IS VR Worth It?

[Shinchuu]

Im kinda planning on buying Oculus Rift Or Samsung Odyssey im kinda wondering if its worth it to buy it right now

 

i have an

i7 7700k

gtx 1080

16gb ram

 

[Canada EH]

No its not worth it!!!!!!

[Ethan_vank]

Personally i would wait for the future to see where vr goes, right now isnt really a good time for all that money

[Froody129]

I’m enjoying my Windows MR a lot even though I don’t use it that much. The main barrier being you need lots of space to use it fully. 

 

Finding a Windows MR headset on sale is a great cheap alternative to the bigger companies.

[Shinchuu]

3 minutes ago, Canada EH said:

No its not worth it!!!!!!

how so?

[Shinchuu]

2 minutes ago, Ethan_vank said:

Personally i would wait for the future to see where vr goes, right now isnt really a good time for all that money

how so why is it not worth it atm?

[Shinchuu]

1 minute ago, Froody129 said:

I’m enjoying my Windows MR a lot even though I don’t use it that much. The main barrier being you need lots of space to use it fully. 

 

Finding a Windows MR headset on sale is a great cheap alternative to the bigger companies.

what windows mr did you buy? also whats the difference with the others?

[Ethan_vank]

3 minutes ago, Shinchuu said:

how so why is it not worth it atm?

I use one alot since my school has gotten one and unless you are gonna be putting a lot of time into it then it is not worth it

[dizmo]

I'd wait until a new version of the Vive comes out. One that's wireless. Qualcomm also made some chips aimed at improving VR, so we might see better headsets in the future. There also aren't that many games out for it right now. I think it'll be 2 or 3 years before I'd really consider VR worth the investment, right now it's more of a niche novelty. Like owning a cotton candy machine.

[Froody129]

3 minutes ago, Shinchuu said:

what windows mr did you buy? also whats the difference with the others?

Lenovo Explorer. That’s basically the lightest and not crap looking one (standardisation means they’re pretty similar across the board). The Samsung Odyssey has a slightly higher res screen, but my friend who owns it said it’s not a big deal over the normal MR screen.

 

These screens are already a good bit higher in resolution than the standard headsets

[Oshino Shinobu]

It's still basically a tech demo at this point. One of the main issues is just the lack of full content at the moment, a lot games available are short or just kind of tack on VR as a bit of a gimmick or different way to play the game. Most of the content available is still tech demo type stuff that are basically made to try out ideas that could be used in the future in VR games. 

 

Back when I had my Oculus Rift DK2, I found that TechnoLust was the best thing available at the time, even though it had no gameplay to speak of, just the way it immersed you into a different world was amazing. Honestly, I feel like that's the way forward with VR. The way it can immerse you in a story based game without much action is the real appeal to me. 

 

I'd suggest waiting until at least the next generation of headsets come out, or until wireless becomes standard for VR headsets. 

[Shinchuu]

ok thanks guys

[mortino]

1 hour ago, Shinchuu said:

Im kinda planning on buying Oculus Rift Or Samsung Odyssey im kinda wondering if its worth it to buy it right now

 

i have an

i7 7700k

gtx 1080

16gb ram

 

Just rip some google cardboard if you want to just mess around with VR, it's not as good but the price tag is astronomically better. You can also get cellphone VR headsets for like 5 or 10 bucks.

[ARikozuM]

I'd suggest the Rift. There are plenty of games out right now, mostly horror and shooters, and they're loads of fun to play. Most are meant to be played in a single session or with defined breaks/chapters. I've been meaning to ask where @Sakkura gets his VR games from, but there are plenty on Steam and itch.io.

[Sakkura]

2 hours ago, dizmo said:

I'd wait until a new version of the Vive comes out. One that's wireless. Qualcomm also made some chips aimed at improving VR, so we might see better headsets in the future. There also aren't that many games out for it right now. I think it'll be 2 or 3 years before I'd really consider VR worth the investment, right now it's more of a niche novelty. Like owning a cotton candy machine.

There are wireless upgrade kits for both the Vive and Rift. They're expensive though.

2 hours ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

It's still basically a tech demo at this point. One of the main issues is just the lack of full content at the moment, a lot games available are short or just kind of tack on VR as a bit of a gimmick or different way to play the game. Most of the content available is still tech demo type stuff that are basically made to try out ideas that could be used in the future in VR games. 

 

Back when I had my Oculus Rift DK2, I found that TechnoLust was the best thing available at the time, even though it had no gameplay to speak of, just the way it immersed you into a different world was amazing. Honestly, I feel like that's the way forward with VR. The way it can immerse you in a story based game without much action is the real appeal to me. 

 

I'd suggest waiting until at least the next generation of headsets come out, or until wireless becomes standard for VR headsets. 

That's a bit outdated. The content library has grown steadily, and it's a pretty big difference from the Rift CV1 launch, let alone the DK2 days. There are devs releasing their second or third VR titles now, so they're starting to build on past experience. There aren't a lot of massive 50-hour singleplayer games (mostly conversions, sometimes quite lazy like Fallout 4), but I'm not sure that's mandatory. Depends how picky you are, I guess.

 

Wireless as a standard feature will definitely be nice.

1 hour ago, ARikozuM said:

I'd suggest the Rift. There are plenty of games out right now, mostly horror and shooters, and they're loads of fun to play. Most are meant to be played in a single session or with defined breaks/chapters. I've been meaning to ask where @Sakkura gets his VR games from, but there are plenty on Steam and itch.io.

Oculus store. Plus some stuff on Steam.

[Oshino Shinobu]

5 hours ago, Sakkura said:

That's a bit outdated. The content library has grown steadily, and it's a pretty big difference from the Rift CV1 launch, let alone the DK2 days. There are devs releasing their second or third VR titles now, so they're starting to build on past experience. There aren't a lot of massive 50-hour singleplayer games (mostly conversions, sometimes quite lazy like Fallout 4), but I'm not sure that's mandatory. Depends how picky you are, I guess.

 

I was talking about today's situation. Back when I had my DK2, there was basically nothing at all. It's definitely better now, but there's hardly any full fledged content, most of it is still just trying to explore what can be done with VR. 

 

If you look at most of the major gaming Youtube channels, they're not putting out any VR content, and when asked, they tend to say that they've played all of the titles that are worth playing and once you've played it a few times, you get bored of it. 

 

Don't really expect there to be 50 hour games yet, but there's hardly any that really last more than an hour or two at this point (excluding games that have a VR conversion, most of which don't really work too well). There's quite a lot of games that don't really have a play time as there's no objective other than to just mess around in VR, or wave based shooting type games that don't really have an end. 

 

While there's certainly more content than when I had my DK2, I still feel like you're going to get bored of it after a few months and basically stop using it. Still, there's quite a lot of resale value with VR headsets, so you can just sell it at that point. I hardly lost any money from my DK2 as I bought it used and sold it on for only a little less than I bought it for. 

[Sakkura]

49 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

If you look at most of the major gaming Youtube channels, they're not putting out any VR content, and when asked, they tend to say that they've played all of the titles that are worth playing and once you've played it a few times, you get bored of it. 

 

Don't really expect there to be 50 hour games yet, but there's hardly any that really last more than an hour or two at this point (excluding games that have a VR conversion, most of which don't really work too well). There's quite a lot of games that don't really have a play time as there's no objective other than to just mess around in VR, or wave based shooting type games that don't really have an end.

Major gaming youtube channels never did VR in the first place. There are dedicated VR channels doing a steady stream of VR content though.

 

There are lots of games that last more than an hour or two.

 

Arizona Sunshine, Arktika.1, Brass Tactics, Chronos, Eagle Flight, Echo Arena, Edge of Nowhere, Fantastic Contraption, From Other Suns, I Expect You To Die, Karnage Chronicles, Landfall, Lone Echo, Lucky's Tale, Onward, OrbusVR, Raw Data, Redout, Rez Infinite, Robinson: The Journey, Robo Recall, Serious Sam 1, 2, 3, Solus Project, Sprint Vector, Subnautica, Superhot VR, Talos Principle, The Climb, The Mage's Tale, The Unspoken, Thumper, Ultrawings, Wilson's Heart, Windlands, Witchblood, Xing.

 

That's a fair number right there, and all just from my library (and sorting out some of the shovelware).

[trufret]

If you are a Sim fan (Flight, Racing, Space) then it's very hard to go back to a regular monitor once you've played them in VR.

Elite Dangerous

Project Cars 1 & 2

Assetto Coursa

Dirt Rally

DCS World

X-Plane

Most of those also require a FFB wheel or H.O.T.A.S to get the most out of them but VR really is a game changer in that field.

 

I would wait until the Vive Pro comes out ( or get the Samsung Odyssey Windows VR Headset now but tracking can be iffy in some situations.) for the higher resolution if you are into them though.

 

The current gen is serviceable but there is some issues with reading text, small gauges, seeing small objects in the distance that should be helped with a resolution bump.

 

 

[Totallycasual]

I think until headsets are better, lighter, cheaper and there's a lot of fully supported content out there i think VR is going to be as successful as 3D tv. 

[asus killer]

On 2/23/2018 at 5:23 AM, Name Taken said:

Headsets out now are still first gen products. I'll be waiting until 3rd or 4th gen before considering.

 

they are far from being 1st gen, the name changed from 3D to VR but it's been tried a million times before.

 

 

[kirashi]

On 2/22/2018 at 8:54 PM, Shinchuu said:

Im kinda planning on buying Oculus Rift Or Samsung Odyssey im kinda wondering if its worth it to buy it right now

Whether it's worth it or not will be entirely up to how you plan to use it. For most people, VR is about as useful as 4K TV's and monitors right now - sure, the technology exists and does indeed work (sort of) as advertised, but it's in early adoption mode. Graphics cards aren't up the task of VR at acceptable framerates of 120fps at minimum, especially at 4K resolution, and they're not affordable at all due to artificially crafted market supply for the demand of cards. It's the same as how 4K displays do work and serve a purpose in the content creation industry but no operating system has been optimized properly for the right DPI scaling to make using one a pleasing experience, and so few movies and TV shows are ever released in 4K in an easy-to-acquire format for the consumer.

 

To be clear, I am not knocking the existence of either technology, since if they didn't exist we wouldn't be able to improve them. They're just not ready for the public yet, and are still better suited to development or professionals in the content creation industry. One current use I can see for VR is providing an interactive experience for people who can't get around easily, such as allowing someone in a wheelchair to fly through the grand canyon virtually.

[asus killer]

1 hour ago, Name Taken said:

The Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR are first generation commercial VR headsets developed and released by their respective companies.

even if  it the 1st try for them, they're doing it based on those million other tries for all those other companies. I don't think it's anywhere near fair calling it 1st gen. that's like saying the 1st hyundai car was 1st gen, maybe for them.

[tatte]

3 hours ago, asus killer said:

even if  it the 1st try for them, they're doing it based on those million other tries for all those other companies. I don't think it's anywhere near fair calling it 1st gen. that's like saying the 1st hyundai car was 1st gen, maybe for them.

Then stand up to your smartassing and do the research for us, tell us exactly which generation we are at, and back it up with a list of previous generations and reasoning how each was justifiably a separate VR generation.

 

I have been happy with my Rift. There are many great experiences no matter what you prefer, VR is great for media consumption, superb party gimmick and it'll revolutionise how you view porn. I wouldn't buy into VR believing it's something you'll be using daily after the initial wow-factor wears off, but it's definitely solid fun for occasions. A lot depends on how you react to it, it might not suite you at all, but it might also be the wildest thing you can possibly experience (especially for only 449€).

 

If you do end up buying or trying out one, be sure to go into it with the mindset "can this be configured?", there's a lot of comfort settings that are either overbearing or completely absent by default. Some developers don't want their customers to outright puke ten seconds into the experience, while others throw you right in. It's also entirely possible to build up tolerance to the wilder stuff.

[Sakkura]

13 hours ago, asus killer said:

 

they are far from being 1st gen, the name changed from 3D to VR but it's been tried a million times before.

3D and VR are not the same thing. And this is the 1st generation of modern VR headsets.

[Frankenburger]

Right now, VR is more of a novelty than anything else. Hardware aside, VR still has a lot of hurdles that need to be addressed. Control scheme and game design are the two biggest drawbacks right now. IMHO, triple monitor setups are almost just as immersive as VR if set up properly, has a lot less technical drawbacks, and works with more games that might hold your interest.