[SOLVED] is VR worth it with my specs or should I upgrade first?

[HarryGRGamer]

Hello.

I'm thinking about buying a VR Headset I'm between buying a used Oculus CV1 from ebay or an Oculus Quest from Amazon.

I'm wondering if I could run games alright with my specs that I have right now or if I should spend my saved money better on a new GPU or RAM, I've read that Oculus has a feature where it sync's the frames to 45 it's called ASW 2.0 does that make it better?

I don't care about playing games on the highest settings, as long as I can run them well without too many FPS spikes/drops to the point where it would get uncomfortable to play

The games that I'm likely interested to play are.
Half Life Alyx
Boneworks
Interkosmos
Pavlov
Lone Echo
Echo Arena
Subnautica
Alien Isolation
Beat Saber

PC Specs:
CPU: I7-3770 (non k)
GPU: GTX 970 (stock non oc)
RAM: 8GB (1600mhz)
PSU: Corsair VS550
Motherboard: ASUS P8H61-M LX3 PLUS R2.0

If anyone here has similar specs with mine and has tried some VR titles, I would appreciate reading the feedback.

Thank you for your help in advance (also small note, I'm planning to use it on USB 2.0 since Oculus Link supports it now, I don't know if it makes a big difference)

Oculus Quest Can Now Tether to PC with Its Included USB 2.0 Cable

Oculus Quest can function as a PC VR headset with the Oculus Link feature which was introduced in beta late last year. At launch the feature only supported USB 3.0 cables, which somewhat awkwardly didn’t include the cable that came in the box with Quest. A recent update to Oculus Link now allows...

www.roadtovr.com

 

[grebgonebad]

My boyfriend has pretty much the same setup as you and he plays most of what you've listed on his CV1 with few issues. The odd dropped frame here and there but nothing immersion breaking. The only thing I'd suggest is grabbing yourself another 8gb DIMM to bump up your memory capacity to 16gb, 8gb is on the edge of being a tad low for VR in my experience (Also own and regularly use a CV1). Other than that I'd say you're grand.

With regards to which headset to get, I'm admittedly biased and would recommend picking up a CV1 if you can find one in good nick, I'm personally not a fan of the inside out tracking tech in the newer HMDs. I find that even though it doesn't happen often, the break in controller tracking when I move my hands out of the line of sight of the tracking camera's in the HMD is pretty jarring at times. Though that being said the Quest does have the added bonus of being able to use it without a PC, so there's that. =) If it's your first VR experience I doubt the controller's breaking tracking would be that bad.

The ASW you're talking about is short for asynchronous spacewarp, basically it's just VSYNC for VR. I usually disable this using the Oculus debug tool for the most part, I only use it if I find I'm dropping frames quite regularly, it does help to smooth out the frame rate at times.

If you do decide to go for a Rift CV1 though you will have to make sure that both the headset and at least one sensor is connected via a USB3 port. I use 3 camera's and have had to purchase a USB3 PCIe card in order to not overload the USB controller on my motherboard. But should you have to do this they only cost a tenner from Amazon so it won't break the bank. Ha ha.

 

[HarryGRGamer]

My boyfriend has pretty much the same setup as you and he plays most of what you've listed on his CV1 with few issues. The odd dropped frame here and there but nothing immersion breaking. The only thing I'd suggest is grabbing yourself another 8gb DIMM to bump up your memory capacity to 16gb, 8gb is on the edge of being a tad low for VR in my experience (Also own and regularly use a CV1). Other than that I'd say you're grand.

With regards to which headset to get, I'm admittedly biased and would recommend picking up a CV1 if you can find one in good nick, I'm personally not a fan of the inside out tracking tech in the newer HMDs. I find that even though it doesn't happen often, the break in controller tracking when I move my hands out of the line of sight of the tracking camera's in the HMD is pretty jarring at times. Though that being said the Quest does have the added bonus of being able to use it without a PC, so there's that. =) If it's your first VR experience I doubt the controller's breaking tracking would be that bad.

The ASW you're talking about is short for asynchronous spacewarp, basically it's just VSYNC for VR. I usually disable this using the Oculus debug tool for the most part, I only use it if I find I'm dropping frames quite regularly, it does help to smooth out the frame rate at times.

If you do decide to go for a Rift CV1 though you will have to make sure that both the headset and at least one sensor is connected via a USB3 port. I use 3 camera's and have had to purchase a USB3 PCIe card in order to not overload the USB controller on my motherboard. But should you have to do this they only cost a tenner from Amazon so it won't break the bank. Ha ha.

Thank you for your long and thoughtful response.
I see where you are coming from however I forgot to mention that my PC case (and motherboard) doesn't have USB 3.0 ports, I know I could buy one which oculus recommends which costs around 30 dollars but sadly I'm out of budget right now. I consider going for the Quest because it only requires one USB 3.0 or 2.0 port (since they've updated it) also it has a refresh rate up to 72hz instead of 90hz which it would be easier to reach with my specs. I'm planning to buy it during August and if it isn't available on that time period then I will likely go for the CV1 or a new GPU.

Also does ASW really help a lot during intensive games?

 

[grebgonebad]

Thank you for your long and thoughtful response.
I see where you are coming from however I forgot to mention that my PC case (and motherboard) doesn't have USB 3.0 ports, I know I could buy one which oculus recommends which costs around 30 dollars but sadly I'm out of budget right now. I consider going for the Quest because it only requires one USB 3.0 or 2.0 port (since they've updated it) also it has a refresh rate up to 72hz instead of 90hz which it would be easier to reach with my specs. I'm planning to buy it during August and if it isn't available on that time period then I will likely go for the CV1 or a new GPU.

Also does ASW really help a lot during intensive games?

Always happy to help whenever I can. =)

Ahh I see, in that case then the Quest is understandably the best option for you right now. If this will be your first VR experience then you'll likely not even notice the problems that I've mentioned with regards to the tracking, I only notice it because I guess I'm just used to having external sensors by now. Ha ha.

ASW can help, just the same as VSYNC can help at times. As I said previously, if I'm playing a game that rarely drops below 90FPS then I tend to disable ASW as on the odd occasion that I do drop below 90 the jarring jump to 45 is a little immersion breaking. However that being said for games where I struggle to hit or regularly drop below 90 then I leave it enabled as it does definitely help to smooth out the overall experience. If I were you I'd experiment with ASW on and off and see which you prefer? As a rule of thumb though if you dislike VSYNC then I doubt you'll enjoy using ASW very much. It's an entirely subjective opinion though of course and I by no means condemn the use of ASW. =)

 

[HarryGRGamer]

Always happy to help whenever I can. =)

Ahh I see, in that case then the Quest is understandably the best option for you right now. If this will be your first VR experience then you'll likely not even notice the problems that I've mentioned with regards to the tracking, I only notice it because I guess I'm just used to having external sensors by now. Ha ha.

ASW can help, just the same as VSYNC can help at times. As I said previously, if I'm playing a game that rarely drops below 90FPS then I tend to disable ASW as on the odd occasion that I do drop below 90 the jarring jump to 45 is a little immersion breaking. However that being said for games where I struggle to hit or regularly drop below 90 then I leave it enabled as it does definitely help to smooth out the overall experience. If I were you I'd experiment with ASW on and off and see which you prefer? As a rule of thumb though if you dislike VSYNC then I doubt you'll enjoy using ASW very much. It's an entirely subjective opinion though of course and I by no means condemn the use of ASW. =)

Alright will do, Thank you for your answers
I feel like 72fps will be easier to reach with my specs, though I might be wrong because specs vary from game to game also there's ASW 2.0 which I think fixes some problems I don't know if the CV1 supports it.
Also it might work better for me because it doesn't even need a PC to run some games, but I will connect it with a USB 2.0 port of course and try out oculus link.