Ps vr2

[jimbouk]

Completely missed that this was on it's way soon! Spotted on https://arstechnica.com/, apparently February 22.

Definitely a 'wait' on this from me - just too expensive. The first one was cheap enough to jump on even though in the end it's gathering dust - I couldn't play for too long and the games I could play for any length of time were casual games that didn't really hold me. Couple with the awkwardness of a cable and having to be certain distance from the camera for it to work it just wasn't as fun as playing normally once the novelty wore off.

I know some people have serious VR setups and really enjoy them - maybe this will be good enough to replicate it 'for the masses'. (TCO is still £920 with digital console + headset, controllers do at least seem to be bundled with.) Thoughts?

[Saracen999]

... Thoughts?

I've never tried the PS VR stuff, mainly due to not having a PS, but have never got on with any VR I have tried, and some have been very high end.

Why? Dunno, but they all (that I've tried) give me a headache in pretty short order. So, non-starter for me. And, a recent eye problem would make them pointless for me anyway.

VR seems like a great idea and I'd love to have been able to get into it. I did have a VERY early set, on loan from Sony (with a loan of an, oh 'eck, PS2 IIRC, too) and even then, the idea worked better for me than the reality. Oh well. That's one area of modern tech that escaped me.

But I rather envy those of you for who it works. A bit, anyway.

[Ttaskmaster]

VR requires the kit to be properly configured for your specific attributes, such as inter-pupilary distance.
There will always be a few people outside the range the kit accomodates, as well as those with defects, oddities, anomalies or abnormalities that prevent them being able to make full use of the kit. One friend of mine has a detached retina, while another has two totally different prescriptions for his eyes, neither of whom have had much success with VR.

It's pretty good overall, but there are drawbacks. The biggest one is headsets that use circularly polarised lenses, IMO, as it means things are blurry unless you're looking directly at them with the headset mounted exactly where it needs to be. This shows up when you move your eyes instead of turning your head or, as in my case, when you play a shooting game and lower your head to properly sight down the weapon, meaning you're no longer looking straight through the lens centre and everything goes blurry... I still managed to hit most targets, though!

I haven't tried the Pimax (though it's on the cards) or many of the newer headsets, but generally peripheral vision also suffers somewhat, especially if your normal PV is pretty good. It's like looking at the game through an old-fashioned oval diving mask.

I love VR, but there are still limitations, and for the current prices of the latest kit I'd expect a lot better....

[Saracen999]

....

There will always be a few people outside the range the kit accomodates, as well as those with defects, oddities, anomalies or abnormalities that prevent them being able to make full use of the kit. One friend of mine has a detached retina, while another has two totally different prescriptions for his eyes, neither of whom have had much success with VR.

....

Yup. Quite so. In my case, keratoconus. The cornea thins, bulges and as a result, vision blurs in that eye. There are (or were, I'm outta touch) a couple of options. One is hard contact lenses (soft won't work as they mould to the eye shape, which is the problem in the first place), and the other is a corneal transplant. I was advised the latter was (in those days) .... a bit of a risk. Usually successful, but not always. My optician, in response to a direct question, said he wouldn't, were it him. This was in the '70s. Hard contacts didn't take, muscles atrophied and, condition permanent at that point.

Then, more recently, detached retina. Despite being at my GP first thing in the morning, and the local hospital eye unit with a referral letter an hour after that, and being diagnosed as in need of urgent retinal re-attachment, it was 6+ weeks before I was sent to the surgeon for a consult. His reaction to the 6-week period was "HOW LONG?? !!!!! He was not a happy camper.

By that time, the likely benefit of reattachment was, well, hard to predict but probably something like 50% of the vision I had in that eye prior to detachment, and while it might work first time, it also might take several. And they will only get maybe 5 or 6 goes before the cumulative damage renders further attempts implausible.

Given my general health, I didn't fancy that scenario much, in order to perhaps get 50% of already very limited vision back in an eye with atrophied muscles. Result = blind in that eye.

Now? Cataract in the other one. Great.

Pretty safe to assume, I think, that I'm "outside the range the kit accomodates", these days. Maybe always was.

None the less, I've given it a good try over the years, in everything from my local PCWorld demo area, to the development lab (as a journalist) of, let's say, a well-known manufacturer. The former wasn't set up for me at all, but the latter was about as carefully calibrated as it gets. After 15-minutes of use there giving me a stinker of a headache, I pretty much gave up trying. So while I'm no doubt a long way from an average case, even back then, it's just a tech that, annoyingly, is a no-go area for me. Can't win 'em all, I guess, and I sure had a lot of very unusual opportunities in most other areas of tech.

[jimbouk]

Yeah, I've just got over lazy eye and I wonder if that's enough to make it of limited benefit for me. 3D was a bit hit and miss as well. But it was mostly the 'car sickness' like headache/nausea which ended the sessions.

I'm hoping I can have a go at either a PSVR2 or a different more high end set at some point to see if it makes a difference. Still holding out for full dive in my lifetime...

[Saracen999]

Yeah, I've just got over lazy eye and I wonder if that's enough to make it of limited benefit for me. ...

Based on absolutely no expertise at all, or less, it sounds very possible, yeah. If you are (or were) having trouble snapping to focus, or following moving objects especially with one eye, then I'd guess the brain might find it disconcerting trying to 'integrate' the faster data from the good eye with the slower data from the other one. I think that's what was going on with me.

I've suffered from periodic headaches for about 40 years, which is (not coincidentally, IMHO) about the same length of time I've had the keratoconus. Long story short, in and out of consulting rooms at Moorfields Eye Hospital, and they never did positively link the eye issue to the headaches. Ditto, check for dietary issues, brain tumour (I have official confirmation that I do have something more than air between my ears )

And so on. All to no avail. The headaches, which range from mildly irritating to full-blown migraine-type (but, I'm told, technically aren't migraines) for which the only cure is laying down in a quiet, dark room for about 48 hours. I'm glad to say that after about 15 years of problems I finally found a painkiller effective enough to at least stop the migraine type .... if I hit them with the painkiller before they get properly established. I now recognise the signs of one coming on.

And I firmly believe, with zero medical evidence either to support or dismiss, that the headaches are the result of the brain trying to cope with that 'out of sync' data. It's certainly true that the more tired I am, the faster those headaches come on, supporting (IMHO) the brain strain hypothesis.

All of which is my way of saying, "yeah, probably".

As for 3D, full on miss for me. Never did see the point, not least due to te stupid glasses thing, and refused to buy into that. Dodged a bullet, there.

[AGTDenton]

VR has still yet to grab me, feels like it's falling with the 3D era even though it has better niche markets and much more potential.
With trending headset prices going upwards I'm fairly uninterested at this point.
I remember when phone deals couldn't give headsets away fast enough and yet I've never seen anyone wear them or hear anyone talk about them.


It also looks like Microsoft are ditching their VR in a round of cost cutting measures.

https://www.windowscentral.com/micro...y-and-hololens

In the latest update in the massive Microsoft layoffs, we now have a better idea of how deep the cuts run in Microsoft's Mixed Reality team.
The team behind AltSpaceVR and also the Mixed Reality Tool Kit have been laid off in their entireties.
Potentially, these layoffs throw serious doubt on the future of HoloLens, which is currently struggling to retain its military contract with the U.S. government.

[Ttaskmaster]

As for 3D, full on miss for me. Never did see the point, not least due to te stupid glasses thing, and refused to buy into that. Dodged a bullet, there.

The 'point' of 3D is that it adds the perception of depth to whatever you are watching.
The problem is that people often do not implement it correctly and do not use it correctly... This results in a lack of content, meaning end-usr takeup is lower, meaning people are unwilling to try making more content, and so it goes on.

Firstly, it takes a lot more effort and time-honoured filming techniques do not work the same when you do things in 3D. You have to light the scene far brighter than usual, and *everything* in the scene has to be in 3D, including the backgrouds - If you have distant mountains, or even a star field in outer space, all that must still be done in 3D, or it'll look like a flat backdrop. This makes production far more expensive and time-consuming, and you really need people who know what they're doing. It's also why you cannot apply 3D retroactively, no matter how fancy your equipment.
Not even the legendary James Cameron got this right and there are scenes in Avatar where I can point out exactly what he did wrong... and you'll then see it yourself clear as day. I haven't seen the redone 3D version of Titanic, but I'm confident I could do the same with that. The Hobbit 3D was just an absolute mess!!

Secondly, 3D is ultimately a background effect, no different to Surround Sound. Ever since the 80s revival, people have used it as a gimmick and peppered their productions with Comin' At Ya effects that jump off the screen at audiences. If you're still noticing the 3D after several minutes into the film, chances are they've done it wrong.

Thirdly, it must be configured correctly. Having shot everything correctly and with the precision necessary, you also have to make sure things are correct at the viewing end, whether that is a cinema projector or a VR headset. This means getting Saturday Staff to give a toss and do their job, or teaching a clueless and impatient end-user to understand their PC and their image well enough to alter it to their specifications, when all they want is to just plug in and play the damn thing... and sometimes, as mentioned above, it's just not possible to fit it to a person.


I love 3D and have been delighted by progress, as we moved from Red & Blue anaglyph glasses to linear polarisation, to circular polarisation and the fresnel lenses in VR... but it seems we've stalled there. Sony were working on a version that, rather than using glasses with different lenses to separate the left & right images, instead varied the colour wavelengths, meaning you wouldn't need to wear anything at all... meaning a lot more people with impairments would still be able to see the 3D!!! Alas, this seems to have gone quiet for now, and computer/gaming VR is down to very small incremental improvements.
I'm sure things will rise again, but for now we're in a bit of limbo.