First Impressions - CV1

Monday, September 26, 2016

Today I finally got my head into a CV1! It's been a couple weeks longer then I expected, but still is early since I don't have all of my hardware yet.

Not counting the things I'm not upgrading right now, like Power Supply and non-SSD HDD, this is my part list. Not top end, but way above the level I'm used to! I'm still waiting on the MB, RAM and SSD, but I did install the GFX card into my current system to see how well the CV1 works. I expected the USB 2.0 of my current system to bottle neck it, and I'm sure it is, but surprisingly it works quite well as is to allow me to dev, try some demos, and form opinions. And I guess that last one is what this is about.

Right off the bat I was happy to see the brightness and SDE issues of the DK2 were gone. For brightness, that makes sense as the darkness of the DK2 was primarily a result of the low pixel persistence, and the increased refresh rate of the CV1 counteracts that. I'm happy to say that the SDE is barely noticeable for me. Even on solid white textures where its most noticeable, I can't complain. It's not distracting to me at all. Maybe just 1 step away from perfect, so in CV2 maybe perfect?

Now for the bad. For me the thing I noticed right after the brightness was the FOV. All along I've wanted VR with high FOV. I drool at the thought of those systems with 180+ degree FOV, and I'm dieing for the day such FOV is available in the main HMDs. So I was really bummed to see that for me, the CV1 definitely seems like it has a lower FOV than the DK2. With the CV1 I see the black borders of the sides of the screen stand out like a sore thumb.

I thought that would probably be my biggest issue, but little did I know what i was in for when I tried to watch a 3D movie. OMG! The glare! It's like Oculus kidnapped and stuffed JJ Abrams into the unit before shipping. I was focused on if the black smear issue I notice most in video apps was going to be "significantly improved" like I was disappointed to hear way back when (I wanted to hear "gone"). So the glare issue snuck up on me. I've gone from one issue that made movies unwatchable in VR for me, to another. I'm not sure which is worse, or more tolerable. I guess if I watch a movie in a brightly lit virtual room the contrast will cause less glare, but that's not relaxing...

It's not fair to comment on the tracking yet. Not until I get my system with USB 3.0 set up. Currently the tracking is probably as good as DK2 though, which makes sense. Honestly i was fine with the tracking before, so the CV1 with its full power can only be better!

The earphones. I'm not sure how I feel about them. I think I need more time with them. I'm used to ear muff type headsets that I wear ALL DAY LONG. In fact, I just got some new ones that while I'm not happy with them false advertising them as "7.1 Surround Sound", only to find out they are "Virtual 7.1 Surround Sound" once I got home, despite that they cancel noise a lot better then my last 2 pairs and allow me to clearly hear audio at lower volumes. That a nice thing for me as I have a lot of FAN/AC noise in my room. The CV1 earphones lack that noise canceling benefit. Doesn't help that every thing I've tried so far I had the volume set to the stock 60%. I could barely hear anything.

I suspect that I'll want to remove the stock earphones, but that will be a bummer in that its nice having earphones built in. It was always quite cumbersome to gear up with the DK2 and a personal headset. I've noticed that I feel less overheated and like my face/skin is less suffocated too, and that's probably in part due to the stock earphones. A balance of pros and cons I guess.

I just downloaded and played the first level of Lucky's Tale. I have some mixed opinions. It's probably not fair for me to say to much until I try it in my new system. But it was surprisingly choppy even on this system. My GFX card will be the same, the only differences will be the new system will have USB 3.0 which should just effect tracking FPS, and a upgrade to a different I5 CPU. For such a lower poly game with simpler textures, I'd just think that a 1070 GTX in my current system would work fine. The choppiness was mostly constant. Never did I feel things were running completely smooth, just times were it was less choppy.

The game it self seemed nice. I look forward to playing it more with my new system, hoping the frame rate issues will go away. That's something I can't say about many modern games. I'm generally not interested, or loss interest after the first level to the point were its take or leave.

It was nice seeing other developers ideas on how to make interesting mechanics for VR, specifically the hidden coins and gems. The subtle outline of those I don't feel would have the same effect in a 2D screen game. The camera was a bit annoying at times. Several time I really wanted a option to turn the camera heading at least a little. And I don't mean re-centering forward. I like the God view style camera, and things not needing to be 1:1 scale with real life. It's something I want to do for my RPG, so it makes sense I'd like it. And of course, I enjoy the simple cartoony graphic style. Not everything needs to try to mimic realism, something lost on many modern games. It's nice being transported to another world where things are as different as can be, rather than chasing making everything look real. I get enough real in reality.

lol. I never got Rift Face before with the DK2. At the most a tiny mark here or there. But I think I need to adjust the straps on this. I had basically a full oval imprint around my eyes after I was done playing Luck's Tale!

As a extra, I guess I can mention deving related opinions. I've briefly tested my VR3DImageViewer asset with both OVR and SteamVR SDK's. I was annoyed to see that things have changed so much for the OVR SDK that the old method I made for being compatible with the Rift seems to no longer work. That was the RenderSwap method. The Layered method worked with the Rift now which is nice. But now I need to consider if the RenderSwap Method even has a use anymore. I may want to scrap it. I doubt I'd want to do that as having the option is better than not having it, and I'm trying to make the asset as compatible with everything, even unknown SDKs, as possible. Still, I need to dive deeper into the code to better understand WHY it doesn't work. I feel it still should when set up right. I'm not even really sure who to blame for the change. Oculus or Unity.

Anyway, maybe I'll do a follow up post once I try it with my new system.

Later!