24 Hours with the Rift DK2
Entry posted by Josh ·
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I ordered my Oculus Rift DK2 in the middle of August and it finally arrived two days ago. Here are my quick impressions.
Unboxing and Setup
The box comes with a convenient carrying handle, so it makes a nice case. Upon opening it, the parts were pretty straightforward with no assembly required. There's an extra pair of lenses to extend the focal length or something like that, but I didn't use them.
Setup was pretty difficult. There's an excessive number of cords. A USB and HDMI cable plug into the headset. These plug into a four-way junction that has two cords going to the PC and two going to the camera...actually, I'm not even sure how they are connected, and it's right in front of me. There's also an optional power cord coming off this hub because I guess sometimes the USB power isn't enough. So it's a pretty bad mess of wires.
Once you have it running, a systray icon allows you to open a dialog and adjust settings. The DK2 has two display modes, one for "direct" rendering and one to display the desktop, which I think is the legacy mode the DK1 used. It's confusing because some games will crash if you have one enabled, and some will crash if the other is enabled. I found the new direct mode to be more reliable, but it only works with Windows for now.
Initial Impressions
Having tried Valve's virtual reality room last summer, I was eager to see how the new Rift compares. The latency when you turn your head and when the image responds is much better than the DK1, but is still in the "nausea-inducing" range. If you don't turn your head quickly it's not bad. The motion tracking helps with the rotation accuracy, and it also helps a lot with the sense of presence. Games that only support the DK1 (and thus no motion tracking) were really difficult to handle. When you move your head to the right and the scene doesn't respond, it feels like the whole world is shifting with you. The motion tracking is quite good even when rotating with my back to the camera. There are no markers on the headset, so I have no idea how it works, but it's pretty accurate.
Overall, the motion tracking in the DK2 makes it much better than the DK1, but I didn't get the feeling of presence I had with Valve's VR room. Everything still felt like a screen on my face, but it's getting close.
Games and Demos
About 80% of the user-made demos on OculusVR's website do not work. There's a large number of demos available for the DK1, and I think the changes in the newer SDKs cause these to no longer work. Many will display a message saying no device is detected, or they will open a 1920x1080 screen in a weird position on the desktop and lock your mouse so you can't move it. The demos were a little underwhelming, perhaps because so many are designed for the DK1 and no longer work. I was looking forward to trying "The Affected" but it just doesn't run. I recommend From Ashes and Don't Let Go. The roller coasters were also fun. They didn't make me sick, but there was a disconnect between what I was seeing and sitting stationary in a chair.
Commercial games weren't any better. Alien Isolation has an unofficial hack to enable VR mode but my camera angle got messed up and I couldn't reset it. Half-Life 2 appears to not use motion tracking, so it's not as good as it could be. I played the airboat level for a while, which I don't recommend if you get carsick. I was disappointed I could not get Doom 3 BFG Edition to work.
While playing Half-Life 2 I did notice that my aim and responsiveness were superhuman. Being inside the Half-Life world allowed me to take aim with incredible ease and accuracy. I am much better at FPS games in VR mode, which I did not expect at all. However, the bounciness and rapid movement of Gordon Freeman were very apparent and it was a little difficult to stomach, especially when combined with the lack of motion tracking. It was also strange that the characters all looked like 2D cardboard cutouts in an otherwise convincing world.
Conclusions
Motion tracking is a critical component of VR. It reduces nausea and greatly increases the believability of a scene. Although the Oculus Rift DK2 is not as good as Valve's VR room, it's getting close and I expect the final consumer product will be better. Without motion tracking, the Oculus Rift is just a nausea mask.
There's a big demand for new VR games and experiences, and a very limited supply. Most of the existing demos were made for the DK1, and do not support motion tracking. The majority of user-made demos will not even run, or won't detect the DK2 headset. So I hope to see more good applications in the future made for with the current Oculus SDK.
The Oculus Rift has problems with the complexity of the setup, software incompatibility, and physiological input. In spite of these issues, it allows you to have some amazing experiences that are otherwise impossible. Walking around a game level and looking at things suddenly becomes an overwhelming experience. A monster roaring in your face or a spider crawling up your arm almost feels like it's really there. If you can get through the hardware setup, and if you can find a game that works, the experience in VR is the most interesting thing I've seen since the advent of real-time 3D graphics.
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