Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Google is releasing a $79 headset named Daydream. Road to VR has an article on the headset.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLLAA4ENIP4
The headset uses a phone, not included. But, the phone has to be Daydream Certified. I’m not sure exactly what that means and I didn’t dee anyone explaining it. The most they say in the way of an explanation is: the Daydream headset works exclusively with Android’s integrated VR support.
Over the last 4 months I’ve been dealing with what I can buy now and what is the best for the money. But, when considering what to buy it makes sense to look ahead. Earlier I wrote about looking at AMD CPU’s and what they have coming. Now I’ll write about what Intel has coming.
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I don’t use them. The basic reason is cost and timing. When I’ve been ready to buy Intel has had a CPU with a better performance to price ratio. I have no particular love or hate for either AMD or Intel. Its who has a well performing CPU and what will it cost me at the time I need one?
One of the commenters here suggests people looking for a new CPU wait for AMD to release its new Zen CPU. One can always wait for the next new thing but, then they wait. However, I did wonder if a wait would be worth the time. I started researching AMD and their next CPU.
The skeleton and brain of a computer is the motherboard and CPU. A CPU is the Central Processing Unit. This is most like our brain.
The mother or main board is like out nervous system or skeleton. It is the large circuit board that every part of the computer plugs into, including the CPU. It holds everything together.
For detailed information on CPU’s see the video: (jump to TM 6:07 to skip the explanations and see the benchmarks.
There is a lot of jargon in the video, I’ll get the important stuff explained.
First the TL:DR, the video shows there is very little difference between the various CPU’s. When it comes to frames per second. The three tested CPU’s are about equal. However, if you are going to use Intel’s HD Graphics without a dedicated graphics card, he shows there is a difference and the 6th generation CPU wins. So, laptop people… go for 6th gen CPU or a dedicated video chip.
As I built my new computer and researched hardware I realized I was falling behind in my technical knowledge. I had to sort out a number of things to be able to intelligently decide which was best technically and for the money. This article is on the aspects of storage devices and proves a lot of information on SSD’s.
I wrote Hardware: Disk Performance Compared to provide just performance information. I was concerned with performance of Second Life™ an OpenGL based game/virtual world. Here I’ll get into the complications behind getting good performance, cover how to make comparisons for the best buy, and provide information on how it affects Second Life performance.
To get the most for your money you are going to have to be able to see through the advertising hype. So, as you read specs and try to make comparisons you’ll run into a variety of designators for data transfer rates and storage volume. They are all worded to make a product sound good.
Let’s start with the upper case ‘B’ and the lower case ‘b’, which have specific meanings. In the simplest use 1B = 8b, or 1 byte equals 8 bits. A bit is a 0 or 1. A byte is a total of eight 0’s and 1’s. (For more on this see Online Conversion, a tutorial.)
In some places we see 6GBps used to mean 600Mbps. This can look like B = 10b. Here because they are talking about data moving from storage devices through the transfer path they add in the data overhead of 2b (bits) for error correction and 1B does equal 10b in THEIR math. They are taking some liberties in their ad copy. One often has to CAREFULLY look at the numbers and determine the context intended to understand the size of a ‘byte’ being discussed.
In some ways the B’s, G’s, and M’s are misleading in how they are used. It is easy to make a case for that being deliberate. The actual data being moved is 8b/10b = 0.8 * 6000Mb raw data = 4,800Mbps actual usable by you data. But, manufactures like the bigger number and they are literally moving 6Gbps. It just isn’t all your data that is getting reported. They assume the knowledgeable user will infer their true meaning. I suspect they know a whole bunch of people won’t.
Unless you are comparing devices and protocols on a way technical level thinking in terms of data rates as 6GBps verses 4.8GBps doesn’t matter much. Consider. Is 6GBps SATA III faster than 3GBps SATA II? Yes. Is 4.8GBps faster than 2.4GBps? Yes. The difference wouldn’t change the take away that SATA III is faster than SATA II regardless of which numbers you use. Nor when comparing prices does it really change what we decide.
The take away here is to be sure you use the same measures for your comparisons. Also understand these are the THEORETICAL values of maximum performance which is seldom achieved.
More pages, links below…
Interesting uses of Virtual Reality Headsets are turning up. Some examples:
Obduction – Of course games. This is a big Myst sibling puzzle game where you are magically transported to an alien world and have to figure out how to get home. The graphics are awesome. All versions of the game will have VR support. The game is out and the VR updates will be sent along.
Sketchfab: Largest Social Media Site for 3D Objects Adds VR Navigation – This is the first web site I’ve heard of that is designed for VR. The highlight isn’t the VR oriented content but the VR oriented site design.
Hospitals Try Giving Patients a Dose of VR – They are using VR to help with pain management. It’s a distraction thing.
Paraplegics regain some feeling, movement after using brain-machine interfaces – Surprising.
Gear VR – Samsung is selling their nice headset for the Note 7 for US$99. I am eligible for a new phone… tempting.
Politicians and Photo-Opts – I didn’t see this one coming. I’m hoping Wiener doesn’t find out about VR.