Im poor.

I want to know how it is

Keep your expectations low and you may just be utterly amazed.

Initial impressions of the tech the day after my 'first dive' here.

It's like having a 3D movie you can interact with all around you, minus any real-space 'artifacts' like rows of seats or other people in the audience. It is miles ahead of any other form of media (including 3D movies) in terms of immersion. What would be a moderately scary computer game experience becomes abjectly terrifying in VR. Standing on the edge of a cliff induces natural vertigo. The true scale of things becomes much more apparent.

The two biggest downsides, from my perspective, are:

Since it is a fledgling 'platform' most experiences are very light on content. Minecraft and Vendetta Online VR are way ahead of anything else I've come across in terms of stuff to do.

You are completely unable to multitask while inside the headset. This may change as the tech matures, but I am used to being able to listen to a lecture or other music in the background or playing VO in 'windowed' mode so that I can look up other sites as needed. None of these are currently an option in VR.

Otherwise, it is a transformative tech that I believe is on its way to mainstream use. You don't have to be rich to get a good VR setup; a refurbished S6 currently runs in the ballpark of $270, and a Gear VR is $100-$129 brand new (once the S8 releases expect the price on the S7 to come down, as well). Scott Stein of CNET writes: "I never thought I'd see a technology that had that same effect as early Lumiere films, but VR is definitely it." Apt comparison.

A note about overheating: the S6 is notorious for this in VR, apparently. Here is the best solution I've found (don't laugh). It's actually very practical.

Here is a video I made about Vendetta Online in VR.

Since it is a fledgling 'platform' most experiences are very light on content. Minecraft and Vendetta Online VR are way ahead of anything else I've come across in terms of stuff to do.

So you have not tried oculus rift or htc vive.....

I think the OP is referring to VO in VR, not necessarily VR on the whole. Otherwise why post it in this forum?

Phaser is correct if he is speaking about GearVR. There is not much with any "meat on the bones" on the Oculus store for Gear VR. Minecraft and VO are definitely the deepest experiences and most comparable to Vive/Oculus games in terms of depth.

That being said, if he means VR on the whole the GearVR is nice, but not even close to a PC headset's capability. I have a Vive and play Elite: Dangerous with a HOTAS and gaming earphones. Whenever I log on, I feel like I'm actually flying a spaceship. Its almost unnerving how immersive it is at first.

My experience in VR is limited to GearVR.

Is VO playable on VR if you close one eye?

Is VO playable on VR if you close one eye?

Well, sure. If you were to keep one eye closed during the rest of your ordinary waking hours, I'd imagine the leap to VR would be as qualitatively stunning.

Ive tried GearVR and Vive and they are very different creatures. Saying GearVR games lack depth isnt exactly wrong, but think of it this way: they're phone games at phone game prices with phone game depth. Endless runners are fantastic experiences for an hour or so. 3D 360 videos are stunning for 5 min. I love it because the games arent $60.

But the Vive, oh man... Anyone who can afford it should have one. That **** is amazing.

Screen res not included... Thats a different discussion. Lets not go there.

Haha, wow Joyless. No one said that.

Is VO playable on VR if you close one eye?

Well, sure. If you were to keep one eye closed during the rest of your ordinary waking hours, I'd imagine the leap to VR would be as qualitatively stunning.

I ask, because I had to have an eye removed at age 9. 3D stuff in general isn't very accessible to me.

Its totally usable, and the head tracking (or position tracking for vive/rift) would probably make it interesting still. The part you are missing out is only one part of the experience.

A lot of video content (generated by the gear360 camera for example) is 360 but not 3d and the eyes are mirrors without any 3d effect. The Facebook 360 app is entirely this.

The cost of VR is coming down but still too high - It needs to be about half for the market to really take off I think - about another year or so If tradition holds.

The generic unit I tried had problems connecting and maintaining a HDMI interface So I had to send it back as that was my primary reason to get it. While I tried it out I found the environment amazing and I look forward to the day when the tech matures some more.

Ichitomi -Didn't your mother warn you? (only J/k of course)

In regards to single-eye usage: While we do render everything correctly in "stereo", that effect is minimized at distances beyond your own ship cockpit. Most things in space are pretty far away, so they don't look that much different with-or-without depth perception. The immersion factor of VR should still be just as great, which is really the point.

In regards to cost/quality: We're still in an era of first-generation consumer VR. Tremendous development is going on, everywhere from the high-end to the low-end. We have a 6-dof Qualcomm devkit in our office that allows good positional tracking without any wires or external cameras (using a phone chipset), meanwhile Intel is doing similar things on the high end, and so on. So prices will continue to drop, and quality will continue to improve, as we figure out issues like eye-tracking and foveated rendering.