jrronimo wrote:
There’s actually another topic around here somewhere that has one of our users using a VB Emulator on an Oculus Rift, and it works great.As for the Rift itself, every single video I ever see of someone using it talks about how incredibly amazing it is. Part of the driving force behind it was John Carmack, who is the main engine developer at id Software. He wrote the 3D engine for Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quakes 1 – 4 & Rage. He got behind the project because there was no such thing as immersive, responsive head-tracking 3D virtual reality gear; just that old stuff people barely played. By every single account, the Oculus Rift is revolutionary.
I have nothing against the OR; might even get one some day, if it gets cheap enough, and I find myself with excess cash.
The Virtual Boy provides stereoscopic 3D in shades of red and black. Its 3D is good, but trying to say it’s anywhere NEAR on par with any virtual reality setup, especially the Oculus Rift, is a bit of a stretch.
No one said that; but it’s much more of an “immersive 3D experience” than he was admitting.
Edit:// You keep saying that human eyes have poor resolution. I don’t think that’s correct at all. Sitting at my desk I have a 25.5″ monitor that’s 1920×1200 pixels sitting about 3 feet away from me, and I can clearly see aliasing on text and “the pixels”, if you will.
Think about what you just said — 3 FEET. I was white-hot furious at the “Digital Television Ripoff”, and am getting really fed up with American Congress ramming stuff down our throats (dictating what kind of TV’s we can have, toilets, light bulbs, food, socialized medicine, freon & halon & termite-control, America’s turning into a dictatorship!). I crashed a “digital television workshop” our local CBS affiliate had at a store (it was nothing but a sales-pitch for buying tv’s!!!).
They had two screens up, one HD and the other “standard”. “Isn’t it amazing the difference!” the salesman crooned. I stood up and said, “Excuse me — can ANYONE here see the difference? Anyone?” Of the thirty-or-so people there, NO ONE COULD! Salesman frowned and said, “Well, if you look around the eyes” — I said, “If I have to WORK at seeing the difference, what’s the point?”
Yes you can see the difference if you sit 3 feet from the screen; but not at normal viewing distances — and “virtual reality” recreates optically farther viewing distances. Besides, I’m a bit myopic; most people are.
The Virtual Boy itself is much closer, so its resolution can be lower to achieve what Apple calls a “retina” effect, but the Virtual Boy is no-where near enough to be close to that; few displays on the market are.
As I said, both the “MyVu” (50 inch screen) and the Chinese linked above (80 inch screen) are high enough so that pixelation doesn’t exist, and one can see individual strands of hair and other fine details. The resolution of eyes is deceptive; of the approximately 100,000,000 sensors, many work in blocks, doing “edge” and “pattern” sensing. I am an Electronic Engineer, and I’m impressed by the complexity. (Not the least the compression algorithm that encodes each retina down to about 100,000 optical nerves!)
How many pixels are needed to match the resolution of the human eye? Each pixel must appear no larger than 0.3 arc-minute. Consider a 20 x 13.3-inch print viewed at 20 inches. The Print subtends an angle of 53 x 35.3 degrees, thus requiring 53*60/.3 = 10600 x 35*60/.3 = 7000 pixels, for a total of ~74 megapixels to show detail at the limits of human visual acuity.
Again, it’s deceptive; the retina is not uniform resolution — there is a central “hi-resolution” area called the Macula, peripheral being much lower resolution. And the retina is ROUND — the wider the screen, the harder it is to see (and the more jumping left and right the eye has to do!).
Surely you’re just trolling us yes…?
As Lester Knight wisely deduced, I do have some “emotion” invested in the topic. I had a LOT of equipment that was rendered “non-functional”, and the new digital format brings nothing of value to me. There are several things that are worse — several channels no longer exist for those who bought “converters”, and watching portable TV’s is virtually non-existent. And unless your signal is perfect, artifacts and… audio cuts out… …video drops …”no signal”… can’t watch… “no signal”…
This is not better!
In OKC May 3 1999 hundreds of people stayed alive from nearly 80 tornadoes (one an F5!) by watching weathercasts on pocket TV’s. We had an ice storm in December 2007, 95% lost power for 1-3 weeks; we used pocket tv’s. Not any more! The few ATSC pocket TV’s out don’t work well, or at all moving.
The “Digital TV lobby” is comprised of Samsung, Bestbuy, Cox, DirectTV, and other profiteers. We’re getting really sick of lobbies buying congressmen so the lobby members can get rich.
Most of the hype about “resolution” and “wide-screen” is just to sell more product to those led to believe they’re getting better viewing. Thirty people in that room in 2008 had to admit “it wasn’t”.
I can sometimes see pixelation on Virtual Boy games, but generally my eyes smooth it out and it all looks fine.
