Oculus Rift, buy or not?

[saremun]

Hi everyone!

If you are or was an Oculus Rift user then please i need your advice, I bought a computer which is VR ready and have been saving to buy the VR but iam kinda conflicted...

From your personal experience, is it worth it and why?, if Yes then what about the Resolution? because with my Geforce GTX 1060 6GB i can run the game on Ultra(needless to say its gorgeous) so how much difference in the res?

Or should i just save my money and wait?

Thank you!

 

[Heavenly-Hammer]

1060 might be okay, there are some posters using 970s with the Rift and have a good enough experience. 1070 would be a bit more ideal, but you have what you have.

I'd recommend buying from Amazon or Best Buy. Somewhere you can test it out for a few weeks to see if it's for you or not. If you're not happy with the performance and don't want to upgrade to a better GPU, just send it back for a full refund.

So my recommendation: Go for it...from a retailer that honors full and proper returns in case you're not happy.

 

[Arvel Yael]

Only hindsight and your own opinion will be able to say whether or not you consider it to be worth it. There are fors and againsts with the rift.
The pixel density in the rift displays is quite high, but not so high that everything is pin sharp. Text on your cockpit displays is perfectly legible, but everything is very slightly fuzzy around the edges. It's like looking at everything through a very slight fuzziness filter. Only a slight one, mind.

That said, I never play ED on the monitor any more. There's really something to be said for looking around the cockpit from the point of view of a pilot. The immersion is insane, you are in the cockpit, instead of looking at it on a screen.
If an enemy flies out of your field of view on the monitor you can pan around with buttons if you want, with the rift you can just turn your head. It's handy to have in dogfights.
And there's something to be said when you're on approach to a station and you can just gaze along the kilometers of armor plating and machinery...

The rift isn't perfect, but it still manages to be incredible. I posted my experiences on a thread here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/262969-Oh-my-(Rift-first-impressions) .

 

[MassiveD]

Hi everyone!

If you are or was an Oculus Rift user then please i need your advice, I bought a computer which is VR ready and have been saving to buy the VR but iam kinda conflicted...

From your personal experience, is it worth it and why?, if Yes then what about the Resolution? because with my Geforce GTX 1060 6GB i can run the game on Ultra(needless to say its gorgeous) so how much difference in the res?

Or should i just save my money and wait?

Thank you!

Try this:

https://vr.google.com/cardboard/

 

[Alex Brentnall]

As someone with the money that's tried VR on Elite at a recent event I'm very very torn and conflicted. Most of me is saying "take my money!" but theres a bit of logic poking my brain saying hold out the generation 2 is going to be phenomenal when it comes out.

You will notice a quality knock down but you won't care that much as you'll be enjoying the experience that much more. That having been said there will be times where it will frankly irritate you with text etc. It's tons better than it was in Devkit but no where near the level I'd like it, although I do have unrealistic expectations.

 

[saremun]

1060 might be okay, there are some posters using 970s with the Rift and have a good enough experience. 1070 would be a bit more ideal, but you have what you have.

I'd recommend buying from Amazon or Best Buy. Somewhere you can test it out for a few weeks to see if it's for you or not. If you're not happy with the performance and don't want to upgrade to a better GPU, just send it back for a full refund.

So my recommendation: Go for it...from a retailer that honors full and proper returns in case you're not happy.

Awesome man, didn't even think about that but thank you very much!

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Only hindsight and your own opinion will be able to say whether or not you consider it to be worth it. There are fors and againsts with the rift.
The pixel density in the rift displays is quite high, but not so high that everything is pin sharp. Text on your cockpit displays is perfectly legible, but everything is very slightly fuzzy around the edges. It's like looking at everything through a very slight fuzziness filter. Only a slight one, mind.

That said, I never play ED on the monitor any more. There's really something to be said for looking around the cockpit from the point of view of a pilot. The immersion is insane, you are in the cockpit, instead of looking at it on a screen.
If an enemy flies out of your field of view on the monitor you can pan around with buttons if you want, with the rift you can just turn your head. It's handy to have in dogfights.
And there's something to be said when you're on approach to a station and you can just gaze along the kilometers of armor plating and machinery...

The rift isn't perfect, but it still manages to be incredible. I posted my experiences on a thread here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/262969-Oh-my-(Rift-first-impressions) .

Yeah man will check that Topic right away, thank you very much!

 

[Drink!]

Not sure if it help, it worked great with my 980ti.

 

[MassiveD]

Isn't HTC Vive superior to Oculus tho?

I heard that it has incredibly high resolution, and sovles the pixel / fuzzyness bit that Oculus has?

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Isn't HTC Vive superior to Oculus tho?

I heard that it has incredibly high resolution, and sovles the pixel / fuzzyness bit that Oculus has?

Version I tried wasn't as comfortable though especially for long sessions that I usually play. The flexibility of the Oculus was the dealmaker for me. Vive definitely had it on the non-elite stuff at the time I got to try both out. Not sure how the hand controllers etc are on the rift now...

 

[StainlesSteelRat]

I play ED exclusively with the Rift, using a 970. It's amazing. Ignore comments like "very slight fuzziness".... You're IN the cockpit. If you played the original 80's version, with wire frame graphics.... You can live with the tiny drawbacks.

Couple this with a HOTAS and HCS voice pack and you've got yourself as close as you can get to piloting a spaceship in 2016.

Wait for 4K version VR? Nope. If, in my gaming career I would have always waited for the next best thing, I'd still be playing with my Vic20

 

[conceit]

Isn't HTC Vive superior to Oculus tho?

I heard that it has incredibly high resolution, and sovles the pixel / fuzzyness bit that Oculus has?

tl;dr: No. The resolution is the same. I've tried both and decided for Oculus. If the Vive was more comfortable I'd go for the Vive I think. But the Oculus does well, and it doesn't fell like I've taken a bad decision. Wouldn't want to play ED without a vr headset anymore.


Oculus:
+ far more comfortable
+ integrated headphone and mic (vive has mic only and earplugs)
+ better suited for sitting, classical gameplay
+ price
- "smearing" lenses (so called "god rays" from bright to dark contrast look like smear)
- bad bad bad software*, I mean, really...

Vive:
+ better suited for standing, moving (room scale vr)
+ integrated camera (see environment within vr)
+ done for Steam-VR
- uncomfortable to me
- lenses more blurry than Oculus' at the edges

Experiences: When I put on the Vive the first thing I said was "there's something wrong, the lenses are all blurry at the edges." I got used to it after a minute, than it was pretty okay. The Vive has some decent tracking with no issues, works like a charm, but after 10 minutes it started to feel uncomfortable because of it's balance, I think due to the larger and heavier lenses. I didn't play ED with it, sadly.

The Oculus' first impression is "we need to clean the lenses". But it's not smear you're seeing, it's a permanent problem with "god rays", based on the lighter and thinner fresnel lenses. You get used to it, but sometimes you wish it away. You only see this effect on bright colours on a very dark background. Elite is "okay" with that effect. Another thing is that with one sensor, position tracking is not absolutely exact when you turn 90° or 180°. Anyhow, the Oculus is by far more comfortable. I can play a few hours without a feeling of headache (due to the weight). And you can buy "room-scale vr" in december, which closes the gap to the Vive (also in terms of tracking precision when turn around).

* they don't let you install the software where you want... dynamically partitioned hard drives? f-off, customer. Won't work. Their download tool checks things like this as states "Check your internet connection" instead of the actual issue. You have to re-partition and reinstall. The "Oculus home" shop system is, well... you wouldn't want to buy software there, not that it had too much content at all. But you can use steam and steam vr with the oculus, but need to run "oculus home" before you start steam vr, so this doesn't help you with installation issues.

All said here based on opinion and experience.

 

[CAT-III]

Hi everyone!

is it worth it and why?

Thank you!

This was exactly the question which bothered me since Oculus CV1 and Vive came out! After spending quite some time about buying or not, I convinced myself and spent some money for the Rift and a new rig as well. I'm using the rift for 4 weeks now and I don't regret my decision.

I'll never ever go back to a screen again!!!!!!!!

Yes, the resolution is not as good as on the screen but the immersion factor compensates that by 1000x. The experience can't be described but for me it felt like sitting in front of Elite back in 1986 and suddenly I'm teleported into the 2016 version. Multiplay that feeling by 1000 and you get a rough impression how I felt.

From a hardware point of view I think you're good with your VR ready rig. My rift arrived a couple of days before my new PC and for sure I could not wait. My old PC was a 6 year old I7 with an GTX 780. Sure I had to turn down the graphics settings but with rifts spacewarp technology even on my old PC it was an unequaled experience.

Cheers CAT-III

 

[d8veh]

I tried the Oculus DK2. I gave up because I couldn't navigate or do anything else with the galaxy map. have they fixed that now?

 

[Additives]

I have both in the house (Oculus and Vive). First let me get this out of the way:

Both are totally fine options, especially if all you care about is Elite. I have had the game since beta and played on the DK1 Oculus and VR has been worth it the whole time for me so I'm a looong way from objective when it comes to if it is worth it or not.

AS for each, main pro's:

Oculus

*Lighter
*Higher pixel density in central area (what you look at right ahead of you is clearer, helps a lot for text)
*Easier to set up at a desk


Vive
*(in my opinion) the face padding is more comfortable. Offset by extra weight by a lot, so I would say if comfort in long sessions is your #1 factor, go rift, and if comfort in short sessions is #1 go Vive.
*Wider Field of View (more peripheral vision)
*Better tracking when permanently installed (base stations screwed to walls or otherwise mounted)
*More content
*Works SUPERBLY with steam and ED
*Desktop access via steamVR interface is godly
*Motions controllers for the Vive are better for general use IMO (also consumer Oculus controllers are still not available)
*Cables to the HMD are replaceable. I hope I can stress this as much as an intense dogfight strains the connection point. This is actually my biggest love for the Vive in a commercial setting, and something I hope to see from Oculus 2.0. Also the Vive cable is a bundle of standard cables and the Oculus one is proprietary, but I digress.

I personally use the Vive at the moment, mostly because I play in the lounge and I can lie on the couch with the Vive. I also overall prefer the higher FOV to the higher pixel density, which is a trade off.

SIDE NOTE:AS for the "Room scale" on Oculus, it works but not as well as the Vive. For people who have less than 2x2 m of clear space to use for VR it won't be a huge deal, but ultimately the Vive was allways intended to have room scale and the Rift wasn't, and it shows in a lot of things (track range, cable length, tracking method etc). Rift and Vive both work just fine for cheating the tracking into letting you stand on a planet though.

 

[sndle9]

I play ED exclusively with the Rift, using a 970. It's amazing. Ignore comments like "very slight fuzziness".... You're IN the cockpit. If you played the original 80's version, with wire frame graphics.... You can live with the tiny drawbacks.

Couple this with a HOTAS and HCS voice pack and you've got yourself as close as you can get to piloting a spaceship in 2016.

Wait for 4K version VR? Nope. If, in my gaming career I would have always waited for the next best thing, I'd still be playing with my Vic20

I concur with this. I went Vive instead of Rift because I wanted the room scale, but if you only want it for sit-down games then the rift is a better bet as its cheaper without the hand controllers you won't be using.

Supposedly (I've not personally compared them) the Rift has a slight edge on visuals as well as being less demanding on hardware although the latest Vive drivers are narrowing this gap.

Resolution wise, yes both are far less than a decent monitor and will look fuzzy to start with, but you quickly get used to this and once you have tweaked your setup to get the text legible (not that difficult), you really stop noticing it and just enjoy the game being taken to another level. Remember, you are IN you ship/SRV and can look around just as you can when you are in your RL car, its difficult to understand how much difference this makes until you experience it.

There is ALWAYS something better on the horizon and I had the same internal debate about waiting for the next release, then decided to take the plunge now and I'm very pleased I did. I'll upgrade to the Mk3 version in 5-6 years when computers are available to handle it.

My only negative is that I used to browse the web and watch TV while playing. That's not an option now without faffing around with overlay software, but I do become more involved with the game because of it.

BTW, Project Cars is pretty cool in VR too

 

[777Driver]

I tried the Oculus DK2. I gave up because I couldn't navigate or do anything else with the galaxy map. have they fixed that now?

It was never broken, you have to setup your HOTAS to fly through the galaxy map. Been using that method for nearly two years now, feels second nature.

I also use auto route plotting with Voice attack, very simple to setup. In my opinion VA is pretty much essential software for Virtual reality. Old video, demonstrates plotting in VR.

[video=youtube;VCEFowP-DII]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCEFowP-DII[/video]

 

[Scoopy Doopy]

I do agree that both the galaxy map and system map are much more convenient on a standard monitor but the first time you put your rift on in this game will just blow you away.

Forget the resolution drop, forget everything negative you have heard, these VR systems are unbelievable. Far better than I expected. Just take an Asp X out of a station and you will not for a moment regret your investment.

 

[Remmie]

Overall it's amazing to play with a headset, just from being able to look around. If you use one though I would highly recommend using a voice control method like VA, as not being able to see your controls can be a little confusing. I'm using the DK2 and my only issue is that I have to lean in towards some of the UI panels with smaller text because of the resolution, but I understand that the CV1 has a good enough resolution that it is no longer an issue.

If you can afford it i'd highly recommend it. As far as vive vs rift, from what i;be heard the rift is the better headset in terms of comfort, but the vive has room scale, which is something a lot of people want.

 

[conceit]

I tried the Oculus DK2. I gave up because I couldn't navigate or do anything else with the galaxy map. have they fixed that now?

This is not an issue if you're having your controls set up well.

 

[Knights of Nee]

The difference between a monitor or vr is similar to watching a concert on a 4k tv or being at the concert a bit away from the stage.
You dont get the sense of scale or immersion with the monitor.