Posts by AlexM

  • VR in Gaming

    Quote from SpronyvanJohnson

    Will you let us know how it was?


    If can get to use one definitely.



    Direct links to optical nerves.

    scurry o_0

  • VR in Gaming

    I was really thinking of buy one of the Occulus SDK kits but all the sudden there's 4 vr helmets coming to market we know of. Now I'm not sure what to do.


    I'm going to this game developer thing Tuesday. I'm hoping they'll be demoing something there so I can get a firsthand look.

  • CryEngine out for 9$ a month

    That article is all I can find so I think it's just iterative updates. What they do mention is "Physically Based Shading, Geometry Cache and Image Based Lighting"


    The biggest complaint I heard in the past was it required some sort of connectivity that prevented some developers from working on the game when the server went down.

  • VR in Gaming

    Thanks for addressing that stuff James.


    Do you think it's able to be mitigated enough so we dont have entire nations who don't really play the games due to those issues? (AKa Japan and FPS'es) or will it be prettu much the same.


    Also is there a general idea of a good resolution where the density is enough to compare with a TV experience. Are we talking 4K or much higher?


    edit: glad to hear about the consideration for people who use glasses. I wont use contacts.

  • Buying a house and the games industry.

    Yeah I dont think you can get anything for under maybe 700000 in Vancouver


    Quote from Corwin

    Liveable, if you don't mind it being a bit unusable. It's got a recent heating system, up-to-date electrical setup, and brand new bath room. The rest is a bit weirdly setup (extra building added onto a small house with not-ideal connections between the two) and there's only one toilet at the moment, and some of the floors have bent a bit with the years so two rooms need their floors redone. The staircase is a bit old-school (narrow steps) but it's a low priority. But it's got a decent garden, 2 terraces, a seperate garage, and is located in a small dead-end street 100 meters away from a kid's playground. So all in all I think it's a good deal. It's a bit remote of course, I'll have to drive to the train station, but my current transit time is almost an hour so that shouldn't be better or worse. The highway is 3 minutes away too, so I can be in Frankfurt in 30 minutes (if I wanted to deal with heavy traffic and congestions each day which I don't)


    We can definitely move in as soon as I have fixed up the kitchen's floor and kitchen itself though, which is nice. Then we can approach each renovation as we see fit, nothing is ultra urgent, especially since we don't need to worry about isolating the attic or anything like that for a least a few months.


    I don't think it's Germany only, I looked in France too and in some areas (like the backwards isolated region I'm from) you can get houses for those prices too. They're almost all old-people's houses though, usually a relative dies and leaves a meh house on 2 or 3 heirs, who don't want to be bothered with it and sell it cheap and quick. Obviously they're not super great, but with a little love and low expectations, it can be a sweet deal.


    That's pretty damn good. At that price you can afford to spend quite a bit on renos. If you go through it make sure to post some before/after photos.


    My guess with France is that once you get closer to the cities with work it would be significantly more expensive.

  • VR in Gaming

    edit: I mean to make the title "VR in Gaming : Will it work this time? " but forgot to update the title.


    With the advent of 4 companies that I know of working on VR devices I thought it might be good for us to have a discussion on VR in it's present form and the near future.


    So far I believe there are VR devices being worked on by Valve, MS, Sony and Occulus. So there's certainly a lot of money behind making VR work this time. Do you guys think it will work this time?


    We certainly have much better technology but there's still a few issues I'm worried about:


    1) Resolution, everyone seems to agree that you need a higher-than-hd resolution for VR.


    2) Glasses. I haven't tried one of the new VR sets but I have a concern. I wear glasses when playing video games, how do I do that with a VR headset.


    3) Motion sickness


    4) If you don't own one, it's hard to explain via video.


    5) It's a item that actively discourages real world human interaction. It could be the victim of vilification,


    I guess a question we need to ask ourselves is why did VR fail so many times before? Lack of resources? Lack of technology? Too much of a gimmick? Motion sickness?


    So do you think this time VR will be integrated into society much like the smart phone? do you think it will have a niche audience? Do you think it will suffer the same fate as Gunpei Yokois Virtual Boy?

  • Buying a house and the games industry.

    Quote from (HP)

    Invest in what, stocks? Shit is like gambling.


    That reminds me I need to set up my 401k. Fuck getting old sucks... I'm about to turn 29 in a couple months, sigh.


    Stocks is like 1 of thousands of things you can invest in. If you have money in the bank you might as well at least consider a blue chip or mutual fund where there's next to no chance you'll make any significant gains but it will be better than keeping it in the bank accruing interest and in some cases it's even more secure than a bank (see private banks failing and customers not able to get all their funds out).


    The few people I know who have mutual funds all ended up positive even over the crisis in 2009. It also doesn't require a significant investment like a house, has no upkeep cost and doesn't require you to spend hours of your life dealing with homeowners issues. In countries like Canada the government allots 5000$ a year in money you can invest and no pay tax on profit you earn. People tend to use that money for these types of investments because if they do very well (which happens) they don't get jacked up to another income tax bracket because of their gains.


    edit: it's worth at least consulting the financial planner at your bank to see what your options are


    editedit : full disclousure, I've held about even on stocks and almost every year I've made money on a mutual fund (save the housing crisis years).


    Quote from dux

    Bleh I dunno what to do. The house I looked at is completely redone to a huge standard, everything is brand new and spotless. In a decent spot in town, just on the outskirts but not far from anything, all walking distance and doesn't need anything doing to it apart from some additional internet sockets installed. I could see myself there easily enough. But like Thrik said, just imagine you won't have a job in 2 years and work around that... which is not a great thought. The flat I'm in now is one of the best you can get here, but there's a huge building site next to me making a shit tone of noise, which will eventually house a load of homeless apparently. So that'll be fun. Plus my landlord has put the whole building my flat is in up for sale because of it so dunno what'll happen with a new owner. The other flats I looked at in town are nothing compared to this, absolute piss holes in comparison.


    I guess I'll just stay here and try not to get stabbed.


    Err the stabbing issue might make the notion of moving a bit more important o_0