More than 20,000 gamers are gathering at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco to have a look at the industry's latest product. Many of the developers are looking for ways to give virtual reality (VR) a boost.

But despite the hype about virtual reality as a game changer, VR has been slow to catch on with consumers.

Some odd experiments can be found at GDC, like Super Furry Neon Cat Heads, in which you become the world's greatest cat DJ.

"I think thinking outside the box with an alternate control like this gives people a different experience, so they get to experience something they've never tried before," said Shylo Shepherd, designer of Super Furry Neon Cat Heads.

Until now, VR has mostly been a cord-tethered experience or one that requires external computing power.

 Idealens, a China-based company in Chengdu, has developed one of the world's most powerful standalone VR headsets, the K-2, which doesn't need a phone or be connected to a console system. This latest prototype can show users pictures and video in the highest resolution available at 8k, more than three times that of a standard VR headset and has twice the field of vision.

"In two years, going by our progress and the progress of others in the field, we will have a prototype. That will be totally different, because that VR is the real VR. People will see things appearing very real. They won't be able to distinguish what's fake or not, whether it's virtual or reality." said Song Haitao, founder of Idealens, who has been working with virtual reality for 17 years, indicating the field is on the verge of huge advancements. 

Until now, if users want to get into the virtual world, they have to hold tracking tools. While many technologists say the future of VR also depends upon being hands free.

San Jose, California-based uSens - founded by two Chinese developers - created a technology that utilizes a camera to recognize all the individual bones inside the hand, and then relays that information to the application.

"Right now, people cannot interact directly in VR, but holding a controller is unnatural,” said Fei Yue, co-founder and CTO of uSens, adding that they are now letting people do whatever they want to do in real world. 

As VR moves further into mainstream society, technologists agree that the experience needs to become more natural, and ironically, more like everything in the real world.