Where can I find Virtual Reality hardware?

January 29, 2008 4:05 AM

Where can I find Virtual Reality goggles or something similar?

When I was little, I got to play on a Virtual Reality machine. It was basically a round platform with a headset and glove, and it projected you into a very basic, blockish world with a pterodactyl flying around that you had to shoot with your little gun. It was great fun, and I'd like to recreate that in the comfort of my own home.

What I'm trying to find is some sort of approximation of a similar thing, some kind of hardware I can plug into my PC and play very simple or complex or whatever games on, with proper 3D simulation instead of just playing a video on two screens next to your eyes.

If it helps, I live in Australia, and money is no object.

posted by Savvas to technology (5 comments total)

This market comparison of VR goggles might get you started.
posted by Happy Dave at 4:23 AM on January 29, 2008

There are a few around; The z800 3dvisor, the Vuzix VR920 etc.

The main problem is they all seem to require the nvidia stereo drivers to work, and I get the impression that they don't work with all games (and certainly not under Vista). This was a showstopper for me as I have an ATI card.
posted by samj at 4:31 AM on January 29, 2008

I remember the pterodactyl (Dactyl Nightmare!) from a demo I used to do on some kit by a company called W Industries - later "Virtuality". Their system was based around an Amiga 3000. A search for "Virtuality" on Ebay turns up a few people who would sell you this stuff.
posted by rongorongo at 6:05 AM on January 29, 2008

Nice find, rongorongo. God damn I want one of those.
posted by Savvas at 6:20 AM on January 29, 2008

I have a Forte VFX-1. It was very expensive and, after the novelty wore off, not particularly fun, at least not with 1995-era games and video hardware (And, since it used a proprietary ISA card that connected only to old PCI video cards, not forwards-compatible.. bleh). I suspect this is one of those things that works better when you can borrow a friend's to extract the novelty value and then be done with it.
posted by Alterscape at 8:45 AM on January 29, 2008