Aces High, virtual reality, stereoscopic 3D, and head tracking

[Vulcan]

Just over 5 years ago I brought my second Virtual Reality Headset (at the time they were less than half their current price), an Emagin Z800. It featured dual OLED 800x600 displays and a built in 3 axis head tracker which could emulate trackir libraries to AH. It also supported stereoscopic 3D, which was extremely good.

Unfortunately a few months back after 5 years of abuse in AH, FSX, Arma, and a few other games my Z800 died.

Just before Xmas I acquired a shiney new headset - a Vuzix Wrap 1200VR. It features a pair of 852x480 LCD displays and a 6 axis head tracker. Though not quite the same quality as a Z800 it is ~ 1/3rd of the price. It also has some features such as SBS (Side By Side) Stereo 3D which gives much broad 3D support, and independent focus on each eyepiece (which I think is essential).

I've just started tweaking the 1200VR to work with AH, but first results are looking pretty good. Yes you lose a lot of resolution compared to a monitor, even more so if you run 3D (you end up sending 640x720 to each display, the headset likes the video to be 1280x720 SBS), but headtracking and stereo 3D adds a lot of immersion (also you use your head to look around rather than look around the screen). The cool thing about SBS 3D is fraps records it and it works with youtube-3D support.

The tracking only feeds in 3 axis's (pitch yaw roll) but I'm hoping vuzix will release some drivers in the near future to give full 6 DoF.

So though I'm still sorting out the headset setup to how I want it in between battles with the kid-ack and acting as the UN between the wife-ack and kid-ack I jumped into into the WW1 arena. WW1 style dogfights clearly show the coolness of a VR headset, stereo 3D and headtracking gives you a bucketload of fun. Unfortunately the rotary I use for zoom on my aging X45 is getting a bit wonky, so the bits where the zoom jumps around a bit is the aged X45.

Anyhoo, here's the results... a short fight in the WW1 arena in 3D (if you have a 3D monitor you can watch it on youtube in 3D).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0qvQQjdFjM

[B-17]

Well, it's better than I fly

[FBCrabby]

Hmmm - the graphics look like when you eat shrooms...

[SectorNine50]

Do you find it more difficult to read gauges at that resolution?

[Delirium]

That is what TrackIR SHOULD be... the Vuzix Wrap 1200VR really viable, or is it too early?

[mechanic]

I want one!

[Vulcan]

Do you find it more difficult to read gauges at that resolution?

I have a rotary control on my X45 throttle mapped to zoom, so yes I can read them easily by looking down when zoomed in a bit.

Delirium I would say it's at an 'early adopters' stage, for people who are into 3D headtracking and VR - and are willing to sacrifice a bit of resolution for the immersion then yeah it's cool. But it's not really ready for mainstream joe public yet - panels need to be at 1024x768 and well priced for that (though there are products coming onto the market like the Sony HMD that will be pretty close).

[SectorNine50]

That Sony HMD peaked my attention a little while back, I'm interested to see how it goes.  The one downside, from what I can tell, is that it won't have head-tracking built into it...

[killb8]

Can you see the keyboard when they are on? Does external light sources cause any problems. I wanted to try a pair myself but I go crazy without backlit keyboard enough as is. If you say yes and then no ill get one. My thumb-stick is as you say "wonky" and this would be an elegant solution for me.

[Vulcan]

Can you see the keyboard when they are on? Does external light sources cause any problems. I wanted to try a pair myself but I go crazy without backlit keyboard enough as is. If you say yes and then no ill get one. My thumb-stick is as you say "wonky" and this would be an elegant solution for me.

I have a Logitech G15 with backlit keys and can it easily, external light sources do not cause problems. But I like my room dark, it makes it more immersive.