Official: Oculus Rift pre-orders on Wed, Jan 6th @ 11am EST (8am PST)

[Kaido]

http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/04/oculus-rift-pre-orders-open-this-week-but-theres-still-no-price/

No price yet. Specific details for computer requirements will be announced then as well. You get:

1. Oculus headset
2. Wireless Xbox One controller
3. Lucky's Tale (game)
4. EVE: Valkyrie (game)

It also has support for Xbox-to-Windows game streaming in a VR environment; I'm curious if that means that all Xbox One games will be playable in 3D via PC streaming. I like the HTC Vive better, but they are apparently not shipping until April. I'm considering picking up both units. I don't have any consoles right now other than an old Wii, so I'm not too invested in the PS VR. My buddy has the DK2 & really likes it, so if they get it out earlier, I may snag an Oculus instead.

 

[Red Storm]

No word on price... hmm wonder if it will be more than $350?

 

[Kaido]

No word on price... hmm wonder if it will be more than $350?

Speculation is $500. I hope not, because the developer's kits were only $350. If they make it $199 tho, they are going to be billionaires

 

[moonbogg]

What the hell? The Rift is old news. I thought it has been out for like a year already? Did I miss something? Oh wait, that must have been an early access thing. Was there an early access thing?

 

[jlee]

What the hell? The Rift is old news. I thought it has been out for like a year already? Did I miss something? Oh wait, that must have been an early access thing. Was there an early access thing?

The developer's kit has been out for a while.

 

[ImpulsE69]

These are supposed to be much better than the dev versions.

That being said -- Kaido, not sure what your system specs are, but these things are going to require quite a system.

I'm interested, but I think I may hold out until later since I'm pretty sure I will need an upgrade...

 

[TechBoyJK]

The reason they delayed release was to hit a higher performance benchmark since they had Facebook money and the competition was heating up.

Ideally, we'll be glad we waited and I'm ready for it!

 

[jlee]

These are supposed to be much better than the dev versions.

That being said -- Kaido, not sure what your system specs are, but these things are going to require quite a system.

I'm interested, but I think I may hold out until later since I'm pretty sure I will need an upgrade...

Wiki is saying a 4590k and a GTX 970. I have the GPU (just barely..I'm guessing SLI 970's or a 980 would be ideal), but I would likely need a CPU upgrade (which means motherboard, which means RAM...blah).

 

[ImpulsE69]

Wiki is saying a 4590k and a GTX 970. I have the GPU (just barely..I'm guessing SLI 970's or a 980 would be ideal), but I would likely need a CPU upgrade (which means motherboard, which means RAM...blah).

Wonder if an OC'd 2500k, would be ok then since that can be faster than stock 4590k...I also have a 290x. Considering nothing is peaking this setup as of yet seems overkill to upgrade just for this.

 

[jlee]

Wonder if an OC'd 2500k, would be ok then since that can be faster than stock 4590k...I also have a 290x. Considering nothing is peaking this setup as of yet seems overkill to upgrade just for this.

I can't run everything completely maxed at 4k now...not sure what the resolution will be on the final OR, though.

 

[TechBoyJK]

I can't run everything completely maxed at 4k now...not sure what the resolution will be on the final OR, though.

I think it's going to be close to 1080p per eye

 

[Kaido]

That being said -- Kaido, not sure what your system specs are, but these things are going to require quite a system.

I have a Chromebook :awe:

I pre-ordered a VirZoom VR exercise bike for $250 shipped, which is one of my big motivations for picking up a VR headset: (I hate exercising, maybe tying it into video games will do the trick for me )

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2458088

I'm thinking of going with a Mini-ITX system for portability. I like this compact Corsair case with a handle a lot, and hopefully the bright yellow color would prevent people from stepping on it when it's tethered to the gaming bike:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139052

Couple that with a good power supply, a Gigabyte G1 mini-ITX board, 3.4ghz i7-6700 CPU, 32GB RAM, 512GB Samsung 950, and a 6GB eVGA 980Ti (it will fit the case, as it's 267mm & the Corsair box takes up to a 290mm GPU). Might as well throw Windows 10 on there, since the Rift has native support for it. At least with the VR bike & the HTC Vive, I have like 4 months to save up for the rig, so we'll see when the Oculus is actually going to be released. I'm not aware of any major GPU changes coming up soon & Skylake just came out, so this beast should last a pretty good while for the VR setup I think.

 

[jlee]

I have a Chromebook :awe:

I pre-ordered a VirZoom VR exercise bike for $250 shipped, which is one of my big motivations for picking up a VR headset: (I hate exercising, maybe tying it into video games will do the trick for me )

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2458088

I'm thinking of going with a Mini-ITX system for portability. I like this compact Corsair case with a handle a lot, and hopefully the bright yellow color would prevent people from stepping on it when it's tethered to the gaming bike:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139052

Couple that with a good power supply, a Gigabyte G1 mini-ITX board, 3.4ghz i7-6700 CPU, 32GB RAM, 512GB Samsung 950, and a 6GB eVGA 980Ti (it will fit the case, as it's 267mm & the Corsair box takes up to a 290mm GPU). Might as well throw Windows 10 on there, since the Rift has native support for it. At least with the VR bike & the HTC Vive, I have like 4 months to save up for the rig, so we'll see when the Oculus is actually going to be released. I'm not aware of any major GPU changes coming up soon & Skylake just came out, so this beast should last a pretty good while for the VR setup I think.

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/2...specifics-up-to-16gb-of-vram-1tb-of-bandwidth

 

[Kaido]

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/2...specifics-up-to-16gb-of-vram-1tb-of-bandwidth

Yeah, I saw that, not 100% sure what to make of it. For starters, they say there will be a huge jump in bandwidth:

The other tidbit coming out of GTC Japan is that Nvidia will target 1TB/s of total bandwidth. That’s a huge bandwidth increase — 2x what Fury X offers — and again, it’s a meteoric increase in a short time. Both AMD and Nvidia are claiming that HBM2 and 14/16nm process technology will give them a 2x performance per watt improvement.

But...actual VRAM usage being what it is:

We would be surprised, however, if Nvidia pushes that 16GB stack below its top-end consumer card. In our examination of 4GB VRAM limits earlier this year, we found that the vast majority of games do not stress a 4GB VRAM buffer. Of the handful of titles that do use more than 4GB, none were found to exceed the 6GB limit on the GTX 980 Ti while maintaining anything approaching a playable frame rate. Consumers simply don’t have much to worry about on this front.

However:

Neither AMD nor Nvidia have announced a launch date, but we anticipate seeing hardware from both in late Q1 / early Q2 of 2016.

So it sounds like everything in my config is safe, except maybe for the GPU. The Vive is supposed to be out around the start of Q2, so that might coincide nicely.

 

[Subyman]

I'm ready. I bought the DK1 when it first came out and knew the moment I put it on and tried the Tuscan demo that I'm on board. I stopped following all the progress after that because I wanted to jump in with a finished product. I know there is now a lot of competition in the field, but Oculus will probably be the best. Anything steam touches seems to be half-assed these days (especially hardware.) I don't trust them to have the attention span to properly support their VR platform. Oculus only does VR, so they will give it their all.

Can't wait to see pricing and such! I don't need the controller, so it'd be nice if I could only buy the headset.

 

[gorobei]

I'm ready. I bought the DK1 when it first came out and knew the moment I put it on and tried the Tuscan demo that I'm on board. I stopped following all the progress after that because I wanted to jump in with a finished product. I know there is now a lot of competition in the field, but Oculus will probably be the best. Anything steam touches seems to be half-assed these days (especially hardware.) I don't trust them to have the attention span to properly support their VR platform. Oculus only does VR, so they will give it their all.

Can't wait to see pricing and such! I don't need the controller, so it'd be nice if I could only buy the headset.

valve/htc did push back vive for a supposed performance increase, but yeah i understand your hesitation.

the main problem is the oculus constellation system is so underpowered. the headset and 2 touch controllers requires a second camera and even more processing power.

vive lighthouse scales way better. the only potential future feature that might come out of constellation is being able to put passive markers on your keyboard or beverage cup and have a target show up in game. but rift requires active power so there is no possibility in this gen.

 

[TechBoyJK]

i expect this to be an ongoing competition.

We'll get the OR... and it'll be awesome but someone will make something that deals with the OR shortfalls... then OR will release updated tech to address it.. vice versa.

somebody just needs to open the gate and get the party started.

 

[HeXen]

Needs some AAA games but choice for me will wait until I can see which VR will have the most developer support if any at all. OR's Valkerie reminds me of Atari's Predator vs Alien...that one cool looking game which turns out to be basically it as far as worthiness goes. Sure it has a diver simulator and some others with DK support but I haven't' seen any major developers comment much on the platforms future.
As a niche gaming peripheral limited in use to just whatever specific VR games gets made and at any price over $300, this is going to be like getting consumers to invest in a SegaCD back in the day.
I honestly don't think sales throughout the year will be beyond the niche to attract enough support to break the sales ice. They would probably need some COD, Farcry...etc support before I would feel safe enough to consider it as a serious gaming device.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Honestly I don't give two craps about AAA support. As long as there is decent support on all fronts, I can live w/o AAA support since the majority of AAA these days is short sighted and has no imagination. They are looking for maximum sales so they are not going to do anything that is ground up VR unless there's 5-10 million of these things on a platform.

This is a new medium and should be treated as such. No shoehorning it into the next CoD clone, and now that Far Cry feels like just another texture change in each iteration, I probably don't care about that either..(although I will admit, I think VR in Alien Isolation or the like would be absolutely frightening). 3rd person games such as Witcher 3, Batman, etc will not really get much out of VR.

Games such as Don't Stop Talking or Explode are a good step - or even such things as Incredible Machine or Roller Coaster Tycoon and/or Theme Park design. Yes, I am looking forward to the uncommon much more than trying the next GTA in it.

 

[jlee]

Honestly I don't give two craps about AAA support. As long as there is decent support on all fronts, I can live w/o AAA support since the majority of AAA these days is short sighted and has no imagination. They are looking for maximum sales so they are not going to do anything that is ground up VR unless there's 5-10 million of these things on a platform.

This is a new medium and should be treated as such. No shoehorning it into the next CoD clone, and now that Far Cry feels like just another texture change in each iteration, I probably don't care about that either..(although I will admit, I think VR in Alien Isolation or the like would be absolutely frightening). 3rd person games such as Witcher 3, Batman, etc will not really get much out of VR.

Games such as Don't Stop Talking or Explode are a good step - or even such things as Incredible Machine or Roller Coaster Tycoon and/or Theme Park design. Yes, I am looking forward to the uncommon much more than trying the next GTA in it.

Racing and flight simulators would be fun, too.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Racing and flight simulators would be fun, too.

Not really my thing, but agreed. First person in general will be pretty cool I would hope (and yes, that includes FPS).

 

[Red Storm]

VR will go along quite nicely with space sims. Excited to try the Rift with Elite Dangerous!

 

[Kaido]

Aftermarket controllers are growing in number. In addition to the upcoming VirZoom exercise bike controller, the Virtuix Omni treadmill from Kickstarter back from like 2013 just started shipping:

http://www.xconomy.com/texas/2016/0...irst-units-plans-possible-crowdfunding-round/

They've shipped 50 units so far, with a backlog of more than 5,000 units that they will be shipping out to over the next few months, and have raised nearly $10 million in funding. Downside is that it costs a whopping $700. Granted, for the majority of people, I'd imagine that this will be a heck of a lot more useful than a $700 fitness treadmill because it will actually be used for something more than a clothes hanger, haha. I am somewhat interesting in picking this up, but I'll wait for reviews due to the expense, especially because I don't know how well it really functions as an exercise machine. With the VirZoom, I know I'll be getting a real cardio workout because it's an actual exercise bike that just happens to have VR gaming sensors built-in.

There's also a really interesting device called 3D Rudder, which is a pressure-sensitive foot controller for VR gaming (meant to be used sitting down). Seems like your feet would get tired being that close together for a long period of time, but I guess we'll see how it plays out! $175 pre-order, March ship date:

http://www.gizmag.com/3drudder-foot-controller-vr/41155/

Leap has begun adding more VR support to their motion controller. My buddy has one that I've played with it in a non-VR environment & it works awesome (Cut the Rope is crazy with just yours hands!). They're pushing the angle that you can see your fingers, hands, and arms in VR:

https://www.leapmotion.com/product/vr

They have a kit that attaches the Leap Motion controller to headsets & a graphic that shows that the FOV is even wider than the Oculus DK2:

 

[Red Storm]

Being able to see your hands in VR and use them to interact with the virtual world is the current major obstacle for VR IMHO.

 

[kn51]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2458088

I'm thinking of going with a Mini-ITX system for portability. I like this compact Corsair case with a handle a lot, and hopefully the bright yellow color would prevent people from stepping on it when it's tethered to the gaming bike:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139052

Couple that with a good power supply, a Gigabyte G1 mini-ITX board, 3.4ghz i7-6700 CPU, 32GB RAM, 512GB Samsung 950, and a 6GB eVGA 980Ti (it will fit the case, as it's 267mm & the Corsair box takes up to a 290mm GPU). Might as well throw Windows 10 on there, since the Rift has native support for it. At least with the VR bike & the HTC Vive, I have like 4 months to save up for the rig, so we'll see when the Oculus is actually going to be released. I'm not aware of any major GPU changes coming up soon & Skylake just came out, so this beast should last a pretty good while for the VR setup I think.

Just wanted to say thanks for laying out my next system for me...will be a different case but I like that ITX build you just wrote out.