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HTC Vive Unboxing & Hands-On First Look With VR!

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HTC Vive Unboxing & Hands-On First Look With VR!


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What’s the HTC Vive like? We find out…


Paul Briden

11:21, 12 Aug 2016

I’ll level with you, I can be a bit of a cynic when it comes to new tech; I didn’t think much of smartwatches, and still don’t, and there are all kinds of comparable fads which just don’t sit right with me. Stuff people don’t want or need, new ideas which just don’t seem fully fleshed out. The reason I’m saying this is because for me Virtual Reality (VR) is NOT one of these technologies. I’ve been a gamer since my early teens and have long wondered about how a true VR experience might be quite liberating for gaming in all genres, so it’s pretty exciting stuff for me that we’re now at the beginning of the VR era.

I think it is the next big thing, I think it’s here to stay, even if there is a long way to go and what we’re looking at right now is tantamount to awkward, clumsy baby steps – and that’s not a criticism describing the current devices in this way, just like baby steps these first forays into VR, however flawed, are absolutely a necessary part of the process in order to figure out what works, and as importantly, what doesn’t.

So with all that said, you can understand I was rather excited, but also quite nervous, about the prospect of testing the HTC Vive VR headset. Undoubtedly the HTC Vive has captured public attention more than any other VR headset to date, with the possible exception of the headset that really started it all; the Oculus Rift, although I’d say they’re probably on a fairly even footing in terms of prominence.

What follows is a sort of after-action report of my unboxing and setting up the HTC Vive for the first time. This is my first experience with VR too (assuming you don’t count a brief demo with Google Glass), so I was pretty keen to see what all the fuss was about. For our VR tomfoolery ASUS UK was kind enough to lend us an Asus Republic Of Gamers G20AJ gaming PC tower, a PC powerful enough to handle the HTC Vive with its Intel Core i7 processor and NVIDIA GTX970 GPU.

That is really the first thing to observe about the Vive though, you do need a pretty powerful PC to run it at even the minimum required specs.

Anyway, with the PC set up I took delivery of the HTC Vive review sample and was surprised by the size of the box it came in. Opening this cardboard box showed that the device was contained inside another box; this the actual retail packaging rather than the protective one for it to be courired inside. Thing is, the retail box isn’t much smaller, considering what I was expecting the box is MASSIVE! With the lid popped off I quickly understood why. There’s a LOT of parts and components to the HTC Vive. This was going to be fun to set up. And by fun, I mean…not.

As well as the Vive headset itself, which comes festooned with cables and with a selection of velcro-attached pads to fit around your eyes, the package contains two box-shaped sensors (about the size of small speakers), two wireless hand-held controllers (which look like weird hollow ladle things), and multiple plugs, chargers, docks, adaptors, and cables of all kinds; microUSB, USB, HDMI, power and more.

When you break it down it’s not so bad though, there’s a central “hub” thing which you plug power into, as well as USB and HDMI cables from the PC, then from this hub you plug in the headset’s own power, USB, and HDMI cables. The box-shaped motion sensors are positioned in the corners of the room and will help track your movement; they each have their own power cable. Meanwhile, each of the hand-held controllers has its own microUSB charger to get it juiced up. You’re going to need a lot of free power sockets, I’ll tell you that. The headset also has a 3.5mm headphone jack, as headphones aren’t integrated so you can provide your own if you wish –  a pair of standard earpods are included in the box though.

The “quick setup” instructions claim you can get everything running in 30 minutes. I guess maybe this is possible if you are lucky, but it wasn’t my experience and, for the record, I’m not bad with PCs and built my current gaming tower myself. But this is the thing with peripherals, and the Vive, though a complicated one, is a peripheral device, effectively a second monitor – sometimes they play up. If the machine gods don’t line things up in your favour, for no apparent reason, things can just go awry. Of course, not catastrophically, necessarily; I got things working eventually, but it took a good couple of hours of faffing to get it all running properly.

Be prepared to faff.

What’s more, there’s no CD for the software install, you need to go to the Vive website and download a setup program, which will itself download and install both the HTC Vive software and Valve’s Steam platform for games if you don’t already have it. This in itself can take some time, depending on your connection speed; I found it kept dropping out the download over Wi-Fi but once I wired things up with an ethernet cable to my fibreoptic broadband it worked like a charm.

What I also found is it’s best to set the Vive up with an additonal monitor, as effectively a dual-monitor setup. The Vive likes to be plugged directly into your GPU via HDMI, but this can be troublesome for some parts of the setup process, such as configuring the “room” sensors, if you don’t have an additonal monitor set up either via another HDMI port or PC-RGB. Incidentally, this also means the Vive is better if you have an “audience” of curious friends and family members, as people viewing the monitor can see what you’re seeing inside the headset.

Calibrating the headset, controllers, and sensors to your “play area” is also a bit of a faff, but an understandbaly necessary one. You need to get the sensors to be able to “see” the controllers and headset so movement can be tracked accurately, and there’s also a stage involving putting the headset and controllers on a surface or the floor so that the system sets up depth properly, ie: where the floor inside virtual reality should be. You can opt for either “full room” or “seated” setups, the former being more complicated to set up, and the latter being aimed at those who, like me, are in a smaller space and sat in front of a desk.

To be completely honest my “play area” was less than ideal, with not much accessible floor space and a lot of nearby obstacles, walls and other things which I did indeed find myself banging into on a fairly regular basis during my playtesting. What’s more, these obstacles also caused actual playability issues by blocking the hand controllers from the sensors on occasion, it wasn’t at all unusual for one or the other of my virtual in-game “hands” to just freeze or float off because the sensor just lost track. You really do need a pretty clear open space to get the most out of the HTC Vive, in my view.

Anyway, onto the in-game experience. I downloaded a handful of titles for testing, including theBlu, Spell Fighter, Universe Sandbox, and Google’s Tiltbrush painting software, all of which I found highly enjoyable in their own way. It must be said that the immersive feeling of being “present” in VR is pretty phenomenal, and difficult to describe.

I would say what I found most enjoyable was theBlu and Universe Sandbox, simply because the graphics were so well polished and they were fairly “static” experiences where things unfolded around you. The immersion was not so easily broken in these titles as they were somewhat more abstract, but in all cases it is true that immersion suddenly dissipates, if only briefly, the moment some 3D model passes through your face and you see it for what it is.

You’re also aware of the lack of a sense of inertia in motion or touch when reaching out to an object – this isn’t a criticism, I’m not expecting the Vive to be able to give this kind of feedback, but what I am saying is that, just as people say when you are blind you become more aware of your other senses, I think VR quickly makes you aware by stimulating certain senses that other important ones are not being catered to, and that can be immersion breaking.

Regardless, standing in the middle of space or under the ocean was pretty damn breathtaking it must be said.

One other point about inertia, particularly in less-static games; I had been aware that some people get motion sickness in VR and I think this did affect me slightly – I had to take the headset off and have a lie down at one point. This was only really an issue in Spell Fighter which did require you to move around and act within the game world.

So far developers have essentially figured out two ways of adding movement into VR games, the first involves a “teleportation” system where you point at a location with the controller and click to move there, while the second is using the trackpad on the controller as a D-Pad to control directonal movement, just as you would with arrow keys or WASD on a keyboard in a first-person shooter.

The teleportation can be problematic because it isn’t too immersive and is also open to exploitation inside game worlds, even inadvertently, as you warp around all over the place often dodging baddies just by trying to position yourself.

The trackpad walking, while more immersive, is where the motion sickness can occur, because your body isn’t getting the tactile and inertia feedback it expects from walking around, this messes with the brain – your body doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere but your eyes perceive that you are.

There are basically two workarounds for this movement dilemma currently in development, the first involves a number of manufacturers working on omni-directional treadmill controllers you would need to install in your home – large, bulky, and likely expensive devices aimed to allow you to walk, run, crouch and crawl on the spot; some of these solutions look better than others – but we bet you good money none of them will be cheap!

The second is a coding fix one developer has implemented in their own tech demo (see below video), essentially reappropriating one of the hand-held controllers – get this, it involves sticking one controller in the waistband of your pants. By whatever scripting wizardry he’s come up with, this means that by running or walking on the spot – just like you would for the Nintendo Wii on Wii Sports – the user can replicate running and walking momentum in the game, and best of all it doesn’t mess with your brain and induce motion sickness.

If more games implement this it could be problem solved, but it would mean most Vive users would need a third controller. Perhaps later on some kind of VR Onesie could solve this problem neatly? Until this facet is tackled completely the best games and experiences on the Vive seem to be the static ones, as soon as you add proper movement to the mix, while there’s a hurdle on how to implement it, things go a bit wonky.

As a final point, I will just say that the Vive can be an uncomfortable experience in some other ways; as with wearing any type of bulky headset which fits close to the face, you may find you sweat a fair bit – I am a face sweater, I’ve had people in night clubs asking me where the pool is, so yeah this was a bit unpleasant for me – you’ve been warned! I also found that in order to fit the Vive over my glasses I needed to remove the padding, which made it a bit uncomfortable on my face.

So what’s my overall impression so far? I must say I am impressed, the HTC Vive is fun and it’s an excellent starting point for accessible VR. It’s not perfect, there is some faff and there are practical setup considerations to take into account – I don’t think I would describe it as “plug and play”. What’s more, as with any tech of this kind it is only as good as the software made for it – fortunately there’s a lot of momentum and innovation amongst the scores of developers creating content for the Vive right now – things are going to get much better and probably very soon too, I reckon.

I think the future is pretty bright for the Vive, I believe we’re going to see much more interesting and immersive titles in the coming months and years, as well as refinements to the technology, whether a Vive 2 headset or third-party accessories (probably both), which will improve things even further.

Blogs

What's the HTC Vive like? We discover out...

Paul Briden 11:21, 12 Aug 2016

I'm going to degree with you, I will be able to be a bit of of a cynic in relation to new tech; I did not assume a lot of smartwatches, and nonetheless do not, and there are a wide variety of similar fads which simply do not take a seat proper with me. Stuff folks are not looking for or want, new concepts which simply do not appear absolutely fleshed out. The rationale I am pronouncing it's because for me Digital Fact (VR) is NOT this sort of applied sciences. I have been a gamer since my early teenagers and feature lengthy questioned about how a real VR revel in may well be relatively freeing for gaming in all genres, so it is lovely thrilling stuff for me that we are now at first of the VR generation.

I feel it's the subsequent giant factor, I feel it is right here to stick, although there's a lengthy approach to pass and what we are taking a look at at this time is tantamount to awkward, clumsy child steps - and that is the reason now not a complaint describing the present units on this approach, identical to child steps those first forays into VR, then again fallacious, are completely a important a part of the method in an effort to work out what works, and as importantly, what does not.

So with all that stated, you'll be able to perceive I used to be moderately excited, but in addition fairly apprehensive, concerning the prospect of checking out the HTC Vive VR headset. Surely the HTC Vive has captured public consideration greater than another VR headset up to now, with the imaginable exception of the headset that in reality began all of it; the Oculus Rift, even if I would say they are most certainly on a moderately even footing with regards to prominence.

What follows is a type of after-action document of my unboxing and putting in place the HTC Vive for the primary time. That is my first revel in with VR too (assuming you do not rely a temporary demo with Google Glass), so I used to be lovely willing to peer what all of the fuss used to be about. For our VR tomfoolery ASUS UK used to be type sufficient to lend us an Asus Republic Of Gamers G20AJ gaming PC tower, a PC tough sufficient to take care of the HTC Vive with its Intel Core i7 processor and NVIDIA GTX970 GPU.

This is in reality the very first thing to watch concerning the Vive even though, you do want a lovely tough PC to run it at even the minimal required specifications.

Anyway, with the PC arrange I took supply of the HTC Vive evaluation pattern and used to be stunned by way of the dimensions of the field it got here in. Opening this cardboard field confirmed that the software used to be contained inside of any other field; this the real retail packaging moderately than the protecting one for it to be courired inside of. Factor is, the retail field is not a lot smaller, making an allowance for what I used to be anticipating the field is MASSIVE! With the lid popped off I temporarily understood why. There is a LOT of portions and parts to the HTC Vive. This used to be going to be a laugh to arrange. And via a laugh, I imply...now not.

In addition to the Vive headset itself, which comes festooned with cables and with a number of velcro-attached pads to suit round your eyes, the package deal accommodates two box-shaped sensors (concerning the measurement of small audio system), two wireless hand held controllers (which appear to be bizarre hole ladle issues), and more than one plugs, chargers, docks, adaptors, and cables of a wide variety; microUSB, USB, HDMI, energy and extra.

While you damage it down it is not so dangerous despite the fact that, there is a central "hub" factor which you plug energy into, in addition to USB and HDMI cables from the PC, then from this hub you plug within the headset's personal energy, USB, and HDMI cables. The box-shaped movement sensors are located within the corners of the room and can lend a hand monitor your motion; they each and every have their very own energy cable. In the meantime, each and every of the hand held controllers has its personal microUSB charger to get it juiced up. You are going to want a large number of loose energy sockets, I'm going to inform you that. The headset additionally has a 3.5mm headphone jack, as headphones don't seem to be built-in so you'll be able to supply your personal if you want -  a couple of same old earpods are incorporated within the field although.

The "fast setup" directions declare you'll be able to get the whole thing operating in 30 mins. I assume perhaps that is imaginable in case you are fortunate, nevertheless it wasn't my revel in and, for the report, I am not dangerous with PCs and constructed my present gaming tower myself. However that is the item with peripherals, and the Vive, even though an advanced one, is a peripheral tool, successfully a 2d visual display unit - occasionally they play up. If the system gods do not line issues up for your favour, for no obvious explanation why, issues can simply pass awry. In fact, now not catastrophically, essentially; I were given issues running sooner or later, however it took a just right couple of hours of faffing to get all of it operating correctly.

Be ready to faff.

What is extra, there is not any CD for the tool set up, you wish to have to visit the Vive site and obtain a setup program, which can itself obtain and set up each the HTC Vive device and Valve's Steam platform for video games if you do not have already got it. This in itself can take a little time, relying in your connection velocity; I discovered it stored chucking up the sponge the obtain over Wi-Fi however when I stressed out issues up with an ethernet cable to my fibreoptic broadband it labored like a allure.

What I additionally discovered is it is best to set the Vive up with an additonal visual display unit, as successfully a dual-monitor setup. The Vive loves to be plugged without delay into your GPU by the use of HDMI, however this can also be difficult for some portions of the setup procedure, equivalent to configuring the "room" sensors, in case you shouldn't have an additonal visual display unit arrange both by means of any other HDMI port or PC-RGB. By the way, this additionally way the Vive is best when you've got an "target audience" of curious pals and members of the family, as folks viewing the computer screen can see what you are seeing within the headset.

Calibrating the headset, controllers, and sensors on your "play space" could also be just a little of a faff, however an understandbaly essential one. You wish to have to get the sensors so as to "see" the controllers and headset so motion can also be tracked as it should be, and there is additionally a level involving striking the headset and controllers on a surface or the ground in order that the device units up intensity correctly, ie: the place the ground inside of digital fact will have to be. You'll be able to go for both "complete room" or "seated" setups, the previous being extra difficult to arrange, and the latter being aimed toward those that, like me, are in a smaller area and sat in entrance of a table.

To be utterly fair my "play space" used to be not up to best, with now not a lot out there flooring area and a large number of close by stumbling blocks, partitions and different issues which I did certainly in finding myself banging into on a relatively common foundation all the way through my playtesting. What is extra, those stumbling blocks additionally brought about exact playability problems through blocking off the hand controllers from the sensors occasionally, it wasn't in any respect odd for one or the opposite of my digital in-game "arms" to only freeze or glide off since the sensor simply misplaced monitor. You actually do want a lovely transparent open area to get probably the most out of the HTC Vive, personally.

Anyway, onto the in-game revel in. I downloaded a handful of titles for checking out, together with theBlu, Spell Fighter, Universe Sandbox, and Google's Tiltbrush portray device, all of which I discovered extremely relaxing in their very own method. It will have to be stated that the immersive feeling of being "provide" in VR is lovely extraordinary, and tough to explain.

I might say what I discovered most pleasurable used to be theBlu and Universe Sandbox, merely since the graphics have been so smartly polished they usually have been quite "static" reports the place issues spread out round you. The immersion used to be now not so simply damaged in those titles as they have been moderately extra summary, however in all instances it's true that immersion all of sudden dissipates, if handiest in short, the instant some 3-d style passes thru your face and you spot it for what it's.

You are additionally acutely aware of the loss of a way of inertia in movement or contact when achieving out to an object - this is not a complaint, I am not anticipating the Vive as a way to give this type of comments, however what I'm pronouncing is that, simply as folks say when you're blind you grow to be extra acutely aware of your different senses, I feel VR temporarily makes you mindful via stimulating sure senses that different necessary ones don't seem to be being catered to, and that may be immersion breaking.

Regardless, status in the course of area or underneath the sea used to be lovely rattling breathtaking it will have to be stated.

One different level about inertia, in particular in less-static video games; I were mindful that some folks get movement illness in VR and I feel this did have an effect on me quite - I needed to take the headset off and feature a lie down at one level. This used to be best in point of fact a subject matter in Spell Fighter which did require you to transport round and act inside the recreation global.

Thus far developers have necessarily found out two tactics of including motion into VR video games, the primary comes to a "teleportation" device the place you level at a location with the controller and click on to transport there, whilst the second one is the use of the trackpad at the controller as a D-Pad to regulate directonal motion, simply as you possibly can with arrow keys or WASD on a keyboard in a first-person shooter.

The teleportation may also be problematic as a result of it is not too immersive and could also be open to exploitation inside of recreation worlds, even inadvertently, as you warp round all over steadily dodging baddies simply by looking to place your self.

The trackpad strolling, whilst extra immersive, is the place the movement illness can happen, as a result of your frame is not getting the tactile and inertia comments it expects from strolling round, this messes with the mind - your frame does not really feel love it's going any place however your eyes understand that you're.

There are principally two workarounds for this motion quandary recently in construction, the primary comes to a variety of producers running on omni-directional treadmill controllers you would have to set up in your house - massive, cumbersome, and most probably pricey units aimed to let you stroll, run, crouch and move slowly at the spot; a few of these answers glance higher than others - however we guess you just right cash none of them might be reasonable!

The second one is a coding repair one developer has carried out in their very own tech demo (see beneath video), necessarily reappropriating some of the hand held controllers - get this, it comes to sticking one controller within the waistband of your pants. Via no matter scripting wizardry he is get a hold of, which means through operating or strolling at the spot - identical to you may for the Nintendo Wii on Wii Sports activities - the consumer can reflect operating and strolling momentum within the recreation, and easiest of all it does not mess together with your mind and induce movement illness.

If extra video games enforce this it may well be drawback solved, however it might imply maximum Vive customers would wish a 3rd controller. Most likely afterward some more or less VR Onesie may just remedy this drawback smartly? Till this side is tackled utterly the most productive video games and reports at the Vive appear to be the static ones, once you upload right kind motion to the combination, whilst there is a hurdle on how one can enforce it, issues move slightly wonky.

As a last level, I will be able to simply say that the Vive can also be an uncomfortable revel in in any other tactics; as with dressed in any form of cumbersome headset which matches with reference to the face, you could in finding you sweat a good bit - I'm a face sweater, I have had folks in night time golf equipment asking me the place the pool is, so yeah this used to be just a little unsightly for me - you could have been warned! I additionally discovered that as a way to have compatibility the Vive over my glasses I wished to take away the padding, which made it a bit of uncomfortable on my face.

So what is my general impact thus far? I will have to say I'm inspired, the HTC Vive is a laugh and it is a very good start line for available VR. It is not highest, there's some faff and there are sensible setup issues to be mindful - I don't believe I might describe it as "plug and play". What is extra, as with all tech of this type it is just as just right because the device made for it - thankfully there is a large number of momentum and innovation among the ratings of developers developing content material for the Vive presently - issues are going to get a lot better and most likely very quickly too, I reckon.

I feel the longer term is lovely shiny for the Vive, I consider we are going to see a lot more fascinating and immersive titles within the coming months and years, in addition to refinements to the generation, whether or not a Vive 2 headset or third-party equipment (almost certainly each), which can give a boost to issues even additional.

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