Upset about no Oculus capability

[CrowleyCorp]

So I got my Oculus Consumer Release today after waiting 4 months.......  Imagine my surprise when I found out that even though Linden Lab has been promoting Oculus for use with SL on their main page for a very long time now, their 'Oculus' viewer has not been updated since 2014, does not recognize my very good and very common graphics card, and doesn't even support the consumer release Oculus.  Two words -- false advertising.  Anyone else out there upset or is it just me?

[Persephone Emerald]

I tried Searching the Forums for threads on "Oculus" & found this not very encouraging thread.

There are some

that show SL with Oculus, so the people who made those may be able to help you too.

 

[Alwin Alcott]

When you been so keen on getting a oculus, why on earth didn't you look if it was supported here. It's like buying a aeroplane but having no airports.

Also, a very common very good graphics doesn't really tell what card you really have. If it's the latest few nvidea releases it's ok, but otherwise it won't work anyway.

As far i know there are workarounds to get oculus working here, but because of the very few users you'll have to dig on google

[Qie Niangao]

Well, I'll be a bit more optimistic. I'm too lazy to track down links, but I remember hearing recently that Ebbe took a personal interest in the fact that SL still didn't have a working viewer even now as the "consumer" headsets are being distributed in bulk. It's difficult to read how "upset" Ebbe was -- that famous Nordic understatement -- but I got the impression that fires were being lit.

And somewhere also very recently Oz reported that there were just a couple glitches still to be ironed out before the updated version gets some distribution.

That said, I get the impression that the Oculus-based viewers (LL's and CtrlAltStudio's) were received with less enthusiasm than the developers had hoped, and not entirely because of limitations in the "developer" headsets. Worse are recent findings that pretty much nobody wants to wear these things longer than thirty minutes at a stretch, for reasons not yet fully understood. (That is, it's apparently not related to the nausea/vertigo problems, or at least not helped by any of the known tricks that seem to reduce those reactions.)

(I'm personally interested in this because there's an interesting UX question about what kind of control surfaces can be provided for user-generated interactive VR content. New and different constraints on that problem, especially as the actual hardware controllers evolve.)

[Rhys Goode]

Welcome to the bleeding edge! You expected perfection in a first release?

BTW, if you are going to moan, you should provide more info about your setup than "my very good and very common graphics card"

Go to Help>about. I use fs, but the same thing works with the other viewers. You get a report like this, lets others see what you have, and *maybe* make a useful suggestion.

help>about firestorm:

CPU: Intel® Core i7-4710HQ CPU @ 2.50GHz (2494.23 MHz)
Memory: 24526 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 10586)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 980M/PCIe/SSE2

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 10.18.0013.6472
OpenGL Version: 4.5.0 NVIDIA 364.72

RestrainedLove API: RLV v2.8.0 / RLVa v1.4.10a
libcurl Version: libcurl/7.38.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1h zlib/1.2.8
J2C Decoder Version: KDU v7.7.1
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Ex 4.44.61
LLCEFLib/CEF Version: 1.5.3.FS6-(CEF-WIN-3.2526.1366.g8617e7c-32) (Chrome 47.0.2526.80)
Voice Server Version: Vivox 4.6.0017.21209

Settings mode: Firestorm
Viewer Skin: Firestorm (Grey)
Font Used: Deja Vu (96 dpi)
Font Size Adjustment: 0 pt
UI Scaling: 1.15
Draw distance: 128 m
Bandwidth: 1000 kbit/s
LOD factor: 2
Render quality: High-Ultra (6/7)
Advanced Lighting Model: Yes
Texture memory: 512 MB (1)
VFS (cache) creation time (UTC): 2016-6-24T4:55:37
Built with MSVC version 1800
Packets Lost: 0/1,053 (0.0%)

[CrowleyCorp]

Obvoiusly I find it ridiculous that some of you people blame ME for complaining that Linden Lab is falsely advertising that SecondLife works with the Oculus Rift.

Here is my graphics card that Linden Labs 2014 Oculus Viewer wont recognize:

CPU: Intel® Core i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz (3997.73 MHz)
Memory: 16326 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 64-bit (Build 7601)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 970/PCIe/SSE2

 

Oh and as for your comment, I never said I expected perfection.  I expect that when Linden Lab says it is Oculus Rift capable that it will be.  Not that it wont even recognize my, as i said, very common and very good graphics card.  When the 'newest' release of their 'Oculus' viewer is from 2014, and we are now more than half way through 2016, that is just plain apathy.

[Qie Niangao]

Well, crud. I was hoping somebody would be less lazy, but failing that: I think these links are worth reading, hinting at  an imminent refresh of LL's Oculus viewer for SL:

Ebbe

Oz (search the text for "Oculus")

 

[CrowleyCorp]

I sure hope its soon since www.secondlife.com still has the Oculus sitting right there on their homepage.  It's all well and good to hear words like "around the corner" and "soon" but as Oz linden said they still have one or two things to fix, and I think we all know how long it takes LL to fix a problem that doesn't affect currency.  (a very long time if ever)  I mean seriously, no copy objects that people spend good money on still disappear into limbo when people have rez failure due to lack of prims or no rez rights so I don't really find these reassurances comforting.

[Qie Niangao]

---

CrowleyCorp wrote:

I don't really find these reassurances comforting.

---

O alas the discomfort, woe, &c.

See http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Release_Notes/Second_Life_Project_OculusRift/4.1.0.317313

[KarenMichelle Lane]

If I may ask....

Why would anyone be upset because Oculus technology is not current in SL?

Oculus isn't even ready for prime time yet. It's still experimental and barely supported across a slew of 3D platforms. It looks great on the showroom floor of the Tech Conferences until you walk virtually to the edge of the demo.

Be a happy experimenter and in a few more years when it is well and truly integrated and married into your favorite 3D space and you can say "You were there, back when Oculus was new as prehistoric dirt."

Just saying!

[Qie Niangao]

Don't ask me. I think this whole current VR wave is at best a way to learn the requirements for the next generation, and only then will we know if that's close enough to get much extended, mass-market use.

But that said, SL is a teeny tiny niche, and if the slightly larger Oculus niche was promised an SL viewer, it probably makes business sense to make one available.

Of course there's opportunity cost with that: hard to guess how many other features were 86'd to free up developer hours for this thing.

[Aethelwine]

A new version was released a few days after this thread started.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Release_Notes/Second_Life_Project_OculusRift/4.1.0.317313

[Grebo Fright]

I don't know where you get your information but what you are describing is simply no longer the case, it is no longer 2013, time has passed and there have been a lot of advancements on the hardware and the software side. Really the only thing VR is badly missing has been content such as Second Life, and waiting for the hardware prices to become more accessible to more people - which is also beginning to happen. I wish LL wasn't lagging behind on keeping the viewers up to date, I get that they are working on Sansar and that's nice and all but it will be many many years before any other virtual world can come close to the vast amount of content in SL Really troubling that LL isn't dedicating more resources to getting the viewer up to speed.

[Parhelion Palou]

There's a huge framerate issue between SL and the Oculus. Oculus wants 90 fps to reduce the queasiness factor; SL will never be able to get even half of that framerate. That's why Sansar's engine is designed to do 90 fps. (To get that framerate, building in Sansar is done off-line then run through an optimizer before being made accessible to users.)

 

 

[Parhelion Palou]

Another thing that's missing is a market. Despite the hype, not that many people are interested in wearing something that blocks off their vision (and hearing) from the real world for extended periods. Even gamers aren't that interested (per surveys). Virtual worlds are a niche product and VR gadgets even more so. I'd put VR gadgets on about the same level as 3D television.

Augmented reality has a better shot, but only if the equipment can be made nearly invisible. People don't want to walk around looking like part of the Borg.

[KarenMichelle Lane]

---

Grebo Fright wrote:

I don't know where you get your information but what you are describing is simply no longer the case, it is no longer 2013, time has passed and there have been a lot of advancements on the hardware and the software side. Really the only thing VR is badly missing has been content such as Second Life, and waiting for the hardware prices to become more accessible to more people - which is also beginning to happen. I wish LL wasn't lagging behind on keeping the viewers up to date, I get that they are working on Sansar and that's nice and all but it will be many many years before any other virtual world can come close to the vast amount of content in SL Really troubling that LL isn't dedicating more resources to getting the viewer up to speed.

---

Answered by many posts above.... This tech is way not ready for prime time and for sure not in SL or Sansar which have existing content galore.  In a few more years when the GPUs are insanely fast by another order of magnitude then you might have something that "the masses" can access both affordably and performance-wise.

Sad to say but limited pre-compiled and pre-rendered offerings will be out there long before you see the rush to experience  SL via Oculus headgear. Honestly there is no payback for Linden Lab to throw a lot of labor and tech at this even in 2016.

IMHO of course.

[CrowleyCorp]

Linden Lab has killed SLVR.

http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2016/07/second-life-ends-rift-support-ctrlaltstudio-steps-up/

Notice the unfounded perplexity that anyone would even assume SecondLife was and would be VR compatible.  Well in response to your confusion I will say that after years of the Oculus Rift sitting on the main SecondLife webpage I really have no idea why I ever thought SecondLife was and would be VR capable.  Silly me.  Anyways its all irrelevent now.  On the bright side at least someone at CtrlAltStudio cares about SecondLife still.