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2024: New PC for VR! by Lithium
[March 24, 2024, 02:20:56 pm]


Holiday Fun by Tbone
[March 01, 2024, 09:09:44 pm]


Quest 2 Link Best Settings (Finally Better Than Rift S) by Tbone
[November 27, 2023, 04:57:46 pm]


randomness by Jeyk
[November 27, 2023, 09:42:30 am]


New PC for Oculus Rift (Purchased!) by Tbone
[December 01, 2022, 12:02:55 pm]


Stability Issues with CPU/RAM/Mobo by Tbone
[November 30, 2022, 12:34:56 pm]


The Quest Pro by Strod
[October 13, 2022, 01:16:51 pm]


No Man's Sky Beyond VR by Tbone
[September 24, 2022, 04:47:52 pm]

Recent Posts

Pages: 1 ... 8 9 [10]
91
Off Topic / Re: Holiday Fun
« Last post by Lithium on December 25, 2021, 03:03:35 pm »
Merry Christmas! Year # 17!

I almost forgot, I came here to write this years post and Tbone already bumped it for us!

Go ahead and enjoy that OP: http://www.thefuriousangels.com/index.php?topic=1455.0
92
Off Topic / Re: Holiday Fun
« Last post by Tbone on December 25, 2021, 01:43:46 pm »
^bump
93
General / Re: "Matrix: Resurrections" Theories
« Last post by Tbone on December 23, 2021, 03:46:16 pm »
Time to see what I got right and what I got wrong with my theories.

SPOILERS BELOW FOR MATRIX RESURRECTIONS
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Unfortunately almost all of my theories didn't pan out as the movie took a more simple and yet meta approach, but let's discuss one by one!

INITIAL TRAILER THEORIES

Neo is not in the Matrix but somewhere in the Source..

No, he's just in a new version of the Matrix, though his body was plugged into somewhere special. This was based on the yellow code which wasn't even used in the movie as well as Groff's character saying they're going back to the Matrix, which was actually in reference to a video game.

Neo's subconscious is manifesting in code.

I SORT OF got this right. Morpheus is created by Neo as a means to subconsciously wake himself back up, though the rest of it isn't created by Neo.

Trinity is being used by the Machines to keep Neo from waking up again.

Nailed this one!

Neo and Trinity inhabiting others/having identity issues.

Eh, no...not really. I mean yes, they are being masked by bluepill code that makes them look different, but they aren't code hopping around to different bluepills. It's just a mask of their code, essentially. Trinity fading into code as well as splitting into multiple people was a huge misdirect from the trailers.

The Machines are trying to perfect simulated humans as an alternative power source.

No. This came from nanobot Morpheus. My alternative theory was that Neo himself is powerful enough to be a valuable fuel source, which I thought was a stretch, but turned out to be true in a vague way.

It all takes place in Neo's brain as the Machines attempt to resurrect him, using Trinity as the key to being successful.

While the movie doesn't take place in Neo's brain, there is a scene of the Machines attempting to resurrect him and Trinity is the key to doing it successfully, so this theory had some legs but didn't quite hit the mark.

Zion trailer theory: Main characters are code being resurrected by various people and attempting to reconnect with their bodies.

An interesting theory that was completely incorrect. Several Trinity shots in the trailers were just complete misdirects.

The movie follows a pattern of grief.

No, not really. It certainly doesn't end that way. Maybe denial, anger, and bargaining, but then it just moves towards a happy ending.

Could Neo be the bad guy accidentally causing harm with his grief?

Nope.

THINGS I GOT RIGHT

-Neo created Morpheus.
-Trinity is being used to keep Neo in the simulation.
-Neo is a valuable source of energy.
-The Machines used Trinity to get Neo to accept his resurrection.

Everything else was fun to think about and probably would have made for a better movie (lol), but they hid the meta element pretty well.
94
General / Re: "Matrix: Resurrections" Theories
« Last post by Tbone on December 21, 2021, 03:44:35 pm »
One more day before I see the movie, so we'll know all soon! This new clip, however, seems to confirm my theory that Neo is code that is being hidden/unknowingly hijacking Bluepills:

https://youtu.be/pt7wJpR-SuM
95
General / Re: The Matrix: Resurrections
« Last post by Lithium on December 19, 2021, 04:21:25 pm »
He means we have Revolutions left, not Resurrections. I've seen people make this typo in online news articles too.
96
General / Re: The Matrix: Resurrections
« Last post by Tbone on December 19, 2021, 02:23:46 pm »
Oh? Is there a limit to how many you can have in a virtual screening?  Have you gone through all of the movies, as well as Animatrix?  Let me know when you do the next one!
We've been making regular announcements on Discord to the FA group, so make sure you're a part of that and checking notifications! We still have Resurrections Revolutions left. We may can fit in Animatrix, but that's a lot to do before Wednesday!

Room can host up to 15 people at once, so no issues there.

Edit: Revolutions, not Resurrections
97
General / Re: The Matrix: Resurrections
« Last post by Jeyk on December 19, 2021, 11:08:38 am »
Oh? Is there a limit to how many you can have in a virtual screening?  Have you gone through all of the movies, as well as Animatrix?  Let me know when you do the next one!
98
General / Re: The Matrix: Resurrections
« Last post by Tbone on December 18, 2021, 04:52:06 pm »
We've been meeting in VR to watch the original trilogy and will probably do a screening of Matrix Resurrections as well, though probably not until after the holidays.
99
General / Re: The Matrix: Resurrections
« Last post by Jeyk on December 16, 2021, 09:32:18 pm »
Just curious; anyone gathering or breaking off into groups to go see Resurrections?
100
VR Gaming / Quest 2 Link Best Settings (Finally Better Than Rift S)
« Last post by Tbone on December 15, 2021, 04:09:59 pm »
I've had a Quest 2 and Rift S for a long time, using the Rift S for PC gaming and Quest 2 for when I go out of town. I had tried Air Link to compare and the quality was horrible, so I stuck with Rift S. Well, there's been a few patches since then and I've finally sat down and tried to tweak the Quest 2 for PCVR. The Quest 2 has the better screen, so if you can get everything else out of the way, the Quest 2 can become one of the best PCVR headsets you can own. Getting there is a bit of a journey, but here's how...


  • Use a Link Cable, not Airlink
Yes, yes, I know. You want the freedom of wireless. You can do that, and you can THINK the quality is good enough, but be aware there are big tradeoffs. What we're attempting to do is crank up the bitrate to remove any and all artifacts, crank up the resolution to take advantage of Quest 2's pixels, and crank up the refresh rate to improve the overall experience. There's no way to do all three with Airlink, and certainly not at the threshold we need to meet. I got a cheap Link Cable for $16 and so far it's working great!

  • Oculus Device Advanced Settings
And so our balancing act begins. Let's get this out of the way. 120Hz refresh rate is great and can feel very smooth, but it's experimental for a reason. In my opinion the tradeoffs are NOT worth it. You'll have to lower the resolution to try to get a steady 120fps, and it actually drains the Quest 2's battery quicker (more on that later). I have a 3080 and still decided against 120Hz. As a result, my settings are:

Oculus Desktop Menu - Devices - Quest 2 and Touch - Advanced - Graphics Preferences

Refresh Rate (90Hz)
Render Resolution 1.5x (5408x2736)

You want to crank that resolution as high as your computer can stand. This is the best place to supersample, though you can push it further using OTT or ODT. 90Hz is a higher refresh rate and, therefore, an improvement over the Rift S, but you can lower it as a compromise if you have trouble getting the frames.

  • OTT or ODT Settings
Ok, here's where we're gonna get rid of the Link artifacts. You have two options. I recommend downloading Oculus Tray Tools but you can also browse to your Oculus installation and find the Support folder, Oculus Diagnostics folder, and use OculusDebugTool.

In OTT click "Quest Link" on the left menu. You'll find similar settings in ODT:

Distortion Curvature: Low (more detail in the peripherals)
Encode Resolution: 3970 3664
Bitrate: 480+
Link Sharpening: Enabled

Having the bitrate at 500 is important here. It gets rid of all streaming artifacts and achieves the same fidelity as if you were plugged into the graphics card itself. Any lower and you'll notice an annoying shimmering blockiness, especially on things in the distance. Even 400 will not cut it. Priority is to keep this at 500! You can paste in higher values. I currently have mine set to 800, but you can go as high as 960. The higher you go, the more likely you are to experience issues however.

In OTT go back to Game Settings. You can optionally set Default Super Sampling here if your graphics card can handle it. This will multiply with the resolution you set in the Oculus settings, so be very conservative here. I've set my default to 1.2, but for games such as HL: Alyx or Lone Echo 2, I'm leaving this at 1.0. If you click "View & Edit" under Profiles you can change the super sampling per game using OTT. This requires a bit of trial and error, but it allows you to really tweak the fidelity per game.

  • SteamVR Settings

The above settings will kill your performance in SteamVR as any attempt at supersampling from Steam's software will multiply what you've already done, tanking your performance instantly. Our goal here is to set the SteamVR settings as close to baseline as possible and let the Oculus software do all the heavy lifting. Unfortunately, it's a little counter-intuitive and took some trial and error and Googling on my part, but here's what you want:

SteamVR Settings - Video

Refresh Rate: 90 Hz (should be automatic)
Render Resolution: Custom
Resolution Per Eye: 62% (2556x2580)
Advanced Supersample Filtering - Off
Overlay Render Quality - Medium

Note: I've also heard 100% resolution per eye is the way to go here, so try both.

Your impulse is going to be to leave "resolution per eye" to 100%, but this is actually supersampling what you've already done. 62% is the closest real resolution to the Quest 2, and so you want to force that setting. I'm not certain what "Advanced Supersampling" does, but I'm just getting rid of any supersampling Steam is attempting. "Overlay Render" probably doesn't make a difference, but I'm just trying to avoid any hiccups when menu hopping.

You could stop right here and be good to go. Your settings may differ from mine, but I believe the priorities are:

Bitrate 500 > Render Resolution > Super Sampling > Refresh Rate

If you're sensitive to a lower refresh rate and really want that feeling of smooth presence, you may want to sacrifice super sampling before refresh rate - just remember 120Hz is currently a trap. There are also other ways to make the Quest 2 closer to feature parity with the Rift S...

  • Comfort
This is actually pretty important as the default headstrap for the Quest 2 is abysmal. I personally recommend a Halo style 3rd party strap for the Quest 2 to get it feeling like the Rift S, but I've also heard positive things about a simple head pad for the back of the strap as well. Some sort of counterweight on the back of the strap is also helpful, but this is where things get complicated. I had to 3D print an external battery mount that would be compatible with a Halo strap since the adjustment dial is directly on the back, but I believe there are now options of getting a Halo strap with battery holder already included.

Both the Rift S and Quest 2 lack headphones, and I recommend getting some Porta Pros and zip tying them to the sides of the strap (works for Halo - not so much of the OG strap of Quest 2). This improves the audio quite a bit! I also recommend feeding the Link cable to the back of the strap and attaching it there so that the weight of the cable pulls at the back of your head and not the side of your face. It's a lot of work, but the end result is a HUGE improvement in comfort!

  • Downsides
There are a few caveats to using the Quest 2 as your primary PCVR headset instead of getting an expensive one designed solely for that purpose. One major drawback was already mentioned - the amount of modding needed to make it comfortable and improve the audio. This, however, would be an issue even if you were using the Quest 2 as standalone, so it's something you'd want to deal with either way if you already have one.

The other glaring issue is the battery life. Despite the Quest 2 being plugged directly into the PC, it seems it still doesn't charge fast enough to stay at 100%. Your headset will still slowly drain while playing and plugging it into the PC takes up the charging port, so there's no way for you to have an all day marathon session. This is another reason to avoid 120Hz, as it drains even faster. I still need to do more testing to see how much it drains, but after 2.5 hours of watching a movie it was at 49%.

Finally the Link cable itself can be a bit of a crap shoot when looking for third party. This one has worked well for me so far, but they can be fickle and the official one is still a whopping $80. If you have trouble, try Google for a solution (I had to disable Air Link on the Quest 2 to get regular Link working).
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