NEW YORK—Nvidia is best known as a producer of the souped-up computer graphics that gamers can take advantage of. But Nvidia hasn’t actually published a game of its own--until now.
On Thursday, the company unleashed VR Funhouse, an immersive collection of arcade-style mini carnival games that is meant to showcase what’s possible in virtual reality, while also evangelizing how Nvidia’s own technology can elevate the experience. Nvidia is opening up the source code inside VR Funhouse to developers.
I don’t expect Nvidia to suddenly become a major game producer. But I certainly had a blast playing Funhouse for a half-hour or so inside a Manhattan hotel room.
The game is available for free via Valve's Steam distribution platform for entertainment titles but is only playable on the $799 HTC Vive VR system. Vive itself is awesome if you can deal with the challenging setup, and devote a decent amount of physical space, free of obstacles, for what’s known as room-scale VR.
Nvidia, of course, doesn’t want you to cheap out on the horsepower inside the computer you hook up to the Vive either. In the room where I got to try Funhouse, Nvidia built its own $2500-ish computing rig with two high-end ($599 each) GeForce GTX 1080s graphics cards, one dedicated to handling VR graphics, the other for “physics processing.”
Nvidia claims the fun quotient is still high if you scale back with less pricey graphics options. The minimum spec is a GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card which costs around $249. The robust computer that works with Vive can cost $1000 on up. So we're talking about a setup for avid gamers with cash to burn.
What I can report is that under my ideal hardware scenario--low latency, high frame rates, simulated physics--everything felt real, helped by the haptic feedback that came through the Vive controllers. Audio also played a key role, with such sounds as crackling fire, balloons bouncing off one another, and clanging swords, adding spice to the experience.
The arcade games themselves were enjoyable.
In a title called “Fire Archer,” I reached behind my shoulder with one of the Vive controllers to grab an arrow and light its tip on fire. I placed the arrow in a bow, and felt the tension as I drew back, and aimed at wooden targets that burst into flames upon impact.
During a “Cannon Skeet” game, I shot at teapots launched from a mobile cannon. When I hit the target, the dishes broke up in a realistic manner, with the ceramic shards flying towards me. I was able to continue to shoot at those particles. Nvidia shows off VR Funhouse in a promotional video here.
As a company, Nvidia has been a stellar performer on Wall Street with solid earnings and a portfolio that extends beyond games into such areas as machine learning and autonomous cars. The chipmaker's stock (NVDA) was trading at $53.71 midday Thursday, right around its 52-week high.
Apart from VR Funhouse, Nvidia also is introducing a camera tool called Nvidia Ansel, that will let gamers capture stunning 360-degree imagery from within the games they play. I saw samples while wearing the Vive headset. It will be up to developers to incorporate Ansel into their titles. The action adventure Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is among the first to be enabled with Ansel support.
Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech Columnist @edbaig on Twitter
