The death of VR?

Monitor I feel like Im playing a game...

VR I feel Im driving a car.

I love nice graphics but will put the much heightened sense of realism, immersion and depth perception as a priority every time.

It fools my body into thinking Im there quite a bit especially with tactile feedback - cant imagine how much better it is with movement too.

However I totally respect its a personal preference and definitely wish we had much better graphics in VR.

 

VR has suddenly put the hardware back into the levels we had in the 90's. That's not very popular since the hardware developers need to spend big money to bring the tech 20 years forward asap.
The 20xx series were clearly not built to improve VR performance.

 

https://developer.nvidia.com/vrworks

Much of that stuff came with the 10xx cards which were launched going on for three years ago. It makes no sense to expect hardware manufacturers to simply make more powerful cards for the sake of VR, and that wouldn't address the issues affecting VR performance which have nothing to do with the graphics card. Nvidia therefore have a whole bunch of features which are intended to make VR rendering more *efficient*, but they're barely being used.

 

Simracing is the perfect vehicle for VR, other than that in what areas is it good?
FPS'es could work... but they probably would need revamp the system where you moving your head/eyes aims the gun, controller/keyboard moves your body and shoots.
Also playing on keyboard (i don't do it that often anymore, comfort takes precedence these days) i often need to do a glance to press keys a bit outside of the WASD vicinity.

Anything 3rd person just no...

Suppousedly porn is quite an experience in VR

 

That may be because, in the overall scheme of things, racing and flight sim players represent just a tiny fraction of the total number of gamers out there.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessedamiani/2018/12/30/the-top-25-vr-games-of-2018/#4c8918fd6597 plus flight sims and space sims.

The problem for VR is that unless more people buy into it, developers won't spend as much time integrating it and the VR hardware manufactureres won't get the revenue to continue to improve it. As someone said earlier, it's the original Catch 22. The racing sim market is just too small to be significant.

 

Before VR my gaming acitivity was 99.5% SIM racing, since VR, it is exactly the same.
I have tried a few VR thing, but they feel gimmicky at best, when not totally boring.
Driving/racing in VR, I cannot get enough and it as been over 2 year for me now.

One thing I still love is, when wanting to see the car from the outside, instead of using F5, I step up out of the car and admire it as I would IRL, it never gets old.

So, yes, if driving SIM is not something you are missing when you skip it one day, then VR is not a must, but it is if you do. You need a wheel and VR goggles.

 

And a sick bag, in my case! Definitely agree with the wheel, though.

 

For a great VR FPS experience I recommend Onward.
VR is great for flying helicopters in X-Plane too.
And Job Simulator and the upcoming Vacation simulator by Owlchemy Labs can't be missed either

 

I guess i should've said anything that involves piloting something, genuine oversight on my part.

 

You use hand controllers to play shooters in VR so it is very immersive. I recently bought Pavlov VR and Contractors and they are a lot of fun. The only issue I have is crouching in real life is a lot more tiring than pressing ctrl key (in traditional shooters). If I had more free time I would play a lot more of these games. Here is an interesting article about VR shooter esports: https://vrespawn.com/2019/02/17/gun-stocks-in-vr-fps-esports/

VR is more than just driving sims and flight sims and arcade shooters, and pornography. I think although although the article in the OP listed a lot of positive changes that are coming along at the end, overall it made the VR prospect sound more negative than it actually is.

Just at the end of last month this article was published with some interesting plot that contradicts with the popular opinion that VR is dying: https://www.roadtovr.com/monthly-connected-vr-headsets-on-steam-have-grown-exponentially-analysis/
While number of connected headsets doesn't mean they are actively using it. It still shows that the ownership of VR headset is steadily growing. At this point I wouldn't worry about VR dying or try to argue "VR or triple screen which is better".

 

I hope that VR will live and evolve. But unfortunately it can also happen that it will die.

Because I also thought that 3D-TV would never die but it did.

For me it looked like 3D-TV finally did it after some flops in the past because EVERY TV in the stores was 3D-ready and then, over night, from one day to the other, all 3D-TV‘s suddenly vanished and you can’t buy a SINGLE one in stores anymore. EVERY producer stopped producing them!

Why????

I read that polls resulted in the fact that nobody wanted 3D-TV (because people don’t want to wear glasses and most content was fake-3D with bad results...).

But nobody asked me and I don‘t know anyone (friends, family...) who was asked in such polls!?

Maybe there are people who don’t want it and maybe it’s even the vast majority but why abandon the production to 100%??

The step is too drastic IMHO. From „every TV has 3D“ to „not a single 3D-TV will be produced“.

Why not producing at least one or two models for those who are willing to buy it (like me, and I know I‘m not the only person on this planet)? Sooo many products are being produced every day although they’re only for a niche-market...

Same thing with 3D-cameras: I own a Fujifilm Finepix Real 3D Camera which makes excellent 3D-photos from my holidays, which I watch on my 3D-TV. No converting of files required, just plug&play cause my 3D-TV supports the MPO-Format out of the box. The camera was not very expensive, is easy to handle (just press a button) and you immediately see the picture in 3d on a the 3D display on the camera. It‘s so much more immersive than flat 2D-photos and it gives you the feeling of really being there again. When I wanted to buy a newer model (2 years ago) I realised that the production has been abandoned and not a single producer on the whole planet (!) is producing 3D-cameras anymore...

Then I played PC games in 3D-vision on 3D-vision-monitors. Wow, how do flat games suddenly come alive in 3D! Meanwhile NVIDIA gave up 3D-vision and don’t make 3D-vision-profiles for games anymore or they release them with status „not recommended“! Only because of a small community of enthusiasts which make such 3D-fixes for actual games it’s still possible to play some games in 3D.

In cinemas less and less movies are shown (/produced) in 3D.

We have TWO eyes to be able to see things in 3D, which let us experience a lively world and better estimate distances.
I can only speak for myself: I prefer 3D rather than 2D. But it seems the industry does not.

VR is also in 3D, so I sense a terrible thing...

 

The technology is just not good enough for mainstream use. 3DTV was letdown by bad films, 3d requires a new level of filming technique

 

Maybe, but as I wrote there shouldn’t be only products for mainstream...
Even the strangest things are being sold today even for the smallest niche-market as long as there are a few people who are willing to pay for it.

 

https://varjo.com/

 

Not all of them, Avatar was excellent in 3D as it was originally shot for that format, there were others too.

 

Cool tech but, narrow FOV and for the special low price of what - about $8k usd (For business use only but hey, it's a write off).

 

No other PSVR users? VR is alive and well on PlayStation. I bought one at the back end of last year just for VR so I could enjoy something other than racing games. Beat Saber is VR's killer app and assuming it comes to Oculus Quest could really attract a lot of new users. I don't know that it will ever become the dominant interface for gaming, too many people suffer with sickness or other comfort issues, but I expect it to be here for the long term as an option for those that enjoy it.

 

I have an eye (or two) on the new tech for increased resolution.
For gaming purposes disregard the price, because the headset is not intended for gaming. Perhaps in a couple of year this tech can be further developed, the cost decreases and then can be passed to mainstream and gaming headsets.

 

VR and racing games are a perfect combo, but then racing games are a very limited, very narrow niche market. Recent Steam numbers that were linked to by somebody two or three weeks ago, impressively illustrated that. Racing games are not what defines what goes on in gaming in general. Therefore, to conclude from the pefect match between VR and racing that gaming in general will push VR, is not convicing, and not reasonable.

I still think VR this time has been launched to stay, but maybe it will be more business and industry users who keep it alive and push it forward.

Personally, beside racing I use my VR set much for Google Earth and its streetview. Its magic, and wonderful, I am still thankful for what it offers me, and I use it to plan my longrange day bicycle tours into unknown territories. While I have other games where it sometimes works good and sometime not so good, it is rare to see a game that really depends on it or shows in strength what an improvement VR is - while also being a benchmark game in itself, some genres also really suffer from VR.. Killer applications for VR are rare. And when producers then only walk half the way while embarking on VR, and do only minimums to support it, then see that as a consequence from that people do not follow them and so they stop to develope the VR branch of a title as well, then this is not really helpful. I have seen many such games by now. Also, that projects legitimately were given up by producers for economic reaosns, becasue althoguh offeriong good idea and ciontent they did not get many buyers due to VR set still not being widely in possession by home users.

Its the tricky, difficult starting period of this project "VR". You need long breath and lots of money to hold out. And you have no guarantee that it will pay off.

Maybe the expectations were too optimistic, and maybe I was too optimistic as well, but still I think that VR is not going away again completely. It will develope, technology will advance, prices will fall. But maybe slower than anticipated. And racing - will probably have not much to do with it - too small a niche.

 

That just shows where the VR is now.