VR the champions of the world?
 

Not sure whether to put this here, in PC subforum, or in other games forum.

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Thought I start this thread as an attractor and centrepoint for comments on VR: your estimations, guesses, wishes, and also your experiences with VR software and games.

I am about to dip my toe into VR space soon. I will use an Oculus due to its price, which is now constantly fixed at 450 Euros including two Rift handles. This is still not cheap, but affordable, at least much more affordable than the HTC Vive costing twice as much, plus periphals needed, maybe. Oculus also is said to have the more immersive controllers, and slightly better visual quality. Currently.

I think VR will not automatically be revolutionizing all and evertyhing, it still could fail (once again), and then come back in 15-20 years and try again. However, the visual quality for the first time ever is such that it could become market penetrating in the long haul for sure. But certain that is still not, imo.

Two arguments against that.

First, the target audience currently are players. And players want quick and fast entertainment. Setting up the neede dhardware and software, often is described by peoppe as anythign but a breeze, its not simply plug and play, but time consuming fine-.tuning, so say quite soem people. Added to this is the complication of having too many standardfs already that only in some parts work with each other but mostkly seem to work not with each other.

This leads to point 2: developing for VR, is complicated and needs quite uge ressources, if you want to do the rela blicbuster games in VR. Bethesda'S success in trying that with fallout and Skyrim VR, needs to be waited for and see in a couple of weeks. Some hope for th eVR killerapp that ius needed to poush the tehcnology, and Bethesda is a heavyweight in business. Which means if they fail to meet sales expectations, and pull out of VR, evberybody will notice - and this could send two torpedoes with extra-huge warheads into the side of this still tiny little merchant floating. Sony has said recently, that they were suroprised by how well their Playstation headsets did sell, over 1.2 million pices so far, but the Vive sold just 400 thousand, and Oculus 250 thousand.

VR could win this battle. But it still is far away from victory. Success is anythign but certain, me thinks. Coudl also be that we weill see two very different stories being written with two different outcomes for PC, and console.

The dizziness many people report after longer sessions in VR, speaks against titles being used in VR that do movement in ways that challenge the brain too much. Quick movement on legs in fluid sequences, like you get with your 2D WASD-Mouse- style of gameplay, may maybe forever suffer form this handicap - if so, this could become a real dealbreaker for VR. Movement via telepprting however is a real immersioj breaker imo, also hampers gameplay and pre3vents certain, more elaborated, tactcial ways of mvojg your avatar in an open world sandbox game or a shooter.

Which means that the use of VR is no automatic option all the way, with all games and genres. I thiunk in some genres it simply does not work well - can never can work well. VRT headsets are no holodecks.

Early this month the news came in that the developer of EVE, the Iceland company CCD, has stopped and completedly withdrawn from VR development, and has laid off over 100 of staff. Their PS title EVE Valkyrie, a major blockbuster format, did not sell enough units for VR, it seems, they seem to think they cannot afford to go on with VR games. That is the first real big player already turning his back on VR again. And the question is how many people are willing to invest even 400-500 coins into a headgear when you can see that most racing fans still use gamepads instead of wheels on playstation racing games. Even ion PC, many play racing games via keyboards, you get asked for that time and again in racing forums (or gamepads). Yijn g players, kids, often cannot afford the costs of expensive FFB wheels (my Fanatec equipment costed almost 900 coins, and I am still on the cheaper side of things, money-wise...) or VR headsets. If companies see no monetarian priofit form investing inot VR, sooner or later their development for VR must and will stall. At least no major budget titles will ebdone then, leaving the field only to cheap and short meals for the little huinger in between. And that is a market that cannot endlessly compensate the player fpor the costs of a headset. Which will bckfire on sales on headsets, if no convincing titles show up. Its a mutually enforcing downward spiral, once it gets this far.

Me, I try VR mostly for right this: racing simulations like Assetto Corsa, one of my two or three dominant playing titles in the past 4 years. VR and racing, that is a natural combination, because you must not walk into the walls of your room or into your bookshelves, since the game environment demands that you sit still in a cockpit and press buttons only occassionally, and then blindly.

However, I can imagine that many other major game genres work not well with VR. Especially the very popular genre of FPS.

I have had a close eye on the offerijhngsw for VR games, and most do not attratc me, seem to be gimmicks and demos only to show some VR stuff, while having the player loosing interest quite soon.

Of the games that work in VR, I already own several, from playing them in 2D:

- Subnautica (I have high hopes for that one)
- Assetto Corsa (said to be a blast and a textbook exmaple for how great VR can work for players)
- Raceroom (I need to see what they mean the experience suffers since graphics are still DX9, Raceroom has the best looking tracks in business),
- Dirt Rally (said to be fantastic, though too brute force for newstarters in VR, causing them to vomit too easily :D )
- European Truck Simulator 2 (ATS has VR well).

I have set my eyes on

- Skyrim
- Fallout 4
- Sports Bar (for the Billiard and Air Hockey part in it, I love Air Hockey and was a top player in it in real life :), and I still play Virtual Pool 4 frequently, its sensationally realistic)
- Lone Echo
- Elite Dangerous
- IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad
- maybe Table Tennis :D

Further down the list are and not really convinced I am of

- Superhot
- Eagle Flight
- A Dr1ft
- Robo Recall
- The Climb
plus some stuff on the Playstation, but I will not get VR for PS as well, maybe consider these titles if they get transported to other platforms: "Everest" on mind, maybe.

I am also looking forward to Google Earth VR. My other main point of interest, beside racing in VR.

The dominant genre on my list, are racing titles, and this is what I am getting VR for in the main. I expect it to deliver the results I hope for. With other playing genres I have my doubts. And I want to filter out all that demo and gimmick stuff that currently dominates the VR market.

What you think? Have you experiences, tips, opinions, recommendations?

P.S. I just had to swallow. For a moment I imagined to stalk the huge hunting reserves in The Hunter, in 3D. Not planned AFAIK, but still - dreaming is allowed, or not? It would be ideal, due to the slow movement. Slow, gentle movement, or cockpit-bound fast movement is preferred in VR (movement not defined as gesticulating with pistol-holding hands and arms, but as travelling the space between points A and B).

Hm. No reaction. VR may be the next big thing in business, but certainly not amongst subsimmers... :)

My flight sim friends like it. They say it gives one a much greater feeling of actually flying.

Flight sims, like race sims, no doubt benefit from it, like they did benefit from TrackIR as well. The problem I see is that the sim titles' suitability is not always given. Complex button-pushing sims like DCS and PMDG I magine to be difficult or impossible to be run in 3D, if they were available. Simplified flight sims and pure dogfighters that have no more commands in need than what can be storedon the control buttons of your HOTAS and thus can be called up blindly, probably do very well. In principle. Performaqnce and graphcis details are the critical variables.

I plan for IL-2 Battle for Stalingrad, therefore, which has this open VR support that is kind of generic and platform-unspecific. However I hear and read that it works much better with Oculus, than with Vive.

On the other hand...

https://flyinside-fsx.com/

that would be my dream: Being inside the cockpit of a PMDG B737-800NGX. In real 3D. I know the module from FSX, with TrackIr, its photo-realistic and super complex, a highlight if not THE highlight in my flightsimming biography.

Such handling may be managable when time is no issue. When you need to run thorugh operaitonal procedures qwuickly, however, I can imagine there might show up ergonomic problems.

Pr3pared 4.0 comes with inbuild VR support, I read. I did not know that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=pfut5RCroYo

Its slow. Ideal it would be with mouse and mousewheelsupport, as in TrackIR. If that works (it is included, but I do not know how well it works), then this is a package to be put on the list.

In general, in other game genres as well, I probably would prefer to have WASD-control and mouse control, instead of using Rift or PS or Vive Controllers. Walking in the room and doing arm gymnasticsis not my focus of interest in VR. Visual 3D perception exclusively is. Preferrably while staying seated.

How much does the equipment cost?

Very good and sober video, do not be misled because of the game he uses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0-UR3FVH1E

The Oculus with two handles costs 450 coins now in Germany, its not just a sales price, but now is regular price. They did not sell as many as the Vive or Playstation, so they had to react. As I said in the first post, ealy htis years they had sold some 250 thousand, while Vive has sold 420 thosuand, and Sony got surprised themselves by passing the 1 million barrier for their PS4 device already.

Hi Skybird.

Yeah it's all interesting and promising eh.

I tried an Occulus Rift at The Flight Sim show in 2015, I'm sure they've come on leaps and bounds since then, but it was very blurry graphics at the time.
Plus I felt really ill after about 2 mins and nearly blew chunks!

When I first got FSX in 2014 it took me almost a week to get over motion sickness lol! I use a 50" tv as my monitor, and using head look in the VC of A2A planes made me really ill! :haha:

But yes! If it all works out in the end it will be awesome to fly the NGX, MJC Dash 8 and A2A stuff fully immersed!
I've played Elite Dangerous for 3-4 years now too, and I hear it's epic for that!

Imagine SH5 and TWOS in VR :o Mind blown!

John.

I'd love to own one, but at 450 plus what I need to get my PC to the higher end margin that is required quickly puts the price tag close, if not over 1,000€.

I could be tempted, I've just upgraded my machine to i7.

In the racing community many peope say that to avoid nausea, you want frames kept at 90 if possible. A latency gap that hardly or not atv all can be noticed, and smooth frames, that is of paramount imporanc ein VR. That is the reason why just minumum specs time and again brign people trying VR into troubles. And that is why I wenjt so expensively with my nerw rig, it is an atypical buy for me habits of the past 15, 20 years. I wanted to have those performance reserves. Obviously, that brings the price for a new machine up high into the air, and these costs need to be added to those for the headset.

The Vive costs twice as much and more than the Oculus. Solid argument there.

@ SS Norholm,

if you are short on VR legs, then pay attention to that you said you already grew dizzy from FSX on a standard screen. I take it that you maybe are not used to playing computer games at all. Your brain is untrained, and this pays off against you twice when using VR. But almost everybody says that the brain can be trained, like kids over time learn not to suffer from nausea when driving in cars with with their poarents. Many kids suffer nausea at young ages then, due to the movement. And later, it dissappears. From day to day, icnrease the time a little bit you spend in VR, but stop shortly before you feel nausea. Your tolerance should improve, by all empirical experience. Also, do not start with somethign that features excissvely fast movements, but somethign that sees you gently drifting and floating at slow, relaxing pace. A game like Adr1ft, Lone Echo, Saubnautica and the likes may be better suited for beginning, than doing death spirals and loopings in a dogfighter in your first session already. Some people, usually people not playing much, say they could not last longer than 5 minuters int he beginning, others, usually people playing a lot, said that form beginning on they could hold out one or two hours and their problem was not nausea, but warmth.

Brain-train level really seems to have a lot to do with it, and it is no fixiated state.
Give the brain time to adapt. Both in one session, and between sessions.

At least that is my plan for myself. :D

The inferior resolution is reported by practically everbyody to be forgotten soon once immersion starts to suck you into the game world. Just tell yourself you are playing a game 12 years ago, recall the resoltuoons thta were in use back then. And there you are.

You also need a fast gfx card. ;) nVidia says minimum is a 960, but I would niot bet m oney on that claim, but think 1060 is the minimum - and then you still have no reserves.

These 1080TI cards are expensive like sin. I have a bad conscience that I bought one.

Lol! I'm used to playing games and gaming alright!
I been gaming since the Pong days and my first Spectrum 48k not long after! :)

The reason I had motion sickness with FSX in the beginning was because I wasn't used to the fast head pan in the VC, plus being sat a little bit too close to a huge screen! It also turned out I wasn't using the optimal settings for a PC/TV setup.......weird scan and latency issues, plus putting the TV into 'Game Mode' helped a lot.

I'm ok now, but for sure, VR would take some getting used to alright. But I'd just grind it out and get used to it. If it turns out a viable alternative option for gaming, it's the future for sure, and would be worth the trips to the toilet!!

Btw, like you say above....it's interesting how 'motion sickness' or 'simulator sickness' is brought on! Basically your brain can't cope and goes into panic mode!
As it feels you sat still, but it see's movement from the image, can't figure out why, so it makes you feel nauseous and throw up as it thinks you're probably poisoned! :)

The eyes tell the brain "we are moving." The inner ear tells the brain "nope we do not move at all". The muscles tell the brain "We try to make us moving." Something undefinable tells the brain "In fact, everythign moves around us" .CPU cannot compute all this conflicting data too well. If then the eyes push it over the top and tell the brain "we are not moving as fast as the msclues try to move us", then something goes perplex over this latency issue, and makes a desperate clicking sound of resignation, and the machinist in the brain presses the red stop button: we feel nausea.

Like on Monday mornings, first hour of the new week's shift. Your conscience tells you that life shall be good. Your senses tell you by all they perceive around you: it isn't good at all. The boss walks in and says this sad state will last for another full week before it will become good on weekend. You vomit on his table. :D See...? LOL

Lol ! A great analogy!

o7

Almost one week with VR now, time for a sitrep and assessment.

It has blown the top of my skull up and high into the air. :up:

Its not as if there are no visual setbacks. Due to the current technical implementation, some disadvantages cannot be aovided: the grapjhcis are somewhat blurry, think of it as an oldfashioned CRT TV and you with your nose close to the screen, then you get an idea of wehat it is about. The further and deeper you look into the distance of VR space, the blurrier it becomes, ion close vicinity, say up to three meters, it is pretty much clear, and some titles put more techncial emphasis on making graphcis in close vicinty sharper, than others. You always wear a ski mask: the outer rims of your viewing field are blocked, but not much, at top and bottom one finger wide, at the sides two finger wide.

Does all this limit the joy? For me, not at all. The mask effect I am not aware of anymore since minute two of my VR exploration. The blurriness is somethign one gets used to, in some games it is more apparent, on others less.

The Oculus introduction and then the first demo with the small flying robot, were moments of pure magic like I have not felt for many, many years. I probably grinned all the time like an idiot, babbling stupid words like "Das is' nicht wahr!" and "Verdammte Scheiße!" and repeating them endlessly, for more variation in prose my brain had no reserves left to produce, it was too occupied with processing what the headset fed in signals via the eyes. I then, ten minutes later, tried Google Earth in VR. And it was then when the first contact with the virtual world really became overwhelming. I was speechless, and felt that my emotional control was starting to get shaken. I could not belie it, the visual impression was absolutel overwhelming and - well, yes, overwhelming, there is no better word for it. I was floating in space, and this big orb that Earth is was floating before my eyes and I was levitating in empty space and stars and the milky way around me - then zooming in to Florence and seeing it laid out under my eyes like the 3D landscape of a model railway landscape of unlimited proportions, and this little god that I suddenly had turned into, flying and moving and handling it all like he wanted - it started to become too much. Not due to nausea, and still have not suffered a single minute from it, but my emotional reaction became more and more intense. All this beauty around me! Unbelievable!

I then zoomed to Neuschwanstein Castle, and here used the function of Streetview, suddenly standing in the inner yard of the castle that surrounded me as a true 360° panorama, and all the people stood around me, and I turned and it was as if I were there. I had to stop here and give it a break, my emotioins went on a rollercoaster ride. System overload, my inner system shut down and took a break.

Guys, this is madness.

Since then, I only made as intense and overwhelming new experiences with VR, no matter what I tried. The tracks in Assetto Corsa and now sitting inside the car and watchigng my alter ego behind the wheel, it is a completely new ball game, the tracks have nothing to do with those I remember from screen. That cars in a distance are hazy and blurry, it just does not matter that much, when they get closer, all the stunning detail in stereoscopic 3D becomes apparent, you race in the middle of the pack, you see and think you feel the car shakign and rollign around you, you scratch off paint from others and look scared out of the window, you naturall turn your head towards turn apex or to watch the mirrors - its super-hot stuff, the devil pales in envy. With the even more detailed tracks in Raceroom, it became even better. Yesterday i did the Nordschleife, trying to kill my new rig and push it into maximum fans acitivity (a fail, btw. :D ) by driving with almost 100 cars. The noise! the sights! The experience! You see, all external cameras, TV cameras, car body cameras, they are still there - just in 3D. You want to reach out and touch it. Its unbelievable.

What also impresses me, is how they solved latency. There is none you can note. I love to play Eleven Table Tennis, and you depend on the game releasing your movements and reactions in zero time. And as far as human perception is concerned - it does. The movements I do are natural, and like in reality, the game - to me, while I play - is like the real thing, they physics are excellent and absolutely convincing. After 30 minutes of excercising :), I am wet with sweat, breathing a bit heavier than before. Its unbelievable how good this game is in catching the real thing. I also saw Racket Fury, which is better in presentation, but a bit lighter in AI and physics, still: also a very good table tennis game. Just that Eleven is as hardcore as it can get, gameplay- and physics-wise.

This morning I installed Battle for Stalingrad. I have not set up the controls and did not tune the game, I just went into a quick mission and let the autopilot fly and fight. Holy cow, once again I was kicked out of reality. They did an excellent job, a most excellent job in recreating the cockpits in 3D, and making all the instruments readable, and easily so, and the blurriness of distant planes also got toned down, but I recommend to play with labels on in VR. I expected the experience to be unusable, due to the open space and huge distance and the blurriness this implies. Somehow they managed to significantly tone it down. Like with racing before, flying now is a completely new ballgame.

Point is, the scaling of objects in stereoscopic 3D gives you the impression to be different, bigger, than you are used to know things from 2D screen. a screen does not transport the informaton for the eye that gives you a correct idea of how big and massive objects actually are. It was like this in my race sims, and it was like this in Sturmovik Stalingrad as well. The tracks in race sims appear to be flat and even, even the laserscanned bumby and steep ones. on a screen, you just do not become aware of it. with the Vr headset on, you deal with a new world and are stunned of how steep it goes up and down on the N ordschlweife, and how uneven the track is.

There are many free programs to be tried, demos and small games, I tried Robo recall, like somebody recommended, and indeed it is good fun and shows some really nasty humour, and it is a nice pistols and rifles shooter in the streets of Robo City. A good demonstrator.

I already own Dirt Rally, like the other racing sims, so I get VR for it free, I just need to tune the options and settings a bit. The experience of driving rally I had already. It was the most intense driving of them all! :D And the world looks fantastic.

My rig is a monster, and no matter what I throw at it, it happily digests it, and the Rift gives me 90 frames all the time. You can get away with less frames and then some software solution to extrapolate additional frames, but this comes at the cost of a.) being less precise, and more important: b.) increasing the risk of nausea. Whe you consider to try VR, keep this in mind. You can get away with a less beefy system and lower specs than I have, but you may be faced with a price.

Also, nausea risk increases in games that have the player moving at high speeds, and then looking to the side instead of ahead. For your first test, you may want to chose a more slow, gentle animation experience, or something where you can stay steady.

I just got Alien Isolation in steam sales today. Somewhere out there, there is a - working! - 3D patch for it, indeed it has her basic 3D interface build in, but the producer never officially pushed it to release in development, since they did not sell enough units of the game and thus development was considered uneconomical. Not much must be said about the game and its survival mode, its truly creepy. Now that I have a first hand impression of what 3D does regarding me teleporting INTO as game world, I am not eager to check out the manual installation needed for this patch.

As I said already in the Subnautica thread, this is another marvel in 3D VR. The beauty to be seen is incredible ,you must not play the game, just go into god mode and then dive away as far as your heart lets you - and as deep. The feel of pressure in the wide open blue, is intense as well. I feel very intense excitement when diving in this game. At night, it looks breathtaking. Its a SciFi game after akll, and the flora and fauna is an alien one.

A word on the manufacturing quality of the Rift. The visuals are said to be the best amongst all currently available headsets. And I do not complain about visuals and electronics, but about the face rim with foam that they provided, it is cheap, shabby, and did not fit my face at all, my nose's breath streamed back into the mask and the result was not just fogging, but it simply became really wet inside. Very bad. For this price, even at reduced price, the manufcaturing quality is shabby. The foam also started to unpick at the sleeves, where skin might be a bit rough due to shaving having left some stopples of hair. I replaced the face frame with an external product which again is not too good in manufacturing quality considering its too high price, but it has at least a plastic leather skin on the foam, and a piece of cloth to be put on top of that, and important: the fit is suiting my face much better. Hygienics can become problematic, since you tend to sweat when wearing this masks, they become warm, and if you play something like table tennis, you sweat due to the "sports".

My glasses were not a problem to be worn in the mask, but be aware they say here is a limit how wide glasses cna be, not every frame may fit into the mask. Anyway, I ordered lens-lab lenses that get attached to the mask, so that I do no need to wear the glasses at all.

On the cables, they again saved money ion the wrong plac, they are the very lowest minimum only. At the same time, be advised that if you extent them, you enter dangerous terrain already if extensions are longer than 2m, also, not all brands of cakbveols may work with the Oculus Rift. The Rift needs longer cables by default, and a stronger signal amplifier would be appreciated as well.

The runnign software is too obstzrusive, for my taste, coming to life whenever oyu just touch or move the Rift on the table. There is no switch to turn the hardware off, it is always on - stupid, and they said they designed it intentionally so, which is even more stupid.

Its no bad kit, I do not say he image quality ois bad, it isn't. What I say is that they save dmoneys in the wroing places, and that the cable length is too short, and the face frame is too bad - on these things the Rift is overpriced. However, the Vive currrently costs twice as much, more or less.

Virtual Desktop is a must have tool, it projects the PC desktop before your eyes and let you handle it without needing to take off the mask. Its like sitting before a huge movie screen in the cinema. There are severla programs doing this, but VD is said to have the best player for 360° videos, which are another highly fascinating thing. You sit in an open bus and drive through the streets of Havannah, a fluid, smooth movie that is projected on the inner side of a sphere surrounding you from all sides, and yourself hanging in the centre of the sphere. Dolphin diving, parachute jumping, and many touristic introduction videos - very nice!

Programmign games for 3D, is costly, and the first heavy weight in business, CCD who did Eve Valkyrie for 3D on Playstation, already has withdrawn completely again. With games like Skyrim and Fallout coming to 3D, the ultimate fate of VR is still open nevertheless, but I do not take it for granted that it will be a success story - in gaming. Some games' content are nice for VR implementation, some other content does not go well together with VR. However, one must see the other fields where VR can be used, and I gave some example, while not having mentioned others. The possibilities are immense, and fascinating, and technology will improve. Just increasing the pixel in displays will not do the trick, since you need more calculation power in your PC s well.

I think, all in all, this time VR has come to stay. But it will not necessarily be the game genre that pushes it forward. Could be - but must not be. There are tradeoffs in visual quality that you currently have to live with, but I found myself getting overwhelmed and flattened by the compensation. I love VR, and I love it with big passion - just took me one minute.

One minute.

P.S.
The nausea problem is a brain training thing. You can train yourself to form greater tolerance for it. If you are faced by this problem, due to lacking monitor time, do not give it up immediately, but come back next day, but have a calmer and shorter session, and then slowly extend length and intensity of your sessions, from day to day. Most, amost all people seem to agree that this way you can train your brain to adapt to VR. Me, playing a lot and doing a lot of things on PC, has not had a single nausea attack so far. However, if yiur hardware is lacking, no brain trian can compensate for that.

And if somebody knows how to get Stellarium for VR (named Starsight, I think) without needing to file in a Google+ account, please let me know.

Elite can be had for Steam sale price currently, think I go after it. I'm on a frenzy currently. :D

Worth to be considered: Oculus sensors are hackable webcams.

https://uploadvr.com/hackable-webcam...nsor-be-aware/

Cover them if you do not use them. Like you put a stripe on the webcam in your notebook, too.

Meanwheile, I have used VR in ETS2, which works remarkably well and brings the cockpit interior to real life, and Dirt Rally, whcih maybe is the visually bets looking VR experience amongst allk racing sims I use. It is spectacular, especially if oyu limit viewing range due to bad wetaher or use tracks of limited viewiign range (woods, many turns, landscqape bliockign vision). The image of VR masks is much blurrier than what you see on monitors, and the further you look into the virtual space and at a distance, the blurrier it becomes. Thats why you want to switch off things like "anti-alias" and "depth of field", and that's why VR works the better the more limited viewing distances are in any game.

Also, a wonderful, a truly amazing free demo is avialable from the Oculus Home repository: Air Car, which sits you into a flying air car like you know from Blade Runner, and have you you flying over a futuristic nightly as you kniow it also form the movie. You can manouver freely, and it is all you can do, there is no "game". But doing this alone is already fascination, and a very intense experience. Considering this is free, I absolutely recommend to try this demo, it is perfect for introducing visitors to VR as well. - Not to be mistaken with Blade Runner Mind Lab, another free demo there is.

In early access at steam,, there is a tennis game as well, this time the real big field game, not table tennis. It still is under development, and I wonder how they manage to get correct grip and runnign up and dopwn the line is beign implemented when you play this in your living room, but I keep an eye on this, though currently from a distance.

Sports Bar is a blown up surrounding for an older Billiard game. The Billiard poart is solid, but simple, actually I got this for another oncluded game, that is air hockey, a thing I know from rfal lfie, and that I played excesi8svely and with greta passion when I was at university. I must say the impkementaiuton of it in this pckage, is very good, it plays like I recall it from back then. Since that was what I was after, I rate this package a success buy.

And I found another quite good table tennis game, Racket Fury. It is a bit lighter in soorts and physics than Eleven Table Tennis, but it is superior in presentaiton and grahics. Set in a futuristic ambience, you playx against robtos that are depicted and animated in full, you canj chose to have a more forgiving arcade game mode where the ball is magicallyy attracted to the table even if you slam it like crazy, and it has some nice naimations to effects, smash ball energy, and flight oaths, all can be switched on and off. Eleven is the more hardcore, and if you want t5o play table tennis seriously in Vr, whcih i absolteuly beioevew is possible, it is the superior choice, but Racket Fury also is a very good, solid representation of the sports, and more accessible and suotable for occasional and party gaming. Its non-arcade mode is quite realistic. Recommended.

Finally, another free demo that comes as part of the Oculus Home domain, that is Mission ISS. It has three advantages that makes it perfect as a demo: it is educating on the ISS, it looks and feels great, and it is slow moving while having you revolving aroudn all three axis, showing you what full VR really means. The station can be explored both form within and the outside. It'S free, and so trying it out is a no-brainer.

Ridley Scotts company RSA announced they are working on a VR game "Alien Covenant". Their early attempt of turnign "The Martian" into a brief game, was not really cheered about by players, so I halt my applaus.

Alien Isolation in VR - is horror. I do not say more than that it really tests your nervous costume. It gives me the creeps. Feels very intense, I appreciate it somewhat, but do not really enjoy it. :)

Rumours are consolidating that 2018 first 4K headsets will come out, amongst them a HTC set, and a crowdfunded Chinese set by Pixma. But what I read of the latter, sounds dubious so far, I would take it with a grain of salt. They even talk about 8K displays - with crowdfunding of just 100 thousand as a goal, and super frames of up to 140-180 Hz and a latency below 12 ms, via software accessing both Steam and HTC shops and Oculus Home...? I believe it when I see it. And it remains to be seen what PC hardware, namely graphics boards, will make of such headsets.

I have made good experiences with The Golf Club meanwhile, and Sprts Bar, which I would recommend to all of you wanting to gather in a social media sytel in a virtual bar, noit kust chatting, but also playing several typical bar games togetherk the host cna even set up his preferred Jukebox mix and music videos. It has still some bugs here and there, but the core elements work very well and likely. It allos platforms combined: HTC, Oculus, Playstation. Up to I think 12 players in one room, and some bots. The implementaiton of pool is well done with the AI, so is shuffleboard and Air Hockey. Darts needs to get used to. Chain reaction is a nice reaction automat, and there also are chess and checkerb oards (wiothout AI, to be used by two human players), and some ball-throwing thing that I did not know, plus many non-seriosu gimmicks. Want to form a lobby with your friends? This one is a nice way to do it.

I focus on racing now, but have tested VR in Elite as well, unfortunately, while the cockpit experience is great, the game has such an alienating access and lack of default-delivered documentation and needs to be set up with so compley a menu, that it has killed my enjoyment quite rapidly. It loois and feels great, yes, but nevertheless Braben has managed to ruin it, in my opinion. What was he thinking. And then the business model - micrortansactions like in Raceroom. What was he thinking, what only was he just thinking. Not pleasant to be played with Touch controllers. Cannot recommend this one.

I tested and refunded X Rebirtgh VR as well, whcih is brandnew. It uses Vulcan gfx engien and looks nice, but once again this stupdi compoany has placed a messed-.up release, they sjt did not learn from their msitakes in 2014, but somewhat repwat it.The steering is vilating the standards of al flightsimming just for the sake of making it different - and worse. Cannot recommend this either, I filed a requestr for refund, and got it.

I travelled the Grand Canyon for - beolpeive it - 2 and a half hours. Google Earth is my big love affair and beside Assetto corsa and Raceroom the thing I use VR most for.

I wait for sales to start further exmaination of Holoball and Battlezone.

First Person Tennis I also strongly recommend, if hitting balls with your handstick is what you are looking for. Eleven Table Tennis oprves to last much loigner thna just for a few days, I play it regularly, and I enjoy it. Subnautica got a new graphics update just two days ago.

Aerofly FS2 is on my cnsideraiton list, but I just cannot get mayslef embarking on it. My fglying times indeed seem to be over, somewhat. It is said to have a superior VR experience and indeed has fanatastic visuals, but on ly in the day, its areas of high detail are phto scenery, more or less. Their switzerland addon was the basis of the first Aerofly title, I know it. Its a Flightsim LIGHT, and looks awesome -durign the day. But no life, no complexity, no interactive scenery, only rudimentary cockpit functionality. I assume this becomes uninteresting rather quickly. Thats why I keep my money.

I think I skip on DCS VR, I imagine it is much more work to set it up and then flying it (I knew it in the last) as if I am willing to inverst that much time and effort anymore. Yes, my flying times feel like being over.

All in all it is indeed like I anticipated weeks ago before the new rig arrived. VR is the nonplusultra for racing sims already now. A natural combination. If racing is your thing, you owe it to yourself to forget triple screens and to plot course for VR. Several light-sports games work very well, too.

An image example of screen qualities. It shows what 4K would mean for image quality compared to the HTC and Oculus current displays.

https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/018...gif-q=50&q=92&

Illustration from Pimax.

P.S.

It seems direct link does not work. Try this page, the second (animated) illustration in the text, pretty much at the top.

https://vr-world.com/htc-vive-2-neue...splay-samsung/