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Stardate: 20230810.2104 | |
Location: Family Room | |
Input Device: Steam Deck attached to HMD | |
Audio: ABBA on aNONradio open mic | |
Visual: nano, amber cool-retro-term full screen in HMD | |
Emotional: Slight nausea | |
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Since I have been spending much time on the couch, I had the | |
opportunity to spend time with my Steam Deck. I picked up the Steam | |
Deck awhile back and it was supposed to be my gaming replacement for | |
my aging Alienware Alpha R1 (steambox), which it has, but I think I | |
spend m0ar time using it for general purpose desktop linux tasks and | |
tinkering. It is a really nice device and I'm glad I pulled the | |
trigger on this purchase. | |
Today I decided to bring out the Sony HMZ-T2 Personal 3D Viewer. It | |
is a Head Mounted Display (HMD) that came out around 2012, before | |
the Oculus Rift and all the recent VR models. There's no head | |
tracking or any of the fancy features like today's VR stuff. It's | |
basically just a display that connects via HDMI. Oh, it's also good | |
for 3D Blu-Ray. | |
I have been experimenting with the HMZ-T2 attached to the Steam Deck. | |
The Steam Deck is attached to its dock that has a wireless keyboard | |
and mouse receiver in one of the USB ports, USB-C for power, and | |
an HDMI cable going to the external black controller box for the | |
HMZ-T2. The box has the other end of the HDMI attached to it, a | |
power cable, and a cable for the HMD. Wifi is being used for the | |
network connection. The setup is a bit cumbersome and has too many | |
parts! I store all the parts in an old attache briefcase, which | |
can contain the external parts when using the device. I have it | |
on a folding TV tray. I am also using my zero gravity lawn chair | |
for this setup, since the HMZ-T2 seems to work best when laying | |
down with my head resting on a pillow. A La-Z Boy recliner would | |
work perfectly, but I don't have one. The lights are off in the | |
family room, but the ambient light from the kitchen allows for some | |
visibility without too much impact to the immersion. | |
One of the things I dislike about this unit and my past experience | |
with devices like these is how much of a pain it is to set up and | |
tear down. There's usually a mess of wires and most of my time is | |
spent trying to set it up and getting comfortable with it. I think | |
I spend m0ar time fussing with it than enjoying it. Anyhow, I | |
decided to give it a try with the Steam Deck. | |
Once everything was set up and I got comfortable, it was actually | |
enjoyable. The resolution on the HMD is much better than the | |
Olympus Eye-Trek FMD-200, which I use for my cybah rig. [1] Doing | |
stuff in the terminal is good, with the right font size. Cool- | |
Retro-Term looks really cool in full screen (which is what I'm | |
using to interface with nano for typing this phost.) | |
I tried streaming some video, which was good as well. Oh, I have | |
the Steam Deck connected via bluetooth to my home theatre receiver, | |
so I don't have to use headphones. Much better that way since there | |
is already a mess of wires and the HMD just has a headphone jack. | |
The problem I ran into was with motion sickness, especially when I | |
connected to the SDF Minecraft server. This has always been a | |
problem for me with head mounted displays. I played on there for | |
about 45 minutes before I reached the point of chunder and had to | |
log out. I wish I could play longer, but no dice. | |
For me, the HMZ-T2 works best for viewing video or desktop tasks. A | |
2 hour movie (2D or 3D) or 3 hours doing desktop tasks is fine. | |
Anything more and I start feeling nauseous. Certain games are fine, | |
but anything 3D, like Minecraft is very limited and accellerates | |
chunder mode. It seems to work quite well with the Steam Deck, but | |
the choice of games is limited. Maybe it would work better with | |
something like a visual novel or some puzzle games. | |
[1] gopher://booji.mutated.net/1/projects/cybah_rig | |
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