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Comment by trident1000 | Hacker News Reader

VR sucks. The end. See you in 5-10 years when its practical and enjoyable.

Beat Saber, Half Life Alyx, Boneworks...

Practical: Mostly, particularly if you already have a gaming computer. It's easy to spend more money on a good quality monitor. Enjoyable: Abso-effing-lutely

I agree. It's still a gimmick. It's like the WII basically. Hardcore types chant it's praises and families love to play it for a party game once a year.

Other than that, it collects dust compared to your other better mediums that exist.

Eh, gimmick for some, sure. For others it's a whole new world that they won't leave. For example, got an Oculus for the gimmick and didn't think I'd be so attached to it, but I cannot go back to playing any flight or racing simulator without it again, it's simply not the same. I tried the new FS2020 briefly on launch, but had to go back to X-Plane as FS2020 still doesn't support VR headsets.

so does x-plane work today on quest 2?

Quest and Quest 2 can play Steam games like Alyx. Since X-Plane is on Steam, I'm going to tentatively say yes. You just need to buy a PC link cable for the Quest. You can get away with a wireless to PC link... but you'll get more lag

Probably not, Quest 2 is basically running mobile hardware right? X-Plane is a fully fledged flight simulator that barely runs on a powerful desktop PC on highest settings. I'm using a Oculus Rift currently.

My understanding is Quest 2 can run Rift games using the optional link cable. But I'm not sure if that means it will take advantage of higher resolution on Quest 2 or whether X-Plane devs have to do something new.

Irrelevant in my case, as getting any Oculus product is out of the question since introducing the new Facebook account requirements.

Why did you say you are using a Rift and then ask if it ran the flight simulator, only to say it is irrelevant to you out of nowhere?

> Why did you say you are using a Rift

Because I am

> ask if it ran the flight simulator

I didn't. I said I use Rift with X-Plane.

What is irrelevant is if Quest runs with X-Plane or not, even if it doesn't.

The original subject of this thread was if VR is a gimmick or not. I initially replied that yeah, for some it's a gimmick and for others there is really no alternative. Now we're plenty off topic here :)

> What is irrelevant is if Quest runs with X-Plane or not, even if it doesn't

Then why ask if the quest runs it?

I've been around long enough to see previous attempts at 'VR' and those definitely were gimmicks. However, I think calling even the first generation of contemporary VR a gimmick is an exageration.

There are some legitimately good experiences to be had in VR right now. Beat Saber is fun as hell, and SUPERHOT VR is great, from personal experience. However, the hardware is still a bit clunky and asks a lot of the user, and developers are still working out what how to design for it. Unfortunately that means a lot of titles are, in fact, pretty damned gimmicky.

At worst, it's a low key, more immersive Peloton but really it's a new medium. It feels like when the internet and iPhone first came out. Sure it's not perfect and it's easy for pundits to nitpick, but it's definitely a new world changing paradigm for those who can afford it. I feel that affordability is VR's main weakness.

I think VR shows promise as a way to make cardio exercise fun among other things. It's also one of the only cutting edge areas of gaming design where everyone else is just upping resolutions and frame rate.

Have you played Alyx or something like that on VR? It's absolutely not a gimmic. It's pretty freakin' amazing.

The fact that I can pick up a fake class and slosh water in it doesn't change the fact that I'm doing something I can do in real life that is...as equally boring.

That's unlucky, I'm guessing you haven't played much of it?

Just playing the GTAV VR mod (https://github.com/LukeRoss00/gta5-real-mod) is just something else, whilst not perfect (hell it's a mod on an old game!) it's so fucking sick being in a car chase at 160mph weaving through traffic in VR.

Can VR get a lot better in 5 - 10 years, hell yea, but that's like saying you weren't going to buy an Xbox360 because the Xbox OneX will be out in 10 years.

That looks interesting, I may try it. Got GTA V and an Oculus Go, both of which are collecting dust.

I played NFS The Run just in big screen mode (with a PS4 controller) and it was pretty nice. But other than VRChat and the occasional movie (3D is nice), I don't use the headset at all.

Oh 100% give it a go, it's extremely easy to setup.

For the GO you could set your resolution to 1440x1440 in the config file so you get less jaggies and then tone the graphics detail right down (unless you do have a beast of a PC), it's basically because it has to render the game twice, which it was never meant to do and you want to be sticking to around 90fps.

I will say again, it's not perfect, but for what it is, and the fact someone managed to do this as a mod, you can't complain.

If you are going to do it, install the following two mods:

https://www.gta5-mods.com/misc/world-of-variety https://www.gta5-mods.com/vehicles/realistic-top-speed-for-g...

It completely changes how alive the world is.

You can say it about anything, in 5-10 years it'll be better. But in 5-10 years you'll be old and won't be able to fully enjoy. Things are never ideal.

I've enjoyed Alyx a lot.

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