I wanted a better headset than my Rift, and in the end the choice came down to the Rift S or the HP Reverb. I wouldn't have minded paying the extra money for the Reverb, but I balked at the price of the top-end gaming computer I would have had to buy to run it, whereas the whole point of the Rift S is that if your rig will run the Rift, it'll run the Rift S; so it was the safe choice.
Safe! Hah!
As a headset it did more or less what I was expecting: a mild improvement in resolution. This did have its downsides - aliasing was more pronounced, and the better lenses meant that in some places the screen door effect was more rather than less noticeable (especially on the destination target symbol and text), though the "mesh" size was definitely smaller.
On the other hand, in a CZ I felt that ships were now more than just vague blobs in the distance, and the game generally looked that bit better. So from a performance point of view I'd call myself unenthusiastically satisfied.
What was not in any way satisfying was the Rift S's capacity for destroying my Windows USB drivers. The third time I started my computer after installing the Rift S my mouse and keyboard didn't work: I couldn't get logged into Windows. I was able (after some online research) to sort this out by accessing Advanced Startup and using a Restore Point to get my USB drivers back, but it was not a fun experience.
I thought this might have happened because I hadn't unplugged the Rift's lighthouses when I installed the Rift S. So I did so and tried again. I got a good long gaming session out of the Rift S then shut my computer down. When I tried to start it again next morning, my USB drivers were gone again. I unplugged the Rift S, applied the same solution, then for good measure did a complete reinstall of Windows (I wasn't sure the drivers weren't corrupted at the restore point - I couldn't remember whether it was set before or after I first installed the Rift S).
My online research indicated that USB problems are not unknown for the Rift S, though I didn't see a description of my particular problem. At any rate, two near-bricking incidents are beyond the limits of my tolerance for hardware shenanigans, so back it goes.
The tracking issue - the inside-out tracking worked really well for me on the Rift S's first outing. But on the second, it became intolerably jerky. When I was trying to figure out why it occurred to me that I'd moved my wireless phone handset and cradle while plugging and unplugging things from the computer after the first driver disappearance, and it was now sitting next to my keyboard. The dull grey LCD might not look like much to me, but what did it look like to the Rift S's cameras? A flickering distraction, perhaps? So I took the handset off the cradle and placed it face down on the desk, and Lo! Tracking perfection restored.
Not that this matters, because the Rift S is going back. Can't run a modern computer without USB drivers.
Oh well.
Safe! Hah!
As a headset it did more or less what I was expecting: a mild improvement in resolution. This did have its downsides - aliasing was more pronounced, and the better lenses meant that in some places the screen door effect was more rather than less noticeable (especially on the destination target symbol and text), though the "mesh" size was definitely smaller.
On the other hand, in a CZ I felt that ships were now more than just vague blobs in the distance, and the game generally looked that bit better. So from a performance point of view I'd call myself unenthusiastically satisfied.
What was not in any way satisfying was the Rift S's capacity for destroying my Windows USB drivers. The third time I started my computer after installing the Rift S my mouse and keyboard didn't work: I couldn't get logged into Windows. I was able (after some online research) to sort this out by accessing Advanced Startup and using a Restore Point to get my USB drivers back, but it was not a fun experience.
I thought this might have happened because I hadn't unplugged the Rift's lighthouses when I installed the Rift S. So I did so and tried again. I got a good long gaming session out of the Rift S then shut my computer down. When I tried to start it again next morning, my USB drivers were gone again. I unplugged the Rift S, applied the same solution, then for good measure did a complete reinstall of Windows (I wasn't sure the drivers weren't corrupted at the restore point - I couldn't remember whether it was set before or after I first installed the Rift S).
My online research indicated that USB problems are not unknown for the Rift S, though I didn't see a description of my particular problem. At any rate, two near-bricking incidents are beyond the limits of my tolerance for hardware shenanigans, so back it goes.
The tracking issue - the inside-out tracking worked really well for me on the Rift S's first outing. But on the second, it became intolerably jerky. When I was trying to figure out why it occurred to me that I'd moved my wireless phone handset and cradle while plugging and unplugging things from the computer after the first driver disappearance, and it was now sitting next to my keyboard. The dull grey LCD might not look like much to me, but what did it look like to the Rift S's cameras? A flickering distraction, perhaps? So I took the handset off the cradle and placed it face down on the desk, and Lo! Tracking perfection restored.
Not that this matters, because the Rift S is going back. Can't run a modern computer without USB drivers.
Oh well.
