https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAZVkTNt4G4

With three major virtual reality head mounted displays on offer I take a look at which one is the best all round in my opinion

I tried and tested the first Oculus dev kit and although I found it fun it didn’t seem ready for prime time. I skipped DK2 and eagerly awaited the final release of the Rift consumer version and after a few delays it seems that 2016 is finally the year of VR. By the end of the year, not one, not two, but three consumer headsets should be strapped firmly to heads around the world – taking their lucky owners out-of-this-world! The timing is uncanny, and obviously some people are going to be buying one, so we have ourselves a fight.

The contenders for virtual supremacy are the trailblazing Oculus Rift, the space-detecting HTC Vive, and the PS4-compatible PlayStation VR. The technical differences mean they all have their ups and downs but which is the one for you. I will cover of the main aspects below

Specs: 

The display toates a 2160 x 1200 resolution, or 1080 x 1200 over two OLED displays for each eye. That works out to 233 million pixels per second with a refresh rate of 90Hz. Additionally, it has 360-degree positional head tracking and a 100-degree field of view

The HTC Vive features similar 2160 x 1200 resolution, or 1080 x 1200 over two OLED displays for each eye. It has a 90Hz refresh rate, over 70 sensors (e.g. an accelerometer, a gyroscope, etc.) for fluid and seamless movements, and will operate in a 15ft x 15ft tracking space if you have the supporting wireless cameras.

the PlayStation VR will feature a 5.7in OLED display touting a resolution of 960×1080 per eye and 100 degree FOV. It has a 120Hz refresh rate with 18ms response,

Winner (Draw)

Gaming

Oculus Rift has a number of games being natively developed for it. So far, there are over 200 games, including titles like EVE: Valkyrie, Airmech VR, and more. Many developers are working to bring their games to the Rift and they have Facebook backing them.

The HTC Vive is being developed in conjunction with SteamVR, which is a big name to have in your back pocket. There are already over 171 games that claim to have VR support in the Steam store, and the list will only get bigger as we get closer to launch. SteamVR will give HTC Vive the platform it needs to succeed.

Playstation VR is going to launch in October this year with the support of 50 games. Sony claims that there are many more than this in development and will be able to rival some of the numbers mentioned above. Being the first to market in the console space and a handy install base of 35 million could give Sony the edge…

Winner (HTC Vive)

Price 

Oculus Rift is coming very soon. The first wave of orders will be shipping out on the 28th March, but anyone who hasn’t already pre-ordered one will now have to wait until July at the very earliest before they can get their hands on their very own headset. It’s not cheap, either, as it will cost you a whopping £499 (without shipping costs)

HTC Vive: Price. HTC has announced that its Vive VR headset will be priced at a whopping £689

Sony has always stated that PlayStation VR would be priced as “a new gaming platform” so it should come as no surprise to hear its virtual-reality headset will cost £350 on launch. To be clear you will also need to purchase the(£40) PlayStation Camera and the  (£27) apiece Move controllers. bringing the total up to around £420

Winner (Sony Playstation)

Overall conclusions

When it comes to virtual reality this really is the first wave. Buying now is going to get you bugy software and at a premium price point. The cost of a PC that is capable of running a Oculus Rift or a HTC Vive (note GTX 970 required) is around £600. The Playstation on the other hand can be had for around £270 coupled with the VR headset and mandatory peripherals you are still looking at £720 which is the lowest price point to get onto the VR bandwagon come September/October. I will personally be waiting until there is a killer app/title available.

I have a Raspberry Pi Zero W, I’m a huge nerd. It was inevitable… I made a game console

Last November, Nintendo released the Nintendo Classic Mini, a mini console with 30 built in retro NES games. After playing one at Christmas I was impressed with the device. I searched high and low, but stock levels and popularity meant that these little things were going for double or triple the price on eBay. everywhere I looked it was sold out. I waited for a few months for one to become available and then Nintendo announced that they were going to discontinue them.

Undeterred I decided I would build my own emulator and after looking around I decided the Raspberry PI Zero W would do the trick. The build was really easy, below are the steps I followed.

The Raspberry PI Zero W, was launched earlier this year and is an updated version of the standard Raspberry PI Zero. The updates are fairly innocuous but consist of some handy new features such as built in Wifi and Bluetooth 4.0. The PI Zero in it self is positively minuscule. I was surprised at how small when it arrived. Because I was starting from scratch I wanted to try and emulate more than just NES games.

The Megadrive along with the SNES  were the consoles I remember most growing up. My sister and I spent way to much time playing Sega and Nintendo games when we were younger.

On to the build. 

To create a mini emulation console you are going to need a few things. The PI hut do a kit with some of these items or you can shop around

• Raspberry PI Zero W (https://thepihut.com/products/raspberry-pi-zero-w )
• Mini hdmi – HDMI converter
• Micro usb to USB 2.0 converter
• USB or Bluetooth controllers http://amzn.to/2rsN5ss
• Micro SD Card (8gb or above) http://amzn.to/2qy0Ruw
• 5V 2A PSU or Micro usb power cable (standard phone charger type)
• A Case (selection here https://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi-cases)

Next up the tech bit.

Download the SD image for your version of Raspberry Pi from the following page:

https://retropie.org.uk/download/

Extract

Once you have downloaded your SD card image you need to extract it using a program such as 7-Zip. You will extract the downloaded .gz file and the extracted file will be a .img file.

To extract from the command line, you can type the following into a Terminal window, placing X with version you downloaded:

gunzip retropie-4.X.X-rpi2_rpi3.img.gz

Install

To install the RetroPie SD image on your MicroSD card. (You may need a MicroSD card reader to plug it into your computer)

1. For Windows you can use a program called Win32DiskImager
2. For mac you can use Apple Pi Baker
3. For Linux you can use dd command or Etcher

Note RetroPie is built on top of Raspbian (a linux based OS for the Raspberry Pi) and as such the partition on the SD card is EXT4 (a linux filesystem) which is not visible on windows systems, so the card will show up as a smaller size than usual and you wont be able to see everything on the card

Configure Controllers

On first boot your filesystem will be expanded automatically, you will then be welcomed with the following screen- this menu will configure your controls for both Emulationstation and RetroArch Emulators: If you wish to configure more than one controller, you can do so from the start menu

Hotkeys

Hotkeys enable you to press a combination of buttons to access functions such as saving, loading, and exiting emulators

Roms

Roms can be found all over the interweb but I found that https://www.emuparadise.me comes highly recommended. Physically transferring the ROM’s could not be more straightforward. You can write directly to the ROMS folder on the SD card, but I have found after adding the PI to my wifi navigating to //RETROPIE and find the corresponding ROM folder and then drag and drop.

PLAY!

After you’ve added your roms you need to restart emulationstation in order for them to show up. You can restart emulationstation from the start menu, or by rebooting your pi with sudo reboot.

With the increasing push of 4K TVs and more native 4K content sources appearing week by week, the PS4 and Xbox One are starting to look more and more uncomfortable as they via for top spot as the number one box in your living room.

Netflix were the ones that started the rumour at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show iwhen, according to The Huffington Post, Netflix’s Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt suggested during a press conference about Netflix’s support for High Dynamic Range technology that Sony had ‘promised’ a PS4 hardware revision that would give the console 4K video capabilities.

Then during his Xbox Spring Showcase event keynote last week, Microsoft’s head of Xbox Phil Spencer talked about future of “hardware innovation” for the console, similar to the ways PCs evolve.

In a speech to reporters, he said that the Xbox One could see a future in which it is upgraded, rather than replaced by new consoles.

One last point to stress is that if the predictions of new 4K-capable consoles this year come true, the upgrade will almost certainly only affect video streaming; 4K gaming at the moment requires a high-end PC and would probably be to costly to bake into a console for a reasonable price. Sony or Microsoft have not confirmed or denied anything specific yet but I would expect to see a potential update that would allow at the very least 4k streaming with an upgraded chipset and HDMI ports

As I wrote about earlier in the year, both console manufactures released a revised console in time for Christmas. This time both aspiring to bring 4K to the masses.

Sony has finally released its much-talked about PS4 Pro and its a whole new beast, much more powerful than before.Microsoft released more of a gentle revision Xbox One S. The comparison is slightly unfair but they will be drawn none the less.

Microsoft will be introducing its own beefier machine in 2017, but in the meantime we expect many people will be looking at the Xbox One S and PS4 Pro, wondering which of the two to invest in this year rather than next. So lets look at a big talking point 4k and HDR

Xbox One S vs PS4 Pro: 4K HDR gaming

Ever since the PS4 Pro was first announced, Sony has shown plenty of games running in 4K with high dynamic range (HDR) picture processing. We’ve played quite a few ourselves and been impressed. The console is even capable of playing games natively in 4K.

The Xbox One S on the other hand is not capable of 4K gaming. It does upscale all video output to 4K, including games, but you don’t get any more detail – it just takes on the upscaling duties rather than rely on your TV’s abilities.

The Microsoft machine does offer HDR gaming though. Developers can now choose to offer a greater level of contrast and a wider colour gamut in their games, for users with TVs capable of showing them. Forza Horizon 3 a Gears of War 4 are two games coming with HDR graphics. The PS4 Pro has around 30 4K HDR enabled games available at launch.

Xbox One S vs PS4 Pro: 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

One of the main reasons existing Xbox One owners would consider an upgrade to the Xbox One S is that it also doubles as a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player. It is capable of playing the new format discs and in HDR to boot.

This is one where the Xbox One S is better than the Sony powerhouse. Remarkably, even with Sony’s heritage in the format and being one of the major drivers of 4K Blu-ray, the PS4 Pro does not have a 4K Ultra HD drive so cannot play the discs.

Xbox One S vs PS4 Pro: 4K video

As well as 4K Blu-ray support, the Xbox One S is also 4K-ready for streaming services. At present, that just means Netflix and Amazon, but we fully expect an updated YouTube app soon. The PS4 Pro can happily play 4K (and HDR) content, but only the Xbox has an Ultra-HD Blu-ray player built in.

Even though the PS4 Pro doesn’t have a 4K Blu-ray drive, it does come with Netflix in 4K from launch. YouTube too. We’re expecting HDR from both soon.

Xbox One S vs PS4 Pro: Performance

This is where things really start to head in different directions. In effect, the Xbox One S is a slightly tweaked version of the former model. Its quad-core processing chip is clocked higher in order to run faster and offer a boost in performance, but it is fractional. RAM also runs faster too, but the most obvious improvements come with faster menu screens than in-game activities.

On the other hand, the PS4 Pro sports an octa-core processor and a graphics chipset with 4.20 teraflops of power. There is also 8GB of GDDR5 memory. The PS4 can apparently play games in 4k but given the specs I would speculate its not native 4k and is actually some kind of up scaling

In comparison, that’s like having a drag race between a Ferrari and an Audi A5. Yeah the Audi A5 is a lovely car… but it’s no Ferrari.

Xbox One S vs PS4 Pro: Design

The white One S is 40 per cent smaller and thinner than its former generation, with the power supply now tucked away inside the main casing. It is, in fact, one of the best looking consoles on the market.

The PS4 Pro also has the power supply inside but is chunky and less sleek than the Xbox. It’s even larger and heftier than the original, standard PlayStation 4.

Consider its spec is more akin to a gaming PC, then imagine how big a decent gaming rig can be thanks to sufficient cooling and you can see why the PS4 Pro is on the beefy side. You’re basically swapping looks for power.

Xbox One S vs PS4 Pro: Price

The Xbox One S, available here, is priced at a very reasonable £249 for the 500GB model, £299 for the 1TB and £349 for the 2TB edition, although the latter is now completely sold out.

It could be said that the bigger bargain is the PS4 Pro, available here. At £349, it almost matches the top end Xbox One S, but it is a far more powerful machine. It only comes with a 1TB drive though.