General VR discussion thread

[CP5670]

I got the G2 and have been playing around with it for a few days. It's very comfortable while wearing glasses, more than any other VR headset I've tried. This was a major consideration for me and I wanted something I could use for long periods without any fatigue. I may get the custom lenses anyway to avoid scratching the headset lenses long term.

The high resolution (4320x2160) results in maybe the best VR image quality available so far, with essentially no screen door, god rays or other artifacts. The FOV is merely average and a bit disappointing, although you tend to not notice it once you get immersed in a game. I think only the Pimax 5K/8KX have a substantially better FOV and they have many of their own problems. Some games are an entirely new experience in VR, especially racing or fight sims with detailed interiors. The sense of presence you get in VR is amazing, especially with the positional audio as you look around. The colors do look dull compared to the OLED TV I normally use, especially in dark games, although it apparently still has better colors than any of the other LCD headsets.

I'll need a new video card to get the most out of it. My 1080ti struggles in some games, especially since framerate drops below 90fps are much more noticeable and uncomfortable than a regular monitor. I'm downsampling to 50% in some games for now.

 

[Aikouka]

I've made quite a few changes to my VR setup over the past few weeks, and I'm a bit mixed overall.

So, the biggest thing is that I've sold off my Vive and Vive Pro. I do really like the capability of the outside-in tracking used in the aforementioned headsets, but I don't necessarily have the best dedicated play area like I used to. As a result, I decided to keep my original Quest and the Quest 2. I'll admit that it felt a little bittersweet getting rid of the Vive Pro as I hesitated to sell it after doing some final, pre-packaging tests. (I knew it worked, but I prefer to be sure.) What really made me take note is that I completely forgot that I had my glasses on still (I never put the prescription lens adapters on the Vive Pro, but I have them), and I just used the HMD without an issue. On the flip side, I cannot wear my glasses with the Quest or Quest 2 regardless of what facial interface that I use.

I printed an adapter that allows me to use the Vive's Deluxe Audio Strap (DAS) with the Quest 2, and I've been using that lately. To be honest, I can't remember how it felt to use the DAS with the original Vive, but I'm a bit mixed with it on the Quest 2. Although, my problems may just stem from my head being rather large; for example, hats that are deemed "one size fits all" are far too small to fit. The problem that I run into with the DAS is that the left earpiece is constantly being knocked away from my face. I've purchased some IEMs that are designed for the Quest 2, so I plan on trying those out to see how well they work.

To tie this more into PC VR, I dabbled with the wireless variant of Virtual Desktop on the Quest. (To use it wirelessly, you have to use SideQuest to patch the application after properly purchasing it from the Oculus Store.) I don't use a dedicated wireless access point like some do; I do have a decent setup with Ubiquiti APs though. I didn't really tinker with the settings much as I've heard that some settings work better than others, but I was seeing around 20ms of latency.

 

[rstrohkirch]

I have a DAS on my Quest 2. My friend tried it and he has a wider head which presented the same problem you have. The range of the articulating hinge on the speaker pod caused it to pop away from his ear which led to a good 1" gap or maybe more. Personally, one of the greatest strengths for my family is that the DAS drastically cuts down on sound leakage and the annoyance it brings to others. I don't need to here my son play Job and Vacation Simulator for 2 hours.

 

[Aikouka]

I have a DAS on my Quest 2. My friend tried it and he has a wider head which presented the same problem you have. The range of the articulating hinge on the speaker pod caused it to pop away from his ear which led to a good 1" gap or maybe more. Personally, one of the greatest strengths for my family is that the DAS drastically cuts down on sound leakage and the annoyance it brings to others. I don't need to here my son play Job and Vacation Simulator for 2 hours.

Honestly, I'm glad to know that it's not just me! I went and purchased some Logitech G333 IEMs that are designed for the Quest 2. If they seem to work well, I'll just remove the built-in headphones from the DAS and try to make sure the G333's are attached well to the device.

I also tried to see if anyone has designed a larger, 3D-printed mount for the speaker... maybe one that provides some adjustment away from the head, but I haven't seen anything.

 

[CP5670]

I got the VR Optician lenses for my G2. They are actually a substantial improvement over wearing glasses, since they allow your eyes to sit closer to the headset lenses and improve both the FOV and the sweet spot. The inside-out tracking works fine but needs the room lighting to be very consistent with how it was calibrated. If I use it in daylight vs. night time, it doesn't work well. Another issue is that the default 100% SteamVR resolution on this headset is very high (around 6000x3000) and makes even a 3090 struggle in many games. Dropping this closer to the native resolution improves it.

 

[Aikouka]

I ended up attaching the Logitech G333 IEMs to the Vive DAS that I'm using on the Quest 2. Overall, it seems to work fairly well. The only thing is that I wish I had some clamping mechanism to position/hold the cabling over the ears. (It's fine how it is, but it could be a bit better.) I also replaced the rear foam on the DAS with the VR Cover leather, and I don't know if it's the lack of give, but the combination of Quest 2 + VR Cover thin facial interface + DAS + VR Cover DAS replacement foam barely fits my head.

Also, there's an upcoming change for the Quest 2. It looks like Facebook/Oculus is allowing for multiple accounts per Quest and also game/app sharing among accounts. This is a bit of a mixed bag, because it comes out after reports were released that Facebook was banning users that were using two Quest devices (i.e. bought a Quest 2 but still had an original Quest) at once. I don't know if this was due to them trying to run the same software on each (i.e. playing Beat Saber on both devices using the same account) or just due to "account sharing". All in all, I'm not a fan of restriction against fair use. If I want to play Beat Saber on my Quest 2 while someone else uses my original Quest to play Pistol Whip, that shouldn't matter. I paid for both of those games, and there should be no restriction stating that I cannot use them at the same time.

I got the VR Optician lenses for my G2. They are actually a substantial improvement over wearing glasses, since they allow your eyes to sit closer to the headset lenses and improve both the FOV and the sweet spot. The inside-out tracking works fine but needs the room lighting to be very consistent with how it was calibrated. If I use it in daylight vs. night time, it doesn't work well. Another issue is that the default 100% SteamVR resolution on this headset is very high (around 6000x3000) and makes even a 3090 struggle in many games. Dropping this closer to the native resolution improves it.

I ended up ordering a pair from WIDMOvr for the Oculus 2. They seemed to be rated well enough. My pair for the Vive are from VR Lens Lab, and some people seemed a bit dissatisfied with them on the Quest. So, I figured I'd try something a bit new.

I was actually a bit tempted by the G2. My biggest complaint about the Quest 2 -- even when used as a PC headset -- is that Facebook's cost-cutting makes the headset feel a bit more limited and cheap at times. For example, the strap is a great place to start. The Quest 2 may release at a mere $300, but I think most would argue that the default strap isn't worth it. Of course, Facebook offers a superior strap... if you ignore all the cracking problems! (And, of course, it costs extra.) One issue that I have is that the IPD was limited compared to the original Quest. The first Quest supported up to 71 IPD, which happens to be my IPD, but the Quest 2 is limited to three positions, which maxes out at 68.

 

[CP5670]

VR Optician was the only one that did my prescription, which needs high index lenses. The quality is very nice and they snap on top of the headset lenses. I got them 2-3 weeks after ordering.

I'm finding that quite a few games have disappointing VR performance on the G2. Some games that run at a constant 120fps at regular 4K cannot hit 90fps in VR even with the GPU usage (shown in fpsVR) well below 100%. I set the SS level to match the G2's resolution (well below the default) and got the latest Nvidia driver with the VR stuttering fix.

[edit] After looking into this further, the "global" SteamVR SS setting is different from the "per game" one and they seem to do different things. I had to set the "global" setting to 50% to get the G2's native resolution, and now things run smoothly at 90fps. It's definitely more blurry now, but the default setting is too much even for a 3090.

 

[Linux23]

VR Optician was the only one that did my prescription, which needs high index lenses. The quality is very nice and they snap on top of the headset lenses. I got them 2-3 weeks after ordering.

I'm finding that quite a few games have disappointing VR performance on the G2. Some games that run at a constant 120fps at regular 4K cannot hit 90fps in VR even with the GPU usage (shown in fpsVR) well below 100%. I set the SS level to match the G2's resolution (well below the default) and got the latest Nvidia driver with the VR stuttering fix.

[edit] After looking into this further, the "global" SteamVR SS setting is different from the "per game" one and they seem to do different things. I had to set the "global" setting to 50% to get the G2's native resolution, and now things run smoothly at 90fps. It's definitely more blurry now, but the default setting is too much even for a 3090.

Where did you snag a 3090 from?

 

[CP5670]

I got it at Microcenter right before the price increases this year kicked in. It's a great match for the G2, especially for racing and flight-type games. Star Wars Squadrons with this setup is an amazing experience and maybe the best example of VR I've seen yet.

 

[Aikouka]

I ended up going with WidmoVR for my Oculus 2 lenses, and after ordering them on 1/23, they arrived on 2/5. So, overall, that was pretty quick shipping given they ship from Poland. You do pay $25 for FedEx International Express shipping though, but I've found that most of those VR lenses have quite pricy shipping. To be honest... I wasn't expecting a ton as I never saw much benefit from my VR Lens Lab lenses for the Vive. With them on, the Vive never really looked that great. However, that is not what I experienced with these. I tried it out today with some (native, non-Link) Beat Saber, and it worked really well. They come with caps as well so you can protect the lenses while the headset is not in use.

 

[sze5003]

I ended up going with WidmoVR for my Oculus 2 lenses, and after ordering them on 1/23, they arrived on 2/5. So, overall, that was pretty quick shipping given they ship from Poland. You do pay $25 for FedEx International Express shipping though, but I've found that most of those VR lenses have quite pricy shipping. To be honest... I wasn't expecting a ton as I never saw much benefit from my VR Lens Lab lenses for the Vive. With them on, the Vive never really looked that great. However, that is not what I experienced with these. I tried it out today with some (native, non-Link) Beat Saber, and it worked really well. They come with caps as well so you can protect the lenses while the headset is not in use.

Those are a good choice. I had them for the samsung odyssey. I used to just leave them in my headset. Makes a big difference since my glasses never fit in any headset and I would hate having to wear my contacts every time I wanted to use the headset.

I use an HP Reverb Pro right now but want to upgrade to the Reverb G2 so I never ordered lenses for it. The downside is my prescription changes a bit each year.

Also seems like selling these headsets locally is a pain and I've ended up with a oculus cv1, odyssey, and now a reverb in the closet. The oculus though I did sell.

I've heard the G2 is more comfortable which is why I want it and it has better optics too. But I guess I won't buy it unless I can sell the old one.

 

[rstrohkirch]

I decided to get lenses for the Quest 2 as I want to use it more and go to call the place that did my eye exam at the end of 2019 and they're out of business now.

So I now I have to make an appointment with a new place in town to get my prescription to send it off.

 

[CP5670]

Also seems like selling these headsets locally is a pain and I've ended up with a oculus cv1, odyssey, and now a reverb in the closet. The oculus though I did sell.

I've heard the G2 is more comfortable which is why I want it and it has better optics too. But I guess I won't buy it unless I can sell the old one.

I put all my old computer stuff on ebay. They take a 13-15% cut of the sale but things do sell quickly there, which tends not to happen on other sites.

After using my lenses for a while, I would say they are essential for anyone who wears glasses. My regular glasses do fit inside (the G2 is fairly roomy inside) but were often touching my eyelashes or losing the sweet spot after head movements, so I had to keep fiddling with the headset by hand to make it look/feel right. My prescription is high (around -10/-10) but no longer changes much.

 

[sze5003]

I put all my old computer stuff on ebay. They take a 13-15% cut of the sale but things do sell quickly there, which tends not to happen on other sites.

After using my lenses for a while, I would say they are essential for anyone who wears glasses. My regular glasses do fit inside (the G2 is fairly roomy inside) but were often touching my eyelashes or losing the sweet spot after head movements, so I had to keep fiddling with the headset by hand to make it look/feel right. My prescription is high (around -10/-10) but no longer changes much.

I suppose it varies. Any time I've tried to sell high value electronics on ebay I end up with people trying to scam me so I have to open a case, wait it out, and relist. Or I get winners who in the end don't know what they are buying and after the listing is over they decide they don't want the item anymore.

I've had luck sometimes using Facebook market place. But I suppose with such headsets like the Reverb, it may alienate some buyers as it requires a beefy system. It's not a very easy sell so I may just go to my sim pit forum communities and try selling it there.

I can easily buy the G2 now but I feel crappy about it. Because then I just end up collecting these damn headsets every time a new one comes out.

 

[Aikouka]

I suppose it varies. Any time I've tried to sell high value electronics on ebay I end up with people trying to scam me so I have to open a case, wait it out, and relist. Or I get winners who in the end don't know what they are buying and after the listing is over they decide they don't want the item anymore.

I've had luck sometimes using Facebook market place. But I suppose with such headsets like the Reverb, it may alienate some buyers as it requires a beefy system. It's not a very easy sell so I may just go to my sim pit forum communities and try selling it there.

I don't want to doom myself here by giving such a positive account, but I sold a bunch of items on eBay in December and January, and I had no issues with scammers or anything like that. That included getting rid of my Vive, Vive Pro, Vive Wireless Adapter + Pro Kit, and more electronics.

Although, amusingly, I tried to buy a monitor off Facebook Marketplace, and the guy just never responded after I used the purchase option. After a week, Facebook just canceled my order. I tried to buy from another guy, and he actually didn't have any at the moment even though his listing was up and active. As a side note, it's really frustrating trying to find a good monitor. I use two monitors at once, which I don't think is a terribly uncommon thing, but so many monitors out there lack sleep adjustment options, which means your windows get shuffled around every time your monitor sleeps. I bought a nice ASUS ProArt display, and I really liked its out-of-the-box visual quality; however, it has a bug where it will not go to sleep if using DisplayPort in a multi-monitor setup. What makes it frustrating is that you have to be lucky to find a post online with people talking about sleep features as no review ever talks about it.

Those are a good choice. I had them for the samsung odyssey. I used to just leave them in my headset. Makes a big difference since my glasses never fit in any headset and I would hate having to wear my contacts every time I wanted to use the headset.

One thing that I like about Widmo is that they don't require you to submit a copy of your prescription. I don't get mine updated often since mine doesn't change that much. (I'm covered for a yearly exam, but that still takes time.) I think it was the one that Facebook/Oculus links to states that they require you to upload a copy of your prescription. Given that prescriptions are only rated for a year and mine is from 9/2019, they would likely deny it.

 

[sze5003]

I don't want to doom myself here by giving such a positive account, but I sold a bunch of items on eBay in December and January, and I had no issues with scammers or anything like that. That included getting rid of my Vive, Vive Pro, Vive Wireless Adapter + Pro Kit, and more electronics.

Although, amusingly, I tried to buy a monitor off Facebook Marketplace, and the guy just never responded after I used the purchase option. After a week, Facebook just canceled my order. I tried to buy from another guy, and he actually didn't have any at the moment even though his listing was up and active. As a side note, it's really frustrating trying to find a good monitor. I use two monitors at once, which I don't think is a terribly uncommon thing, but so many monitors out there lack sleep adjustment options, which means your windows get shuffled around every time your monitor sleeps. I bought a nice ASUS ProArt display, and I really liked its out-of-the-box visual quality; however, it has a bug where it will not go to sleep if using DisplayPort in a multi-monitor setup. What makes it frustrating is that you have to be lucky to find a post online with people talking about sleep features as no review ever talks about it.



One thing that I like about Widmo is that they don't require you to submit a copy of your prescription. I don't get mine updated often since mine doesn't change that much. (I'm covered for a yearly exam, but that still takes time.) I think it was the one that Facebook/Oculus links to states that they require you to upload a copy of your prescription. Given that prescriptions are only rated for a year and mine is from 9/2019, they would likely deny it.

I consider you very lucky then with eBay! I don't know why I've always had to open a case and then wait a week, relist or just try and sell somewhere else.

Happened twice with the oculus cv1 and the samsung odyssey. I sold the oculus through offer up locally after a month or so of trying on ebay.

I gave up on trying to sell the original odyssey and now it's just collecting dust in the closet somewhere in it's original box.

I used to have no issues with eBay years ago.

I had no idea other services required a prescription to be uploaded. I guess that makes sense from a QA perspective when creating the custom lenses in case the user fat fingers an incorrect number or enters the prescription numbers in the wrong field. But if you don't get yearly eye exams then you would never know your vision had changed. Mine changes a little every year anyway.

 

[Aikouka]

I consider you very lucky then with eBay! I don't know why I've always had to open a case and then wait a week, relist or just try and sell somewhere else.

Not to turn this into too much of an eBay thread, but there is one thing that came to mind... do you use free shipping? I'm wondering if free shipping could attract less savory buyers where as people tend to shy away from paid shipping. I do use free shipping at times, but it's usually for the smaller items. Things like my Vive and Vive Pro required the buyer to pay for shippings. All I do is try to adjust the price to be the same as the free shipping auctions if you add my price + shipping together.

 

[sze5003]

Not to turn this into too much of an eBay thread, but there is one thing that came to mind... do you use free shipping? I'm wondering if free shipping could attract less savory buyers where as people tend to shy away from paid shipping. I do use free shipping at times, but it's usually for the smaller items. Things like my Vive and Vive Pro required the buyer to pay for shippings. All I do is try to adjust the price to be the same as the free shipping auctions if you add my price + shipping together.

Most of the time I would say free shipping but account for that in the price. For such large items though you are correct it should be paid for by the buyer. Just a matter of estimating what it could cost shipping such item, many times I've gotten it wrong lol.

 

[Aikouka]

Most of the time I would say free shipping but account for that in the price. For such large items though you are correct it should be paid for by the buyer. Just a matter of estimating what it could cost shipping such item, many times I've gotten it wrong lol.

You don't really have to do too much. If you know the dimensions and weight of your package, eBay will give you a range of cost depending on buyer location. For example, it may list that the package will cost between $14-50 to ship. With that, I'd estimate an average cost of $20-25 where the higher ones are likely significantly further away. If getting package weight is a hang-up, I use a kitchen scale for smaller packages or a bathroom scale for larger ones. If a package may be larger but not weigh more than 10 pounds, I'll use the kitchen scale with an item to prop it up so I can still read the readout.

One thing that I kept running into a problem with -- and I think some sellers missed this based upon their shipping costs -- is that eBay doesn't always handle parted out items very well. A great example of this is when I was selling my Vive in pieces. The Vive was never really sold in a piecemeal fashion outside of replacement parts. (You could buy official lighthouses, but that's it.) So, when I'd try to sell something like the headset itself, eBay's suggested package size and weight was based upon the size and weight of people selling the entire Vive kit. I mean... I don't think the controllers weigh 18 pounds.

As a side note, packaging is also an important aspect. If you can, try to get your packaging to be as close to the size of the item being shipped. This can be kind of hard depending on the item. I'll be selling my PlayStation VR soon, and it hasn't been easy finding a box that nicely matches the tall, rectangular shape of the product box. Oh, and one thing I do is use grocery bags as packaging support. It sounds weird, but they're lightweight and allow for very little to no movement if packaged properly.

 

[CP5670]

I was really looking forward to what was being shown as the 2.0, (i.e. 140degree field of view and 4k panels). I'm not so sure how well the mechanical lens focusing would have worked and I could see it being a major point of failure for device longevity. But the field of view and resolution are easily the two areas that need an upgrade.

You can get this in the Pimax 8KX, but the lenses are not great and don't work well with lower IPDs, and the headsets themselves have lots of quality problems, with nonexistent support from Pimax. None of the current video cards are fast enough to power them either.

I would like to see a return of OLED as well. This is actually the only issue I have with my G2. It has better blacks than the Quest 2 or Index but worse than OLED headsets, and it's quite noticeable in dark areas of Half Life Alyx or Elite Dangerous. The current OLED headsets have bad screendoor and are worse overall, but RGB OLED would solve that issue.

 

[rstrohkirch]

How long was the shipping time from those that ordered from Widmo to the US? Just got my email today that they were finished sent out.

 

[Aikouka]

How long was the shipping time from those that ordered from Widmo to the US? Just got my email today that they were finished sent out.

I ordered on Jan 23, shipped on Feb 1 (info received; started moving on Feb 2), and received on Feb 5.

 

[rstrohkirch]

Ok,
So should be here by Friday next week or sooner.

 

[Aikouka]

Ok,
So should be here by Friday next week or sooner.

I wasn't sure how long it would take at first. It bounced around Poland and Germany for what seemed like a few days, and then it was just in the US.

 

[rstrohkirch]

Got the lenses already. They shipped out on Friday from Poland and I got them today in MI.