[typing]
The future... is here.
Or at least some potential part of it in the form of the HTC Vive.
Released in April of 2016, through cooperation between HTC and Valve Corporation,
the Vive is an $800 VR headset for the PC
that seeks to create a virtual world both around your eyeballs and inside of your room.
Room scale is the buzzword you'll hear a lot with this thing,
where the idea is that you cannot only play games
sitting down with a traditional mouse, keyboard, gamepad, joystick or steering wheel,
but you can also use the provided motion controllers and 360-degree tracking sensors
to physically walk around and interact with games more directly.
And I've got to say, after using this thing for a few weeks,
when this is working at its best and games play to the Vive's strengths,
rather than fights its weaknesses,
this is the single best VR experience I've had to date.
That said, there are a number of caveats, and we'll get to those momentarily.
First off, let's take a look at the box it comes in,
which is unnecessarily and amusingly huge.
Also, it's worth noting that I got this unit free of charge.
Not from the manufacturer or any PR person,
but from a generous viewer on YouTube.
So thank you, Kenneth. You are patently awesome!
But yeah, the inside of the box is flush with goodies,
coming with everything you need, and even a few things you may not.
One of the items it *doesn't* come with is a display port cable,
which for me was a problem, since I only have one HDMI port
on my GTX 980 Ti graphics card.
And seeing as you're going to want to plug in your monitor alongside the Vive,
this is something you may have to keep in mind.
Another thing to consider is the design of the headset itself,
which may or may not work for your vision situation.
I normally wear glasses
because I can't freakin' see a thing further than a foot away,
and, go figure, my glasses are too wide to fit inside the headset.
I've had friends with narrower frames wear theirs with the headset just fine,
but no such luck for me.
It's also got an external knob for adjusting the distance between your pupils
or IPD,
which is nice to have in place of finicky software.
The velcro headset straps make it comfortable to adjust to your head size,
and if you don't like them, you can always remove them and use a third-party set.
Same for a lot of things on the headset.
It's rather modular, so you can swap out parts and customize it to your liking quite easily.
Setting up the whole thing is incredibly easy, too!
Except when it's not!
For one thing, there are these two base station cubes, or lighthouses,
that will need to be plugged into the wall for power
and placed above you in opposing corners of your room.
You can do this any way you please,
for instance, using tripods,
but due to space and vibration concerns,
I used the included mounting hardware to drill them into my wall.
Then there's the downloadable setup program,
which is friendly enough on its own,
but the actual drivers and software were another story.
For some dumb reason, I kept getting Error 301,
which is as common as it is utterly useless.
It tells you nothing except that the software crapped its pants,
and it took me an hour and a half to figure out why.
It can mean any dozens of things, and...
well you see, the headset plugs into this little box,
and then passes through to your computer and a wall outlet.
It recommends that you plug it into a USB 2.0 port and not 3.0,
but I only have 3.0, so no luck there.
Turns out it was my Blue Snowball USB microphone causing a conflict
and as soon as I unplugged that, everything was fine.
Eh. After this, I was able to map out my office for room scale use,
which has an open space of about 7 by 7½ feet.
And while it will work in a slightly smaller room,
since many games have implemented teleporting around
instead of just walking,
this is not ideal.
So the closer you can get to the maximum five square meters, the better.
Once you get the software installed through Steam,
you can use SteamVR to start using the Vive.
You'll start in this empty home space,
which I have configured to look like the Holodeck from Star Trek: TNG
because fandom is a powerful drug.
From here, you can open up a virtual window to navigate SteamVR.
And a great place to start is the included tutorial.
This takes place in an Aperture Science lab, 'cause Valve,
and you'll walk through the basics of how to use the system.
It's friendly, humorous and effective.
Just a really well-made little introduction to VR.
After this, it's all up to you,
and the Wild West of virtual reality in 2016 is yours for the taking.
You can use your computer as a normal desktop with a giant virtual screen,
install independent VR apps outside of Steam,
or just stay inside of SteamVR to dive into the world of VR gaming.
And for the most part, that means a lot of tech demos,
early access programs and physics sandboxes.
Not that there's anything inherently wrong with these,
it's just that for $800, you might expect a bit more.
In fact, some of the very best experiences are the ones that currently come packed in with the Vive,
like The Lab by Valve,
Job Simulator 2050 Archives,
Fantastic Contraption and Google's Tilt Brush.
And as awesome as these experiences are,
they're the exact same things I played a year ago in Seattle,
during a meeting with Valve.
After nearly a year, I'd hoped for some more substantial
stuff to play, and I just haven't found much yet.
Now don't get me wrong, what's here can be positively mind-blowing,
provides lots of silly fun,
and its glimpse into the future feels like straight-up science fiction.
This is what I felt VR should have been back in the '90s,
when we were all promised shiny immersive worlds
and virtual online shopping...
and all we got was a headache and motion sickness.
But the Vive runs at 2160 x 1200 resolution,
with half for each eye,
at 90Hz with low persistence.
And combining this with all its advance motion sensors and tracking stuff
is light years ahead of the old tech.
I haven't felt any notable eye fatigue or motion sickness in room scale,
and other than getting disgustingly sweaty
and the strap digging into my scalp a bit on extended use,
it was quite comfortable for hours at a time.
And much to my surprise, the chunky cord flowing out the back of my head didn't trip me up either.
It was just me, inside of a bunch of virtual worlds,
having some of the best fun I've had in years.
Until you try it, the level of presence you'll feel here is hard to grasp.
It may utilize motion controls that
bring to mind a little bit of the Wii or Move or the Kinect,
but the actual experience being in 3D
surrounding you with full freedom of movement inside a room is
just not even on the same planet in terms of similarity.
Yes, this is still a gimmick, but it's a very different gimmick
and a lot more involved.
The Vive nails that feeling of stepping into another existence for a bit and
once that suspension of disbelief kicks in
and you've got a well-made game on your hands,
traditional gaming almost seems primitive.
So, is the HTC Vive worth buying?
Absolutely!
Even at $800, requiring a beefy PC,
and with its iffy early-adopter issues and shallow games,
I leave the experience feeling concerned yet really optimistic.
The future may not be here, but it's getting awfully close.
And what we have already just fills me with that childlike wonder
that you get when you're eight years old, Christmas morning, opening presents
that anything seems possible.
I haven't felt that in a long time.
There's just nothing else like it on the market.
And I'm including the Oculus Rift in that statement
because its own rather limited implementation of room scale
just doesn't have the same kind of effort being put into it
that the Vive offers out of the box.
And there's none of that walled garden or headset-exclusive crap
Oculus is pulling right now, either.
So I find myself agreeing with the more open philosophy
of Valve and the Vive and the other V-words.
It also just makes a massive difference being able to walk around
and interact more naturally within VR
because it not only helps eliminate motion sickness,
but it allows for genres and interactive possibilities
that haven't fully existed until now.
So if you're digging what you're seeing,
just know that it delivers one unforgettable ride,
and I highly recommend it.
[LGR laughs, revs engine]
Ah, this it the best! [laughs]
[revs engine, laughs louder]
[outro music]
And if you enjoyed my video on the Vive here,
perhaps you'd like to see a more extended look at it.
Just me rambling about it for almost an hour.
There's one of those videos and there's a look at the Samsung Gear VR,
which is a heck of a lot cheaper. A really great introduction to virtual reality.
Not nearly as involved, but if you've got a phone that supports it,
it's a really cool experience as well.
And as always, thank you very much for watching.