Commented 7 years ago2016-10-22 15:16:39 UTC
in journal: #8763Comment #52954
I'm impressed. The idea is something new, I guess. But, as with every other hardware (except PC parts), I still won't be able to buy one for a long time.
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-21 01:07:24 UTC
in journal: #8763Comment #52948
There was footage in there of a new Mario game with a proper third person camera. I have no choice but to buy one now.
The little snap-off controllers looks pretty lame, but the pro controller and full tablet setup have me covered. I'm definitely interested.
The most important thing is that they've apparently got a nice big list of third party developers up for supporting the system this time, including support for UE4 & Unity. I really hope they're successful with this.
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-20 23:14:40 UTC
in journal: #8763Comment #52949
I'm very much interested in this, purely from a parenting perspective. Come Hell or high water my daughter is going to be a gamer. The portability and Nintendo's track record for local multiplayer games (rather than resorting to online all the time) would be a plus.
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-20 23:03:46 UTC
in journal: #5579Comment #58969
I keep finding recent comments from Potatis, Jessie and TJB on peoples really old journals. I think you people have a hobby happening here, or maybe you just have a lot of spare time?
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-20 22:56:08 UTC
in journal: #8763Comment #52951
Much of my gaming needs are met with my PC alone. As a platform, PC suits me down to the ground since I can do all the other shit I do day to day on here as well, like visit this very website. Since many of their games cross over and I have little real interest in the ones that don't, the PS4 and XB1 hold little appeal in my eyes.
I have partaken in both the Wii U and the 3DS, though, as those hold different experiences. I decided I wanted the Wii U for titles like Splatoon, Super Mario Maker, Super Smash Bros., and a couple of other titles me and my friends could play and appreciate as a group that could not be located elsewhere. The 3DS I value as a portable device, something I can take with me and play wherever I must. It's value being supported by many great titles that are exclusive to it and its features.
With that in mind, I could see myself getting one of these easily, seeing as it represents the best of both worlds and could wrap my non-PC needs up in one easy package.
But then I got thinking... This is not the Wii U. What if the third-party support for this is actually good? What if significant non-Nintendo titles make it to this thing? It won't have the same kind of graphical quality as other platforms, yes, but if you could play the kind of games you'd normally play on consoles portably...
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-20 22:14:19 UTC
in journal: #8763Comment #52950
I'm keen to hear more details before I make any calls, but portable gaming is more appealing to me than TV console gaming. Colour me intrigued and interested.
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-20 21:21:38 UTC
in journal: #8763Comment #52952
HEY THAT'S MINE!
I'm pretty excited for it, to be honest. I dunno if I'll have the spare cash to get one, but if the specs (most importantly battery life) are up to snuff I think it'll be a slick piece of hardware.
Super glad they finally brought back cartridges so we don't have to worry about load times as much, or installing a bunch of game data just to decrease said times.
The controller seems a bit unergonomic, but I suppose it's harder to tell that from looks than it is from touch.
I know that if it doesn't match up with Scorpio or the PS Pro in terms of specs people will be all up in arms, but I just dropped $3K cdn on a new rig with a 1080, so if I want graphically intensive games I can just play on that. (Plus Breath of the Wild looks great, so I don't think hardware power is going to be a big deal. That particle-based grass looks super great.)
Nintendo gonna Nintendo, regardless of what everyone else is doing. And that's what makes their stuff special.
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-20 08:03:58 UTC
in journal: #8761Comment #52942
Mobile VR is a thing and tbh is quite decent for what it can do. GearVR with an S6 or was it an S7 (don't remember) produces about the same quality picture as the Rift Dk2, granted you are not going to play hardcore games on it, but for watching videos its more than decent, and the price is reasonable if you got the phone already.
360 video and 3D 360 video are different things, 360 is just a lot of cameras with their images stitched together to form a sphere, but i don't believe it produces a true 3D environment since its essentially 1 camera for 1 picture. To produce realistic 3D environments you need 2 viewpoints (2 cameras), in games that translates to rendering the same scene twice with some offset, that kills performance. Though now that VR is moving forward the underlying tech, namely stereoscopic 3D rendering is getting a facelift so to speak, with more advanced GPU's being able to render the scenes using different techniques rather than just putting a second viewpoint in, NVIDIA has something for this i believe.
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-19 19:15:22 UTC
in journal: #8761Comment #52947
"Even if you do have the fastest PC of the world, you would loose a lot of FPS on modern games. We live in a world of WYSIWGR (What You See Is What Gets Rendered), 360° means killing that because it would require more cameras, more cameras = more scenes to render, more scenes to render = more CPU/GPU work, more CPU/GPU work = lags." No, I mean one camera rendered on your smartphone's screen. There are "helmets" (casque?) which allow you to use a smartphone's screen like some sort of VR devices. It allows you to attach your smartphone right before your eyes to get full immersion. But then, the smartphone would have to detect precisely enough the head's movements. Right now, it's only for watching movies I think.
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-19 18:52:20 UTC
in journal: #8761Comment #52945
I was at a tech event last year where I got to put my camera aside and test a first-gen Rift (I think it was first-gen... but it was long enough ago that I don't remember). It was quite impressive as far as immersion but the picture was shit. It was all pixelly and blurry.
I can't afford any anyway, so I'll wait for the second generation of VR devices. It's only an educated guess but I'm sure the second generation will be battery powered and wireless. That will be something I look forward to.
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-19 16:27:51 UTC
in journal: #8761Comment #52939
A VR club opened in my city, but an hour costs about 17$. I'm gonna go there sometime to test VR for the first time. Until then I only know stuff that people said in reviews, and your opinions.
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-19 15:10:49 UTC
in journal: #8761Comment #52944
I agree with Ross Scott, VR is just ice on the cake and it's more of a market rather than anything else. Standard 3D is more than enough and I think there is still a lot to explore.
What I don't understand is why isn't it easier to be able to play 3D games with a 360° vision, optionally in 3D? It's already possible to use a smartphone to get a 360° vision, so it's technically supposed to be very simple.
Even if you do have the fastest PC of the world, you would loose a lot of FPS on modern games. We live in a world of WYSIWGR (What You See Is What Gets Rendered), 360° means killing that because it would require more cameras, more cameras = more scenes to render, more scenes to render = more CPU/GPU work, more CPU/GPU work = lags.
UPDATE : AFAIK, VR developers have a set of standards to respect in order to prevent motion sickness, so it's either the standards are bad or the developers don't care.
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-19 14:50:20 UTC
in journal: #8761Comment #52943
My roommate is working on a VR game for school this year, so I actually got to take a look around some of the Occulus demos today after he set up the devkit he signed out. (Sadly, no hands-on experience with the Vive or Morphe- I mean, PSVR yet) I didn't get any vertigo from the 'rooftop' demo, but the dinosaur ones made me a bit nervous, despite knowing full well that the featherless raptor wasn't real.
I think the tech has potential, but we need A) to get used to some of the design quirks, and B) Actually have a dev team make a full-on VR game instead of a series of tech demos. As fun as Horseshoes, Hotdogs, and Hangrenades, Budget Cuts, or Kingspray Graffiti Simulator look, they're not really 'full' game experiences, but rather (super neat) toys for VR.
If someone came out with something like the HL2 VR mod, I think that could be a killer app that would help get things rolling, but I'm not aware of any team working on something like that, presumably because of the monetary risk in making something that large scope for a platform that hasn't become ubiquitous yet.
We also need to get movement figured out in a way that doesn't involve teleporting or causing mass motion sickness (which apparently happens sometimes with analog stick movement), and isn't limited to the Vive's detection circle. Once that falls in place, I think VR will properly take off. But that'll be Generation 2 VR at the soonest.
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-19 13:05:34 UTC
in journal: #8761Comment #52946
Only tried once the Occulus Rift. That was impressive, even though it made me sick in the end. What I don't understand is why isn't it easier to be able to play 3D games with a 360° vision, optionally in 3D? It's already possible to use a smartphone to get a 360° vision, so it's technically supposed to be very simple. A video which I found interesting on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8H5kYesvsM
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-19 12:39:47 UTC
in journal: #8761Comment #52941
@Strider Completely agree with you mate. I seriously doubt it's ever going to affect the gaming market in any meaningful way, because its really damn hard to make a good gaming experience for VR if even possible.
When the media keeps saying "It's going to be a big deal" 3D suddenly pops up in my mind and when it was a "big deal".
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-19 12:34:23 UTC
in journal: #8761Comment #52937
I'm basically thinking the same about VR as I did with motion controls. It's an interesting gimmick.
Regarding the VIVE, technology is certainly advancing to interesting places, but it seems you need to pay a small fortune in order to try it. Even then, the games that utilise it are barely games at all. They're just room sized apps that you piss around in.
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-19 12:25:32 UTC
in journal: #8761Comment #52936
Haven't used any of them, not really in a rush to, but I think even if you were interested in VR it would be a mistake to buy one of them right now. The tech is going to evolve constantly and the cost is really damn high for something that's going to be obsolete so quickly.
I can't speak about how immersive VR is, and I have no reason to doubt it looks amazing, but the issue I don't really see anyone tackling is what exactly has it done for gameplay? Seems kind of important to me!
I haven't seen a single VR-specific game that wasn't just fiddling with physics objects (with higher, shaky hand fidelity!) or a simple wave-based shooter that plants you on the spot (because you just can't reliably move long distances in a VR environment). Motion/tracking controls are easily the worst out there, it doesn't matter how much more accurate they get.
I don't actually think there's ever actually going to be a 'killer app' for VR devices in their current form, they're just too detrimental to game design. The tech might be more impressive, but it seems likely they're going to be looked back at for a laugh just like the VR concepts of the 80s, only 10 years from now instead of 30 because technology and the zeitgeist moves so much faster.
They might have a future in videos and education, especially as the tech eventually gets cheaper, but I find it hard to imagine they'll ever really be anything more than niche.
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-19 12:21:02 UTC
in journal: #8761Comment #52940
Had tried the Rift dk1 and dk2, both were pretty bad tbh, i could easily see the pixels of the screen which killed the immersiveness for me personally, "Screen Door" is not much of an issue for me, depends on personal preference i suppose. Will probably try Vive in the next 2 weeks and see how that is better or worse than the Rift (as far as i know the Rift consumer version is very similar to dk2). PSVR is really not a thing in my mind, since it has inferior hardware that powers it, but to be fair i have not done any research on it. There is a another HMD which looks promising - OSVR, with it being open source there is a lot of potential for new physical control options etc... And the screen is pretty good (so i was told).
If i were to get a HMD right now the Vive is a no brainer. The controllers and the ability to move around the room rather than sitting beats the Rift to pieces. But i don't have a spare 2k$ to throw for a new setup + the headpiece so that will have to wait
Commented 7 years ago2016-10-09 22:13:40 UTC
in journal: #8760Comment #68542
Like Instant Mix said : start with "high level programming languages" such as Java and C#, they are both great for learning purposes and also great if you plan to do some applications/games that don't require too much "real time" stuff.
C is a "low level language" meaning that your program is "close to your computer" rather than depending on a CLR for C#/JVM for Java, it's a nice "jack of all trades" for video games but you will have to do more work, Java and C# does many dirty job for you (memory allocation, garbage collector...) but this isn't the case of C.
My suggestion would be to learn the 2 types of languages, start with a "high level one" (Java/C#) then move on to a lower one (C). One mistake that newbies made and you should be aware of : don't rush things and don't use your game project for learning languages, in other words, don't be that guy that knows nothing about programming and start writing an OpenGL renderer (I'm not kidding, I already saw people trying to write an OpenGL renderer and they couldn't even declare a variable).
Another friendly hint: if you have an error during the compilation of your programs the case of errors, don't have the "search on Google" reflex, you look at the error itself, the solution is explained to you very often.
Commented 8 years ago2016-10-09 14:08:42 UTC
in journal: #8760Comment #68541
There's a couple handy programming languages that are good to know;
By far the most in-use language ( not necessarily popular ) is Java. That's a great one to learn. Python is very similar to java except more of a scripting language than a programming one. C / C# is very good as well.
There's a few other ones like Ruby & Haskell, however they aren't remotely as popular or in as much use as thsoe other 3.
Commented 8 years ago2016-10-05 09:13:47 UTC
in journal: #8757Comment #65958
What if this IS a riddle, somehow? But then, the only riddles people post in journals denote birthdays... So I guess this could be a riddle about a birthday posing as a simple declaration of a birthday.
Commented 8 years ago2016-10-04 17:25:37 UTC
in journal: #8757Comment #65965
@Instant Mix
Whatever, when my birthday comes, on the 23rd of February, I will simply write "It's my birthday today! Discuss the fact how I haven't had a birthday party since 2012."
But you're right, the puzzles are usually not hard to solve.
Commented 8 years ago2016-10-04 07:46:35 UTC
in journal: #8756Comment #51088
It was a huge time commitment, that would be much better spent actually focussing on studies rather than spending 6 hours a day 3 days a week rehearsing. Cheers for the positive thoughts guys!
Striker : Depending on how well I do this year, I either have one or two more years. My degree is Computational Physics, so it's quite heavy on the coding and analysis side; we've a quantum computing project this year that I'm fairly excited about. I don't think research / academia is the correct path for me, but the skills I'll learn would hopefully make me fairly good at data analysis or modelling of some description.
The little snap-off controllers looks pretty lame, but the pro controller and full tablet setup have me covered. I'm definitely interested.
The most important thing is that they've apparently got a nice big list of third party developers up for supporting the system this time, including support for UE4 & Unity. I really hope they're successful with this.
I have partaken in both the Wii U and the 3DS, though, as those hold different experiences. I decided I wanted the Wii U for titles like Splatoon, Super Mario Maker, Super Smash Bros., and a couple of other titles me and my friends could play and appreciate as a group that could not be located elsewhere. The 3DS I value as a portable device, something I can take with me and play wherever I must. It's value being supported by many great titles that are exclusive to it and its features.
With that in mind, I could see myself getting one of these easily, seeing as it represents the best of both worlds and could wrap my non-PC needs up in one easy package.
But then I got thinking... This is not the Wii U. What if the third-party support for this is actually good? What if significant non-Nintendo titles make it to this thing? It won't have the same kind of graphical quality as other platforms, yes, but if you could play the kind of games you'd normally play on consoles portably...
I'm pretty excited for it, to be honest. I dunno if I'll have the spare cash to get one, but if the specs (most importantly battery life) are up to snuff I think it'll be a slick piece of hardware.
Super glad they finally brought back cartridges so we don't have to worry about load times as much, or installing a bunch of game data just to decrease said times.
The controller seems a bit unergonomic, but I suppose it's harder to tell that from looks than it is from touch.
I know that if it doesn't match up with Scorpio or the PS Pro in terms of specs people will be all up in arms, but I just dropped $3K cdn on a new rig with a 1080, so if I want graphically intensive games I can just play on that. (Plus Breath of the Wild looks great, so I don't think hardware power is going to be a big deal. That particle-based grass looks super great.)
Nintendo gonna Nintendo, regardless of what everyone else is doing. And that's what makes their stuff special.
GearVR with an S6 or was it an S7 (don't remember) produces about the same quality picture as the Rift Dk2, granted you are not going to play hardcore games on it, but for watching videos its more than decent, and the price is reasonable if you got the phone already.
360 video and 3D 360 video are different things, 360 is just a lot of cameras with their images stitched together to form a sphere, but i don't believe it produces a true 3D environment since its essentially 1 camera for 1 picture. To produce realistic 3D environments you need 2 viewpoints (2 cameras), in games that translates to rendering the same scene twice with some offset, that kills performance. Though now that VR is moving forward the underlying tech, namely stereoscopic 3D rendering is getting a facelift so to speak, with more advanced GPU's being able to render the scenes using different techniques rather than just putting a second viewpoint in, NVIDIA has something for this i believe.
No, I mean one camera rendered on your smartphone's screen. There are "helmets" (casque?) which allow you to use a smartphone's screen like some sort of VR devices. It allows you to attach your smartphone right before your eyes to get full immersion. But then, the smartphone would have to detect precisely enough the head's movements.
Right now, it's only for watching movies I think.
I can't afford any anyway, so I'll wait for the second generation of VR devices. It's only an educated guess but I'm sure the second generation will be battery powered and wireless. That will be something I look forward to.
UPDATE : AFAIK, VR developers have a set of standards to respect in order to prevent motion sickness, so it's either the standards are bad or the developers don't care.
I think the tech has potential, but we need A) to get used to some of the design quirks, and B) Actually have a dev team make a full-on VR game instead of a series of tech demos. As fun as Horseshoes, Hotdogs, and Hangrenades, Budget Cuts, or Kingspray Graffiti Simulator look, they're not really 'full' game experiences, but rather (super neat) toys for VR.
If someone came out with something like the HL2 VR mod, I think that could be a killer app that would help get things rolling, but I'm not aware of any team working on something like that, presumably because of the monetary risk in making something that large scope for a platform that hasn't become ubiquitous yet.
We also need to get movement figured out in a way that doesn't involve teleporting or causing mass motion sickness (which apparently happens sometimes with analog stick movement), and isn't limited to the Vive's detection circle. Once that falls in place, I think VR will properly take off. But that'll be Generation 2 VR at the soonest.
What I don't understand is why isn't it easier to be able to play 3D games with a 360° vision, optionally in 3D? It's already possible to use a smartphone to get a 360° vision, so it's technically supposed to be very simple.
A video which I found interesting on the subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8H5kYesvsM
When the media keeps saying "It's going to be a big deal" 3D suddenly pops up in my mind and when it was a "big deal".
Regarding the VIVE, technology is certainly advancing to interesting places, but it seems you need to pay a small fortune in order to try it. Even then, the games that utilise it are barely games at all. They're just room sized apps that you piss around in.
I can't speak about how immersive VR is, and I have no reason to doubt it looks amazing, but the issue I don't really see anyone tackling is what exactly has it done for gameplay? Seems kind of important to me!
I haven't seen a single VR-specific game that wasn't just fiddling with physics objects (with higher, shaky hand fidelity!) or a simple wave-based shooter that plants you on the spot (because you just can't reliably move long distances in a VR environment). Motion/tracking controls are easily the worst out there, it doesn't matter how much more accurate they get.
I don't actually think there's ever actually going to be a 'killer app' for VR devices in their current form, they're just too detrimental to game design. The tech might be more impressive, but it seems likely they're going to be looked back at for a laugh just like the VR concepts of the 80s, only 10 years from now instead of 30 because technology and the zeitgeist moves so much faster.
They might have a future in videos and education, especially as the tech eventually gets cheaper, but I find it hard to imagine they'll ever really be anything more than niche.
Will probably try Vive in the next 2 weeks and see how that is better or worse than the Rift (as far as i know the Rift consumer version is very similar to dk2). PSVR is really not a thing in my mind, since it has inferior hardware that powers it, but to be fair i have not done any research on it.
There is a another HMD which looks promising - OSVR, with it being open source there is a lot of potential for new physical control options etc... And the screen is pretty good (so i was told).
If i were to get a HMD right now the Vive is a no brainer. The controllers and the ability to move around the room rather than sitting beats the Rift to pieces. But i don't have a spare 2k$ to throw for a new setup + the headpiece so that will have to wait
Understood. Thanks
C is a "low level language" meaning that your program is "close to your computer" rather than depending on a CLR for C#/JVM for Java, it's a nice "jack of all trades" for video games but you will have to do more work, Java and C# does many dirty job for you (memory allocation, garbage collector...) but this isn't the case of C.
My suggestion would be to learn the 2 types of languages, start with a "high level one" (Java/C#) then move on to a lower one (C). One mistake that newbies made and you should be aware of : don't rush things and don't use your game project for learning languages, in other words, don't be that guy that knows nothing about programming and start writing an OpenGL renderer (I'm not kidding, I already saw people trying to write an OpenGL renderer and they couldn't even declare a variable).
Another friendly hint: if you have an error during the compilation of your programs the case of errors, don't have the "search on Google" reflex, you look at the error itself, the solution is explained to you very often.
By far the most in-use language ( not necessarily popular ) is Java. That's a great one to learn.
Python is very similar to java except more of a scripting language than a programming one.
C / C# is very good as well.
There's a few other ones like Ruby & Haskell, however they aren't remotely as popular or in as much use as thsoe other 3.
The end
But then, the only riddles people post in journals denote birthdays... So I guess this could be a riddle about a birthday posing as a simple declaration of a birthday.
@IM: He's too new for it. He'll learn
Does the whitespace show your age?
Whatever, when my birthday comes, on the 23rd of February, I will simply write "It's my birthday today! Discuss the fact how I haven't had a birthday party since 2012."
But you're right, the puzzles are usually not hard to solve.
Finally someone who also simply announces their birthday :')
Cheers for the positive thoughts guys!
Striker : Depending on how well I do this year, I either have one or two more years. My degree is Computational Physics, so it's quite heavy on the coding and analysis side; we've a quantum computing project this year that I'm fairly excited about. I don't think research / academia is the correct path for me, but the skills I'll learn would hopefully make me fairly good at data analysis or modelling of some description.