I know, I know, I said I'd never get one, it's a gimmick and I suffer from pretty bad acrophobia where I almost threw their VR headset off when the floor
fell away in front of me.

Well it was free from work - have to return it if I change jobs though.

The setup and demo was pretty fine, there was none of that, and
you get a little shooter in it which was fun. Using a gun is so much
better than a mouse although there's a bit of jitter that makes it
slightly hard to be dead accurate. That and the 3d nature makes it
slightly hard to tell exactly how the gun is aimed. Though I've not
fired a real gun, I have used bows, and would close one eye to line up
where I'm shooting. Though I wasn't very good, so maybe that's
the wrong way to do it. Anyway telling which way the gun is actually
pointing is a little difficult.

I played beat saber demo, which was nice, and bought the 'full game'
which was much harder than the demo.

I also bought Gorn as it looked cool, wow was that a workout! A little
silly and cartoony, but good hand to hand combat. It does have bows,
but they didn't seem to be very useful.

I noticed my face was getting really hot quickly, and it was giving me a
headache after about a hour of playing around with it. I stopped and
gave it awhile and came back late and played another hour, but the
headache lingered.

One of the demos I noticed where you move around with the thumb sticks
gave me a little nausea but I got past it fine.

The kids played it a lot, they both love it. I watch them play a bit
streaming to my phone.

So today I try it again and the headache comes right back almost
immediately, I think because it's pressing on my forehead right above my
eyebrows. It's not a real bad headache, so I try to power through
but something's wrong with the floor, I keep resetting it but the
game doesn't fix it, then I notice there's no floor in the game
immediately in front of me and my acrophobia kicks in hard and I have
to take them off. I decide awhile later to go back to Gorn instead as
the floor is more solid. There I'm floating about 3 feet off the
ground. I keep resetting the floor and it does nothing, but exiting and
reopening the game fixes it finally. Then after playing a little
with no warning I suddenly get extremely nauseous and have to take off
the goggles and run to the bathroom. I don't hurl but it's close.

I also tried hooking it up to my computer, but I need a new computer,
there's no usb-c ports and the usb 3.0 ports it says aren't fast
enough and I get a slide show on the headset.

Overall impressions: It's cool, there's potential, but the games
feel more like toys or tech demos so far. I'm not sure I can
overcome the nausea, headaches and fear of heights, but at least
it's obvious not all games have drop-offs.

- Justisaur

Am 07.12.21 um 03:37 schrieb Justisaur:
> I also tried hooking it up to my computer, but I need a new computer,
> there's no usb-c ports and the usb 3.0 ports it says aren't fast
> enough and I get a slide show on the headset.

You also can connect it to the computer with a wireless connection if
you have a 5ghz network nearby. The experience that way if your wifi
connection is close, is very good.

On 07/12/2021 02:37, Justisaur wrote:
> Overall impressions: It's cool, there's potential, but the games
> feel more like toys or tech demos so far. I'm not sure I can
> overcome the nausea, headaches and fear of heights, but at least
> it's obvious not all games have drop-offs.
>

One of the factors that puts me off VR is that I suffer from height
vertigo. Any game that puts me in a situation that triggers that is not
going to be my idea of fun.

>So today I try it again and the headache comes right back almost
>immediately, I think because it's pressing on my forehead right above my
>eyebrows. It's not a real bad headache, so I try to power through

You likely need a better headstrap to redistribute weight properly:
https://www.androidcentral.com/best-oculus-quest-2-head-strap-elite-strap-alternatives
I got the vive audiostrap for my old Vive headset, and it was a massive
improvement in comfort and stability.

These other issues sound like complaints from having an old slowass
computer, not the headset.

rms

On Tuesday, December 7, 2021 at 6:06:43 AM UTC-8, rms wrote:
> >So today I try it again and the headache comes right back almost
> >immediately, I think because it's pressing on my forehead right above my
> >eyebrows. It's not a real bad headache, so I try to power through
> You likely need a better headstrap to redistribute weight properly:
> https://www.androidcentral.com/best-oculus-quest-2-head-strap-elite-strap-alternatives
> I got the vive audiostrap for my old Vive headset, and it was a massive
> improvement in comfort and stability.
>
> These other issues sound like complaints from having an old slowass
> computer, not the headset.

I didn't actually play any games from my computer, I just hooked it up
to see if I could, but the menu was a slide-show so I disconnected right away
The Quest 2 is self contained, all the games I played are run from it.
It's got some bugs with the floor height in games, which seems are fixed by
rebooting, but other than that it's pretty solid.

I'll see about the headstrap, thanks.

- Justisaur

On Mon, 6 Dec 2021 18:37:50 -0800 (PST), Justisaur
<justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:

>I know, I know, I said I'd never get one, it's a gimmick and I
>suffer from pretty bad acrophobia where I almost threw their
>VR headset off when the floor fell away in front of me.

I still can't justify buying a VR headset for myself. Certainly I'd
never buy a modern Occulus.

Cost is, of course, a significant objection; the cheapest (barring the
extreme low-end crap devices) are about $300, and that usually is just
for the headsets. Wireless access, full-body motion tracking and/or
multiple handsets just add to the cost. Throw in the need for
beefier-than-usual computer hardware and it starts getting costly.
Plus, those cheap ones are Occulus-branded; I avoid anything
associated with Facebook.

Especially since the whole thing still largely smells of gimmickry.
Yeah, the experience is neat... but it really never sold itself as
something you would use every day. The headsets still aren't
comfortable enough for long-term use, nor anything you'd really want
to use except where you are ensured of some privacy because it
entirely cuts you off from the rest of the world. They're good for a
handful of games, and maybe a few applications. For everything else
you're still going to be using your monitor. Add in compatibility and
longevity issues and its value decreases even further.

And, frankly, most games don't work that well in VR. Oh sure, visually
they're great, but any 'real' VR games are still clumsy. Interfacing
with things in game is always more burdensome in VR than it is with
'classic' game controls. As a novelty, it's interesting but over the
long term? I'm sticking with mouse-n-keyboard, thanks.

Of course, maybe I'm a little sore. The 3D VR effects never worked
quite well for me; it's the curse of old eyes. I never really got a
that feeling of complete immersion others say they experience; for me,
it was always a slightly fuzzy, lower-res and waaaaay too in-your-face
screen that uncomfortably blocked out my peripheral vision that let me
know what was going on in the real world. It just wasn't fun or
convincing for me.

If I got one for free, it's true I wouldn't turn my nose up at it
(well, unless it's Occulus. Fuck off, Facebook). But I don't expect
that - after a month or so of use - it would start collecting dust
quite quickly.

And I don't think I'm the only one. The Occulus Rift was first
released 9 years ago, and the hype for VR has been on full-blast since
then. Only 1/6 of Steam own a headset, and 2/3rds of those don't use
it regularly. It's hardly the world-changer it was promised.

It is a nifty gimmick, though.

On Mon, 6 Dec 2021 18:37:50 -0800 (PST), in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Justisaur wrote:

>Overall impressions: It's cool, there's potential, but the games
>feel more like toys or tech demos so far. I'm not sure I can
>overcome the nausea, headaches and fear of heights, but at least
>it's obvious not all games have drop-offs.
>
Let us know how things are going in the "Metaverse." I'm, frankly, too
sick of the bleeding edge to ever bother going there.

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten

On 12/8/2021 4:34 PM, Zaghadka wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Dec 2021 18:37:50 -0800 (PST), in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
> Justisaur wrote:
>
>> Overall impressions: It's cool, there's potential, but the games
>> feel more like toys or tech demos so far. I'm not sure I can
>> overcome the nausea, headaches and fear of heights, but at least
>> it's obvious not all games have drop-offs.
>>
> Let us know how things are going in the "Metaverse." I'm, frankly, too
> sick of the bleeding edge to ever bother going there.
>
Too much blood all over the place, plays hell on the dry cleaning bills.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On Mon, 6 Dec 2021 18:37:50 -0800 (PST), Justisaur
<justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:

>I know, I know, I said I'd never get one, it's a gimmick and I suffer from pretty bad acrophobia where I almost threw their VR headset off when the floor
>fell away in front of me.
>
>Well it was free from work - have to return it if I change jobs though.
>
>The setup and demo was pretty fine, there was none of that, and
>you get a little shooter in it which was fun. Using a gun is so much
>better than a mouse although there's a bit of jitter that makes it
>slightly hard to be dead accurate. That and the 3d nature makes it
>slightly hard to tell exactly how the gun is aimed. Though I've not
>fired a real gun, I have used bows, and would close one eye to line up
>where I'm shooting. Though I wasn't very good, so maybe that's
>the wrong way to do it. Anyway telling which way the gun is actually
>pointing is a little difficult.
>
>I played beat saber demo, which was nice, and bought the 'full game'
>which was much harder than the demo.
>
>I also bought Gorn as it looked cool, wow was that a workout! A little
>silly and cartoony, but good hand to hand combat. It does have bows,
>but they didn't seem to be very useful.
>
>I noticed my face was getting really hot quickly, and it was giving me a
>headache after about a hour of playing around with it. I stopped and
>gave it awhile and came back late and played another hour, but the
>headache lingered.
>
>One of the demos I noticed where you move around with the thumb sticks
>gave me a little nausea but I got past it fine.
>
>The kids played it a lot, they both love it. I watch them play a bit
>streaming to my phone.
>
>So today I try it again and the headache comes right back almost
>immediately, I think because it's pressing on my forehead right above my
>eyebrows. It's not a real bad headache, so I try to power through
>but something's wrong with the floor, I keep resetting it but the
>game doesn't fix it, then I notice there's no floor in the game
>immediately in front of me and my acrophobia kicks in hard and I have
>to take them off. I decide awhile later to go back to Gorn instead as
>the floor is more solid. There I'm floating about 3 feet off the
>ground. I keep resetting the floor and it does nothing, but exiting and
>reopening the game fixes it finally. Then after playing a little
>with no warning I suddenly get extremely nauseous and have to take off
>the goggles and run to the bathroom. I don't hurl but it's close.
>
>I also tried hooking it up to my computer, but I need a new computer,
>there's no usb-c ports and the usb 3.0 ports it says aren't fast
>enough and I get a slide show on the headset.
>
>Overall impressions: It's cool, there's potential, but the games
>feel more like toys or tech demos so far. I'm not sure I can
>overcome the nausea, headaches and fear of heights, but at least
>it's obvious not all games have drop-offs.
>
>- Justisaur

*---

There is no way I could handle that with my balance issues! I tripped
and fell last week and now I have another black eye. I was playing
catch with a neighbor last summer and I didn't see the ball coming so
I got a black eye from that :-)

-pw

On Wednesday, December 8, 2021 at 8:03:19 PM UTC-8, PW wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Dec 2021 18:37:50 -0800 (PST), Justisaur
> <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

> *---
>
> There is no way I could handle that with my balance issues! I tripped
> and fell last week and now I have another black eye. I was playing
> catch with a neighbor last summer and I didn't see the ball coming so
> I got a black eye from that :-)

You can play sitting down and use the thumbstick to turn. Turning with
the thumbstick is a bit disconcerting though, it doesn't turn smoothly,
it jumps a bit to one side. I suppose it's better for nausea than turning
with the thumbstick more smoothly would.

I tried playing Beat Saber sitting down after reading that may help for
people with acrophobia, you don't turn in that game anyway, but it
lessened the experience. It helped some with the acrophobia but not
enough.

I also found you can force change the environment and there's a couple
that don't have a gaping hole a foot in front of you which removed
the issue with acrophobia in that game.

- Justisaur

On Monday, December 6, 2021 at 11:32:58 PM UTC-8, Werner P. wrote:
> Am 07.12.21 um 03:37 schrieb Justisaur:
> > I also tried hooking it up to my computer, but I need a new computer,
> > there's no usb-c ports and the usb 3.0 ports it says aren't fast
> > enough and I get a slide show on the headset.

> You also can connect it to the computer with a wireless connection if
> you have a 5ghz network nearby. The experience that way if your wifi
> connection is close, is very good.

Thanks for that tip. I tried that and it looked much more stable, at least
when the kids were at school, once they were home and everyone was
on wifi it started getting unstable again.

I wasn't able to figure out how to get a game from Steam to actually
run on it yet. I didn't have any VR games on steam anyway, but
downloaded Google Earth VR - I could hear the sound, but that was
it. Of course it wanted to do a huge update and I gave up before
it finished. That was probably a poor choice anyway. I downloaded
another free game and I'll work on getting it to show today.

- Justisaur

>> You also can connect it to the computer with a wireless connection if
>> you have a 5ghz network nearby. The experience that way if your wifi
>> connection is close, is very good.
>Thanks for that tip. I tried that and it looked much more stable

I believe Quest2 supports Wifi6, which has additional speed/latency
improvements, if you're looking to upgrade the wireless router. There's
also a new flavor, Wifi6E, even faster.

rms

On Thursday, December 9, 2021 at 10:11:20 AM UTC-8, rms wrote:
> >> You also can connect it to the computer with a wireless connection if
> >> you have a 5ghz network nearby. The experience that way if your wifi
> >> connection is close, is very good.
> >Thanks for that tip. I tried that and it looked much more stable
> I believe Quest2 supports Wifi6, which has additional speed/latency
> improvements, if you're looking to upgrade the wireless router. There's
> also a new flavor, Wifi6E, even faster.

I got around to trying a free game I downloaded and it was a slide show
still, it displays on the computer too what it's showing and was a slide
show there so looks like the computer is still the problem. So I'll only
be able to play off the Oculus itself. At least that works well, but it seems
the games are much more limited - No Fallout 4 VR etc.

- Justisaur

>You can play sitting down and use the thumbstick to turn. Turning with
>the thumbstick is a bit disconcerting though, it doesn't turn smoothly,

I prefer playing vr games seated, and that's how I played the entirety of
Halflife Alyx and Senua's Sacrifice Hellblade VR, for example.
Smooth turning is great if you have gotten past the acclimation phase of vr,
but again, is dependent on having a fast enough computer to maintain a high
framerate. High framerate is paramount to avoiding nausea and other nagging
issues, which is what the stepped turning and teleporting options are there
for: they make lower framerate play possible.

rms

On Tuesday, December 7, 2021 at 6:37:29 AM UTC-8, Justisaur wrote:
> On Tuesday, December 7, 2021 at 6:06:43 AM UTC-8, rms wrote:
> > >So today I try it again and the headache comes right back almost
> > >immediately, I think because it's pressing on my forehead right above my
> > >eyebrows. It's not a real bad headache, so I try to power through
> > You likely need a better headstrap to redistribute weight properly:
> > https://www.androidcentral.com/best-oculus-quest-2-head-strap-elite-strap-alternatives
> > I got the vive audiostrap for my old Vive headset, and it was a massive
> > improvement in comfort and stability.
> >
> > These other issues sound like complaints from having an old slowass
> > computer, not the headset.
> I didn't actually play any games from my computer, I just hooked it up
> to see if I could, but the menu was a slide-show so I disconnected right away
> The Quest 2 is self contained, all the games I played are run from it.
> It's got some bugs with the floor height in games, which seems are fixed by
> rebooting, but other than that it's pretty solid.
>
> I'll see about the headstrap, thanks.
>
> - Justisaur

So been playing with the head-strap for awhile, and it's helped a little, but as
many reviews said, it loosens itself if you're moving your head around much.

My son doesn't like it and hasn't been playing much since I got it either.

I saw there's a ballast/extended battery I'm thinking of getting, as it mostly
seems to be slipping forward/down in front.
* And update on games after a couple weeks, I'm still getting nauseous and
height issues in anything but Beat Saber. I'm sad I can't play online mode
in Beat Saber as there's no floor in front of you there.

I've tried a few demos and bought Blade and Sorcery, but that didn't interest
me after a couple attempts.

So at this point I'm mainly seeing it as a fun way to exercise with Beat Saber.
That's pretty good for the price of admission really. But it's not much of
a game system, I still think it's more a toy with tech demos other than that.

If computer prices come down, or scalpers aren't seeing so much profit,
and I can get an upgraded computer we'll see how it goes with a computer,
though I doubt I'm going to want to play regular games on it much if at all.

- Justisaur