DH Review: Vuzix iWear VR920

craig5320

Read The Review Here
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Virtual Reality! The phrase alone is enough to bring chills to even the most callused of gamers. Ever since the idea was first hatched in the 1950’s and 60’s and then later made popular in movies such as Tron, The Lawnmower Man and The Matrix it has been imagined by many to be the pinnacle of interactive entertainment. Certainly, today’s gaming technology with its super high-resolution textures, ever-advancing pixel shading techniques and realistic physics make for one hell of a gaming experience but at the end of the day, it’s still navigating through a pretty world a few feet from your face using your mouse and keyboard with a subwoofer thumping away on the tip of your feet. Wouldn’t it be better to be inside that world even to the point where your actions, and the actions of your avatar, are at one with each other?

While we are still a few years from being plugged into a chair and given the ability to be taught virtually the ways of 17th century Shaolin monks, there are products out there which are attempting to bring the VR experience to the everyday gamer. Enter the Vuzix iWear VR920; a light weight, stereoscopic 3D head mounted display unit with integrated head-tracking, stereo headphones and microphone, and all for under $500.

Tril

What's Seth Erikson name in the DH forums?

I have one too. I agree mostly with what was said.

You did not talk about the nosepiece. I wear prescription glasses at the same time as the VR920. Because of that, by default the VR920 is too low because you have to sit the nosepiece on your nose farther than your glasses. You can completely remove the nosepiece, flip it 180 degrees and put it back in. It makes the VR920 higher.

I have something to share with those curious about the visual quality. I took a stereo screenshot from Assassin's Creed from a database of screenshots, I displayed this screenshot on the VR920 and I took a picture of what it looks like.

Original screenshot : mtbs3D.com Photo and Video Gallery - Assassin's Creed/AssassinsCreed Dx9 #0043
Picture of the screenshot through the VR920 : mtbs3D.com Photo and Video Gallery - Hosting for forum/Photo of Assassin's Creed picture on VR920

The screenshot as seen on the VR920 by my eyes was actually less blurry than on it looks like on the picture. I had trouble making clear pictures.

I noticed reflection problems. I made a picture of it. White shows up as dark red. Here is my picture of this : mtbs3D.com Photo and Video Gallery - Hosting for forum/MTBS3D forum as seen on a VR920

MIG-31

Thats Vikingod

Vikingod

Thanks for the feedback. It's nice to get another perspective from someone else who uses this device.

I had my concerns with the nose piece for those wearing glasses. I don't wear glasses, so it was difficult to comment on this. As you said, the nose piece is adjustable to compensate.

I didn't notice any severe reflection problems in my testing, but that could have to do with the environmental variables (types of light, lighting position, etc.). The eye shield eliminated a lot of external light, which might effect this. I just wish it was included with the package.

Tril

Seth Erikson is Vikingod?

MIG-31

Yes mate.. surely his reply above gave it away.

It was me who introduced him as a newsposter at dh and the rest is history.

temeteus82

Yes

Tril

Yeah, his post gave it away. I was just confiming.

Vikingod

So Tril, what do you use the VR920 for predominantly?

Tril

Lately, not much. I'm too busy to play with it and it does not work in stereo in Vista 64 bits (because there are no 64 bit usb drivers). It's annoying to have to reboot to XP or Vista 32 bits just to play in stereo (I'm a bit lazy, I know, it does not take that long to reboot).

It's a nice toy but the low resolution is a big let down for me. I tried to play Crysis on it and I stopped after a few minutes of play because I did not like how it looked compared to my 21" CRT monitor. I really need to try again and give it another chance. I have been playing more on the Xbox360 than on the pc.

To me, the virtual screen looked like it was 40 inch diagonal at 5 feet. I have myopia so even if it's virtually at 5 feet, I still need my glasses to see clearly. I ordered some new prescription glasses. My current ones are many years old. Maybe the new glasses will help me see more clearly and like it more.

I've given up on the headtracking of the VR920. Yaw is unreliable. It uses the earth magnetic field and it does not work well for me.

I have TrackIR. It can be used at the same time but it has the inconvenient that you have to face the TrackIR camera at all time for it to work. That means, I can't use TrackIR to look over my shoulder in the game when I look over my shoulder in real life. I haven't tested the combination of the VR920 with TrackIR yet.

The Vuzix driver to get stereoscopic view works on XP and Vista 32 bits. Since I have Vista 64 bits, I had to reinstall XP to use the stereoscopic functionality.