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Just curious, how does a Gear VR setup (with galaxy 7) compare with Cardboard? Does /that/ count as a competitor?

by pen2l 11y ago

nilkn 11y ago
I suspect the Gear VR is a lot more comparable to the current Rift without Touch controls. After all, I believe many of the Rift launch titles are actually Gear VR ports (but of course not the high profile ones like Lucky's Tale, Eve: Valkyrie, Chronos, etc.). That said, there are still major differences. The Rift for instance has much better tracking thanks to its external camera. The camera allows drift to be corrected constantly and also allows positional tracking of the headset throughout a room. There's little reason to take advantage of that latter ability right now without the Touch controllers, though. Thanks to modern smartphone displays, the Rift will not actually be higher resolution. However, I expect it'd have less pronounced screen-door-effect (SDE). And of course, being powered by a high-end PC, it will be able to play games like those I mentioned above that a smartphone just can't power. The bottom line is that I think right now the most compelling VR experiences by far involve motion controllers, and those are only available on the Vive. I think the Rift will become a much more interesting device later this year when it gets its own set of controllers.
squeaky-clean 11y ago
Gear VR has special sensors built into it, which interface with the phone, so you aren't using the phone's built-in accelerometer or gyroscope. Samsung has also put special effort into the rendering pipeline when in VR mode, so it has much higher priority than other processing. That's why it only works with the high-end Samsung phones, and not their lower offerings or other manufacturers. I haven't gotten to try any myself, but I've read that the Gear VR has gotten the latency down below any noticeable level. So the main differences are more minor, like positional tracking and the FoV. And of course, that with an Oculus/Vive you're only limited by the power of your PC, which can be much better than a smartphone.

Just curious, how does a Gear VR setup (with galaxy 7) compare with Cardboard? Does /that/ count as a competitor?

by pen2l 11y ago

Just curious, how does a Gear VR setup (with galaxy 7) compare with Cardboard? Does /that/ count as a competitor?

nilkn 11y ago

I suspect the Gear VR is a lot more comparable to the current Rift without Touch controls. After all, I believe many of the Rift launch titles are actually Gear VR ports (but of course not the high profile ones like Lucky's Tale, Eve: Valkyrie, Chronos, etc.). That said, there are still major differences. The Rift for instance has much better tracking thanks to its external camera. The camera allows drift to be corrected constantly and also allows positional tracking of the headset throughout a room. There's little reason to take advantage of that latter ability right now without the Touch controllers, though. Thanks to modern smartphone displays, the Rift will not actually be higher resolution. However, I expect it'd have less pronounced screen-door-effect (SDE). And of course, being powered by a high-end PC, it will be able to play games like those I mentioned above that a smartphone just can't power. The bottom line is that I think right now the most compelling VR experiences by far involve motion controllers, and those are only available on the Vive. I think the Rift will become a much more interesting device later this year when it gets its own set of controllers.

squeaky-clean 11y ago

Gear VR has special sensors built into it, which interface with the phone, so you aren't using the phone's built-in accelerometer or gyroscope. Samsung has also put special effort into the rendering pipeline when in VR mode, so it has much higher priority than other processing. That's why it only works with the high-end Samsung phones, and not their lower offerings or other manufacturers. I haven't gotten to try any myself, but I've read that the Gear VR has gotten the latency down below any noticeable level. So the main differences are more minor, like positional tracking and the FoV. And of course, that with an Oculus/Vive you're only limited by the power of your PC, which can be much better than a smartphone.