

Yes but physx works on cpu or gpu you can choose

[haughty thistle]

PhysX is proprietary. Maybe read up on technologies, before you start saying things that aren't true ^^
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhysX?wprov=sfla1

[rapid otter]

😐

[haughty thistle]

Running PhysX on GPUs is only supported on Nvidia cards, as it makes use of Cuda (also Nvidia proprietary) but not OpenCL (available on both)

[rapid otter]

I never make statement where i say I'm true, i'm always open to discussion you know

If it's proprietary why can I run it on my cpu ?

[haughty thistle]

PhysX was originally developed by Ageia and was only bought by Nvidia. There is a driver to run PhysX on CPU, yes. But that is a seperate piece of software that only emulates PhysX Hardware calculation.
PhysX is only a means of Hardware accelerated Physics calculation. I'd go as far as to say that 95% of games if not more don't make use of PhysX

As PhysX is proprietary, in order to use it, you have to pay royalty to Nvidia, and you have to place the "PhysX by Nvidia" logo in the game.

[rapid otter]

Ny point of view,
PhysX isn't a Nvidia only thing. The benefit Nvidia has with PhysX over AMD is that Nvidia is capable of using the GPU for PhysX which can improve performance.

Some games require PhysX, those games will run it on the CPU instead of the GPU in a system with an AMD GPU

[haughty thistle]

Even in the screenshot you sent, there is the logo. It's a proprietary tech, that needs a license to use, and as such most games (including Boneworks afaik) don't make use of it. All their Physics are calculated on CPU, no matter the GPU

PhysX is a Physics API, that can either run on CPU, or on an Nvidia GPU. A game dev can choose to implement it into their game engine, if they decide that it does give a benefit to their game. Game engines like Unity and Unreal by default come with their own Physics API that is not compatible with PhysX. Why would Epic for example play the license fee for every game dev using Unreal out there?

[rapid otter]

It uses physx

As far as i know

And as far as upload vr is right ?

[haughty thistle]

Hmm... Sorry for my... Outrage?
Yeah, seems like a lot has changed since 2017 when I read up about PhysX. My bad ^^"

It used to be that in order to use PhysX, one had to register and to implement the logo in their game, but looks like one can now just use it. I don't think Unity has ditched their Physics Middleware though, so that has to be a modification on the Engine from Stress Level 0...

[haughty thistle]

So unity has kept their Unity Physics Middleware, but only for certain types of projects? That's weird...

Could it be that Dynamic Bone script just wasn't updated? From what I know, that only runs on one CPU core, no matter you hardware...

[rapid otter]

Nah it's all good, was a nice talk tbh

[rapid otter]

Idk for this ?

[haughty thistle]

There are "Multi-Core" patches for dynamic bones you can mod into VRC, but I'd generally not recommend them, as they can break all kinds of stuff.
I haven't seen increased GPU usage in easy to run worlds as the user count increases, so I think it works CPU only...

[haughty thistle]

I should mention that this might refer to the newest Unity version (2020 I believe), whereas a number of games may still use older versions. VRC up until March last year was still using Unity 2017...

Unity docs aren't the greatest, unless they changed something about that as well...

[rapid otter]

Yeah single core can be slow especially if it's something like a R7 1700x powerful but quite slow si gle core power

But anyway vr hat is badly optimized

Why not being able to make 8k avatar 4k or 2k in setting ?

[haughty thistle]

It's not the game that is unoptimized, it's the user content

[rapid otter]

I guess there's a good reason ? 😬

[rapid otter]

Yes but one doesn't go without the other

[haughty thistle]

You can now actually change some settings client side btw. Only in like 3-4 presets, but hey...

There can be artistic reasons to use a certain shader or an 8k texture for the body. Many avatar bases also have numerous shader slots, so they can be customized easily. The intent with those is, that you'd merge the materials with similar properties together, before upload, but most avatar makers are just plain lazy

Each material slot makes its own shader instance run btw. So if you see an Avatar with like 100 material slots, that can take as much performance as 100 avatars each with just one material (that is as long as 3ach material slot is visible all the time and has different properties)

[rapid otter]

Ok ok

I do don't play vr chat so i don't know what it is

[haughty thistle]

A material is basically what tells the game engine how to display a certain part of an object. Each slot can hold one material and is tied to certain parts of the avatar mesh (aka the physical model). A material always has a shader which tells the game engine how to render those parts and the shader then takes in the texture and some other stuff like masks and whatnot

These are pretty standard in 3D games. Everything you see in a 3D game has a material. Unless it's something like Minecraft or the original Doom that doesn't make use of Shaders by default

[rapid otter]

Every part of the skin is one texture

That's why it's so demanding

[haughty thistle]

Basically. But like I said, everything you see in any Shader-Based video Game is a material. A material doesn't have to have a texture assigned btw.

What is so demanding that there are avatars with multiple 8k Textures all used at the same time. That is going to eat up a lot of VRAM quickly.
Not every shader is super performant either. Most für shaders for example are super demanding on the GPU

[rapid otter]

Fur like this ?

[thick escarp]

@haughty thistle Out of curiosity: What do you develop? Games or game engines? Since you learned about different engines, licences, CUDA/OpenGL, ... You'd need those either in game development or high scale simulations... Awesome either way.

[haughty thistle]

During my apprenticeship as a software developer, my tutor decided the group that we were should start working some with Unity to cement our C# knowledge. This was back in 2017, which is why my knowledge mostly is around that time. I also looked into Unreal just for giggles, but our dev machines were barely able to run the Unity editor as-is.
Besides that, I used to just read Wikipedia articles about random programming stuff when I was bored. I find stuff like that interesting.
PhysX I mostly read about as I have a game that doesn't work with modern Nvidia drivers, but on pretty much anything else, which is why I read up on that. PhysX by Nvidia Driver version 9.x and older is required to run games that are branded as "PhysX by Ageia". Current is PhysX driver 12.x I think...

[thick escarp]

So you are not mainly developing games or engines, just dabble in it on the side and for education. But what do you do now?

I am curious because I develop myself, more general physics simulation software during my time at uni, now mostly everything with electromagnetic waves...

[haughty thistle]

Right now I'm mostly doing Full stack web development for a Logistics Company. Full time employee there.
Java for the Backend, Vue/Angular for the Frontend and an Oracle DB to hold the data, which is also used by the house-internal software for pretty much everything else

[thick escarp]

Oh, sorry, re-reading that, I just assumed some silly stuff. You might actually just be younger than me and not get paid for programming (yet)... 🤣 That's why you talked about the apprenticeship...

Ah, okay. Wrong again, you are getting paid for that stuff. 😁

[haughty thistle]

2 years now already. So you were almost right xD

[thick escarp]

Sounds pretty cool because there's a lot of variety in the coding, and it's pretty future proof as far as technology goes.

[rapid otter]

You are a physics ? Do what do you really do ?@thick escarp

[pure maple]

Nvidia just leaked the new VR GPUs

[thick escarp]

I learned physics at university. A big part of physics nowadays is simulation, not just but especially in theoretical physics. During my PhD, I did a lot of algorithmic work, tons of math, and some HPC programming for the simulations.

Now, I work for a company that sells software for simulating electromagnetic waves. I do some algorithmic advancement, and some programming (C++), but most of my time goes into software factory development. That's making all our infrastructure work smoothly for all other developers. I like it because my "customers" are other physicists and mathematicians, who are a lot more up my alley when it comes to communication than other folks, like real customers that pay the company. 😉

[rapid otter]

All right

I love physics simulation, all this computing power, idk feels so good to watch

Fluid ect is so nice

I see mostly them on two minutes papers

[thick escarp]

The goals are very different though. One is trying to make things look real while the other is trying to precisely keep statistical properties like momentum, energy and temperature... They both want to increase the simulation speed though, so there is overlap in algorithmic advancement and software development.

Estimates give that the changes in algorithms and math over the years produce roughly the same speedup as advancements in technology. Basically, Moore's law goes for math as well as for CPUs and GPUs. So you can get excited about either. 😁

[rapid otter]

So math get more complicated but hardware is more powerful ?

[thick escarp]

No. Hardware gets faster and the math gets better, therefore faster. This way, in a span of 2 years, hardware gets twice as fast, but we can simulate four times as complicated setups. 🎉 This means more precision and larger time scales for physicists, and more awesome looking stuff for games.

But this discussion is moving out of this channel's topic... 😁

[rapid otter]

Yes

In the future i would be very interested to know more

[brave dragon]

What PC VR headsets do you guys recommend? What's the best experience and what's the best budget VR headset?

[haughty thistle]

Best all in one box is the Index for PCVR, best budget, if you don't mind Facebook, the Quest 2.
Other then that, there speciality setups that can give you a better experience in some games. For sim games for example that would be the Reverb G2, but it's controllers are less then optimal for Social VR titles

Pimax is also a name often thrown around when it comes to high-end VR, and while the Wide FOV is indeed impressive, the company behind those is sketchy at best and scammy at worst.
For that reason alone I'd suggest not even touching their products, besides that there are other reasons one might not want to get a Pimax (comfort ain't great, no space for glasses, not so great screens and Chromatic abberation, etc.)

The Vive Pro 2 I personally prefer over the Index, but if you decide on that one, you definitely want to invest in a headphone jack adapter, a decent headset and Index controllers.
Same applies to the Vive Pro 1 btw.

@brave dragon

[brave dragon]

@haughty thistle thanks for the help! Really appreciate it. What is the best budget PC VR headset?
Also I heard there were projects like re-vive to run Oculus titles on non-Oculus headsets. Are those projects still alive?

[haughty thistle]

Absolutely. Games that are Quest exclusive you can't run on a PC for obvious reasons, but games that are exclusive to the PC Oculus store can be played on any non-Oculus headset.
The Quest 2 can be used as a decent PCVR headset, and for it's price it's virtually unbeatable. But in order to use any Oculus Product you have to login. A Facebook is required if you don't have an Oculus account or want to use the Quest 2.
The next best option new would be the Reverb G2, but I already mentioned it's downside.
The original Vive can be had on the Used market for about 400-500 bucks for a full kit. The benefit with this is that you can upgrade in a piece meal fassion to Index gear.
Lastly, if you really don't want to spend much money, but also don't want to sell your sould to Facebook, you can buy one of the original Windows Mixed Reality headsets for about 200 bucks used

[brave dragon]

Thanks! Do you know anything about the state of VR piracy? This is in case I wanted to responsibly enjoy a game that has been delisted from stores or check compatibility and discomfort levels before committing to a full purchase.

[thick escarp]

I don't think VR piracy is a big thing. However, return policies are. For some games, you can actually get demos before you buy. But all games (Steam and Oculus) you can return within two weeks if you played less than 2 hours. For the purpose you said, this should be enough.

[rapid otter]

Florian you use a Quest 2 right ?

[thick escarp]

Yep, Quest 2, mostly for PCVR, but also some standalone games.

I got it for free though, so I didn't have to concern much with choices. 😉 It also came with a better battery strap and some cheap headphones. The headstrap is nice, but more of a creature comfort. But do spend the 20 bucks on some simple ear plugs! Makes for much better sound and immersion.

[glad sand]

Are there any other caveats with the Reverb G2? Seemed like it was heavily recommended, at least for a while there, primarily for its visual clarity. Looking for a good, cheap-ish headset to use at events and such, basically "mobile VR arcade" where it gets set up in locations for a day at a time and has a bunch of games played on it by different people for about 20 minutes each. Was using Vives but the BIGGEST issue with them (other than the relatively shmeh displays) was the tracking, it never really worked right, controllers would fly away, headset would lose tracking, etc. Really sucked tbh...inside-out tracking is nice to have for that reason but if something is way better that uses outside-in that's fine (i.e. Index, never had issues with that tracking but too expensive :) )

Also, 2 or 3 of them would be set up in the same large area, if that makes any difference

[pale orbit]

man buying things to make the quest 2 more comfortable really adds up

[glad sand]

Oh yeah I should add to my question I am in no way interested in Oculus products f*ck Facebook k thx 👌

[pale orbit]

that's my stance, my mom however gifted me a quest (so I'd make a facebook account and she could add me is my sneaking suspicion)

jokes on her, I made the account, never going to post on it however

[earnest vapor]

FB ticky

[thick escarp]

I think this would actually make for an interesting albeit work intensive LTT video: Set up a Quest and check with Wireshark where the data is going. Then configure a firewall like a Pihole to block the data you don't want going out while the Quest still somewhat works. Then download all data collected by Facebook (possible because of the GDPR), see what still got through after the block and also take a look at what they collected before.

I tried to do the first part (firewall block), but didn't dabble around too much, since I don't have the time, so there is certainly still some data coming through. And triggered by the discussion here, I will actually do the second part and request a Facebook data download today. I will let you know here how it looks before Quest, before the firewall block and now.

It will also be fairly clean data, since I haven't used Facebook for anything else in years. 😁

[haughty thistle]

The Vive and Index use the exact same tracking tech, so both are super accurate and good. If you constantly loose tracking on the Vive then either you haven't had the lighthouses set up right or had some highly reflective surface in the room.
The biggest downfall of the G2 is really the area in which the controllers get tracked and the lack of touch sensitivity make the controllers not great for games like VRC. Other then that it's a pretty sweet headset.

Well, all Vive headsets but the Focus line and the regular Cosmos I should add.

[thick escarp]

Okay, so this is kind of a relief, and the data is very readable, it took me less than two hours to go through it and test all this:

1. I am not able to access any Oculus data except logins in my Facebook profile. So while there is certainly sharing and collaboration, it's not "one big data block", I had to download the data from the Oculus website.

2. The data they have collected before the firewall filter (this is as bad as it gets, real Facebook profile, nothing blocked) is pretty minor. The worst is: they did save all past avatar images. But at the time, there was no hand tracking, so the "movement data" they have is really just the dimensions of my guardian. Not even if I approached it, which officially they want to track but maybe throw away after a year.

3. I filtered all connections except the Oculus store IPs and Facebook login IPs because it caused issues. That pretty much did nothing. The data collection goes through the Oculus store connection. So they most likely have all the data they want from me. I disabled voice commands, which is generally a good idea because those get transferred for speech recognition and stored, and they really aren't necessary. I will summarize what they collected in the next post.

4. I just blocked connection to the Oculus store IPs and downloaded the data again. I wasn't able to log in, and had the following issues:
   a) I can't buy or update games, but I can still play. Cloud saves are blocked, but they are stored locally and everything works fine.
   b) Leaderboards are disabled. Which I don't care about at all.
   c) You could achieve a similar effect by just deactivating the wireless on your headset. But then all social apps and especially Virtual Desktop are obviously screwed, so that's not an option.

5. The nice thing is: The data collected while I was in blocked mode did not make it to Oculus. Let me iterate that in the next post as well.
   [follow up...]

[thick escarp]

So, the data Oculus/Facebook gathered on me:

With nothing blocked but voice commands: The "surroundings, dimensions, and movement" data (this is translated from German, the terms might vary slightly) is really far less horrible than it sounds.
a) The "surroundings" is just 12 "distance" numbers of the guardian area to the walls and ceiling and then the dimensions of the guardian. Who knew that it was this simplistic. So they know the height and rough size of the room I am playing in. Weird, but I am okay with that.
b) The "dimensions" data is just the size of my hands. Which is weird, yes, but not really something I am too anxious about...
c) The "movement" data is the weirdest: It contains counts how many times I approach the guardian border, and how many times I break through it. Which I do, to access my computer. Most likely, this is for software improvement and bug fixing, not for ad tracking. Again what size my hands are, and how often they lose tracking. Probably also collected for bug fixing. But: The data seems to be deleted after one day (nothing older was there), and they don't store the movement information at all. They just want the permission to "track" it, which makes sense if you want to track hands and controllers.

When I blocked all data going to the internet from the headset (only local connections allowed) and downloaded all data again after re-enabling the connections:

1. The social apps via PCVR and Virtual Desktop still worked, since the PC did the connections.
2. The hand size and guardian data was not stored locally and then transferred to Oculus after I stopped the blocking. It was not recovered after a reboot and then sent. This is good because:

In my opinion, as it stands right now, you can use a Quest 2 without sending too much data to Facebook: You can just get Virtual Desktop once, then block the headset from the internet and do everything in PCVR. You can even enable internet connection on occasion to update Virtual Desktop, since the data isn't stored locally and then resent. Even if you use the headset the way Facebook wants you to, the most they drain out of you is essentially the same as Steam would (game purchase, progress, playtimes, ...). The movement data is way less intrusive than that in my opinion. But that's really what it is: an opinion. Take all of this with a grain of salt, because Facebook might change it in the future. But that's the current state to the best of my testing.

Now, this doesn't mean that Facebook is not collecting data. Oh man, they are. Especially if you purchase and use standalone Oculus games. Play times, achievements, times at which you play the games, ... All that. It's the same though for Steam and all other game services. And they will certainly use that data for advertisements, all of these companies. So it comes down to how much you hate Facebook if you want to do this.

If you want to stay out of the Facebook trap but get a Quest 2: Don't use Airlink, get Virtual Desktop, and then block the Quest IP in your LAN from the internet. That's fairly easily done with any router, and will get you roughly what you want: Data goes to Steam, not Facebook. 🙂

Sorry, those were long posts. But it took quite some time out of my day to test this, and it might actually be of interest, so I typed it all out. 🤪

[topaz bolt]

ngl i wish i could get a quest w/o a fb account req

[haughty thistle]

Possibly
https://youtu.be/WyvOEwYFt6s

My guess is, if Oculus indeed gets split up from Facebook, then the Facebook login requirement will go away, but as a result, the hardware is going to get more expensive. Only time will tell...

[thick escarp]

I would be very happy with both of that. 300 bucks is a bargain, but you can't get any new and decent console or gaming PC for that, including monitor and controllers. So even 500 bucks and then they make more money on the games could be accepted by the customer...

[thick escarp]

Thanks a lot for the recommendation, you bastards! Played some more Alyx, and now I'm really scared of Jeff. Did you ever make it to Jeff, @haughty thistle? Damn, that is a scary chapter. Lots of saving and tension... I have sweaty palms now. 🤣

I will have nightmares of empty bottles accidentally falling to the ground...

[thick escarp]

And before you ask: no, I didn't finish the chapter yet. I climbed to a safe place, saved and got out of there. Now I have to get back in and keep going.

[rapid otter]

Have fun it's a good chapter

[thick escarp]

Yeah... Good as in terrifying... 😅

I will save that for tomorrow morning, not tonight before bed. 😉

[rapid otter]

😳

[thick escarp]

It's not that bad, I can sleep fine. But it's a pretty shady idea anyways to play VR right before sleeping. You are essentially shining two flashlights into your eyes, you can't expect to get tired for a couple of hours after that. 🤣

[rapid otter]

What is real bad is to exercise like I do in boneworks

Most of the time I move a lot and get sweaty

[thick escarp]

Yes, that is one of the best ways to avoid getting good sleep. Shine light into your eyes and get your heart rate up.

But it's sooo much fun! 😅

[rapid otter]

Yeah

The best time to play for me is at night no sound everyone asleep

[thick escarp]

I am very lucky for play space right now. We have three young kids, and the younger two still stop by the parents' bed at night. Until that phase is over, they don't get their own rooms and we have our bedroom on the same floor.

Meaning: I already built out the top floor so we can move the parents' bedroom there in a year or two. Until then, it is one large empty room (70 m^2, 650 sqft) on its own floor that is not used for anything. Guess where I can play whenever I want. 🤣

Already put in a few vertical wooden bars to split up the space later. But there is still a 6m by 6m open area right in the middle. 😁

[flat pawn]

[rapid otter]

Nice

Be EXTREMELY CAREFUL with this rug, i would advise you to put it somewhere else, i hurt myself a few months ago because of a rug, it's very slippery when you play

@thick escarp you would be surprised on how small your play space can be

I have my living room in wich i can move the center thing. But i rarely do it

I usually play within 4 of these squares, it's enough for

You can ask any experienced VR player we have a sixth sense, we can move in this small space without getting out of it, and even tho there's 20 cm between my paly space and my wall i haven't hit it for months

[thick escarp]

No worries, that rug is just outside the 18x18 ft play area. 🤣 But it's also with some anti slip rubber at the bottom. But indeed, I also don't play in the entire space, usually I don't move around. I do very much like the "real world turning" though, no thumbstick. Much more immersive for me. And yes, doing that I sometimes move around more than I think. 🤣

[thick escarp]

I will finish Alyx tomorrow. It's really addictive, a huge blow to my free (=sleep) time this week. 🤪 I finished Jeff, literally, and already had my big shootout with the ant lions... Man, what a game!

I love how the weapons get better but the enemies get tougher at the same time. And ammo is there but not in spades. I constantly have the feeling I only just made it. That is some major writing achievement!

[rapid otter]

👍

[rapid otter]

Felt the same

[pale orbit]

now look into user made maps

[thick escarp]

I'd rather not. I don't have the time. 😉 I also want to check out Boneworks next, and maybe Lone Echo. Apparently, both are pretty worthwhile, too.

[rapid otter]

Ho my man lone echo is something too

So gooood

[thick escarp]

It's a pretty amazing world when you are just starting out with VR and still have all those classic masterpieces ahead of you. 😁 Really enjoying this!

[gentle coral]

Hey VR people I'm back, just catching up on the discussion. I was camping for about a month, and did not have cell or internet service. Also my vr laptop died and I need to get a new one (might have been how I was charging it while camping).

Here is a few pictures of my camping tech setup in my tent. (I decided not to bring my vr setup camping, but I did bring my travel computer setup.)

I had a 48v 2.5 KWh custom lithium polymer battery bank and a 85 watt solar panel, to power my stuff. I think the 48v to 12v to 120v inverter setup might of had an issue that caused an issue when charging my laptop.

[thick escarp]

That looks like an awesome setup! Not sure if I'd call it "camping" anymore... 🤣 Were you even able to take longer hikes and leave all your gear vulnerable in the tent? What a gaming station! Sorry to hear about the laptop. In theory, the laptop's power brick should have taken the damage and smoothed out all weird fluctuations, but it may have been too far outside its specs...

Also: I'm new here. Fairly new to VR, very new to this Discord. 😉 Don't judge me too harshly, English is my second language and I am old*... So I sometimes don't know how things come across. Certainly never meant in an aggressive or derogatory way, that's for sure.

[rapid otter]

Don't worry pyco is a very nice guy

[rapid otter]

Cool to see you around

[dull tide]

Gmod with Telekinesis Crowbar be like

Gordon Freeman. God of Crowbars

[thick escarp]

Hehe. I do already kinda get that one now. 😄

[gentle coral]

Nice to have you around, welcome to the VR channel. I was camping with family at a large group campground so someone was always at the campground. Our high day this year was 12 tents, 22 people, 17 cars, and 2 RV trailers. It feels more like building a village then camping.

[thick escarp]

Oh, this kind of camping, yes, I know it well. 🙂 We have a similar tradition with a large group of friends from university, all of whom now have spouses and tons of kids, so it's always a camping village. I never brought any tech to this vacation (except for a camera), but maybe I'll pack my Quest next year and get a few more people hooked with VR. 😉

[weary bramble]

oculus is a total no-go from me entirely because of facebook; better i can buy a quest 2 for $500 than me abjectly refusing to even consider one

[lethal obsidian]

Removing the stock headphones from the Vive Pro makes it so much better

Wireless adapter soon 🙏 They're so hard to find secondhand though lol

[haughty thistle]

Uhh...

It is pretty cool absolutely, but if I remember correctly, HTC does not officially support the Vive Facial tracker in combination with the Wireless Adapter for some reason. My guess is bandwidth limitations

I was about to ask how you're using your own headset with the facial tracker, but then I saw it's a wireless headset xD

[lethal obsidian]

yeah

[lethal obsidian]

I do have a solution for this if it doesn't work correctly

[haughty thistle]

Oh cool. Like a wireless USB thing?

[lethal obsidian]

Yeah

[haughty thistle]

Noice 👍

[lethal obsidian]

Vive Pro Wireless is more hassle than wired but man

Wireless VR is so much better when it's feasible

As much as I prefer most headsets to the Quest 2

It's so nice to be untethered (physically)

[haughty thistle]

I don't mind having a wire, as long as it's long enough, but I get the appeal of totally wireless

Using the Pro 2 wireless would be such a waste though. So I keep the adaper on my Pro 1 and use the Pro 2 for like Beatsaber and ETS2 xD

[lethal obsidian]

I move around a shitload in VR

and it gets caught on my vive trackers

Plus the cable introduces a point of failure

Case study: The valve index

[haughty thistle]

Well... with the Index keep in mind that the cable routing is rather unfortunate that makes it break prematurely by moving the headstrap up. HTC did a great job with the cable routing on the Pro line and I wish more companies would do it this way

[rapid otter]

Boneworks right ?

[thick escarp]

I am really hoping that the Quest 2 craze is getting more (better) companies to jump on the wireless train. I mean, Virtual Desktop/Airlink proved that it's possible with decent quality, and since the rendering is done on the PC, an Index 2 e.g. would mostly just need a battery and wireless module, I am sure they can afford to put those in. That's when I'll jump on the upgrade. 😎

[haughty thistle]

Index 2 is most likely a Hybrid HMD offering base station tracking, but also working completely standalone without a PC or lighthouses. Based on patents, this seems a very likely option

[thick escarp]

But man, that ending was weird. Just finished the game (Alyx), and the final chapter is essentially a huge LSD trip. 🤣 Since there's spoilers discussing it, I will probably just google the meaning of that ending. I think I kind of understand what happened, but to completely get it, it feels like I would have had to have played any of the other Half Life games before...

[haughty thistle]

It could also be that the Index only works with a PC, but can work with and without lighthouses and cable...

[thick escarp]

Yes, I am very much aiming for that headset. 🙂 Until then, my Quest 2 will serve me well enough. I am leaving the network block on and currently feel pretty okay about it...

[thick escarp]

How would you do a PCVR without lighthouses? Like, sending the camera data wirelessly to the PC, do the tracking there and then send the stream back? I don't know, that seems like a ton of effort to avoid a couple of tiny lighthouses. I mean, if a PC is required, you can't transport it anywhere anyways, so I don't see the reason to do inside out tracking on the Index 2. Plus, while I think the tracking works okay on the Quest, it did feel quite a bit different on the Index I've tried at my colleague's. Like the difference between a soft servo and race style direct steering in a car...

I am very happy servo cars that drive like large ships swimming in water. But for realistic VR, the snappy thing is better.

[haughty thistle]

With angle aware sensors. Valve has published a patent that looks suspiciously like a Lighthouse V3 system, where the controllers have angle aware sensors that would work with both the old lighthouses, but also a very special IR-LED array on the HMD with specific wavelengths for each LED. Add a few cameras on the headset and you have a standalone system, and add 2.0 Lighthouse sensors on the HMD to make the whole system compatible to 2.0 lighthouses

[thick escarp]

Hey, that would even maybe allow a style of "passive" lighthouses that don't need cabling. Just omnidirectionally reflective crystal thingies. That would be pretty cool and slightly more portable.

[rapid otter]

For the ending having played the others is better but you can play the game mostly without

[haughty thistle]

The thing is, the angle sensing isn't accurate enough on long distances to work for tracking. So using them only on the controllers for an inside-out system would make more sense

[thick escarp]

Oh, absolutely, the rest of the game was perfectly fine without context from past games. I can attest to that.

[thick escarp]

Maybe. But reflective lighthouses to throw back the IR-LEDs from very specific points, tracking the room is very much a possibility. Sure, the array can only be as wide as the headset, and that's limiting your angular resolution, but at IR wavelengths, there is plenty of space there, at least in theory. And it's very little data to transfer (wirelessly) for decent tracking.

Oh well, we'll see. But it's an exciting time to get into VR, for sure. Also don't forget that not all patents lead to actual usage. Maybe they just spent a bunch of time researching it, got nowhere, and at least sent in a patent in case they or somebody else wants to pick it up in the future... "A patent" is a much better result for a few months research than "it just wasn't ripe yet"...

[haughty thistle]

True regarding Patents.

Thing is though, Valve has been filing a number of patents, each somehow acknowledging things from one another. It seems more like Valve is patenting things they have on their current prototype. Most patents refer to Eye tracking. Now they patented a vario-focal system (which incedentally requires eye-tracking to work). They have patented Optical flow sensor tracking tech for HMDs, which incidentally would work perfectly for an Inside-Out solution. See where I'm going with this.
All their patents give us at least some insight on what the next Index might look like, and I think at this point, eye-tracking and inside-out tracking are pretty much confirmed...

[thick escarp]

Oh yeah, I am excited for where this is going. Also: varifocal lenses? In VR? Oh wow, that's gonna be a game changer if it works properly! And require some decent GPU acceleration, that's not gonna be a standalone headset thing for quite a while...

[haughty thistle]

Valve's Vario-Focal tech works not by physically moving the lenses, but by adjusting their optical properties using Polarization. No Idea how that's supposed to work with LCDs, as those require polarization to work. If Valve ends up using this tech in the Index 2, it's most likely going to be utilizing OLED screens as those can work without Polarisation of light

[thick escarp]

OLED is the way to go anyways, I think. The Quest 1 had OLED, and I would pay good money to have that technology in the Quest 2, especially in dark areas.

But inside headsets, the orientation of the lens apparatus in respect to the screen will never change (other than in cinemas, where you tilt your head with your polarized 3D glasses). LCDs (usually) emit linearly polarized light. So you can actually either use circularly polarized layers independently, or you can actually make use of that: Turn one of the layers (physically or electrically) to dim/brighten the light coming from the screen through this part of the lens. You can pretty much adjust anything with that. It rather helps that the LCD light is linearly polarized and doesn't turn with respect to the lens, that helps much more than it hurts.

That's just me spitballing though, I haven't researched any of this.

[pure maple]

Ok so I have this project for school right. I was asked to create a virtual reality environment of certain location. Can anyone please tell me how I can go through with this. Things I need etc.

I would appreciate any help am just a collage kid thanks

[haughty thistle]

Problem is, afaik you can't stack Polarisation easily. A stack of 2 is the most you can get. Lemme see if I can find that video again

Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcqZHYo7ONs

[thick escarp]

I'll have a look at that, but it seems very unintuitive to me...

[thick escarp]

Ah, yes, quantum mechanics, my old friend rears its ugly head again. 🤣

But it's just as I expected: Stacking multiple linearly polarized filters is absolutely possible (they do it in this video, a lot). It's simply that the math to calculate the result gets slightly weirder. But you can totally do the math, it's not even very complicated, just very non-intuitive.

So you were right. You can't stack polarization easily. But it's by far not the most complicated thing going on in these lenses. It's just one of the things that is less easy to put in understandable Venn diagrams.

By the way: Collaboration of minutephysics and 3Blue1Brows? How awesome! Thanks for the video!

[pale orbit]

I'm told the quest 2 should be dropped off today

[thick escarp]

Oh wow. Are you new to VR? What are you gonna try first?

[pale orbit]

I've done psvr and an old wmr dell headset in the past

I've had alyx sitting in my steam account for sometime, probably do that

[thick escarp]

Ohyes, ohyes! I just did Alyx, had it also sitting there, and it is breathtaking!

[thick escarp]

Here's a more technical question: I would love to show some of the awesome "VR experiences" to my kids. But most of the really cool ones are only available in English and maybe other languages that I do, but my kids don't speak.

Is there a way to switch out one audio track in a VR "experience"? I am guessing this is way harder on standalone Oculus exclusives, but maybe possible on PC? Has anyone here ever done this or heard about it?

If not, I'll jump in the deep end and figure it out myself. But asking can't hurt.

[rapid otter]

Like I told you

[rapid otter]

I don't get it you want to change language ?

[thick escarp]

Yes, kind of. I want to translate and record the audio in German and replace all the e.g. Chinese audio files with these German ones. So when my kids pick "Chinese", they will get German audio. I wanted to try this for one specific VR experience ("Spheres" on the Quest), because I think my kids will like it, but they don't understand anything...

I quickly jogged around the file system, and the install looks like some configs and saves, but mostly one monolithic ".bin" file with the data. I was hoping that this is some sort of archive that I can simply expand and replace some files in...

[rapid otter]

So you want the audio to be in german

I don't think you'll be able to

It's not as simple as a mp4 file

It's in special format you may not be able to edit or even record without coding knowledge

I think it's too complicated

[thick escarp]

Probably not. I will check though. I'm sure the audio recording itself is just a multichannel audio file. For the narration, it might even just be stereo. Where the audio is "placed" in 3D space is another story, but usually not one stored within the audio file, since it needs to be flexible and depend on the motion and tracking...

[bleak night]

pimax is taking their sweet time to get my kdmas rma out

[rapid otter]

Wdym ?

[haughty thistle]

Oh yeah, Pimax Customer Service is like the worst. If you think HTC support is bad, you hadn't have dealt with Pimax yet.
If you ever buy a Pimax, pray to dear god you won't have to deal with their support...

[bleak night]

customer support is great from what ive deslt with, sales though is a bit shit

im planning on getting a kdmas set from a friend so i at least have something within the next month

[flat pawn]

Pimax support has been fine for me

[gentle coral]

The location where I go camping is actually the setting for one of the VR games i am working on. It makes it easy to limit the number of npc's and still have an open world. The good thing is that there is a lot of cool real world history i can mix up into the game. The game will be a single player open world Sci-Fi, action, mystery game.

I hope to release it around 2025.

[tawdry dove]

I'll be looking forward to it then so I can play it on my rtx 9095ti

Calling it rn before we hit the 9000 series they are gonna add a 5 to the end of card names

For what reason idk

[gentle coral]

Nvidia and AMD need to up their unintelligible device naming schemes, they are far behind intel in that regard.

[pale orbit]

https://uploadvr.com/bytedance-pico-acquisition/

[thick escarp]

How freaking awesome! You actually develop VR games? Anything you did that we can already play?

[thick escarp]

So, I tried and failed in this case. Most larger data on Android systems (which the Quest is) is stored in APK expansion ".obb" files. "obb" stands for "oblique binary blob", which is very telling about how editable they usually are. 🤣 It's really just an archive with folder structure that you can unpack with e.g. 7zip, but the contents are most likely garbage to our eyes. In my case, all the relevant data was stored in random character named files of exactly 1M in size, whose content was not identifiable by any means I know. It's just an encrypted binary data dump, split into file chunks.

But: There is no harm in trying! Developers can use those .obb files any way they want, and maybe just store the actual audio files in there for me to replace. Best thing is: If you are only touching the .obb file and not the actual apk, you might not even get an "unsigned app" warning or something.

[haughty thistle]

APK signing happens on the full package. Adjust one tiny part of the APK and you'll get an "unsigned App" warning. Even if it's just an asset that is clearly visible in the APK. If the file is separatly stored on the file system, then maybe...

[rapid otter]

Wdym ? Intel naming is awful

[haughty thistle]

I mean, Intels Naming scheme does have some pattern to it (i9 > i7 > i5 > i3; 10XXX > 9XXX > 8XXX), but it's not like Nvidia where you have the last two digits specifying the class of card and then the generation in-front. It's only when we get to non-Geforce cards, when Nvidia naming stops making sense. There are like a bazillion different Quadro 5000 cards. Some Pascale, some Maxwell, some Turing, etc.

Oh, and then there's the Titan -> Titan X -> Titan Z -> Titan X (Pascal) -> Titan Xp (also Pascale) -> Titan V -> Titan RTX. Like what the heck...

It's worse with AMD GPUs. Like... a lot worse...

R7 290 -> R9 290 -> R9 390 -> R9 Fury (somewhat?) ->RX 480 -> RX 580 -> RX 590 -> Vega 64 -> Vega 7 -> RX 5700 -> RX 6900XT. These are the top cards of a number of Radeon generations. The 5700 not even being the same class of card as the 6900XT. There's also an R7 390, but I have no idea where it falls in. Probably between the R7 290 and the R9 290...

The only part, where I think naming was pretty consistent and makes a ton of sense is with Ryzen CPUs...

[thick escarp]

Yes, that's what I'm saying. The huge data files (.obb) are stored seperately. But I haven't tried. It might still trigger the install to complain. Anyways, simple hacks of apps have gotten a lot more involved since the signing...

[rapid otter]

Pro oriented gpu naming is weird tho consumer cards are easy to understand. Amd's cpus lineup are very easy. But they gpu i never understood

[tawdry dove]

Wdym?

Are you saying the 11765g7 is a bad name?

[glossy ibex]

[rapid otter]

Yes

Holy shit that's a real cpu name

[tawdry dove]

Wow really

I thought I messed up the name

[haughty thistle]

Well... remove the 7 in between the 11 and 65. Then you got a valid one. 1165G7 is an 11th Gen Intel Core i7 Mobile Processor

[tawdry dove]

Yeah

4 core

Never heard a review on it

Only talk about the name

[haughty thistle]

I searched direktly in Intels Ark database, and couldn't find a single entry with that number...

[rapid otter]

Ho yeah sure i think it's a mistake

[tawdry dove]

Yeah

There are intel processors with similar naming though

Thats just not a real one though

[brave dragon]

I'm seeing the HTC VIVE Cosmos Elite on sale. What do you guys think of the cosmos elite a the vive and oculus rift s?

[bleak night]

someone send me another ac, im boiling

my pc makes this ac overwhelm. house is at 72 for regular aircon, this thing is running at max and struggling.. vr is a pain sometimes

[pale wagon]

bruh, its like 37 here

boiling

[bleak night]

its 92 outside

[pale wagon]

bri'ish weather, innit

[rapid otter]

I don't even have ac

For 3 days it was 37c inside (95f) safe to say my vr rig stayed untouched

But yeah my room is extremely tiny so my pc heat's it up, that's why I close and play in the living room fells like a sauna when you get in.

[glad sand]

Lmao they used to do that, they brought back 90 so tbh wouldn't be tooo surprised, but they've moved on to "Ti" and "Super" to fill those gaps...imagine an RTX 3095 Ti Super, bests the previous RTX 3095 Ti by 5% and the aging 3095 by 7% on average, but comes at a cost of $2k, a $200 premium over the 3095, and a $500 premium over the original 3090, but bests it by up to 14% in certain workloads

[gloomy crater]

Bruh this is way too confusing. This is why I sold my quest and got an index

I'm trying to get my sister's quest 2 set up to play games from her laptop, except nothing so far has worked. She has a compatible cable, but for some reason whenever I click enable oculus link in the menu, it will give a loading screen for ten seconds and then boot me back to the home menu and the laptop will give a message about either the display not being connected, there being a problem recognizing the headset or something not functioning correctly

So then instead of the cable, I decided to try just doing it through airlink. Except the option to enable airlink is nowhere to be found in the experiential features menu, and I have to install some sort of powershell SDK to be able to force an update that gives me access to it

So I guess our last bet is just buying a copy of virtual desktop. This fucking blows, good job with the software here Facebook

[rapid otter]

Why force an update

You should already have it if your quest version 28+

@gloomy crater

[gloomy crater]

Ya. On version 28. No option for airlink

[rapid otter]

Then update the headset

Advanced parameters on your quest you can see if there's an update

Today i may have access to my q2 and I'll look into it

[gloomy crater]

So I did the dumb ADB thing and airlink showed up but it's still giving the same 'hardware not working' and 'headset not connected' errors

Gonna try virtual desktop next

[rapid otter]

What's the pc specs ?

[gloomy crater]

5900HX + RTX 3060 mobile. Tbh this laptop has better specs than her desktop, which plays VR fine, so I doubt that's the problem

Welp. Installed virtual desktop and it works fine. Latency isn't too bad, but the visual quality is basically two pixels, probably because I'm not connected to an Ethernet cord

[rapid otter]

Sure but u wanted to be sure first

[rapid otter]

Idk 🤔 i had a very bad experience with virtual desktop

Btw I just returned it a few minutes ago, hopefully I get my money back

[thick escarp]

While ethernet is certainly better, both on a 5GHz Wifi should be acceptable, too... Be sure to set the quality within Virtual Desktop correctly, the setting has example GPUs for rough judgement, you could probably get away with "High". It made a world of a difference for me because the computer undersampled significantly at first...

I'm sure there's an "optimal VD settings" video on YouTube... You can certainly fiddle around for some optimization. If she plays PCVR more often, this is definitely worth investing 10 minutes into.

[haughty thistle]

I've tried VD over a hotspot hosted on my Laptop before, and it was just horrible. Tons of latency, maybe 10fps, and visual fidelity of a potato. Yeah, always go through a dedicated router and connect your PC via wire with it.
The further a device is away from the router, the higher the latency, and if both Quest and PC are over Wifi, you might also be throttling the link speed of both. Wifi is a shared medium, so if your Router can manage 800Mbit/s under ideal conditions, it's only 400MBit/s under ideal conditions with 2 devices connected to Wifi. IRL you'll never have those ideal conditions, so expect the maximum for one device to be more like 500Mbit/s.

[thick escarp]

I once accidentally hadn't plugged in my cable and had both connected to the same 5GHz hotspot. It wasn't great, but it was not the horrible experience @gloomy crater is describing. You however will want to have a decent router, not the one sent by your ISP... The bandwidth also isn't half if one is mostly sending and the other is mostly receiving...

[haughty thistle]

My example assumes both devices use the Wifi similarly. With VD and Air Link, in both cases the Quest constantly sends the positional data (and some other stuff) to the PC, while the PC is mostly just sending a video/audio stream. Yeah is larger then the other, but both are sending and receiving at the same time

[thick escarp]

I would try what difference it makes, but in the meantime, I removed the Wifi card from my rig... Well, I am sure someone did it and wrote it down, what the performance penalty actually is...

[rapid otter]

In ideal conditions i would say a penalty of 20ms

[haughty thistle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laZOSSEGqq8

[neon basin]

this looks very cool, a lot of people I have met on vrchat have this with full body tracking and it just looks amazing

[thick escarp]

This looks pretty cool! I have an ESP32, a couple of 9g Servos, and a 3D printer. Maybe I should try and make one of these. But I fear I lack the free time to do it...

[lofty minnow]

sigma male

[bleak night]

k

[static sky]

so im looking at getting into more VR as ive been put into another lockdown, im just curious whats the best VR Set?

[static sky]

like im looking more at the used market to save some money

[thick escarp]

"Best VR set" is very dependent on what you want. 😉 Have you tried any VR yet? Do you hate Facebook? Do you like to be cable-free? Have you got a decent enough PC (I assume so, but VR is pretty demanding)? Where on the graph of quality vs. cost would you like to sit?

The thing is: "The best VR set" and "to save some money" are pretty opposite statements, so we can't really give recommendations.

[static sky]

I have tried VR before, I even tried VR chat before on my mates HTC Vive, but there were issues with that, I have tried just the headset and done Racing sims and stuff like that, also i despise facebook

wireless i dont really care about and as for my PC it should be able to handle it no problem with a 2080 and 3700x

[pale wagon]

go for an index then

[thick escarp]

If you do like the VRChat route, I would recommend the Index controllers, no matter what headset. And I'd probably shoot for the Index set as a whole.

[static sky]

onyl issue with that is its pre order sell out in australia atm

[thick escarp]

You might even be able to snag one used, since it's not the newest anymore.

[static sky]

with nothing until 2022

[pale wagon]

well, htc is kinda pissy, especially newer ones

[thick escarp]

Oh, that'll probably clear out the used market as well. 😦 But there's a reason, it's just a great headset.

[pale wagon]

dont get a vp2

maybe a pro 1 or pro eye

[thick escarp]

Yeah, that's kinda where you land when you can't get an Index and won't get FB devices... It's not that they are bad, not at all, they just won't get a full-hearted recommendation as "best VR headset" from me...

[static sky]

yeah I had a feeling, Ive been told the Index is the best, but I know its sold out everywhere atm

[pale wagon]

id say vive pro, and knuckles then.

[rapid otter]

I'm fine with it i watch LTT

[haughty thistle]

The Vive Pro 1 is also a great headset. I personally find it even better then the Index, as it's better balanced and the OLED screens are super nice. Just make sure to get your own headphones with that one, as the built-in ones are absolute trash. The Vive Wands aren't the greatest, but you could use those while you're waiting for the Knuckles to be available again ^^

[bleak night]

i wouldnt go with an index, a group of friends including me had many issues with ut

personally speaking.. pimax 5k super has been the best headset ive used

[haughty thistle]

I wouldn't recommend a Pimax to anyone who's new to VR period. They need tons of tweaking, and just isn't a good impression on the VR industry as a whole.
Besides that Pimax continues to be a $hitty company that handles their Kickstarter Backers like dirt, while constantly putting out sales with hidden costs: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pimax/comments/jboba5/dont_buy_from_pimax_youve_been_warned_how_many/ (the "Upgrade to VR 2.0" promo had the shipping costs and taxes excluded, whereas the non-sale listings had them included)
Lastly, be weary that Pimax, like Facebook, has the ability to disable your headset remotly: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pimax/comments/m467qq/warnig_pimax_disabling_headsets_remotely/

Besides that, Pimax likes to delete negative comments on their own webstore, the "official" r/Pimax_Official subreddit (it's a different one then the two links I had just sent; it's run by Pimax which is actually against Reddits TOS but whatever) and their own forum. The only place I've seen somewhat open regarding both pro and contra Pimax arguments is the community run r/Pimax...
If you don't belive me on that, here ya go: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pimax/comments/iz8fnb/pimax_is_horrible_i_posted_on_their_page_how_they/

And I haven't reven mentioned my horrible experience with their Support and their hardware as someone who wears glasses

[bleak night]

id still say the opposite, 2 friends of mine bought the 5k super because i loved mine, both love theirs, and one was completely new to vr

they stopped being scummy recently

friend who was new to vr, she ordered the 5k super as an impulse buy, and she had buyers remorse immediately, though when it came in, she loved it

though her pc cant run it as easily, since she has a 1080 ti

[haughty thistle]

Press X to doubt

[bleak night]

my other friend, shes used a vive pro, index, quest 2, cv1, vive

and she downright adores the 5k super

oddly enough... they did turn themselves around fast. support is 10x better than before

[haughty thistle]

There are apparently still people from their Kickstarter who are still waiting for their fulfilment, yet they keep putting up sale after sale for new customers

[bleak night]

also that friend, she still uses the vive pro and the index. and as she said, with a little adjusting, its the same clarity as the index, with better lenses

which ive experienced the same thing

[haughty thistle]

All they care about is how they look to new customers. They couldn't care less about their current users...

[bleak night]

weird

my kdmas got rmad, finally got them back in yesterday

[haughty thistle]

And like I said, 0 space for glasses on the 5k Super. Adding the space for glasses makes the lenses blurry and glare-y. More so then the Vive Pro 2 is imo

[bleak night]

was it with the stock face gasket?

it looks awful with stock

not calibrated for the thin one for some reason

[haughty thistle]

Yup. The stock gasket on the 5k Super just is way too thin. The 8k X comes with a thicker one, but it just makes the lenses a blurry, glary mess

[bleak night]

if you get a 5k super.. get the thicker foam they sell, or the leather

its made mine way better

fixed the blur, and never had any glare

[haughty thistle]

Using a VR cover intended for the Vive Pro made it much more comfortable then their "comfort kit", but it did add a massive preassure point on my forehead and it just became too uncomfortable for even 30 minute play sessions

[haughty thistle]

I was talking about the ticker foam on the 8k X.

[bleak night]

yeah

im just saying, the comfort kit foam they sell

8kx is full of issues

[haughty thistle]

Besides that, the lenses just never properly lined up with my eyes. No matter what I set the IPD to, it always caused massive eye strain

[bleak night]

weird, i have to run a lower ipd with a software ipd offset

[haughty thistle]

Their MAS head strap also is like the Vive Pro head strap ordered on Wish. The Vive Pro has intentionally a certain stiffness to it, so you can adjust the angle at which the HMD is sitting on your face. Ya can't do that on a Pimax.
Pimax in general seems to look at thing in the VR market and genuinely tries to either copy good things or make other things better, but without understanding why certain things are designed the way they are.
And actually, some of my IPD issues I had with the Pimax are reflected with the Pro 2 as well btw. Eye strain can come from a number of different places, like for example, the images on each eye not lining up the way the brain thinks they should. The Vive Pro 2 has such a lack of Stereo overlap that it sometimes pulls me out of the immersion. Pimax may have a decent stereo-overlap, but it becomes apparent there that the FOV both outwards and inwards needs to at least somewhat line up or it can cause issues...

And lastly, to circle back to the first point I made all the way at the beginning, regarding the tweaking, the way that Pimax has implemented the FOV is wasteful in resources and causes a number of issues with a number of games. While the majority of modern games might work fine, there are still issues. And it's not like there's a single toggle to fix it for all games. You need to actively go into PiTool and often adjust the settings for different games. I've found that no matter the tools, certain settings required a restart of SteamVR. Some games needed these turned on, others off. I get that it's an enthusiast option, but it really is only worth it from a usability standpoint, if you don't mind adjusting settings for like half an hour before playing a newly bought game...

[bleak night]

wait what games are broken?

[haughty thistle]

ETS2, Beat Saber (the reflections), Elite Dangerous

Just to name 3 games I've tried to play

[bleak night]

beat saber is perfectly fine here

never playeed elite or ets2 though

there may have been a fix before i got my pissmax

but idk, beat saber looked perfectly fine, reflections looked fine

[haughty thistle]

I tried 5k Super back in April and the 8k X in May

[bleak night]

i got my 5k super at the start of june

and i found that theres one setting that MUST be enabled in pitool to fix sshit from breaking

leaving only parallel projections on fixed steamvr and such

never had an issue with any game since

even old vr games

[haughty thistle]

Apparently some games can break with parallel projections on? I haven't run into that, but that's what I read on the Pimax subreddit.
One thing that I noticed for sure is that parallel projections is incompatible with Hardware GPU scheduling and takes a hit on performance. Regarding the former, it's only a hunch, but I had super heavy screen tearing on the 8k X and 5k Super once I had parallel projections enabled and the framerate dropped below 60fps. Why I say it's a hunch is because I haven't tried turning off GPU scheduling when I still had the Pimax, but it fixed a weird stuttering issue I had on my Vive Pro 2 under similar conditions, so I think those two might be related.
Regarding the Performance hit, in Beat Saber seemed to have jumped up a bit when it was turned on. Not really much noticeable, but it cam make the difference between motion smoothing kicking in or not...

[bleak night]

ive turned off scheduling because certain games stuttered severely when focused

but when unfocused, the game was fine

also, never had any issues with parallel projections myself. otherwise 90% of my games dont render the screen edges properly

could also be down to what usb controller your motherboard has

if its an assmedia controller, f

[haughty thistle]

Leaving parallel projections off for E:D and ETS2 makes the game render the center of the FOV the center of the screen. It absolutely obliterates the Stereoscopic vision. -3/10, can not recommend trying out. Ask me how I know xD

[bleak night]

and some motherboards cant deliver enough power over usb

though that can be fixed with a cheap power splitter cable

[haughty thistle]

If you have the 4.5m copper cable, you can just plug the USB cable with the black plastics into a seperate wall adapter and PiTool doesn't care...

[bleak night]

i dont use that one anymore, the cable was too heavy on my head

[haughty thistle]

It's only with the 6m optical cable (which should be included at those prices imo), where you'd need a splitter

[bleak night]

it should, though ive seen they do a 50% off coupon deal with a new headset from time to time

so you get the 6m cable half off

still kinda upset with pimax over the kdmas is all

they used BMRS

and didnt drive them

so the bass is insanely high, mids are pretty much gone, and the highs are fine

only downside ive had with the headset.

everything else is great, for the most part

still dont understand pimax's thought process for the kdmas kit.

once the DMAS launches, il probably nab a set and pop the earphones on and run the volume real low

[haughty thistle]

Still don't understand how Pimax thought they could fix chromatic abberation completely in software with such gigantic single lens-elements

[bleak night]

properly driven BMRs should sound much better

chromatic abberation?

never had it

i had it on the index

[haughty thistle]

Reason why every other large FOV headset has multi-element lenses is so they can control it better in hardware. Doing it in software is possible, but only to a certain degree

Dude, Colors on the Pimax just shift all other the place. I was looking at a the IPD adjustment window in SteamVR, while adjusting IPD and it was just all orange-red to one side and blue-cyan to the other...

[bleak night]

not here

they look perfectly fine

might have been the spacer you made..?

or a bad batch of headsets?

no light bleed in the headset here, the distortion isnt there either

the very very very edge of the lenses have a tiny bit of distortion, but thats only at the very far edge of the lenses where i cant see properly anyway

also theres an ipd adjustment window in steamvr?

sounds useful

[haughty thistle]

Bad batch of headsets
Bruh. Those were 2 different models, bought a month apart through different store fronts, shipped from different locations. I highly doubt they came from the same batch...

[bleak night]

personally speaking, the 5k super isnt perfect, but its definately an upgrade from the index.
and ive got 2 friends who went from an index to a 5k super and have said the same thing

weird

[haughty thistle]

Looked kinda like this btw (over exaggerated I know, but it get's the point across)

[bleak night]

yeah, i had that on the index

on all 5 of my rmas

i remember having that on the gear vr and dk2 back in the day too

quest 2 has it a bit too

but not very

[haughty thistle]

I know this heavily depends on how correctly one has set the IPD to. But I've tried from both the largest to smallest IPD setting on the Pimax, and it looked the best at the smallest (like the picture above)

[bleak night]

an ipd offset is very much recommended here

[haughty thistle]

Software IPD can't fix a lens level issue, which is what I had here

[bleak night]

huh..

very weird for sure

[haughty thistle]

The Software IPD slider in general is super sensitive. Just setting it to plus or minus one already messed up the alignment so badly, I had to take the headset off

[bleak night]

offset slider you need to make minute changes

i only run about a 0.6 on each side

at 66.6mm ipd

my ipd is 69

[haughty thistle]

Best i could muster was and offset of 0.3 on both eyes. It made it slightly less straining on the Eyes. But still, a properly designed HMD should absolutely not cause any eye strain at all, like every other headset on the market...

[bleak night]

i had eye strain with the index...

it wasnt built for me in the slightest

pimax i only get eye strain after 10 hours in vr

[haughty thistle]

[bleak night]

which i blame less on the headset and more on staring at an lcd for 10 hours

[haughty thistle]

I have legit no idea why both of our experiences with the Index and Pimax are flipped xD

[bleak night]

yeah, there may be something more to it

like head shape n such

my friend used a vive pro 2, and she couldnt stand it

no idea what was wrong exactly

but the vive pro 2 and index were the worst headsets she used

[haughty thistle]

I'd still not recommend Pimax to someone starting out, as a return is likely, and Pimax really doesn't excells at that. I mean, deducting >200€ for a return? seriously?

[bleak night]

she preferred the cv1 even

[haughty thistle]

The lenses on the VP2 really aren't great, I agree

Should've used the VP1 instead xD

[bleak night]

id say its worth at least trying the 5k super at like a booth or something to get a feel for it

she uses a vp1 daily

[haughty thistle]

👍

[bleak night]

but moved to the 5k super

she loves it way more

[haughty thistle]

I dunno. I felt like the 5k Super was dimm and pixelated. But I guess that was just me

[bleak night]

dim?

[haughty thistle]

Yup.

[bleak night]

i know i had a way to fix it

[haughty thistle]

Like take the Index and set it to 50% brightness

[bleak night]

i cranked up the backlight in pitool

and set the color a bit up

[haughty thistle]

If you're talking about the brightness slider in Pitool, I had maxed that out

[bleak night]

oh i didnt crank up the color...?

[haughty thistle]

Still looked like the Index at 50% brightness. The 8k X was slightly better, but it was still nowhere near what other headsets manage

[bleak night]

i have a -1 on red and green

huh.. i only ran the index on 90-100

and the 5k super was the same

[haughty thistle]

Even the Vive Pro 2, which ain't great in terms of brightness, was much closer to my preferred 130% on my Index. I'd say that one is like 90-100% Index brightness?

[bleak night]

at first i had an issue, then... i think they pushed out a firmware update?

idk. im running the latest debug firmware

i was sent the debug firmware from pimax after having kdmas issues

[haughty thistle]

Had both Pimax's on the newest Firmware. Didn't even bother with the 8k X beta one, as it was listed to be only compatible with like super old Nvidia drivers...

[bleak night]

i still hear only bad things with the 8kx

though anyone using a 5k super with the official thicker face foam

only heard good things

at least, in the past couple months anyway

after i got my 5k super they pushed an update 5 days later with a cvs recipt of bugfixes

[haughty thistle]

We could also just both be in a filter bubble. You only getting the positive news while I only get the bad ones xD

[bleak night]

maybe

i still claim biological differances having something to do with it

or uh... im "built different...?"

yeeeah idk

i just cant recommend the index with good faith

[haughty thistle]

Still, this ain't confidence inducing either...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pimax/comments/l14ll6/my_pimax_5k_headset_melted/

[bleak night]

oh, the 5k+ and 5k super are way different

even using completely different plastics

and uh

looks like that usb c port short circuited

[haughty thistle]

Uhhh... no sir? They use a different coating on the top, but afaik they still use the same plastics underneath as what they switched to after the initial KS delivery cracking so badly...

[bleak night]

hm? i heard the plastic formula was redone, and the coating was put on top

[haughty thistle]

Could be the plastics reformulation they'd done between the initial KS deliveries and the later open market ones...

[bleak night]

maybe

ive smacked my pimax quite a few times with my knuckles by accident

and my knuckles are almost due for another rma

one has some tracking drift

but, idk, the plastics are all weird

still dont have plastics mastered i guess....?

oh wait, about usb c..

i did notice the top of my 5k super, the usb port there, if i plug the face tracker in there, the kdmas buzzes

if i use the bottom, no issues

[haughty thistle]

Besides the products, seeing the "reviews" from most tech youtubers, they feel more like ads tbh. Especially the ones from VoodooDE, but I'd go as far to say as that even the ones from people like Thrill and The Mysitcal felt more out of place. Espeically now how Thrill is talking way more negatively about Pimax in his newer videos then he did back in is initial "review". it all smells kinda fishy...

[bleak night]

i wish pimax would bribe me if thats the case

id gladly take more hardware to be paid for shilling

love the damn headset to death

[haughty thistle]

You're probably not a big enough Youtuber for it to make financial sense for them xD

[bleak night]

im not even a youtuber

im just a moth girl who plays vr for 10 hours every day

[haughty thistle]

I think we can all agree that VR needs to be more inclusive. The Index imo does a great job at this, if only it's face gasket was more accommodating for those with a wider face...

Doesn't change the fact that the Pro 1 continues to be my daily driver xD

[bleak night]

kinda think that the pimax accomodates wider faces a bit better maybe

mine is a tad bit.. wide

im curious if the face tracker uses usb 3 or not..

[haughty thistle]

They do. More so then any other headset I've tried. Fact is, the foam let in so much light from behind me, I had to close my blinds to use it without extra light shining in...

Then again, I feel like I have just the perfect headshape for the Index xD

[bleak night]

same for the pimax here

my friend who had the index didnt fit the index either really

[haughty thistle]

And I think we can all agree that there is no perfect headset. Pretty similar to the audio world really. You get what you can afford and what works best for you. But it doesn't change the fact that for 1000 bucks, the Index continues to be the easiest to recommend for a more enthusiast option...

[bleak night]

id say head size might matter for each, index was a fragile mess here, and it was only about $100 more for my pimax

if i got the base stations from valve tha is

which in the us.... you cant!

[haughty thistle]

Press X to doubt

[bleak night]

index was a very fragile mess here though

[haughty thistle]

THe 5k Super is listed for 800 USD, and when you gbet like lighthouses and controllers with it, it's more like 300-400 USD difference

[bleak night]

dead pixels, dead cables, dead pixels and cables

oh no not for the msrp

they do sales often

where it gets to 720 for the 5k super

[haughty thistle]

You jus tgot unlucky. The Index isn't fragile by design. It has a few weekspots, which are easy to avoide...

[bleak night]

i got unlucky 5 times in a row

with different batches

[haughty thistle]

Sometimes I do feel like you're talking bull tho. 'cause I've not seen a person once with 5 RMAs on the HMD itself, unless they are really careless with it cough Thrill cough

[bleak night]

to be fair

i did only one backflip

and that headset just had a bad cable less than a week later, but never landed on the cable

[haughty thistle]

Besides, regarding the fragility of the Index: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpUzHms4dNk

[bleak night]

nice

yeah.. i wish my indexes were rugged enough to last more than a week

so i decided to test a little

so the face tracker does say it uses usb 3

though idk how much i believe it.. considering leap motion uses the same controller chip and claims they use usb 3, though only use usb 2

[haughty thistle]

Apparently, the Vive Wireless adapter only supports USB 2.0 devices connected to the USB-C port of the Vive Pro and HTC lists the Facial tracker as incompatible with the Wireless Adapter, so take that as you will

[bleak night]

the face tracker does work over usb 2 just fine though

so theres something to consider

i still need to order the new cable for my face tracker however

gotta get it working on the pimax, needs a shorter cable for the bottom usb c port.

[bleak night]

cable was ordered for the face tracker

6 inches

[sullen linden]

What can anyone tell me about this.

[harsh niche]

it is 128gb

[sullen linden]

Ok

Is it worth it?

[glad sand]

If you're willing to give a sh*t ton of data to Facebook in exchange for paying a lower price than you usually would for a similar caliber virtual reality headset brand new in a sealed box from a reputable retailer, then sure, the price can be justified if you are looking for a standalone VR experience that is fundamentally a phone processor. It can also be used with a PC if you purchase separate cables, but still has the issue of Facebook (biggest turn-off for me, personally). If you want something at a similar price for PCVR but non-Facebook, I'd recommend something like the HP Reverb G2, which tends to go for around the same price on the secondhand market. There are also several other WMR headsets that you can look into that may fit some use case of yours better, or if you prefer a SteamVR experience (advantage of better controllers and controller tracking, disadvantage of usually external tracking) maybe a secondhand HTC Vive. The Vive has its own compromise of more "screen-door effect" than what I've heard about the Quest 2 and other newer headsets, but again, no Facebook, and better controller tracking from what I've heard compared to WMR/inside-out tracking devices. Depends what your priorities are and what you're looking for on whether or not the Quest 2 is "worth it"

[thick escarp]

While I despise Facebook as much as the next guy, I have to slightly correct @glad sand here.

If you don't care about Facebook collecting data on you (like, what games you play, for how long, ...), you can buy and use this headset as intended, buy standalone games in it, and it's actually very decent.

If you don't really like Facebook that much, but want the wireless experience and have a gaming PC attached via ethernet cord to a decent 5GHz router, I can still somewhat recommend getting a Quest 2, installing Virtual Desktop for 20 bucks, and then blocking the device from the internet in your router. You can then buy games on Steam and send them all your money and game data. 🙂 I just tested this (and reported on this channel, a couple of days back), and it works pretty okay. This is still the best wireless VR experience you can get, and while Facebook does get some money from you and some basic data creating the account, they can't really collect that much, most of it goes to Valve...

If you really hate Facebook and want nothing to do with them, you'll have to get a different headset. And if you don't care for the wireless feature, you might as well get a Reverb G2 used, because we don't know how much Facebook will start locking down their headset in the future.

[haughty thistle]

Another problem with Facebook required for login is that their algorithms to detect duplicate and fake accounts is quite aggressive and often likes to ban legit accounts as well. While Oculus support tries to help, I know some people had to sell their headsets because Facebook refused to unban them.
Thing is, if you get banned on Facebook, it's not your account that gets banned, it's you the person.

[bleak night]

id suggest alvr instead of vd

its free and all the settings can be changed

and can work wired aswell

and runs quite well in even usb 2.0

used it personally, its quite worth it.

[rapid otter]

Better than VD and Airlink ?

@bleak night

[bleak night]

airlink? yes. 20x better

airlink is quite... crap

vd it can be, you just need to tune it right

[rapid otter]

I do like airlink

Tho VD 🤮

Gonna try

[sullen linden]

@thick escarp
@junior fog
Tldr xD

[bleak night]

only issue with airlink is... its just link

its made for router compatability sake and not... optimization

with almost no settings to actually get the most from it

taking less vram in total too

[glad sand]

Anyone know of good optimizations for Star Wars Squadrons on an Index? I changed the "VR pre-rendered frames" in NVIDIA control panel to 4 from 1, and I think (?) that and going to fullscreen borderless both helped, but I still can't maintain 120Hz which is really surprising to me, also dunked it to the lowest setting for VR which did actually help from medium, usually hovers around probably 110-120ish, just not as fluid feeling a lot of the time which is kinda sickening tbh. Using a 5600X + 3090 FE

[bleak night]

5600x with a 3090?

i feel like there would be a little bit of a bottleneck there

since when i had an index, i maintained 120hz at all times with my 5800x/5950x and 3080 ftw3

[rapid otter]

The 3090 is 20 % more powerful

[bleak night]

yeah?

[rapid otter]

It's weird but it seems steam doesn't register my game hours

[bleak night]

if the 3090 is 20% more powerful, 120hz should be a breeze

im thinking the cpu is bottlenecking, but idk

could be wrong, but it seems kinda low for a 3090.

framerate that is

[rapid otter]

Could gate and firestike

The 3090 is not really meant for conventional gaming the 3080 ti better suited

With it's 24 gb (i think) of vram it's for particular users

[bleak night]

im excited for the next gen gpus

[rapid otter]

Most should go for a 3080 or ti variant

[bleak night]

i hit 10gb of vram and only get 30-45fps in neos

[rapid otter]

What's neos

[bleak night]

like garrys mod

but vr

and free

multiplayer and such still

everything is made in the game itself

huge range of filetypes are supported for import n stuff

only vr game ive played for the past 2 months now...

you do need a little bit of a beefy pc though, a friend of mine barely gets by with an rx 580

very cpu heavy

actually, i think its less than vrchat for cpu/gpu ratio

but you need a beefier pc to run neos due to it having a different way of calculating IKs

so all clients are synced instead of having the delay

ive played air hockey with someone in australia and im in the us

and it wasnt bad

[rapid otter]

Nice

I might try

[thick escarp]

To me, the issue with Airlink is that it's Oculus and therefore Facebook. If you can pay 20 bucks and not have them collect data on you, that is very fine by me. 😁 I'll have to give ALVR a check though.

[rapid otter]

Would you give me a ride ?

[bleak night]

id take vd over oculus for sure

[rapid otter]

I have an rtx 2060 should be fine ?

[bleak night]

whos giving who a ride, and to where

2060 would be fine for neos

with a quest 2 anyway

i have issues running beos because i use a 5k super at 160% render res

neos*

[rapid otter]

Since i never played i could play with you

[bleak night]

sounds fun

[rapid otter]

Got my Ryzen 7 3700X 💪

[bleak night]

ive got my 5950x that runs at 110c and boils my room

[thick escarp]

I don't think you can get a shorter version from us. If you are okay with Facebook collecting game data on you with your real world name, then shoot for it, it's very much worth it.

If you are okay with them connecting your headset to your Facebook account but no game data, and you have a good home network, then I think it's worth it and you can play via ALVR or Virtual Desktop on Steam.

If you don't like Facebook knowing stuff about you and being able to lock your headset if you lie to them, then no, a Quest 2 is not for you.

[rapid otter]

Bro that's dangerous

What your cooler

[bleak night]

not on my chip

zen 3 is but for 90c average

my cooler is a custom loop

gpu runs at 50c max

i need more radiators though, coolant hits 42c at max pump speed

im even using liquid metal on my cpu and gpu

5950x has a fully soldered copper IHS

running at 4.525 ghz

[rapid otter]

Da fuck you put a custom ihs