HTC Vive Price Cut
blog.vive.com
blog.vive.com
It includes a promo code for 100.00 toward the purchase of a Vive. With this price cut, that brings the Vive purchase down to 499.00.
Apple is partnering with Valve and Steam VR is supported. They have also partnered with Unreal and Unity for VR development on Mac OS X High Sierra.
[1] https://developer.apple.com/development-kit/external-graphic...
Developing VR involves low framerate experiences no matter what you use. I have a PC as well, but I would not hesitate to use my MBP again at all.
Having tried both in multiple capacities, the tracking and field of view are better of the Vive. But the Oculus has a better developer network & content, is easier to use, and seems to deliver a better final resolution.
Also $400 vs $600 is compelling, although if you can afford VR you are probably not exclusively price sensitive.
IF you're going to invest in VR, AND you've waited this long, you might as well wait for gen-2 hardware--with the hope they are wireless headsets.
If you want to try it out, just get Google Cardboard or Google Dream.
wouldn't going wireless imply heavy batteries strapped to your head?
On the other hand, I got to try Vive before Cardboard, so that probably raised my expectations for VR quite high and thus Cardboard seemed so limited.
- Both my Vive and my Rift have visible mura not being corrected by the mura correction. The Vive has a more uniform mura, but darker scenes (even grey ones) are impossible to play. This got worse after an update last November. My Rift shows the following pattern: https://imgur.com/a/fG2F6. Disabling SPUD works but creates many other issues like ghosting / black smear.
- Everything on my Rift is blurry and I cannot read any text at all. Even text that is close. I adjusted the IPD, how I wear it, increasing supersampling etc. all without success. I have a constant feeling as if my eyes are crossed. I can watch Miyubi on the Vive, but not on my Rift.
- The new Rift foam causes pupil swim for me because my eyes are closer to the lens. I can also see the borders of the screen even in the middle.
- I got the new Rift bundle, but many demos assume you have the remote which is not inside the box anymore. For me the Touch controllers are too much of a hassle to put on only to control a movie. I do not seem to be able to wear the Touch controllers like is shown in the videos. May be my hands are too small.
- I prefer the new Vive deluxe headstrap over the Rift's headstrap, but I think the attached audio headset of the Rift is better. I have a lot of trouble putting the Rift on. The pulling while holding the HMD or putting the back part of the headstrap on first and then pulling the HMD over my face. I really like the Vive's deluxe headstrap tighten wheel more.
- The Vive has a brighter image. My Rift's image is too dark for my taste.
My impression was that Oculus was a bit better but pricier, but with everyone cutting prices and Oculus filling out their system-- is one a far better offer than the other now at this new price for Vive?
Or would I be better off going the playstation route?
Just curious-- have never owned a VR headset (or actually even used one!) and I'm interested, but been waiting for things to settle.
It was the other way round; Vive was considered better but significantly more expensive.
Oculus does it with computer vision and (for room scale) 2-3 1080p 60Hz cameras. I've read reports of USB 3 bandwidth problems; you have to be careful about what gets hooked up where and some people went as far as adding a PCIe USB card to handle them.
EDIT: Oculus has published official notes on this, see link below. They recommend two sensors on your USB 3 ports and the third on USB 2 to get it on a different USB controller.
https://www.oculus.com/blog/oculus-roomscale-balancing-bandw...
Overall I have a more positive impression of Vive, but I haven't used either company's retail hardware so I don't have a strong opinion on them.
If there were significant differences between the platforms' capabilities I'd be more sympathetic, but they're basically interchangeable.
Post Touch it comes down a bunch of other things because you can get either and not regret it.
* The Vive tracking system has more usable range, but that doesn't mean anything for > 80% of spaces.
* Touch controllers are much better than the Vive wands (pick your reasons).
* Oculus USB requirements are a disaster as is the USB extension situation.
* Oculus can run four sensors with fewer occlusion issues, and yes I still have occlusion with 4 sensors.
* Optically you find people on either side in terms of which is better. Without double blind testing several samples of each I wouldn't assume anything.
* I'm not sure if they have parity for reprojection performance
* Vive has the passthrough camera which seems to be poorly utilized.
* Oculus comes with built-in headphones, that's 100$ add on for the Vive.
* Rift doesn't come with a third camera that's a 60$ add on.
* Rift was lighter, but newer Vive units have gone on a diet bringing them closer.
* Vive has a longer cable and if you have a primo space like mine it's a big deal. You need a biiig space though.
The Vive is more expensive right now. Optically I think the Rift is better, and it's dirt cheap to add prescription lenses to (<30$). The Rift works with Oculus Home without hacks, but the reverse is not true of the Vive.
IQ wise, I've used both, and I found that optically the Vive was better.
> IQ wise, I've used both, and I found that optically the Vive was better. I've used both and like the Rift better. Not everyone has the same experience. Best advice to give people is try both and buy the one that looks better to you or pick one and be happy because they are both pretty good.
It's one less thing you're tethered to, they make jumping into VR faster and they are surprisingly high quality.
1. Many early adopters were upset by Oculus' decision to pursue platform exclusives, where a piece of software will only work on a single company's hardware. This is a common feature of console devices, but not commonly found in computer-based gaming. This may or may not matter to you.
1B. Some people are bothered by the fact that Facebook owns Oculus; this may or may not matter to you.
2. Oculus is considerably cheaper than the Vive, even after this price cut. Their system, including motion tracking, is roughly $400 before taxes.
3. Video quality on Oculus and Vive are roughly comparable. Framerates and resolution on the PSVR are strictly lower, which can cause some users to experience nausea or headaches.
4. Most reviews rank the accuracy of the motion capture of the three platforms as Vive > Oculus >> PSVR. This is an important metric when measuring subjective "immersion", which is, after all, the entire point of buying a VR system.
5. Both Oculus and Vive require a relatively beefy computer to run the headset at sufficiently-high framerates. If you already have one, great. If not, it should be a sizable consideration in your purchasing decision; a PSVR would be quite a bit cheaper than either computer-based headset in this scenario.
So far, Vive is leading in terms of adoption rate, since Oculus' movement tracking solution launched many months after the headset. This meant that for quite a while, anyone who wanted motion capture needed to get a Vive.
Now that Oculus' solution is available, it is speculated that they are using their Facebook money to buy back marketshare by undercutting Vive's solution and selling below cost.
I would suggest that if you are in the market for a VR system, you should go and experience it at least once before making the plunge. Some people are extraordinarily sensitive to visual latency, which can cause severe nausea. If you are close to a Microsoft store, many have Vive demo kiosks you can use for 15 minutes to get a feel for the technology.
Hope this helps.
The factor that Facebook owns oculus and is willing to cut YOUR costs to buy market share works towards your advantage. Take it when you can get it.
I bought an Oculus for $399. It's definitely worth it for that price, but I personally wouldn't pay $599 quite yet.
That means that it's mostly geared towards games where you touch stuff, pick stuff up, look at stuff up close, etc. For things like a movie theater, where you're just staring at a screen, my $20 cheapo Chinese phone-holder-goggle-thingy is better (it has better resolution).
What's your cheapo phone holder goggle thingy? Something like cardboard?
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Google-cardboard-VR-BOX-Vers...
I prefer the Note 4 GearVR to the Note 5 GearVR because the former has a larger viewing area than the latter, and that makes a big difference in the sense of presence you get from experiencing VR.
I prefer both GearVRs to the Vive, because the Vive has a much shallower depth to it. When using the Vive, it kind of looks like you're standing in a relatively small theater with a wall about 10 or 20 feet away from you on which the background is projected. In the GearVR, by contrast, the "end" of the viewing area is much, much further away, and often can't even be distinguished (except in certain apps/games). So the feeling of being in a real space and not in a fake environment is much greater in the GearVR for me than in the Vive.
Also, because of the above, I get a much, much greater sense of scale in the GearVR than in the Vive when looking at huge objects like a mountain or looking down from the air in to a valley. I've had no experiences in the Vive that get anywhere near that. It really always feels like a very small space. For some apps or games (particularly ones where the VR environment is itself a room or other small space) that doesn't matter, but for others the Vive's deficiency in this respect breaks the 4th wall for me and reminds me that it's fake.
Another reason I prefer the GearVR is because it's completely portable and wireless, and doesn't require a beefy desktop to run it. I've taken the GearVR with me on airplane trips, and used it to watch movies on the plane (movies that look pretty amazing when you have almost a whole IMAX screen in front of you, while everyone else on the plane is staring at little 4" monitors in their seats), and I've demoed it to many dozens of people all over the place, including at a beach. You can't do that with the Vive.
These advantages of the GearVR are somewhat counterbalanced by the full-body motion sensors in the Vive. That's pretty nice, but I haven't really played any games or used any apps on the Vive where it made enough of a difference to be way better than the motion detection built in to the GearVR, which can already sense the motion of your head. Often, what you're mostly doing is turning around and looking around, and that can be done well enough on the GearVR.
I haven't tried the Rift, but I've heard that it's significantly better than the GearVR, so if I was going to get a tethered VR headset, it would probably be that. But I think I'm going to skip at least a generation or two of VR headsets until they get much more comfortable, and until the apps and games available for them graduate from being mostly technology demos to being competitive with full-featured non-VR apps and games. The comfort issue is an especially big one for me, as after the novelty wore off, I really didn't want to wear the headset for long as it grew increasingly uncomfortable and just wan't worth the trouble. I've you've never tried VR, though, it is mindblowing (or at least it was for me and 99% of the people I demoed it to), so it's well worth trying, if not buying.
By the way. Is there a page that list configs or already built setups for the Vive?
Personally I would love to see a new iteration of the hardware... The comfort level of the Vive leaves something to be desired IMO, and could do well with cribbing the ergonomics of PSVR.
Both HTC and Oculus have tried to say something along the lines of "a major shift isn't coming too soon. If you want VR in the next 2 years or so, don't hold out".
> Huh. Usually a price cut precedes a new generation of hardware - but the press release seems to go out of its way to dispel that notion.
> Both HTC and Oculus have tried to say something along the lines of "a major shift isn't coming too soon. If you want VR in the next 2 years or so, don't hold out".
> They don't actually say that there won't be a new generation of hardware. If you read it carefully they just say that they're going to keep selling the current one.
Both HTC & Oculus have already shipped improvements to their existing hardware and I expect that to continue until the next generation of hardware is announced. Specifically:
- HTC has upgraded the tether, audio & head strap, revamped the packaging twice, are about to release trackers, are likely gearing up to release upgraded hand controllers and also new laser tracking hardware.
- Oculus have shipped their hand controllers, plus now support room-scale configurations with multiple cameras.
The list of software improvements on both platforms is much longer, so I won't bother but real-use performance continues to improve with the same hardware.
Source: VR Dev.
They don't actually say that there won't be a new generation of hardware. If you read it carefully they just say that they're going to keep selling the current one.