best headset for ed

[waynelovell]

ok i have a dk2 and a gtx 1070 i love the dk2 that much i want a better one im just not sure what to get im looking at

windows mixed reality headsets looks very good but the few reviews i have seen says it fogs up very fast

oculus rift i love the dk2 i just dont know how much better it is then the dk2

last but not lest the pimax 4k this thing is getting alot better with updates

 

[Wasp0]

A lot more educated people than me will answer this post Wayne, but for me i did the usual research, read the reviews, most of them on this very forum section and plumed very firmly for the Rift. Not sure if the offer is still on, but if it is Grab the bargain of the summer and get a rift!

As you asked this is for ED, and i reply as if only for ED!!

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

For me over all the rift edges it as the best hmd (if you buy the 3rd camera). Really not much in it tho both have pros and cons

Just purely for ED however the rift is a fairly easy win imo

 

[Strife]

I have read the windows mixed headsets have a FOV of 95, plus when you consider it fast consider how hard it is to render a 2d windows desktop. For ED your gfx will still need to produce a resolution supported by the headset and it seems minimum requirements on those new higher res headsets are due to less demanding use.

Cant comment on the cv1

The pimax 4k is good, but I would be watching the 8k closely, with the 8k there is no SDE, it has a FOV of 200 degrees, it has positional tracking, it has controllers, it is compatible with both vive and rift apps/games.
The main reason I would skip the 4k for the 8k is lack of positional tracking, don't get me wrong for the price the 4k gives a great experience but it seems the 8k will bring the best of all and eliminate SDE entirely.

I have the vive and the 4k, I want the 8k. The question I have is, back the kickstarter and get a discount early bird price or wait and see how it all pans out!

 

[Flapdrol1337]

I used a dk2 for a while, when oculus had the summer sale I jumped on it. Not really tried one of the other headsets.

The cv1 has a ~27% higher resolution and a slightly smaller fov, so it's a lot easier to read text on the side panels.
dk2 had these purple-ish artifacts when moving your head quickly in dark scenes, cv1 has glare in high contrast scenes due to the fresnel lenses.
cv1 has a 90hz refreshrate instead of 75, it's more fluent but also requires more from your pc.
cv1 tracking is better, dk2 would lose tracking if I looked too far to the side/behind, cv1 never loses tracking.
cv1 is more comfortable and can actually be adjusted.
cv1 has headphones and a mic, though I don't use them (don't want to retrain speech recognition with oculus mic)
cv1 has the motion controllers which are required for a lot of the (free) content in the store like google earth and oculus medium.

Now that oculus has raised the price again you might as well wait for the windows mixed reality stuff imo. Cheaper and higher res.

 

[waynelovell]

i want the windows mixed reality to be good so bad just for the fact that it has less wires i like to pack stuff away after use but from what i have seen the screen fog is that bad he could not use it but that was the hp one and i think there are 4 comming out

 

[waynelovell]

I used a dk2 for a while, when oculus had the summer sale I jumped on it. Not really tried one of the other headsets.

The cv1 has a ~27% higher resolution and a slightly smaller fov, so it's a lot easier to read text on the side panels.
dk2 had these purple-ish artifacts when moving your head quickly in dark scenes, cv1 has glare in high contrast scenes due to the fresnel lenses.
cv1 has a 90hz refreshrate instead of 75, it's more fluent but also requires more from your pc.
cv1 tracking is better, dk2 would lose tracking if I looked too far to the side/behind, cv1 never loses tracking.
cv1 is more comfortable and can actually be adjusted.
cv1 has headphones and a mic, though I don't use them (don't want to retrain speech recognition with oculus mic)
cv1 has the motion controllers which are required for a lot of the (free) content in the store like google earth and oculus medium.

Now that oculus has raised the price again you might as well wait for the windows mixed reality stuff imo. Cheaper and higher res.

my dk2 i love the thing i got a gtx 1070 and i got the hmd set to 1.75 and ss in steamvr set to 2 i can read all the text and so far the tracking has not let me down

 

[CylonSurfer]

Based on performance alone then the Oculus Rift. ASW leaves the other HMD's behind by a long stretch, you'll need it to maintain high visuals and super sampling if your not using a GTX1080 or above. Minus the god rays, the CV1 is a much better device than the DK2 - I have played Elite on all of the Oculus devices, DK1 through to CV1.

If you look at price point, then again the Rift comes out on top.

Forget about the Windows Mixed Reality devices for the time being, they are yet to support SteamVR so playing Elite on one is not yet possible. Even when they are SteamVR compatible they'll likely not perform as well as the Rift due to SteamVRs lack of a ASW equivlent. Hopefully Valve will get around to updating ASR at some point.

 

[mp4x]

I have both an Oculus and Vive, I tend to favor my Vive. The contrast and colour depth of the Vive, for me, is greater than the extra 'sharpness' of the Oculus. To me it just looks better. In the Oculus, the background environment looks like a DivX encoded (700mb) movie 'backup' copy. In the vive, it looks like endless darkness with clouds of colour that seep into the background naturally and beautifully.

 

[waynelovell]

I have both an Oculus and Vive, I tend to favor my Vive. The contrast and colour depth of the Vive, for me, is greater than the extra 'sharpness' of the Oculus. To me it just looks better. In the Oculus, the background environment looks like a DivX encoded (700mb) movie 'backup' copy. In the vive, it looks like endless darkness with clouds of colour that seep into the background naturally and beautifully.

the only thing that puts me off with the Vive is the price

 

[waynelovell]

Based on performance alone then the Oculus Rift. ASW leaves the other HMD's behind by a long stretch, you'll need it to maintain high visuals and super sampling if your not using a GTX1080 or above. Minus the god rays, the CV1 is a much better device than the DK2 - I have played Elite on all of the Oculus devices, DK1 through to CV1.

If you look at price point, then again the Rift comes out on top.

Forget about the Windows Mixed Reality devices for the time being, they are yet to support SteamVR so playing Elite on one is not yet possible. Even when they are SteamVR compatible they'll likely not perform as well as the Rift due to SteamVRs lack of a ASW equivlent. Hopefully Valve will get around to updating ASR at some point.

i think i need to find a place to test one out i want to see how much better the rift is compared to the dk2

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I have read the windows mixed headsets have a FOV of 95, plus when you consider it fast consider how hard it is to render a 2d windows desktop. For ED your gfx will still need to produce a resolution supported by the headset and it seems minimum requirements on those new higher res headsets are due to less demanding use.

Cant comment on the cv1

The pimax 4k is good, but I would be watching the 8k closely, with the 8k there is no SDE, it has a FOV of 200 degrees, it has positional tracking, it has controllers, it is compatible with both vive and rift apps/games.
The main reason I would skip the 4k for the 8k is lack of positional tracking, don't get me wrong for the price the 4k gives a great experience but it seems the 8k will bring the best of all and eliminate SDE entirely.

I have the vive and the 4k, I want the 8k. The question I have is, back the kickstarter and get a discount early bird price or wait and see how it all pans out!

The 8k looks cool and as you already have a vive you have the tracking system. Is it low persistence tho? I have never used the pimax but read it's not low persistence is that true.

The ms headsets are interesting. Inside out tracking I hope is the future but do you want to trust an unknown when you have established players. Esp as it's MS. They are worse than Sony for abandoning new tech if it does not take of fast enough (ie kinect, windows phone and zune).

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

i think i need to find a place to test one out i want to see how much better the rift is compared to the dk2

Defo check one out. As an ex dk2 owner I can say cv1 has little improvements across the board with the biggest step up being reduced sde (not perfect tho)

 

[TorTorden_VR]

The 8k looks cool and as you already have a vive you have the tracking system. Is it low persistence tho? I have never used the pimax but read it's not low persistence is that true.

The ms headsets are interesting. Inside out tracking I hope is the future but do you want to trust an unknown when you have established players. Esp as it's MS. They are worse than Sony for abandoning new tech if it does not take of fast enough (ie kinect, windows phone and zune).

I'm fairly certain the next rift will be inside out tracking as well.
For non AR stuff it doesn't really need to pass an actual video feed, just figure out where it's moving and passing that tracking data to the pc, like an optical mice has done for decades.

 

[Brandon31]

I used a dk2 for a while, when oculus had the summer sale I jumped on it. Not really tried one of the other headsets.

The cv1 has a ~27% higher resolution and a slightly smaller fov, so it's a lot easier to read text on the side panels.
dk2 had these purple-ish artifacts when moving your head quickly in dark scenes, cv1 has glare in high contrast scenes due to the fresnel lenses.
cv1 has a 90hz refreshrate instead of 75, it's more fluent but also requires more from your pc.
cv1 tracking is better, dk2 would lose tracking if I looked too far to the side/behind, cv1 never loses tracking.
cv1 is more comfortable and can actually be adjusted.
cv1 has headphones and a mic, though I don't use them (don't want to retrain speech recognition with oculus mic)
cv1 has the motion controllers which are required for a lot of the (free) content in the store like google earth and oculus medium.

Now that oculus has raised the price again you might as well wait for the windows mixed reality stuff imo. Cheaper and higher res.

Just a note on the reference to the microphone here, and my personal experience was - I went from a headset mic over to the Oculus Rift mic and had no problems at all without retraining speech, that is using Voice Attack. The oculus mic works fine, but I would prefer my own headphones as I find for ED usage fully enclosed headsets help with the magic of immersion. I hate to hear the dog barking, the kids crying, the missus moaning, and other background white noise whilst trying to thread my Clipper through the mail-slot.

 

[Lordxenu]

I have a pimax 4k with Nolo hand controllers. For me this is as near to perfect as I think I can get I had a HDK 2 which was the same resolution as the CV1 (thats a razr HDK 2 not a DK 2 before someone corrects me!). All headsets at the moment have trade off so the CV1, HDK 2 and vive all suffer from screen door effect (where you can see the gaps between the pixels. The CV1 and Vive handle tracking very well - the HDK 2 is basically rubbish for tracking / software / most things.

The Pimax has the best resolution (no screen door effect) but suffers from ghosting (seeing the same image twice when you move your head)

Personally screen door effect is a killer for me but I can live with ghosting. For others ghosting would be a big no-no.

Ultimately the biggest issue with VR is that they're not exactly try before you buy so you have to make a decision and live with it. If you want one that you can be comfortable gives the best all round performance (as agreed by the marketplace) your options are CV1 or Vive. If you want to see what is possible (with different downsides) try the pimax. The pimax appears cheaper but once you add the cost of Nolo (which you'll need for a comparable experience) there isn't much, if anything in it.

 

[loribee]

I was one of the few that Pimax inadvertently sent "BE" headsets out to .. While it's not 4k, its still got higher resolution than the Vive or Rift (which makes a difference I feel with clarity of text this game puts on the screen) and it's got a higher refresh rate than the 4k. It's a shame you cannot request those from Pimax intentionally, as I think it's a great headset for gaming. For me, the pro's definitely outweigh the cons of a lower base resolution.

And you're right, they keep on working on the driver and the initial gyro drift issues that I had have now all but been eliminated for me.

I am super excited about the upcoming 8k headset ..

 

[Strife]

The 8k looks cool and as you already have a vive you have the tracking system. Is it low persistence tho? I have never used the pimax but read it's not low persistence is that true.

Yes that is true, you are getting what you pay for.

EDIT: This is one reason why i'm torn between getting the early bird kickstarter discount or waiting for the delivery and reviews.
Will the 8k address the 4k shortcomings, resulting in something that has the best of all without the SDE, big ask, hard to believe, I want it.

 

[VR Cmdr Paine]

I have both an Oculus and Vive, I tend to favor my Vive. The contrast and colour depth of the Vive, for me, is greater than the extra 'sharpness' of the Oculus. To me it just looks better. In the Oculus, the background environment looks like a DivX encoded (700mb) movie 'backup' copy. In the vive, it looks like endless darkness with clouds of colour that seep into the background naturally and beautifully.

+1 from me,
I too now have both headsets and in the Rift it just feels so dull brightness and contrast wise and has greyish blacks compared to the deep blacks and vivid colours in the Vive so much that I thought the rift was faulty at first, let alone the loss of FOV especially in the Vertical, It really isn't worth the small boost in pixel density and comfort the Rift offers. (Disclaimer I use the DAS on the Vive)

TBH I brought the Rift in the summer sale expecting to be impressed and have been left slightly underwhelmed i would say,
All of which means the Vive is still my go to headset for ED and racing sims too.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

+1 from me,
I too now have both headsets and in the Rift it just feels so dull brightness and contrast wise and has greyish blacks compared to the deep blacks and vivid colours in the Vive so much that I thought the rift was faulty at first, let alone the loss of FOV especially in the Vertical, It really isn't worth the small boost in pixel density and comfort the Rift offers. (Disclaimer I use the DAS on the Vive)

TBH I brought the Rift in the summer sale expecting to be impressed and have been left slightly underwhelmed i would say,
All of which means the Vive is still my go to headset for ED and racing sims too.

If you are feeling up to it I recommend trying to disable the applied spud setting.
https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/6tca7t/why_you_may_need_to_disable_spud_oled_mura/

Doing this for me has transformed the black levels and honestly present significantly less panel noise than what I get normally.
This of course varies with each rift since no panel are the same as another, and this goes double for oled.

Black levels for me is now proper black and I can for instance leave gamma at half instead of decreasing it as low as can go.