Buy a VR headset or wait?

[phoon]

Hey guys,

 

I need a second opinion before I decide on anything. So I'm thinking of buying a valve index but some people are saying the HP reverb g3 would be a better choice.

 

I'm not even sure if I should buy a VR headset. I feel like there might be a next gen leap around the corner that I might not be aware of.

 

Btw I'm running a GTX 1080 so how well do you think that would run the latest VR games?

 

Thank you in advance!

[Entropy.]

6 minutes ago, phoon said:

Hey guys,

 

I need a second opinion before I decide on anything. So I'm thinking of buying a valve index but some people are saying the HP reverb g3 would be a better choice.

 

I'm not even sure if I should buy a VR headset. I feel like there might be a next gen leap around the corner that I might not be aware of.

 

Btw I'm running a GTX 1080 so how well do you think that would run the latest VR games?

 

Thank you in advance!

A GTX 1080 should handle most VR games quite well. As for VR tech, I'm not sure but I would doubt it. 

[Omar.B]

5 minutes ago, phoon said:

Hey guys,

 

I need a second opinion before I decide on anything. So I'm thinking of buying a valve index but some people are saying the HP reverb g3 would be a better choice.

 

I'm not even sure if I should buy a VR headset. I feel like there might be a next gen leap around the corner that I might not be aware of.

 

Btw I'm running a GTX 1080 so how well do you think that would run the latest VR games?

 

Thank you in advance!

Yes I do believe that the GTX 1080 will run every VR games and buying a VR headset is up to you if you wanna play VR games or not thats it! 

[Midevil Chaos]

I wouldn't bother personally. I feel that this is the equivalent of the person buying an Atari when the Nintendo was right around the corner back in the day, but they just didn't know. I may not be "in the know" like any of us, but the truth is, technology is always advancing, and I wouldn't be surprised if VR would be getting a boost. The way I see it: With that dreaded virus, people are indoors, and thus what is the best way to get people to buy stuff? Creating video games, VR sets and so on. To give them a semblance of a real world within an apartment or a house.

[cm992]

Imo VR is a bad expierence in its current state but with Apple coming out with a headset soon I think the development of better VR tech might accelerate soon. Also the game selection isn't great. I would just wait if I were you.

[pipnina]

I've used a Vive and I own an Index. I used a 6700k @ 4.5 (now with R5-5800x) and a GTX 1070.

It ran VR games like Elite Dangerous, No Man's Sky, Project Cars 2 just fine. Half Life Alyx suffers a little with the 1070 being quite close to minimum spec (I was pulling over 90fps but not meeting my 144 hz target near lowest settings, and my overclocked 6700k was pushed to breaking point).

 

As for how good the sets are at the moment... I'd say wait a little. The Index is what i'd call "almost there", but that is still an ALMOST. No doubt the next gen of headsets (Index is already 1.5 years old) will be much better and probably come with 4k panels to boot. Though at that point you're gonna need a beefier card in all likelihood.

Scout out what games you want to play in VR first. If you find enough to feel like you'd be kept busy, take the splash. No sense waiting forever for the tech to become perfect.

[trag1c]

I haven't played any VR titles since I put in my new CPU but I was running a 5820k, GTX 1080 and an HTC Vive and the performance was more than adequate. I don't have any exact numbers but most games ran just fine.

[Kilrah]

52 minutes ago, phoon said:

HP reverb g3

G2 is barely out...

 

The go-to right now is really the Quest 2. Gives an excellent experience comparable to the G2 but at lower price and with wireless operation capability both standalone and streaming from a PC which no other offers. 

Index is superior in terms of image quality, but at almost 4x the price and with increased GPU requriements to make real use of it...

 

  

52 minutes ago, phoon said:

I'm not even sure if I should buy a VR headset. I feel like there might be a next gen leap around the corner that I might not be aware of.

There always will as with all tech, but since there has just been such a leap it's probably going to be a couple of years before another one comes, and... the current experience is already awesome, the next thing is probably going to be in peripherals like haptic / interface systems since the rest is quite mature by now.

[Midevil Chaos]

12 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

G2 is barely out...

 

The go-to right now is really the Quest 2. Gives an excellent experience comparable to the G2 but at lower price and with wireless operation capability both standalone and streaming from a PC which no other offers. 

Index is superior in terms of image quality, but at almost 4x the price and with increased GPU requriements to make real use of it...

The Oculus you mean? By FB? Hell no lol. Everyone has to stay the hell away from that stuff. As tech people, we all know the value of privacy. Having to log into FB just for a VR device? Hell no. All the privacy data they collect? Bad idea.
 

[Kilrah]

Wow the proberbial anti FB guy that always takes over any VR discussion was quick this time... 

[Midevil Chaos]

4 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Wow the proberbial anti FB guy that always takes over any VR discussion was quick this time... 

Seriously gonna insult me? If you don't understand the privacy concern it poses, then that's on you.

EDIT: Besides, there are plenty of alternatives for FB's Oculus Quest.

[Treebsquire]

Personally I'd recommend a Rift S if you go for VR now. I've tried all major VR headsets (Quest 2, Index, Reverb G2, Rift S) and find the Rift S to be the best bang for your buck (especially with the £299 price drop). The quest 2 is good for wireless but I found that the compression made games looks worse than the Rift S and I had a lot of issues with it, even with the link cable so I sent it back.

 

There are loads of great VR games that should run well on your 1080, especialy with the res of the Rift S. 

 

I replied to a recent thread about VR game recommendations and wrote quite an extensive list of great games. I think the only ones on there that you might have trouble with are Asgards Wrath and No Mans Sky. The rest should run great on a 1080.

 

As to whether or not you should buy VR, I'd say definitely. It's been a huge game changer for me and I play more VR than anything else these days. Things like the G2 are ok but I didn't get on with it and it's going to be sold out for a long time probably. The sweet spot is tiny so things looked very blurry that were outside of the very centre of the lenses, the tracking was really bad and the headset had a lot of other issues with games.

 

The index is good but I didn't find the quality of the lenses to be much better than the Rift S. The controllers were cool but the finger tracking is pointless for 99% of games so you're basically paying 3 times as much for the 144hz and gimmick controllers. It does have incredible sound though, which the G2 uses as well. I have a really good pair of Bose headphones so just use those with the Rift S and it's amazing.

 

 

 

[phoon]

16 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Wow the proberbial anti FB guy that always takes over any VR discussion was quick this time... 

Yeah ikr, I honestly don't see why people are so scared of these tech giants taking our info. What's the worst that they can do with it...give us better ads?

[pipnina]

1 hour ago, phoon said:

Yeah ikr, I honestly don't see why people are so scared of these tech giants taking our info. What's the worst that they can do with it...give us better ads?

That data has been used to target political material to people, companies like Facebook literally have the power to sway elections with their algorithms.

Besides that, the fact that you need to log into facebook and use their store to use the built-in compute of the Quest and Quest2, combined with the suspiciously cheap unit price for what it contains (potentially selling their product at a loss like consoles do?) they stand a real risk of becoming a Microsoft/Windows style monopoly in the VR space. Nobody wants that.

 

Microsoft's headsets are able to be made by any hardware manufacturer, SteamVR is usable by any hardware manufacturer and game developer, Facebook is the only party that's continually tried to lock their platform down to ransom users.

The Microsoft headsets and the Vive/Index are much freer and less restrictive options, even if they have their own technical drawbacks. That's worth more than $ to me at least.

 

That said, Facebook vs Valve vs Microsoft might be a little off topic since the topic is about buying a headset in the first place, not necessarily which one.

[Kilrah]

39 minutes ago, pipnina said:

That data has been used to target political material to people, companies like Facebook literally have the power to sway elections with their algorithms.

So does mainstream media... and if you make an FB account for your headset it doesn't mean you're suddenly going to start going on FB 10 times a day and swallow everything you see and mysteriously completely lose your judgment... I never go on FB myself, couldn't care less about what people say there.

 

39 minutes ago, pipnina said:

they stand a real risk of becoming a Microsoft/Windows style monopoly in the VR space. Nobody wants that.

Well it's there already and there's nothing you/we will be able to do about it, the Quest 2 is already by far the best selling headset right now by a huge margin and just like a third of the planet is OK to use FB the general public won't refrain themselves from continuing to buy it and make it grow further...

 

The only way this can change now is if someone else comes and seriously competes at the same level, hopefully that will now come since it's now demonstrated the market is really there for it if you do something good and VR becomes less of a risky niche.

 

39 minutes ago, pipnina said:

they stand a real risk of becoming a Microsoft/Windows style monopoly

 

39 minutes ago, pipnina said:

The Microsoft headsets and the Vive/Index are much freer and less restrictive options

You're also kinda contradicting yourself there, you use MS to depict the "bad guy" FB is and then advise an MS-supported headset just becasue they're less popular? Seems lore like a "hate whoever becomes too successful". And WMR software is pretty trash.

[pipnina]

2 hours ago, Kilrah said:

So does mainstream media... and if you make an FB account for your headset it doesn't mean you're suddenly going to start going on FB 10 times a day and swallow everything you see and mysteriously completely lose your judgment... I never go on FB myself, couldn't care less about what people say there.

 

Well it's there already and there's nothing you'll do about it, the Quest 2 is already by far the best selling headset right now by a huge margin and just like a third of the planet is OK to use FB the general public won't refrain themselves from continuing to buy it and make it grow further...

 

The only way this can change now is if someone else comes and seriously competes at the same level, hopefully that will now come since it's now demonstrated the market is really there for it if you do something good and VR becomes less of a risky niche.

 

 

You're also kinda contradicting yourself there, you use MS to depict the "bad guy" FB is and then advise an MS-supported headset just becasue they're less popular? Seems lore like a "hate whoever becomes too successful". And WMR software is pretty trash.

The mainstream media doesn't use algorithms based on your own usage and preferences to show you targeted news, they just find something to report and report it. You actively choose to read their websites or not. Facebook almost decides for you by curating what you see.

 

Also there is most certainly *not* already a Facebook monopoly on VR, at the moment on steam's survey 56% of people use some form of Facebook VR setup. Which means 44% don't. Of that 44% it is mostly split between the index, vive and microsoft's vr. This is a healthier percentage than nvidia/amd gpus or intel/amd processors. And many many times healthier than windows vs MacOS vs Linux, which is why I use microsoft as a good example for VR but not so for operating systems.

[Kilrah]

5 minutes ago, pipnina said:

Also there is most certainly *not* already a Facebook monopoly on VR, at the moment on steam's survey 56% of people use some form of Facebook VR setup.

The Quest 2 is in 2nd place at a massive 17.4% and it's only been out for 4 months, during 2 of which people who wanted one couldn't buy one... so not only 56% is already the majority, but it's also increasing rapidly.

Not to mention that the Quests are standalone and directed primarily to non-PC users so a lot of them won't appear on Steam at all yet are now part of the VR market.

 

12 minutes ago, pipnina said:

You actively choose to read their websites or not.

You actively choose to read FB or not. 

[Treebsquire]

5 hours ago, phoon said:

Yeah ikr, I honestly don't see why people are so scared of these tech giants taking our info. What's the worst that they can do with it...give us better ads?

 

It would be nice if you could actually acknowledge the people that have taken the time to respond to your thread with the asnwers you've asked for. I spent a while to think about and respond to yours and the others guys VR post and neither have bothered to actually respond. When people spend time to try and help you, it doesn't take much effort to actually acknowledge their efforts. Or maybe that's just a recurring theme on these forums I don't know. I only recently joined. Just seems like common human courtesy but that seems to be harder to come by these days, 

[Midevil Chaos]

21 hours ago, phoon said:

Yeah ikr, I honestly don't see why people are so scared of these tech giants taking our info. What's the worst that they can do with it...give us better ads?

Instead of sarcastically speaking in my back (while my concerns are valid), maybe you should directly respond to me. Here is a simple example why you should NOT trust FB with your information (also, if you don't care about big companies getting YOUR info, maybe you shouldn't be in tech OR learn about the dangers of YOUR info being out there).

https://fortune.com/2018/04/06/facebook-scandals-mark-zuckerberg/ 

[Midevil Chaos]

15 hours ago, Treebsquire said:

 

It would be nice if you could actually acknowledge the people that have taken the time to respond to your thread with the asnwers you've asked for. I spent a while to think about and respond to yours and the others guys VR post and neither have bothered to actually respond. When people spend time to try and help you, it doesn't take much effort to actually acknowledge their efforts. Or maybe that's just a recurring theme on these forums I don't know. I only recently joined. Just seems like common human courtesy but that seems to be harder to come by these days, 

Thank you.  The worst part is that I actually spent time posting a comment (an extremely valid one). So, even though you're not the OP, I will take your acknowledgement.
 

[Kilrah]

8 hours ago, Midevil Chaos said:

also, if you don't care about big companies getting YOUR info, maybe you shouldn't be in tech OR learn about the dangers of YOUR info being out there

If you're doing anything online/with tech these companies have all the info they want to have about you whether you use their services or not. So might as well gain a bit from it. 

 

People who think they can have their privacy just because they don't have an FB account live in a dream. Good for you, but it doesn't change anything.

[Midevil Chaos]

35 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

If you're doing anything online/with tech these companies have all the info they want to have about you whether you use their services or not. So might as well gain a bit from it. 

 

People who think they can have their privacy just because they don't have an FB account live in a dream. Good for you, but it doesn't change anything.

Uhm no. I never said anything about not having an FB account. Assuming you log in with your FB account for the VR device and allow FB to use your data like geo stuff and what not, what are you doing at that point? Giving them your location, the time spent where you are, allowing them to also get information in terms of the games you play and God know what other information we are unaware of.
 

[Kilrah]

And?

They're going to sell that to advertisers so they can better target ads I'll never see anyway, and knowing what games I play and for how long may lead to more of such games being developed, which is a win in my book... I'm more than happy if FB sees that I'm spending 90% of my time on the Quest in Virtual Desktop and it reinforces the fact that this is a use case that is important to users and needs to be seriously considered for continued support / improvements.

[phoon]

On 2/15/2021 at 11:55 PM, Treebsquire said:

 

It would be nice if you could actually acknowledge the people that have taken the time to respond to your thread with the asnwers you've asked for. I spent a while to think about and respond to yours and the others guys VR post and neither have bothered to actually respond. When people spend time to try and help you, it doesn't take much effort to actually acknowledge their efforts. Or maybe that's just a recurring theme on these forums I don't know. I only recently joined. Just seems like common human courtesy but that seems to be harder to come by these days, 

Im just giving my opinion about an off topic which someone introduced to this thread. I never wanted to discuss FB privacy issues but here we are.

 

On 2/15/2021 at 12:30 AM, phoon said:

Thank you in advance!

And if I wasn't explicit enough:

 

Thank you again everyone, you helped me decide on my next step towards VR. 

 

I'll look into the available games and see if they're worth diving into.

 

This includes you too @Midevil Chaos .

 

Just because I gave my opinion on your off topic comment doesn't mean I don't appreciate the time and effort you put commenting about the topic at hand.

 

I just like to express my lack of concern for privacy issues because I truly believe that it can help people feel less threatened and scared about subjects like these.

 

[phoon]

On 2/16/2021 at 3:26 PM, Midevil Chaos said:

Instead of sarcastically speaking in my back (while my concerns are valid), maybe you should directly respond to me. Here is a simple example why you should NOT trust FB with your information (also, if you don't care about big companies getting YOUR info, maybe you shouldn't be in tech OR learn about the dangers of YOUR info being out there).

https://fortune.com/2018/04/06/facebook-scandals-mark-zuckerberg/ 

Enlighten me.

 

I am in tech. In fact, as a computers and communications engineer and a level 10 PCMR Chad I think I'm entitled to say that I'm "in tech", whatever that means.

 

But please do enlighten, if Mark Zuckerberg or any "big company" knows every detail of my life how does that affect me.

 

Also I'm sure if and when there's concrete evidence that FB as a company are manipulating the elections, the government won't hesitate to shut them down.

 

Ps: there's a pay wall behind your article...try again.