Gabe: "Zero per cent" of people get motion sick from Vive HMD
Newell is confident that Lighthouse makes Valve's VR nausea-free
Gabe Newell has told press that Valve has solved the problem of motion-sickness for VR users, proclaiming that "zero per cent of people get motion sick" when using the company's Vive headset.
The new tech, developed in tandem with HTC, was revealed three days ago at the beginning of GDC. Early reports from those at the show who've been able to experience it first hand have been overwhelmingly positive, with many claiming that it's the best VR experience currently being exhibited.
Previously Newell had been very susceptible to motion sickness himself, calling them the "world's best motion sickness inducers." However, in an interview with the New York Times, he was bullish about the fact that there'll be no such experiences with Vive. The difference, according to Valve, is the headset's revolutionary 'Lighthouse' positional system - technology which Valve says its absolutely willing to share with any hardware manufacturer.
Whilst the Vive's main competitors have motion-tracking solutions of their own, don't be surprised if they decide to take advantage of Lighthouse should Valve's claims prove to be true. In fact, Oculus has already benefited from some of Valve's tech, with the firm sharing previous work in order to ensure that the VR market launched in as healthy and reliable manner as possible in order to prevent a massive setback in public opinion.
Still, it would be understandable if there were some bad blood between the two companies. Oculus has 'inherited' a large number of Valve's specialist VR staff, as well as some alumni.
If you're not at GDC and want to learn more about Vive, Valve's Chet Faliszek will be at EGX Rezzed in London next week, discussing Steam VR.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Darren Adams on 5th March 2015 2:27pm
Edited 2 times. Last edit by James Podesta on 5th March 2015 10:18pm
If that disconnect between ingame/onscreen motion and lack of player motion was a serious problem I wouldn't be able to play any 1st person game, being astonishingly sensitive to motion sickness. It's also something we seem able to adapt too, real motion sickness fades with exposure in most people.
In practice tracking lag dominates the nausea. We ran DN3D back in the 90s on an experimental headset+fast PC, massively reducing lag and despite 2.5D distortion, poor FOV correction and far from perfect input mapping I had massive (10x+) improved time without nausea. Turns out to be much more important to react quickly than to react accurately to input!
With that fixed we can move onto FOV and distortion issues. The big remaining problems will be avoiding players using gaming systems that can't deliver low enough lag (consoles may have trouble) and making the systems safe for unsupervised use.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Paul Shirley on 7th March 2015 1:52pm
I can also believe their claims of a 15 x 15 foot tracking area. However, in terms of wide-scale adoption people are going to worry that the space they have available may not be enough for most games and how is 15 foot enough to play Skyrim?
Valve is talking about a 20 square meter area here, that is the size of an average German living room (Google fact). No game will be able to use that space, they will have to learn to use what is in that space and leverage each part separately; from a couch, to a small empty space, to spinning chair.