OOOOOkay... This is killing me

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Daube
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Re: OOOOOkay... This is killing me

Post by Daube »

Now try that again above some nice photoreal scenery with autogen :)

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Re: OOOOOkay... This is killing me

Post by ImpendingJoker »

If you have a link to the Lenovo I'll check it out but, if it's the one I found it doesn't seem to be worth $100 let alone the $399 list price I found. That said, the HTC Vive is still $600 so I'll stand by the first part of my original statement.

As for the second, I never compared the shutter glasses to the newer VR, only stated that I understood the draw of VR BECAUSE of my experience with the former, but, to say that they can't be compared is like saying that you can't compare a 737 to the 1903 Flyer, they maybe as different as night and day but, all technology has to start somewhere, and well the 3D shutter glasses were the start of the more immersive home PC experience, so you can't have a full conversation without showing how far the technology has come.
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Alan_A
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Re: OOOOOkay... This is killing me

Post by Alan_A »

@Daube - sorry, noob question. You mentioned that the Lenovo lets you glance down at your keyboard. Does the Samsung allow that, or do you have to remove it to check your keyboard? As noted, I like Samsung quality, but the ability to glance at the outside world without a lot of futzing (technical term) would be a plus.
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Daube
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Re: OOOOOkay... This is killing me

Post by Daube »

Let me clarify: the Lenovo can tilt up like a soldering mask. That means that once you have adjusted it to your likings, you can tilt it up (like a soldering mask) without having to remove it, and thus without having to adjust it again.
Unfortunately, I do not know if the Samsung uses the same system or not :(

For me, in France, the choice is limited anyways, since the Samsung helmet is not sold here.
And even for the other helmets, for some reason, on Ebay or Amazon they are even more expensive than in the retail shops. Offer and demand, I suppose... But anyways, for me it will be Lenovo or nothing. I wish I could buy a Samsung in a local shop (for warranty reasons) though...

Here is a picture showing what I'm talking about:
https://www.lenovo.com/medias/lenovo-ex ... mQ1&w=1180

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Daube
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Re: OOOOOkay... This is killing me

Post by Daube »

One more warning:
I would strongly advise you guys to tests these helmets before buying.
From my experience with the Lenovo, I can tell you that the optical lenses in the helmet let you see a crisp picture in the center of the vision, but the picture is blurry around that zone.

So, let's say you look somewhere without moving your head at all at any moment.
Right in front of you, the picture is crisp. But it you move your eyes to the sides, you will quickly reach the blurry area.

Now, that sounds quite bad, yes, but in flight, this didn't really give me any troubles. I quickly adapted, moving my head to ensure the area I want to look at would fall into the crisp area of the lenses. This becomes natural after a few minutes, in fact.
But other people might find this more annoying than me, I don't know. So you guys might want to pre-check that before buying.

Also, for people interested in the Samsung or the Vive pro, I found that video to be very informative and well done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmZjJIyz-xA

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Tutmeister
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Re: OOOOOkay... This is killing me

Post by Tutmeister »

I'd just like to throw a bit of balance and caution out there without hyperbole or bias.
I have not used the Samsung windows mr headset as they were not sold in Europe but as a regular user and owner of the rift, Vive and Acer/Lenovo headsets I wanted to share my opinion.

The Vive and rift are both a league ahead in terms of solid tracking and room scale use and are most definitely not past it. They feel high end compared to the other devices.
While the resolution numbers on paper show the rift and Vive at the bottom of the heap, in practice this is not the case. The higher resolution on the wmr devices is noticeable if you look at fine detail and do direct comparisons between the headsets. You would think that the improved resolution, even slight, would be exactly what we want in the flight simulator arena but the slightly worse field of view and decreased optical quality negates the benefit. The custom developed lenses in the rift give a much larger sweet spot.
The sweet spot for anyone that doesn't know, is the central section of the view that is sharp and undistorted. As you look around with your eyes you will see the edges of the screen blur slightly, a bit of warping and you also get some chromatic aberration (colour fringing). This is because the optics are having to work hard to warp the flat display into a more wrap around experience. This combined with the warping software which pre warps the image to match the distortion of the lenses are what can give better or worse edge distortion or chromatic aberration.
The rift (and Vive to an extent) has a much more developed custom shaped lens and software which maximises the sweet spot and reduces edge blur and warping. The wmr devices use round lenses and exhibit a much smaller sweet spot with increased CR and distortion. The Samsung has better custom optics and higher resolution than the other wmr devices but as noted, I haven't tried it and because it costs as much as the rift but lags in other areas I can't justify the expense when we are this far along in the development of the second generation consumer headsets.

The windows mixed realty headsets feel cheap and flimsy in comparison to the Vive and rift and the hand controllers are less than ergonomic when compared to the higher end set ups, especially the rift which is streets ahead the most natural feeling, ergonomic and solidly built hand controller available at the moment. Again, I cannot comment on the Samsung build quality but it uses the same hand controllers as the other wmr devices.

When it comes to tracking, all the wmr use the same system. It is built into the headset and requires no external tracking sensors. While this provides an ok tracking solution, it is not solid millimetre perfect all the time like the rift and vive. It is pretty good for seated but it is just not as polished although it is much more convenient. For room scale it judders more that the external tracking solutions and the hand tracking only works when your hands are visible to the cameras in the headset.

As Daube said, you really should try one first. Oh and I found the flip up not that useful, it is more cumbersome that you would think. They aren't as comfy to me as the rift which is like putting a baseball cap on and easy to peek out from.

This sounds like I'm being down on the wmr devices, I'm not really. Its just coming from the high end to these showed them up. I cannot give you the impression of someone only having ever tried these.
I realise this sounds elitist but the facts stated above are true and any opinions stated are mine.
I will leave you with this though. The rift these days is only £399 including external sensors and hand controllers. There is no way I'd pay anywhere near that for the wmr ones. I paid 200 for the asus one and I'm glad I didn't pay more. My go to for sim work is the rift. The wmr now sits in my laptop(gaming spec) bag so I can vr/sim when I'm away without having to worry about sensor set up.

Hope this helps. Oh and the tone is this might seem off, I wrote it and it was in my drafts, there have been replies since.
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Alan_A
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Re: OOOOOkay... This is killing me

Post by Alan_A »

Thanks, @Daube and @Tutmeister (and everybody else) - really appreciate the opinions and the detail.

This sounds like a pretty complicated set of factors to consider, and I think you guys are right - I'm going to have to go try out a couple of models. Which... there was a time in the not-too-distant past when I would have come up with that thought myself. But I'm now completely unused to the idea of physical retail - just bought a camera on faith (and thanks to a bunch of reviews) without any opportunity to try out the ergonomics, because there aren't any camera stores left. Thankfully my local Best Buy carries all the VR headsets under discussion. So... that's my next stop, probably in September after I'm back from vacation. Will be monitoring this thread in the meantime. Thanks again!
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Warbirds
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Re: OOOOOkay... This is killing me

Post by Warbirds »

The Rift is still the standard among gamers but, as for anything high tech device these days, becomes obsolete and almost worthless much too soon. I can't seem to even get $200 for my set.

VR is cumbersome,,can't sugar coat it but it will be a very long time before it is just a simple pair of glasses or even contact lenses.
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Daube
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Re: OOOOOkay... This is killing me

Post by Daube »

Tutmeister wrote:I'd just like to throw a bit of balance and caution out there without hyperbole or bias.
...
Chris
I have to agree with your remarks in general, which are important for people to make useful comparisons when choosing an helmet. (a helmet ? Or "an" helmet ? )

From my experience, I have had very few problems with the head tracking, it was working very well. I can understand the Vive/Rift tracking might be more precise in a long period of time, since they use fixed cameras to track your head.
However, I did a two hours session of helicopter flight with the Lenovo helmet, and I didn't face any tracking issue.
I'm sure my head position may have drifted a bit over that time, probably a few centimeters off... but I haven't noticed it, frankly. And resetting the head position is easy and fast...

The feeling of quality may be lower than a Rift, maybe. I only tried the Lenovo and frankly, i didn't feel anything "low quality" at all. But perhaps I would say otherwise if I had tried a rift for longer. My only experience with the Rift was at a friend's home, but it was only for a few minutes, and not on a simulator...

Concerning the lenses, the video I posted earlier show that the Samsung helmet has even better lenses than the Vive Pro. It's not compared to the Rift, though. The Lenovo doesn't have such nice lenses though, and yes, the picture IS blurry when you turn your eyes to the sides, out of the sweet spot. That didn't give me any troubles though. Might be different if I would try to fly an airliner I suppose... but with smaller planes, VFR flights etc... the problem was totally neglectable. I would be curious to try an Odyssey. Given how good the experience was with a Lenovo, the same experience with a Samsung Odyssey must be really excellent.

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Tutmeister
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Re: OOOOOkay... This is killing me

Post by Tutmeister »

I'm not saying the wmr are bad, just in comparison to externally tracked ones they dont offer the same robust tracking, especially hands and room scale. For sim work they are pretty good.
They are regularly on sale for a price that fits their more budget feel and limitations so are worth it if they can be got cheap. Full price they are overpriced as the rift is now 399 with some games.
Love to try the samsung but it is currently £765 on amazon uk which is bonkers compared to the rift and vive. Cannot justify that as I apparently I already have 'enough' headsets.

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Daube
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Re: OOOOOkay... This is killing me

Post by Daube »

The prices are also crazy on the french Amazon and Ebay listings...
The official price of the Samsung should be 490 dollars if I remember correctly, but in Europe the imported ones are sold at way higher prices :(

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Re: OOOOOkay... This is killing me

Post by crash924 »

Life is too cruel...got the rift on Wednesday last week, and someone broke into my house on Sunday and stole it...along with 2 tvs, a laptop I bought at the same time as the rift, as well a some other stuff...homeowners insurance won't cover the whole loss, so now I have to start saving pennies again to replace everything that was taken...I was having so much fun with the vr-I already miss it.... :evil: :x

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aonyn
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Re: OOOOOkay... This is killing me

Post by aonyn »

crash924 wrote:Life is too cruel...got the rift on Wednesday last week, and someone broke into my house on Sunday and stole it...along with 2 tvs, a laptop I bought at the same time as the rift, as well a some other stuff...homeowners insurance won't cover the whole loss, so now I have to start saving pennies again to replace everything that was taken...I was having so much fun with the vr-I already miss it.... :evil: :x
Ouch, sorry to hear that. :(
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Ron Attwood
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Re: OOOOOkay... This is killing me

Post by Ron Attwood »

I don't mean to rub salt in the wounds but I understand your missing the Rift already. I've had mine a week now and going back to 'pancake' style is not an option.

Mean ol' 'surance company. :(
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Re: OOOOOkay... This is killing me

Post by Lewis - A2A »

Sword fighting bandits in Skyrim VR in roomscale is awesome with my Vive :mrgreen:
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