HTC Vive VR or Oculus Rift?

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Martha Stewart

Gawd
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Apr 14, 2011
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So the Vive went up for pre order today, I pre ordered one and a Rift last month. Curious what [H]'s are leaning toward?

Sounds like the Vive has somewhat of a screen door effect, but the RIFT has a narrower field of view?





(Side note: where is the Hard VR subforum or is "Display's" where VR will be discussed)
 
I've heard both have a screen door effect, it's just less noticeable on the Rift. Guess it comes down to the lenses used as resolution is the same on each.

I'm getting the Vive since it has the superior tech for room scale.
 
I have both on pre-order and hoping we get some more specific news between now and release. I REALLY want to see some examples of Rift's room-scale to see how it handles that, as I believe the finish/ergonomics on the Rift will beat the Vive. I also like the style of the Rift's Touch controllers, but haven't actually tried either hands-on so I'm not sure which I would truly prefer. Image quality is supposed to be pretty similar.

I won't be keeping both, by the way, but wanted to make sure I had either one the moment they were available. I'll just keep the winner, or whichever one I feel is closer to winning on paper at launch.
 
x3sphere said:
Guess it comes down to the lenses used as resolution is the same on each.
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It's neither the resolution nor the lenses... it's the size of the gaps between the pixels. You don't necessarily need to increase the resolution of the panel in order to reduce the size of the gaps between pixels.
 
I'm leaning towards getting a Rift because I really don't have the room to move around to make use of the Vive. I went ahead and pre-ordered the Oculus Rift tonight.
 
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Rift atm but I have a couple of months wait to observe what happens and make my mind up.
I read about a DIY/moddable VR headset that is a bit higher res and can do 120Hz, I wonder how that is coming on.
 
I have had DK2 for a year or two now, it is a great seated experience. When I play I line up my hands with the joystick and my brain thinks the movement is real. I do think the best VR experience involves hand tracking, and head and body tracking (looking up as a space ship flies overhead is amazing) combined with no screen door effect and high screen refresh rate. (I am big into Descent and 360 ship control freedom, so the VR is a dream come true)

No one VR solution right now has it all. The Vive has a wider scope, and room tracking, but maybe a little more screen door and less mature latency and tracking software then oculus. The Oculus has almost no screen door and great software, but no room tracking, narrower view scope, and unreleased hand tracking. I have the oculus on order. I am going to "upgrade" to it and sell my DK2. That gives me better screen and the latest hardware, but really until those hand controllers come out not much of a different experience. Ultimately I think the Vive will have more wow factor and be more fun with the few games and demos it has (wider FOV, hand and body tracking, and moving around makes a big difference in suspension of disbelief). The Oculus may be a better seated experience and have more mature games and software, though not quite as cool. One thing with Vive room tracking is sort of like the kinect. How do you setup your room? A big open room with you tethered to a computer. You will have to mount a ceiling hook to keep the wire out of the way. Cool but a pain to setup. No space right now = Oculus for me. Gen2 should be pretty amazing!
 
I'm leaning towards Oculus atm. Main reason being the display and ergonomics seem better (oled, better optics, less screendoor, etc) and I like (having tested none) the Oculus Touch better.
 
Nenu said:
Rift atm but I have a couple of months wait to observe what happens and make my mind up.
I read about a DIY/moddable VR headset that is a bit higher res and can do 120Hz, I wonder how that is coming on.
Click to expand...
Do you remember what it is? I'm waiting for future models that have a higher resolution. I think the screen door effect on the current sets will bother me too much. Oculus said they would eventually release Rift models with higher resolution and refresh rates. Hopefully it won't be too long.
 
bulbrook said:
No one VR solution right now has it all. The Vive has a wider scope, and room tracking, but maybe a little more screen door and less mature latency and tracking software then oculus.
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The tracking solution with the Vive is far more robust than the Rift's!
The Rift is using camera and IR LEDs in the headset/controllers to track your movements by processing the video feed on your CPU.
The Vive is using two base-stations that sweep the room with IR lasers, and the devices have sensors that use triangulation to track your position. There's a custom-built ASIC being used for this, so it should be a far lower latency, more robust, and more accurate solution than the Rift. You get sub-millimeter precision with the Vive.

The Vive can handle room-scale VR, but will still handle seated VR experiences better than the Rift does due to its tracking solution.
It's also a lot easier to set up. The Lighthouse units are "dumb" devices that only require a power connection.
The Rift requires a USB3 connection to your PC for each camera that you have. (ships with one camera, requires another if you buy the Touch controllers)

bulbrook said:
The Oculus may be a better seated experience and have more mature games and software, though not quite as cool. One thing with Vive room tracking is sort of like the kinect. How do you setup your room? A big open room with you tethered to a computer. You will have to mount a ceiling hook to keep the wire out of the way. Cool but a pain to setup. No space right now = Oculus for me. Gen2 should be pretty amazing!
Click to expand...
You don't need a big space for the Vive. It can scale to support big rooms, but it is by no means a requirement.
But I think that once you start using VR, you will want a room-scale setup. Seated experiences can be good, but room-scale VR is what gives you the "holodeck" experience.

This is a pretty good video explaining the amount of space that you need for the Vive:

And this does a pretty good job of showing off why you would want a room-scale setup:
 
sharknice said:
Do you remember what it is? I'm waiting for future models that have a higher resolution. I think the screen door effect on the current sets will bother me too much. Oculus said they would eventually release Rift models with higher resolution and refresh rates. Hopefully it won't be too long.
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I found it eventually but I have been mislead a bit.
The screen runs at a "simulated" 240Hz but is actually a 60Hz OLED in reality lol.
Its a single 1080p panel used for both eyes.
If the 240Hz simulation works, it would give 1080p per eye at 120Hz each eye.
Remains to be seen.

However, parts can be upgraded later and its 1/2 the price, worth keeping an eye on.
Its headed by Razer and is open source.

Razer | OSVR - Open-Source Virtual Reality for Gaming
(the first link on that page doesnt work, I think they should have put .org as per this next URL)

OSVR Hacker Development Kit
A nice animation to show the innards (when the page first loads)
Haha, just spotted its interactive a bit too, you can swivel it round and look at the first person view.
 
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zone74 said:
And this does a pretty good job of showing off why you would want a room-scale setup:
Click to expand...


I thought the whole move around a room thing was purely a gimmick until I saw this video. I still think it is a little gimmicky, but it actually seems pretty awesome and I could see myself playing a lot of games like that. They would just have to be designed specifically for it. For most genres you need some sort of omni-directional treadmill.
 
How do you guys think these will compare to holo lens? Dev kits are shipping March 30th. Everything I have read/seen on these seem to make be believe its the one to get.
Microsoft HoloLens
 
sharknice said:
I thought the whole move around a room thing was purely a gimmick until I saw this video. I still think it is a little gimmicky, but it actually seems pretty awesome and I could see myself playing a lot of games like that. They would just have to be designed specifically for it. For most genres you need some sort of omni-directional treadmill.
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What people are quickly going to realize once they get the hardware is that "traditional" games don't actually work that well in VR.
The only traditional game experiences that work well in VR are cockpit games - racing games, flight sims, space games, mech games etc.
Playing a standard FPS with a keyboard & mouse or a controller just doesn't work that well in VR.

That's part of the reason that, as much as I want VR, I think I'll be sitting out the first generation.
There's very little software which has been announced that actually makes me want to buy a VR headset. The things I'm most interested in right now are the racing sims that have announced VR support, but that alone is not enough to justify the purchase for me as they only account for 10-20% of what I play.
Most of the announced VR titles seem like things that I'd have fun with for an hour or so and probably wouldn't touch again.
 
zone74 said:
What people are quickly going to realize once they get the hardware is that "traditional" games don't actually work that well in VR.
The only traditional game experiences that work well in VR are cockpit games - racing games, flight sims, space games, mech games etc.
Playing a standard FPS with a keyboard & mouse or a controller just doesn't work that well in VR.

That's part of the reason that, as much as I want VR, I think I'll be sitting out the first generation.
There's very little software which has been announced that actually makes me want to buy a VR headset. The things I'm most interested in right now are the racing sims that have announced VR support, but that alone is not enough to justify the purchase for me as they only account for 10-20% of what I play.
Most of the announced VR titles seem like things that I'd have fun with for an hour or so and probably wouldn't touch again.
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It would help if you explain why you dont think FPS games will work with VR.

I cant see the problem with FPS games, it will be like using a proper 3D screen as opposed to TV 3D which is ok sometimes but isnt worth the aggro. (ie they can be a pita to get working)
Most games you wont be able to look around but the 3D will be excellent.

The main issue will be locating the controls easily.
If you have a keyboard that is simple to get your hand correctly placed, you are on for a win.
Mice with more buttons can help too.
I just ordered a Corsair Scimitar RGB for VR use because it has 17 buttons and a superb optical sensor.
 
Nenu said:
I cant see the problem with FPS games, it will be like using a proper 3D screen as opposed to TV 3D
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It isn't though, because you are not viewing the game on a screen, you're in the game.
The problem is that there's a huge disconnect between the way that FPS games play and what your body is doing in VR.

When you're playing a cockpit game as a seated VR experience, that's fine because it replicates reality.
If you're sat in a car in real life, you have limited movements inside the car, and your main input is the steering wheel - same thing in VR.

But in an FPS game, you're using a keyboard or controller to move your body around.
You can look around a bit with your head, but you're turning and aiming - both inputs being linked together - with a mouse.
It removes the sense of presence, and for some people it seems to immediately make them motion sick - even though they're fine with cockpit experiences.

With room-scale VR, you can do proper first-person experiences again - but you're limited by the size of your room, and you aren't going to be sprinting at 70mph like you would be in an FPS game.
If your space is large enough, there are tricks that you can do in VR which have you walking in circles or a figure-8 so that you can traverse large distances despite the size of your room, but you still need a pretty big space to make that unnoticeable, and I don't think that traditional FPS game design will work either. There's a reason that VR shooters seem to be more like old light-gun games.

Traditional FPS games are better played on a 3DTV or just a regular 2D monitor/TV than in VR.
The strength of VR is in new experiences that couldn't have been done before, not by treating the headset as a 3D display for traditional game types.

For some people, treating the headset as a 3D display might work fine, but that's not VR.
 
zone74 said:
It isn't though, because you are not viewing the game on a screen, you're in the game.
The problem is that there's a huge disconnect between the way that FPS games play and what your body is doing in VR.

When you're playing a cockpit game as a seated VR experience, that's fine because it replicates reality.
If you're sat in a car in real life, you have limited movements inside the car, and your main input is the steering wheel - same thing in VR.

But in an FPS game, you're using a keyboard or controller to move your body around.
You can look around a bit with your head, but you're turning and aiming - both inputs being linked together - with a mouse.
It removes the sense of presence, and for some people it seems to immediately make them motion sick - even though they're fine with cockpit experiences.

With room-scale VR, you can do proper first-person experiences again - but you're limited by the size of your room, and you aren't going to be sprinting at 70mph like you would be in an FPS game.
If your space is large enough, there are tricks that you can do in VR which have you walking in circles or a figure-8 so that you can traverse large distances despite the size of your room, but you still need a pretty big space to make that unnoticeable, and I don't think that traditional FPS game design will work either. There's a reason that VR shooters seem to be more like old light-gun games.

Traditional FPS games are better played on a 3DTV or just a regular 2D monitor/TV than in VR.
The strength of VR is in new experiences that couldn't have been done before, not by treating the headset as a 3D display for traditional game types.
Click to expand...

There is no disconnect playing on a TV so there wont be using a different display.
A VR headset can be used for 2D material as well, its just a display with more capabilities, they dont need to be used.
If you try and make a game do something on a VR headset that it isnt designed to then you might have issues such as those you described, but the answer is simple if that happens. Play it as intended, dont use the VR features.

Some games can be modded to add head or body movement tracking but you dont have to use this, it can be exactly as it was on a TV but with better 3D.
A strength of a VR HMD is that it can also be just a 3D display.
After all, we will be watching 3D movies on it.

Note that VR does not have to use body movement tracking, you put a lot of emphasis on that.
Its easy enough to use a joystick or WSAD and the mouse. The Rift will be getting tracked joystick controllers for each hand, they look pretty neat.
I want to use VR to chill out on the sofa after a hard day, not break my vases :)
And there will be plenty of long VR sessions that would be exhausting if not sat down.
The novelty of room wide VR will wear off pretty quick when you can do the same thing with much less effort and no sweating all over the HMDs foam.

For some people, treating the headset as a 3D display might work fine, but that's not VR.
Click to expand...
Exactly the point, it is also a 3D display without VR.
If you play games as you normally would with no movement tracking, its just a much better 3D screen.
Perfect.

If new FPS games come out that are designed for a HMD with movement tracking, I still cant see the problem.
You can do things in real life that can be experienced with a HMD.
Why try and put limits on it?
 
Wait until you've actually used a room-scale VR setup.
You won't think the same of seated VR experiences, or trying to use it as a 3D display.

You also have to realize that these are not really built to be used as 3D displays like other HMD devices were.
For watching movies you probably want an FOV of 50-60° at most, so you're basically halving an already low resolution display to watch them.
 
The resolution will be lower on the HMD for 3D films, I'm not worried about that.
The 3D will be much improved.
If it ends up not so useful, such is life. The next gen will hopefully address the issues.

I would use a room scale VR setup infrequently.
If I want to exercise, thats what outdoors is for.
No sense in knackering yourself out playing a game and then not going out!
And getting sweaty in the house isnt appreciated. The Foam on the HMD wont like it either.
I'll relax when I play games thanks :)
 
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