
John Carmack’s presentation at Facebook Connect [video] - tosh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXmY26pOE-Y
======
dougmwne
This talk was such a treat. After all the carefuly crafted hype from Zuck and
the gang, Carmack threw huge bucket of cold water on everything. I think it's
just wonderful that he's allowed to speak so openly, about the things he's
proud of, the things he thinks are failures, internal politics, the
possibilities for improvement, the real hard physical limits VR is running
into, and his growing pessimism for the future of VR. I could really hear it
in his talk why he moved on to spend more time on his next passion.

Since it sounded to me like the low hanging mobile VR fruit has been picked, I
went ahead and pre-ordered my very first HMD afterwards. Time to see for
myself if this is the computing future or an evolutionary dead end.

~~~
timleewards
I sure hope you want for a pc vr headset and not the oculus quest. HTC Vive
Pro and Valve Index are simply stunning and can see them become the future of
gaming.

~~~
theschwa
With the Quest being able to be used as both a PC VR and and standalone, why
not Quest? I'm saying this as someone who owns 4 different VR headsets, and I
find myself using my Quest 1 the most.

~~~
timleewards
Interesting - i steered away of oculus generally speaking as it was by far the
buggiest headset I owned. From what gather tho it can only play low spec games
decently. For instance, how does it handle Alyx?

~~~
dougmwne
I think it can only play Alyx through the link on PC, unless Valve decides to
port it at some point in the future, which seems unlikely since they have
their own investments in VR as a platform.

~~~
timleewards
Valve is not able to port it - and likely never will be - simply because as a
low end headset, the quest cant handle it. From what i read, oculus link leads
to latency and compression quality losses so it cant really he played via
cable either.

~~~
ehaliewicz2
There are two ways to play pc vr games on quest. First is via wifi, with apps
like Virtual Desktop, this gives you very good quality, but depending on your
setup can range between perfectly acceptable latency, or terrible jittering
and lag.

Oculus link gives you very good latency, but with the default settings the
quality leaves a lot to be desired. You can tweak the render settings though,
which fixes the issue, and it ends up looking about as good as Virtual
Desktop. Only real unsolvable problem is the cable, but it's not a huge issue
for me.

Alyx is quite playable through both of these setups (assuming good latency for
a virtual desktop setup).

------
dynamite-ready
He is an incredible public speaker.

The first time I heard him, almost 10 years ago, speaking to a journalist at
E3, I was shocked. So much detail, but so well communicated. I can happily
listen to him talk on almost any subject.

~~~
jonny_wonny
His Joe Rogan podcast is pretty incredible, if you haven’t seen it yet.

~~~
uf00lme
Thank you for this comment, didn’t know he had been on Joe Rogan

~~~
kridsdale1
Rogan was a massive Quake player back in the day

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polytely
If you want even more: after this talk John took questions in Horizon

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7mFEGah27c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7mFEGah27c)

~~~
justin66
It's interesting the way that talk demonstrates the limits of the software he
was talking about.

In a big picture way, it's also interesting to hear a prominent Facebook
employee being frank about the limitations of the product. Perhaps they're
just not allowed to do that when it comes to privacy issues.

------
fossuser
I think his point about latency is a big one.

I suspect a lot of the problems with videochat (and VR) has to do with this.

Bad latency is frustrating and wears you down, at some point it's not worth
attempting to speak up because it's tiring to deal with.

In real life communication transitions between people are fast and you can
overlap a bit.

VR could solve the issue of what people are looking at least which I think is
the other issue, though I'm not sure how well avatars will fit in for that.

~~~
timleewards
Chatvr seems to have plenty of “players” - in the millions actually. Premature
optimisation is not ideal, and a delay in the tens of ms is not unheard of in
regular chat apps either. I mean how many live on a 10 Mbps home connection
with high latency yet they make perfectly fine calls.

~~~
fossuser
The full quote of that premature optimization trope is this:

"We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time:
premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our
opportunities in that critical 3%"

People often ignore that second half.

> "I mean how many live on a 10 Mbps home connection with high latency yet
> they make perfectly fine calls."

I'm not sure I agree with 'perfectly fine', people just suffer through things
being terrible because they don't know they could be better. Latency on a 1:1
call is bad, but tolerable - things get a lot worse as you move towards group
interaction (dealing with group video chats often because of covid it's clear
how much worse this is than in a real life room).

It's not premature optimization to get the latency down when that's probably
the most critical feature tied to usable performance and better experience,
arguably everything else should be lower priority.

~~~
timleewards
We may have experienced different kinds of latency but in my experience i
havent noticed much of an issue when using chat vr. I may be biased as i am
keen on vr going mainstream and looking back at the times of dialup i cant
help but wonder what would happened if we waited for fiber optic before using
the internet, because it was laggy. So it may suck for a while but its just
fine - no worse than a laggy skype call 5 years ago.

------
Robotbeat
It occurs to me that there are a bunch of fairly simple things that could be
changed to make wireless headsets more practical for actual work.

My smartphone hasn't been working, so I've been using the headset a lot more
as a secondary computing device. The keyboard is not nearly as practical as it
could be task switching requires quitting out of each application. The pass-
through environment is only available in the base applications, and it's
difficult to use when you have multiple guardians and are switching rooms.
Also, the hand-tracking interface is really bad. If there were some way to
just grab controls directly in 3D space instead of using the pinch-as-a-mouse
mechanism, that'd be way nicer. it borrows the poor windowing support of
mobile that was driven by screen real estate constraint, even tho there is
less constraint on real estate even than desktop.

If Oculus engineers have any notions of making the Quest 2 (or later headsets)
into a general use platform, they should try doing all their work in one. Get
rid of their laptop and smartphone and do everything in the headset. I'm sure
we'd soon see better text rendering, better support for keyboard and mouse,
better switching between applications and guardians, better copy/paste
behavior between applications, ability to take pictures with the tracking
cameras, more control over how the headset goes to sleep or content pauses (or
doesn't) when donning and doffing the headset, etc.

~~~
jmiskovic
They are working on it, it's just not there yet. Quest 1 has a bit too low
resolution for readable text. The hand tracking is fairly recent and not fully
integrated. They are inventing pinching keyboards[1]. It's all moving in the
direction of AR glasses to fully replace your phone. I think Apple is moving
the other way, they will probably drive AR through iPhone.

The camera access is a huge privacy issue. I would also love to get access to
cameras. It's in OpenXR standard, so we can hope they will implement it at
some point.

That said, Quest is already useful for productivity. There's a modern browser,
keyboard support (usb or bluetooth), Termux app that gives you capable posix
shell, also apps for streaming your PC monitors.

I've built an in-VR live coding environment that I use to prototype and debug
Lua 3D [2].There is also another environment by MrDoob [3]. I'm actually
surprised how much Quest is open platform and usable as standalone headset.
Very unhappy about FB account though.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BV1lYp04vk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BV1lYp04vk)
[2]
[https://twitter.com/j_miskov/status/1275135068282007555](https://twitter.com/j_miskov/status/1275135068282007555)
[3]
[https://twitter.com/mrdoob/status/1304465880462643200](https://twitter.com/mrdoob/status/1304465880462643200)

~~~
Robotbeat
Yeah, Quest 2 has twice the usable subpixels (50% greater pixels plus a full
RGB stripe, better than the pentile of Quest 1), so I suspect text rendering
is pretty good.

Yeah, Carmack mentioned some official tracked physical keyboard being
announced soon, which is definitely the way to go for useful work. Good
tracked keyboard and mouse support plus some decent windowing will make it
dramatically better than a cellphone and perhaps even a typical tablet as far
as productivity whereas by default (i.e. just controllers or default hand
tracking) the Quest 1 is slower for precise input than a smartphone.

I actually don't think it'll replace phones. More likely to replace large
laptop displays for on-the-go productivity as resolution approaches retinal
quality in the next few years.

------
k__
I thought he locked himself up in a cabin in the woods and tried to get into
AI lately.

~~~
polytely
As I understand it he now works part-time at Oculus, dedicating the rest of
his time to AI, he mentions it in passing in the Horizon session [0] by but he
tries to keep it really separate because he doesn't want to be the subject of
another billion dollar lawsuit [1]

[0]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7mFEGah27c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7mFEGah27c)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZeniMax_v._Oculus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZeniMax_v._Oculus)

~~~
kleiba
Still, too bad IMO - I personally enjoyed him talking about games and CG much
more than about VR (which I don't care too much about) even though there is,
of course, an overlap. I wonder whether I will enjoy him talking about ML even
less since I hear that all the time already in my day job.

~~~
rubicon33
You should really try out a good VR headset. I think it will change your mind.

~~~
kleiba
As much as 3D TV did?

~~~
rubicon33
Sorry old timer, wasn't around for the 3D TV phase. Sorry your tech back then
sucked so hard though!

------
smusamashah
Has Occulus ever tried electromagnetic motion sensors. Sixense probably did
that once, thought they never went into production but they said it was super
precise and has very low latency.

Occulus is tracking motion with camera which is way more CPU intensive than
calculating position based on electromagnetic signals.

One trouble they had though that it wouldnt work well with high energy
electric items nearby.

So dooes anyone know if Occulus or HTC vive or other well in market consumer
VR device ever tried that or has plans to do so? is this even possible?

EDIT: They also made controllers for Razer.
[https://support.razer.com/console/razer-
hydra/](https://support.razer.com/console/razer-hydra/)

~~~
GuB-42
I think that the goal for Oculus is to do everything using headset-mounted
cameras, without the need for a base station, so it makes sense for them to
focus on image processing instead of specialized sensors. Cost also matters,
especially for a $300 standalone headset, and extra sensors aren't free.

One thing to realize is also that cameras (or lighthouses in the case of the
Vive) are not the primary sensors. What really do the job are accelerometers
and gyroscopes. Cameras only provide reference points to correct for drift.

~~~
Robotbeat
Cameras are also nice for enabling pass-through views. Works much better than
you might think on the Quest. My phone hasn't been working the last few days,
so I've been watching videos (etc) in the Oculus browser with the passthrough
environment, and I can walk around a bit and do stuff (brush teeth, etc) while
watching a video on a large screen, and it's relatively practical (hand
tracking is still annoying and largely 2D so it's still better to use a
controller), but this could be improved with software updates and the improved
Quest 2. The view is stereoscopic and so eye-hand coordination works basically
flawlessly (much better than I thought it would).

It'd be sweet if someone eventually made a headset with pass-through view with
high resolution and ability to choose wavelength (UV to IR, maybe even a
phased audio array to visualize sound sources for the deaf).

If you could make the tracking cameras work in the Sun and figured out a way
to harden the display (perhaps using a protective electronic shutter system)
to sunlight, it'd be closer to a general platform.

------
twic
Would anyone be so kind as to enumerate some of the things he talks about?

~~~
dougmwne
It's a wide ranging and frank talk on the many technical and management
challenges that come with creating a cutting-edge product. His bits about
latency and compromise should be required reading in all Compsci curriculums.

------
Bayart
I always love John Carmarck's talks and try to not miss it when I come across
a new one. He genuinely makes me feel smarter. The worst thing about him
leaving id Software was the end of his QuakeCon talks !

------
29athrowaway
Consumers should stand their ground and not buy Oculus headsets until Facebook
login is removed.

What is next? Facebook login required to use a pointing device, keyboard,
printer? Before you know it you will be completely oppressed.

------
someperson
Recent related discussion (Oculus Quest 2 announcement):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24495138](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24495138)

------
aptidude187
I really love John's presentations. His candidness and passion make his talks
not only compelling, but also entertaining.

------
modzu
question for VR people: is the tech at a place yet where a headset could be a
monitor replacement for productivity work? i mean my laptop screen is 13" \--
could i instead be coding on a virtual 100" screen, still using my regular OS,
keyboard and trackpad?

~~~
wlesieutre
Carmack talks about this a bit, the Quest 1 had enough pixel density that a
big screen in VR (such as the Netflix app) could give you about 720 of useful
resolution. With the new screens, it's more like 1080p. But if you're doing
multiple smaller screens rather than a big movie theater, they'll be less than
that.

They're launching an official project for this, called Infinite Office. You
see the world in black and white through the tracking cameras, but you have
colorful VR screens around you.

~~~
modzu
thanks. the infinite office demos are pretty funny. all the users doing
"office productivity work" are just browsing facebook

~~~
dougmwne
Welcome to Facebook's vision of the future of work!

------
aantix
Could Oculus 2 serve as an ok display for coding?

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
I use it with a Quest, and the ImmersedVR application.

I love it for learning, or working out a coding challenge.

The benefit to "code inside a void" is immense for people who really struggle
with ADHD. I've never felt the ability to zone in like I can in VR.

But I have to blow the text size up quite large. And I don't do it for more
than an hour, because the resolution isn't quite there for an all day reading
experience.

I have a lot of fun playing my 2D games in VR this way as well. Starcraft is
crazy fun on a screen that feels like its the size of a movie theater.

------
jokoon
I see many developers betting on VR. I could see it happening everywhere but
at home.

At best VR somehow is a perfect argument on why people should play escape
games or paintball/airsoft. It sound like a second version of the google
glass.

You just need to use some common logic: a video game works on a screen. It's
too difficult to add new sensors. You cannot bridge reality and virtuality.
You either have a video game or a normal game/toy/puzzle, you cannot have
both.

Maybe the military will come up with new sensors, but until then, I would not
bet on VR.

~~~
kevstev
I tend to disagree. I won an Occulus Go at a meetup and almost gave it away- I
didn't realize what I had won and just assumed it was some kind of upgraded
google cardboard.

I was really surprised and delighted at how cool it was. It felt raw and
fresh- almost like when I first got on the internet, there was just a whole
new world to explore, and different types of content and games- some were
cool, some were not, but were at least interesting in their mechanics.
Especially during covid, I found it super neat that I could watch a basketball
game in a "section" of a stadium and chat with those around me, and similarly
watch a band perform.

The biggest drawback is that the form factor isn't all that comfortable, and
battery life is an issue, but I think there is a tremendous amount of
potential in terms of experiences.

~~~
jayd16
You should try a 6Degree of freedom headset like the Quest or a PCVR headset
too. It really does click into a sense of reality.

