Help me buy and set up a VR system

Long story short: my kids have decided that the only thing they both want this Christmas is a VR system. My wife and I have agreed to it.

They want to play Gorn, among other games, and they want a VR system that actually works, so PSVR is right out. (my experience with PSVR a few years ago was so terrible that I was able to convince GameStop to let me return it for store credit)

We’re thinking Oculus Rift S, because it doesn’t require a football field and a bunch of outlets to support all the little infrared beacons all over the room. Oculus Quest is also an option, but only if the tether-to-PC option actually works and isn’t one of those “oh, it works if your USB cable was manufactured by elves, but only the ones in the Prague factory, and only if it’s within this range of serial numbers, except for that one lot in January when they all took time off to help a despondent shoemaker.”

I’m open to other headsets if they’re relatively easy to set up and use. I’m hoping to avoid a situation where just getting the thing functional is a hobby unto itself.

Can anyone please help me figure out which headset is actually plug-and-play functional (Rift S or Quest? Or some other system?), and help me put together a PC that can actually work it? I’d prefer to buy an off-the-shelf PC like this one, which Newegg says is “VR ready” but I’m not sure I believe them. It certainly seems to meet all the specs for an Oculus Rift S, but there always seem to be “gotcha” moments with stuff like this.

Also, is there anything else I need to know? Does the color of the paint on the walls matter? Does natural sunlight from windows cause it to flip out and induce vomiting like it does for the PSVR?

Please, I’m invoking the power of the community to help me make this as painless a process as possible.

I can't give you any useful help, but having this reply will give you a number in the New Replies column, which may improve visibility for the question. Actual worthwhile replies may be a little more likely.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

We’re thinking Oculus Rift S, because it doesn’t require a football field and a bunch of outlets to support all the little infrared beacons all over the room. Oculus Quest is also an option, but only if the tether-to-PC option actually works and isn’t one of those “oh, it works if your USB cable was manufactured by elves, but only the ones in the Prague factory, and only if it’s within this range of serial numbers, except for that one lot in January when they all took time off to help a despondent shoemaker.”
...
Can anyone please help me figure out which headset is actually plug-and-play functional (Rift S or Quest? Or some other system?), and help me put together a PC that can actually work it? I’d prefer to buy an off-the-shelf PC like this one, which Newegg says is “VR ready” but I’m not sure I believe them. It certainly seems to meet all the specs for an Oculus Rift S, but there always seem to be “gotcha” moments with stuff like this.

The Quest's Link functionality works with pretty much any USB cable, now, and the headset has interpupillary distance adjustment. The interpupillary distance (IPD) adjustment lets you move the lenses closer and further apart, so they're properly centered over each of your eye's pupils. Being able to change it could be required for children to use it without eye strain. There are endless threads and videos about modding the Quest for general comfort, though, as the included headstrap is pretty underwhelming. The type of screen it uses also leaves a noticeable screen door effect if that bothers you.

The Rift S is about as simple to get going as anything has been, assuming you have a DisplayPort on the graphics card, but you can't change the IPD on it. There's a range in which it'll still give you a clear image without eye strain, but if you're outside that range, it's not going to work well. It doesn't require aligning and connecting IR cameras like the original Rift, nor setting up lighthouses like all the native SteamVR headsets. There are lots of more sophisticated headsets out there, but there's nothing outright wrong with it if its IPD range works for you.

The upcoming HP Reverb G2 looks like it'll combine a lot of the best aspects of a number of other headsets together, including IPD adjustment, self-contained tracking, high resolution panels, and a decent head strap, plus it should be as simple to set up as the Rift S. We won't know for sure until we start seeing reviews of production units, though. The main known downside is slightly inferior controllers.

That rig will do it pretty well--better than the one I actually use, at any rate. It's a ballpark, but anything with a better than 4th generation Core i7 or 6th generation Core i5, paired with a GTX1060 or faster will do VR just fine.

I hadn’t thought about the distance between the screens. The quest is sounding more like the way to go on this.

The Quest is pretty great, but you do have to interface with tech elves if you want to have the game running from a stronger PC as opposed to standalone.

You either need the special USB cable you were worried about, USB 3.2 I think? And obviously a long cable.

Or you can a beefy PC stream games wirelessly from the desktop ecosystem of VR titles using either OSVR for (or maybe Virtual Deskop?) This requires your wifi router have higher bandwidth that your average bear. Last I looked that meant a router in the $200-300. If that observation is dated I'd love to hear others' experiences.

If the Quest doesn't become the progenitor of all future VR, then either Facebook goofed it real bad or people just don't want VR in any form.

Half the battle is avoiding the base station VR solutions. I think it was wise of you to rule those out.

Yeah, I’m still leery of the lighthouse-based solutions, but the using the Quest tethered is a little too “off label” for my comfort. Everything I read about it is “you can do it, but...”

But the lack of IPD adjustment makes me think the Rift S isn’t going to work for my family. Maybe if I measure the kids it will all work out, but I doubt it.

Basically, there’s no solution that does everything I need. I can have plug and play without lighthouses, except I might not be able to see it. I can adjust it to work with human eyes, but the setup becomes a debacle.

The more research I do, the less I think that VR is ready for prime time. But I promised my kids, so I will make it happen. I’ll just have to figure out which trade-off is least painful.

Which is a great attitude to be forced into for a purchase that’s going to run two grand.

FYI, you no longer need a special USB cable. Oculus link will now even work with USB 2 cables including the cable that ships with it.

The trade off that is less painful is the Quest. I have an old school (just before the S came out) Rift that is gathering dust. The immersion is unbelievable even despite the limitations. (I could not wear my glasses with it but my vision is reasonable enough for it to be effective aside from reading text)

It is really easy to get sick from simple movements. I don't know if that is something I'd want my children to experience and it does not get better with practice so that is the huge hurdle that VR needs to address. It is why I feel AR is the technology with more potential.

The reason the Quest is the better option is that you don't need to spend $1000-1200 on a PC to run it. (FWIW, my Rift ran fine on an fx-8300 and an rx-580 with 8GB ram) So you could probably put a $700 PC together that would run it fine (and blow the doors off my old PC)

There are a few upcoming developments that would caution you to wait. The next gen Quest is going to have hand tracking built in. Wifi 6 is going to have the bandwidth to better link the Quest to a PC. I don't know whether you will be able to do a firmware upgrade to support wifi 6 if you buy a Quest now.

There are also developments with Apple's glasses or whatever their VR/AR department is cooking up. Plus we don't know what the next generation of pymax, and things like the pico neo are going to be like.

fangblackbone wrote:

There are a few upcoming developments that would caution you to wait. The next gen Quest is going to have hand tracking built in. Wifi 6 is going to have the bandwidth to better link the Quest to a PC. I don't know whether you will be able to do a firmware upgrade to support wifi 6 if you buy a Quest now.

Do you have a link for that info? The current version got an update for hand tracking BTW.

Wifi 6 has at least a few good things: increased bandwidth, reduced latency and the ability to talk to multiple devices at the same time
I knew that you could buy a leap motion hand tracking controller and a mount for the Quest or Rift. Is it built in now? Was it just software upgrade and will work on older units?

I have the Quest.
I can play Quest games, or (after some set-it-and-forget-it configuring and a $20 license) pretty much anything VR compatible from my gaming rig over local Wifi.

I bought some USB cables to try the tethering and almost immediately abandoned it. Once you go wireless you'll happily put up with occasional hitching (which might happen with the cable too anyway)... it's just good.

I've played with the hand tracking a little and it was meh. It feels like it takes a second or two to kick in, so if you drop into an idle position and try to respond quickly it didn't seem to detect my hands right away.

I currently have two headsets, and I'm pretty sure when it comes time to return the one I'm borrowing from work I'll be forced to buy another so my spouse can fish while I'm boxing.

Edit: And on that topic. The Quest is set up as a single-player device. You have only one account logged in, so if you buy anything on the Oculus platform then it will be tied to that account. Switching users involves a factory reset. A moot point if most of your content comes from a gaming rig. Also, a neat feature is that the Virtual Desktop app you can use to play VR content also 'just works' with pretty much any computer. Install the streaming app and you can remote control the system from anywhere you can reach with your network from inside the goggles. Youtube on a 100inch screen while laying in bed (wearing a bulky headset that will eventually give you a headache).

Edit2:
You definitely want light control of some manner in the area you set up. The area should be as big as possible. Room-scale content is awesome and brain-breaking if done properly. I haven't noticed any issues with specific colors, but I have had some odd occlusion style issues with my controllers when I was playing directly underneath the light in my basement. One step to the left or right and everything was happy. *shrug*

Edit3: I mean, I could go on... but basically. The Quest, as VR, just works. Standalone, nothing else needed, as long as you're willing to buy into the Oculus store and pay 'MSRP' for apps.

Being able to run Gaming Rig quality VR for the price of a pizza is just f*cking cream on top of a delicious brownie cake.

WiFi 6 is much less interesting than 6E, which will take advantage of a huge new swath of unused bandwidth at 6GHz. I'd strongly suggest holding out for equipment that supports the new frequencies, as the difference in throughput will be remarkable.

Also note that the brand of router you buy will probably matter much more than it has in the past. The algorithms for WiFi 6 are extremely hairy. Packet scheduling on a AP taking advantage of all the throughput options of 6 will become frighteningly complex. The math is terrifying. The skill of router software development teams will be tested severely. From what I've seen of it, coding a WiFi 6 AP will be as much dark art as science, and there will almost certainly be enormous differences in software quality (and, thus, throughput) between routers and brands in the 6 and 6E worlds.

fangblackbone wrote:

Wifi 6 has at least a few good things: increased bandwidth, reduced latency and the ability to talk to multiple devices at the same time
I knew that you could buy a leap motion hand tracking controller and a mount for the Quest or Rift. Is it built in now? Was it just software upgrade and will work on older units?

Yeah, but how do we know the next Quest has WIFI 6? I searched and couldn't find anything.

Original Quest models got a software upgrade to support hand tracking.

Here is a video:

Has there been any word on when the new Quest is due out?

That’s looking like my go-to if I measure my kids’ IPD and find that they’re too far outside the average to use the Rift S, but I’ve heard that it’s very uncomfortable to wear, and I’m hoping that the new gen will solve that.

I haven’t been able to find any information on the next generation Quest release.

I should add that I don’t have a 3d printer, so making my own widgets to make a bad headset fit is off the table.

Google news feed keeps suggesting to me that the new Quest is entering production now.
Here's the link they keep wanting me to click into: https://uploadvr.com/new-oculus-head...

So if I want something that will let me and the wife play Beat Saber, and that I can maybe hook up to my gaming PC to use for Star Wars Squadrons or similar titles in the future, and I don't give half a crap about any other VR title, and I don't want to set up doohickeys all over my living room or spend a fortune, what I'm hearing is the new generation of the Quest is my best bet?

@Middcore:

The current generation will do that just fine. From my googling no information about what the next Quest will and won't do is available yet. It's just all rumors.

Will the new generation have any improvements to the screen? I see someone mentioned a "screen door effect" with the current one above and I've heard people slag the visual quality of the Quest before.

Middcore wrote:

Will the new generation have any improvements to the screen? I see someone mentioned a "screen door effect" with the current one above and I've heard people slag the visual quality of the Quest before.

A quick Google will find you people slagging the optical performance of every available headset. Staring at a tiny screen through thick glass lenses isn't great. Human eye performance is a spectrum. What works flawlessly for one person will be utterly unbearable for another. And then you have whiners who need to justify their higher MSRP by claiming it's the only true option for the true connoisseurs of VR. *shrug* And they will have a point... up to a point. Go forth and try some. Make friends. Sanitize and social distance, or carefully review the return policies of your purchases. What works for you may not work for the person standing next to you.

Rezzy wrote:
Middcore wrote:

Will the new generation have any improvements to the screen? I see someone mentioned a "screen door effect" with the current one above and I've heard people slag the visual quality of the Quest before.

A quick Google will find you people slagging the optical performance of every available headset. Staring at a tiny screen through thick glass lenses isn't great. Human eye performance is a spectrum. What works flawlessly for one person will be utterly unbearable for another. And then you have whiners who need to justify their higher MSRP by claiming it's the only true option for the true connoisseurs of VR. *shrug* And they will have a point... up to a point. Go forth and try some. Make friends. Sanitize and social distance, or carefully review the return policies of your purchases. What works for you may not work for the person standing next to you.

This seems like a somewhat needlessly snide and dismissive response? Perhaps that wasn't how you intended it to come across. Or since your signature says "politely rude" perhaps it was.

Unfortunately I have exactly zero friends who own a VR headset of any kind, at least as far as I am aware. Making new friends purely for the purpose of sampling different VR experiences seems like a lot of work in the best of times, let alone when halfway-decent people are limiting social contact, and also rather cynical. And there are also exactly zero places within driving distances of me which have VR demo displays, as far as I know. (I've never understood why Best Buy doesn't set one up to give people a reason to come in to the store.)

I concur with the main point Rezzy was trying to make. There are too many variables to assess which VR solution is going to work best for you without putting headsets on yourself. That this necessity is logistically hard is true and sucks but doesn't make assessing headsets from specs more feasible. You're rolling the dice. Between the DK2, the original Rift, the Vive, the Samsung Odyssey, and the Quest, for me, the Quest wins just about every metric.

Before using the Quest, having dabbled in some (but not all) of the cutting edge, I assumed VR was going to die out. Now I think it has a chance. Going forward I'm not buying a headset with cables or tracking stations. Those were proof-of-concept level concessions that had no business being on shelves.

Middcore wrote:

This seems like a somewhat needlessly snide and dismissive response? Perhaps that wasn't how you intended it to come across. Or since your signature says "politely rude" perhaps it was.

Unfortunately I have exactly zero friends who own a VR headset of any kind, at least as far as I am aware. Making new friends purely for the purpose of sampling different VR experiences seems like a lot of work in the best of times, let alone when halfway-decent people are limiting social contact, and also rather cynical. And there are also exactly zero places within driving distances of me which have VR demo displays, as far as I know. (I've never understood why Best Buy doesn't set one up to give people a reason to come in to the store.)

You are asking about a subjective quality of VR.
An answer from a flawed Internet source will never be more definitive than your personal experience when it comes to the subject of your potential issues with a thing that clearly doesn't impact everyone. The best thing to do is to figure out a way to try it to see if your eyes are in the small subset of users that cannot tolerate the imperfections that are inherent in any current gen VR to some degree. If you fall outside of the spec the developers accounted for then you will have issues even if most others don't. And even then, some of the flaws inherent in VR will either be immediately obvious to you, or you'll find that you have to stare to even spot them during normal use. No one can anticipate your results accurately. People play and love PSVR, Google Glass, GearVR, Polarized lenses, Active shutter lenses... and not one of them works fine for everyone. That was the point. You can't know for sure or even be reasonably certain until you try.

To put it bluntly: I don't know if your eyes are too awesome for the illusion of VR. My eyes had problems with the Oculus DevKit 2 edition, but have been happy with the Quest and can tolerate longer sessions than the battery can provide (hooray for battery-banks!)

And if you think I would waste time being 'snide' and 'dismissive' and then spending the time typing out an answer that will let you definitively get the answer to your question then you need to step back for a second.

I still think VR is going to die out.
The only hope I see is the Quest if it can keep improving performance, improving the wireless link to a beefier PC, and the costs keep coming down.

Aside from that, the future is all AR.

Rezzy wrote:
Middcore wrote:

This seems like a somewhat needlessly snide and dismissive response? Perhaps that wasn't how you intended it to come across. Or since your signature says "politely rude" perhaps it was.

Unfortunately I have exactly zero friends who own a VR headset of any kind, at least as far as I am aware. Making new friends purely for the purpose of sampling different VR experiences seems like a lot of work in the best of times, let alone when halfway-decent people are limiting social contact, and also rather cynical. And there are also exactly zero places within driving distances of me which have VR demo displays, as far as I know. (I've never understood why Best Buy doesn't set one up to give people a reason to come in to the store.)

You are asking about a subjective quality of VR.
An answer from a flawed Internet source will never be more definitive than your personal experience when it comes to the subject of your potential issues with a thing that clearly doesn't impact everyone. The best thing to do is to figure out a way to try it to see if your eyes are in the small subset of users that cannot tolerate the imperfections that are inherent in any current gen VR to some degree. If you fall outside of the spec the developers accounted for then you will have issues even if most others don't. And even then, some of the flaws inherent in VR will either be immediately obvious to you, or you'll find that you have to stare to even spot them during normal use. No one can anticipate your results accurately. People play and love PSVR, Google Glass, GearVR, Polarized lenses, Active shutter lenses... and not one of them works fine for everyone. That was the point. You can't know for sure or even be reasonably certain until you try.

To put it bluntly: I don't know if your eyes are too awesome for the illusion of VR. My eyes had problems with the Oculus DevKit 2 edition, but have been happy with the Quest and can tolerate longer sessions than the battery can provide (hooray for battery-banks!)

And if you think I would waste time being 'snide' and 'dismissive' and then spending the time typing out an answer that will let you definitively get the answer to your question then you need to step back for a second.

I didn't ask for a subjective opinion on whether the quality of the Quest's screen is acceptable, though. I said I had heard people express subjective opinions about the current Quest's screen being poor, and asked if the new version of the Quest was expected to have a change to its screen specs, which is a question that can be answered objectively "yes" or "no" if information on that front is out yet.

I understand the point you are trying to make about people having different standards for visual quality in VR headsets, but since that's unrelated to the simple question I asked, your response actually does NOT help me get the answer. It would be like if I asked if next year's model of a car was expected to have an increase in horsepower and you wrote me several paragraphs about how different people have different standards for how much power they need from their vehicle, and I should go test drive a bunch of a different cars. Certainly they do, very likely that test driving several options would be helpful, but doesn't answer the factual question asked.

fangblackbone wrote:

Aside from that, the future is all AR.

Having experienced the Quest's video passthrough toggle I will say that you are correct, and that we will see hybrid devices where the world is mirrored to a display and modified before we see high-quality AR "Hololens" style devices that insert objects into the normal field of view.

The Quest has a camera no? (don't they all now?)
I though I saw somewhere that you can tap the side of the Quest and switches to a camera view? (NM I read dongle not toggle)
It sounds like we might be able to do something like what you are talking about now. If the device has the power to superimpose a VR desktop on top of the real world camera view with perhaps adjustable opacity, you are there no? (I'd wager you will need the processing power of the PC link in order to accomplish this...)

FWIW Project Northstar has been around for 2 years now. (leap motion open sourced plans for a DIY inexpensive AR headset with hand tracking) Are people just ignoring it?

fangblackbone wrote:

I still think VR is going to die out.
The only hope I see is the Quest if it can keep improving performance, improving the wireless link to a beefier PC, and the costs keep coming down.

Aside from that, the future is all AR.

I find this maybe plausible? AR introduces another issue I think, where if the system can't do full black out VR as well, you're missing that kind of experience. If it can do full blackout VR, any malicious or accidental blackout when the user isn't expecting it could get dangerous.

Middcore wrote:

I didn't ask for a subjective opinion on whether the quality of the Quest's screen is acceptable, though. I said I had heard people express subjective opinions about the current Quest's screen being poor, and asked if the new version of the Quest was expected to have a change to its screen specs, which is a question that can be answered objectively "yes" or "no" if information on that front is out yet.

I understand the point you are trying to make about people having different standards for visual quality in VR headsets, but since that's unrelated to the simple question I asked, your response actually does NOT help me get the answer. It would be like if I asked if next year's model of a car was expected to have an increase in horsepower and you wrote me several paragraphs about how different people have different standards for how much power they need from their vehicle, and I should go test drive a bunch of a different cars. Certainly they do, very likely that test driving several options would be helpful, but doesn't answer the factual question asked.

... One post above your question. Three posts above your question... We. Don't. Know. Rumors are all we have. And with that I'm out. Try to help and get called out for answering a pointless question with something helpful. "People have said this is bad, will the next one include improvements?" Of course not! Facebook will be repackaging the broken current gen hardware and software until us jerks stop buying it. There, THAT'S dismissive and snide. You found my button and wailed on it. Stay safe out there.

Rezzy, Come back

We can look at prior progress to get an indication of what the new Quest will be.
Unfortunately the way things work is that big leaps end up becoming new products at (much) higher price points. So while there will be improvements, they will be iterative. I have absolutely no proof that the next gen Quest with support wifi 6, it just seemed like a no brainer to me.
Competition seems to be where real innovation in viewing angle comes from (pymax, etc.)
Sadly, competition doesn't always spur benefits to the industry. The main players seem content to let competition languish or flounder or the let themselves be tone deaf to prove their way of doing things is right.
(all my humble opinion of course)

Rezzy wrote:
Middcore wrote:

I didn't ask for a subjective opinion on whether the quality of the Quest's screen is acceptable, though. I said I had heard people express subjective opinions about the current Quest's screen being poor, and asked if the new version of the Quest was expected to have a change to its screen specs, which is a question that can be answered objectively "yes" or "no" if information on that front is out yet.

I understand the point you are trying to make about people having different standards for visual quality in VR headsets, but since that's unrelated to the simple question I asked, your response actually does NOT help me get the answer. It would be like if I asked if next year's model of a car was expected to have an increase in horsepower and you wrote me several paragraphs about how different people have different standards for how much power they need from their vehicle, and I should go test drive a bunch of a different cars. Certainly they do, very likely that test driving several options would be helpful, but doesn't answer the factual question asked.

... One post above your question. Three posts above your question... We. Don't. Know. Rumors are all we have. And with that I'm out. Try to help and get called out for answering a pointless question with something helpful. "People have said this is bad, will the next one include improvements?" Of course not! Facebook will be repackaging the broken current gen hardware and software until us jerks stop buying it. There, THAT'S dismissive and snide. You found my button and wailed on it. Stay safe out there.

My "pointless question" was a question about something that mattered to me. I apologize for not being sufficiently grateful to you for telling me at length why that thing shouldn't actually matter to me, I guess maybe that's my "button"?

While it's true previous posts had said there was no hard info on the next Quest generation yet, since most of the conversation had been about connectivity rather than hardware specs I thought it was worth asking if anything was known specifically about that. Since as you sarcastically pointed out, there must be some difference in the new version for them to justify selling it.

You could have just said nothing was known on that front yet either, or you could have just ignored me if you found my ignorance so exasperating, but I guess that wouldn't have given you the satisfaction of feeling like the unappreciated wise man telling the rubes the questions they should be asking instead of telling them what they actually want to know.

And with that I, too, am out.