I dropped my dog off at the vet for some teeth cleaning under general anesthesia, so I had some time to kill and headed off to the mall to do some window shopping.

The Microsoft store had a Virtual Reality demonstration setup near the store window. I imagine there's usually a bit of wait as they had a queue setup, but there was only one college kid already on the demonstration rig when I showed up and got in line. Middle of the day and whatnot. I waited my turn and chatted with the Microsoft store employee about the technology.

After a brief in-system orientation on how to manipulate the controls, and the virtual fence that marked off the zone where you can move without hitting things in real-life, I went through two short demos of a VR interactive environment experience (looking over the edge of a cliff on a mountain summit) and some short physics based games (throwing balls and shooting arrows in a carnival game)....but then there was the first person shooter, "Raw Data."

It. Was. Awesome. I want one so bad now.

The system I was demonstrating was the HTC Vibe. It uses ceiling mounted emitters and sensors in the headpiece and hand-held controllers to translate your movements into the game world. I looked down and saw guns in my hands. Instructions were to pull the triggers on the controllers to shoot, put the gun down towards your waist like you are holstering to reload. And then robots were coming from me in in all directions. You had to keep looking over your shoulder to make sure the robots didn't come get you from behind. Then the robots started shooting back and I learned that I could kneel behind cover and blind fire over the top of the barrier.

The demo ended based on a pre-set time limit. But I was hooked.

New video card first. Then the HTC Vibe. Then to tear apart my living room to give me a gaming space and ceiling mounted sensors.

Party at your place when it's all set up?

Excellent review! It is a fantastic technology. I am looking to buy a VR headset in the near future. Was the HTC Vibe headset you demo'ed wireless? I "heard" HTC was coming out with one soon.

I do a lot of sim driving (Project Cars), as well as FPS. I just purchased a new video card. It's the nVidia 1070. Ridiculously fast. It is designed to work with the HTC Vibe.
Let us know where you end up.

I got to play a Batman game on a VR set two weeks ago, it was pretty cool loading the weapons/tools onto the utility belt and throwing Batarangs at enemies.

NewEgg has a deal where if you buy a Vibe from them, you get a free AMD RX480 GPU deal going on right now.

quote:

Originally posted by Lunasee:
Excellent review! It is a fantastic technology. I am looking to buy a VR headset in the near future. Was the HTC Vibe headset you demo'ed wireless? I "heard" HTC was coming out with one soon.

I do a lot of sim driving (Project Cars), as well as FPS. I just purchased a new video card. It's the nVidia 1070. Ridiculously fast. It is designed to work with the HTC Vibe.
Let us know where you end up.

I don't think the Vibe headset is wireless. The one I demo'd had wires, and I don't think it was strictly for charging.

Whole Room VR is where it is. The mobile vr headsets don't hold a candle to whole room VR immersion.

One of the demos was an environmental experience, where you moved around a landscape and looked around.

It put me on the edge of a cliff. I looked down.

Got real-life vertigo. My heart jumped a bit.

VR is ready for prime time folks.

Its HTC Vive, not Vibe.

I am pretty surprised that Microsoft wasn't demoing their own technology, the Augmented Reality HoloLens.

Go checkout some Youtube videos of Hotdogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades.

My wife got me one of the headsets you clip your Samsung phone in. Even that produces some pretty stunning results.

Like Aetocles, I have a "game" (there isn't really an objective) where you move around a landscape, and when you come to a cliff, you genuinely get vertigo and step back.

Well done 3-D video is cool, too.

Very nice. Did some VR driving on my buddy's system about 6 months ago and almost got sick. Crazy immersion, and that was NOT a whole-room system.

I have a head set for the Samsung. I have a pacman game where you travel through the maze as pacman with his perspective. The ghosts chase you it's pretty cool.

We now use them at work to demo 3D building models, it's amazing how they sell a project.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
My wife got me one of the headsets you clip your Samsung phone in. Even that produces some pretty stunning results.

Like Aetocles, I have a "game" (there isn't really an objective) where you move around a landscape, and when you come to a cliff, you genuinely get vertigo and step back.

Well done 3-D video is cool, too.

If you fall off the cliff do you die in the real world or just in the matrix?