I take it you aren't a Battlefield player...if you were then you would know who he is lol. Well he plays other games but he is known mainly for BF3, BF4 and other latest BF games. He is very "technical" when it comes to explaining weapons and strategies for BF games.
I bought BF3 for PC and 360, BF4 for PS4, but each time it only held my attention for about a month. I think I have watched some LevelCap videos actually in the BF3 days, but I couldn't recount anything memorable from them... Most of the BF3 videos I watched were about derping around or trolling bad players. Oh, and that strawhat-something gamer who is really good with the fighter jets. And one or two videos of people jumping out of a flying plane, blowing something up with an RPG, and somehow landing back inside the jet before it crashes.
Anyone know how well virtual surround solutions from Asus motherboards (Sonic Studio II) and MSI motherboards (Nahimic) compare to that offered by Creative xfi MB3 (SBX) or others (Dolby, Razer, etc)?
My Gigabyte motherboard didn't come with its own virtual surround, I think. I've heard some weak surround processing (Razer, Silent Cinema) and good surround processing (SBX, Dolby, Cirrus Logic), and weak processing isn't even worth bothering to use. If you try the processing and it doesn't seem easy to distinguish front/back placement, then at least you can always buy X-Fi MB3 (or, better yet, a dedicated sound processor like an U3, Omni 5.1, or E5) after the fact to get good surround.
Anyone here in the market for a vintage Stax Lambda setup, perchance?
I don't want VR to die off. That puts us at odds.
Here's the thing: I've been waiting decades for it to get to this point since the day someone put a Forte VFX1 on my head to play Quake.
It's the best damn thing for vehicle simulators of any kind. ... That's not a gimmick - it's immersion, maybe even a competitive advantage.
But even I can see the flaws. Limited resolution, drawbacks in current optical lens technology ("god rays" or chromatic aberration and out-of-focus edges, pick your poison)...
Having tried the 120 Hz refresh rate of the PS VR, the visual immersion available in HMDs is more exciting to me than +1080p detail. Personal opinion, and it's interesting to me that yet again you, me, and Mad take different views on this – I think that is overall a good thing for the community. Mad wants more resolution, more frames per second, (big tv screens?) and as simple/casual a setup as possible (sit on the couch, pick up a gamepad, press power). You and I are willing to trade a little setup complexity for immersion, the sense of being present in the game world, but I'm assuming you'd like an experience that pushes the bleeding edge while I'm just happy to be there. We cover the gamut: casual/couch gaming, mid, and high end immersion preferences. Of course, we'd all like some future-rig where we get it all at an affordable price, haha... Though I will contend, by the time there is a wireless 90fps 4K HMD with Zeiss optics, there will also be even higher-detailed options for traditional flatscreens. But not really new features...
Some games are going to be better suited to 2D panels (I have a 1080p monitor and a 720p TV) and just wouldn't translate well to immersion, but games designed for immersion in the first place can create a totally different experience from a TV. Traditional castlevania/side scroller/2D fighting button combo games are a few genres off the top of my head where I wouldn't bother with VR and just play on the monitor I already have. But even with this current gen of PS VR/Occulus/Vive, we can get a better sense of being present in the game, whether that is being immersed in a cockpit/driver's seat with better awareness of opponents, new simulation-type games (like Job Simulator), exploring in an RPG (I'd like an Elder-Scrolls type of game in VR!), solving 3-D puzzles (with controllers like the Move, Vive's dual sticks, and the new controllers coming out for the Occulus), 3D platforming games (better sense of depth), sports games (not games where you control a whole team, think more like baseball, tennis, skiing, archery, dodgeball...), or maybe even 3D RTS games where you can accurately select and push units while pressing command buttons.
Furthermore, I think the new experience is "ready." Would a 4K, 90fps, 120hz, 100° FOV Head Mounted Display improve the experience of, say, a first person Pokémon game with a big cartoon world to explore, look for hidden monsters/collectibles, and motion controls for throwing Pokéballs and selecting context-specific commands/buttons? Is it too graphically demanding to simulate the scale and distance in an asteroid belt as you fly around? Should we have to wait 4-5 years for the tech to mature before we can emulate cocking and aiming an arrow at a satanic goat? The conclusion I'm leading everyone toward is that there is new gaming experiences on the horizon, and the visual fidelity will do little to limit creative uses of this new way to visually interact.
That said, there is a fourth perspective, which another friend (and probably my mother) hold: by putting on a mask, some headphones, virtual touch controllers (whether a gamepad or sticks), you are cutting off almost all your senses from the real world. I think as with all tech a person could use VR in an unhealthy way, but without quoting him directly it's like just using VR at all is a big F.U. to real life. He wasn't talking Matrix/Sword Art Online external force controlling your life kind of thing, but rather that using VR goes to far into choosing to ignore your friends or the baby crying in need or going out with friends for exercise and adventure and furthering your life. I definitely think he has a point there worth mentioning, but to me it's more of a caution... because I've personally long ago come to terms with taking a break from reality by consuming literature, movies, plays, videogames, and I already limit my time with those pursuits and often forget about the world for awhile while doing them. Would I pay any less attention to my Fiancée than I do now at 11:30 pm, in a different room, with the door shut? Am I missing out on any outdoor activities at that time? Probably not many safe ones that still make it easy for me to go to work the next mid-morning. But yeah, I don't want to be completely lost in it, either, and it's good to keep in mind. I like that there are games specifically intended for party-play on the PS VR where one person uses the HMD and the other players interact with a TV, but even so it will primarily be for single-player and it will be important for the player to be able to break immersion at appropriate times.
