In Rift War Thunder test of latest Oculus and TriDef updates

This is an attempt to capture what I see on my Oculus Rift DK1, using my highly tweaked TriDef setup for War Thunder, which is far better than the native War Thunder Rift support.

It was shot after installing yesterdays Oculus Rift SDK update, which now has separated the Oculus runtime and config utility from the SDK, and the TriDef update that was released today.

Most of the video is out of focus, with poor lighting, as I am trying to hold a small camera inside the Rift, while moving the Rift around, plus I am flying the War Thunder P38 with my Warthog HOTAS, which needs two hands! And the camera can't really focus between the near and far fields of the 3D view.

Still, it gives an idea of how latency optimisation is improving, even when applied to the DK1, which now has legacy support in the latest Oculus runtime.

I can't wait for my new Oculus Rift DK2 to arrive, which should make a significant improvement on what is already a compelling experience. Unfortunately my order is still listed as 'processing' :-(

I ordered my DK2 in the first 36 hour stampede after the pre order was announced. Some people already have theirs delivered so I hope mine makes some progress soon.

This was just a rough go at shooting the actual experience, but I am tempted to make a temporary mount for the camera and try and shoot some better footage.

My tweaked TriDef, OpenTrack, Color Profile Keeper setup, with extensive in game tweaks, is actually a good deal better than the vid suggests and far superior to the native War Thunder Rift implementation. That said the DK2 should be way better and I will happily do a comparison.

The DK2 still won't be perfect, so it will be interesting to see what it takes to squeeze the best experience possible from it.

This does not sound good for Australian Rift DK2 shipments, from the Rift Blog on the 24th July: "We’re working out a minor snag for Oceanic customers, but we hope to have the issue resolved soon"

The world first unofficial indie dev rift rollercoaster version: http://www.roadtovr.com/two-indie-d...rift-laptop-onto-rollercoaster-ride-lifetime/

For those who do not have a rift but want to have an idea of what the screen door effect, resolution and persistence sort of looks like, then try the Oculus Rift Simulator: http://vr.mkeblx.net/oculus-sim/

In actual use my DK1 war thunder tweaks are like 1080 1920x1080 with persistence on the Oculus simulator, while the native war thunder oculus implementation is like the 1280x800 and persistence but with a significant scale issue (you feel like a giant in the cockpit). In my experience the real oculus far field of view resolution is a lower than the oculus simulator suggests.

Same IPD issues in the DK1 which is one of the reasons I have stuck with and spent a lot of time creating/tweaking my Tridef profile rather than use the native implementation, as you have far more control.

My DK2 order Mar 21, 2014 05:51 AM PDT is still to be delivered so I can't comment there as yet

Hope you had a great time @SilentChill

I finally got my DK2 but have only had a limited play so far. You can't eliminate the screen door effect, that is the screen limitation and nature of the developer status of the DK2. However out of the box the 'sharpness' of the DK2 image is often only slightly better or on par with my highly tweaked DK1. In fact the DK2 is a little worse in War Thunder, which is my most highly tweaked sim. That is because of the WT IPD being really off and has nothing to do with the Rift itself, but rather all the compensation I made via Tridef. That suggests that there is plenty of scope to refine definition of the DK2 per game title, which won't eliminate the screen door effect but often helps reduce noticing it when the action grabs your attention.

Oculus calls that 'presence' and is claiming they have cracked it with the recently unveiled Crescent Bay pre CV1 prototype. It is a culmination of the hardware/software advances and all the tweaks that trick your brain into being really comfortable and maintaining VR immersion. I consider feedback devices like motions sims, haptic devices and anything else that reinforces immersion can only help, so hopefully tweaking your Rift and sim to work in unison should help focus your attention further on the game action and not the screen door effect.

I can go many hours with the rift without problems but would not like to do a long haul type flight with the current technology. You do need to make sure you have done a good job with ipd calibration.