VR Gaming: Oculus Rift Hopes to Succeed Where Others Have Failed
By Karla Robinson
September 17, 2012
September 17, 2012
- A new start-up hopes to change the VR game, providing a rich virtual gaming experience that could set it apart from other early failures.
- Called the Oculus Rift, this new prototype accrued almost $2.5 million on Kickstarter by selling 10,000 game developer kits worldwide. The project has been backed by “Doom” and “Quake” creator John Carmack and Brenden Iribe, a former Autodesk, Scaleform and Gaikai executive.
- “The most striking thing about the experience is the sheer depth of the stereoscopic image, which wraps around the field of view without the eye-crossing, headache-inducing out-of-sync effect that sometimes comes with 3D glasses or viewing a head-mounted LCD too closely,” writes Ars Technica.
- “The creators told me that this is a result of the Rift’s optics… Those optics also help improve the Rift’s resolution where it’s needed most, increasing the functional pixel density in the center of the view, where your eyes naturally rest, while decreasing it on the periphery.”
- The creators have focused on providing “incredibly smooth” head tracking, hoping to eventually get the refresh rate down to single digit milliseconds from 15-30 milliseconds by the time final consumer units are ready. Iribe says this refresh rate enables games to run faster than the current 60 frames per second, “which would lead to a noticeable improvement in the realism of the world the Rift immerses you in,” the article states.
- The costs for small, thin, high-resolution, hi-def screens have gone down with the mobile expansion. This enables Rift to offer improved screens at a reasonable price. The team is also working to reduce the weight to make the device more comfortable and wearable.
- Ars Technica did note that the games still require controllers for navigation. The team hopes developers will create new control schemes for the Rift.
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