Yesterday I was lucky enough to try out the consumer models (or near as dammit of Vive) of HTC Vive, Oculus Rift & Samsung Gear VR at UK's Gadget Show live.
There did not seem to be any noticeable difference in quality between either of them, but what was surprising is how low the image quality is. The Samsung demo appeared to be an animation, where as the other systems we tried were both real-time experiences.
Considering you need a top of the range PC to experience the best, you expect to see something really good out of either the Vive or Rift (you may have read about specs in the past, such as 720p or 1080p per eye etc).
When trying out the Rift, I felt as if I was playing games from the late 90's era in VR (it does not help that you see chunky squares like dots all over the image, imagine looking at pixels through a magnifying glass).
The game that demonstrated Rift the best at the show was where your in a wheel chair moving around a haunted house, it really felt like your inside the PS2 version of Alone in the Dark, with the image made up of large blurry square blocks on screen.
Overall we both came to the same conclusion, that it's a very enjoyable experience using VR, but it just is not there yet. Thus your better off investing in 4K tech than this. However, it would be great for parties etc, but would the interest in low quality visuals last?
I was thinking of purchasing one of these for 6DoF games such as Descent Underground. However quality vs overall cost doesn't make it justifiable for us, at least yet.
pro(s):
- you really feel your there inside the game
- the wow factor of above
- has huge potential for gaming
con(s):
- low res type image considering "overall cost" (blurry square blocks / limitation of tech vs cost)
- potential motion sickness
- requires top of the range PC for best VR experience
Something I saw posted on a forum:
"Its the equivalent of reducing your HDTV's horizontal resolution from 1920 to 320 so yeah its going to be pixelly, the Rift would need 6 times the resolution 36 times the megapixels to appear as sharp as
an FHD TV."
Would this potentially set you back the same cost as a reasonably priced car if produced with current tech?
Edited by zambr (04/03/16 03:52 PM)
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