Oculus - Quest vs Rift S

About that "beatsaber gameplay recording". Well...

Spoiler

(-_-)

I suppose if I want to post material on youtube I'll have to slice boxes to Toccata and Fugue D-moll or something.

Spoiler

--------

Alright, full "daily warmup" route currently goes like this:

• Breezer(Hard)
• Rasputin
• Uprising(Muse)-Expert
• Final Sigma(Reol) -Expert
• Rum n'Bass (Expert)
• "Brat" (I swear I'm never going to beat this damn thing)
• Invisible Frenzy - Expert

This provides decent warmup for now.

I've recorded some of the gameplay and uploaded whatever wasn't copyright striked as an example:

Spoiler

 

Yep, for me Beat Saber is pretty much the system seller for Quest, such a fun and challenging game to play and works very well with the 'pick up and play' nature of the wireless Quest.

A free, open source alternative to VD is ALVR
ALVR - Original github
- no longer updated, but some useful info such as link to discord and old Oculus Go support.
ALVR - Current github
- well maintained, but some recent versions had audio issues - I use v14.0.0.

It works similarly to VD, you install the Quest app via sidequest store and then install the server software on your PC. Though I'm guessing maybe if VD isn't supported on your PC, then ALVR might not be either.
I've found whilst ALVR is a bit more involved to set up and tweak it works fine out of the box, but only supports SteamVR games ( I guess you could do a roundabout way of using Oculus -> Revive -> SteamVr -> Quest ). However now I'm familiar with the tech and confirmed my wifi router supports the bandwidth required I feel i'll probably buy VD in the near future for streaming from Oculus store games.

I was able to play HL: Alyx using this on my aging PC with a GTX970! However a few weeks ago I bit the bullet and manged to grab an AIB 3060ti from Zotac at a rather inflated cost even from a reputable store and the difference is amazing! Hoping to try out nvidia's no-green-screen masking tech on the new card for some mixed reality recording of Beat Saber soon.

Get yourself a replacement cover from VR Cover. The silicone covers are cheap and just go over the top of existing mask - solves all the sweat/hygine and cleaning issue. However i'm probably going to upgrade to facial interface replacement set soon as the silicone tends to trap the sweat. Check out some youtube reviews to make your own mind up, but I've been really happy with them.

As for comfort I've just ordered a custom head strap ( and carry case ) from ebay. I would have gone for official Oculus one, but the strap breaking issue and lack of stock pushed me away. Basically these are mass produced from china at a whole range of prices, though the design seems to be well regarded from many reviews i've watched. For reference here is an amazon link to the type of design. Just hoping now the ebay one for considerably less than Amazon is going to arrive.

Since this was at the end of the quote - there are plenty of good youtube videos for this, but one thing that helped me overall was changing my grip on the oculus to the 'claw' it enhances wrist movement, meaning you don't have to move your arms so much and gain accuracy. As for vanishing blocks, that is trying to teach you to look ahead, something you'll need when you move to hard/expert/+ levels as the blocks can come so quickly!

 

One thing I think is worth bringing up.

Using wrists will lead to optimal movement that is less tiring.... which is not what user would want if they're using BeatSaber for physical activity.

For maximum activity and "working out" I'd recommend to use entire arm and at full force too, as if you're really trying to lop off somebody's head with each swing.

I call it "goblin mode". Sometimes it can transform into "drunken master mode".

I do recommend to make sure there's nothing nearby you can smash with the controller. Or nothing that can break the controller.

 

The problem with that is it wont work when you get to expert level and above as your big arm swings will mean you simply don't have time to sweep back for the next blocks if they are not in a natural movement line ( i find the game switches between nice natural movement sweeps back and forth and 'catch-you-out' block positions that require fast reactions in the opposite direction). Wrist control greatly helps with accuracy and can be used in conjunction with larger movements when required to still give you a good workout. Not to mention most of the cardio work out is going to come from moving/stepping/jumping back and forth and ducking, with arm movement as an addition.

I'd argue its even more important for safe exercise to incorporate wrist movement as it enables a more gentle warm-up on lower difficulties before moving on to more energetic songs where larger arm movement is unavoidable.

As an aside, since I've yet to mod on Q2 I find 'FitBeat' a great fun workout on higher difficultly levels. Initially I thought the song was silly, but it doesn't 'arf make you move around!

If there is one criticism of BS I have ( at least vanilla version ) is there is no built in warm-up system and instead you are left to your own devices to come up with one! Something as simple as a warm-up track that starts slow but builds tempo at regular intervals with block placement to match would be really nice. Then again I wonder if that would just open up the dev's to liability?

Agree and my ceiling light fitting agrees too as that got smashed in the first week. I've since replaced the ceiling light with a much shorter lead to keep it well out of the way.


Also with regard to small play spaces, my area is almost 2x2 meters, but with only about 10 cm border before walls, shelves etc. What I've found to help greatly to avoid smashing into things is to have a small rug in the center of your floor space. That way you should be able to feel when you move off the rug and give yourself a bit of warning that you might soon be in contact with a wall. Its just an added bit of warning prior to the guardian system coming into view.

 

On other hand, focusing on wrist movement can lead to wrist injury.
https://www.reddit.com/r/beatsaber/comments/8ppo8x/beat_saber_destroyed_my_wrists/

Honestly, at the moment I don't see much point in going above expert, although this may change in future (because previously I didn't see much point in going beyond hard). And trying to do large arm movements on expert songs is seems to be doable at least in some cases, although this is certainly HARD.

Spoiler

Honestly, there are many other things they coudl focus on. Like implementing official playlist support.

 

I just tried tilting down those two long plastic parts of the strap a bit and I think it fits me a little better now. It wasn't immediately obvious to me, that those were adjustable at all.


@Noisecrime & @neginfinity Thanks a lot for all the recommendations! I got a lot of things to try when I eventually get PCVR going. Google Earth is something I really wanna try too. I've seen a twitch streamer fly around in it and he said it's one of the coolest things in VR.

I looked at the ALVR repos and it seems like the old version for the GO might work on Win 7 but the new version for the Quest 2 requires Win 8 or 10. It was worth a shot though .

The one campaign level I was stuck on I managed to beat eventually, with practicing the song in solo mode a couple of times. Now I'm stuck again on the same song, but with different modifiers and on hard. I don't know if these exist in solo mode, but I find it really interesting how these additional challenges for min/max arm distance travel affect the gameplay. Imagine me barely making it through the level, swinging for notes almost nonstop, and then the game says "great, now do this with an additional 300m of arm movement". When you need to cram in that much extra movement I feel like it adds an unexpected amount of creative expression to the gameplay, because you need to come up with your own solution for how to add additional flourishes into the movement patterns to fill your quota without breaking the flow too much. I don't think I can hit the target with "just" wider swings. And on the opposite end there are tracks with max arm distance traveled of e.g. 120m. That sounded super easy until I noticed it basically means I have to hold my arms still in a slightly outstretched position and need to utilize different muscle groups than usual. I haven't played much solo mode, but if you don't get that kind of variety in your gameplay there and you feel like it's missing something, I suggest to give the campaign a try.

I was curious about how hard "expert" actually is, because in the campaign I'm still at "hard". So I tried "breezer" on expert a couple of times, but I wasn't good enough yet. It didn't feel far out of reach though, I'm pretty sure I won't need 40 hours to get there. After playing a couple campaign levels I tried "Lvl impossible" on expert and beat it on the second or third try. Is this one an especially easy one or do you guys mean "expert +" when you say "expert"?

In the campaign with all the extra modifiers I'm sure I'll get stuck for a while on plenty of hard and expert levels though.

 

Which song is that?

I vaguely recall that. Frankly "move no more than 120m" was MUCH more annoying.

I meant "expert" not "expert+". A decent example of expert difficulty song was "Rum n'Bass" song. Also difficulty varies. You may also be in better shape. Or perhaps lag matters more when playing Beatsaber from PC than I previously thought.

 

I think it was "balearic pumping".

I thought it was an interesting twist, didn't take me many tries to achieve this, but I had to practice a little. Definitely way easier for me than the min 900m challenge.

I'm in terrible shape I'd say, so I doubt that's it . I'll give Rum'n'Bass a go and will let you know how it goes .
I don't know how much total lag you get, but it's very possible that it matters quite a bit.

 

I had ordered a silicone cover from amazon almost immidiately and I think it's a big improvement. Less irritating on the skin too. I've seen the same design under different company names, wouldn't be surprised if they're all the same part just with different packaging.

I'll experiment some more with the strap, if I feel I can't find a good enough compromise I'll try a 3rd party one. Thanks for the recommendations!

Haven't encountered that one in the campaign yet but had a look on youtube. Oof, looks intense indeed!

Yeah, I'm definitely guilty of neglecting warmup and stretching :-/.

I jumped in without warmup and tried 4 times on expert. On the last try I failed about 3 notes before the end. I did the last 20 seconds again in practice mode, so I'm sure it was the actual end and not just a breakdown. I think I need another 6 attempts tops till I can beat it on expert. For me the hardest thing in this track are the parts where you need to do a constant up/down motion for a stretch of time because if I don't manage to enter that part "in sync", I don't manage getting the movement lined up again and I do a long row of bad cuts. That greatly amplifies the consequences of not getting the first cut right. I need to either practice enough till I get those always right or I need to develop a better strategy for realigning from F***ups. I'm currently not looking far ahead, I'm mostly focussing on the close blocks and relying on my reflexes. This is also why I'm screwed when the vanishing blocks modifier comes up. I realize I might need to learn to play with a bit more "foresight" to make it to "expert+" eventually.

 

Well, here I was playing it on expert being streamed via virutal desktop.

Spoiler

Basically, one part I always screw up is where you need to do the "drumroll" 3 notes at a time. I always make mistakes in that part and only pass it by maxing out the health bar before that point.

User-made songs are much more brutal in comparison, though. "Rasputin" can make you sweat despite technically being "hard", and I still haven't figured a way to beat that "Brat" track.

 

Well done! These kinds of parts are my biggest problem too, I'll need to focus on practicing the last third of the song.
But yeah, the modded songs looked a lot more brutal than what I've seen so far in vanilla Beat Saber.

 

Well, I thought it is worth mentioning, but I found a crack in left controller's ring. Dropped it some time ago, apparently.

Feeling pretty miffed about it and wonder why the hell they don't make those out of aluminum.

 

Sorry to hear that! You might want to research what material this is. If it's one that you can melt with model glue, then a tiny bit of model glue might help sealing the crack and preventing it from getting worse. There must be a few people who tried that before, given the nature of VR.

Yesterday I heard a sound while playin that I didn't like at all: the "ding" of me touching a full glass of water with the controller. Got lucky that I didn't knock it over, but I really need to be more carefull with things like that...

I tried that echo game again and I noticed that the heads up display (it's not a full helmet) doesn't do much against motion sickness, but playing while sitting down helped quite a bit. So maaaaybe if a smooth movement shooter doesn't require crouching, that could be a way that I can play it?


Has anyone tried that In Death: Unchained game? Reviews are positive but it looks to me like it would get boring quickly.
The teleport in that game isn't instant, it's more like a very fast dash. Can anyone tell me if I should expect any motion sickness from that?

 

Not tried Death: Unchained, but have found that any realtime motion will cause you issues if you are not used to it.

For example I recently played 'Red: Matter' ( not a bad game, enjoyed the puzzles,story and environment, but like many VR games it felt a bit short - good to grab on sale ), it has teleport, smooth motion and quick motion. Anything but teleport will cause me to lose balance ( when standing) and feel uncomfortable.

However my understanding is that you should be able to train yourself to deal with this over time, but I'm just not sure my poor old brain can really be bothered with that so for the time being i'm just skipping any 'smooth motion only' games.

Most annoying thing is that I see more and more vr games coming out that only provide smooth motion, even though there may be no good reason not to support teleportation! I can't help but feel outside of certain genres that might demand this ( e.g. FPS, especially multiplayer ) developers are simply ignoring a large base of consumers for ease of development or wanting to make a VR game but have little or no interest in actually pushing the technology forward - the classic 'newbie wants to make a MMORPG'.

I feel its important to make some distinctions in terms of VR discomfort. Motion sickness for me has a specific meaning, that of causing you to feel physical sickness/nausea after a period of time ( i.e. like car sickness ). However smooth motion does not cause me motion sickness at all, but it does cause me to almost lose balance as your eyes perceive the fast, instant or worse accelerated/deceleration of movement, but your physical body doesn't. So whenever that happens my whole body sways as I try to counter balance the virtual ( non-existent) movement. I find that more annoying and disconcerting than anything else though I suspect over time this balance issue will likely lead to motion sickness, but its the movement type not the game that causes it. I think its an important distinction as motion sickness can be caused by many different things for different people and motion is just one aspect. For example If i were to play sitting down i'd have no problem with smooth motion games as my physical body is in a more stable position. Anyway just my 2 cents.


For what its worth, here is a link to a google doc spreadsheet I made back at xmas that noted the cost of games across stores, discounts due to sales, cross-play support etc and is useful to decide if a game is on a good sale or not. Although I love my Quest 2, i'm not a fan of the walled garden stores so where possible I'll look to purchase a VR game on Steam. However if the game is more arcade/replayable or of the 'pick-up-play' type then I might grab it on Quest for ease of access ( good example is Beat Saber ). So ultimately I purchase a game based mostly on price, but also other criteria and if it supports Oculus cross-play ( Quest and PCVR via Link )

 

That's probably because a lot of people already built tolerance, and accomodating for both teleportation and smooth motion can be difficult especially if it is multiplayer.

That's loss of balance. Surprisingly I only briefly felt it when I first tried Quest by playing Pistol Whip. Motion sickness or VR sickness usually refers to nausea.

 

I never made a distinction there. I can get sick just from watching a FPS speedrun on youtube, so that's obviously not balance related, but the kind of VR stuff that makes me sick while also throwing me off balance in the end makes me feel the same kind of sick, so I saw no need to differentiate the two.

I bought it and to my surprise I'm perfectly fine both with the teleport arrow movement and the thrown teleport shard movement (it's like a quick dash in one direction, about 1.5 or 2 meters). Doesn't matter whether I sit or stand, it doesn't make me sick at all. But the instant I try smooth movement via thumbstick it feels bad again. So I'm not using it in this game so far.

Overall I'm pretty happy with it. It is quite challenging, doesn't feel dumbed down and it's satisfying to land a good headshot with a bow. Also it's surprisingly exhausting to play. Where beatsaber is mostly cardio, this feels like strength training for your shoulders, because you hold one arm stretched out in front of you for most of the time. I have to switch the bow hand regularly during a longer play session.




In the Beat Saber campaign I've now arrived at levels that give me trouble again. One I need to do 100% flawlessly on hard, or it's a fail. For another one I need a 150 combo, and the last one a 180 combo. So I've been playing more solo as a result. The desire to get to play modded Beat Saber on PC to get some of those custom songs (there's one from the Doom Eternal Soundtrack!) might become a bigger factor than I thought for future purchase decisions.

 

(opinion)
Basically, VR throws off your vestibular system. Your eyes tall "I'm moving!" and your inner ear says "Nope, you aren't". That, somehow, causes nausea which progressively grows stronger and that could be similar to being car sick. After building tolerance, basically, the stomach churning feeling gets significantly weaker, and you can play indefinitely most of the time. At least that's how it worked to me. I still feel it in my stomach if I try to, say, jump off a skyscraper, but it goes like "We're falling!... oh wait. That's your helmet thing. Carry on". A slight "pull" and that's it. There are exceptions, which still can induce sickness one of them being No Man's Sky's windy grass fields. Last time I faced those I was getting nauseous in minutes. (The grass wobbles in wind, and fills your entire field of view).

Now... if you feel like you're falling, then I think it means that degree of trust to the information from your eyes is still quite high, and like I said I pretty much only felt that in Pistol whip. Pistol Whip plays as if you're on a moving walkway, and when it started moving, it felt as I was briefly pushed back.

I also wonder if getting used to VR messes up your feeling of balance, by the way. Because you basically train your brain to ignore cues from your sight.

Some people like you mentioned, experience something similar to VR sickness in normal games. Usually first person shooters. I'm not very susceptible to that, but there were bunch of titles that made me nauseous. Those are Ecco the Dolphin 2 (still no idea why), one of the early builds of Space Engineers, and.... Layers of Fear. Something about that game triggered nausea during movement, people think it is Head Bob.

Regarding In Death: Unchained... I was eyeing this one, but apparently the devs abandoned PC version and kept workign on OCulus one, and the Oculus store is much more expensive for me, which is why I haven't bought it.
I was quite interesting in archery though, although I'd love to have a proper crossbow game.
Maybe I should just prototype one (-_-)

I think I got beyond that point, but I ended up on a level where I need to play an Expert Song with a NoFail modifier or something like that. So I gave up on that. 180 combo (eventually) shouldn't be much problem, as reaching 220 combo is quite common later on.

 

So here's a really entry level question, but I think on topic enough to not deserve a new thread...

If I wanted to buy a few headsets for development purposes, what should I go for?

I probably want something high-end to show for client (non-game) projects.

And one or two alternative headsets to let me ensure I can test on the same kit players are likely to be using (for game projects).

 

For me too, I stopped playing it pretty quickly. I thought it's FOV related at the time, but I wasn't 100% sure. And I was playing with gamepad. Sometimes I think that's harder to stomach than mouse + keyboard, maybe it depends on the implementation.

I wouldn't be too surprised.

For now I'll see how many songs I can finish on expert in solo play before I get back to the campaign I think. I already have all of OST vol 1 and most of vol 2. But it looks like some of the later songs are a lot more difficult on expert than the first songs.

There is a crossbow in the game that you can unlock fairly quickly, but if you know the least bit about crossbows, I don't think you'd enjoy using it. Basically you could shoot with it as fast as you could with a pump action shotgun and it always does full damage and is easier to aim, so it's a lot better than the bow and feels like cheating when you use it optimally. Not to mention that you couldn't even draw a medieval crossbow with one hand. But I guess a realistic crossbow would be super tedious to play with, so I understand why they didn't go for realism.

 

I played Skyrim VR briefly with a bow, so I'd expect it to be similar.

Basically, in Skyrim VR bow you can spray and pray with a bow (it is still 2-4 shots per second, though). Which doesn't feel all that believable.

(This is an opinion)
That's probably a multi-thousand USD investment.

Basically, one annoying thing about headsets is that Oculus/Quest, Vive (and likely Index) have very different controllers, and game geared towards Vive does not map onto oculus controllers well.

Vive have a touchpad, and you can draw gestures on it with a thumb, while quest has thumbsticks, and Vive controls where you have to draw things with your thumb translate into quest as having to PRESS the thumbstick and then move it while holding it. This is very awkward to use.

It also ruins couple of games. For example, Creed: Rise to Glory doesn't correctly alter control for virtualdesktop, and is barely playable compared to Quest version if you stream it through virtualdesktop (not sure about Link). Some indie titles heavily utilize Vive's pad area which is unusable on quest, and games like "Spice and Wolf VR" (don't buy it, by the way. It is disappointing) have hair breadth degree of sensitivity meaning if you look at the controller it can register as a grip key press.

Regarding "high end" headset, those are currently, I believe, H2 Reverb($599) and Pimax 8k ($899). Index is expensive and have very high refresh rate, but its resolution doesn't look great at all, and Quest 2 has more pixels. Those will have different hardware demands. For practical purposes (fillrate) Pimax 8k should be twice as demanding as Index. Index running at 144 Hz requires 1440*1600*144*2 = 663 552 000 pixels per second, while Pimax 8k would require 3840*2160*2*80 ==> 1 327 104 000 pixels per second.

By the way, steam hardware survey regarding headsets goes like this:
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

Rift S: 23.36%
Quest 2: 17.4%
Valve Index: 15.83%
HTC Vive: 14.06% (not sure which. Normal one or Cosmos)
Oculus Rift: 7.97%
Oculus Quest: 7.67%,
Windows Mixed Reality: 6.38%
Other: 7.33%

 

@neginfinity Vive Pro not worth it/not as good?

 

I tried Vive headset before, I believe it was Vive Pro. It had very strong screendoor effect and I didn't enjoy it. The hex pattern was very noticeable. I have not tried their "Cosmos" headset.

Here are my posts on the topic:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/is-vr-the-future-or-will-it-fade-out.903347/#post-5932370 <-- here I spoke about experience with Vive Pro. Lots of things changed since.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/oculus-quest-vs-rift-s.942073/#post-6154947 <-- here I spoke about experience with Quest in comparison. That was before I bought quest.

 

Vive Pro has the problem of low sub pixel resulotion because of pentile amoled pixels. Though vive pro has a much higher resulotion than gen 1 vive. I have a friend with a IPD of 75mm if I recall correctly (big Swedish viking guy) and vive Pro is the only headset with that kind of IPD.

I would go with Valve Index, only downside is black levels because of LCD, which Quest 2 suffers from too. But Index is a premium headset with better FOV, better overlap, better lenses over all. Better tracking and better controllers.

 

Just chiming in to say we have used Pimax headset on client projects, and nothing comes close to it. Beats the index too. In terms of knuckles controllers and other novel controllers, there is a MASSIVE range of hardware available for the enterprise market that is compatible especially if you branch out and look at the newer companies not just established brands.

Its not really a useful headset for games at all, but its great for non-game applications. The quality the Pimax can achieve is mental, honestly seriously impressive and worth the price. I recommend having your clients pay for it like we did though, its not worth having just for yourself (unless you will get really good usage out of it).

EDIT: you need a monster of a machine to run the Pimax BTW

 

So has anyone here modded beat saber for Quest yet? it looks really simple, especially for us developers who are familiar with sideloading and experience with Android apps. What puts me off is the potential to be banned by Facebook.

So i've been holding off, thinking I might just buy BS on PC and mod that instead, but then i'd have to play via link, ALVR or VD and i'm unsure if latency might become an issue.

 

In my opinion, if you have no previous experience with headsets or VR development, then go grab the cheaper Quest 2 first. Its easy to develop on and being wireless means it has easy 'pick-up-play' functionality. Its also great to take to clients to demo with ( when we can meet other people in real life again ), otherwise you are stuck with clients having to visit you.

Once you've got familiar with using VR and the pitfalls in development you can make a more informed choice as to continue VR development and which other headsets to go for. While its taken some time for VR to become more regularly updated I think we'll see quite a few new headsets over the next year or so. Whilst Quest itself is going to have a version 3 and they keep improving the Q2 - just read that 120Hz display option may be added soon.

I'm surprised to see so much praise for Pixmax as although they have insane screen resolution I didn't think they were really that great ( maybe that's why people keep emphasizing 'not for games' ) but if this is for visualizations or architectural stuff then I can see their appeal. Though I'd guess you need a damn beefy GPU to drive that and of course its the worse possible time to be looking for new GPU's or even CPU's at the moment.

As for the best all-round headset, based on all the reports I've read and seen is that the Valve Index kills it, and that would certainly be the next device on my list should I need to expand VR development.

 

Because Quest version is several times more expensive in my region, I only own PC version and haven't bothered to mod it.

Regarding Facebook I believe they ban you completely at random, and not for modding your device.

Everything I've read about Index suggests that aside from framerate it has nothing to offer. The resolution and screendoor effect matter after all, and Valve Index has lower resolution than second quest. (Same one as the 1st quest although quest 1 doesn't use RGB pixels). Definitely feels like it is overpriced for nothing. The most common argument "It is $1000, because it is 'premium'". And then they can't answer what the heck does "premium" mean. Reminds me of all those Haskell arguments.

Spoiler

A: "Why would I want to learn Haskell?"
B: "You'll reach enlightenment!"
A: "But what does that mean?"
B: "You'll know when you get there!"
A: "You can't explain it, can you? What about practical applications, what concepts will I gain?"
B: "You're not enlightened enough!"

At least in case of Pimax I can see what I'm getting for the money.

 

Seems like it:

https://beatsaberquest.com/bmbf/bmbf/risks-involved-with-bmbf/

To me it's not worth the hassle and risk at the moment.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/OculusQues...this_happened_to_me_when_i_installed_bmbf_to/

I believe the situation is similar to fanart.

Fanart is technically illegal, as in order to use someone's character you need their permission.
While in practice copyright holders almost never go after fanart artist.

Same goes with facebook. They have legal rights to go after you for modding beat saber, but to the day it is hard to find someone banned for using modded beatsaber, although there are plenty of people that were banned at a whim and for no reason at all.

 

I'm confused as I thought i'd read you had played custom songs in BS so had assumed you'd modded it somewhere. Maybe you just got the dlc song packs, sadly none of those really appeal to me.

So follow up question anyone playing BS on Quest via PC using either link, VD or ALVR? If so is latency ever an issue either wired or wireless? I would have got it already but it never goes on sale and obviously already bought it once on Quest. Its not even cross-play, so can't play it from Oculus Home unless I buy it again, and if i'm doing that i'm going to get it on Steam.

While there is that as well, there are some specifics relating to modding apps, which you have to do with BS on Quest. Not read of anyone being banned for that yet though, and modding BS to add custom songs is pretty much one of the biggest selling points of the game, so it would end up being pretty bad for the game. However I wouldn't be surprised if in time someone demands FB step in, just look at what happened to Twitch recently.

I thought Index had decent resolution better than Rift S for example, but might be wrong. For me its more a case of the whole package, the controllers alone are heaps better at presence than any others with each finger having touch detection.

Though overall I'd hope any new VR device I get supports wireless play, its just such a game changer.

 

I'm playing it on PC with virtual desktop.

The video I posted earlier:

Spoiler

Is me playing on PC. It is not a replay, it was recorded with OBS studio in real time, basically the game displays player avatar from the side in "Mirror View" on PC desktop, while I see the game in the helmet normally, and Obs Studio records the contents of "Mirror View" window. You can't exactly record the game this way on the quest. There also isn't a "replay mod" I'm aware of.

I haven't noticed any issue with latency, however, given that Martin H was able to reach expert difficulty right off the bat, while for me getting there took a lot of time, the latency is probably there, just it is not immediately obvious. Most of the time you don't feel it.

Or, I don't know, maybe I just suck at this game.

Index has 1440 x 1600 per eye, and Quest 1 has 1440 x 1600 as well, despite being more than two times cheaper. However, Index has "RGB stripe" pixels, while quest has pentile pattern, meaning quest 1 has less RGB pixels. Index also has higher fov, higher refresh rate, BUT it is LCD. Quest 1 is OLED. higher FOV on index, by the way, coupled with same resolution would mean lower amount of details in the middle of view.... Rift S has single display with 2560x1440, which means 1280x1440 per eye, lower resolution compared to Index.

In comparison to Index, Quest 2 is also LCD, but it is 1832 x 1920 per eye, 90 Hz, RBG stripe, meaning in terms of resolution it is superior to Index.
HP Reverb is 2160x2160 per eye. also RGB stripe. Pimax 8k is 3840 x 2160 and has huge FOV.

There was this guy comparing headset by recording "through the lens data" on youtube:

Spoiler

Closeup of details look like this:

Spoiler

Long story short I don't really see a point in buying index unless they greatly increase resolution.

 

Just that it has better FOV, better stereo overlap, better lenses overall, better tracking and better contollers.

 

All of it doesn't matter because its resolution is unimpressive.

Right now it is not worth the money. If it was $300, it would be worth considering. Or if it was originally released in 2015 with those specs.

Also, inside out tracking has a major advantage which is that you can use those kind of headsets anywhere. While lighthouse based VR is pretty much stationary.

Like I said before, with all that hype around index you'd expect it to have 8k per eye at least. What it offers instead is not that great compared to the pricepoint.

 

I dont agree, if it had foveated rendering it would have been justified with higher resolution. Since all its other features are more important for immersive VR (FOV, stereo overlap, more immersive controllers) its actually a superior headset to Quest 2

 

You're a fan of Index, and you'll keep trying to prove it is superior forever. That is your known behavior, and it pretty much voids any argument you make when you talk about Index. Because you're heavily biased.

I don't see "premium". I see "pointlessly overpriced while offering nothing".

I have a piece of hardware which works anywhere (I can play it in a forest if I want to) and produces "good enough" results for me. It is also superior to much more expensive Vive Pro that I tried before. It cost me $400, therefore when I see a $1000 device I'd expect it to blow what I have out of the water. Instead.... I get nothing or a very minor improvement at best, and that is pathetic.

There's already a $300 device which is aside from having to sign a contract with Facebook-Satan is an improvement compared to what I have. So index would have to provide 3x more value compared to that.

And what do we get? INFERIOR resolution, reliance on lighthouses, dubious claims about "precision engineering" and "superior lenses" (excuse me, we've been making lenses for long time, it's not exactly a new thing, and it is not like you're seeing in thermal and need expensive germanium lenses for it), and very minor improvements at a pricepoint of $700. Is that a joke?

For $1000 I'd want either a vastly improved resolution, or I want data gloves, full body tracking, and all that done wirelessly and without lighthouses (that's not my problem how they're going to do that). I also want it indestructible. It's not a feature? Well, then I'm not buying it.

Sure, if someone gifted an Index to me, I'd take it. Or if it was offered to me for $100. Or $200. For $1000 though? Nah. Features offered are not worth the money.

 

And you are clearly a fan of quest. The index is better in every way except a little bit lower resulotion. All its other qualities make up for that.

Also IPD settings on quest are lacking compared to index. All mechanical aspects are better on the index (which comes with the price tag). 90 vs 130 field of view.

 

I found an interesting German article about FOV comparisons of different headsets:
https://mixed.de/diese-vr-brillen-haben-das-groesste-fov/

Apparently you can't trust the values that the manufacturers claim. And sadly they didn't test the index and quest 2.

FOV doesn't interest me that much. I care a lot more about screendoor effect etc..

 

Same deal, pretty much. I'd be interested in being able to read/write in VR or being able to replace a FullHD monitor with a headset. You can read with Quest 1, but the text has to be fairly large, and in case of computer monitor, the monitor surface has to be fairly large as well. It is not an optimal experience.

 

Field of view is important to fool your brain that it's looking at real objects. Too narrow FOV and you will not perceive mass of scale for example in games like Lone echo.

 

Quest 2 is getting 120 hz support. I wonder if thats also when playing over cable. Thats nice. Though I'm allergic to reprojection so I play my Index in 90hz. Even my monster of a computer (AMD 5950x, nvidia 3090) cant maintain 144hz at all times in VR.

 

lol - yeah this is one of my biggest gripes in terms of technology. Just over 6 years ago I bought what I considered to be a high end system expressly to support VR and specific my new Oculus DK2. It had a GTX970 which at the time was pretty expensive for a GPU, though considering today's prices was a bargain! I did plan to go SLI as even GTX970 wasn't really good enough, but never got round top it and honestly set up for the DK2 was just too much hassle for day-to-day VR. That meant when I put the DK2 away I had to be really motivated to get it back out.

Fast forward to today a nice new 3060ti doesn't feel good enough on some games for consistent 90hz let alone 120hz on the Quest 2, especially if you want to push either graphic settings or super sampling. So i'm just left wondering if hardware will ever catch up to the demands of VR games. Some how I doubt it, and instead we'll need to rely on foveated rendering and other tricks.

 

Foveated rendering will be a game changer. You can save so much rendering time, first off pixel rate can be reduced using lower resolution in peripheral vision. But thats just the tip of the fov-berg. Peripheral vision can not perceive depth so we can render this areas with one camera. You can have aggressive LOD here too. etc.

The problem is getting to a pont when driver/engine can render the image in parts like this.

9-series was not expensive. I had the 980 TI it was a very saned priced card. After that I hade the 1080 TI it was insanely good priced (I actually think the pricining was a mistake by Nvidia, knowing they are greedy bastards). The 20-series was a F***ing joke. I skipped this series all together. 30-series is a little better priced, but a long stretch from the golden days of 9 and 10 series. I was lucky getting t he 3090 for its initial price point in october. Now its insalyt priced

 

Thanks for the video link, though i'm a bit suspicious of the accuracy.

The Q2 footage looks far lower resolution than I would expect. Its also noticeable that they are comparing via link ( as they show Steam VR comparrision ) and for a long time the oculus link was pushing lower resolution and compressed video. The video was made back in Sept 2020 so I think before much had been mentioned about link quality/resolution and certainly before it was 'easy' to alter those values.

In the Assetto Corsa demo the Q2 is clearly a far lower resolution, much lower than I would expect and I can't help but wonder if the various different processes involved in getting PCVR to these devices is leading to non-native resolutions being displayed. For example via Steam you have all the Steam VR resolution settings, then you'll have Oculus/link/VD resolution settings on top. I mean if Q2 is meant to have more resolution than Index why does it sometimes look more blurry than the index in the video?

I do find the extreme zoom in useful though to show the make up of the screens and can't say I'm a fan of how the Index looks, but honestly i'd have to try it for myself before I could make a judgement. I'm very happy with he Q2 screen though especially compared to DK2 where screen door was instantly noticable.

But to go back to my point, for me the Index isn't just about resolution, its all the other aspects that make it interesting like the improved controllers and the sense of presence they can provide. If anything has changed since getting my DK2 its just how important controllers are to the VR experience.

 

Totally agree. Resolution is secondary to alot of other features. I cant wait until they start to use OLED panels instead of AMOLED or LCD. Amoled have SDE problems because of low sub pixel res and LCD have its problems with blacks and low contrast. StarVR has a OLED panel which is pretty low res. And since its full RGB SDE isnt as big problem as one might think.

 

Speaking of tricks UE4 recently gained support for the latest release of DLSS with support for VR.

 

Yeah, it will be interesting to see how well this works since I believe DLSS v2 is more generalized and doesn't need the per 'game' preprocessing that was required by DLSS v1.

However its disappointing that Unity appear to be so silent on this issue and I can't help but wonder with their current approach if such a feature would unhelpfully end up being locked into HDRP!

If anything it feels like Unity are lagging further and further behind in rendering tech and updates, something the new SRP was meant to address. Wouldn't surprise me to see HDRP and URP taken back internally to the engine soon as so many other packages have been removed, and at least one already made internal.

 

Variable shading combined with foveated, etc. It will be a bright future, if you use a engine that cares about these things

 

Good point, and I think I'm more excited for variable Shading than for foveated.

For me the issue with foveated is until we can get actual eye tracking if you don't look directly forward you'll see worse resolution quality and I just don't believe anyone can maintain keeping their eyes focused straight ahead all the time, you are constantly going to be flicking your eyes around as its just natural. However I think we just have to accept that foveated rendering is a price we will have to pay if we want to push graphical quality in VR.

Perhaps DLSS will eliminate the need for foveated or at least provide the user options so they can tailor the features they prefer, but i've yet to see DLSS working in VR and unsure if VR will cause it additional problems over normal rendering.

 

Foveated = eye tracking.
I talk about variable shading in combination with foveated

 

Quest 2 has very little screen door FWIW, but the poor FOV is more noticeable on that device. It's probably something that's being tackled next along with form factor.

I got 2070S for 400 bucks which I consider a steal for a couple of years ago. We've been trying to get my bro one of the new cards and there's nothing remotely in this price range for the performance that's actually available to us... still.

No, you can fixed foveation and dynamic foveation. As both are widely understood you cannot make that claim.

The future of VR looks like:

AI upscale (DLSS etc)
Dynamic foveation
VR Variable rate shading

Currently only nvidia has full support for the above, with varying levels of public access. Eye tracking is great, lets you do variable rate shading and foveation (they're not the same but similar) better, but is no means the only place these technologies can be employed.