Pc Build ?

[TheMastersSon]

Sorry for not catching the cpu incompatibility, I'll read slower next time. I rarely even notice motherboard models in specs and start with the cpu. :)

[FMod]

All I can tell you is that I personally don't know anyone who has gone back to sit-and-stare-into-a-monitor, once they've experienced roomscale VR. It's a literal 15-foot holodeck in your house.

 

I do. Starting with myself around 2000, followed by everyone who abandoned VR around the same time. And really followed by everyone who owns a current-generation headset, but doesn't play exclusively VR games, which covers everyone I know who owns one.

 

It's not a choice of "holodeck in your house" vs "stare into a monitor". It's a choice of "special games about making controller gestures" vs "all the other games ever made".

 

Trying to play regular games with a headset is either extremely disappointing or just plain doesn't work, and there's nothing but a gimmick gained to offset the discomfort. I couldn't wait to get back to a real screen.

 

(I don't personally own one, but I have played around with the Vive. No interest in buying at the moment - there's literally just one VR-compatible game I might possibly take more over an hour to get bored with, and it's not going to be of any interest once SC drops anyway.)

 

 

 

BTW for those unaware, the story is that SLI was intentionally disabled on the 1060, because two or more them provided too much bang for the buck and would have undercut 1070/80 sales. So if you're looking for SLI even in the future stay away from the 1060.

 

The 1060 is almost exactly 1/2 of the 1080, for exactly 1/2 the price. So doubling up on them wouldn't have cut into the 1080's sales much; in all likelihood, SLI was disabled there to 1) save a couple bucks, 2) establish a stronger hierarchy of features.

 

Product hierarchies is what every vendor starts building the moment they feel like they have anything close to a monopoly. And for people who don't read reviews, you start also selling features, "this one adds SLI", "this one adds new memory type", etc.

[TheMastersSon]

FMod, I'm from the same naysayer camp as you, and I've lost count of the number of times I've had a headset on for less than a minute before taking it off in utter disgust. But imo and those of review sites, the major issues with VR have been addressed, thanks to a combination of better hardware and configuration, e.g. SLI was redone so that each card controls one eye, thereby eliminating increased latency etc. And games have evolved from brief and quickly repetitive demo experiences to fully fledged titles like Portal VR.

 

For gaming it's all about immersion and imo it defies basic logic to claim VR won't quickly if not immediately replace sit-and-stare gaming. Time will answer this so I will stop offering my opinions about it. Wait a few years and see how much of the market VR owns, and in the meantime Nvidia's 10xx cards are much better than the 9-series for it.

 

Edit, here's one example of what's due later this year, for consoles:

 

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/corporate/press-releases/2016/playstation-vr-launches-october-2016-available-globally-at-44980-yen-399-usd-399-and-349/

 

They're not kidding about the 160 game titles, just Star Wars X-Wing alone will be enough to finish off sit-and-stare gaming forever imo. :smile:

Edited July 22, 2016 by TheMastersSon

[FMod]

FMod, I'm from the same naysayer camp as you, and I've lost count of the number of times I've had a headset on for less than a minute before taking it off in utter disgust. But imo and those of review sites, the major issues with VR have been addressed, thanks to a combination of better hardware and configuration, e.g. SLI was redone so that each card controls one eye, thereby eliminating increased latency etc.

 

I know this is quite a digression, but - can't help but point out a new case for the textbooks of geeks solving technical problems and declaring victory, when it wasn't technical problems that mattered in the first place!

 

( The last textbook case was the crypto geeks deprecating SHA-1 in favor of stronger keys and claiming success in the war on cybercrime - while, out of the 10 million US bank accounts stolen and emptied per year, exactly 0 involved attacks on the ciphers. )

 

Latency, performance, least of all SLI stutter, none of that was the issue with VR. Even today, more than half the VR games use simplistic, deliberately non-lifelike graphics, which with proper design can be rendered without any dedicated hardware at all.

The issues have all been about game design, player experience, and just plain human laziness. It's an interesting experience - but it's going to supplement regular gaming, not supplant it.

 

( Now, a real star trek holodeck could've been a game-changer - again with the right content, which would be much more difficult to make that the holodeck itself! But the gap between a holodeck and current headsets and joysticks is much wider than between the latter and VFX helmets. )

[TheMastersSon]

 

FMod, I'm from the same naysayer camp as you, and I've lost count of the number of times I've had a headset on for less than a minute before taking it off in utter disgust. But imo and those of review sites, the major issues with VR have been addressed, thanks to a combination of better hardware and configuration, e.g. SLI was redone so that each card controls one eye, thereby eliminating increased latency etc.

 

Latency, performance, least of all SLI stutter, none of that was the issue with VR.

Is something difficult about speaking for yourself, and not the entire universe? Latency and performance WERE the major issues and still are, they're the major cause of the simplistic graphics and unsatisfying experiences in previous VR iterations. Not "human laziness" as you undoubtedly have assured yourself is the case.

[FMod]

Realism is a style, not a level of complexity. Mechwarrior has realistic if low quality visuals. Hundreds of cross-platform games with realistic graphics will do 120+ fps at 4K on any modern GPU. And don't tell me ME3's visuals aren't enough for VR - most VR-only titles don't look half as good.

 

The reason VR games won't replace PC games, but complement them, isn't hardware, it's that it's a different experience, which works best with a specific subset of gameplay styles.

[TheMastersSon]

Realism is some minimum level of complexity, which works for space games and others where there's not much to render, but try it with Skyrim or to use your example ME3 and see what happens. It's why Nvidia's 1060 is listed as a minimum video card in their desktop VR specs. :)

 

I'm not sure why you seem unable to make the connection between unsatisfying VR titles and a lack of graphics horsepower. One is a direct result of the other, and attributing the former to human laziness, lack of imagination etc is pretty silly imo, considering the entire world has or at least had the same performance problems with realistic VR. But to repeat, time will answer this socan we please stop arguing about the future. Having seen just extended videos of these existing and upcoming games, imo and by all other accounts it blows the desktop experience out of the water for immersion and fun.

[FMod]

Try it with ME3 - decent GPU could pull it at VR resolution and framerate for years. Basically, the graphics capability has long been there. What hasn't is:

1) Comfortable, easy to use, high FOV headsets - the Rift is a major milestone here, although there's still a long way to go,

2) Feedback gloves that actually put your hands into the VR - still not here,

3) Games that recognize natural controls rather than buttons - have always been a few, but their gameplay is usually uninspiring in other aspects.

 

It will take a complete generation of standardized third-party VR hardware to create a large *non-enthusiast* market; then a generation of gimmick games designed around the novelty of VR, till it wears off and games have to compete on substance again; and then some time to make those games, for VR-style gaming to catch up to conventional and have in-depth titles like Skyrim designed for it specifically (not just provided with camera hacks to make them render on headsets).

 

Anyway, time will tell, but I've seen a lot of 'killer technologies'.