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Starglider

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  1. Like
  2. Like
    Starglider got a reaction from da na in Experiences with non-techies   
    Was hired to build a secure web application for a very well known world renowned company (names will not be mentioned)...
     
    4 to 6 weeks later we were showing where we were at, how it works etc.
     
    Me: Ok if you type in www.xxxxxxxx.com and log in
     
    Client: ok. done
     
    Me: I start to talk about the login, security etc
     
    Client: I can't see anything it's just a blank page
     
    Me: Tested all the browsers, remote connected to home pc and tested connection and from a work server and all was fine. Asked the client to close all programs and try visiting the website again.
     
    Client: Nope it's still blank
     
    Me: Which web browser are you using?
     
    Client: Not sure where can I find that out?
     
    Me: If you look at the top left of the window you typed the web address into, your should see the name or have a logo/icon, let me know what you see.
     
    Client: MS Word
     
     
    WTF!
  3. Like
    Starglider got a reaction from jefire411 in Which speakers   
    Some gifs 4 u...
    http://allforthecode.com/fun/gifs/all.php
  4. Funny
    Starglider got a reaction from marten.aap2.0 in Experiences with non-techies   
    Was hired to build a secure web application for a very well known world renowned company (names will not be mentioned)...
     
    4 to 6 weeks later we were showing where we were at, how it works etc.
     
    Me: Ok if you type in www.xxxxxxxx.com and log in
     
    Client: ok. done
     
    Me: I start to talk about the login, security etc
     
    Client: I can't see anything it's just a blank page
     
    Me: Tested all the browsers, remote connected to home pc and tested connection and from a work server and all was fine. Asked the client to close all programs and try visiting the website again.
     
    Client: Nope it's still blank
     
    Me: Which web browser are you using?
     
    Client: Not sure where can I find that out?
     
    Me: If you look at the top left of the window you typed the web address into, your should see the name or have a logo/icon, let me know what you see.
     
    Client: MS Word
     
     
    WTF!
  5. Informative
    Starglider got a reaction from Merkey in SQL vs MySQL - any difference?   
    For Windows machines:
     
    1. Download and install XAMPP or WAMP (XAMPP is my pref')
    2. Once installed you will have Apache, PHP & MySQL installed (typical installation)
    3. When server is running (make sure to start apache and mysql services from the xampp window) you can type 127.0.0.1 or localhost in your web browser to reach the web root folder. Here you will have links to PHPMyAdmin which is the standard MySQL web based database management software (PHP).
    5. Web root will be in your installation folder of XAMPP / htdocs (make folders for your projects in this folder and browse them via the web browser)
    6. For Visual Studio C# VB etc applications just google "C# MySQL connection string" or use visual studio database connection features, for PHP just google "PHP MySQL connection string" and you will be good to go in about 5 minutes.
    7. If you want a more professional tool for working with MySQL which is FREE, download and install MySQL Workbench (as good as if not as good as visual database design with SQL Server tools)
     
    8. Once you get past simple CRUD functionality, Google "WebServices [language of choice]" and "RESTFUL or REST WebServices"
    9. Make sure you never store unencrypted passwords in the database (Google [language your using] password encryption
    10. Make sure your not vulnerable to SQL Injection (PDO & MySQLi have methods of handling this, parameter binding etc)
    11. Google "Relational Database Design"
    12. Google "MySQL Triggers"
    13. Google "MySQL Stored Procedures"
    14. Google "ORM"
    --- on and on and on....
     
     
    For Linux - just google "linux [distro your using] lamp install", will give you a list of "sudo apt-get install xxxx" commands to type into terminal
     
     
     
    General / Basic SQL for beginners can be found here:
    https://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_select.asp
  6. Funny
    Starglider got a reaction from Roll_Like_Rollo in Experiences with non-techies   
    Was hired to build a secure web application for a very well known world renowned company (names will not be mentioned)...
     
    4 to 6 weeks later we were showing where we were at, how it works etc.
     
    Me: Ok if you type in www.xxxxxxxx.com and log in
     
    Client: ok. done
     
    Me: I start to talk about the login, security etc
     
    Client: I can't see anything it's just a blank page
     
    Me: Tested all the browsers, remote connected to home pc and tested connection and from a work server and all was fine. Asked the client to close all programs and try visiting the website again.
     
    Client: Nope it's still blank
     
    Me: Which web browser are you using?
     
    Client: Not sure where can I find that out?
     
    Me: If you look at the top left of the window you typed the web address into, your should see the name or have a logo/icon, let me know what you see.
     
    Client: MS Word
     
     
    WTF!
  7. Like
    Starglider reacted to kappakali in Need a standalone microphone! Help me please!?   
    Would love to, but sadly too expensive.
    Also your profile picture is amazing.
  8. Like
    Starglider got a reaction from Ru5h in Whats my next step?   
    It's simpler than leggo, apart from 1 connection.... lol
     
    I've never understood why they have not standardised this connector.
     
    You have to plug square single cable plugs into pins depending on the case you got, but they are usually all the same configuration these days.... I have big hands and it's a pain to do this, part i hate, rest is easy. If it dont fit, it dont go there. Just push a lot when you put the mobo power cable in and yes the mobo will bend lol
  9. Like
    Starglider got a reaction from Ru5h in Whats my next step?   
    I will list which screws are different:
     
    Internal case, plate cover, GFX card and internal card screws, these are same thread as case but are usually different with big heads on these days. Not to be used outside. But you have them there to re-use, why GFX cards come with no screws.
     
    HD, screws wont fit in case hole, psu holes, fan holes.
     
    Case screws, psu screws, fan screws wont, shouldnt be used on HD or SSD as they are too big, you can force it and widen the thread if worst case scenario but ummmmmmm lol (yes I had to do this a few times).
     
    Water cooling scres are usually very long to go through the thickness of the radiators, so they are unique, same with psu fan screws or clip things, these can vary considerably.
  10. Like
    Starglider got a reaction from Ru5h in Whats my next step?   
    I bought another after it with no window as I don't really want to do the whole show off the guts thing.
  11. Like
    Starglider got a reaction from Ru5h in Whats my next step?   
    My current case is: Phanteks Enthoo Pro Mid Tower Enthusiast Case without Window
     
    Very nice case, screw less design, awesome cable management, fan controller on back, dust filters, best case I've ever had.
  12. Like
    Starglider got a reaction from Ru5h in Whats my next step?   
    ADDITIONAL: If you got an old machine, you should be fine as you got screws from all the various areas which you can re-use.
     
    Any case fans, or radiator (power fans), can need rubber washers to prevent noise, if these are missing can be a real pain to get hold of replacements or supplied.
  13. Like
    Starglider got a reaction from Ru5h in Whats my next step?   
    PUS, can vary, I've had a few with none, but I had screws left over with the case I could use.
     
    GFX card, case screws inside should be available (plates on rear should have screws holding them in).
     
    HDs come with screws, not but have had plenty which screws dont fit well.
     
    SSD, no screws, had to find my own.
     
    Case, choose a decent case and you wont need any.
     
    Mobo, can come with standing mounts, if not on the board or needed.
     
    Fan / Water cooling cpu pump, should have all the bits and screws, but i've had 3 which had them missing. 
  14. Like
    Starglider got a reaction from Ru5h in Whats my next step?   
    1. i5 game will be fine (i've never had one)
    2. HDD, My Western Digital holds my steam games and is fine, I do have fallout 4 installed on the boot drive (ssd), but it doesnt really shorten the load times that much (1, 2 seconds at a rare time).
    3. Wait till
    4. Check out the enthoo (can get link if you want?)
    5. PSU is fine.
     
     
     
  15. Like
    Starglider got a reaction from Ru5h in Whats my next step?   
    Spec I want to build for when the 1180ti / 1180 is released:
     
    1. Latest i7 @ 4ghz base, boost dont care...
    2. Ram 32GB (work, 16GB home)
    3. Mobo, dont care, as long as I got 1 PCIE port at best speed, rest I dont care about. I also like to have about 8 usb ports, 2+, i would like to put my own hub in on the case so i get 2 x usb 3 and 2 usb 2.0 on the front.
    4. PSU I need 800 so I buy 1000
     
    Rest of the machine is pretty much re-usable from my old build, bar ram, but you already know what I feel about that.
     
    Most importantly, do this mid next year or when the 1100 series pascal comes out, the gfx boost from 980 will be exceptional then.
     
    That's my view.. Hope it helps
  16. Like
    Starglider got a reaction from Ru5h in Whats my next step?   
    Your spec my thoughts:
     
    1. CPU, i would go for an i7, I've never gone for less (i 5 should be fine, but I work and play on my machines)
    2. CPU cooler, looks fine, should be fine
    3. Mobo, looks fine
    4. memory fine
    5. Storage, you wont go wrong with Hitachi usually, I always go for 2nd prize manufacturer with Western Digital as I've never had one fail on me (but now on SSDs, corsair SSD failed, now got 3 samsung SSDs and all going well). 1 for Desktop drive (remapped), 1 for boot, 1 for work, rest for steam, storage and backup x 2 mirror.
    6. GFX yes nice but would wait for 1100 series.
    7. case ... dont matter i would go for enthoo pro, mid tower, spacous, easy cable management etc, corsair has some nice options also, my old old cooler master used to slice my hands with paper / metal cuts, but was ok, but nothing compared to the enthoo pro mid tower.
    8. PSU, looks good, this should be worked out by you what you need, so should be fine, 580 maybe 600, always go for over not exact.
  17. Like
    Starglider got a reaction from BOT Zee in Oculus Rift CV1 - Day 2 - What I think (inc videos & pictures)   
    Well 6 months later and my pre-order has finally arrived... Here's what I think (My system: i7 4970K @ 4Ghz GTX980 16GB DDR, SSD):
    Setup was easy - took me about 10 minutes First experience of immersion was amazing But it went down hill from there...
    I was expecting spare padding, alternative lenses and a cloth lens wipe, nope none of these. Plastic battery divider which you pull from the oculus rift remote was wedged and I had to slide the back off  
    The screen and the screen door effect
    Well the resolution stats sound ok, but they are not. I've watched so many reviews and everyone says it's barely noticeable, I don't know what planet they are on or how poor their eye sight is but it's noticable, very noticable. Unless you have constant movement either by your head or the image being rendered to the screens it will be in your face, literally. A nice lattice grid over everything. I'm sure they are using a Galaxy S5 screen (still DK2?) or other low res samsung screen (Samsung screens tend to have more of a diamond lattice I've noticed). 
     

     
    Screen resolution
    So, not happy with what I was seeing, I decided to run some tests myself. I cooked up a quick application with some 4K textures of lava and earth with normal maps etc, slapped them onto some spheres and confirmed very poor resolution, combined with interlace / alias effects which are present everywhere. There is no way you can get a decent / sharp image / texture at the resolution of these screens. If there was no screen door it would be acceptable.
     
    Lens Smudge / Blur Glow / God Rays
    I started noticing glows on text or bright objects on dark (not even completely black) backgrounds. So I jumped over to unity, cooked up a skybox of some space textures I had and stuck some 3D text in the view (white). Wow... I've not seen effects like that since the credits from Superman. 
     

     
    Field of view
    It's like looking through a diving mask with more of your view blocked off. It really feels like I am looking through an diving mask / snorkeling mask, I forget about the screen door effect more than this.
     

     
    Tracking
    Works fine, I have noticed a lot content doesn't pick up on leaning left or right. And doesn't take into account when your looking behind you that left and right are reversed. I have also noticed all HUD are rotated slightly on my rift (probably need to re-calibrate that some how). I have a few stutters / jumps when looking directly back (HTC Vive wont have this issue). I didn't expect the sensor to be so big. It's taller than my yetti mic, good solid build however.
     
    Headset
    Good build, light, really needs to be able to adjust eye width more without screwing up the vision portal your looking through. I am at max width. I have also found that if I pull the rift off my face some hwere around 1 to 3 cm things can look much better, it removes some of the smudge effect also (thinking about sticking something to the padding to do this). There is also light let in from the nose area (issue on both vive and rift), I also had to turn light of which is directly above me in the room as I could detect it in headset. Headphones were ok, but it only took me 10 minutes before I removed them and used my own.
     
    Controller
    I'm no xbox fan or user but I'm sure the new xbox controller had modular components etc? This is just the same as my old £5 xbox pc controller just wireless.
     
    360 Video
    Resolution is so low that I think VHS would be 4K compared to this. No, just no.
     
    360 Photographs
    The supplied free images were cool but very low file size and quality. So found 60 panoramic high resolution images some as big as 20mega pixel. I didn't notice any quality improvement at all. You always get a feeling like your about 30ft off the floor, it scared the s**t out of my mother. So yes and no, light pictures with no bright and dark contrast worked well eg above the cloud line, egypt, rome, beaches etc.
     
    Virtual Desktop (steam app)
    Screen resolution makes things quite hard to read, usable but not practical at the moment. The application however has some nice features and some things that just don't work at all. Screen size (yes), screen distance (no - seen this just moving the screen a very small amount in a diagonal direction - guess the dev cant work out the normal from the camera normal and then add and offset the two). Tested youtube world of warcraft 360 video and the starwars one, both worked, let down by the resolution, no screen door or glows noticed. 360 image viewer views images differently to the Oculus home software also couldn't handle certain image (I think due to size) and threw an unknown parameter error but worked for the most part. I added 60, I could select all but couldn't delete all after grrr.
     
    Elite Dangerous
    God rays, poor text readability but still quite immersive. Can struggle and stutter if you don't lower your quality settings enough.

    Project Cars
    Complete rubbish, I played with the settings in game and in the SDK tool and never got anything I felt comfortable with. Environment flickering, render distances were poor and have to reset rift position each time the game starts. But I've come to expect this from these guys. So if you have a 980, i7 @4970k @4Ghz with 16GB DDR3, crank everything down to low, aliasing, bloom etc off and make sure you map easy to access controls / keys so you can change camera view and reset the head set position when needed. Shame there is no image quality or resolution quality on any VR at the moment as views in the distance are just a smeering of pixels and screen door. And the HUD, WTF they thinking. I'm sure some developer spent about 5 minutes whom couldn't give 1 f*** about the task... However there is another, "Assetto Corsa".
     
    Assetto Corsa
    Spent some time configuring this (much less than with project cars) but I found I could leave so much more on. The game has the same if not better graphics than project cars. So I broke out the ThrustMaster T500 wheel and pedals, got setup and nice, Very nice. Better sitting location, can lean and look around car. Can actually read the dials (unlike project cars). Dust and god rays on the windows. And crashing has me cringing in my seat. By far the best VR experience I've had yet, 2nd was the setup demo of the Dino and the Alien. You can't get passed the limitations of the resolution (detail pixel blur - which is in all tings) but I totally forgot about the screen door effect in Assetto Corsa. And having your arms and hands in the same position in the game as they are on the steering wheel is awesome. I crashed once and felt like I was still moving forward! Got me a bit weezy that did.

    Motion Sickness
    I've had a bad stomach for the past 2 days since the rift has arrived, is VR the cause? or was it the potato salad I ate? I've spent close to 6 hours each day in it so far and that's not counting development time.
     
    If I were to rate what I have talked about:
    10/10 Build quality and comfort
    10/10 Weight
    8/10 Tracking
    8/10 Lens gap adjustment
    0/10 No adjustment for lens to eye distance adjustment
    10/10 Having headphones and allowing them to be detached
    0/10 Not blocking external light from nose and upper padding areas
    0/10 Screen resolution and thus screen door effect
    0/10 Lens smear/blur/glow
    2/10 Diving Mask field of view
     
    48 out of 100 (4.8/10)

    Issues in order of severity:
    1. Screen resolution / ppi
    2. Field of view
    3. Lens blur/smear/glow
     
    Recommendation
    I will wait for Oculus Rift CV3, HTC Vive v3 and the GTX 1280ti/1380ti, maybe by then 2 way SLI would make it possible to have 1 graphics card to handle the graphics output for each eye which would help with not having hardware that can power the resolutions needed.
     
     
    Development tests I have carried out
    Best I can capture with my rubbish web cam but at least there are some previews.
     
    A quick demo I programmed up to demonstrate lens glare/smear/blur/glow effect.
     
     
    Another quick demo I programmed up to demonstrate 4K texture translation and minor aliasing issues but these aliasing issues are present in most things in VR at these screen resolutions.
     
    Another quick demo I programmed up to test some better textures I found, 8K and 4K textures, set to 4096x 16bit, created some normal textures for them, slapped on some spheres and rotated. About as good as it gets. Lots of lens glow from white text exampled.
     
     
    This is about as close as I can illustrate what you see when you put on the rift: an example of the view port, what you actually see and are expected to forget about. Black sides, room light from nose area, screen door and a little glow from white objects in the 3D scene bottom center.
     

     
    Conclusion
    At the moment, VR in my opinion is a FAIL. The resolution is a joke / insult, the lens blur/smear/glow for someone like me whom loves space games is a huge disappointment and the screen door effect just about tolerable. Not to mention your full field of view is not covered and puts you in a diving mask (good for a 1st person diving game I guess lol).
    Neither the Rift or the Vive should have been released with screens of this resolution / ppi. Should have been at least 1440p / 2k per an eye. The field of view needs to be at least 180 to 200 deg, and they should have worked out the lens blur/smudge/smear all before release.
  18. Informative
    Starglider got a reaction from Kaita in Oculus Rift CV1 - Day 2 - What I think (inc videos & pictures)   
    Well 6 months later and my pre-order has finally arrived... Here's what I think (My system: i7 4970K @ 4Ghz GTX980 16GB DDR, SSD):
    Setup was easy - took me about 10 minutes First experience of immersion was amazing But it went down hill from there...
    I was expecting spare padding, alternative lenses and a cloth lens wipe, nope none of these. Plastic battery divider which you pull from the oculus rift remote was wedged and I had to slide the back off  
    The screen and the screen door effect
    Well the resolution stats sound ok, but they are not. I've watched so many reviews and everyone says it's barely noticeable, I don't know what planet they are on or how poor their eye sight is but it's noticable, very noticable. Unless you have constant movement either by your head or the image being rendered to the screens it will be in your face, literally. A nice lattice grid over everything. I'm sure they are using a Galaxy S5 screen (still DK2?) or other low res samsung screen (Samsung screens tend to have more of a diamond lattice I've noticed). 
     

     
    Screen resolution
    So, not happy with what I was seeing, I decided to run some tests myself. I cooked up a quick application with some 4K textures of lava and earth with normal maps etc, slapped them onto some spheres and confirmed very poor resolution, combined with interlace / alias effects which are present everywhere. There is no way you can get a decent / sharp image / texture at the resolution of these screens. If there was no screen door it would be acceptable.
     
    Lens Smudge / Blur Glow / God Rays
    I started noticing glows on text or bright objects on dark (not even completely black) backgrounds. So I jumped over to unity, cooked up a skybox of some space textures I had and stuck some 3D text in the view (white). Wow... I've not seen effects like that since the credits from Superman. 
     

     
    Field of view
    It's like looking through a diving mask with more of your view blocked off. It really feels like I am looking through an diving mask / snorkeling mask, I forget about the screen door effect more than this.
     

     
    Tracking
    Works fine, I have noticed a lot content doesn't pick up on leaning left or right. And doesn't take into account when your looking behind you that left and right are reversed. I have also noticed all HUD are rotated slightly on my rift (probably need to re-calibrate that some how). I have a few stutters / jumps when looking directly back (HTC Vive wont have this issue). I didn't expect the sensor to be so big. It's taller than my yetti mic, good solid build however.
     
    Headset
    Good build, light, really needs to be able to adjust eye width more without screwing up the vision portal your looking through. I am at max width. I have also found that if I pull the rift off my face some hwere around 1 to 3 cm things can look much better, it removes some of the smudge effect also (thinking about sticking something to the padding to do this). There is also light let in from the nose area (issue on both vive and rift), I also had to turn light of which is directly above me in the room as I could detect it in headset. Headphones were ok, but it only took me 10 minutes before I removed them and used my own.
     
    Controller
    I'm no xbox fan or user but I'm sure the new xbox controller had modular components etc? This is just the same as my old £5 xbox pc controller just wireless.
     
    360 Video
    Resolution is so low that I think VHS would be 4K compared to this. No, just no.
     
    360 Photographs
    The supplied free images were cool but very low file size and quality. So found 60 panoramic high resolution images some as big as 20mega pixel. I didn't notice any quality improvement at all. You always get a feeling like your about 30ft off the floor, it scared the s**t out of my mother. So yes and no, light pictures with no bright and dark contrast worked well eg above the cloud line, egypt, rome, beaches etc.
     
    Virtual Desktop (steam app)
    Screen resolution makes things quite hard to read, usable but not practical at the moment. The application however has some nice features and some things that just don't work at all. Screen size (yes), screen distance (no - seen this just moving the screen a very small amount in a diagonal direction - guess the dev cant work out the normal from the camera normal and then add and offset the two). Tested youtube world of warcraft 360 video and the starwars one, both worked, let down by the resolution, no screen door or glows noticed. 360 image viewer views images differently to the Oculus home software also couldn't handle certain image (I think due to size) and threw an unknown parameter error but worked for the most part. I added 60, I could select all but couldn't delete all after grrr.
     
    Elite Dangerous
    God rays, poor text readability but still quite immersive. Can struggle and stutter if you don't lower your quality settings enough.

    Project Cars
    Complete rubbish, I played with the settings in game and in the SDK tool and never got anything I felt comfortable with. Environment flickering, render distances were poor and have to reset rift position each time the game starts. But I've come to expect this from these guys. So if you have a 980, i7 @4970k @4Ghz with 16GB DDR3, crank everything down to low, aliasing, bloom etc off and make sure you map easy to access controls / keys so you can change camera view and reset the head set position when needed. Shame there is no image quality or resolution quality on any VR at the moment as views in the distance are just a smeering of pixels and screen door. And the HUD, WTF they thinking. I'm sure some developer spent about 5 minutes whom couldn't give 1 f*** about the task... However there is another, "Assetto Corsa".
     
    Assetto Corsa
    Spent some time configuring this (much less than with project cars) but I found I could leave so much more on. The game has the same if not better graphics than project cars. So I broke out the ThrustMaster T500 wheel and pedals, got setup and nice, Very nice. Better sitting location, can lean and look around car. Can actually read the dials (unlike project cars). Dust and god rays on the windows. And crashing has me cringing in my seat. By far the best VR experience I've had yet, 2nd was the setup demo of the Dino and the Alien. You can't get passed the limitations of the resolution (detail pixel blur - which is in all tings) but I totally forgot about the screen door effect in Assetto Corsa. And having your arms and hands in the same position in the game as they are on the steering wheel is awesome. I crashed once and felt like I was still moving forward! Got me a bit weezy that did.

    Motion Sickness
    I've had a bad stomach for the past 2 days since the rift has arrived, is VR the cause? or was it the potato salad I ate? I've spent close to 6 hours each day in it so far and that's not counting development time.
     
    If I were to rate what I have talked about:
    10/10 Build quality and comfort
    10/10 Weight
    8/10 Tracking
    8/10 Lens gap adjustment
    0/10 No adjustment for lens to eye distance adjustment
    10/10 Having headphones and allowing them to be detached
    0/10 Not blocking external light from nose and upper padding areas
    0/10 Screen resolution and thus screen door effect
    0/10 Lens smear/blur/glow
    2/10 Diving Mask field of view
     
    48 out of 100 (4.8/10)

    Issues in order of severity:
    1. Screen resolution / ppi
    2. Field of view
    3. Lens blur/smear/glow
     
    Recommendation
    I will wait for Oculus Rift CV3, HTC Vive v3 and the GTX 1280ti/1380ti, maybe by then 2 way SLI would make it possible to have 1 graphics card to handle the graphics output for each eye which would help with not having hardware that can power the resolutions needed.
     
     
    Development tests I have carried out
    Best I can capture with my rubbish web cam but at least there are some previews.
     
    A quick demo I programmed up to demonstrate lens glare/smear/blur/glow effect.
     
     
    Another quick demo I programmed up to demonstrate 4K texture translation and minor aliasing issues but these aliasing issues are present in most things in VR at these screen resolutions.
     
    Another quick demo I programmed up to test some better textures I found, 8K and 4K textures, set to 4096x 16bit, created some normal textures for them, slapped on some spheres and rotated. About as good as it gets. Lots of lens glow from white text exampled.
     
     
    This is about as close as I can illustrate what you see when you put on the rift: an example of the view port, what you actually see and are expected to forget about. Black sides, room light from nose area, screen door and a little glow from white objects in the 3D scene bottom center.
     

     
    Conclusion
    At the moment, VR in my opinion is a FAIL. The resolution is a joke / insult, the lens blur/smear/glow for someone like me whom loves space games is a huge disappointment and the screen door effect just about tolerable. Not to mention your full field of view is not covered and puts you in a diving mask (good for a 1st person diving game I guess lol).
    Neither the Rift or the Vive should have been released with screens of this resolution / ppi. Should have been at least 1440p / 2k per an eye. The field of view needs to be at least 180 to 200 deg, and they should have worked out the lens blur/smudge/smear all before release.
  19. Like
    Starglider got a reaction from McHox in Oculus Rift CV1 - Day 2 - What I think (inc videos & pictures)   
    Well 6 months later and my pre-order has finally arrived... Here's what I think (My system: i7 4970K @ 4Ghz GTX980 16GB DDR, SSD):
    Setup was easy - took me about 10 minutes First experience of immersion was amazing But it went down hill from there...
    I was expecting spare padding, alternative lenses and a cloth lens wipe, nope none of these. Plastic battery divider which you pull from the oculus rift remote was wedged and I had to slide the back off  
    The screen and the screen door effect
    Well the resolution stats sound ok, but they are not. I've watched so many reviews and everyone says it's barely noticeable, I don't know what planet they are on or how poor their eye sight is but it's noticable, very noticable. Unless you have constant movement either by your head or the image being rendered to the screens it will be in your face, literally. A nice lattice grid over everything. I'm sure they are using a Galaxy S5 screen (still DK2?) or other low res samsung screen (Samsung screens tend to have more of a diamond lattice I've noticed). 
     

     
    Screen resolution
    So, not happy with what I was seeing, I decided to run some tests myself. I cooked up a quick application with some 4K textures of lava and earth with normal maps etc, slapped them onto some spheres and confirmed very poor resolution, combined with interlace / alias effects which are present everywhere. There is no way you can get a decent / sharp image / texture at the resolution of these screens. If there was no screen door it would be acceptable.
     
    Lens Smudge / Blur Glow / God Rays
    I started noticing glows on text or bright objects on dark (not even completely black) backgrounds. So I jumped over to unity, cooked up a skybox of some space textures I had and stuck some 3D text in the view (white). Wow... I've not seen effects like that since the credits from Superman. 
     

     
    Field of view
    It's like looking through a diving mask with more of your view blocked off. It really feels like I am looking through an diving mask / snorkeling mask, I forget about the screen door effect more than this.
     

     
    Tracking
    Works fine, I have noticed a lot content doesn't pick up on leaning left or right. And doesn't take into account when your looking behind you that left and right are reversed. I have also noticed all HUD are rotated slightly on my rift (probably need to re-calibrate that some how). I have a few stutters / jumps when looking directly back (HTC Vive wont have this issue). I didn't expect the sensor to be so big. It's taller than my yetti mic, good solid build however.
     
    Headset
    Good build, light, really needs to be able to adjust eye width more without screwing up the vision portal your looking through. I am at max width. I have also found that if I pull the rift off my face some hwere around 1 to 3 cm things can look much better, it removes some of the smudge effect also (thinking about sticking something to the padding to do this). There is also light let in from the nose area (issue on both vive and rift), I also had to turn light of which is directly above me in the room as I could detect it in headset. Headphones were ok, but it only took me 10 minutes before I removed them and used my own.
     
    Controller
    I'm no xbox fan or user but I'm sure the new xbox controller had modular components etc? This is just the same as my old £5 xbox pc controller just wireless.
     
    360 Video
    Resolution is so low that I think VHS would be 4K compared to this. No, just no.
     
    360 Photographs
    The supplied free images were cool but very low file size and quality. So found 60 panoramic high resolution images some as big as 20mega pixel. I didn't notice any quality improvement at all. You always get a feeling like your about 30ft off the floor, it scared the s**t out of my mother. So yes and no, light pictures with no bright and dark contrast worked well eg above the cloud line, egypt, rome, beaches etc.
     
    Virtual Desktop (steam app)
    Screen resolution makes things quite hard to read, usable but not practical at the moment. The application however has some nice features and some things that just don't work at all. Screen size (yes), screen distance (no - seen this just moving the screen a very small amount in a diagonal direction - guess the dev cant work out the normal from the camera normal and then add and offset the two). Tested youtube world of warcraft 360 video and the starwars one, both worked, let down by the resolution, no screen door or glows noticed. 360 image viewer views images differently to the Oculus home software also couldn't handle certain image (I think due to size) and threw an unknown parameter error but worked for the most part. I added 60, I could select all but couldn't delete all after grrr.
     
    Elite Dangerous
    God rays, poor text readability but still quite immersive. Can struggle and stutter if you don't lower your quality settings enough.

    Project Cars
    Complete rubbish, I played with the settings in game and in the SDK tool and never got anything I felt comfortable with. Environment flickering, render distances were poor and have to reset rift position each time the game starts. But I've come to expect this from these guys. So if you have a 980, i7 @4970k @4Ghz with 16GB DDR3, crank everything down to low, aliasing, bloom etc off and make sure you map easy to access controls / keys so you can change camera view and reset the head set position when needed. Shame there is no image quality or resolution quality on any VR at the moment as views in the distance are just a smeering of pixels and screen door. And the HUD, WTF they thinking. I'm sure some developer spent about 5 minutes whom couldn't give 1 f*** about the task... However there is another, "Assetto Corsa".
     
    Assetto Corsa
    Spent some time configuring this (much less than with project cars) but I found I could leave so much more on. The game has the same if not better graphics than project cars. So I broke out the ThrustMaster T500 wheel and pedals, got setup and nice, Very nice. Better sitting location, can lean and look around car. Can actually read the dials (unlike project cars). Dust and god rays on the windows. And crashing has me cringing in my seat. By far the best VR experience I've had yet, 2nd was the setup demo of the Dino and the Alien. You can't get passed the limitations of the resolution (detail pixel blur - which is in all tings) but I totally forgot about the screen door effect in Assetto Corsa. And having your arms and hands in the same position in the game as they are on the steering wheel is awesome. I crashed once and felt like I was still moving forward! Got me a bit weezy that did.

    Motion Sickness
    I've had a bad stomach for the past 2 days since the rift has arrived, is VR the cause? or was it the potato salad I ate? I've spent close to 6 hours each day in it so far and that's not counting development time.
     
    If I were to rate what I have talked about:
    10/10 Build quality and comfort
    10/10 Weight
    8/10 Tracking
    8/10 Lens gap adjustment
    0/10 No adjustment for lens to eye distance adjustment
    10/10 Having headphones and allowing them to be detached
    0/10 Not blocking external light from nose and upper padding areas
    0/10 Screen resolution and thus screen door effect
    0/10 Lens smear/blur/glow
    2/10 Diving Mask field of view
     
    48 out of 100 (4.8/10)

    Issues in order of severity:
    1. Screen resolution / ppi
    2. Field of view
    3. Lens blur/smear/glow
     
    Recommendation
    I will wait for Oculus Rift CV3, HTC Vive v3 and the GTX 1280ti/1380ti, maybe by then 2 way SLI would make it possible to have 1 graphics card to handle the graphics output for each eye which would help with not having hardware that can power the resolutions needed.
     
     
    Development tests I have carried out
    Best I can capture with my rubbish web cam but at least there are some previews.
     
    A quick demo I programmed up to demonstrate lens glare/smear/blur/glow effect.
     
     
    Another quick demo I programmed up to demonstrate 4K texture translation and minor aliasing issues but these aliasing issues are present in most things in VR at these screen resolutions.
     
    Another quick demo I programmed up to test some better textures I found, 8K and 4K textures, set to 4096x 16bit, created some normal textures for them, slapped on some spheres and rotated. About as good as it gets. Lots of lens glow from white text exampled.
     
     
    This is about as close as I can illustrate what you see when you put on the rift: an example of the view port, what you actually see and are expected to forget about. Black sides, room light from nose area, screen door and a little glow from white objects in the 3D scene bottom center.
     

     
    Conclusion
    At the moment, VR in my opinion is a FAIL. The resolution is a joke / insult, the lens blur/smear/glow for someone like me whom loves space games is a huge disappointment and the screen door effect just about tolerable. Not to mention your full field of view is not covered and puts you in a diving mask (good for a 1st person diving game I guess lol).
    Neither the Rift or the Vive should have been released with screens of this resolution / ppi. Should have been at least 1440p / 2k per an eye. The field of view needs to be at least 180 to 200 deg, and they should have worked out the lens blur/smudge/smear all before release.
  20. Informative
    Starglider got a reaction from ohJey in Flow chart logic error?   
    I am guessing trick question by lecturer to make you dig into it.
  21. Informative
    Starglider got a reaction from ohJey in Flow chart logic error?   
    An operator cannot defy its function.
     
    Quadratic has two answers (in theory).
     
    however, if logic flow chart is run via single value, and it is correct, and you put a conditional test on what you are trying to prevent, it will never be wrong, thus the flow chart is incorrect or incomplete.
  22. Like
    Starglider reacted to Herbiv4 in Corsair K70 RGB Profile set for download   
    Now that was fast! Thanks very much :o)
  23. Like
    Starglider reacted to failblox in Help me decide what to build   
    Take the optical drive. Please.
    (unless you really, really need it)
  24. Like
    Starglider got a reaction from The_Golden_Lance in Help me decide what to build   
    I wont touch any case that doesn't have drive slots for optical +. Optical is still essential IMO.
     
    I wont upgrade from i7 4790K @4.4GHz 16GBDDR3, GTX980 for at least 2 years (most), only part I will be upgrading is pascals 1080ti P100/P104 (TBC). No point in the upgrading the rest for some time.
  25. Agree
    Starglider got a reaction from Herman Mcpootis in Help me decide what to build   
    I wont touch any case that doesn't have drive slots for optical +. Optical is still essential IMO.
     
    I wont upgrade from i7 4790K @4.4GHz 16GBDDR3, GTX980 for at least 2 years (most), only part I will be upgrading is pascals 1080ti P100/P104 (TBC). No point in the upgrading the rest for some time.
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