Four decades into the evolution of video gaming, we are entering the age of the augmented gamer, one where it is not enough to game in the way we used to anymore .. chained to a desktop or large flat screen display
In this era both developers and gamers need to evolve how they experience and interface with video games.. think what the simple addition of the augment of touch control did for phone and tablet gaming ...for both developers and gamers..
Since E3 Iast year I have been thinking of how I was going to augment how I play Titanfall when it hits the PC and Microsoft consoles ..
And thanks to Abbie Heppe and Respawn I can .. finally.. share with you
4 days of sustained augmented Titanfall Beta HMD testing using
3 HMDs the Oculus Rift, siliconmicrodisplay ST1080 and the CInemizer OLED .. on
2 Platforms : PC (2D and 3D) and Xbox One using
1 Head tracking method : the Cinemizer OLED head tracker with
0 perceptible Head tracker lag or latency even when playing over ..the cloud ...( JC try it!)
By 4th day of my Titanfall Beta test I was playing the first 3D HMD over the cloud and head tracking over the cloud gameplay on PC .. using the same 3 HMDs .. connected to a lowly Windows 8 tablet 3 floors away from the remote PC running Titanfall...
The videos below show my HMD ghost wearing each HMD using the Zeiss head tracker to play, the Cinemizer OLED and ST1080 come in around 180g and really fit like a pair of shades .. the Zeiss HMD is the most comfortable HMD in existence, the ST1080 has a vice grip and the Rift weighs in at around 379g with a very large footprint ..or head print .. or is it face print.. ? Watching the videos if you are developer of those HMDs should show you (JC this means you) how sustained use looks in real gaming situations .. over the course of 4 days of play over 90 hours of testing .. and I include setting up the HMDs in that testing time ....this is where the ergonomics of your HMD design and not the brute force hardware or software in your latest prototype can become a limiting factor for your users... such issues need to be corrected on the design board ...and cannot be on the printed circuit board or by firmware updates..
This then is 4 days of sustained play .. across platforms using solely HMDs and head tracking to play, not a 4 minute demo at a show. Analyzing the videos and considering this comment may prove more beneficial to HMD design than the usual Rift promo TVRKING videos that infest youtube.. just saying..take a look at the way my head moves when wearing the Cinemizer , ST1080 and compare with the Rift ....objectively (JC!)
Titanfall is the perfect candidate for the first augmented VR/HMD Esport game.
Using Head Mounted Displays and head tracking Titanfall can be one of the first games that not only continues the legacy of twitch FPS games but evolves the way we play with squads of HMD wielding Titan pilots responding to audio and visual queues faster than rivals using legacy controls.. in an augmented way...
Soon very soon head tracking will do for HMD gaming what touch did for our hero Dong's Flappy bird... all it takes is finding the right game to demonstrate ...
And we can do this on PC, Xbox One and Xbox 360 platforms..
Lets see how my way of playing Titanfall evolved over 4 days ..from simple 2D , to multiple forms of 3D , on opaque and transparent HMDs we are looking at ..made up word ..the augmentability of this game on both lead platforms the Xbox One and PC
My Titanfall adventures began in the early hours of the 16th of Feb ..with:
PC training on the ST1080 HMD , in true 1080p native 3D , this is a transparent LCOS display , all FOV movement is via the Zeiss head tracker alone .. although you can always use the mouse and joypad ... importantly head tracking works WITH the 360 joypad
Titanfall Beta Siliconmicrodisplay ST1080 HMD 1080p 3D Zeiss Head Tracking Test 1
And now Titanfall Beta on PC in 2D with the ST1080 HMD and Zeiss head tracker
The ST1080 and Cinemizer OLED allow 2D as well as 3D options for your Titanfall augmented gaming sessions
Onto the Cinemizer OLED : This is the THE most comfortable HMD to use to date , with a 40 inch OLED display. With the Cinemizer we use 1080p over under 3D :
Onto the Cinemizer OLED : This is the THE most comfortable HMD to use to date , with a 40 inch OLED display. With the Cinemizer we use 1080p over under 3D :
The real magic of the Zeiss head tracker is that we can use it with consoles too . And here is the Xbox One version of Titanfall Beta being played with Zeiss head tracking using the ST1080 and Cinemizer OLED HMDs ...as the Rift does not allow 2D content we cannot use it with consoles ...any console... plus the experience with nausea, screen door and low res (even in the 1080p version) is literally a game killer... yes JC that's another nudge to get the Rift working with consoles...
We can play any and all Xbox One games with Zeiss head tracking , 0 drift , 0 drag 0 perceptible lag ... just try it for yourself .. You can find out how to set up the head tracker for Xbox One use here
Xbox One
And now onto the Oculus Rift . Titanfall runs in DX11 , which means the TriDef Rift Beta is no good, but this does not stop us from playing in 3D on the Rift.. we can use side by side, standard display settings and a 4:3 screen ratio .. And the settings I use to play ARMA III on the Rift sans warp .. here .
By this time it was early into the 17th of February and my second day of Titanfall Beta testing was beginning ...at this point we have the Rift displaying Titanfall at 1600 by 1200 sbs 3D, but don't worry a couple of days from this point we get to see at 1080p sbs 3D:
With the Rift you of course do not see a picture of the fidelity of the video above, but that does not bother me too much . After 9 months of using the Rift, the real outstanding issue is the physical bulk and weight of the HMD.
Re Titanfall ..imagine you are a pro gamer , sitting at a tournament about to play several hours of Titanfall using a HMD. If that HMD is north of 180g, that weight starts to affect your game. This is discounting the nausea and other issues thrown up from the optics and display..
In a fast twitch FPS or futuristic arena game like Titanfall we constantly move our heads .. rapid movements, slow tracking movements ... and here's the rub John ....it is not the speed of the sensors in the head tracker that matter .. or the lab measured in vitro latency test figures... what matters is how the weight of the attached HMD, the ergonomics of the HMD impact on use of that HMD ..
So with the <180g smd ST1080 and Cinemizer OLED HMDS .. you can use them without pain , professionally and if you want on a plane at 38000 ft over a 10 hour transatlantic flight with head tracking in 3D without any detriment to your gaming ..
So getting the weight and bulk of the Rift down to sub 180g is key in making it commercially viable and relevant to gamers who want to game with skill and without pain as opposed to "youtubers" who want to TVRK anything with the word Oculus on it just to get some more youtube dollars...
This does not detract from the magic of getting Titanfall to play with the Rift .. but we need to see it evolve to being as user friendly as it is media friendly... over to you JC ...
Day 3 18/02/14
Onto my third day of Titanfall Beta testing , I say third but this is really just one long 96 hour session ... by now I am starting to level up
Onto my third day of Titanfall Beta testing , I say third but this is really just one long 96 hour session ... by now I am starting to level up
Titanfall Beta Xbox ONE Cinemizer OLED HMD + Zeiss Head tracking Test 2
Titanfall Beta Xbox One Cinemizer OLED HMD Headtracking test 3
Day 4 19/02/14
By this time I had learnt to switch off Power 3D in TriDef, figured out how to play in 1080p (scaled) side by side 3D on the Rift, gained a little edge using the Cinemizer and OLED St1080s low weight and most exciting of all play the first Titanfall 2D and 3D streamed over cloud IHS games on the Ciinemizer OLED and ST1080 AND Oculus Rift and keep head tracking working over the cloud ..
Titanfall Beta Oculus Rift Zeiss Head Tracking Test 1080p sbs TriDef 3D
Titanfall Beta ST1080 HMD 1080P 3D Cinemizer OLED Head Tracking
Titanfall Beta Cinemizer OLED 3D HMD Zeiss Head Tracking
CLOUD PLAY
TITANFALL CLOUD HMD GAMING WITH OVER THE CLOUD HEAD TRACKING
PLAYING TITANFALL USING HMDS WITH STEAM IN HOME STREAMING IN 2D
This is how we play Titanfall over the cloud away from our Rigs on hardware that is way below the specs for the game ..
The Rift is not currently set up to allow 2D content, it is simple to stream and play a 1080p 2D game using Splashtop or 720p via Steam IHS something we can exploit with the Cinemizer OLED and ST1080...but 2D is old .. why cloud game in 2D when you could be :
PLAYING TITANFALL USING HMDS WITH STEAM IN HOME STREAMING IN 3D
Titanfall Beta Over the Cloud 3D Cinemizer OLED HMD+Zeiss Head Tracking Steam In Home Streaming
This is a 1080p top bottom TidDef 3D full screen game being played over the cloud ..via Steam IHS ..Till now I have not been able to do this using other cloud streaming services because they do not handle full screen streaming .. the IHS Beta whether by design or accident does ... and this means we can take 3D HMD VR gaming and head tracking over the cloud ...any where .. (eventually) ...for now at least well away from our Rigs..
We are not locked to one form of 3D cloud HMD gaming .. switch to side by side and we have :
OCULUS RIFT ISSUES ; IHS CANNOT COPE WITH A 1080P STREAM :
BUT Streaming Titanfall is eminently possible to the Oculus Rift using IHS ..what this means is you Riftmaniac ( you too JC) can use the cloud to game with your Rift away from your Rig in 3D , connected to a pocket computer or a humble iGPU dedicated tablet ... your VR gaming just went mobile...
And what's more head tracking works too... as long as the head tracker you use is the Zeiss head tracker .. now you know why I use the Zeiss head tracker with the Rift...and keep telling Palmer you gotta have mouse emulation in hardware in your head tracker...
Think of this demo as a proof of concept, as IHS improves and we get to 1080p streaming without issue and by that I mean 1080p 3D side by side streaming .. we can use our Rifts over the cloud .. without being caged to our Rigs .. watch out Starbucks ..
I am going to cover Rift Steam In home streaming and HMD IHS gaming a lot more over the coming months , for now please note it is not the Oculus Rift that is a limiting factor , just the fact that IHS is not yet optimized for streaming the amount of data required for 3D gaming .. of course if we keep lowering the res ...it is ..
And now at around 11 pm on the 4th day or 90 something hour of my Titanfall Beta test I finished my testing by checking out :
And now at around 11 pm on the 4th day or 90 something hour of my Titanfall Beta test I finished my testing by checking out :
Titanfall Beta Over the Cloud 3D smd ST1080 HMD+Zeiss Head Tracking Steam In Home Streaming
Steam IHS issues .. you can see some screen "pop" when streaming, but IHS is still a Beta and expect this to be gone from the final release .. it is still most impressive to be able to take your HMD away from your Rig, take head tracking too and sample the future of 3D HMD gaming .. over the cloud ..
Much more on this as I continue to test Steam IHS and find new uses for it..
Titanfall looks set to be one of the biggest PC and Xbox One launches ever , as for the game, you can see from the videos how much fun it is to play, I love the narration/incidental comments, the fact that even at a Beta stage I had 0 log on or server issues and I was as you can see really messing with how to play the game .. even when streamed and played over the cloud Titanfall stayed rock solid and stable...
The Parkour needs improving , there are too many overhangs that limit parkour .. perhaps deliberately but these need to be removed to give pilots a clean parkour run .. and I keep thinking there should be Ewoks or equivalent furry indigenous life forms... and Forest Moons.. with those wonderful Ewok Mech traps ..OK that's lack of sleep...
The Xbox One game seems far more advanced at this stage but that is to be expected ...the PC is such a diverse platform real optimization will take time for each individual...
Oh and the first few days were free of the bane of Xbox online gaming .. those squeaky voiced trolls ... it did not feel like Xbox Live at all ... and I mean that in a good way ! Later on though and you start to have to use the mute button..
There is so much Respawn can add to this game as they go along it is going to be fascinating to see it evolve alongside how the way we play games evolves .. some of which I hope to have shown you a glimpse of here ..
Epilogue and thanks
Many thanks to
1. Abbie Heppe and Respawn for the keys ... I think you saved me $6000 on ebay ...
2. DDD and TriDef.. rock solid 3D performance as usual across all 3 HMDs
3. Carl Zeiss
4. Siliconmicrodisplay
5. Microsoft
6. Oculus VR .. and JC ..get the Rift weight/bulk down..compare how I move in the Rift videos to the other HMD videos ..
7. Valve and GabeN .. Steam IHS is awesome even in Beta ..
if you need to find out more about the gear I use
Carl Zeiss CinemIzer OLED HMD and Head Tracker
Siliconmicrodisplay ST1080
Oculus Rift
more to follow ...something VR FusRoDah related as soon as I get .. some Titansleep
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