Recommendations for a beginner to VR

[blueshark747 1,879]

On 8/22/2023 at 6:04 PM, senya016 said:

Sorry, I want to clarify - you have a ton of vr headsets and among this many do you prefer oculus rift S? May I know which of your headsets are worse than the rift S?

I also had a lot of vr headsets.  Now varjo aero but this is also far from a perfect vr experience

I've been around the VR scene since 2014 and I own the following HMDs... 

Oculus DK2

Oculus CV1

Oculus GO

OG Vive

Quest 1

Quest 2

Reverb G1

Reverb G2

Samsung Oddysey Plus

Oculus Rift S

Out of all these HMDs for me the Rift S is just has the best balance overall. Yes I even choose it over my G2 Reverb.

Weight/Comfort, Pixel Arrangement/Pattern, Most Reliable Tracking, Less performance demand on hardware because of lower native resolution.  

While it may not have the sharpest visuals like the G2 Reverb, Oculus just made a well thought out design with the Rift S.

With  MSFS's internal 90 TAA, 1.3 Supersampling via Oculus Debug Tool and OpenXR Toolkit's 100 FSR, it makes a very sharp beautiful image inside the RIft S at less GPU consumption than my G2 Reverb.

Leaving performance headroom to increase other visual sliders.  As far as the Valve Index, Pico, Pimax stuff..no idea but I'm extremely satisfied with my current Rift S experience in MSFS to the point I don't have an itch to jump to a Pico or Pimax 8K yet.

Then again the image isn't everything for me, I need an HMD to check all the marks overall. The Rift S just has a very nice sweetspot between visuals and performance compromise.

HMD Craftmanship, Comfort, Weight, Tracking Reliability, Home Ecosystem Reliability, Image, Resource Performance Demands etc etc .

The Rift S checks off every item for me, so yes all in all the Rift S just simply works years later for my MSFS needs.

Oculus put alot of thought and practicality into the Rift S and it shows years later.

Edited August 23, 2023 by blueshark747

[senya016 34]

3 hours ago, blueshark747 said:

I've been around the VR scene since 2014 and I own the following HMDs... 

Thanks for the interesting opinion.  I did not like rift s at all, but the perception of vr is very individual.  My friend uses reverb g2 and has varjo aero in a box at his house.  He takes it out a few times a year to try again and put it back in the box because he likes the reverb g2 so much more.  And I, on the contrary, use my varjo aero, and gave revertb g2 to another friend of mine.  But I'm still waiting for that VR headset that I really like.

[BufordTX 54]

On 8/22/2023 at 10:19 AM, Daube said:

The Quest Pro has pancake lenses. That's probably what he meant.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant.  The G2 was ok for 3 years ago, but I didn't know better.  The HP G2 has a design defect. Some say it has a small sweet spot in the center... smaller than others.  This is being very poilite.  To be more blunt, the part of the image (a small part) in the very center is in focus, and the 2160x2160 panel resolution shows brilliantly.  The rest of the view (the other 75%) is out of focus.  Just plain ol out of focus.  Might as well have 640x480 pixels out past the center because they're all blurry anyway.

Why they left this, I'll never know.  Fresnel lenses can have any refraction profile you want.  You can also layer two of them very cheaply if you have to.  They're just the wrong profile and no adjustments help...kinda like the original Hubble telescope.

So you need a 2160x2160-per-eye image for the panels.  But to get this you need a 3124 x 3056 image from the game so the vr software can distort it properly after it's rendered.  And for some reason it's better if you oversample past that.  So to make it work properly, you need about 4060x3970 per eye, or 8120x3970 for the full render....all for about 500x500 pixels in the center that you can actually see. 

The Quest Pro has a more manageable resolution, and regular lenses in a stack that do focus the image properly so you can see em all.  The effect is a way better image for a given level of hardware.

[threexgreen 3,160]

1 hour ago, BufordTX said:

The Quest Pro has a more manageable resolution, and regular lenses in a stack that do focus the image properly so you can see em all.  The effect is a way better image for a given level of hardware.

Still, what about resolution? That's still lower in the Quest Pro, isn't it?

[threexgreen 3,160]

On 8/22/2023 at 2:38 PM, odourboy said:

As for headsets, I'd love to recommend a Pico 4, but it lacks a Display Port interface which places the additional burden of encoding the video stream onto your GPU. I have a 4090 and I'm really pleased with my Pico.

I've actually just ordered a Pico 4 to try out. The pancake lenses got me intrigued. Do you know how big the performance impact caused by the encoding is (roughly)?

[odourboy 1,292]

4 minutes ago, threegreen said:

I've actually just ordered a Pico 4 to try out. The pancake lenses got me intrigued. Do you know how big the performance impact caused by the encoding is (roughly)?

No... sorry. I hate to guess.

One thing I'd recommend is to connect with a wired ethernet connection rather than trying to connect via a wireless router. (Pico 4-> USB cable -> USB to Ethernet adapter (ideally with power port so you can simultaneously charge the Pico) -> Ethernet cable -> to an Ethernet GByte switch, which is also connected to your PC and your Ethernet feed.) There are YouTube videos around detailing this setup and it gives you a rock solid GB connection to your Pico and allows for the use of Virtual Desktop application, which is still a MUST for Pico.

[threexgreen 3,160]

2 hours ago, odourboy said:

No... sorry. I hate to guess.

One thing I'd recommend is to connect with a wired ethernet connection rather than trying to connect via a wireless router. (Pico 4-> USB cable -> USB to Ethernet adapter (ideally with power port so you can simultaneously charge the Pico) -> Ethernet cable -> to an Ethernet GByte switch, which is also connected to your PC and your Ethernet feed.) There are YouTube videos around detailing this setup and it gives you a rock solid GB connection to your Pico and allows for the use of Virtual Desktop application, which is still a MUST for Pico.

Thanks. Looking forward to playing around with it and checking out the lenses.

[Donka 671]

Don't be scared to try Wireless first though with the Pico 4 - it's surprisingly good if you have a solid connection to your router. Ideally your PC is connected to the router via Ethernet though regardless of which method you choose. You can try Pico's own Stream Assistant first but the recommendation for Wireless is to pick up Virtual Display from the Pico store for improved visuals over Streaming Assistant.

[Fielder 3,840]

My internet speeds using wifi instead of cable are about 170 mBps (using ookla to test). They are the same with cable. My headset is G2. I never use the cable for internet anymore. Computer on 2nd floor, the router on 1st floor, long ways away. 

The router has rotatable ear antennas. The computer wifi dongle male plug connects into a USB socket on the computer, but it has an antenna jack output. You plug the antenna wire into the dongle jack and hang the ears antenna up high on the wall. A long wire runs from the ears to the dongle. This is the only way to get wifi signals as strong as when using a LAN cable. And it's a very cheap to buy all this stuff from tons of choices on Amazon.

I had an Oculus Quest. The G2 is much better in every way, especially the image.