Codemasters have responded officially to Road to VR on why DiRT Rally, which recently received Oculus Rift VR support, lacks support for the rival SteamVR based HTC Vive system.

See Also: ‘DiRT Rally’ VR Review
See Also: ‘DiRT Rally’ VR Review

DiRT Rally received its first VR update this week for the Oculus Rift, and it’s pretty awesome. But like iRacing and Assetto Corsa before it, official support for the HTC Vive is absent. Once again, Vive owners are turning to LibreVR’s Revive injector for the solution, which is already functional with DiRT Rally.

We reached out to Codemasters for comment. “We don’t have any news on that front at this point in time but we are evaluating all VR platforms”, says Andy Gray, Product Manager on DiRT Rally. As the game is prominently featured on the Oculus Store, some may be thinking that is some kind of timed exclusive for the Rift, but we’re assured that this is not the case, and it is instead a “resource issue”. Understandable, as Oculus had a significant head start in terms of getting development kits into the hands of game studios, but this is still a frustratingly familiar situation for Vive owners.

See Also: DiRT Rally VR Gets HTC Vive Support Via Revive

With the smaller studios like Reiza and ISI struggling to justify dedicating their resources to any form of VR support, this probably won’t be the last time. Hopefully the notion of more favourable support for simulators on Rift is only a short-term trend.

DiRT Rally VR is available on Oculus Home and Steam, and currently only officially supports the Oculus Rift VR headset.

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The trial version of Microsoft’s Monster Truck Madness probably had something to do with it. And certainly the original Super Mario Kart and Gran Turismo. A car nut from an early age, Dominic was always drawn to racing games above all other genres. Now a seasoned driving simulation enthusiast, and former editor of Sim Racer magazine, Dominic has followed virtual reality developments with keen interest, as cockpit-based simulation is a perfect match for the technology. Conditions could hardly be more ideal, a scientist once said. Writing about simulators lead him to Road to VR, whose broad coverage of the industry revealed the bigger picture and limitless potential of the medium. Passionate about technology and a lifelong PC gamer, Dominic suffers from the ‘tweak for days’ PC gaming condition, where he plays the same section over and over at every possible combination of visual settings to find the right balance between fidelity and performance. Based within The Fens of Lincolnshire (it’s very flat), Dominic can sometimes be found marvelling at the real world’s ‘draw distance’, wishing virtual technologies would catch up.
  • Maybe a fan can ship them a Vive in exchange for a free copy of the game?

    • RogWilco

      At $800 + tax/shipping, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find someone *that* enthusiastic about this game,

      • Roger Bentley

        Why not the vive elitist should have no issue giving up their life or vive for the cause.

        • RogWilco

          Hey, I’d gladly lay my life down in support of VR, but giving up my Vive? Let’s not get too carried away here!

    • Roger Bentley

      Lolll

  • Mike McLin

    I’m not understanding how a dev can’t support the Vive, but the community can make it work with Vive a day after it is released? Is whatever ReVive doing not optimal or possible for a dev to do within their game install?

    • RogWilco

      I actually agree with this. I get that their engineering team has probably had an Oculus dev unit for quite some time, and they simply stayed the corse (possibly unaware of how the Vive has captured at least half the VR market in the meantime, possibly…). But it really is rather trivial. Given the overhead of internal process and QA, I still can’t see it costing more than a couple of weeks (*maybe* a month, if they really just started now). Seems odd to me.

      • Russell Leggett

        How do you know it is trivial? Are you a dev making games? The way revive works is not something you would want to push into production. I’m sure its not an incredibly difficult challenge, but I don’t know why people assume nefarious intentions or incompetence when it can easily be explained by other means. If you built on the Rift API, you don’t get Vive support for free. I’ve heard from many unbiased sources that its actually really hard to do a good simultaneous release. Just give it a little time.

        • RogWilco

          I’m not making games, but I am an experienced software engineer quite familiar with the process. I also have access (as does anyone) to the ReVive source via GitHub and can see plain as day how the implementation works.

          Without the overhead of internal processes, QA, and a build pipeline, it would be possible to have a working build with Vive support within a *day.* I find my estimation of 2 to 4 weeks somewhere between realistic and exceedingly generous.

          “I don’t know why people assume nefarious intentions or incompetence”

          I don’t know why you chose to respond to this comment thread then, because in it the only person that even mentions nefarious intentions or incompetence is you. In fact, I gave a time projection for when we might see Vive support if we “just give it a little time,” as you put it.

          • Russell Leggett

            I’m also a software engineer, so I know that software engineers commonly underestimate how long something would take and what the real costs of development often are. Possibly I should I have commented somewhere else, but you said it “is rather trivial”, and “Seems odd” and Mukatsuku is suggesting that they’re lying about getting exclusivity. Those are the incompetence and nefarious intentions I was talking about. I just don’t see why it can’t be simpler like – they’re getting to it, but they wanted to start with the Rift. Maybe Oculus was a lot more helpful in getting them prepared for launch and they’d been building it with Oculus support for a long time and haven’t gotten to the Vive yet. Why should they hold off the Rift launch in order to do them simultaneously?

          • RogWilco

            Fair points all around (especially the optimistic time estimate thing), though my perspective was intended more as ignorance than a read-between-the-lines jab at their competence. Like a “huh, that’s weird” thought. I really have no idea why, so let me rephrase my original projection to “if I had to guess, I bet they’ll have Vive support in maybe 2-4 weeks if they start now.”

    • Mukatsuku

      Either Codemasters can’t program or they are lying about the exclusivity. I would bet they are lying.
      It would seem that a lot of dev teams are coming out recently and saying they are only supporting Rift but not due to any deals, after receiving loads of hate for the exclusivity. I think they have signed these deals but didn’t expect so much backlash so are also pretending they haven’t signed the deals – I guess them saying they are rubbish at programming is less embarrassing than saying they sold out to screw over Vive owners.

      • mrtexasfreedom

        I’m not debating the merits of your conspiracy theory because it does seem plausible. I’m curious, though, what the rationale would be for Steam to be selling Dirt Rally if their own hardware isn’t officially supported. I suppose they (Valve) could be seeing it as facilitating the workaround of using reVive.

        BTW- I bought dirt rally on Steam so I would have the flexibility to play it in 2D if conditions warranted. It’s a great game in VR with my thrustmaster steering wheel.

        • Mukatsuku

          Dirt Rally only recently added VR support and Steam have been selling it well before that was added.
          Valve allow anyone to sell games so if you do a search for VR on Steam then do a search for Vive games you can see the number decreases slightly (I think there are currently around 25 Oculus only games on Steam. Adr1ft is one that comes to mind).

          • Raphael

            Adrift is coming to vive.

          • RoJoyInc

            Had adrift on vive for months! ITS GREAT.

          • SUDOisEvil

            Adr1ft is now has a Vive native release.
            Codemasters have denied exclusive release before, but they always cave after four months.

        • Mike McLin

          Because they don’t really have hardware. The Vive is HTC. Sure, they are partners in the tech, but I think Valves involvement is really to push VR forward, which increases the market, which increases Steam sales. Also, I think they had to get their foot in the door because otherwise Oculus would’ve made a closed system. If there was no Vive (aka competition), I bet Rift would only be able to play games from Oculus store, basically shutting out Steam.

        • Adrian Meredith

          steamvr exists to sell more games on steam, whether it uses vr or not is irrelevant if its already on there

        • RoJoyInc

          thanks for the heads up. I wanted to do REVIVE with it, but hate spending money at oculus store. Also – UPDATES if VIVE support comes later will be free from steam. I didn’t know steam was selling it. I will buy it – to use with REVIVE because like you say (if revive stops – we have a 2D game) or best case – we have it when vive is supported. = )

  • OhYeah!

    Sounds like they just didn’t have a vive on hand and so they don’t support it. I can see them not wanting to put out a game that “should” work but hasn’t been tested on the actual vive.

    • Roger Bentley

      Yea vive decided to sell all thier units rather then give the devs greedy mofos. Gabe and his platinum toilet bowl

  • jlschmugge

    Another story about whiny Vive owners not being able to pay a game? How about any other person who owns aVR headset not being able to play with motion controls. Who is making the “De-Vive” that lets you use the Vive wand with any headset and play roomscale stuff without a Vive and Steam VR? Seriously I’m getting tired of hearing about these terrible tragedies for Vive owners. About as annoying as whoever coined the term “Brexit”. Done hearing about that too.

    • bschuler

      There are a few posts on Youtube of people trying to get The Lab, etc.. working on a regular monitors and using an Xbox controller. Mind you the results are horrendous, boring, and hard to control.. but it does seem do-able if you just want to see a bit of what people with a REAL VR system sees.

      • Mukatsuku

        Exactly – Oculus offers nothing that the Vive cannot already do so converting Rift to Vive is much easier than Vive to Rift.

        • Roger Bentley

          Oculus offers nothing lol good one chum if oculus offers nothing why do you want games in the oculus store huh. Think and oculus offers ATW that’s why games run better on rift and shit on vive.

          • Mukatsuku

            Where did I say Oculus offers nothing?
            I said it can’t do anything extra on top of the Vive, but it offers a lower price.
            As for ATW, Vive now has Interleaved Reprojection for all games which is similar.

            https://m.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4bzcj8/psa_atw_is_not_an_oculus_exclusive_feature_nor/

            https://m.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4c5lp7/interleaved_reprojection_now_enabled_for_all/

            I don’t know what you are running for Vive games to “run like shit” but Elite Dangerous, Project CARS and Dirt Rally run great on my GTX770Ti. (Got a 1080 on order)

          • Tad Springer

            “Where did I say Oculus offers nothing?”

            I think you said it within the first 4 words of your original post… ;) (sorry, couldn’t resist.)

          • Shawn Blais Skinner

            … that the vive can’t match.

            Reading comprehension. It’s important.

          • Tad Springer

            ATW and IR, while sounding very similar they actually do have a big difference though. With ATW it only fills in the frame that are be missed to make up 90fps. With a top end GPU that should hopefully not be many. With IR however it turns the required framerate down to 45fps and essentially shows each frame twice to bump up to 90fps. This has the same effect as ATW in relieving judder-based motion sickness as with both you get fluid head movements but for any object moving in game IR could cause a noticeable judder as essentially it will be projected in the object in the same space for 2 frames but then it will move forward the space it should have moved in the next frame. For something like a driving game where you could be very close to a moving object (like overtaking a car) this would likely be noticeable. It may be why they want to take more time on development before officially supporting Vive (which I’m sure they will). They probably need to keep making performance improvements on the game for it to run as well with IR as it does with ATW.

            To give IR it’d due though and trying not to seem biased (with the idea I want this bloody VR War to stop already!), with ATW you have a very low chance of having ATW re-project for multiple frames (i.e. if 3 in a row aren’t done in time) which would be a highly noticable judder for in-game objects. That should never happen with a high-end GPU (unless the game has bad programming or really intensive graphics), but I’d imagine that’s why Valve made the 45fps choice as it could possibly give people with under-spec GPUs a better experience than ATW will. They probably made the choice to try to lower the bar and cater for the mid-tier who are trying to run VR at the expense of the top-tier, rather than catering for the top-tier and shutting out the mid-tier.

          • bschuler

            ATW is nice.. but even you gotta admit, it isn’t going to be THAT useful going forward. It served a purpose for older lower powered computers.. but as of right now, you almost can’t make a new PC that can’t handle VR games perfectly and that will need to fall back on ATW or IR. This was just Dirt Devs being lazy and not being in a hurry to be on the Vive. And so be it.. who cares. If you got a Vive, install Oculus Home and use Revive or if your smart, don’t and just wait. Patience is a virtue.

          • Tad Springer

            I hope you’re right, but I expect it’s more likely that as standards emerge to make VR games perform better and better GPUs are released Devs will just make games that are more demanding (same as with standard game development) which will mean ATW/IR will likely still be needed for a long long time to make newer games work on older GPUs. Just look at that NVIDIA Funhouse which already says it doesn’t support the 970/980 basemark. ATW would likely make it work on those however it uses OpenVR. :(

    • Another person whining about Vive owners whining :)

      • jlschmugge

        The cycle must be broken!

      • Roger Bentley

        No another person whining about stupid people that can’t be happy with what they got that they have to eat off the other guy plate and still talk shit about his gravy not tasting right on the pasta.

    • Roger Bentley

      Jlschmugge prepare for the vive hate flame dragon heat you are about to get and the 1000k vive down voting. But honestly I agree 200%with u when cv1 came out every anti oculus fb hated and said we want room scale and we have tracked controllers blah blah blah rift is inferior but when all the games came out for rift and the tech demos got boring then the hate came out even more thus born revive. Then the flame dragon spewed flames when oculus dropped the DRM bomb and the vive zealots burned the internet with the dark side of the VR force. Then the inferior VR platform rift(as per vive owners) nice enough to lift up the DRM hammer now they want oculus to pay the devs to make their exclusive to work on the other hmd. Wait weren’t the oculus game inferior they don’t use hand tracked controls or room scale wtf. If you wanted to play seated games get a rift u can not have your cake eat it then complain the guy next to you has red velvet cupcakes. I remember people laughed and said why would u get a oculus why would u want to play with a xbone controller but now they want to play rift games. Lol oculus owners will be known for thier patients and waiting for the better experience when touch drops good luck competitors and yes it does it roomscale just fine all the games like Brookhaven,space pirate trainer and raw data are played on rift with touch on YouTube yes 360 degree room scale and thats with a dev touch when the cv1 version comes out better refine don’t get mad. Enjoy the tracked roomscale now and let us enjoy our seated experience now but later this year we will enjoy both while u will wonder why your not getting support blame valve for leaving u with demos for months stop blaming oculus. OK let the flaming begin.

      • jlschmugge

        I can’t really be affected by the flame of what I believe to be a small but vocal minority riding the hype train. I’m sure there are way more reasonable Vive owners who see the benefit of both headsets and are free-minded enough to not be so militant over one brand. VR has to win here, not one HMD over another. I guess it does irk me when VR journalists, ideally impartial, seem to fuel the mob with stories like this that make it sound so unfortunate that a game wasn’t released for Vive.

        • RogWilco

          The problem is that Oculus is actively working against the best interests of VR as a medium, and have placed a higher priority on squeezing as much value out of an early market as possible. I agree that the healthiest outcome is a market full of options and competitors, but not at all costs.

          It doesn’t have to be about blind support for one HMD over the other. Sometimes it’s about wanting a healthy VR market where all the players play fair and behave ethically. I don’t see Oculus as a healthy or good-faith competitor. I don’t want Facebook/Oculus to lose, and HTC/Valve to win, I want VR win, and Oculus to either change and become a good-faith contributor or see their anti-consumer behavior be the cause for their failure. No allegiance to HTC here, I’ll pay as much as I can afford to whomever is selling the best hardware while treating me, as a consumer, with respect.

          • jlschmugge

            I’m for VR to win as well, as early we are in this market. I
            understand what people see about the mistrust Oculus has formed, but I don’t see them as much as dubious, as just made a few bad business decisions in a PC market.

            I remember an interview here at RoadtoVR in March with Oculus’ Jason Rubin that outlined their business model of producing games before this whole fiasco was even an idea.

            https://youtu.be/N-ds-EiR5ls?t=1m58s

            In that interview he outlined the reasoning behind the the production investment of Oculus Studios and exclusive games. At the time, for me anyway, it sounded a LOT like what I would expect from companies like Microsoft and Sony investing into small developers to make games for their console. This has been an established business model in the console market for quite some time now.

            I never thought it would blow up the way it did. As far as I thought, this was an established way to produce games.

            Oculus’ mistake was that they treated their HMD as a platform, the same way Sony and Microsoft treat their consoles as a platform. When ReVive came out, it created the notion that it was not a platform, but a peripheral (that, along with PC users accustomed to the universal plug-and-play nature of PCs for decades). When ReVive threatened Oculus’ platform business model, they first tightened up on their investment like a boa constrictor with the DRM update. Afterall, they spent possibly up to millions in their investment. The PC market, especially the vocal Vive owners, didn’t like this, but they also didn’t understand it, and thought of Oculus as anti-consumer.

            I don’t blame Oculus for their initial DRM response. But yes, it was dumb. Especially since it went against Luckey’s initial open philosophy of VR before Facebook was in the picture. They should have treated their Oculus Store as “the platform”, which would really be a service, as all PC game vendors are on the internet, such as Steam, GOG, Humble Bundle, ect. Most other game developers realize this too such as Ubisoft and EA having their own services.

            I guess what gets me now is that they redacted the DRM, and people are still up in arms. Oculus just picked the wrong business model, treating their HMD as a console like the XBONE and PS4, and not as a PC peripheral. They just made a bad choice that unfortunately made themselves look anti-consumer, and I’m sure they are saying “Oh F*%@” trying to not do anything that looks anti-consumer going forward.

          • RogWilco

            “They just made a bad choice that unfortunately made themselves look anti-consumer”

            See that’s the problem. It hasn’t been one bad choice. If that were the case, I’d personally apply the notion that we should never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. Because nobody’s perfect, and everybody makes mistakes.

            But that’s not what the evidence suggests in the case of Oculus. Instead it shows a consistent pattern of repeated decisions that suggest the pursuit of short term profit has been placed before the interests of consumers, the long term prospects of VR as a medium, and Oculus’ very own customers. The pattern has also, interestingly, emerged following Facebook’s ~$2B buyout.

            It’s easy to imagine why that is the case. At that rough $2B valuation, you’d better believe Facebook’s board is looking for justification of that valuation. I’m sure Oculus is under a tremendous amount of internal pressure to produce results. That, however, doesn’t excuse anything of course.

            Let me put it this way: if Facebook/Oculus isn’t an example of a company that is willfully taking an anti-consumer stance in the interest of small short term gains (gains they arguably aren’t even realizing), then what is? How many times must a salesman throw you under the bus before you decide he doesn’t have your best interests in mind? Do you wait until he’s swindled you out of your life savings, or do you call him out on it after the second, third, or fourth time?

          • jlschmugge

            Half of that list is valid. The other half is just nitpicky. None of it bothers me. Never dig deep into any corporation not expecting to find anything but self-interest. Google, Facebook, Valve, Razer, Microsoft, Sony, everybody. Most companies, especially those who have decades experience, only have been good at creating the illusion of being pro-consumer. It’s good business.

            Well except Microsoft, It is baffling they made it this far.

            I trust one thing : Provide me with the product I want and I’ll provide payment. They have honored that so far, unless they never release Touch, then that unspoken contract is broken, and I’ll get an OSVR.

          • Shawn Blais Skinner

            You accuse others of being biased, but then so blatantly wear your team badge on your arm. Why in the world would you buy OSVR over VIVE?

          • jlschmugge

            It’s cheaper, looks more comfortable, and carries on the spirit of open VR that Oculus had before they were purchased by Facebook. I like the underdog, not big business sweeping in trying to gobble up the industry. I know that sounds weird since I have a Rift and they are now owned by Facebook, but the Oculus team are still a Kickstarter start up in my eyes, even though they have some veterans like Carmack and Jason Rubin. If they weren’t a start up, they definitely would have handled their launch better. Valve feels like a “me too” that shouldered their way into the industry after Oculus started proving modern VR. Something about Valve’s rush to production and the timing of their launch does not sit well with me, kinda like Trump’s campaign.

            Oh and the elitisism of many Vive owners on the ‘nets and evangelizing “real VR” is quite annoying. The only reason it’s ‘better’ right now is that it’s the only one that has roomscale.

          • Shawn Blais Skinner

            Well, I hope you realize that Valve invited Oculus to their offices, and shared with them their VR Headset prototype, which was so much better than the Oculus design, that they immediately copied it, creating the “Crescent Bay” prototype. So essentially, Oculus CV1 is a direct copy of Valve’s internal prototypes, and Valve provided that to Oculus simply to push VR forward.

            That was sometime in late 2013 most likely, as Crescent Bay was unveiled in Sept. Fairly quickly afterwards that meeting (Facebook bought them in May 2014) it seems that the lines of communication closed between the 2 companies, facebook poached a bunch of employees, and Valve realized that Oculus were now intent on ‘locking down’ VR inside their own little walled garden, which is when they changed gears and very quickly brought their own solution to market.

            It is not Valve being the shady ones here. They are so in favor of openness that they have already added Oculus Touch support to SteamVR and will have full integration with Chaperone.

          • jlschmugge

            I am very well aware of that, except the end of the second paragraph of Valve offering a ‘solution’ to Oculus’s walled garden. They made a business decision seeing the opportunity, and it paid off.

            I said this in a different post that Oculus made a mistake treating their HMD like a console platform and not a peripheral. I don’t see that as dubious as much as a bad choice. I still like their product though. I feel it is much more cleanly designed, and the way the Touch is designed I feel the same way. It might not be as capable as the Lighthouse system when it is released, but I have little interest in roomscale, just standing. As long as they offer a good product and it works that other stuff doesn’t matter me.

            Here’s an analogy: I like to explore forest dirt roads. I drive a Subaru Forester. It is a well designed vehicle with good engineering. A big problem with it is that it has poor clearance and can’t go on really rutty roads. I would need a big and clunky 4 wheel drive full size pickup truck for that. I don’t like driving big trucks. They feel awkward to me. I like the Forester because it is small and agile.

            The Vive with it’s bug like face and a mess of trailing cables is that big and clunky truck. Sure it can go more places, but it doesn’t make me comfortable. I prefer the cleaner fit of the Rift.

          • Shawn Blais Skinner

            I think you’re stretching… these two products are way to similar to fit that analogy at all. The wires are essentially the same, the one on Vive has 3 smaller wires merged together, the Rift has one big fat wire. They both feel like a single wire when you’re in VR. Oculus wire is actually better for room-scale as it tangles less, but unfortunately they didn’t make the chord as long as it should be. Vive is slightly heavier, true, but overall the fit feels very very similar.

            I dunno, seems clear to me you’ve chosen your ‘team’ and now are just rationalizing your decision by nitpicking. From any objective standpoint, if you are in favor of the spirit of OpenVR, there is one company doing that, and another actively fighting it.

            Most VIVE owners are just PC guys, in favor of an open VR ecosystem, they are not giant fanboys of HTC, they just hate shady business tactics of facebook.

            Case in point. Any OpenVR game that supports VIVE, can be run in standalone mode and it just works, there is no requirement on Steam at all. HTC already has their own store going in China, and there can be many more.

            On the other hand, Oculus games can NOT RUN without Oculus Home running. Period. Nothing will launch, nothing will run, the entire thing is locked down. Even with Re-Vive, it still required that Oculus Home be running.

          • jlschmugge

            Those little differences are enough for me. Valve is working on the next Vive version. If it is as svelt as the Rift I might consider it. Till then the current Vive still looks like a dev kit to me.

            And in your last paragraph, I cannot run my VR enabled steam games without steam VR running along with Oculus home. I can run my Oculus games without Steam running, the same as Vive can run Steam games without Oculus running. This is exactly the same thing other than you have to use ReVive, which Oculus lets it work now.

            I even purchased a Rift cimpatible game off GOG, that still opens up Steam VR, even though the point of buying things from GOG is so I don’t have to use Steam. Although that is a developer choice, don’t think it is any different for the Rift than Vive needing Home.

    • Mike McLin

      You know why. Because what can be done on Rift can be done on Vive, and not vice versa. As soon as touch controllers come out the ball will go the other way as well.

      I own both headsets. It’s a very legitimate question to ask why a AAA title came out for one headset, but not the other, which was also capable of running the experience with no modification of gameplay or featureset. To many people it seems like free money. So, it’s not whining, it’s just not understanding why a dev would turn down money.

      If a AAA controller based game came out for Vive and not Rift, I’d ask the same question going the other way.

      • jlschmugge

        You make a very good point, and I believe we will get there someday, but we do have to realize that these two headsets require different programming. Remember when the PS3 came out, no developer wanted to make 360 ports for it because the PS3 had such a different architecture to program for. In the early days, if there were ported 360 games, they kinda sucked. Eventually developers learned how to program on both, and multiple console releases became common. Nowadays with everything being x86, it’s not hard to do that.

        I’m not a programmer, so I don’t know how different the headsets are at the code and hardware level, but you can’t just program for one and expect it to automatically work on the other, unless of course you use 3rd party mods. Developers can’t pack in ReVive with their games.

        Eventually, developers will have more resources to make sure a game works on both and released at the same time, but we are not there yet. People need to calm down.

        • bschuler

          Umm… a very simplistic point here from my take on it, but Revive isn’t GIGS worth of programming, instead @38 megs, and yet most Oculus home games work fine on Vive with it. It really isn’t vast differences in hardware or programming as much as an attempt to make 2 very similar things not be the same.
          From what I gather, It is akin to one program saying, turn head 180 degrees.. and the other saying turn noggin 180 degrees. The 38 meg file just tells the system, noggin=head.
          These differences were intentional.. so that there would be differences. Revive just corrects that.

          • jlschmugge

            Yes, I’ve seen that argument before, but think what what it would mean to strap on some kinda workaround such as ReVive to a game, instead of programming specifically for the hardware. You’d have the potential for substandard ports instead of something polished and designed to utilize Vive’s features.

            Against what some people believe, these two HMDs are not just another peripheral like a monitor, where if you can use one you should be able to plug in the other and it works the same. Maybe VR will get there someday, but not today. I’ll have to take your word on the “turn your head 180 degrees” thing, but I’m sure it is more complex than that.

            At this point we really are speculating on the manufacturers intentions. You think there is something sinister going on. I feel this is a normal trend that I’ve seen repeated several times in the past 25 years when new gaming hardware is released.

          • bschuler

            Sinister? You do know Oculus showed all it’s cards with the hardware DRM, right? They quickly pulled it back.. but only because they realized quickly that it made those few people who still defend them look foolish.

          • jlschmugge

            No, Oculus showed a natural business decision to protect their investment in software development. You win when they redacted it so get over it. They acknowledged you were right. They are still essentially a start up with way more capital than they probably ever imagined just two years ago. They are definitely making some sophomore mistakes.

            If anything, Valve did the “big bad corporation” move, coming in with a cash grab with a slightly prototype-looking HMD, releasing it right along with their only competitor, and using their borrowed HTC production capability to overwhelm the fledgling Oculus release.

            Valve did however design a really cool motion tracking system, while cumbersome to set up, especially if you really care about roomscale and have actually moved your dining set into a pile in the next room.

            I find anyone foolish who doesn’t give Oculus the benefit of the doubt. Oculus is dumb, not dubious. Maybe the Facebook acquisition was the worst decision they made cause of Facebook’s Orwellian reputation. Now they are no longer the revolutionary harbinger of VR, but suspect as some kind of evil empire.

            My biggest complaint about this Vive fanboyism is that it is hurting the VR industry. If you like a Vive then great, but VR is still new, and we need all the players in the market to succeed. The Vive will also probably be more of an enthusiast system because the average Joe who can’t figure out how to plug in speaker wires is not going to buy a Vive. The Vive will need the “not really VR” systems to bridge the gap in the consumer market enough to make the market attractive enough for investors to want to invest in production for systems like the Vive.

          • Edward Bishop

            It took me less than 5 minutes to set up both headsets with their respective tracking systems. Neither was “cumbersome”. The only real difference is the Rift has one tracking station which you plug into the PC and the Vive has two which you plug into a wall socket.

            The rift had some of the worst “fanboyism” of a hardware product that I’ve seen. Right up until Oculus was sold to Facebook.

            I’ve used the Rift for a month and the Vive for longer than that. As it happens, despite the fact that I think that they’re both great products, the Vive’s tracking is slightly better so far with the rift just occasionally sketching out though I’m sat in front of the sensor. This will no doubt be better once they release the touch controls with the extra tracking camera.

            As for the actual product features themselves, they have all the same features except the Vive already has excellent motion controls and room scale tracking.

          • jlschmugge

            I’m not sure how fanboyism works when you are the only thing out there. I think at that time people were just excited that VR was actually happening.

            One good thing about the lighthouse system, ignoring roomscale, is that it allows the potential for truly mobile VR with backpack systems. I think this is essential for widespread adoption of VR, however, I think that will actually happen from the other direction as phone VR gets better.

          • Shawn Blais Skinner

            For fanboyism, just look at how desperate you are to defend your chosen Headset + Tracking system. Making up nonsense about PS3 and XB360, and then when a Developer tells you, no, actually you’re completely wrong, it’s extremely easy to implement both headsets. You just ignore it.

          • jlschmugge

            Is the nonsense you are referring to is that developers didn’t want to develop for the PS3 because they didn’t like the architecture? I owned only PS3 at the time and lived through only a handful of good games for a few years because if that.

            And what developer are you referring to.

          • Shawn Blais Skinner

            Because building for PS3 was a totally different architecture, that required a custom engine and took many many man months. Adding support for VIve is like a 1 day job (or more like 20 minutes if all you want to do is implement basic headtracking).

            Oculus Touch is great, I have 2 sets on my desk right now :)

            No one is saying you shouldn’t be happy with your Rift, it’s a great product. But to be in love with the Rift, and have no time for Vive, based on purely superficial differences, just reeks of fanboyism. ie “If Oculus doesn’t release touch… I’ll buy OpenVR”… makes zero sense. Check your biases before coming in here flaming others.

            Vive owners have every right to complain when something like this happens. As would a Rift owner, if the situation were reversed.

          • jlschmugge

            I wouldn’t say ‘in love’, it is still definitely first gen VR. I could do without the god rays and have a higher resolution. The Rift sensor bounces all over the place when I play Dirt. However, It is my HMD of choice, a choice because I can only afford one or have the time and room for one VR HMD right now. So yes, there is investment there, but it was a conscious decision made after years of watching the fledgling VR industry grow. The Vive just never captured my imagination, although I find the Lighthouse system to be a model for future VR. I just don’t prefer the HMD. I had to choose one, I made a choice, so yes, there is ‘no time’ for the other.

            Why are you so offended? And what’s wrong with OSVR compared to the Vive?

          • Shawn Blais Skinner

            I’m not offended, just pointing our the strange logical gap in your reasoning, that can only really come from some place of ‘corporate loyalty’. OSVR compared to Vive? It’s just an inferior, less developed, less mature version of Vive/Rift. Their controllers are nowhere near as precise as Vive/Touch, and the jury is still out on the quality of their head tracking… it’s just a no-brainer, of course you’d get the VIVE, unless you’re drinking some sort of Oculus flavored cool-aid ;)

          • jlschmugge

            OSVR is more in my price range, and how would purchasing an OSVR help Oculus? They must have screwed up their kool-aid too.

          • Shawn Blais Skinner

            lol. Is it really? How much is it for a full OSVR package w/ Hand tracking? (Hint: You can’t actually buy one yet, and no one knows how much it will cost). Keep grasping at those straws :)

            Btw, if you haven’t realized it yet… the cool-aid has instilled you with an irrational bias against the Vive. You’re trying to rationalize your dislike, but you can’t, cause it’s not rational, it’s emotional.

          • jlschmugge

            Yes there are some emotions. The kool-aid is basically waiting three years for the Rift, and Valve swoops in and undermines their launch at just the right time, only exacerbated by Oculus’s inexperience fumbling the launch. Valve’s timing does not feel like coincidence, and makes me more distrustful of them than this Oculus exclusivity thing. Then a bunch of Vive elitists rub it in by dumping all over the Rift and preaching their VR system is the only real VR, when I think that is subjective to people’s needs and budget, and also something fleeting once there is more competition in the market.

            Regardless, I truly think the Rift, HMD alone right now, is better designed than the Vive’s. Sure that could be subjective too, but is my prerogative when my wallet is involved. I’m patient and waiting for the pay off when Touch is released.

          • jlschmugge

            Yes there are some emotions. The kool-aid is basically waiting three years for the Rift, and Valve swoops in and undermines their launch at just the right time, only exacerbated by Oculus’s inexperience fumbling the launch. Valve’s timing does not feel like coincidence, and makes me more distrustful of them than this Oculus exclusivity thing. Then a bunch of Vive elitists rub it in by dumping all over the Rift and preaching their VR system is the only real VR, when I think that is subjective to people’s needs and budget, and also something fleeting once there is more competition in the market.

            Regardless, I truly think the Rift, HMD alone right now, is better designed than the Vive’s. Sure that could be subjective too, but is my prerogative when my wallet is involved. I’m patient and waiting for the pay off when Touch is released.

          • jlschmugge

            Also, I already cannot play any roomscale games, but I don’t complain. When Touch comes out, what guarantees me that the developer programmed the game for the controller? I’ve joked there needs be a “DeVive” for Rift owners wanting to play roomscale games designed for Vive Controllers, or even those that want to play with the Vive Controllers and not the HMD.

          • Shawn Blais Skinner

            What kind of logic is this? You did not pay for hardware to play Touch games. You have no ability to do so. What grounds would you have to complain?? Come on man. Get real.

            Entirely different than a Vive owner, who has all the capabilities of the Rift, but is just arbitrarily locked out, because the dev couldn’t be bothered to spend a day or two hooking up the SDK.

            The “joke” is utter nonsense and misses the entire point.

            Also “what guarantees me that the developer programmed the game for the controller”?

            Valve will. Thats who. Like I already mentioned, Valve has made oculus work out of the box in Steam, even developers who haven’t lifted a finger to support Touch, will get free Touch support. They might need to do a bit of additional work to get Haptics working, but for the most part it will work.

            When Touch does come out, and a game only supports Vive, then yes, you should complain, you should yell loudly, cause it would be total nonsense. And any excuse from the Developer should be ignored, as it would be a complete cop-out.

          • jlschmugge

            I also didn’t choose a ‘team’ as much as I chose a product. If Valve makes an HMD I want then I’ll get that. Right now I think the Rift is a better HMD. I also understand risks. If Oculus released this same HMD without the power of Facebook to continue research and development, I might have bowed out after the exclusivity fiasco. They would have crashed and burned, but because of Facebook they will release Touch and continue to produce games. I will get what I want.

    • SUDOisEvil

      There are officially now more Vive games than Occ-rift on Steam.
      Overall, there are now more games for Vive. Many are complete garbage, but in this world it seems quantity of quality is the norm.

  • Top Hat

    Dirt Rally runs great on my HTC Vive purchased via steam with no need for any 3rd party software… It may only “support” the rift, it does however still work well with the Vive, no hack needed, steam detects VR support and runs it in VR mode with out issue.

    • youareme7

      that’s interesting! you just launch it right from steam vr?

    • Edward Bishop

      No it doesn’t.

      If you launch it in steam with Steam VR running it runs in theater mode.

  • McKoy

    Not buying it then.

  • RoJoyInc

    heard they patched it to now allow revive use? I was on the verge of clicking BUY NOW on steam… would they really do that to hurt their own game sales?