It seems like a neat device. I'm a little more inclined to like AR over VR, the idea of putting on a VR headset and walking around just scares me. My gameroom is on the second floor and my stairs aren't carpeted... I guess it'll all come down to what games will be available.
Why is Microsoft so ademant about keeping all of the processing on the device? It seems like everything would be a lot better if it ran off of a computer via WiFi. There would be more processing power to take control of, because the hardware wouldn't be limited to something that can be worn on the user's head; which could solve the FoV problem, depending on what's limiting it. The whole thing would weigh less and be a lot less clunky, too. It might do more than the Google Glass, but the extra stuff shouldn't take up too much more space. After all, most networks could support it. There wouldn't be a bandwidth issue, considering the fact that most routers are pushing 100 Mbps now. Running it through the network should only put a few ms delay on the device, but how much would that affect anything? Plus,people could still walk around in their homes. The HoloLense isn't being marketed as something that people would take out in public, nor would anyone take a (probably) $1,000 device somewhere it would get broken (and it would be pretty useless, anyways).
Your comment made me think of this forum post I read recently: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/175363 "Let me begin by saying that absolutely every game that is played online has to deal with desync..." Doesn't answer your question, I know--it's tangential.
I wonder how low of a ping would be required to have it still be immersive. I know that something like 50ms is playable online, but it might be a lot less for real time things, in order not to be disorienting. I've found a site that says people can tell if something is off by 1/300^th of a second, which is about 91.44ms. However, that's just being able to tell if a light flashed for 1/300^th of a second, and they were trained pilots. I'm getting <1 ms pings (Sorry for lack of screenshot) from the router from my laptop, and I'm on WiFi (Granted, I'm in the same room as it and everyone's asleep), but I've seen people get up to 4ms. The only thing that might really affect that is the processing, but it would be no different than having the device do it already. I don't know, someone smarter than me would need to look at the actual numbers, but I think it would work.
its when you move your head and the rendered stuff lags behind it will wobble. Even a tiny amount of latency would be easily visible. It's a bit like how looking at a fluorescent light directly, you can't see it's 60Hz flicker, but if you move your eyes left to right quickly, you can discern it. John Carmack has studied it extensively and I would consider him to be the expert these days on that stuff as he works for oculus.
ISPs don't have control of the speeds between two devices on the same network; only speeds between two networks connected via the internet. A phone and computer on the network can transfer data as fast as the slowest network adapter or router, permitting that nothing else is using the connection. My router can push ~356 Mbps to a device via WiFi, if the device supports it, and I think 1 Gbps through a wired connection, if the device supports it. However, I wonder how much information the HoloLense is processing every second. It shouldn't be an extreme amount, looking at the size of the device.
I'm much more inclined to VR than AR, actually. The biggest reason is I don't really plan on doing the whole walking thing. The controller is a fine enough medium for me. AR to me seems a bit hard to support game wise just because you are simply augmenting the area around yourself. How can I be taken to Tamriel or The Continent with AR? For me the tech is really cool and I could see applications of it outside of gaming, but I don't see it being big in the gaming industry. What I'm curious about is: Is the loss of periphery screens the reason why everything can be done on-board? If they tried to extend the screens would they walk into the "problem" that VR has with the wires? If anything I'm just curious how it does all that on-board without all the wires. This seems like a bigger version of what google tried to do with google glass. so it might fair better because it isn't so small.
I am super excited to get the Hololens. I've never been afraid to be an early adopter. I'm aware first-gen tech usually has limitations and those can be super frustrating, but I'm just too excited to be living in this age. Seems like all those sci-fi ideas I heard growing up are starting to come true. I'm truly hoping the miniaturized radar chip Google (Project Soli
I watched that demo with Minecraft at E3 on YouTube and it was super exciting. Not only do I think it would be awesome for gaming, but even more so would it be amazing for watching other things. Imagine a wall-sized display of a movie instead of a TV! I'm excited about what they'll do with this technology.
Yeah, at the end of this article he talks about the actual FOV of the device. Apparently the view doesn't expand out into your periferal, making the illusion of actual objects almost impossible to maintain.