Would be nice if the author had done a bit of research on the specific things that had been done in VR since he tried his DK2 to prevent nausea:
An Oculus DK2, a PC that couldn’t quite run a rollercoaster demo at a high-enough framerate, and a slightly-too-hot office full of people watching me as I put on the headset. Before I’d completed the second loop-de-loop, it was clear that VR and I were not going to be good friends.
For one, non-persistent displays have become the norm. These only show (strobe) the image for a fraction of the frame time and go black in between. Valve discovered that the full 1/90th of a second an image is displayed is enough to induce nausea if the head is moving during that time. So the Vive (and the Oculus Rift) had non-persistent displays.
The stobing effect is so fast you don’t notice it.
Elimination of artificial movement is another. The reason Valve focused on games with teleport movement and made a big deal of “room scale” early on was to eliminate the nausea triggers you encounter in other types of experiences.
Valve had an early version of Half Life 2 VR during the days of the DK2, but they removed it as the artificial motion made people sick (myself included).
For many, sims work as long as there is a frame in their field of vision to let their brains lock into that non-moving frame of reference (ex car A-pillars, roof line, dash board, outline of view screen on a ship interior, etc). Note the frame still moves when you move your head, so it’s not a static element in your field of view.
Also it helps if your PC can render frames under the critical 11.1ms frame time (for 90Hz displays). Coincidentally, 90Hz is the minimum Valve determined is needed to experience “presence”. Many folks don’t want to turn down graphic options to get to this. It’s doable in most games even if it won’t be as detailed as it would on a flat screen. Shadows is a big offender here.
Resolution isn’t as big of a factor in frametimes as detailed shadows and other effects. I have run games at well over 4k x 2.5k resolution per eye and been able to keep 11.1ms frame times.
Lastly, it has been noted that any movement or vibration to the inner ear can for many stave off nausea. This includes jogging in place while having the game world move forward. For many years we’ve had a free solution that integrates into Steam VR:
Jog in place to make your character move forward in the direction you’re facing. Walk normally to experience 1-to-1 roomscale.
I’ve use the above to play Skyrim VR without any nausea. Good workout too!
For car, flight, spaceflight simulators, a tactile transducer on your chair (looks like a speaker magnet without the cone - or basically a subwoofer without the cone) can transfer the games sound vibrations directly to you and therefore your inner ear and prevent nausea.
I’ve literally played over 1,000 hours of Elite:Dangerous this way as well as Battlezone VR and Vector 36. All games that involve tons of fast artificial movement.
The main issue is too many people tried out VR cardboard or old DK2 demos with low and laggy framerate, persistent displays, and poorly designed VR experiences and simply write off all VR as bad and nausea inducing.
Edit: added links and trailers to the games mentioned so folks can see the motion involved. The “study” wasn’t a proper study. It was a quote from a scientist. No data was given about what headsets or which experiences caused nausea.
I’ve barely even talked to the dude who I assume is the wildshape you can romance. Of course I didn’t know. I’ve been rolling with the boss bitches because all the good fighters are the ladies.
I specifically avoid most gaming sites and forums because I hate this type of casual spoiling. I don’t want to have to avoid beehaw gaming too.
I know a lot of people don’t care about spoilers, and that’s a-okay and a valid way to enjoy games. But surprises are very important to the way I enjoy them. I hardly ever replay games either, for this reason. I totally understand why some people don’t care at all, but nonetheless, spoilers like this do affect my enjoyment of games. This one admittedly probably less so than most, but even so, I’d have rather not known ahead of time.
Edit: ah, apparently this was part of a marketing campaign? That’s more forgiveable, then, for people to be chatting about it, though I still don’t want to know.
“We don’t want to put resources towards optimising our product. We don’t care if the methods we built our product with make it more difficult to use, while regressing in several key visual aspects. The burdon of our shortcomings will be placed on the end user, who will have to spend their resources to out-power them.”
Well it’s crazy that they’re accusing him of giving too much of his own time.
I really hope the Stop Killing Games initiative changes something as I want to own my (single player) games forever on every store (not only GOG as it’s not so Linux friendly despite the heroic games launcher).
Anybody who has ever been unfortunate enough to have to apply for any of these healthcare or food stipend programs would know that it’s not as easy as the government makes it seem. In fact, the amount of bureaucracy, means testing, and highly restrictive income limitations means that most people don’t qualify period and people who do qualify have to spend an inordinate amount of time waiting to hear back from the government to know if they have been accepted or not, all the while hoping and praying they don’t get sick and can manage their money long enough to continue feeding themselves.
Case in point, my fiance is out of work right now and actively seeking work. She applied for both MediCAL and SNAP and was denied for MediCAL because she had earned too much already that year to qualify and the SNAP benefits totaled out to $20/month in food stamps, based on historical income, which is insufficient even for the most frugal of individuals to make work. This is for someone currently earning $0/month and being almost entirely supported by me.
After a certain point, it becomes a massive drain on your time and resources that could be spent looking for a job, so you stop bothering with the system altogether because who wants to spend hours doing paperwork and submitting claims just to get enough spare change to buy a bulk bag of rice to feed yourself a struggle meal?
I don’t want to hear shit about “handouts” from anybody. My fiance paid her taxes faithfully for years without ever having to rely on the program, so where are her benefits? She has undoubtedly paid more into the system than she will ever extract.
I was not commenting on her attractiveness, just that the defining character features seem to be different. She doesn’t look “older” or less attractive to me from Wild Hunt, just a different person.
It’s not as bad as when they dropped the voice actor for Sam Fisher in Splinter Cell though.
You’re the one taking it to gooner/sexist territory, is fans of the series now the characters and when the overall face-shop changes but keeps defining features like the scar on her cheek, it’s a little unexpected and strange at first.
Me, a fan, instantly recognized her and noticed nothing “weird” about her. Caring at all about her jaw shape or whatever intrinsically makes you a gooner.
Problem is (well, not really, but still), she already looked like a real person. Personally know people who look a lot like Ciri, it’s not the most uncommon look in Slavic countries.
It may be just the trailer. In some scenes, she looks like herself from the 3rd game, just aged, but in most, she looks a bit… weird. It’s really hard to tell what’s going on because when you try to compare the models, they do match up.
It looks like they created a monster trying to fit a bunch of features in a face. It’s on all thumbnails, same as clickbait videos. It’s a marketing stunt.
Until they give a “better” reason, I am going to assume the one they hinted at is true, and Microsoft just decided that it was worthless because it wasn’t “Mikami’s studio” anymore. Honestly, I already suspected it.
In which case, fuck them. These games were not made by one person, a studio is bigger than its director. And the rest of them didn’t get even one chance to prove themselves.
Truly shows how little they value the people who make their games.
Same, if only to keep fulfilling a childhood commitment to myself of owning all consoles after seeing some friends of mine having a Sega AND a Nintendo.
I could see the appeal of consoles back in the day, when they were weaker specs but much cheaper and the games just worked right out of the box. But nowadays it seems like they’re just as expensive, still not as good for specs and the games are just as bug-riddled as PC games half the time. And Sony has been releasing all their big hits on PC anyway so yeah really no reason for me to get a PS5 that I can see.
But nowadays it seems like they’re just as expensive, still not as good for specs and the games are just as bug-riddled as PC games half the time.
No they aren’t ‘as expensive’, LTT did a video a while back where they tried to build a PC that could beat a PS5 for a similar price. They had to buy used parts to match the price and the PC did not include a controller ($69). If you’re going to use used parts, then also compare it to the price of a used PS5.
And Sony has been releasing all their big hits on PC anyway so yeah really no reason for me to get a PS5 that I can see.
Sure, if you want to play old-ass games, get a PC.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. Gaming PC’s are expensive and a luxury! It makes sense economically. With consoles there’s an incentive to sell hardware cheap to get people into the ecosystem. With the exception of the steamdeck, there’s no such incentive for PC’s: if the hardware is worth x amount, you can bet your ass you’ll have to pay at least that. Yeah games are generally cheaper on PC, but not by much, and the barrier to entry is much lower for consoles. Hell, the PC I just built from used parts and Amazon deals cost me $800 (not including accessories), and while the processor and ram is almost certainly better than the ps5’s, the graphics are about on par, if anything slightly worse. You can find used ps5’s for less than $400. Is there really a used PC out there that can touch that?
I think the offsetting cost factor basis is that a PC is a computer that can be used for more than gaming and the console is pretty much useless after 3-5 years (considering the PS4 @ 2013, PS4 Pro @ 2016, and the PS5 @ 2020, and how PS4 Pros are beginning to struggle today, and OG PS4’s being obsolete). Are PC’s more expensive upfront now? Sure. But you also don’t have to re-purchase your games each generation at the whim of the publisher, like you’re likely going to end up doing with Sony and Nintendo, with the added benefit of being able to use it for other projects after its contemporary gaming lifespan.
Basically, if you built a PC in 2013 you’re probably still able to use it today as a server or hobby project PC (digital art, music, etc). PC’s were also cheaper back then before NVIDIA made GPU’s cost $1,000. Good luck re-using a console.
I see you don’t replay games, so why even own a console if you only play a game once?
For self-hosting I have several Linux and *BSD machines, but that’s server-grade hardare, not gaming hardware. None of those machines even has a GPU.
Drawing I do on my iPad Pro, for everything else I have a MacBook Pro. If I got a desktop PC it would only be used for games, I have no real need for non-server PC hardware.
Sounds like what you enjoy are shallow, linear story games. To each their own, of course. Glad you’re happy with what PS5 offers you in that regard. But the industry has a lot more to offer than that.
How are story games shallow? They are much deeper than the next generic multiplayer shooter. I happen to like stories in all forms, books, movies, series and video games. Video games are unique in that they allow you to be part of a story. For me the story is the single most important thing of a game. Often I simply play games on easy or story mode, mainly to keep up the pacing of the story.
I never said story games are shallow. But if the games you like are ones where you can feel like you’ve experienced all the game and the story has to offer in a single playthrough then they are, by definition, shallow. Even a great movie is worth watching multiple times of its story has any appreciable depth. Video games, even more so since there should be more to the story to experience.
I guess it’s possible you are correct and like the bulk of people who have ever studied film, literature, and art more generally are wrong. That seems unlikely. More plausible is that it’s common for people to experience a given work multiple times and get different things out of it.
That’s not even accounting for the “Reading Lear as an old man hits differently than reading it when I was a teenager” factor. That is, who you are changes over time and that affects how you experience art.
More broadly, games with different narrative choices (eg: Witcher 2 has two mutually exclusive middle acts).
And also more broadly, games with different mechanical choices (eg: many RPGs).
There’s also games where the process itself is fun (eg: Tetris).
Also, as many humans have imperfect memory, after enough time has passed a game may feel fresh playing it again. It may also land differently playing it at a new stage in life.
More broadly, games with different narrative choices (eg: Witcher 2 has two mutually exclusive middle acts).
I kinda like it that it makes my decisions in the game more impactful. If you’re going to go back and play the other option anyway, then it kind of makes the decision meaningless.
I hâte to agree with the other person here, but I’m a big roguelike fan and I rarely dust-off one that I have played before. I go through a period where I play a game quasi-exclusively until I burn out, then I will probably never touch it again.
I don’t think that’s especially common for roguelikes. I played a lot of crawl: stone soup and it was pretty common for folks to go for a win with every species, god, and class.
Out of curiosity, what about games that update? Crawl gets a new release like every six months where they often make big changes. New gods, species, other changes (like when they removed food, or added shapeshifting talismans)
Hmmmm. Not sure I’ve been in that situation too often. But honestly, as a young parent, my gaming time is very limited. Even if there is an important update to a game I’ve played in the past, chances are I’ve got my eyes on another game I’ve been waiting to play instead.
I’m not sure why I’d want a PS5 when there are zero games that interest me on it, and most of PC games I do want have very modest requirements. A Steam Deck is overkill for most of them.
Because my pc uses 4-5 times the power to run the same ps4-era game. (Especially nice when it’s hot in summer)
So I play it on my ps5, which offers me quick resume as well.
I love pc gaming, been building pc’s for over a decade at this point, but I do also see the advantages my ps5 has over my pc.
Could I build a more efficient and quiet pc, attach it to my tv and use that? Probably, and it’d be quite good with steamOS on it, but it’d be finicky to get sleep/resume working on it, and it’d probably cost me more.
ARM isn’t more efficient than x86 at that scale. Below 15W or so, it is, but not scaled up. I think there are other good reasons for it–like having more than three companies that can produce them–but not that.
Exclusives, simplicity, ease of use. I had a gaming PC, but switched to the PS5 only because I realized I’ve been using my PC like a PS5. I only play like fifa and gta now since most new games don’t even excite me anymore.
I’m a technical person and I’ve tried a lot of different methods to do couch gaming with a PC. From having some sort of lap tray to various wireless mice and keyboard solutions. I’ve currently landed on having my gaming desktop just stream with Steam Link to my living room. As long as I’m selective about which games I want to play, I can usually get a good experience. But I still have at least 60% of my steam library that isn’t a good experience doing that.
Having a dedicated piece of hardware with a custom OS that is designed around a controller is a huge difference maker. Plus you add in how ridiculously expensive it is to get either a USB external optical drive or internal SATA drive to watch DVDs and Blu-Rays. Heck, even just watching Netflix or YouTube in the living room is easier on PS5 than a media PC for the average user.
There’s a reason Valve tried to make the Steam Machine.
pcgamer.com
Ważne