Best PC Virtual Reality Headsets (Archive)

[kcarbotte]

Here are the best Virtual Reality Headsets currently available for the PC. Ranging from $400 to over $1000, these are truly the ultimate gaming peripherals.

Best PC Virtual Reality Headsets : Read more

 

[jaylimo84]

What about the Samsung Gear VR?

 

[Jeff Fx]

What about the Samsung Gear VR?

Best PC Virtual Reality Headsets

 

[kcarbotte]

What about the Samsung Gear VR?

The Gear VR doesn't connect to your PC. This article was specifically for PC-connected VR.
The PSVR will probably get lumped into this category too, though, as it still relies on a tethered machine for the processing.

 

[Joe Black]

I was all excited about OSVR with their promises of releasing at $200 in June/July, but they disappoint.

 

[jahara21]

Um, you may want to double check those PPI numbers.

 

[edhem]

As an early Oculus fan, and a current HTC Vive user, I have to say that not having the room scale significantly diminishes the VR experience. The two hand controllers make the 200 dollar price difference absolutely worth it. Every VR experience I have had would have been horrendous without room scale. It is great that Oculus brought VR to the spotlight, but you would have thought that with Facebook's backing they would have at least been on par with the Vive at time of release.

 

[Sakkura]

This room-scale talk is getting old.

The Rift is perfectly capable of room scale, even with a single camera it can be done - though you'll want 2 for a good experience, especially once you're using motion controllers as well. 4 cameras is just an overkill option they support for the niche of people who can devote a large room to VR.

On another note: As a content delivery platform, as well as a community platform, Steam absolutely deserves praise, and beats Oculus Home/Store hands down.
But you might have mentioned that SteamVR itself is actually a bit buggy and fiddly. When it comes to actually running games, Oculus has an advantage for the time being (async timewarp adds to that).

 

[jaber2]

premature much?

 

[Zapin]

SAKKURA - The Rift may be somewhat capable of room scale but anything designed for the Rift is not created with that in mind so few titles in the Oculus store are interesting or innovative compared to the what Vive titles offer. SteamVR is actually a very solid platform and I have not run the room setup in months, nor have I had any SteamVR issues personally. Also the lack of the touch controllers is a very serious shortcoming of the Rift. Anybody that has used proper controls in VR immediately feels their lack when playing Oculus titles. Some titles like Chronos, which I enjoyed and played quite a bit of on my Vive, are well suited to the Xbox controllers or Elite Dangerous using a HOTAS is awesome but how could something like the Climb be released before proper controls is beyond me.

If you consider async timewarp to be the Rift's advantage then you really are in a bubble. I do concede that the timewarp method of reprojection is superior to the method used by the Vive and PSVR the difference is hardly something that the user could notice especially with a decent gaming PC. If you look at the few titles that currently cannot be played on the Vive and compare that list to the list of titles that the Vive can play but the Oculus cannot yet then your defence of the Facebook Rift falls apart.

 

[JonnyDough]

It's all too expensive for my money. When it comes down in price I may consider it, but I don't feel the need to go live in a virtual reality. Mine is just fine and if it isn't I should be investing in actually making it better. I feel the same way about drugs. LOL

 

[Sakkura]

SAKKURA - The Rift may be somewhat capable of room scale but anything designed for the Rift is not created with that in mind so few titles in the Oculus store are interesting or innovative compared to the what Vive titles offer. SteamVR is actually a very solid platform and I have not run the room setup in months, nor have I had any SteamVR issues personally. Also the lack of the touch controllers is a very serious shortcoming of the Rift. Anybody that has used proper controls in VR immediately feels their lack when playing Oculus titles. Some titles like Chronos, which I enjoyed and played quite a bit of on my Vive, are well suited to the Xbox controllers or Elite Dangerous using a HOTAS is awesome but how could something like the Climb be released before proper controls is beyond me.

If you consider async timewarp to be the Rift's advantage then you really are in a bubble. I do concede that the timewarp method of reprojection is superior to the method used by the Vive and PSVR the difference is hardly something that the user could notice especially with a decent gaming PC. If you look at the few titles that currently cannot be played on the Vive and compare that list to the list of titles that the Vive can play but the Oculus cannot yet then your defence of the Facebook Rift falls apart.

There are room-scale games and experiences in the Oculus Store already, and a lot more coming when the Touch controllers arrive.

In addition, content does not have to be room-scale to be interesting or innovative. The 87th generic wave shooter on Steam doesn't get any more innovative because you play it standing up and can technically move about a bit.

SteamVR is known to be somewhat buggy, fairly frequent crashing or tracking issues for many people. It varies depending on the machine of course.

The lack of touch controllers is a serious shortcoming in some types of content, but there are plenty of genres where it doesn't matter as other input methods are as good or better. Motion controllers cannot be defined as the only "proper" controls.

Asynchronous timewarp is a significant difference. When the framerate drops, it's absolutely noticeable whether or not asynchronous timewarp is active. Since you have a Vive, you presumably won't have experienced that difference, so maybe that's why you dismiss it.

Once the Touch controllers are available, all Vive content will be available on the Rift. It's inane to suggest the content should be available now, as the Rift couldn't properly play those games anyway.

As for calling it the Facebook Rift, all that does is mark you as a fanboy.

 

[kcarbotte]

There are room-scale games and experiences in the Oculus Store already, and a lot more coming when the Touch controllers arrive.

No there aren't. Standing VR with motion controls does not equal room scale. Oculus has said the Rift is technically capable, but it requires four base stations, and the company has not announced any plans to make that configuration available to consumers.

In addition, content does not have to be room-scale to be interesting or innovative. The 87th generic wave shooter on Steam doesn't get any more innovative because you play it standing up and can technically move about a bit.

Content does not have to have room-scale to be interesting, but that wasn't the goal of this article. There's content without room-scale support that is great, but it's not about the content, it's about the possibilities of the system. Without motion controls, the Rift is not on the same level of experience as the Vive. The Vive can do everything the Rift can and more.

Room-scale, in this case, makes a huge difference.

SteamVR is known to be somewhat buggy, fairly frequent crashing or tracking issues for many people. It varies depending on the machine of course.

That's a valid point, which will be considered for the next update.

The lack of touch controllers is a serious shortcoming in some types of content, but there are plenty of genres where it doesn't matter as other input methods are as good or better. Motion controllers cannot be defined as the only "proper" controls.

The lack of motion controls can absolutely be considered an incomplete package, though.
Having motion controls doesn't stop you from playing games with a gamepad, joystick, or wheel peripheral, but not having them prevents you from having your hands in the game, which limits the sense of agency and realism of the experience.

Asynchronous timewarp is a significant difference. When the framerate drops, it's absolutely noticeable whether or not asynchronous timewarp is active. Since you have a Vive, you presumably won't have experienced that difference, so maybe that's why you dismiss it.

Asynchronous Time Warp is far less perceptible compared to Interleaved Reprojection.

Once the Touch controllers are available, all Vive content will be available on the Rift. It's inane to suggest the content should be available now, as the Rift couldn't properly play those games anyway.

There are games that don't support standing scale and require a large room scale space, such as Unseen Diplomacy.
Many games will be supported by both systems, but to suggest that all will is false.

 

[Sakkura]

There are room-scale games and experiences in the Oculus Store already, and a lot more coming when the Touch controllers arrive.

No there aren't. Standing VR with motion controls does not equal room scale. Oculus has said the Rift is technically capable, but it requires four base stations, and the company has not announced any plans to make that configuration available to consumers.

Room scale means being able to walk around a bit in VR. There are Oculus games that support that.

It only strictly requires a single camera, but the tracking range is limited that way. And once you have motion controllers, one camera would lead to occlusion issues. Two cameras has been demonstrated, over and over again, to work perfectly well for room-scale VR with the Touch controllers. They just added support for up to 4 cameras on the software side, that doesn't mean it's required.

Oculus will most likely eventually sell extra cameras. They have retail-grade packaging for replacements that people have gotten. Doesn't seem likely they'd put that much effort into designing the packaging for just spare parts.

 

[kcarbotte]

There are room-scale games and experiences in the Oculus Store already, and a lot more coming when the Touch controllers arrive.

No there aren't. Standing VR with motion controls does not equal room scale. Oculus has said the Rift is technically capable, but it requires four base stations, and the company has not announced any plans to make that configuration available to consumers.

Room scale means being able to walk around a bit in VR. There are Oculus games that support that.

It only strictly requires a single camera, but the tracking range is limited that way. And once you have motion controllers, one camera would lead to occlusion issues. Two cameras has been demonstrated, over and over again, to work perfectly well for room-scale VR with the Touch controllers. They just added support for up to 4 cameras on the software side, that doesn't mean it's required.

Oculus will most likely eventually sell extra cameras. They have retail-grade packaging for replacements that people have gotten. Doesn't seem likely they'd put that much effort into designing the packaging for just spare parts.

Oculus Touch doesn't work properly with one camera. It will work, yes, but there will be lots of oclusion and tracking will be poor. Even with two camers in from of you, Touch isn't great for 360-degree tracking. I've used it a couple times and there were tracking issues. Its been a few months so they may have improved that, but without cameras in oposing corners, there's always going to be oclusion.

The Oculus camera has a relatively short cable, and must be plugged into a USB 3.0 port. You'd need additional cable extensions to mount cameras behind you.
There aren't a lot of computers that have enough USB bandwidth to support 4 cameras, the rift, you keyboard and mouse, and the xbox one gamepad. I'm already seeing bandwidth issues when trying to use a leap motion controller along with my rift on my Asus Z87-WS, which has more USB ports than most motherboards.
Oculus-Ready PCs that are sold from Asus don't even have enough physical USB ports on them to support four cameras. Oculus did make sure to account for an extra port for Touch though.

All of this adds up to not being a likely supported scenario. Oculus may give developers the ability to support that sort of thing, but that's a niche within a niche. So few people will be prepared for four camera's that it wouldn't be a wise use of resources for small developers to bother supporting that sort of thing.
I could see four-camera solutions being used for tradeshows or marketing events, but not so much in the home.

 

[samopa]

So ? Which one is the best buy right now ?

 

[kc5sym]

Razer OSVR Hacker Dev Kit v2.0
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS

Open-Source Virtual Reality Headset
User Upgradeable
Dual-Display 2160 x 1200 Resolution
OLED Display with 441 PPI at 90 FPS
IR Positioning with Faceplate and Camera
Individual Eye-Focus Adjustments
Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Compass
Belt-Box Module

Price: $399.99
(Source: bhphotovideo)

 

[Ne0Wolf7]

So I'm into 3D modeling, and say I make a house. Would all of thses work, or just the programagble one?

 

[Sakkura]

So I'm into 3D modeling, and say I make a house. Would all of thses work, or just the programagble one?

Depends what software you use. Oculus Medium is only officially supported on the Rift, for example.

 

[Ne0Wolf7]

I used autocad and inventor, and because it's becoming so prominent in that field, I want to lean how to do it

 

[Sakkura]

I don't think there's native VR support there. I know Solidworks can be used with Unity to get VR support, maybe a similar solution will work for Inventor.

 

[Ne0Wolf7]

My uncle odes it for autocad, I'll find what I can from him and google and report back