So last year I was very close to buying the psvr headset and doing the hack set-up to use it on pc but didn't end up following through with it. Now the oculus rift s exists and if I was to get vr, it seems very tempting.
Is the cheap price of the psvr hack worth the compromise for the basically plug and play, but more expensive, rift s? Or is there other cheap options I should consider?
Yes, the Rift S is probably the best bang for buck PC-based headset. You can also get Acer, Dell, Lenovo or HP Windows Mixed Reality Headsets for around $150-$250 on the second hand market which are decent alternatives but the overall experience won't be as good as the Rift S (inferior tracking, software, optics and display), but it is compatible with SteamVR.
Do NOT buy a PSVR for use with a PC - even the Mixed Reality headsets have better motion controllers than the Playstation Move, and the hacked together software support will be a nightmare. It's a fine headset, but not for PC.
Actually, as a testament to how quickly things change in this space, a few hours ago, Oculus announced Oculus Link which allows you to plug in an Oculus Quest to a PC, in addition to hand tracking coming to the Quest. If link works well, the Quest may ironically turn out to be the best bang for buck headset!
Would you mind breaking pc vr down into cheapest/worst to best? Theres so many oculus this and oculus that i cant tell the difference between them all!
Oculus Rift (no longer sold) is their first traditional VR headset, you plug it into a powerful gaming PC which generates the content. You need to place sensors (lighthouses) around the room to track your movements. This is "outside-in tracking".
Oculus Rift S is their new (March 2019) updated Rift. It doesn't need external sensors anymore. It has outward facing cameras built into the headset that tracks the room while you move, and so inversely determines your location and movement. This is "inside-out tracking". Rift S still requires your headset to be tethered with a cable to a gaming PC.
Oculus Go is designed for watching movies and consuming similar content while sitting down. It's self contained, no PC or console required. No real gaming possible. I haven't much looked at this one.
Oculus Quest is the new darling on the scene. It was released in May (two months after the Rift S) and at first seemed like the it's odd, poor cousin. The screens are a lower refresh rate, it can't stream games from a powerful PC, and it runs on an underpowered mobile phone chipset from a couple years ago (Snapdragon 835 was on Samsung Galaxy S8, whereas the current model is S10). You're not running SkyrimVR on this thing. Even the inside-out tracking only has four cameras whereas the Rift S has five.
But, the Quest has no tether. No cord to hold you back, accidentally yank out, or for you to trip over. You can set it up in a minute anywhere. No tether to a PC and no external sensors means that you don't need a specialised VR play space anymore. You can use it anywhere.
The native Quest games do not look quite as good as the Rift S, but they're not that bad either. There is some fantastic optimization going on, as you'd expect from a team being lead by John Carmack. They're going to great lengths to squeeze every ounce of quality from it that they can.
People were already in love with it at this stage, and then there were two major announcements in the past couple of days:
Oculus Quest will have hand tracking early next year. You won't need to hold the controllers in your hands for this. Instead the inside-out tracking cameras will also track your fingers and hands as you move them about. The Rift S isn't getting this yet, or maybe ever, perhaps because its cameras are in a poor location to track hand movements.
Oculus Link was the announcement many had been hoping for. From November we'll be able to plug a usb cable from the Quest to our gaming PCs and stream gorgeous high res games to it just like the Rift S. We'll also be able to access the much larger library of Rift games. This allows the Quest to play dual roles as an untethered VR Gaming experience and a tethered PC-powered experience.
The Quest+Link might seem to make the Rift S redundant, but in reality it's still not going to be as good as the Rift S for PC/console gaming. It's still going to be at a lowly 75hz. There are technical difficulties in using the USB/Snapdragon 835 to process the video signal rapidly enough at the higher quality, so tricks are being employed including one where the center of the image will be high quality and then the outer edges will be lower. Also a neat trick where the Quest will start decoding the top of a frame while the PC is still encoding the middle of it.
I bought a Quest just before the announcements, so I've clearly bought into the hype although I'm still a month away from receiving it. I did a lot of research on it and watched a lot of YouTube videos about it. It isn't a perfect machine, but it's a huge leap in the right direction. I can't wait for my family to try it out.
I still want a HTC Vive Deluxe Audio Strap (centralise the weight, shifting it away the front of the head), washable cotton cushion face masks (you get surprisingly sweaty while playing active games), and need a AA battery charger with rechargeables (for the two controllers).
If you want to see a Quest review that doesn't spoil anything about the experience of using the device and keeps it light on the tech details, then I'd recommend Flossy Carter's review: https://youtu.be/rWhUZjP5qNQ
The first thing to understand when buying a PC VR headset is that there are 2 platforms/stores: SteamVR and Oculus Home. The Rift, Vive, Index and Windows Mixed Reality headsets can all play SteamVR games/apps, whereas only the Oculus PCVR devices can officially play Oculus Home titles (that said, a mod called Revive allows the other headsets to play Oculus Home titles too.
At the bottom of the pile, the Windows Mixed Reality Headsets (Lenovo, HP, Dell, Acer) are the cheapest way to have a decent VR experience on the PC. The biggest problem these have is that the controllers are only tracked when you are looking at them (+- a few degrees). They can be pretty cheap though, at around $150-250 on the second hand market
The HTC Vive was the first generation Vive. Has the same resolution as the Rift CV1. Whilst it was a fantastic headset at the time, I wouldn't recommend it today as it's been superseded by much newer options, but the price of these second hand hasn't come down to match the changing market.
The Oculus Rift CV1 was the first generation consumer Rift and can be had on the second hand market (new ones are no longer sold). It requires you to set up 2 or 3 sensors around the room for tracking. Suffers from an issue where the right headphone cable will fail over time. Can get great bargains on this second hand!
The Oculus Rift S is a mid-generation upgrade (like going from the Xbox One to the Xbox One S) which replaces the CV1. It no longer needs sensors placed around the room and has significantly improved visuals over the first generation. This is generally considered the best mid-high range headset, but one thing to note is that, like many WMR headsets, it doesn't have an mechanical interpupillary distance adjustment (the distance between your eyes) so visuals might be blurrier if you have wide or narrow set eyes.
The HTC Vive Pro/Pro Eye is an upgraded version of the original Vive, the main improvement being higher resolution OLED screens. The HTC Cosmos is coming out soon as well, but I wouldn't recommend this headset as HTC has poor customer service/support and the HTC Cosmos doesn't have any special features that put it ahead of the others.
The Valve Index is considered one the most premium PC VR headsets. It has a mechanical IPD adjustment, and a slightly higher resolution than the Rift S. The most notable feature is that the knuckle controllers have finger tracking, and a refresh rate as high as 144Hz.
Then there's the wierdo in the house - the Oculus Quest. It isn't actually a PC VR headset - rather, it's more like a VR console that works without being plugged into a computer because it has its own onboard processor and battery pack. However, Oculus just announced a feature where you can plug the Oculus Quest into your PC and play PC VR games, essentially turning it into a Rift - potentially making the Rift S redundant. A new feature was also announced where the Quest can track your fingers/hands without holding a controller at all. We still don't really know how well these features will work yet, but so far, it's a great standalone device.
Overall:
Cheap n dirty second hand, but works pretty well: WMR, Oculus Rift CV1
Balanced price/perf: Rift S, Quest
I have money to burn: Valve Index
So I’m tossing up between the Rift S and Oculus for
My sons birthday present.
We don’t have a high end pc yet (but will for
Xmas)
I like the idea of the quest, but I like the wider array of game’s (steam) with the Rift and the quality…
I’m literally stumped
On which one to get.
Personally I didn't like the Rift S. I had one last week and returned it the next day. I bought it for Assetto Corsa Competizione, now I'm not sure if it's the game's fault for having poor VR optimization or the Rift S or my GPU (2070 Super coupled with a 3700X CPU) but the experience was a very poor one. Low resolutions were needed in order to play at a locked 80fps, ADW did not seem to help either. Add to that the screen door effect and I was very underwhelmed by it. I also tried it with I Expect You To Die and the Oculus apps that came with it when you make an account. To be brutally honest these games were no better than your average PSVR offerings. There was no breathtaking scenes or immersion, just a feeling that I had made a mistake. I returned it the next day and once Amazon refund me I'll be buying an Ultrawide 49" gaming monitor instead. I'll be waiting for the next generation of VR headsets before trying again, I'll also beef up my GPU to the best available before trying.
I have the Psvr and the kids love it. One of them just wants the pc one to get some games that aren’t on the PS
Not best bang for buck, but definitely according to my extensive research the best overall option.