Best VR Headset for ED?

Balmung

Balmung
I didn't played ED since a long time, so it was also a long time that i tried it in my Oculus Rift CV1, what i did 2 hours ago and pretty fast it was clear: that makes no fun at all with that really annoying godrays.

I follow VR daily, so I'm up to date what is on the market (i know HTC Cosmos was the last that came out after HP Reverb), but not what is good for ED.

So my main preference for the optics are in that order:

  • no or near no godrays when playing ED
  • a good sweetspot
  • much higher resolution than the Rift CV1
  • FoV shouldn't be smaller than the Rift CV1

What do you think would be the best VR HMD for me with that preferences?

The Valve Index is interesting for me, but as i heard it also have more godrays than other HMDs.
 

Gavin786

Gavin786
I got a cheap Dell Visor, it has no godrays at all(as far as I noticed). It is a really cheap headset, quite high resolution, I think comparable to the Index, and not many negatives to it. Definitely worth getting as a starter VR headset to get toe in the water. Problem with any Dell product not a PC is you will get zero support if something goes wrong(and I mean ZERO) so I am loathe to recommend Dell for that reason, there are the positives, there are the negatives. IF there is a problem with it and its past return date there is nothing you are going to be able to do about it, forget about RMA its just trash. So for the positives that is that negative, you roll the dice with it. If you can live with that, then its a good choice.

You also need a beefy graphics card and CPU that wont throttle it to do VR, dont believe what the spec sheet says I got a 1080 and it is only just barely able to do VR in Elite, I often get a drop to 45 fps. I have never been able to get the 90 even with overclocking and tweeking all the settings. I would want a 2080ti or 2080 super to be comfortable thru 2020 for VR in Elite, remembering they will likely buff graphics a lot in 2020 update.

CMDR Gavin786
 

Arioch

Arioch
Balmung said:
I didn't played ED since a long time, so it was also a long time that i tried it in my Oculus Rift CV1, what i did 2 hours ago and pretty fast it was clear: that makes no fun at all with that really annoying godrays.

I follow VR daily, so I'm up to date what is on the market (i know HTC Cosmos was the last that came out after HP Reverb), but not what is good for ED.

So my main preference for the optics are in that order:

  • no or near no godrays when playing ED
  • a good sweetspot
  • much higher resolution than the Rift CV1
  • FoV shouldn't be smaller than the Rift CV1
What do you think would be the best VR HMD for me with that preferences?

The Valve Index is interesting for me, but as i heard it also have more godrays than other HMDs.
Click to expand...
I side-graded to the Rift S from the CV1 - hardly any god rays, crisper image, bigger sweetspot and same FoV. Inside-out tracking is a bonus for other games where even my three-sensor CV1 set up had the occasional controller blind spot, though not really an issue for Elite.

Downsides are worse sound and slightly more muted colours. Black levels aren’t as good as my CV1 set to RGB full-range, more like when it was set to limited.

I’ve got used to the lack of bass (Windows tweaks have helped) and actually now prefer the comfort option of being able to scratch my ear ‘oles without shifting headphones.
 

Maltloaf

M
Very happy Lenovo Explorer user here, I'm not sure it can be beaten for the money. I got it last Black Friday for £150 and have got around 400 hours of Elite in it since then. Minimal god rays and SDE due to clever use of the settings. A decent FOV and only two cables. I use it with a gaming headset. To get better I'd have to spend at least 4 times more. I have tried a Oculus CV1 and the resolution is better than that, and so is the sweet spot and FOV because of some padding swapping. The only negative I found was blacks aren't very black and they don't seem very durable. Mine is on it's way to lenovo right now for a broken hinge and dead pixels, but having had 500+ hours out of it, it really doesn't owe me anything.
 

Wildcat67

Wildcat67
I went from CV1 to HP Reverb, and would very much recommend it. No headset is perfect at the moment, but the step change in resolution is so important for ED. It is also very comfortable for long sessions, as the headset is very light. I'd get an Index or Rift S for roomscale though, as the Reverb cable is quite heavy.
 

Balmung

Balmung
Thanks for the answers. On WMR only the HP Reverb is interesting enough for me, the other once are not a big step forward compared to my Oculus Rift CV1 and WMR have some downsites as well like the only 2 camera tracking. Also "cheap" is not so really important.
Rift S sounds not that bad, because of much lesser godrays and better sweetspot, but it has it's downsite as well, only LCD, only 80Hz and the Soundsystem. I don't know if it would feels for me enough as an upgrade. Badly i don't know where i could try the HMD out.

Arioch said:
I side-graded to the Rift S from the CV1 - hardly any god rays, crisper image, bigger sweetspot and same FoV. Inside-out tracking is a bonus for other games where even my three-sensor CV1 set up had the occasional controller blind spot, though not really an issue for Elite.

Downsides are worse sound and slightly more muted colours. Black levels aren’t as good as my CV1 set to RGB full-range, more like when it was set to limited.

I’ve got used to the lack of bass (Windows tweaks have helped) and actually now prefer the comfort option of being able to scratch my ear ‘oles without shifting headphones.
Click to expand...
Rift S sounds not that bad, because of much lesser godrays and better sweetspot, but it would be also a downgrade, only LCD, only 80Hz and the Soundsystem. I don't know if it would feels for me enough as an upgrade. Badly i don't know where i could try the HMD out.

Tejat said:
I went from CV1 to HP Reverb, and would very much recommend it. No headset is perfect at the moment, but the step change in resolution is so important for ED. It is also very comfortable for long sessions, as the headset is very light. I'd get an Index or Rift S for roomscale though, as the Reverb cable is quite heavy.
Click to expand...
The HP Reverb sounds good, but i heard it's LCD have some problems with clouding, not well consistent lighting on Pixels. How much is this a problem?
 

Arioch

Arioch
Balmung said:
...Rift S sounds not that bad, because of much lesser godrays and better sweetspot, but it would be also a downgrade, only LCD, only 80Hz and the Soundsystem. I don't know if it would feels for me enough as an upgrade. Badly i don't know where i could try the HMD out...
Click to expand...
I haven’t been able to perceive the loss of 10Hz with the Rift S, and as for the loss of the deep blacks & colour intensity, I dropped the game gamma down 2 notches and upped the HUD brightness up 2 notches and I’ve been happy with that.

The exchange for a crisper screen has been worth it, it’s a bit like increasing the game HMD quality setting from 1.0 up to between 1.25 & 1.50

I’m looking forward to trying out a tethered Oculus Quest when the update hits next month, OLED and a higher resolution screen :)
 

Balmung

Balmung
@Tejat

Good to know, thanks.

@Arioch

Right, the Quest is another option, but i heard the Link cable have also some downsides, so latency should be higher and I'm very sensitive to VR sickness. That is also the reason why I didn't like the 80Hz on Rift S, for Users like me more Hz are important, not lesser. And the Quest have only 72Hz...

I don't know if a other Oculus would be a good choose for me, to be honest I didn't like Facebook that much, so again a Oculus would be only the last choose for me and no Choose for a true VR 2.0 HMD.

@All

At the moment I also think about a Pimax Headset because of the wider field of view. So I watch right now a video review about it and you could adjust the FoV in 3 steps and even the smallest is with 120° wider than any other VR HMD. But I need to look what are the downside of that HMD are. Did anyone play with a Pimax ED here? Will search in the forum for it.

At the end i don't use the VR HMD not only for ED, but ED is an important game for me.
 

Wildcat67

Wildcat67
Balmung said:
@Tejat

Good to know, thanks.

@Arioch

Right, the Quest is another option, but i heard the Link cable have also some downsides, so latency should be higher and I'm very sensitive to VR sickness. That is also the reason why I didn't like the 80Hz on Rift S, for Users like me more Hz are important, not lesser. And the Quest have only 72Hz...

I don't know if a other Oculus would be a good choose for me, to be honest I didn't like Facebook that much, so again a Oculus would be only the last choose for me and no Choose for a true VR 2.0 HMD.

@All

At the moment I also think about a Pimax Headset because of the wider field of view. So I watch right now a video review about it and you could adjust the FoV in 3 steps and even the smallest is with 120° wider than any other VR HMD. But I need to look what are the downside of that HMD are. Did anyone play with a Pimax ED here? Will search in the forum for it.

At the end i don't use the VR HMD not only for ED, but ED is an important game for me.
Click to expand...
The new pimax headsets, coming out in ~December, loom really good. However, I think it would require a monster PC to run ED at a decent frame rate in them. Higher resolution plus higher FOV really needs foviated rendering.
 
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aXeL

A
Tejat said:
The new pimax headsets, coming out in ~December, loom really good. However, I think it would require a monster PC to run ED at a decent frame rate in them. Higher resolution plus higher FOV really needs foviated rendering.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. Games in my Reverb have far better fps than compared with my O+ because I can turn off SS. The O+ really needed all that extra compute work to get a 'tolerable' picture unlike the Reverb but that's just my view.
 

Balmung

Balmung
Yeah, also you didn't need to use the full FoV. I heard that even the FoV on "small" (there are 3 settings) in the PiTool is with 120° wider than any other VR HMD. And even the middle Setting (150°) gives already much more FPS.

But the next years there will also be new graphic cards with more power. So someday you can use the 8K X with SS and full FoV even in ED.


About my decision: i think i will use after all the Rift S because of his better sweetspot, the HP Reverb sounds like it have a similar sweetspot than my Rift. And than i will collect some money over the next months and look what is coming out in 2020.

On the PC side i have not so much problems, i7 8700K on 4,9Ghz with a Asus Strix RTX 2080 OC Card. That should be enough.
 

heman86

H
i would go with the index. had a og vive before and the index is a really nice step up. what i hated the most on the vive was the screendoor effect and thats a lot bettter with the index. its also more comfortable and has up the 144hz.
 

moonsword

moonsword
Pimax 5k RX,
I use it everyday.
perhaps I will decrease the fow today to see how big the performance gain will get, because for 210 degree you’ve to turn your eyes so much to the side that you normally don’t do it.
no gods in game, very sharp picture but not comparable to a good monitor, no lag, except the microfreezes I get now since some ED updates on the monitor as well, flying on a 1080ti system. Bought mine second handed for 1050€, including 2 Vive boxes, 2 Vive controllers and the new Vive head attachment.
 
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A D

A D
So basically no headset is perfect yet. Seems even the latest in VR tech is still lacking. I can't wait until someone manages to bring all of the good parts of VR into one device. That will be a red letter day. :)
 

heman86

H
for the perfect vr headset you will probably have to wait 15-20 more years. but even with this "lacking" generation its still the best gaming experience you can have.
 

A D

A D
Yep. Play ED in VR because it is one of the best VR experiences ATM, but hope you are wrong about the 15-20 year thingy :oops:
 

Meresiga

Meresiga
Balmung said:
So my main preference for the optics are in that order:

  • no or near no godrays when playing ED
  • a good sweetspot
  • much higher resolution than the Rift CV1
  • FoV shouldn't be smaller than the Rift CV1
What do you think would be the best VR HMD for me with that preferences?
Click to expand...

I have two helmets: Rift CV1 and Rift S. These two helmets I once bought exclusively for the game Elite Dangerous. All that you have listed in your wishes - is in the S helmet.
 
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