VR discussion: Oculus Rift, Vive, Morpheus and more! (1 Viewer)

[Tino]

it IS a widespread problem. Most people playing those specific games are experiencing it. Have you tried any of the affected games Morgan?

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Yes, and I have experienced it myself. However, I have been able to pinpoint exactly why it was happening and then, well, not do the thing that was making it happen. It's unfortunate that there's a certain barrier for entry into VR, such as having to understand how the tech works in order to not "break" it, but that's the case at the moment.

If anyone is having issues with the headset floating, then either your setup is off, your playing environment is off, or something is blocking the headset during gameplay. The chances of having a "broken" headset are extremely low.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

If anyone is having issues with the headset floating, then either your setup is off, your playing environment is off, or something is blocking the headset during gameplay. The chances of having a "broken" headset are extremely low.

That's an extremely arrogant statement to make. I fail to see how your being able to remedy your issues qualifies you to be an authority on what is going on with everyone elses experience.

Would you mind sharing what you determined your issue to be and how you solved it?

I have very carefully controlled lighting in my theater that is always the same. I've gone through every calibration in the setup menus under 'Devices->Playstation VR'. I've done the bit where you hold the headset at all angles, and have the camera measure the distances between your eyes.

My lighting and seating position and setup are identical every time I play. Sometimes it works great for extended periods of time without drifting, sometimes it's out of control. Sometimes it goes back and forth. How do you know it's a setup issue when my setup doesn't change, and the problem isn't consistent?

 

[Tino]

I'd also like to know what game you were playing, exactly why it was happening and how exactly you resolved it.

Exactly. [emoji848]

 

[Morgan Jolley]

The games I had floatiness on were Job Simulator, Batman, and the Robot Rescue game in VR Worlds. The issues were me/headset going too close to the edge of the camera's field of view, putting the move controller in front of my face and blocking at least one of the LEDs on the headset, and light from an exterior door window interfering with the camera. I fixed the camera FOV issue by just limiting my movement. I fixed the headset-blocking issue by being more aware of the move controllers and trying to change the height of the camera slightly. I fixed the outside light issue by moving to another spot. (For this specific issue, I moved to a spot where I had much more room and just had to rotate my camera a little bit to the side. Since I work during the day and the sun has been setting earlier, it hasn't been much of a problem.)

My statement was based on the many, many, many, many comments I've seen on reddit about how much people love the PS VR tracking and how they've had zero or extremely few issues with it, rather than things like the guys on Giant Bomb (who completely bumbled their way through the live streams, they came off like idiots). I'm sorry if it came off as arrogant, but the actual statistical chance of you having bought a defective piece of electronics is extremely low. It has to be some degree of setup or user error. Now, as to whether or not it is acceptable to release a mass-market device that is so easily "defeated" by these things is another question entirely.

I would recommend, if you can, try turning the lights in your HT off entirely and try playing a game or two where all you do is sit in place and not use the Move controllers, like Thumper. See if you still have jitter or drift when there are no other light sources and no way to possibly block the headset. I also read about one case where a guy realized the LEDs on his headset were reflecting light off the white walls of his living room, so maybe there is a reflection coming from something else?

 

[Jeff Cooper]

None of the issues you list apply to me. 100% of my playtime has been seated in one spot with absolutely nothing blocking the lights. The few times that I used the move controllers, they worked perfectly. My walls are painted matte midnight blue, so there is no reflection coming off of them. There is only one window and it is covered in a non reflective blackout curtain. My theater has controlled lighting that is not shining in the camera, and I have tried it both with the lights on and off.

My only issue has been with the leftwards drift. I don't have jitter or pulsing like the Giant Bomb guys. For a first version of a piece of launch hardware, I would say that the chance of some bug or defect is actually quite high, not extremely low as you suggest. Also the amount of people having this issue is quite high as well. I've actually read more about people having this exact issue, than people working 100%. Of course that is to be expected, because people don't complain when it works flawlessly.

The real kicker and smoking gun here is that it always is a left drift. 99% of the people experiencing drift, it goes to the left. How do you explain that? If it were just a setup/calibration issue, wouldn't you expect half left / half right? To me that suggests a design flaw.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

The PS VR uses two methods to track position. One is visually with the camera tracking the LEDs and the other is with an IMU in the headset itself. Game-to-game, the primary method for tracking varies. Some more dynamic games tend to use the camera while other games may use the camera to start but then use the IMU.

What game are you playing? Is it on every game? Which games are those?

I've seen my controller drift over time, but it was always to the right (clockwise) as viewed from above. This happened with a DS4 in Playroom VR. Haven't had a single issue in any other game I've played.

If the headset drifts, do you use the "hold Options to recenter" thing?

 

[Tino]

Of course we've used the "hold options". Doesn't fix the drift

I've encountered it on Rush Of Blood, London Heist, luge, Valkyrie and others.

It has nothing to do with the setup as I , like Jeff, have tried everything.

It is either a flaw in the headset or the hardware. But it is a flaw.

I'm very close to returning it to BB.

Very disappointed because when it worked it was awesome

I suggest people NOT buy the PSVR until it is fixed.

 

[Tino]

And I've also actually used two different cameras with the same result.

 

[Tino]

http://m.ign.com/articles/2016/10/14/playstation-vr-users-encounter-image-drift-other-headset-issues

IGN has also independently encountered this issue following the launch of PSVR with two employees' retail units and has reached out to Sony for comment regarding the problem and any possible solutions. We will update this story when they respond.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

I've encountered it everything I've played, specifically Cinema Mode (or just plain browsing the XMB menus), Playstation VR worlds, The Playroom VR and Driveclub VR.

Holding options is completely dependent on the software coding of whatever you are playing. Holding option while in Cinema Mode, or browsing the XMB will immediately correct the problem and recenter everything. However in every game I've played, doing that only resets your position, not the center of view. Like if you were standing in a middle of a circle, but started turning and walked toward the edge of the circle, holding options will return you to the middle of the circle, but still keep you facing whatever direction you were, instead of resetting you to 12 o'clock.

One time it was working fine, then I took off the headset to look at something, and after I put it back on it drifted to the left and stayed there. Literally the only thing I did was take it off for 10 seconds, then put it back on. If the set-up of these things is so sensitive that you cannot do that, then Sony has a big problem on their hands.

Don't get me wrong, I love the thing to death. It's just annoying though. I'm holding out hope that a firmware update will fix this for now.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

Tino, do you play seated? If so, try playing at the front edge of the seat, or leaning forward a bit so that your head is not near or against the back / headrest of the seat. I'm curious about something. If you don't play this way, then disregard.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Do you typically turn the headset on with the power button on the inline controls once its already on your head, or while its sitting still on a flat surface?

Honestly, this issue may be related to the games themselves rather than the hardware. I haven't played many the games you guys mentioned, and I also haven't experience this issue. If the tracking is done with the camera looking at the LEDs, this shouldn't be happening. Chances are, the games you're playing are using the headset's onboard IMU for tracking to save the processing power that would go to tracking the headset visually with the camera image and using it for performance boosts.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

I'm not wearing the headset when I turn it on. Typically it's on the armrest of my sofa chair, which isn't necessarily flat or still.

I've experienced it most severely while looking at the xmb menu, which isn't a game. I don't think that uses the camera at all but I could be wrong on that. That's also the only time where holding options resets to center. Then within a minute or two I have to turn my head to the left to have the screen be centered in my view.

It doesn't make sense to me how it could be a camera issue. If I sit still the image the camera is receiving when it's centered is identical to the image it's receiving 2 minutes later when the view is off to the side. How can the camera really think I've turned my head so far to the right, when it's still clearly getting the exact same picture of me looking straight at it? This leads me to think it's a headset issue, if it is indeed a hardware issue.

 

[Tino]

Tino, do you play seated? If so, try playing at the front edge of the seat, or leaning forward a bit so that your head is not near or against the back / headrest of the seat. I'm curious about something. If you don't play this way, then disregard.

I always play seated leaning forward a bit.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Yeah, if you're having issues during games or experiences (like the cinema mode) where the camera isn't used for tracking, then it's the headset's IMU that is causing problems. That's the sensor that detects motion of the headset using gyros and accelerometers and magnetometers. Unless there's some way to recalibrate that then it's probably a defective headset. Your best bet is to try and exchange it at the store where you bought it for a new one then call Sony if its an issue in the second one.

Honestly, I'm not convinced that this is a huge issue, relatively speaking. Sony sold 50k PS VRs in Japan alone at launch. I can easily see them hitting half a million or more by tomorrow (which is just 2 weeks after launch) worldwide. So if you see 1000 stories of people having issues with it, that's still just 0.2% of all users. The people you see scream the loudest are likely to be the vocal minority.

 

[LeoA]

How is the Playstation VR in 2D mode?

Haven't seen much about that so far, yet that's how I'd be using it if I ever make the plunge. So I'd love to see more impressions of the 2D aspects of this.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

You mean "cinema mode?" Where you just see a simulated TV screen floating in space? It's ok. The problem is that the resolution of a regular 1080p TV in real life about 8 feet from your face will always look better than the same TV "simulated" in PS VR because the resolution of the PSVR headset isn't high enough to make anything that looks better. The visuals in the headset, generally, aren't spectacular. But you get over that very easily when the experience of "being" in a place and feeling the sense of presence are so overwhelming. If its just a 2D image then it doesn't really do much.

Honestly, why would you bother getting one if you're not going to use it for real VR stuff?

 

[LeoA]

Morgan, I'm legally blind in one eye and don't see in 3D.

Virtual reality doesn't have to equate to 3D visuals. So I'm interested in its 2D capabilities for titles like Driveclub VR. If I've been misled and such an option isn't built-in then, I'd be curious how it looks to you guys when you close one eye.

Do you just lose the artificial depth perception, or are there other issues as well?

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Ahh, okay then. Yeah, there's no 2D option. You can play regular, non-VR games in PS VR but then its just a TV screen floating in front of your face. For any degree of interactivity with a game, like being able to look around in VR and use your view as the camera, its going to be a VR game and not just a normal game.

But if you're legally blind in one eye, you'll still be able to enjoy VR. You won't see 3D but you will still be able to look all around you and see the virtual world you're in. A friend of mine has trouble seeing 3D (movies, 3DS, anything) but said when he tried on my PS VR that it was the first time he felt like he was able to experience it a little bit and was kind of blown away by it. I'm not entirely sure its the fact that you are seeing an offset image in each eye to give the 3D effect, but rather the experience enveloping you entirely.

Also, last night I was playing Batman VR and tried something I had read about. The one HUGE issue facing VR is the fact that our eyes, in the real world, are able to select where we are focusing them. Something right in front of my face, 5 feet away, 20 feet away...whatever. But in VR, the focus is set for you by the developer and the hardware. The PS VR is designed to simulate the experience of things that are 6-8 feet away from you and most games kind of follow that. But if you have something right in front of your face, like your character's hands or a piece of paper, it will be nearly impossible for your eyes to look at it and see it in focus. Except there's a trick: close one eye and focus the other like you're looking further away than the object, then suddenly it will be crystal clear. Tried it in Batman last night and it worked.

So what I'm saying is: with just one eye, you may see VR better than most!