5 ms·

Oculus VR release a latency tester for the Rift

37 points by wlll 13y ago

mrinterweb 13y ago
I've used the oculus rift before, and I could only use it for about 5 minutes before I would become nauseous. My experience if vertigo differed depending on which game I was playing. Also the low resolution was a lot more distracting than I thought it would be. I hope they improve some of these things before launch otherwise I would fear that this may be another video game fad.
- ChrisClark 13y ago
  All nausea reports I've heard from the people who stuck with it say it goes away after a couple weeks of casual use. So I'm hoping that's true for most people.
  - freehunter 13y ago
    That could be consistent with reports of the 3DS. There was a huge outcry that people were feeling ill, and the furor died down after a bit. Going back and hearing from the same people who had complained, they either had adjusted the effect to acceptable levels, turned it off completely, or got used to the effect. It takes a while to get comfortable with standing on a boat, as well.
- sp332 13y ago
  They've already sent a high-res prototype to some developers, and they have an even higher one in development. So that problem should be fixed quickly.
  - mrinterweb 13y ago
    That will be great when they do. With the graphics expectations gamers have these days, low resolution graphics are pretty distracting.
- tlrobinson 13y ago
  I agree regarding the nausea, and I never get motion sick normally. Games where you're not directly walking around are much better. I expect racing/flight sims or MechWarrior style games will be more popular than FPS initially.
  - mrinterweb 13y ago
    The game that made me the sickest quickest was a flight simulator. I could not do more than 5 minutes without feeling like I was going to vomit. I could barely walk after I took the headset off. Other games did not effect me as badly. I have not used the Oculus for more than an hour. It is likely that people get used to it. Also my other friends who were using it, were not effected as dramatically as I.
- drzaiusapelord 13y ago
  Is this problem understood formally? For example, I couldn't play Portal 2 without feeling dizzy and any game that involves water or swimming does it as well. I can't imagine 3D glasses helping, yet I'd love to use technology like this. Why does Portal 2 do this but not BF3 or PlanetSide 2?
  - aaronblohowiak 13y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_sickness#Simulation_sickness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_sickness#Simulation_sick... Not really. Nor is motion sickness, really.
- dmm 13y ago
  There is lots of discussion about VR sickness on the developer site. It seems to be a complex problem: latency, incorrect IPD, VR distortion applied incorrectly by developers. It's going to take awhile to figure it all out.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
stinos 13y ago
Not sure if the Oculus guys are reading here, but it would be interesting to get just a little bit more information on the technical side: - what kind of sensor is it and why does it have to be a color sensor, vs a much cheaper plain photodiode which as far as I know works equally well for this task i.e. thresholding - what is the samplerate used, just out of curiosity - where is the sensor placed with respect to the screen - for a normal 'scanning' LCD display the right bottom pixels of the screen are presented about a frame later, so this seriously affects measured latency
tocomment 13y ago
I was surprised when I tried the included demo (tuscan village or something). The latency was really bad. I thought they had a big focus on bringing down the latency though. Could I have had a defective unit? Or does it matter what PC it's running on, etc? Is it normally really good?
- mcpherrinm 13y ago
  The PC could certainly be a cause. Some video card drivers, for example, deal poorly with multiple displays or secondary displays, and add an extra frame or two of buffering. Having a device like this certainly improves testing the PC side.
- lallysingh 13y ago
  I found substantial difference between machines (and OS's). It was quite slow in a Lenovo x220 running Linux, and much better on a mac mini (running MacOS).

37 points by wlll 13y ago

I've used the oculus rift before, and I could only use it for about 5 minutes before I would become nauseous. My experience if vertigo differed depending on which game I was playing. Also the low resolution was a lot more distracting than I thought it would be. I hope they improve some of these things before launch otherwise I would fear that this may be another video game fad.

ChrisClark 13y ago
All nausea reports I've heard from the people who stuck with it say it goes away after a couple weeks of casual use. So I'm hoping that's true for most people.
- freehunter 13y ago
  That could be consistent with reports of the 3DS. There was a huge outcry that people were feeling ill, and the furor died down after a bit. Going back and hearing from the same people who had complained, they either had adjusted the effect to acceptable levels, turned it off completely, or got used to the effect. It takes a while to get comfortable with standing on a boat, as well.
sp332 13y ago
They've already sent a high-res prototype to some developers, and they have an even higher one in development. So that problem should be fixed quickly.
- mrinterweb 13y ago
  That will be great when they do. With the graphics expectations gamers have these days, low resolution graphics are pretty distracting.
tlrobinson 13y ago
I agree regarding the nausea, and I never get motion sick normally. Games where you're not directly walking around are much better. I expect racing/flight sims or MechWarrior style games will be more popular than FPS initially.
- mrinterweb 13y ago
  The game that made me the sickest quickest was a flight simulator. I could not do more than 5 minutes without feeling like I was going to vomit. I could barely walk after I took the headset off. Other games did not effect me as badly. I have not used the Oculus for more than an hour. It is likely that people get used to it. Also my other friends who were using it, were not effected as dramatically as I.
drzaiusapelord 13y ago
Is this problem understood formally? For example, I couldn't play Portal 2 without feeling dizzy and any game that involves water or swimming does it as well. I can't imagine 3D glasses helping, yet I'd love to use technology like this. Why does Portal 2 do this but not BF3 or PlanetSide 2?
- aaronblohowiak 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_sickness#Simulation_sickness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_sickness#Simulation_sick... Not really. Nor is motion sickness, really.
dmm 13y ago
There is lots of discussion about VR sickness on the developer site. It seems to be a complex problem: latency, incorrect IPD, VR distortion applied incorrectly by developers. It's going to take awhile to figure it all out.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

stinos 13y ago

Not sure if the Oculus guys are reading here, but it would be interesting to get just a little bit more information on the technical side: - what kind of sensor is it and why does it have to be a color sensor, vs a much cheaper plain photodiode which as far as I know works equally well for this task i.e. thresholding - what is the samplerate used, just out of curiosity - where is the sensor placed with respect to the screen - for a normal 'scanning' LCD display the right bottom pixels of the screen are presented about a frame later, so this seriously affects measured latency

tocomment 13y ago

I was surprised when I tried the included demo (tuscan village or something). The latency was really bad. I thought they had a big focus on bringing down the latency though. Could I have had a defective unit? Or does it matter what PC it's running on, etc? Is it normally really good?

mcpherrinm 13y ago
The PC could certainly be a cause. Some video card drivers, for example, deal poorly with multiple displays or secondary displays, and add an extra frame or two of buffering. Having a device like this certainly improves testing the PC side.
lallysingh 13y ago
I found substantial difference between machines (and OS's). It was quite slow in a Lenovo x220 running Linux, and much better on a mac mini (running MacOS).