Talk me out of getting an Oculus Rift from Best Buy.

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Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,387
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Already done. When I said we did everything, I mean it. I've been here long enough that everyone should know that long time members of most any tech forum are very likely computer geeks. You would also know that when it comes to computer issues, it can always be different for everyone but there are plenty of threads about the subject anywhere online that show it's not a fluke and if the latest WU did not cause yours any jitters or screen issues then congrats on the luck of the draw as it seems to be common.
It's not like we didn't google the hell out trying to solve different ones as they arose.

But some VR games run great but they also look like total crap. Jaggies, crawling and holy hell that blur is aweful. I don't care how dead center your supposed to look at everything, that's just a sorry excuse to ignore the fact that this isn't quite a consumer ready product and the vive experience even when working is not all that great nor is it really just $800 as everyone proclaims for comparisons as I found out when I saw his reciept. When I pre-ordered the Rift it was like $599 I think shipped....but I canceled because I wanted to wait for StarVR and see if they can improve upon the vive/rift problems.

Look the point is that if these are the types of first experiences anyone out there has, it's a shot in the back to the platform no matter what anyone says. Frankly I think some of you are biased enough that you overlook the issues and seriously the games are not exactly pretty to look at. Just comming from a 55" 1080p TV myself and I thought the games looked atrocious, like I was playing the PS3 basically. So no amount of excuses would draw me to a Vive nor a Rift at this point.
The software issues we had probably can or will be fixed but so what? Fck that noise, we wasted some 8+ hrs on that thing.

Well, let's address your concerns one by one:

1. For starters, we're not trying to attack you or demean your technical knowledge. We're pretty friendly here, just trying to help work out the issues you're facing. No offense meant, I promise!

2. From what I understand, as of last month, there were close to 100,000 Vive headsets sold. Judging soley from the lack of complaint threads on Reddit's Vive section, it seems that the majority of them are working properly. In which case, you either have a hardware problem (either the PC, or the Vive itself) or a software problem (either Windows or with Steam). If you are having the massive issues you've mentioned, then your Vive is not working as designed. That's not a knock against Vive in general, that just means that something in your setup is a lemon, because my system works great, as do most others. So we just need to figure out what the root cause is & then find a solution!

3. I have experienced some glitches here & there myself, but lately it has been really solid. However, I don't believe I've run the Windows 10 Anniversary Update on my system yet. If you've seen a lot of complaints online about issues since the last Windows Update, then there's likely a compatibility error in the latest patches. It might be worth doing a Windows reinstall & holding off on the AU for now.

4. Barring that, have you contacted Vive for support? It's possible you may have a faulty HMD. Rather than ruling out an $800 purchase after 8 hours of tinkering, I would pursue it a little further to see if you can get some help on the issue from the manufacturer.

5. As far as being biased, I'll preface that by saying that it's important to calibrate your expectations with reality. This is a very expensive & very first-generation piece of hardware. There is literally nothing else like it on the market, even historically - outside of the Rift & the Vive, there have been zero PC-connected HMD's available to the public; we are Early Adopters. The developers themselves have stated that we really need 8K screens to get to that Retina-level of quality we're used to on our smartphones, and we're not even at 4K screens yet. The very latest GPU's, like the GTX1080, can barely run VR games with supersampling enabled. This is a good time for a VR enthusiast with money to burn to jump in; outside of that group, people might not be too happy with what they get.

6. The Vive only started shipping months ago; you're going to get glare issues, aliasing & artifacts, comfort issues, you name it. The install base, especially compared to say a console, is extremely small right now & all of the problems haven't been worked out yet But, it will grow. Most people are not ready to be part of the early adopter group because it's buggy & pricey & can be frustrating at times. My two biggest frustrations right now are (1) a lack of long, good quality games (right now it's basically a bunch of expensive tech demos), and (2) no clear way to handle walking in VR (teleporting is a software solution & omni-treadmills are a hardware solution, but I'd like to see a more creative solution put in place that works better than either of those two things).

7. Personally I think it's frickin' mindblowing. Most of the games are only fun for a try or two, and are crazy expensive for what you get, but I've really enjoyed my time with my Vive so far. An added bonus is that VR has already replaced my morning cardio routine, thanks to games like AudioShield & HoloPoint, which is awesome because for the first time I actually look forward to doing cardio every morning, haha.

8. From your post above, it sounds like you would be better served by waiting for a gen-2 or maybe even a gen-3 VR headset. I'd imagine the gen-2 gear is going to sport 4K screens & will solve some of the glare & ring issues we're having now. And hopefully by gen 3 or 4, we'll have the desired 8K screens. By then, I'd imagine that the GPU processing power will have caught up to drive those to console-like levels of gameplay.

9. I don't feel like this is a death blow to VR; every single person I've demo'd the unit with has come away saying something along the lines of "that was SO COOL!" VR needs time to grow. If your metric of quality comparison is thinking that the PS3, a last-gen console, has bad graphics, then you're going to be pretty disappointed with the current generation of VR software & hardware. The horsepower isn't quite there to drive enormous PS4-style games in VR just yet. Nor does the headset compare to a 4k HDTV set, or even a quality 1080p flatscreen. That's just the state of the art right now.

10. As far as the pricing goes, yes, like everything else, you have to pay tax & shipping on the Vive, which drives the total price up from the $799 sticker. You also need a minimum $1,000 gaming computer & something of a budget for the semi-expensive VR games from Steam. This is not a cheap system to dive into.

11. Honestly, I wouldn't say the Vive was a pain to setup at all, but that's just me. To start with, I plugged the controllers in to charge. I then plugged each of the two Lighthouses into the wall & aimed them at each other (I didn't bother with a fixed installation, I just set one on a shelf & the other on some thick books on another shelf & pointed them at each other, just above my head...worked great!). After that, I plugged the breakout box into the computer & the Vive into the breakout box, and updated Steam & installed the VR stuff and a couple VR games. It really only took about 15 minutes total (including the unboxing) to get up & running. I suppose if you have to drill holes to mount the Lighthouses & run extension cords, it's a bit of extra work, but you only have to do it once, so it's not so bad because after that, you can just pop on the headset & start playing!

Anyway, what it sounds like to me is (1) you've had a bad experience getting the Vive setup, which stinks, and (2) you're not impressed with the quality of the first-generation gear, which is completely understandable because it is definitely not perfect by any means. My advice would be (1) contact Vive support to see if you can get some help, because it's obviously not operating as it should be, and (2) wait a generation or two for the hardware to improve before making your own investment into a VR system.
 
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Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
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Yeah, it's a shame his first impression was tarnished by a list of things done wrong or being wrong, most of which could have been avoided. I wouldn't introduce people to a Vive and not use Vive specific games. The off center blur you get use to and if it was really bad you probably just didn't have the HMD on correctly, probably had it sitting a little too low. The upside down issue I'm not sure about but I'd guess it was probably reflective surface related or possibly USB port related (looking at you ASMedia). None of these should have happened.

The way I look at it is we're all VR ambassadors and it's up to us to make sure every new VR user is given the best experience possible. I haven't had a single person come out of the headset without a huge grin on their face and talking about how awesome it is.

It is understandable though. I recently bought a new car, a first-year Jeep Renegade. My particular model was a lemon. It happens, I understand. But Jeep has also been a pain to deal with trying to get a replacement or a refund, which they have denied after spending 4 weeks having bi-weekly meetings with their corporate resolution team. My car has been in the shop 40 days out of 10 months of ownership (keep in mind, it was purchased new off the lot). Needless to say, I do not have a lot of good things to say about the Renegade or Jeep/Chrysler in general because of how the situation was handled. So spending 8 hours troubleshooting a Vive setup & still getting nowhere is enough to turn just about anyone off to VR because that's a lot of wasted time & energy with no payoff for something that, for the price, should have worked perfectly out of the box.

However, like you said, we are VR ambassadors. In the production adoption curve, we are the early adopters. We get to pay the most money & deal with the most problems, but we also get to try all of the new awesome stuff & have fun showing it off to everybody we know. I usually try to stay far away from this area, as I prefer time-tested hardware (oopsie on the Jeep!), but I haven't been this intrigued with computer tech in half a decade, and I've had a blast using my setup so far. Yay for VR!
 
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moonbogg

Lifer
Jan 8, 2011
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I don't want to read the whole thread. Just tell me if you bought it and if so how much trouble you got in.
 

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,701
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I'm still thinking about it.. I'm still leaning towards Oculus because it's cheaper and since this is first gen, I want to minimize my exposure to these units. Thinking a base unit just to get the core VR experience and have fun with it.. and then wait it out for gen2 or gen3 to really go all in.

The VIVE is more costly, and while I could pay cash for the OR at this point, I still like that I can use the BB credit card to get 0% interest and earn points. Plus it's only $599 for the basic setup. If I'm really into it, I'll buy the controllers that are coming out soon, but otherwise I might just keep the basic unit for sharts and giggles.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,387
5,255
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I'm still thinking about it.. I'm still leaning towards Oculus because it's cheaper and since this is first gen, I want to minimize my exposure to these units. Thinking a base unit just to get the core VR experience and have fun with it.. and then wait it out for gen2 or gen3 to really go all in.

The VIVE is more costly, and while I could pay cash for the OR at this point, I still like that I can use the BB credit card to get 0% interest and earn points. Plus it's only $599 for the basic setup. If I'm really into it, I'll buy the controllers that are coming out soon, but otherwise I might just keep the basic unit for sharts and giggles.

If you're not in any rush & want to use your BB card, I would hold off until Oculus releases their VR controllers & stuff. I'd imagine that a lot of existing Vive games will add support for that. Although I don't know if the Rift has any plans for a Lighthouse-style triangulation system or not. From a post 5 months ago on Reddit: (not sure if this is the case now or not)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4b7zuu/what_is_the_final_word_on_lighthouse_vs/d16yifh

I too want VR to succeed but the Constellation tracking system does not scale in a linear fashion.

With Constellation, tracking accuracy degrades exponentially, wheras Lighthouse tracking accuracy degrades in a more linear manner, which gives it a far greater maximum range.

The reason you get exponential accuracy falloff past the optimal range with the Constellation optical tracking system, is that the LED's start to converge more often on the same pixels (as seen by the camera) and the distance represented by a single pixel increases.

Lighthouse does not have this disadvantage, and it's tracking accuracy is not restricted by camera resolution. This greatly extends it's useable range and ensures tracking degrades in smooth, linear fashion - it is sub 1mm accurate at 15x15ft, and sub 2mm accurate at 30x30ft

It seems like Oculus is going to focus on sitting games & maybe standing games, whereas the Vive is more focused on Roomscale, although you can play Oculus games with Revive so if you want to do sitting games you can do that too. Although I couldn't imagine playing stuff like say Final Approach without being able to walk around the map...


Screw it, I'm a Vive fanboy at this point :D
 

Sabrewings

Golden Member
Jun 27, 2015
1,942
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I'm still thinking about it.. I'm still leaning towards Oculus because it's cheaper and since this is first gen, I want to minimize my exposure to these units. Thinking a base unit just to get the core VR experience and have fun with it.. and then wait it out for gen2 or gen3 to really go all in.

I wouldn't say Oculus offers the core experience at all. It's like saying holding a pipe in both hands sideways is the core experience of riding a bike.
 

Linux23

Lifer
Apr 9, 2000
11,303
671
126
If you're not in any rush & want to use your BB card, I would hold off until Oculus releases their VR controllers & stuff. I'd imagine that a lot of existing Vive games will add support for that. Although I don't know if the Rift has any plans for a Lighthouse-style triangulation system or not. From a post 5 months ago on Reddit: (not sure if this is the case now or not)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4b7zuu/what_is_the_final_word_on_lighthouse_vs/d16yifh



It seems like Oculus is going to focus on sitting games & maybe standing games, whereas the Vive is more focused on Roomscale, although you can play Oculus games with Revive so if you want to do sitting games you can do that too. Although I couldn't imagine playing stuff like say Final Approach without being able to walk around the map...


Screw it, I'm a Vive fanboy at this point :D

is that guy retarded in that video? LOL.
 

Linux23

Lifer
Apr 9, 2000
11,303
671
126
I can't wait to get home and play final approach :D

that nvidia funhouse game blew. LOL.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,387
5,255
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I can't wait to get home and play final approach :D

that nvidia funhouse game blew. LOL.

Really, you didn't like Funhouse? The graphics are amazing! Granted, it's only fun for a few plays through because the gameplay gets old, but as a tech demo, it's incredible!

Blowing the airhorn at the seagulls never gets old in Final Approach :D
 

Linux23

Lifer
Apr 9, 2000
11,303
671
126
Really, you didn't like Funhouse? The graphics are amazing! Granted, it's only fun for a few plays through because the gameplay gets old, but as a tech demo, it's incredible!

Blowing the airhorn at the seagulls never gets old in Final Approach :D

Yeah, I saw no real point to it. I guess it's a cool demo to goof around in.

The experience was kind of blurry, but that could be because my gtx 970 couldn't handle higher levels of detail.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
is that guy retarded in that video? LOL.

Acting goofy is usually part of someone's persona that helps them retain viewers... usually of the younger demographic. :p

Yeah, I saw no real point to it. I guess it's a cool demo to goof around in.

That's what a lot of the non-demo free VR stuff is. It's meant to be something fun, quick and easy that you can show friends and let them have a little fun. It can also be used to show off newer technologies mostly related to newer GPUs...

The experience was kind of blurry, but that could be because my gtx 970 couldn't handle higher levels of detail.

...and that relates to this. The 970 can play it, but it's most likely not strong enough to truly handle it. It's definitely below Nvidia's recommended specs of at least a 980 Ti.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
Well my 1080 should solve that issue when it comes today. :D

I was in Best Buy yesterday, and ugh... they had maybe half a dozen 1070s and 1080s on the shelf. The only negative that I can say is that they were Founder's Edition cards, but they did carry a single EVGA card (out of stock -- I can't remember 1070 or 1080). They also had 480s (out of stock) and 470s (in stock), but no 1060s. So, why the "ugh"? Well, I've been in EVGA's Step-Up queue for at least a month or two, and I'd like to get my 1080 SC. :(
 

Linux23

Lifer
Apr 9, 2000
11,303
671
126
That was my original plan was to get a 1060 but trying to find one was difficult. I just decided to upgrade my entire 5 year old PC and grab a 1080 to throw in there.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
That was my original plan was to get a 1060 but trying to find one was difficult. I just decided to upgrade my entire 5 year old PC and grab a 1080 to throw in there.

Amusingly enough, I actually got a 1060. I'm selling one of my PCs (that I built for distributed encoding) to a friend, and my suggestion for a current-generation video card was something like the 480 or the 1060. However, I would also be fine with selling my 960 at a reduced cost. (At about half of what a 1060 costs, which puts it in line with the performance difference.) I ended up spotting an EVGA 1060 SC for $250 (MSRP), and I figured they were plentiful until Amazon was reporting that there were only six left. :eek: I ended up ordering one just in case the person wanted one, but they ended up wanting my 960 instead.

So... I get a 1060 in my gaming HTPC for a decent upgrade cost. Now, I just need that darned 1080 to come in. To be fair, the 980 Ti that I have now does absolutely fine since most VR games aren't THAT graphically intensive. I actually wouldn't mind it for the reduced power usage and subsequent reduced heat output compared to the 980 Ti.
 

BurnItDwn

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
26,066
1,550
126
Rift died the momment facebook bought them.
If anything, get a Vive, but the smart play right now is to hold your horses.