Quote from Amynue :

http://uploadvr.com/end-of-an-era-oculus-rift-dk2-sold-out/

Does this mean I'm living in a dimension where eBay doesn't exist?

Quote from cargame.nl :

Quote from NitroNitrous :

It's still cheaper than a good 3 monitor setup, so probably well worth it. Money is not an issue, the big question is if it will work or not

Everyone with such a device up to now is slower concerning racing compared to an old fashioned monitor. Until proven otherwise it doesn't work and it cannot replace a monitor or multi monitor setup. Probably funny to cruise around but thats about it.

Less speed maybe, but more fun and immersion perhaps?

Quote from Kidastronaut :

Quote from Amynue :

http://uploadvr.com/end-of-an-era-oculus-rift-dk2-sold-out/

Does this mean I'm living in a dimension where eBay doesn't exist?

This means that CV1 preorders will start soon, most likely to be announced there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58L2Ov5rnwg
My wallet is ready

EDIT: Nope, no preorders yet: https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/671435934882095104


I wonder what will they announce... I will be sleeping at the time of the livestream :/

Oculus today announced that EVE Valkyrie will be bundled with the Rift:
https://twitter.com/oculus/status/674983291527671808
Interview with the developer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmEJmRxfz80

Palmer also indicated od Reddit that there will be more than one game. I hope that Lucky's Tale will also be bundled, I really miss platformers from PSX era.

Rift can roomscale too, obviously:
https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/676231354921521152

You may want to take a look at this Scawen:
https://developer.oculus.com/blog/rift-sdk-1-0-shipping-to-developers-with-final-rift-hardware/

Good to know that release is still on track for Q1.

Quote from cargame.nl :

Everyone with such a device up to now is slower concerning racing compared to an old fashioned monitor. Until proven otherwise it doesn't work and it cannot replace a monitor or multi monitor setup. Probably funny to cruise around but thats about it.

Speak for yourself. I noticed no difference in my pace. Actually learning a combo became a bit easier for me as I feel finding breaking and turn-in markers becomes more natural. My race speed remained the same, didn't notice a difference. Arguably the increased immersion factor helped to maintain focus during longer races.

There are some downsides though, most of them result from being the fact that VR is still a very young technology and I am only driving with the developing kit which has other emphases as the consumer version. Speaking of the DK2, the most obvious issue is the lacking resolution and fov. My situation awareness actually decreased a bit compared to my old one screen setup. Mostly its due to low resolution in mirrors and things just being out of focus for the eye. If I want to look in the rear mirror I actually have to move my head up.

Watch at 1:45 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3qLax_HXIY
I notice the blue car too late creeping up behind me, because I have to shift my focus from the road directly ahead of me to the rear mirror above. On my old setup I could do this with simply moving my pupil and check the mirror out of the corner of my eye . Now I have to tilt my head preemptively. Its the same with cars directly to the left/right. With the rift I can move my head quickly in the direction, but on a monitor setup the FOV is still higher so I can see things in the corner of my eye without shifting focus.
Thats also why I misjudged where the blue car goes a few seconds later and I kinda steal him the apex at 1:55.

Another thing I noticed is that I became more lazy with creating and tweaking setups since it requires working the menues with keyboard and mouse with the rift on. I could see wheels having a small touchpad attached for navigating purposes in the future. Would certainly help make things easier. You also have to map everything to the wheel. I remeber last endurance race I was lost because I hadn't figured my setup correctly and changing fuel add to pitstop and tyre changes as well as driver changes became a pain in the ass with the rift on.

Furthermore the rift is not very comfortable. The longest I had it on continuously was around 2 hourse during an endurance race and it begins to painfully press on my nose. For some reason the area around the nose is the only area which is not cushioned. Maybe because it would interfer with your breathing. As it is now the rift bangs in your nose everytime you make a quick left right movement with your head. I hope this is adressed in the consumer version. The upside is though I seem to be immune to simulator sickness. Some people are having difficulties even with screen setups. They will not like in in the rift then

I sold my rift yesterday (with profit actually), because the it will be pretty much worthless as soon as consumer versions hit the market. Its quite some bad timing for me as I would love to use it with rockingham and in league races, so I hope for no further delays for the consumer version. Going back to my screen setup just doesn't feel the same now.

Quote from bobloblaw :

A question for current DK2 users. What kind of hardware are you running to achieve a playable FPS? It looks like Oculus is suggesting a current generation gaming computer to run most games.

This is my system:
Intel xeon 1231v3
Radeon HD 6870

Thats a gpu from 2010. It can run the DK2 effortless with lots of buffer in any race. For the consumer version I consider getting a newer gpu like the R9 380X / gtx 970 and for LFS that should do the job.

Quote from Amynue :

You may want to take a look at this Scawen:
https://developer.oculus.com/blog/rift-sdk-1-0-shipping-to-developers-with-final-rift-hardware/

Good to know that release is still on track for Q1.

I don't really like this announcement. It's not really good news that no-one is allowed access to the Rift 1.0 SDK, unless they have 'final rift hardware'.

I followed the link to how to get the hardware, and was asked to drag and drop a build of my "app" into a box on a web form. All quite strange. I can't drop a 409 MB game into that box. It's just stupid.

I'm not pleased with Oculus and HTC recently. It seems they have changed. The original idea was "we want to get VR into people's homes". Now it seems to have changed to "we just want to make as much money as possible". And at some point it has occurred to them that they won't make much money from a customer after selling a headset, so now they are trying to control the software that runs on it.

It's a recipe for disaster. It's a bit like VW saying "We don't make much money from customers after they have bought our car. So we are going to build toll roads, and limit our cars to drive only on those toll roads. Now we will continue to make money from our existing customers." Clearly it misses the point that a car is about freedom and needs to be able to drive on a wide variety of roads. In the same way, by restricting the software that can run on their devices, these VR headset manufacturers will destroy the value of their own device.

Quote from Scawen :

It's a bit like VW saying "We don't make much money from customers after they have bought our car. So we are going to build toll roads, and limit our cars to drive only on those toll roads.

You are a bit behind on that one... they are already trying to milk the customer after they sold the car.
GM: OnStar - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnStar
TESLA - http://jalopnik.com/the-tesla-model-s-just-got-upgraded-to-ludicrous-speed-1718577723

Also: VW might be a bad example, as most of their (diesel) customers will receive a FREE upgrade to their cars...

I haven't heard of any car manufacturers trying to limit you to drive on their own toll roads though...

There is something very sinister about this Rift announcement, not allowing developers to access the SDK.

No they haven't. However they would very much like to force you to only use their service stations, or use their additional customer experience stuff.

I do understand that the Rift annoucement is something else entirely, but it's along a general trend and a walled garden is nothing new.

On the funny side, seems this joke is becomming more and more relevant...

I don't see what's written in that blog post that indicates they are going to monetise the development process. Version 1.0 is currently limited, which implies it won't be after the full launch.

If we're all for the free distribution of development software, can I have the LFS track creation tools please?

What?

The development kit (aka DK2) exists for one reason: To enable software developers to develop software for the customer version of the Rift.

Until today, all versions of the SDK have been available for that purpose. Suddenly today they have announced that the latest version of the Software Development Kit is no longer available to Software Developers who bought the Rift Developer Kit.

If you can't see what's wrong with that, think again.

I don't see what the big problem is. I don't see how this changes their approach to become, as you put it, "we just want to make as much money as possible". Can you elaborate on that, as I have clearly missed the point.

How much difference will there be between 0.8 and 1.0? I've no idea, but you seemed to get up to speed with VR very quickly, so once you do get access (which is not CURRENTLY available to you), I'm sure you'll be on top of the appropriate updates in no time.

I'm sure it's an inconvenience for you and I've no clue as to why they have taken this approach, but it's hardly knicker twisting.

Well, I hope you are right, and that the SDK will become available to all software developers eventually. They have not said that will be the case, and the word 'currently' doesn't imply that at all. It may suggest it if you take an optimistic view. But unfortunately Oculus have been becoming more and more closed as time has gone on. It wasn't a great email to wake up to this morning.

Paraphrasing "Hi, we have a new SDK 1.0 but you aren't allowed to use it. If you want to use it you need to upload your app through the Oculus submission tool".

Actually clicking the link goes to a new page where you sign an NDA and you have to then submit your 'app' for approval. And I am supposed to drag and drop a 409 MB game into a window on a web form? It seems like they are taking the piss, seriously.

Do they mean the app itself or maybe just a video of it? Because it says "you can now upload a preview of your app".

Quoting from the blog post: "The Rift SDK 1.0 and runtime include features tied to the consumer product".

My guess is that public access to the the 1.0 SDK would reveal features of the first consumer version that they don't want to share with the public yet (which explains the NDA).

Personally, if I would have a chance to get early access to the first consumer version of the Rift, I wouldn't be too bothered by having to upload 400MB ;-)

On the upload page it's "Upload your app build!" so that doesn't sound like a video.

There are many pages of information to fill in and I don't know what it leads to. It's not clear if I am signing up to some kind of Rift software store. They are asking for images of many specified sizes. It's really odd and quite disturbing to have to fill in all this info, with no reason given.

To be quite clear : I've followed a link to gain access to hardware, but I am filling in info that looks like I am submitting something to a web store.

Or "currently" means "never" if you take the pessimistic view? I would put my position as "dispassionate" rather than "optimistic". I think the NDA is an indication that there's stuff in there they don't want in the public domain prior to launch or some solid announcement.

Lob a video on the webform as Flame suggests and see what happens.

In the long term, if they are going to make more money than just from selling the hardware then they would have to presumably licence the runtime. That would reduce the available games, but as long as someone makes a decent driving game for it I'm not arsed who it is.

I'll try to fill in the form and submit it, to see what happens. I'll even try to upload LFS. Maybe I have jumped to conclusions as it seemed to be like this strange Vive DRM SDK thing that was revealed the other day and doesn't seem understandable (now HTC suddenly wants to be a software publisher although it has supposedly teamed up with Valve).

Also, sentences like this don't help: "The Rift SDK 1.0 and runtime include features tied to the consumer product, so we’ve currently limited the release to developers putting final touches on launch titles."

It seems like strange language that doesn't make sense and is trying to be deliberately obscure.

Hmm, no... submitting it isn't going to work. You have to run some submission checker, and one of the errors is like this (an example taken from their example page) :

Quote :

In this case, we received two errors.

--> APK is launchable (launchable-activity)

The manifest specifies that the application is directly launchable, which was necessary for development, but submitted apps must be launchable only from Oculus Home.

So I was right, they are trying to take control. It's not just a portal to identify software that they want to support by sending Rift hardware to the developers.

I think I'll stop wasting time on this and wait to see if the SDK becomes available at some point.

"App" and "APK" implies they are talking about software for the Android (Mobile) platform.

No, nothing to do with mobile. I'm talking about the Rift upload pages. Recommended processor, Recommended memory, Recommended graphics card are all fields that need to be filled in. It refers to Windows and Max OS X.

Quote from Scawen :

No, nothing to do with mobile. I'm talking about the Rift upload pages. Recommended processor, Recommended memory, Recommended graphics card are all fields that need to be filled in. It refers to Windows and Max OS X.

Alright, fair enough. I mainly reacted on the error message you provided "APK is launchable (launchable-activity)". I recognize APK as Android application Package and "activity" as an Android class (and "App" speaks for itself I guess. Never meant to steer the thread off topic. I'll be quiet now.

Interesting, maybe it's a straight copy and paste from the Gear VR pages. I get the feeling they are trying to create a Rift software store that works similarly to the Gear VR software store. And the only way you can get the latest hardware, and access to the new SDK, is by submitting to that system.

How far they try to take that, I don't think we can be sure. I hope that SDK 1.0 will be available open so anyone can write Rift software. But they have not said that, and there has been a lot of talk of exclusivity and so on recently.

They took that big plunge into telephone VR instead of focussing on the Rift, even though a telephone is a far inferior device for virtual reality. I think that is because they are just so excited about payments for software. It does seem to me that they are more interested in that, than actually selling Rifts.