Is VR dead?

[RCHeliguy]

In a little bit of good news, iRacing is supposed to be allowing higher VRAM limit that is supposed to released in a patch today.

Apparently there is a 7Gb barrier in addition to the 8Gb limit to what you can configure.

So they have to fix the 7Gb barrier, but the question is whether they will then also increase past the 8Gb threshold.

For some of the new tracks the video limit has not been enough for the Aero and some things would end up de-rezzed because of it.

This will be a good thing for all high resolution headsets going forward.

Just saw this. "graphics options have been increased to 32GB and 16GB respectively"

 

[BrunoBæ]

In a little bit of good news, iRacing is supposed to be allowing higher VRAM limit that is supposed to released in a patch today.

To be able to do that you have to know your game engine from the inside and out.
And thats exactly what the iRacing devs does.
Its quite another thing if you have bought a foreign game engine and after 3+ years still dont know what is going on inside.

 

[RCHeliguy]

To be able to do that you have to know your game engine from the inside and out.
And thats exactly what the iRacing devs does.
Its quite another thing if you have bought a foreign game engine and after 3+ years still dont know what is going on inside.

You are just begging for it aren't you..
Time to duck and cover!

 

[blekenbleu]

after 3+ years still dont know what is going on inside

After 3+ years, original engine developers may have moved on,
replaced by newbies who neither read nor understand original code base
and make problematic revisions.

 

[BrunoBæ]

After 3+ years, original engine developers may have moved on,
replaced by newbies

Hehe maybe I should have been a bit more clear what game I was thinking of.
But listening to @RC I will let my comment stay as it is

 

[Deleted member 197115]

This explains a lot about how the off ear design is very important to spatial imaging and suspending disbelief and how using the shape of your ears to funnel the sound is important. It also covers some of their iteration and design process and why their design diverges from traditional headphones.

Ear Speakers - Deep Dive - Valve Index® - Upgrade your experience - Valve Corporation

The Valve Index Ear Speakers have been optimized for the specific experiential goals of virtual reality, which caused their design to diverge in interesting ways from that of typical consumer headphones.

www.valvesoftware.com

There is a reason that a LARGE number of VR headset reviewers have called the Index off ear speakers the standard and suggested that other manufacturers should just license them.

I'd take proper open back headphones over these any time of the day, better SQ with even better soundstage and spatial cues, plus superior in and out sound isolation.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I'd take proper open back headphones over these any time of the day, better SQ with even better soundstage and spatial cues, plus superior in and out sound isolation.

The whole point of their research was that for the best spatial feel you have to project the sound at your ears and let the curves of your ears do what they were evolved to do and focus the frequencies at your eardrum the way your brain has learned to read it and normal headphones can't do that.

Everyone has their personal opinions, but there was a lot of work done to make these work well for the VR experience. I also know that you are not much for room scale VR, so I'm doubting that you have heard the full spatial ability of the Index off ear speakers.

Also FWIW, I wasn't as impressed with the G2 speakers because of how they attach and move over your ears. I never got them positioned nearly as well as I got on the Index and I could A/B them and the Index still sounded better just because the speakers are pointed at my ears at a much better angle or at least that's what I'm assuming was the issue because they just didn't pop on the G2.

 

[blekenbleu]

I wasn't as impressed with the G2

Many reviews noted that they were not so nice as Valve's;
someone at HP probably got a cost effectiveness bonus.

 

[metalnwood]

Many reviews noted that they were not so nice as Valve's;
someone at HP probably got a cost effectiveness bonus.

I went direct from the index to the g2 and although i wasn't going to use the built in i noticed right away that i couldn't use them well because i couldn't position them very well.

From what i understand they are the same speakers which was part of the hp/valve partnership with the g2. But the execution was not as good at all. Other than not having a great mounting solution for them the G2 also had the usb issues that impacted the sound and gave many people issues too.

For room standing i like the built in ones and index did it well when the environment is quiet but for flight/racing with tactile and motion i dont think much beats the options you have as far as headphones to keep you in the sim without external sounds coming in and bothering you.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

The whole point of their research was that for the best spatial feel you have to project the sound at your ears and let the curves of your ears do what they were evolved to do and focus the frequencies at your eardrum the way your brain has learned to read it and normal headphones can't do that.

Everyone has their personal opinions, but there was a lot of work done to make these work well for the VR experience. I also know that you are not much for room scale VR, so I'm doubting that you have heard the full spatial ability of the Index off ear speakers.

Also FWIW, I wasn't as impressed with the G2 speakers because of how they attach and move over your ears. I never got them positioned nearly as well as I got on the Index and I could A/B them and the Index still sounded better just because the speakers are pointed at my ears at a much better angle or at least that's what I'm assuming was the issue because they just didn't pop on the G2.

That "research" is just copying what was done years ago by AKG with their K1000, the design that didn't stick and was quickly forgotten and moved over as it didn't provide any benefits over conventional open back headphones.

The idea of having audio solution that leaks sound in and out is detrimental to VR immersion goal. Not only everyone around complains about the noise BUT you also hear very clearly all these complaints.

 

[RCHeliguy]

So eye tracking of course. HDR ( should mean a pretty serious light range to support that)
But still who knows when they will actually announce it

 

[RCHeliguy]

Obviously different use cases and environments with regard to VR audio.

Right now I use surround sound when I have guests in VR so we can all hear clearly and talk to each other. With the Aero that's just easier. With the Index a guest would frequently flip one speaker back and forth.

My IEMs have 37dB (reported) sound isolation and it's true I can't hear my rig's sound with them in and I can barely feel them. For sim racing they are perfectly fine, but I don't like either surround sound or IEM's for room scale compared to off ear headphones.

For room scale there is no rig noise or much of any background noise at least in my environment.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Been meaning to get a copy of F1 2022 now that it's in VR for a while, but just hadn't bothered.

Was told it's on sale for $9 for about a week on steam.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Good reading, check comments section too.
What happened to the virtual reality gaming revolution?

 

[RCHeliguy]

Yup.

1. Many/most gamers just want to just sit on the couch or in a chair.
2. Many don't want to be isolated from what's going on around them, or can't be ( small children etc... )
3. Way too much cost for general adoption.
4. Not enough titles to pull people in. Half Life Alyx is still seen as one of the best examples of a VR first person shooter and it was released over 3 years ago. Beat Saber is still a unicorn.

If you watch Thrillseeker, he spends a lot of time talking about VRChat and has an heavy emphasis on wearability and body tracking. VRChat is always in the top played games in VR.

VRChat is probably the closest thing we have to MetaVerse right now. People spend a lot of time modding VRChat and for some it is a large social outlet. BTW they are adding a mobile app to VRChat that doesn't require everyone to be in VR, so VR Chat may become a new social presence.

Sansar tried to do something similar allowing people to build their own worlds, have social events, attempt a virtual economy allowing people to build things for the Sansar environment and sell them. But from what I've seen Sansar has languished and a year ago, Sansar sold its assets to a new similarly named company Sansar, Inc.

Sooo.....

That seems to leave sims in a category all by themselves also too expensive for most, but at least it's a niche that does seem to care a lot about VR. And niches can survive at a price point above what the masses can afford.

 

[BrunoBæ]

As long there is a professional commercial marked for use of VR headsets in 3D imagening, 3D design, 3D showrooms (cars, buildings etc) then there will be some spinof sets available at a somewhat "reasonably" price.
Hopefully

 

[RCHeliguy]

As long there is a professional commercial marked for use of VR headsets in 3D imagening, 3D design, 3D showrooms (cars, buildings etc) then there will be some spinof sets available at a somewhat "reasonably" price.
Hopefully

Don't forget military flight simulators!

 

[RCHeliguy]

I am hearing some good things about the Quest Pro pancake lenses. The Pro really needs an over the head strap and better forehead pad and it still has SDE. It appears that the Quest Pro has a bit less horizontal FOV and about 10 degrees more vertical FOV than the Aero.

But....

What Meta did manage is to get bright and clear colors with the pancake lenses. It's not OLED, but everyone comments on how clear and distortion free the pancake lenses are and how vibrant the color is.

My take away from this is that pancake lenses will eventually become viable competition to aspheric lenses in a smaller lighter form factor.

Fresnel appears to be on the way out except in hybrid aspheric lenses on the outer reaches.
Aspheric appears to be the current center of the enthusiast market.
Pancake lenses appear to be the future.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I'm seeing an increasing number of people who were waiting on the Crystal and have just ordered or received Aeros very recently. One went on a bit of a rant about how Pimax was very sleazy trying to steal Varjo's thunder as the Aero was launched by pre pre pre pre pre announcing a product that they claimed they would have soon keeping many waiting to buy. Another just posted the meme below.

Did I miss something that happened in the last couple weeks to start this?

 

[BrunoBæ]