There is a general VR chinwag tread for all other VR stuff and a Quest specific thread, but this is more like the Build Your Own PC thread. It should answer questions about costs, space required and the different types of VR experiences available.

The Two Directions of VR

Put simply, PC or mobile. The Oculus Quest is the first bold step towards portable VR and it does a fair job of it. But it is only fair, and with new headsets 2.0 coming out from the likes of Valve, the level of immersion and "presence" felt is about to take a step up from gen1 headsets. The cost difference between the two is considerable and a tethered experience is going to be a significant investment. Oddly, both Oculus and Valve are selling their headsets at (if not actual then near) cost price but for different reasons. It's possible they're even making a loss so in some respects it's fair value, it's just that value doesn't mean cheap. I'll not cover Sony VR here but it is excellent, although it might be worth holding out for the PS5 now.  

I'll cover them in turn.

Portable VR

Which for now means The Quest. No competition here, The Quest is the best quality and best value portable proposition in town. Their plan for social media VR domination means no other companies can compete so I doubt any will try. It costs £400 for the 64GB version and £500 for 128GB. The lack of a tether should not be overlooked - this is free roam movement and can feel liberating compared to the wire of a PC tether and is absolutely the future of VR. 

It is a self-contained unit meaning it's basically like a console. It can connect to the PC for remote access and apps like Virtual Desktop via wifi, and even use Xpad to play PC games remotely, but it's gimmicky and the main reason for Quest are the Quest games and VR experiences.

You'll need an area at least big enough to swing you arms about and take a step or two in each direction, but this might increase as the devs make more complicated games. Luckily, lack of tether means you can play with it in the park/garden/gym/office, just be aware wifi is required for some stuff like multiplayer.

It's powered by a mobile cpu and is obviously not as powerful as PC VR. Now it may seem like 64GB isn't much but it should do. The games are fairly lightweight and short experiences so the memory should not be an issue. Some install sizes here. That doesn't mean they're poor games but expect low textures and shorter experiences. Fairly arcadey probably sums it up. 

It's slightly front heavy but it's only designed to be played for 10 mins or an hour or so. Face shape is important and some people will find it comfy enough while others may not, although if you're only playing it in brief sessions then it should be fine for all. It's also why 70 Hz and lower quality graphics aren't that important. It's about the experience of VR and that alone can be a wonderful thing, just don't expect to be playing any AAA titles on it. Some Oculus Rift games have been trimmed down for the Quest and are availible on the Oculus store. It's up to the developers if they charge you for the same game on The Quest. Some of your library as a Rift owner can be downloaded again for Quest for free.

It should be mentioned that Facebook bought Oculus for $3 billion when they were a start up company. This didn't go down well with investors but it's unimportant now. What is important is the roadmap. The Quest is cost price for a reason and that is to get you invested in the Oculus platform. You don't need to log into FB but that could change. Multiplayer for example might require it in the future. Oculus are spending a pretty penny developing games specifically for the Oculus ecosystem and in future iterations of Oculus headsets you should be able to keep your library of games, but will those sets require mandatory FB integration? It's not an insignificant issue and for now it's largely FB-free but make no mistake, this is Facebook's vision for the future and when you've experienced multiplayer VR you'll start to appreciate why. The sense of being physically near someone is powerful, as can be witnessed in the opening lobby bit in this clip of a multiplayer Vive game (keep watching all of the lobby bit).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GM2AvCN3RQ

It can be genuinely freaky even though you only see their head and hands. It's also awesome. 

They've also brought out a tethered hmd called the Oculus Rift S but it's a half-hearted effort to appease the original PC Rift kickstarter adopters. It's a pretty poor attempt and suggests they're already relegating PC VR in favour of mobile, as you'd expect from a social media company. 

Here's a full and detailed Quest review.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4T71x7wvO0


PC VR

My bias will come to the fore properly in this section. There's a few of flavours of PC VR and it can seem initially complicated. There's wireless, there's tracking that requires additional setup in the play area and tracking that doesn't. There's differing controllers and different ways to implement those controls. Huge, medium and small field of view, sometimes on the same headset. It seems intimidating at first. 

All PC VR needs a beefy PC. I would say that means at least a 1080/2070 and that's currently about £450 for the GPU alone. Total cost of a good VR PC is over £850 not including a monitor. Now this might seem like a lot but you'll be joining the master race and PC gaming can be cheap once you've got past the initial hardware costs. No internet subscription bullshit and ridiculous game prices during Steam sales etc. Plus you oly need to upgrade rather than buy a whole new thing. Now this might seem like a lot to shell out for the current VR gen but it might be enough for future gens too. VR gaming is set to use solutions that reduce the GPU power needed by using techniques like foveated rendering (The Quest actually uses it but without the eye tracking, just the pixels in the middle of the vision).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNX0wCdD2LA

Now this means you might not need a new GPU for a while but you'll still need to buy a new headset. But which headset should you buy in space year 2019?

Valve Index

It's hard not to start with Valve. Valve have been at the forefront of the current VR resurgence and helped Oculus get on their feet by sharing R&D, and if I was going to make a single recommendation for a headset it'd be the upcoming Valve Index, and it's not even out yet. 

Here's a slightly biased look at the history of Oculus and Valve and Valve's upcoming headset.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ1jyNF0cR0

If rumours are to be believed the headset is selling for cost, and well they should. Valve's interest is Steam sales of VR games and a 30% cut. Steam has turned Gabe Newell into a multi-billionaire so yeah, they're focused on pushing global PC game sales and VR is the perfect medium to get people into the Steam ecosytem, but what a lovely thing it is. Steam is awesome for various reasons but a big one is Linux integration. The Index doesn't even require Windows, just PC hardware and Linux and I love that. Fuck you subscription year 2019. I like to own my shit forever. Valve never had plans to go into selling hardware (see vid), just research, but events kind of forced their hand.

Now the total Index system is £1000, including the fancy new controllers (not required) and you can buy much cheaper solutions, but is it worth it? 

The single biggest problem VR has right now is comfort and this is what Valve aims to address. If VR is going to go mainstream then it's important to be able to wear the headset for a couple of hours or more. Until this addressed there will be no AAA games, and I'm not just talking about physical comfort. Yes it's apparently got the most comfy fit of any headset by a country mile, no expense spared etc, but it's not just about that. It's the sensory discomfort, and the best way to address this is to make the best and most realistic VR experience. It's hard to explain but sensory dicomfort seems to get worse over time. I've had my Vive for a year or two and it's great in many ways but like all VR it has major problems that at first seem small things. 

The slightly claustrophobic field of view, having to focus by turning to look at something directly because the focus sweet spot is small, the heat on your face and mist on the lenses, the slightly queasy feeling you get for reasons like framerate and ghosting, the blur you get when you move your face to look - some people say they don't notice the difference between a 60Hz and 120 Hz monitor but in VR everything is heightened. Combined with the constant pressure on the same parts of your face and it can be very uncomfortable indeed. It's a genuine relief to come out.

It turns out the way to solve these problems is to have better tracking, better fidelity, better materials, better framerates, the increased field of view, better physical comfort. And they've used some smart decisions to do this. While the resolution has been increased, the perceived resolution and visual clarity has been greatly increased. They've used panels with a different sub-pixel layout and smaller gaps between the pixels that are there. They've used a stacked lens design so you can look around with your eyes and things are clear without having to turn your head to focus only the part in the small middle sweet spot, and they've done it without the need to significantly upgrade your PC. The specs are the same as for the original Vive and a 1080 should be absolutely fine, even at the 120Hz refresh rate this thing has.

Lower pixel persistance alone is a huge issue (who knew?).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqgKQgzX7Sg

The upshot of all this is a better overall VR experience, that is, a more realistic experience. The Index has focused on making a headset that can play AAA games, which is handy and non-coincidental because they're bringing out 3 full AAA games. The first one is due this year and they've been working on them for the past 3 years. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGjCVgN6OfY&t=227s

Now the full reviews are yet to hit, but the devs seem to love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpWCOT4XnRY

The best bit is it makes VR more real - the sense you are really there is magnified, and this is the kind of VR that floats my boat. Elite Dangerous, flight sims, these are the games I want to get lost in. 

Now it should be said that you don't need to buy the Index controllers just yet, and the cost of the headset and basestations (Valve's tracking solution) is £750. Valve has developed it's own propietry tracking solution which it licences for free, which means I can use the lighthouses from the original Vive and can get away with just £500 for the headset. It should be noted that for full roomscale you need to set up two lighthouses that plug in to sockets although you can just a put a single one on the PC desk for stuff like sims. It's a pain the Windows headsets don't have but it's by far the most accurate of the solutions and when set up properly have no blind spots unlike the Oculus solutions. 

If you have a dedicated space it's not an issue but if you're using the family living room it might be.

https://www.vrheads.com/least-painful-way-set-htc-vive-lighthouses

It seems though Valve are commited to this and once you buy a pair you can use them on future iterations of headset, just like I will with my old Vive ones. The controllers look cool af but they aren't neccesary just yet, and Valve have even said they aren't required for their upcoming games. They are a step in the right direction though and I'll be buying at some point no doubt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxq__y8xhNM

Of course, if sims are your thing then a HOTAS/Steering wheel is a must.

So that's it for the Index. A headset for serious enthusiasts but also a shot at making VR a full AAA gaming platform. 


I'll add to this post tomorrow and cover Windows and Pimax headsets and the Vive stuff, and future things.