They also announced today that the Quest will be able to be connected to a gaming PC and work like an Oculus Rift, which is a pretty big deal: Oculus Quest’s secret trick: It can double as a wired...
Previously the Quest was only able to play games especially made (or adapted) for it, so having the ability to work as both a "portable" headset as well as one connected to a gaming PC that can play "full" VR games is awesome.
Well, to be fair, it's going to be playing them at a bit of a disadvantage. It's connected via USB type C cable, which cannot support a video signal at the resolution and refresh rate that the...
as well as one connected to a gaming PC that can play "full" VR games is awesome.
Well, to be fair, it's going to be playing them at a bit of a disadvantage. It's connected via USB type C cable, which cannot support a video signal at the resolution and refresh rate that the quest is using. So you're still limited by the hardware on the quest, which is likely less beefy than the graphics card in your computer... but, it does open up the library to more games, you just might have to down sample them or play in much lower graphics.
It's definitely a plus, but it would have been nice to see them design it so that it could pass through graphics if desired. Of course, that's asking for a lot given that the product was not even designed to be used with a computer in the first place.
Oculus Link is going to be using the PC GPU for rendering. They'll need to encode on PC and decode on Quest with very low latency, which is the typical issue for every current solution (seeing as...
Oculus Link is going to be using the PC GPU for rendering. They'll need to encode on PC and decode on Quest with very low latency, which is the typical issue for every current solution (seeing as they use WiFi.)
If they're using WiFi what's the point of the USB-c cable? Using WiFi to send the actual video signal might be a really good way to both keep it wireless and to leverage a potentially much denser...
If they're using WiFi what's the point of the USB-c cable? Using WiFi to send the actual video signal might be a really good way to both keep it wireless and to leverage a potentially much denser data stream. I guess I just need to learn more about how this is all technically accomplished.
I meant that existing PC-to-Quest solutions use WiFi, not that Oculus will (they'll be using USB 3 over the USB-C cable.) Presumably they have low-level access on Quest hardware to allow for...
I meant that existing PC-to-Quest solutions use WiFi, not that Oculus will (they'll be using USB 3 over the USB-C cable.) Presumably they have low-level access on Quest hardware to allow for high-bandwidth video-in, something third-party developers don't have access to.
I know there were plans to have this functionality on launch that got scrubbed, so I'm glad it got added as a secret mode, and a bit surprising since it makes the Rift 2 a little redundant.
I know there were plans to have this functionality on launch that got scrubbed, so I'm glad it got added as a secret mode, and a bit surprising since it makes the Rift 2 a little redundant.
Optimistic response: Hand tracking is very exciting news, and hopefully this will encourage devs to incorporate more hand tracking functionality into their games, and we'll start to see this...
Optimistic response:
Hand tracking is very exciting news, and hopefully this will encourage devs to incorporate more hand tracking functionality into their games, and we'll start to see this become more commonplace.
I also think this technically marks the first time that the majority of HMD market share will have capability to do some kind of free/gloveless/controllerless hand tracking.
HTC have had this for a while with the Vive/Vive Pro in-built cameras:
HTC (Vive, Vive Pro, Cosmos) and Valve (Index) HMDs all have USB 3.0 slots for additional hardware expansions, which means it's trivial to add an accessory like LeapMotion.
These HMDs have technically had LeapMotion support for a while (at least as far back as 2016 for the Vive), but the problem has been lack of games that make use of LeapMotion hand tracking. Maybe with this update, we'll finally see more games integrate hand tracking support.
And, apart from the possibility of Leap Motion support, this may also push HTC/ Valve to develop their own hand/finger tracking add-on to compete with Oculus.
That just leaves WMR headsets as the outlier, with no official solution for free hand tracking. I have a Samsung Odyssey+ myself, and there's no USB 3.0 port, but maybe there are WMR headsets with a USB port that could potentially utilize Leap Motion that I don't know about?
In any case, this is exciting news and I hope it will attract more interest to free hand tracking support and development.
Pessimistic response: The problem with LeapMotion is the field of view. You have to have your hands right in front of your face if it's mounted on the HMD. If you follow this line of thinking, the...
Pessimistic response:
The problem with LeapMotion is the field of view. You have to have your hands right in front of your face if it's mounted on the HMD.
If you follow this line of thinking, the problem persists in all HMD-mounted cameras.
Oculus Quest has 4 cameras: 2 on the top, 2 on the bottom, placed in the corners. I'd imagine this gives pretty good FOV, but it's obvious there will be some limitations. Hands outside of FOV become essentially useless.
The same FOV problem means that Index would probably perform worse than the Quest, despite having pretty decent passthrough cameras, because it only has 2 cameras.
Vive (1 camera) and Vive Pro (2 cameras) suffer the same limitation.
If WMR can figure out a hand-tracking SDK, most models will fare the same as they only have 2 cameras, and the camera quality is relatively bad, at least my Odyssey+ camera is.
The upcoming HTC Cosmos, though, may perform better as it has 6 cameras placed on the front, back, and sides - with more of a downward-angle and side-angle than any other HMD I've seen.
Probably the solution to this, eventually, is gloves with clear markings so wall-mounted sensors (Base Stations etc) can do some solid tracking. Then it's feasible to have this kind of hand tracking implemented in a far wider breadth of games.
But, for now, with HMD-mounted cameras, I think the FOV limitation will always be there.
They also announced today that the Quest will be able to be connected to a gaming PC and work like an Oculus Rift, which is a pretty big deal: Oculus Quest’s secret trick: It can double as a wired PC VR headset
Previously the Quest was only able to play games especially made (or adapted) for it, so having the ability to work as both a "portable" headset as well as one connected to a gaming PC that can play "full" VR games is awesome.
Well, to be fair, it's going to be playing them at a bit of a disadvantage. It's connected via USB type C cable, which cannot support a video signal at the resolution and refresh rate that the quest is using. So you're still limited by the hardware on the quest, which is likely less beefy than the graphics card in your computer... but, it does open up the library to more games, you just might have to down sample them or play in much lower graphics.
It's definitely a plus, but it would have been nice to see them design it so that it could pass through graphics if desired. Of course, that's asking for a lot given that the product was not even designed to be used with a computer in the first place.
Oculus Link is going to be using the PC GPU for rendering. They'll need to encode on PC and decode on Quest with very low latency, which is the typical issue for every current solution (seeing as they use WiFi.)
If they're using WiFi what's the point of the USB-c cable? Using WiFi to send the actual video signal might be a really good way to both keep it wireless and to leverage a potentially much denser data stream. I guess I just need to learn more about how this is all technically accomplished.
I meant that existing PC-to-Quest solutions use WiFi, not that Oculus will (they'll be using USB 3 over the USB-C cable.) Presumably they have low-level access on Quest hardware to allow for high-bandwidth video-in, something third-party developers don't have access to.
I know there were plans to have this functionality on launch that got scrubbed, so I'm glad it got added as a secret mode, and a bit surprising since it makes the Rift 2 a little redundant.
Optimistic response:
Hand tracking is very exciting news, and hopefully this will encourage devs to incorporate more hand tracking functionality into their games, and we'll start to see this become more commonplace.
I also think this technically marks the first time that the majority of HMD market share will have capability to do some kind of free/gloveless/controllerless hand tracking.
HTC have had this for a while with the Vive/Vive Pro in-built cameras:
HTC (Vive, Vive Pro, Cosmos) and Valve (Index) HMDs all have USB 3.0 slots for additional hardware expansions, which means it's trivial to add an accessory like LeapMotion.
These HMDs have technically had LeapMotion support for a while (at least as far back as 2016 for the Vive), but the problem has been lack of games that make use of LeapMotion hand tracking. Maybe with this update, we'll finally see more games integrate hand tracking support.
And, apart from the possibility of Leap Motion support, this may also push HTC/ Valve to develop their own hand/finger tracking add-on to compete with Oculus.
That just leaves WMR headsets as the outlier, with no official solution for free hand tracking. I have a Samsung Odyssey+ myself, and there's no USB 3.0 port, but maybe there are WMR headsets with a USB port that could potentially utilize Leap Motion that I don't know about?
In any case, this is exciting news and I hope it will attract more interest to free hand tracking support and development.
Pessimistic response:
The problem with LeapMotion is the field of view. You have to have your hands right in front of your face if it's mounted on the HMD.
If you follow this line of thinking, the problem persists in all HMD-mounted cameras.
Oculus Quest has 4 cameras: 2 on the top, 2 on the bottom, placed in the corners. I'd imagine this gives pretty good FOV, but it's obvious there will be some limitations. Hands outside of FOV become essentially useless.
The same FOV problem means that Index would probably perform worse than the Quest, despite having pretty decent passthrough cameras, because it only has 2 cameras.
Vive (1 camera) and Vive Pro (2 cameras) suffer the same limitation.
If WMR can figure out a hand-tracking SDK, most models will fare the same as they only have 2 cameras, and the camera quality is relatively bad, at least my Odyssey+ camera is.
The upcoming HTC Cosmos, though, may perform better as it has 6 cameras placed on the front, back, and sides - with more of a downward-angle and side-angle than any other HMD I've seen.
Probably the solution to this, eventually, is gloves with clear markings so wall-mounted sensors (Base Stations etc) can do some solid tracking. Then it's feasible to have this kind of hand tracking implemented in a far wider breadth of games.
But, for now, with HMD-mounted cameras, I think the FOV limitation will always be there.