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It's really great to see VR coming down in price and becoming more accessible... but it's coming at the cost of quality, and it's bringing the rest of VR down w

by swalsh 6y ago

It's really great to see VR coming down in price and becoming more accessible... but it's coming at the cost of quality, and it's bringing the rest of VR down with it. As an example, Onward VR recently added support for Quest in its game. The process of doing so required a significant scale down in the quality of graphics, sound, and all kinds of things that were great about the game. Over night the game took a nose dive, and that's not even mentioning the complete community change that came along with it. EDIT: here's a video with examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVgxk0ytTyI&feature=emb_title https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVgxk0ytTyI&feature=emb_titl...

chaostheory 6y ago
While I primarily use my Vive Index with base stations, I love what the Quest is doing for the VR industry as a whole. While I really like my prosumer VR setup with base stations. It also sucks for the following reasons: 1. Sure, nothing beats it for visual quality and performance, but it is expensive. Minimum $999 AND you need a beefy PC with an equally beefy Nvidia GPU so the real minimum is really around $2499 with PC vs $299 for a Quest 2. That's a $2200 difference. 2. It is a pain to setup. You either have to deal wires and wire control on the ceiling, or if you have a Vive Pro, then you can spend another $299 to install a wireless option bringing the total cost to $2798. Let's not forget the base stations. While nothing beats them for tracking accuracy and the fact that they're the only option for full body tracking, it's yet another pain to set up. You might either drill holes in your walls, or you might buy camera tripods as a pricier alternative $25-$79 each on sale. Of course, once you set it up it's a dream, but the initial hill to climb is high. What Oculus and PSVR are doing is expanding the market for VR and democratizing it so that it's no longer a niche hobby for a select few techies. Also, it is 'Apple'ing' VR. You just plug and play. You don't have to go through a convoluted setup that even some techies will balk at. i.e. I can buy this for my mom as a fitness machine. Facebook and crossplay will also fix the problem of empty multiplayer games. On a side note, I believe Onward devs are working to revert the PC VR Steam graphics. It's also good to note that it's just one game. I will definitely be buying an Oculus Quest 2.
- dummydata 6y ago
  I have a Valve Index as well, but I don't understand how it is a pain to setup. It's basically like putting two picture frames on the wall. It's good to see that more consumers will come onboard with this insanely good price. I don't know if it is needed to propel VR forward, but at least more people can experience it.
  - mmastrac 6y ago
    I just put my base stations high up on shelves. It's super easy.
    - chaostheory 6y ago
      Not everyone has empty high bookshelves in their play area. Difficulty depends on your current room configuration. Not everyone lives in the same house nor do they have the same exact furniture.
  - chaostheory 6y ago
    You're probably the same type of person who also doesn't understand why it's such a pain for anyone else to build their own PC rather than just buying it outright. I had that pain with base station 1.0 with the Vive Pro. Why? 1. As I've already mentioned, not everyone wants to drill into their walls. Some people who live in certain types of apartments can't even if they wanted to. Now you need to figure out how to best setup camera tripods 2. The base stations need line of site to each other. You can't just focus on getting the perfect view of the play area. 3. If you can't get line of site depending on your room configuration and furniture, then you need to buy a 100 ft or longer cord to connect them, or you have to deal with your headset or controllers not being tracked. ie. not working Base Station 2.0? 1. If two base stations isn't enough for your play area due to room configuration or furniture layout, then you may need to buy more base stations which cost $200 (each?). Sure, set up could be as easy as you remember it, but it could easily get complicated, and it's a hassle. I don't enjoy hanging picture frames.
    - 6y ago
Fabricio20 6y ago
While I understand the concern, isn't the blame to be made on the company behind the implementation? (In this case, the developers of Onward?). Most PC games nowadays offer a free "DLC" for extra-high graphics you can download, which means they maintain compatibility but for those who have beefy machines it also can provide super high fidelity. Why didn't they do it that way?
- chaostheory 6y ago
  My guess is because Onward as of a few months ago or even now, only has one developer. Even if that's changed recently, they probably don't have the manpower to maintain drastically different versions of the game yet.
kcb 6y ago
Bad developer implementation. Games have had scalable graphics settings for decades.
- daveoc64 6y ago
  My understanding is that there are balance concerns - if you're on a standalone device (i.e. Quest) that can't render complex smoke effects, you can see more easily than someone with a high-end PC that can.
tantalor 6y ago
Why do people put the before on the right and the after on the left? Is it a mental disorder?
- taneq 6y ago
  Maybe their native language is written right-to-left?
picometer 6y ago
Counterpoint: this will force developers to find new tricks that more efficiently use the lower resources. It also puts demand on UX development, since it's targeting more people, and because it's needed to balance the hardware deficiencies. Then, developers can apply to those tricks on better hardware and get even more out of it, and this pattern could just continue as everything improves and adoption grows.
tchock23 6y ago
The Onward team definitely screwed that up by degrading the PC experience, but do you have other examples of Quest bringing down quality other than just that one?
ilaksh 6y ago
Quest 2 should have a big upgrade in graphics and processing capability. It is feasible Onward could detect this and look better in the future.
taneq 6y ago
Beat Saber also started using sprites for the blocks instead of geometry at roughly the time they released the Quest port. It's really immersion breaking for me, I couldn't play the game for ages and even now I have to actively try to avoid thinking about it. I know it's a small thing but ugh. (You can prove this by putting a song on lower speed and no fail, and turning your head to watch the blocks as they go past. They look like they're rotating to face you.)
Polylactic_acid 6y ago
This is going to sound like gatekeeping, because it is, but facebook lowering the cost of VR has flooded online games with children who ruin the experience. Games like pavlov are getting flooded with kids hardly big enough to fit the hmd on their head.

by swalsh 6y ago

chaostheory 6y ago

While I primarily use my Vive Index with base stations, I love what the Quest is doing for the VR industry as a whole. While I really like my prosumer VR setup with base stations. It also sucks for the following reasons: 1. Sure, nothing beats it for visual quality and performance, but it is expensive. Minimum $999 AND you need a beefy PC with an equally beefy Nvidia GPU so the real minimum is really around $2499 with PC vs $299 for a Quest 2. That's a $2200 difference. 2. It is a pain to setup. You either have to deal wires and wire control on the ceiling, or if you have a Vive Pro, then you can spend another $299 to install a wireless option bringing the total cost to $2798. Let's not forget the base stations. While nothing beats them for tracking accuracy and the fact that they're the only option for full body tracking, it's yet another pain to set up. You might either drill holes in your walls, or you might buy camera tripods as a pricier alternative $25-$79 each on sale. Of course, once you set it up it's a dream, but the initial hill to climb is high. What Oculus and PSVR are doing is expanding the market for VR and democratizing it so that it's no longer a niche hobby for a select few techies. Also, it is 'Apple'ing' VR. You just plug and play. You don't have to go through a convoluted setup that even some techies will balk at. i.e. I can buy this for my mom as a fitness machine. Facebook and crossplay will also fix the problem of empty multiplayer games. On a side note, I believe Onward devs are working to revert the PC VR Steam graphics. It's also good to note that it's just one game. I will definitely be buying an Oculus Quest 2.

dummydata 6y ago
I have a Valve Index as well, but I don't understand how it is a pain to setup. It's basically like putting two picture frames on the wall. It's good to see that more consumers will come onboard with this insanely good price. I don't know if it is needed to propel VR forward, but at least more people can experience it.
- mmastrac 6y ago
  I just put my base stations high up on shelves. It's super easy.
  - chaostheory 6y ago
    Not everyone has empty high bookshelves in their play area. Difficulty depends on your current room configuration. Not everyone lives in the same house nor do they have the same exact furniture.
- chaostheory 6y ago
  You're probably the same type of person who also doesn't understand why it's such a pain for anyone else to build their own PC rather than just buying it outright. I had that pain with base station 1.0 with the Vive Pro. Why? 1. As I've already mentioned, not everyone wants to drill into their walls. Some people who live in certain types of apartments can't even if they wanted to. Now you need to figure out how to best setup camera tripods 2. The base stations need line of site to each other. You can't just focus on getting the perfect view of the play area. 3. If you can't get line of site depending on your room configuration and furniture, then you need to buy a 100 ft or longer cord to connect them, or you have to deal with your headset or controllers not being tracked. ie. not working Base Station 2.0? 1. If two base stations isn't enough for your play area due to room configuration or furniture layout, then you may need to buy more base stations which cost $200 (each?). Sure, set up could be as easy as you remember it, but it could easily get complicated, and it's a hassle. I don't enjoy hanging picture frames.
  - 6y ago

Fabricio20 6y ago

While I understand the concern, isn't the blame to be made on the company behind the implementation? (In this case, the developers of Onward?). Most PC games nowadays offer a free "DLC" for extra-high graphics you can download, which means they maintain compatibility but for those who have beefy machines it also can provide super high fidelity. Why didn't they do it that way?

chaostheory 6y ago
My guess is because Onward as of a few months ago or even now, only has one developer. Even if that's changed recently, they probably don't have the manpower to maintain drastically different versions of the game yet.

kcb 6y ago

Bad developer implementation. Games have had scalable graphics settings for decades.

daveoc64 6y ago
My understanding is that there are balance concerns - if you're on a standalone device (i.e. Quest) that can't render complex smoke effects, you can see more easily than someone with a high-end PC that can.

tantalor 6y ago

Why do people put the before on the right and the after on the left? Is it a mental disorder?

taneq 6y ago
Maybe their native language is written right-to-left?

picometer 6y ago

Counterpoint: this will force developers to find new tricks that more efficiently use the lower resources. It also puts demand on UX development, since it's targeting more people, and because it's needed to balance the hardware deficiencies. Then, developers can apply to those tricks on better hardware and get even more out of it, and this pattern could just continue as everything improves and adoption grows.

tchock23 6y ago

The Onward team definitely screwed that up by degrading the PC experience, but do you have other examples of Quest bringing down quality other than just that one?

ilaksh 6y ago

Quest 2 should have a big upgrade in graphics and processing capability. It is feasible Onward could detect this and look better in the future.

taneq 6y ago

Beat Saber also started using sprites for the blocks instead of geometry at roughly the time they released the Quest port. It's really immersion breaking for me, I couldn't play the game for ages and even now I have to actively try to avoid thinking about it. I know it's a small thing but ugh. (You can prove this by putting a song on lower speed and no fail, and turning your head to watch the blocks as they go past. They look like they're rotating to face you.)

Polylactic_acid 6y ago

This is going to sound like gatekeeping, because it is, but facebook lowering the cost of VR has flooded online games with children who ruin the experience. Games like pavlov are getting flooded with kids hardly big enough to fit the hmd on their head.