only posting as I backed this...and for some reason today (in the last hour or so) it sky-rocketed up over the $250k mark:
Oculus Rift: Step Into the Game by Oculus - Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game)
I want to have a CPC emu running on it - when it arrives (around xmas 2012), I'll hook it up and see what CPC wonders I can run on it! 8)
What?? Is it 1990 again? Didn't these things fail quite a few times in the past?
As for the emulator, you mean an immersive, responsive environment (what games would work like that? Total Eclipse?) or just a big screen?
I read all the reviews and reports about that too. According to the research, the others (in the 90's) failed for two main reasons: Viewing angle being too small, meaning you still felt you were looking from outside, rather than being "in" the scene and movement lag because the device couldn't keep up with the users sudden movements. It's good that they've done their homework and are focusing on resolving these two issues, but even though major improvements have been made in motion sensors and the price of display technolgies has dropped significantly, I still think this project is destined to fail. Maybe it's fitting that they are working together with the makers of Doom(ed), although the project might end up looking more like Duke Nukem Forever... Years of development resulting in a disappointing product.
Bryce.
For me there's a bigger problem involved: once the novelty wears off, it's more like "now what?". It's not truly immersive to have all that headgear on your face, nor do most of us have the space necessary to freely use it. Oh, I wear glasses, too. Good luck with that.
Every time they have produced something of the sort they have said they overcame the "previous" problems, but for me it's a deeply flawed idea...
And what about the CPC emulation then? What benefits?
I'm a big FSX (Microsoft Flight Simulator) fan. It could work really well for something like that. You don't expect to be running around, flapping your arms all over the place (unless you are trying to recreate a scene from Airplane! the movie) and having something attached to your head is quite normal at the controls of a plane. So I'd love if it really materialised, but as I said, I doubt it.
Bryce.
well, it's a SDK development environment that is being offered for the end of the year. Personally, I was interested in the early 90's too - when I worked at Marconi (before they went bust), they had really early prototype's of this sort of thing all powered by 286/386 and I think they were excited about a 486sx2 powering it.... and you are right, it was slow and not very realistic. oh, and it cost an absolute fortune!
zoom forward 20years and we are where we are today. that smartphone you have in your pocket, how many cores does it have, what's the CPU? right, things have moved on... a lot! So, why not? why can't someone have a go and trying this sort of thing again, why the skeptics? If everyone slams an idea because it failed in the past, we'd never have ended up with the iPod etc..etc... (not that I own one of those either).
I'm not that much of a gamer really, so the fact it will play things like Doom is a novelty for me. I've signed up for the SDK development kit as I want to see how it can be pushed in different areas, like can you have movies playing through it - imagine watching a horror movie where you can hear the zombies but when they appear they don't appear directly infront of you, like they do on the TV screen, but they sneak up from your peripheral vision and then are in your face (literally).
As to the CPC, well, a 110degree field of vision blue screen with a flashing basic prompt would be novel. Total Eclipse, that'd be novel, but it doesn't have to be 3D to be run through the headset, could have anything displayed... possibly have new games that tap into the motion sensors or something. Not sure if the CPC would even be able to plug into the headset yet though.
I wouldn't mind the option of plugging it into my Pandora though.... now that would be pretty cool..... anyway, if it does fail, it does. We'll see.
I just thought... hmmm.... I wonder if this headset and OUYA would team up... there's a thought....
The question is... how to connect one of this 3D glasses (which producer ever...) to a CPC? Games like Hive could work...
I'm pretty sure, that no matter what system they use to feed the "goggles" with data, that a CPC couldn't deliver data fast enough.
Bryce.
Why not? When using vector GFX, the CPC has to supply only few bytes. And - who knows - maybe this goggles have a kind of intelligent GFX-chip, so you can give it commands like: draw line, square, circle, etc.
I have a Forte VFX-1 headset but I'm missing the isa interface card and the cable that goes from the card to the headgear.
If anyone knows where to get that pieces you'll make me ultra-happy as I've been waiting a long time to be able to play one of my all time favourite games with it: System Shock!
My mobile only has two cores at a paltry 1.73GHz. What a shame!
But, anyhow, if you re-read what I wrote, it's not speed I'm worried about, it's the fact that it's one of those ideas that sounds good on paper but once the novelty wears off you don't touch it again... kind like the "new" 3D TVs.
A huge yellow-on-blue display? Count me in! It would be a fantastic trip, but that's why I differentiated in my first post: you only need monitor glasses to achieve that, not a 3D kit. There's lots more involved, gameplay wise...
Now, assuming Total Eclipse was close to the best the machine could do in terms of 3D, if you go and play an immersive 360 game at such a framerate I guarantee it's going to be a bad experience.
Overall, I do see the need to run around and flap your hands reenacting Airplane! for the full effect. However, I don't see how you're going to deal with the disconnect between what you see and where you step. Once I went into those huge balls they have, wearing such a mask and holding a gun. It was fun for a few minutes, but a very frustrating experience. And it would have been shitty if I was motionless/static.
Very interesting news:[/size]On Fabien Sanglard's blog ...http://fabiensanglard.net/vr_headset/index.php (http://fabiensanglard.net/vr_headset/index.php)
He has built an homebrew VR with the same chipset that will be used on OculusRift and has modified Quake to use it.... when I get back to the UK I just might give it a go....