Oculus Ditches DRM Hurdle, Allows HTC Vive Games On Rift Again (venturebeat.com) 37
An anonymous reader writes: After changing its DRM to exclude ReVive last month, Oculus has changed its mind again and is now allowing HTC Vive games to play on the Oculus Rift. "We continually revise our entitlement and anti-piracy systems, and in the June update we've removed the check for Rift hardware from the entitlement check. We won't use hardware checks as part of DRM on PC in the future," Oculus VR said. "We believe protecting developer content is critical to the long-term success of the VR industry, and we'll continue taking steps in the future to ensure that VR developers can keep investing in ground-breaking new VR content." VentureBeat reports: "ReVive developers have acted quickly following the removal of the check. An update to the software has been posted on GitHub to bring it back in line, meaning you'll now be able to access the games that were previously available without jumping through extra hoops. Perhaps even more games might work going forward. CrossVR, one of the system's developers, took to Reddit to thank Oculus for the decision. 'I'm delighted to see this change and I hope it can generate a lot of goodwill for Oculus.' CrossVR said."
Uh huh (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Uh huh (Score:4, Insightful)
Plus no linux support, plus spyware.
Re: (Score:1)
Well there's little chance that display drivers under linux will provide the needed performance, and most of the games that people actually you know... GIVE A SHIT about don't work in linux, so there's that.
But hey, keep campaigning for TuxVR. I'm sure that'll be fun.
Re: Uh huh (Score:2)
Well there's little chance that display drivers under linux will provide the needed performance
This is a massive understatement if you're referring to AMD GPU drivers and total horseshit if you're referring to nVidia GPU drivers.
Re: (Score:2)
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If you care to scroll a bit down on that phoronix page, you'll see that the performance is more or less equal. Only the xonotic benchmark shows a dramatic difference.
Could be a bug in de linux nvidia driver. could be a bug in xonotic.
However, most of the time the windows/ubuntu performance is more or less equal.
I have seen the reverse situation in the past, where the windows version managed to hit an unaccelerated path somewhere while the linux version didn't.
So, horseshit it is.
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According to recent phoronix articles its the games not the drivers. The drivers are within a few percent, but games can end up anywhere from 30% of windows performance to parity.
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Having used both the Rift and the Vive, I can say that it's no great loss. The Vive is orders of magnitude better. Unfortunately, in the minds of most people, "Oculus" is synonymous with "VR" so the Vive will have to struggle to make its mark. Especially with headsets coming out soon from Sony, et. al.
Re:Uh huh (Score:5, Informative)
> "Oculus" is synonymous with "VR"
Maybe a few months ago I would have agreed but except for the most clueless media and most uninformed consumers, that just doesn't seem true any more.
VIve has made a massive impact because of its room scale support and VR hand controllers, and not least, you can actually get a Vive.
Meanwhile people with months-old Rift pre-orders are still waiting, Oculus hand controllers still dont even have a time frame let alone release date, and Rift room scale is not even a thing beyond a few dev experiments. I'm not even getting into their retarded EULA or DRM decisions. Its like they're doing everything they can to fail.
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What did you honestly expect when facebook bought them? That the facebook lawyers, experienced in social media, would handle this with the delicate touch of an up and coming industry?
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Well I certainly expected the shitty EULAs, massive lock-in and personal data rape that Rift owners are experiencing, but I would have thought with all of Facebook's money behind them and the big head start they had at the beginning, they would at least be the ones with the better VR hardware/features and have their supply chain sorted, yet HTC/Vive has handily beat them on both of those fronts.
I'm still waiting to see what Facebook's actual reason was for buying Oculus though. I can't believe that it was j
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>> then all of a sudden you are in this large cavernous stone hall with lots of orcs and giants.
Thats Montana Tech.
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For what it's worth, Oculus is finally getting caught up. Orders as recently as last month have shipped in the US. It looks like they should be fully caught up in another month.
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The thing is the Rift does have some plus points over the Vive, especially for non-gaming use -
* Headset rigid strap / integrated headphones is easier to put on and the tracking camera takes up almost no room, which makes it good for use in galleries / exhibitions.
* It's a fair bit cheaper, again good if you'll be entrusting the thing to the general public in a gallery etc.
* The overall comfort and easy of putting on / taking off does make it nice for small-scale dev work.
* Obviously time will tell if this
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I use my QC25 to block outside noise. They're a perfect match for a VR head-mounted display. But with the Rift I can't use them. Integrated headphones is a fail.
Re: Uh huh (Score:2, Informative)
Yes you can. The integrated headphones are removable.
Re: Uh huh (Score:1)
As someone who has also tried both, "orders of magnitude better" is completely dishonest and innacurate. They are VERY close in quality to the point where neither experience stands out as better (obviously not including wand motion controls).
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Exactly. They can suck it.... It's a freaking monitor, my LG monitor does not try and force DRM down my throat.
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Well, it wouldn't be the first time there has been hardware lockout for a display device [wikipedia.org]...
TFA wrong, they're allowing RIFT GAMES on VIVE HW (Score:5, Informative)
I'd expect as much of venturebeat, but comeon, Slashdot, get it together
Article Error? (Score:1)
I thought the DRM was to prevent the Oculus Store bought titles from playing on the Vive? The article has it written the other way around. I've been able to use my Rift on any title I bought from Steam that was listed as Oculus compatible. Can't say I've tried non-compatible titles besides the Steam demos.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/oculus-blocks-revive-vr,31862.html
"Oculus was using DRM that checked the validity of your game purchase, but it wasn’t checking for the Rift hardware. Each game ha
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Yeah the article got their title round the wrong way, even though they got it correct in the body. Well done lads!
Anyway yeah the DRM was to stop people playing Oculus games on Vive, the Rift headset has always supported Steam and other non-Oculus home content.
Removing Check For Rift Hardware (Score:4, Informative)
Oculus isn't 'allowing' anything, at least not directly. They simply removed a check for the Rift hardware in the DRM that checks if an account is allowed to play (i.e. paid for) a particular Oculus Home game. Oculus Home is their store/platform a la Steam. Many programs on Oculus Home don't support the HTC Vive natively, so someone made a program/hack called Revive that allows those to run on the Vive. Oculus' most recent act was to stop the check which blocked Revive from working in most cases. There is no guarantee on Oculus' end that Revive will work as advertised, or bug-free.
The RoadToVR writeup is better [roadtovr.com]
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Ditching DRM,Allows HTC Vive Games On Rift Again (Score:2)
A) You got that backwards. Its Rift Games on Vive.
B) Its wrong anyway. Oculus ARENT ditching DRM. They're removing the recently added headset check (presumably to remove the reason for the ReVive author to continue publishing software that had to break their DRM to continue to work).