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RE: First impressions review

CarlKenner — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 01:24:51 GMT

If Vuzix don't mind me asking, is the box lying about 24-bit colourdepth??

Because nothing that I have seen suggests that it is possible. I'd say it is maybe 15-bit. That's just a guess. It definately has much less colour-depth than my LCD monitor when both are set to exactly the same mode. The low colour depth is pretty obvious on any dark image. Bright images are fine. Watching dark videos is pretty bad. I wouldn't want to play Doom 3 on it. Actually I am telling a lie, I do plan on playing Doom 3 on it, because that game would just be so cool in Virtual Reality. But I expect the screen will look like it has only 16 colours in its palette in that game.

RE: First impressions review

itou31 — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 00:59:13 GMT

Hi,

Just a note on the color.
I've do some adjust as adviced by Xerion, but the color is not good enough to watch a divx when the whole film is dark like matrix. Is there some tweak to do from software ? Adjust Nvidia color doesn't work much.
Help !

RE: First impressions review

v3ry — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:06:37 GMT

Today,i have a test stereoscopic with 6600 maybe the lot of game crash, half life as only work, In effect with left3d(prety good with the effect isnt very impressive,no flikering and gosting),out effect with Rigth3D(its very unconfortable and ghosting appear).

I am testing last nigth tf2 with glass(no headtraking,no 3d)its very playable and just play and play for is good with vr920, just a probleme with my corection glass,vr920 as down in my noz(i have very small corection for long,my glass is tiny).

The screen look very fine with tf2 oldy colors, just good place for vr920 in noz.

RE: First impressions review

Xerion — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 11:27:04 GMT

Offtopic: Alright, seems I can post now, wouldn't load again last night

Ontopic:
Just a quick note about those colors looking bad. I experienced the same thing, however when increasing brightness through the OSD of the vr920 there is a point when colors turn ok. However the screen is then too bright. To fix this there can be a bit of contrast added and the backlight can be turned down. All in all you can get the best colors by finding the right mix of brightness, contrast and backlight. A drawback of lowering the backlight while having increased brightness is that "walking" horizontal lines appear. I have however been able to get a correct mix in which these are not apparent and the colors are much better than at factory settings.

RE: First impressions review

CarlKenner — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 02:11:03 GMT

I've tied a folded up tissue to the bottom of the upside-down nosepiece with a rubber band. It now sits on my nose.

Regarding the Field Of View, just because the FOV of the HMD is fairly low, doesn't mean that you need to set your game to use that FOV. The game can still show a 90 degree FOV on the virtual screen, just like you do on a normal monitor. On a normal monitor the screen will only take up about 30 degrees of your view, unless you sit really close, yet you can still set the game FOV to 90 degrees.

For example, my prescription glasses show a slightly wider FOV than they actually cover.

I found that a 90 degree Field Of View felt a little bit weird looking around Need For Speed with the HMD. I tried setting it to the actual FOV of the glasses, but that wasn't very good. Then I tried setting it to 60 degrees, which felt realistic and didn't feel weird looking around.

When emulating TrackIR, there is a slight lag in some games if you turn your head too fast. This is NOT because of the VR920, and it is not because of GlovePIE. It is because the game smooths the values that it receives from the TrackIR. If you try using a keyboard key in glovepie to jump instantly from 0 to 90 when you press a key, the game will still show a smooth transition. This doesn't really matter unless you like to turn very fast.

Vista is supposed to have a feature where you can plug in monitors and have them automatically detected and added to your desktop, and then unplug them and have your desktop return to normal. There is also supposed to be a keyboard key that enables or disables the connected monitor. Like most things in Vista, neither of these features work at all for me. So I have to right click on the desktop, choose personalise, and set up which screens I want to do what.

I will have a go at making a stereo driver. But don't expect it to be great :)

RE: First impressions review

3d — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:10:48 GMT

Hi CarlKenner, Glad to hear you got the VR920 for your programing work and thanks to Vuzix for their kindness.

Carl, Will you also be working on a Stereo 3D driver for the VR920 ?

Also the one thing you spoke of in your review that I think is the best feature of the VR920 and the biggest mistake Emagin made with the Z800 by not including it would have to be Scaling.

Also from what I have read in your review and one other is that Vuzix did one hell of a great job with scaling. The fact that you wrote your review while in 1024*768 mode proves what a great job Vuzix did with their scaling .

Anyway have fun with the VR920 Carl.

RE: First impressions review

v3ry — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:27:11 GMT

Hello,new french owner of vr920, i am gamer and work for my project "SuperPegyWars".

My review is same.

My config:

Vista (and xp dual boot)+ 8800 gts 320mo + core 2 quad

In vista

Iwear monitor is very unstable without the compatibility mods, Half life 2 and counterstrike as not detected.

UT2004 as been detected,maybe dont work in game.

3d isn't possible in vista (iz3d(bad monitor 3d) and edimensionale have a work driver maybe not compatible with vr920)

In Xp

The stereo driver is shity whit 8800, All source engine crash with 3d activated, this squares sample appear very good .The medical test and half life have a bug texture and flikering.

Only bioshok turn fine, the stereo effect is present maybe no consequent.

HeadTraking

Only software of CarlKenner have worked for this mini review, the iWear Calibrator isn't easy, sensibiliti extrem(cursor rumble without mouve). I test TeamFortress2 beta with mouse emulation, the impression is good maybe shutering mouse.

For the windows apps,i recommand 640/480 for text size ,in fps witout text 1024/768,other game with text 640/480 or 800/600.For the movie (ps i look very fine)800/600.

I dont view the gosting effect after the good setting this glass. I very like a vr920 stereo driver suporting 8800 and vista(ps its possible,the concurent work)

My review for the first day, its a good product,the microphone is good,headphone medium for my primari test.The screen is good,the scale fonction work fine.I have same probleme with my corection glass.

If its possible to send me the sdk for headtraking, i am working with tv3d for my game.

I just like your understand have said(if dont understand,precise this part) and very sory for my poor english, it's my first review in english.

First impressions review

CarlKenner — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 12:57:16 GMT

I wear glasses, which means it is a nightmare just trying to wear this thing. But I sort of fixed it enough to use it by folding up a tissue and putting it on my nose.

The VR920 comes in a small green box that looks really cool. It still says "[the old name]" not "Vuzix", which is fine by me, because the original name was a much cooler pun. It comes with a CD, a single letter-sized (approx A4) sheet of paper with "quickstart" instructions, a soft carry bag, a safety strap, and a DVI to VGA adapter.

To wear it, you need to gently bend the earphones into position, then you just put it on like glasses. This assumes you are not already wearing glasses. It is about as comfortable as can be expected of a HMD. You may have problems with the nosepiece though.

When you put it on, you will notice that the virtualscreen is not actually a flat rectangle. It is concave pincushioned, like it was projected on the inside of a sphere. Think of the HUD in Metroid Prime. However the centre of the screen bulges inward a bit. I don't mind the effect, it makes some 2D things seem slightly more 3D.

The resolution isn't really a problem. It is 640x480, but you really won't notice it much. It scales down 1024x768 automatically, which is how I am currently using it to type this message, and I think it looks OK. I haven't worked out what kind of scaling it uses yet, but it may effectively give you antialiasing for free. For comparison, the Z800 won't scale anything and only accepts 800x600.

The FOV also isn't really a problem. Yes we would all LIKE to have a LeepVR CyberfaceX, but realistically, we have to settle for a HMD that feels like the size of a wide monitor, which this one does, rather than one that feels like you are actually there. The FOV is wider than my (widescreen) laptop monitor, so it definately feels like I've traded up. Still, I'd buy a CyberFaceX if it is ever released.

The screen doesn't look like it is 9 feet away. It looks like a maxium of 6 feet away. It may have a focus set at 9 feet, but in terms of parallax, it only looks 6 feet away or less, I'd say. I think it is a good distance.

I have Vista, so I haven't been able to test the stereo. I tried the Tri-Def Experience driver, but I couldn't find any way to make it do page-flipped stereo. It does nice anaglyphs though, and supports quite a few other stereo formats. I didn't try all the formats, so one of them may work.

Ihaven't tried the E-Dimensional driver yet with the VR920.

The head-tracking works nicely. I have only tested it with my TrackIR emulation so far. It worked well in some games, but Future Pinball didn't feel right. Future Pinball has an annoying feature that won't even let you rotate 90 degrees, and you start off looking at a sloped surface from a weird angle. It still works, but doesn't feel immersive. Need For Speed felt fairly immersive. Games that support Roll add a lot to the immersion. Evochron Alliance was nice with TrackIR emulation, even though it restricts your rotation to a limited amount.

One major problem I am having is with the colour depth. The box says 24-bit colour depth, but as far as I can tell, it looks worse than 16-bit colour depth. Sometimes it looks as bad as 8-bit colour depth. I have no idea why. The display settings are set to 32 bit.

I have two stuck pixels, one blue, one white. I don't normally notice them.

There is considerable monoscopic ghosting,which may or my not be caused by the fact that I wear glasses.

It is a little bit heavy on my neck after a few hours. More so for me because I am wearing glasses so the vr920 is further forward.But it is ok. It stops my back from being sore from looking at the laptop screen which is down too low.

I haven't tested the microphone yet. I was expecting more of a microphone on a boom in front of my mouth. But it is built into the glasses, on the bottom left, like the microphone in my laptop keyboard.

I also haven't tried any of the supported vr920 applications yet.