Half Life Alyx should have been VR's big moment.

@jeezers: like I said I really doubt you tried vr properly, a pull key chain to the ceiling is a small price to pay to have access to other worlds, and this in your living room.

besides you just attach the pull key chain with a strap to the ceiling, I attached it to a lamp, it doesn't need to be able to carry much weight.

the psvr has problems yes, but the pcvr doesn't have that. Not all headsets requir proper lighting as well, my cv1 works perfect in the dark.

it needs some research yes but it is an adventure it is new tech. I made a pc for the first 3d accelerated games in the nineties as well, that wasn't easy either.

@commander said:

@jeezers:

@subspecies said:

@goldenelementxl said:

@subspecies: I had a PSVR but sold it after I couldn’t solve or settle for the tracking/drifting issues. And it’s a shame because I adored RIGS. (I think I’m the only person on the planet that loved that game). Once EVE Valkyrie went multiplat, I was gone. With the PSVR I would start facing the TV, but 15 minutes later would be facing 45-60 degrees in either direction, losing tracking with the camera.

Lol, yeah. PSVR can be a bit finicky, to say the least. I've found the perfect setup in my living room, but it did take some tweaking (no reflective surfaces, perfect angle, etc. etc.). Never got into RIGS, but it was definitely an interesting game, while it lasted. Same with EVE. No Man's Sky is my jam, along with Skyrim. I don't know what to tell you about the drifting issue, other than experimentation eventually solves it. I literally have no drift anymore. There are several things I do to prevent it, though. One is to ALWAYS reboot before every session. Wearing dark clothing with all of the lights off helps a ton, too.

@virusvaccine21 said:

Vr will happen, I just don't think it's now or even this generation. I'm a massive Half-Life fan, but I don't think Alyx is the game that will push the hardware for mainstream appeal.

I think perhaps when we see a system that fully adopts VR and makes it seamless then it'll achieve its goal. Nintendo, you listening?

vr has already happened, you just haven't experienced how it works properly, subspecies knows how it works and is even willing to put up with the psvr for it, which isn't all too bad and it's accessible.

but it is not easy to make it work all properly, i went through different stages in my vr adventure, I started with the oculus dk2, which also has one camera and that means tracking issues and actually a lot worse than the psvr since it had virtually no support, and no controllers, I got my hands on a razer hydra, which made a couple of games a bit more accessible, but once they put that rift cv1 on sale I bit the bullet.

the advantage was that i had experience with teh setup already, and this is pretty much how i set it up

now once you get this going, you are in a virtual world with perfect freedom of movement. and it's the easiest setup, you only need one place where to hook up your pull key chain , some extension cables and you're good to go.

The fact that halflife alyx passed by so many people is quite simple, vr is expensive, if you have to start from scratch, you need a 1440p pc as a bare minimum, a headset, and also a bit of room like 7 by 7 feet.

You're looking at a lot of money from the start, the psvr is really very good in this regard, but it has a lot of problems, subspecies can look through it because it's great tech, but it isn't a flawless experience like on pc.

and then you also have the anti teleporters, which try to push everyone in space sickness training, and that is not needed either, if you got the average joe that tries vr without teleport, and he is susceptible to motion sickness, he's not coming back.

I've had a tone of fun with PSVR, true, but I'm definitely looking to go PCVR soon (still going to get a PS5/PSVR2 though, for exclusives and such). When the global situation at present clears up (hopefully soon), I'm looking at getting a Rift S + high-end PC. Since you seem to know quite a bit about PCs in general, would it be cool if I run my planned build by you to see what you think? I'm just learning about the PC game; a friend recently helped me with a list for a VR-ready rig.

Btw, careful with those key chain rings. Over time they can wreak havoc on the integrity of cords with the cumulative pull of gravity.

@subspecies: what do you mean they can wreak havoc with the cumulative pull of gravity. That's not the way my setup works, my vr cable goes through a ring attached to it, but i softened up that ring with tape, it also only applies force when i move around a lot and i hardly ever do that since i use a mat in the middle, i don't really use roomscale to the poitn i go walking around.

I am really curious about the psvr2, it might be a big boost for vr in general since console vr is way more accessible

@subspecies: oh yeah you can send me your build, no worries, it's not that hard tho , anything with a gtx 1070 power and above will be enough, and if you don't care for playing fallout , a gtx 970 and above will be enough as well.

Oh I definitely will be playing Fallout 4 VR, lol. That's actually one of the big reasons I want to go PC, among a bunch of other games. Hold on lemme dig up my specs. Post in a minute.

@commander: Okay so this is what I'm going with for now. It is all subject to change, but I feel pretty good about it so far. I've consulted some other folks around here, and have gotten some good advice, which I have taken into account with the build. As I told them, my sweet spot is ~$1000 for the PC alone, plus or minus. As I said before, I'll probably go with a Rift S for the headset option.

So here it is:

@subspecies: ok i'll check some sources, and i know who you are subspecies, a girl that plays psvr skryim on gamespot. But it's been a while , i guess you're a twenty something now. I hope you've outgrown those creepy youtube videos, I still have nightmares about it (just kidding lol)

Lol, nope, still into the creepy stuff. I'm a lifer when it comes to weird interests. Sorry I gave you nightmares (kidding...right?)! I tend to do that to people. ;)

And thx for the PC help, dude. Truly appreciate it.

Well it depends on the weight of the cord, I suppose. Over time the internal elements of cord degrade with the angular downward pull, regardless of tugging. It happened to me with the first model of PSVR. But that original double-split cable was dang heavy, so it could've just been that.

Video from 5 days ago with half a million views.

Unlike that 0 substance clickbait article, purposefully trying to rile people up with the hottest of takes, this fellow actually had a nuanced opinion that doesn't rely on setting the dial to 11 to keep a website going.

What we're getting here is sour grapes from people who berated the game prior to launch latching on to any shit they can, namely, low hanging fruit.

well that's one nasty setup you have there lol, the rx 5700 xt simply murders the gtx 1070. Don't even have too look at that cpu since i see it beating the 7700k, the motherboard is more than decent, all good brands as well.

the psu is bronze certified and tom's hardware calls it reliable

however xfx seemed to have made a mistake with the cooling since i see a lot of videos complaining about it, and a lot of complaints overall, it has been a while i've analyzed gpu cards, but 'do not buy' from respectable hardware reviewers is not a good sign

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3518-xfx-rx-5700-xt-thicc-ii-ultra-review-benchmark

however when i look at later reviews they seem to have ironed out problems, probably amd things. But to be on the safe side, and you're not really into all this stuff I would really advise you to buy an nvidia card, like the rtx 2060 or rtx 2060 super, and maybe not xfx as well, it's not a bad brand but it's not a top brand either, and since they screwed up lately i would pick something else, msi, evga, asus, gigabyte or something like that.

nvidia is also a lot faster with software support for drivers as well. If you don't want to run into problems with a game because amd takes weeks to get the proper drivers, i would suggest to avoid it, there's a reason they are cheaper, nvidia is simply better overall when it comes to compatibility. The ryzen cpu's are good though, I wouldn't worry about that, cpu's don't have driver and compatiblity issues like gpu's have as well.

You're not the first to suggest the nvidia card. I'll definitely take that into account. And thanks again, dude. I'm trying to get a number of opinions from experienced PC gamers, and I think I probably have enough by now. With the xfx exception, I feel pretty good about the whole setup. Now I just have to wait for this whole pandemic thing to end. Not spending any unnecessary money until then.

You're welcome i did edit my post though and mentioned which nvidia card, the rtx 2060 super seems like the best price/perfomance, and if you run into performance problems that extra power on the rx 5700 xt will not save you. it also doesn't seem to support ray tracing properly, i has the ability tho , but that can give issues later on, with amd and their gpu's you never know, it's most power for the price, but like I said they're cheaper for a reason, nvidia just has better support, and with vr there's a lot of tech involved.

I mentioned the gtx 1070 and gtx 970 but the 1070 is almost double as fast as the gtx 970, that's power difference that will save you.

I did catch that edit, thanks. Super helpful. Yeah, since this is an issue I've come across with others, I'm definitely thinking nvidia is the better choice. In fact the rtx 2060 super was specifically suggested to me in another thread....by more than one person. Sounds like the way to go.

well, , i just noticed that the rtx 2060 only has 6 gb of ram, and since you will be running a higher resolutions (even supersampling), that 2 gb of ram can make a difference

if you end up choosing between the rtx 2060 and rx 5700 xt, because of pricing, i would go for that 5700 xt after all, just for that vram. Because when you run out of vram, it will start swapping to ram speeds and that will result in stuttering.

the rtx 2060 super does have 8 gb like the 5700 xt . the normal rtx 2060 has 6 gb.

The game came out during world wide pandemic where most of the world is in lock down where we might end up in a recession worse than anything we have seen in the past 100 years.

... And forbes is posting a article why hasn't SINGLE game during this period sold millions of VR units month after release?...

Forbes. Lol.

They never cease to amaze me.

The interest, past a very specific group of players, simply is not there.

^ that is all you need to know. The nutjobs on here like cup, reduc, golden etc don't represent society, and they think it will catch on, however it won't, it will always be niche like their opinions.

I watched a complete walkthrough of Half Life: Alyx and I loved every minute of it. It really is the first proper AAA game for VR. Thing is, VR headsets are still pretty darn expensive. The decent ones cost as much as a new console and the Valve Index (+ controllers), which offers the best Alyx experience, can even have twice the price of a new console.

As amazing as one game might be, and Alyx really appears to be one, it's still not enough to justify paying $400-700. It's like expecting someone to purchase a new console just to play ONE (AAA) game.

For VR to really take off and become mainstream, a significant price drop of VR headsets is required or at least several quality games must be released.

@Grey_Eyed_Elf: why are you putting the rift s in your signature like it's something special

@johnd13: they are way way cheaper headsets than the valve index lol

Hmm I think it IS a big moment for VR. But I think price and movement will be the two GIANT things that could really bring in the masses. If we figure out a good solution to movement that doesn't make people as sick and doesn't look jank, and we bring down the price of a Vive VR experience to that of a PSVR, it would take off. It would be interstellar.

you don't represent society either, even console gamers don't represent society. ps4 sold like what , 100 million. on a population of 8 billion.

some people like candy crush, some people like vr, some people don't like games at all.

but vr is here too stay, just too many people play it already, this while the price is quite high.

size will the most important one, once a vr/ar headset is the same size as sunglasses there will be no stopping it since it will pretty much be a everyday life tool, it will even push phones out of the way.

maybe even tv's and monitors

@commander: No matter the size of your hard on for VR that alone isn't going to make it replace anything, monitors, tv's, etc aren't goimg anywhere. Lol, that's some funny shit though.

When Hololens and VR merge into one and it's as comfy and unencumbered as wearing sunglasses I'll start getting a bit interested but till then, pfffft. :P

There are more people that own a WiiU or Vita than people that own VR.

Half Life Alyx is a killer app, but it'll hardly change that.

maybe not in our lifetime, and it will certainly push phones out of the way. tv probably as well, what's the point having a tv when you can project it on your retina

wii u and vita don't cost an arm and a leg

Another problem with VR is how it’s played. Room scale is far different than seated VR. The staff at Giant Bomb discussed how they were playing Half Life Alyx seated with a controller. That’s not how you play that game... That would be like using an airplane only on the ground as a grocery getter and saying airplanes suck. Is it VR devs fault that games journalist all live in studio boxes and rely on brining the work unit home to play? And these are the sources we use to judge the legitimacy of new gaming products?

you would be surprised how many misinformation there is with vr, and the price point on top of that makes a lot of people stay away.

but the anti teleporters are the worst, you got one average joe getting sick and he's telling his friends , I watched a presentation from the borderlands devs where they showed a lot of games amongst borderlands 3 and borderlands 2 vr.

When borderlands 2 vr came up, people in the comments said, here comes the motion sickness, so it a is common thing amongst people that vr makes you sick, and it can, severly, but it can be compleltely nullified by using teleport.

Oh goodness. Well, at the very least I should probably give it some more thought. The 5700 xt looks pretty attractive to me based on power and price. The issues in the past with it do concern me; however as you said things seem to have been ironed out for the most part. It's just everyone I talk to is so much more familiar with nvidia. I'll do some more research. I have time before I make my choice. The important thing is for the most part my build is pretty much decided.

The timing for this game just couldn't be worse for Alyx.

Before the pandemic there was a lot of signs of alyx being a big hit. Sales of VR headsets of all kinds had a bit of a spike. People were remarking that they were struggling to find anything suitable. The index sold out and currently has a large backlog. The game did succeed in getting peoples attention and getting more people into VR.

To all intents and purposes valve, oculus and co cannot make them fast enough. I just had a quick look and amazon and the only headsets available are from scalpers charging stupid money.

But momentum is a big big thing in the gaming industry. It's never long before people start to look at other things (with the possible exception of wii sports and the major wii shortage back in the day). If people cant get their mitts on VR hardware to play alyx then they will play something else on a different device.

Just awful timing. Still a great game though.

@commander: Last time I checked all the decent headsets cost around $400. Oculus Quest, Rift S, HTC Vive, etc.

Yeah VR has a lot of problems. First off the hardware of course. Very expensive and (it seems) a lot of hassle. Those things will get worked out eventually though.

More importantly in the long run imo is the restrictions it puts on gamedesign. Just compare Alyx with Doom Eternal. In Alyx you slowly walk or worse, teleport, around. There are few enemies at once and they walk slowly towards you. It’s the opposite of Doom.

In short fast paced action games with lots of movement do not seem to work in VR. Yet I think that intensity is so important to action games. You want to do really cool stuffin games. If you are limiter to the movements you can perform in real life, well that’s a huge minus.

Third person games have been made in VR, but I don’t think there’s a big point in general. That’s another massive issue. Also that you get way more fatigue playing VR.

In short, I was a big believer in VR. But now I’m starting to think it will be a niche thing forever at best.

This is really the wrong way to look at it.

It's simply different design. While in certain aspects it has to be restricted, it also inadvertently opens up aspects.

For example in Halflife 2, the player will simply go into a room, smash a crate, move onto the next room.

In Halflife: Alyx due to the greater interaction the player will inherently spend more time exploring a room, and this became apparent to Valve during development compared to traditional flat-screen design.

Likewise simple head-crab encounters would be a "whatever" thing in Halflife. In Halflife: Alyx they automatically become far more of an engaging experience thanks to requirement of actually aiming, diverting attention with reloading and moving+aiming a far more physically skilled requirement.

I think if you asked most people about tense, they would absolutely put Alyx over Halflife 2 in that regard.

-

More arcade-like action shooters are doable, all Serious Sam games are ported for example as are Quake 1/2 and Doom 1/2.

Problem is, only select people can play at this speed using a headset.

You are correct the gamedesign for VR is not inherently worse or anything. My point is that VR games lean more towards exploration, horror, enviromental interaction, puzzles and those sort of things. But not so much fast paced action with lots of mobility.

If you look at what games do well on flatscreen I’d argue that the latter games do much better than the former. That will be pretty tough for VR to overcome.

well it was bit late yesterday when i was looking into it, and I was too tired to research further but since you weren't planning on buying it right this instant , I just let my thoughts ran freely and typed away. I also thought the rtx super was considerably more expensive

However when I looked into it further now a lot more stuff came into light.

when i look at user reviews of the 5700 xt lot of people complain about crashes because of drivers. Newer reviews seem to be more positive, but the worrying part is that the crashing come immediately from overheating, the max operating temp of the card is also a staggering 110 degree celcius (230 fahrenheit). I already made me wonder why reviewers started complaining about cooling, long time i heard that. No wonder with these temperatures.

It's also the reason why more expensive 5700xt have less complaints, they have better cooling. and indeed they fixed a lot of stuff with the drivers now.

however, The rtx 2060 runs at considerably lower max temps, 89 degrees celcius (192 f), and your case isn't exactly a cooling monster either.

as I see it the cheapest gtx 2060 super on newegg is 400$, the cheapest rx 5700 xt is 380$, 20$ is not worth a fire hazard.

and if you really want to save some money, you can buy a cheaper motherboard, motherboards that are half the price will do the job just fine as well, and they are reliable, you just need to check hardware sources, or i can do it for you. And if you can't find them amongst ryzen cpu's, you can always go intel.

All depends of course on your budget and where you buy, your system looks great, apart from that hot potato

I won't disagree there, when it comes to faster paced games like Doom: Eternal VR is pretty much a no go for a wide audience.

Halflife though was always generally a slower paced FPS with elements typically not standard for the genre. Other genres like tactical shooters are leagues better and Pavlov has more or less show Counterstrike pacing is perfectly doable.

VR suffers from what is generally lazy conversions such as Skyrim, and shitty 45 minute - 2 hour junk that feed into the perception of it being a gimmick.

Think that is starting to turn around even prior to Halflife: Alyx with the likes of Walking Dead: Saints And Sinners or Asgard's Wrath and what not.

But ultimately it's more an issue with the software around it than the any limitations of the hardware itself.

Price wise and practicality is improving as well, and as years tik-by can only continue to improve.

Actually by not owning one I am representing the majority of society, you VR nutjobs just can't see reality.

Sony have been red hot all gen and still only sold 5 million PSVR's and that's after multiple price cuts. face reality that it is niche and will always be that way.

Trust me, that overheating complaint disturbs me. I've come across it so many times; it's pretty much my main concern at this point. I'm just holding out to get a few more opinions from users, but if I can't get past my concern over the issue, I'll probably not get the 5700. At the end of the day, after research, I usually rely on my gut. It rarely ever fails me.

In short, you're absolutely right about 20 bucks not being worth a fire hazard. The thought has crossed my mind, too.

Dude, of course. There are metric tons upon tons of casuals out there, dare I say the majority. You fall into that group.

Those getting deep into VR at the moment are mainly gaming enthusiasts that are interested in new cutting-edge tech, as well as new, revolutionary ways of gaming. VR is both of those things, and it will only get better over time. That doesn't mean giving up on flatscreen gaming; nor does it mean that all gaming enthusiasts like VR. It simply means that hardcore VR fans are anything but casual. Which is something that you, being a casual, would not understand.

that's not much of reason. Many succesfull products are not owned by the majority of society. Most people don't own motorcycles as well.

There's a market for vr and that market is growing, the reason why it is less popular than it should be is because the tech is still in its infancy and because it's pricey.

You mention the psvr but the psvr is a gimped headset, and even with price cuts you will already be looking at 350$ easy with motion controllers, more than 500 if you still need a playstation and that for a product that will limit the experience severly compared to pc headsets.

IF you don't have vr ready pc you're looking at a 1000$ fast. Most people have laptops now and they are not vr ready.

There's a reason why new vr headsets are still made and why sony is going to make a psvr 2. It will become more popular with every generation.

This sums it up nicely. Good job.

"I would not be surprised to see it remain a niche for another decade or two at the very least. The interest, past a very specific group of players, simply is not there."

I've been saying this for quite some time. VR simply does not appeal to enough people for it to push into the mainstream. I think the best example of VR's popularity is exemplified by my local Micro Center. For about a year, they had a large, centrally located VR demo area and multiple shelves dedicated to VR gear. At first there was a line of people waiting to try it. Then interest waned to the point that customers hardly even glanced at it. Some months ago, the VR demo setup was replaced with a traditional multi-monitor racing set-up, and the VR gear was reduced to a single, large shelf. I was in the store about a month ago, and VR has been relegated to a single end-cap near the entrance.

I still say that VR fanboys should consider VR wildly successful if it is adopted by 10% of users across all platforms. Anything more than that is a pipe dream.

It's quite obvious when I mentioned, "it will happen." It focuses on mainstream appeal, which it doesn't have. Its growth is very slow and if you eliminate PS VR sales, it's actually quite mediocre. As it is, it's not going to gain mainstream appeal anytime soon. Everything else you mentioned, don't know why you quoted me, since it has nothing to do with my post.

@virusvaccine21: Fair enough.

well frankly i don't really know what your budget is, but you can get away witha lot less money, I know i said the vram can be an issue, but i have looked a bit further and apparently 4k will never fill in more than 6 gb of vrram, and you're not going to be able to supersample above 4k with most games, apart from games that are graphics wise very weak (like minecraft), even the rtx 2060 super is not strong enough for that.

I know you might be thinking of investing in the future but I always learnt that it is better to buy what you need right now. ray tracing on the newer cards is not going to be used on vr games since it tanks the performance with 50 percent.

so if you can find a deal on gtx 1660 ti or a gtx 1070 you can go for that. the rtx 2060 is a lot cheaper as well, and like I said the cpu you can go cheaper to, of course if you're never going to be able to sell a system (like on the second hand market) then that's another story.

For now my budget is ~$1000. I could increase or decrease that as necessary, but I'd like to stick around that price point (not including a monitor, keyboard, VR headset, etc.)

And honestly I don't need to get the best of the best. I just want a capable rig (okay, a bit more than capable), concerning both all new VR content and traditional flatscreen. It's important for me to not have to upgrade for a good while. If I can get away with something a little cheaper but keep it within my standard, I have no problem with that. Being able to sell isn't so important to me.

where are you going to buy i might make something better than what you have now. 1000$ is a lot of money

also are you building yourself or are you paying for assembly.

I have a friend that can assemble for me. As for where I'm buying, don't know yet.