VR Headsets As Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2016-05-06
·
1,060 words · ~5 min read
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There are plenty of ways that people try to escape the sometimes underwhelming
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reality of everyday life. Going to the movies, visiting the local watering
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hole, or just sleeping until noon. But there's been a lot of buzz recently
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about the idea of actually immersing yourself in a virtual world with a
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virtual reality headset such as the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. But even though
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the concept of plugging a generalpurpose VR headset into a gaming PC is just
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starting to take off, people have been sticking their heads into virtual
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environments for quite some time. All the way back to
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1962 when the world was introduced to the
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Sensorama, a contraption that not only played 3D movies, but could tilt the
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viewer's seat and even simulate wind and different odors. A few years later, a
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headset called the Sword of Damocles came out. Man, they had better names
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back then. Rift Vive, I want a Sword of Damocles. The name was because it was so
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heavy though that it had to be suspended from the ceiling. Although it could only
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display simple wireframe graphics, it was considered the first true VR
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headset. Virtual reality NVIDIA games
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didn't really start appearing until the 1980s when we started seeing arcade
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games like Battle Zone that used a periscope viewfinder to immerse players
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in the action and 3D glasses that were
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available for consoles like the Sega Master System. 1995 brought us the
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Nintendo Virtual Boy, the first mass marketed VR console. But although that
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one was marketed as being a totally immersive experience, its underwhelming
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monochrome graphics and difficulty of use made it one of the worst flops in
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Nintendo history. However, other companies were working on PC compatible
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headsets during this time, and the evolution of technology over the years
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ultimately gave us the high-spec VR headsets of today. But then, how do they
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work? Modern VR headsets show slightly
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different images to each of your eyes to
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fool your brain into thinking the 2D image on the screen is actually 3D. This
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principle is called stereoscopy and is actually similar to how the screen on a
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Nintendo 3DS works. To achieve a higher level of immersion, VR headsets use
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special lenses to increase the user's field of view, as well as pixels with
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very quick response times to reduce motion blur, meaning OLED screens have
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become popular for headsets, which you can learn more about here. By the way,
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unlike a monitor, which can deliver a perfectly enjoyable gaming experience at
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60 frames per second, headsets have
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higher refresh rates, typically around 90 Hz, and the high quality ones today,
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which is important because lower frame rates, lower refresh rates, can be
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disorienting in a VR context and cause motion sickness. Not what you want after
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you've dropped several hundred bucks on a Rift or a Vive. Because though of the
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high frame rate requirement and the headset resolutions that are well beyond
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1080p, a high-end PC system is basically
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a necessity. But beyond just graphics, VR headsets have sensors like gyroscopes
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and accelerometers to allow for head tracking so that what you see will
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change depending on where you're looking. Some headsets like the HTC Vive
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even use separate external base stations and lasers to enable whole room tracking
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so the system can detect the motion of your hands as well. So, as you can
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imagine, these headsets don't exactly come cheap. Fortunately, other lowerc
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cost VR solutions are becoming increasingly popular, such as Google
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Cardboard, which isn't much more than a couple of lenses inside a cardboard box
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with a slot where you can insert a smartphone. Developers have already
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written quite a few apps for Cardboard, making it a way to enjoy VR on the cheap
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if you don't have the coin for a gaming rig and a fancier headset. And although
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this new generation of VR headsets is just now hitting the market, there's
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already quite a bit of industry support, meaning that VR has the potential to
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really shake up how we experience games on both PCs and consoles. Maybe one day
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we'll even have VR Techquiki. I mean, after all, don't you want the experience
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of feeling like you're in the same room as
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me? Yeah, it's really not that exciting.
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Speaking of exciting, Squarespace. If you were thinking to yourself, "Gee, my
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website is really not exciting enough." Or maybe you were thinking to yourself,
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"Gee, my website is really not easy enough." Squarespace could be the
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solution to either of those problems. They've got a wide variety of beautiful,
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and email to help you out. It starts at only $8 a month. And all of their sites
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feature responsive design, so your website looks great. Whether it's on a
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desktop, a phone, or wow, I wonder what it'd be like if you viewed it in VR.
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Okay, they probably haven't come to that yet, but uh if anyone can do it, I'm
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sure it's Squarespace. You can start a trial with no credit card required and
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start building your website today. Whether it's a portfolio or a blog or a
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you knowformational site about your company or whatever the case may be, try
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it out. It really is easy. Then when you decide to sign up for Squarespace, head
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over to squarespace.com/lininus, which is linked
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in the video description, and use offer code Linus to get 10% off your first
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purchase. Squarespace, you should. What
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should you do? I don't know, but you should do it. So, thanks for watching,
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guys. If you like this video, hit that like button. If you disliked it, well, you can hit the dislike button, too. I
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