(Part 3) Top products from r/VRGaming

Warning: long post, but you asked, so... ;-) Note: Recycling some of my older comments with specifics for your post.

What CPU and GPU do/will you have? Do you have enough room to walk around, or just enough to swing your arms? What kind of games do you prefer? These answers have an impact on the "best" headset (HMD) for you. Think of it this way: what's the best car? The answer is different if your priorities are fuel economy, cargo space, towing capacity, or top speed/acceleration.

"Best" Games:

"Best games" is really subjective. Do you like puzzle games? Action? RTS? "Experiences" Racing/flying/space simulators? FPS? (Note: FPS in VR is very different from FPS on a screen.) Each platform has enough good games that this shouldn't impact your buying decision much. I have favorites on each, but Oculus has the most exclusives. (Often considered a bad thing for the VR industry.)

I own the Vive (non-Pro), Rift, and Samsung Odyssey, and I've used the PSVR (briefly) so my comments are based on use of all three.

Easiest to use for a newbie:

The Rift is slightly easier to use than the Vive (though not by much) due to its streamlined and consumer-oriented user experience, at the cost of capability and options. The Vive has more options flexibility but can sometimes be a little more hassle to troubleshoot if things go wrong. Then again, fixing it when things go wrong is less likely to require a complete reinstall like Oculus does. Windows Mixed Reality setup is easy but it's clearly a Microsoft experience. It's like the Rift was designed by marketers, the Vive by engineers, and WMR by a project manager. Winner: Rift, by a hair, with WMR limping along in the rear.

Oculus Rift:

Lighter and easier to deal with. Has built-in audio. Some really nice platform exclusives, though there is a way to play those on the Vive. (More on that shortly.) Cheaper than the Vive, and cheapest option in general other than some Windows Mixed Reality HMDs that you should probably avoid. Tracking is slightly inferior to the Vive, but not much. Seated/standing experiences work slightly better than roomscale. However, roomscale is feasible on the Rift with only two sensors by mounting them in opposite corners of your play area. Requires at least 3 USB 3 ports, 4 if you add a 3rd sensor. Games/apps purchased through the Oculus Store won't work on another HMD (barring 3rd party hacks/apps like LibreVR/ReVive, limiting your future hardware upgrade options so buy any non-Oculus exclusives through the Steam store. Touch controllers are the current king for controllers, but Knuckle controllers for Vive/SteamVR are pending. (More on that shortly.) More pronounced "god rays" than the Vive. The business practices and politics of Facebook/Oculus are questionable, if you care about that sort of thing. HTC just opened its VR store to Oculus users so you have more buying options than you used to, though I prefer buying through Steam.

HTC Vive:

The Vive Pro is more than double the Vive's cost and isn't that much better, so I won't go into it much here. The Vive has somewhat better tracking than the Rift and Roomscale works slightly better, in my experience. No built-in audio on the regular Vive but this is resolved with the Deluxe Audio Strap, albeit for $100 more. Games are (usually) purchased through Steam, which means you can take advantage of Steam sales, buy games at a discount (sometimes 80-90% off!) from third-party sites like Humble Bundle, Green Man Gaming, etc. Note, however, that the Rift is compatible with most VR games on Steam, too. You can also play Rift exclusives using free, third-party software called ReVive, but that this is not officially supported and not every game works. (Tricks Rift titles into thinking a Rift is connected.) Controllers are meh but work fine; just not as intuitive or comfortable as the Rift's. When (might be a while) the Knuckles controllers finally come out, they'll probably be the best. The Vive is more glasses-friendly but those who are just nearsighted won't necessarily need to wear glasses at all. There's a new wireless adapter that's nice but only applies if you're driving it with a desktop PC because it uses a PCIe card rather than USB. For non-wireless, one nice thing about the Vive is that the HMD only uses one USB 3.0 and one HDMI port. The Lighthouses (base stations) only need power and don't require USB.

Samsung Odyssey (WMR):

Higher resolution display, on par with the Vive Pro, which equates to a much less pronounced "screen door effect" (gridlines between pixels) than others. This is very nice for detailed games like racing games or flight/space sims with small dials or text. Significantly lesser support for games and experiences. That said, just because an app doesn't explicitly state it works with WMR doesn't mean it won't... but it might not. Controllers are pretty bad compared to the others and it's easy to accidentally end up in a menu. Tracking is also worse (uses inside-out tracking, so no sensors), but still significantly better than I thought it would be. This won't matter much if at all for seated or standing experiences; just for roomscale. The benefit is that you can do VR on the go with a gaming laptop. (At least a 1070 Max Q, though a full 1070 or 1080 is recommended.) The cable is significantly shorter than the others so roomscale is somewhat limited. There are specific cases (for example: archery games) where the controllers will end up out of view of the HMD's cameras, breaking tracking. While tracking isn't perfect, it's "good enough" and I bring it with me regularly.

Other Windows Mixed Reality HMDs:

The Lenovo Explorer gets some good reviews and sometimes goes on sale for as little as $170 with controllers. (Note: it can be found cheaper without controllers but you need controllers for most VR experiences.) It's important to note that the Lenovo Explorer (and all other WMR HMDs other than the the Samsung Odyssey) lacks IPD adjustment to save cost. IPD means interpupilary distance and is the distance between your eyes. However, using an HMD without the right IPD can cause nausea, blurriness, and headaches and can ruin your VR experience so I'd recommend one that has it. The Samsung Odyssey and Lenovo Explorer are the only WMR that I've heard consistently good things about. The others are cheap but lack features, perform poorly, or both. Note: WMR requires Windows to be completely up to date and will hang upon installlation (when you plug in your HMD) with no apparent reason why. Update Windows before using.

PSVR:

Poor quality lenses and tracking that isn't on par with the others, even WMR. This is what you buy if you own a Playstation and can't afford/aren't interested in buying or building a gaming PC. Some nice exclusives, though. IPD adjustment isn't great.

A note about VR graphics:

To avoid nausea, VR generally has to run at about 90 Hz, which can reduce model/texture complexity. However, people have done amazing things with VR so you simply don't notice. Lone Echo (Oculus exclusive), for example, has stunning visuals. (Story, mechanics, and pure immersive feeling are also excellent.) Lone Echo is VR done right, and feels like an AAA title. The Climb is another example of incredible visuals and reasonable immersion. The Climb is currently making the rounds (again) of Reddit via this GIF. Skyrim VR is another example of impressive visuals in VR. Skyrim is somewhat dated, but yes; those incredible photorealistic immersion mods from desktop Skyrim work in VR and you can totally play Skyrim VR seated. Follow this guide and remove Immersive Armor (buggy), replace WICO with TCM, and you're set... after 6 hours of setup. ;-) All of that said... you're looking at a 1080p monitor magnified by relatively cheap optics no matter which rout you go. You are going to notice the pixels, but you'll forget about it pretty quickly as you get distracted by the experiences and visuals. The only exception will be games with small details like flight/space sims. These really need higher res than VR can realistically provide though this may change with 20-series GPUs. For everything else, you'll mostly forget about the issue.

Cable lengths:

All VR HMD cables are too short. You can buy extension cables, but some work and some don't... sometimes with no apparent reason. I've found this HDMI cable and this USB extension cable works to extend the HDM for both the Vive and the Rift, and this USB extension cable works to extend Rift cameras. If you buy both a Vive and a Rift at some point, the extension cables I linked for the HMDs can go to the Vive's breakout box and then either the Vive or Rift can plug into that with success. The Samsung Odyssey does NOT work when plugged into the Vive's breakout box but I haven't yet tested the extension cables so it might work if the breakout box isn't present.

TL;DR:

My recommendation for first-time VR on a budget is the Oculus Rift unless you can afford the Vive (so long as you can also afford the Delux Audio Strap), in which case I'd recommend the Vive. The Samsung Odyssee is also a decent solution but at its price point I'd generally recommend the others unless the majority of your usage will be seated, in highly-detailed simulators or similar games, or unless you bring it with you a lot.

For seated stuff like Elite or the racing games, I mounted a pair of these little bass transducers to my chair:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002ZPTBI/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and power them with this little cheap-o amplifier:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N5D5ONB/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They are incredible, and the whole setup was less than $150. Pretty awesome little devices.

The full Index bundle comes with some kind of mount/stand, but I don't know much about them. My Index kit was the $749 bundle, so I just reused my existing Vive Lighthouse 1.0 units.

Those are attached to some DJ stands I picked up years ago.

Honestly any wall mount for cameras or such should work, even a Rift Sensor mount. The Rift Sensors and Lighthouse Basestations all use standard mounting standard 1/4" threads. So pretty much standard camera equipment mounts work. (Including lighting stands, if you don't want to drill into your walls.)

I snagged a used [MSI GT73VR](MSI GT73VR TITAN-427 17.3" 120Hz 5ms Display Extreme Gaming Laptop Core i7-7820HK GTX 1070 16GB 1TB VR Ready https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4IF422/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_jTMjDbH7753VP) with a gtx1080 for $1500. Works great with my Rift. There are plenty of VR capable gaming laptops.

I have a simple cheap setup that i use for VR flight and racing sims. It provides a nice rumble, granted it's not as precise as something like simvibe but it gets the job done.

i have the following hardware:

• Amp - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0070Z87YO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  
  
• pwr adapter for amp - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003TUMDWG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  
  
• 2x bass shakers - https://www.amazon.com/AuraSound-AST-2B-4-Shaker-Tactile-Transducer/dp/B0002ZPTBI/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=aurasound&qid=1565363135&s=gateway&sr=8-1
  
  
• 3.5mm headphone to RCA audio cable - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01D5H8KO2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  
  Then i just use voicemeeter banana to sort out the audio. - https://www.vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/banana.htm
  
  I take the headphone/soundcard audio + VR HMD audio and route it to the voicemeeter virtual VAIO device, and make that the default audio device in windows. Also, I limit the bass frequencies on the output that goes to the amp/shakers using Voicemeeter EQ.

Intel Core i9-9900K Desktop Processor 8 Cores up to 5.0 GHz Turbo unlocked LGA1151 300 Series 95W

ASUS GeForce RTX 2080 O8G ROG STRIX OC Edition GDDR6 HDMI DP 1.4 Type-C graphics card

ASUS TUF Z390-Plus Gaming (Intel 8th and 9th Gen) ATX Motherboard 802.11ac Wi-Fi USB 3.1 Gen2

ASUS ROG RYUO 240 RGB AIO Liquid CPU Cooler 240mm Radiator Dual 120mm 4-Pin PWM Fan

ASUS ROG Strix XG49VQ 49” Curved Gaming FreeSync Monitor 144Hz Dual Full HD HDR

Samsung 970 PRO 512GB - NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD MZ-V7P512BW

EVGA Supernova 750 G3, 80 Plus Gold 750W, New HDB Fan Power Supply 220-G3-0750-X1

G.SKILL TridentZ RGB Series 16GB 2 x 8GB 288-Pin DDR4 3000MHz PC4 24000 Desktop Memory

Razer LIAN LI PC-O11 Dynamic Black Tempered Glass ATX Mid Tower Razer

Razer Huntsman Elite Gaming Keyboard - Instant Actuation - Chroma RGB Lighting

Razer Naga Trinity Gaming Mouse: 16,000 DPI Optical Sensor Mechanical Switches

like https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Gv-N1060G1GAMING-6Gd-Graphics-GV-N1060G1GAM-6GD-R2/dp/B01N0P24HI/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1503385381&sr=1-4&keywords=1060+gaming+card or https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GAMING-GTX-1060-6G/dp/B01IEKYD5U/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1503385381&sr=1-1&keywords=1060%2Bgaming%2Bcard&th=1 ?

I use the Levi's bandanas.

Levi's Men's 100% Cotton Bandana Headband Gift Sets, Assorted, One Size https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009YQX1SO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ev2jDbARNV5N8

About the isolation thing. I use aftershokz open ear bone conduction headphones while in VR. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01N2OOJY8/ref=mp_s_a_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1523887357&sr=8-8&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65

They don't cover your ears, but rather sit in front of your ears and transmit the sounds directly to your inner ear, bypassing how you normally hear. This leaves your ears open to hear the real world, and also you don't feel headphones on your ears, so imo they're more immersive in a way. What you hear in game feels like it's coming from the real world rather than a speaker covering your ears. The sound quality isn't as good because it needs to pass through skin and bone to get to your inner ear, but it isn't bad.

I had to use a power repeater to get even 10ft extensions to work.

Like this: https://smile.amazon.com/COWEEN-Repeater-Amplifier-Extender-Transmission/dp/B01GHL72XS

On top of what others said:

 

Oculus claimed 2 VR Awards 2017: the best headset & the best hardware: Touch Controllers

 

Those are the most common complains people had about the Rift:

• Customer service not responsive enough
  
  
• Compatibility issues with USB 3.0
  
  
• For some users headset and sensors lose connection all the time
  
  
• Possibility of software conflicts
  
  
• Some users reported the headset’s earphones randomly losing connection
  
  
• God rays
  
  
• Some users reported the trigger of the Touch Controller getting stuck
  
  
• Putting the headset on cumbersome for people in glasses
  
  
• Some games require taking off the headset to complete the installation
  
   
  
  Bear in mind that Vive is not perfect either. I haven't seen a similar list for it, however, if you read one star reviews on Amazon you will have the idea.
  

I already ordered this

https://www.amazon.com/IOGEAR-Bluetooth-Micro-Adapter-GBU521/dp/B007GFX0PY/ref=sr_1_9?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1540078169&sr=1-9&keywords=bluetooth+4.0

​

so that should work fine

Rankie DP Extension Cable, 1.8m... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01KRLQG2M?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

That one works with rift is. Should work with index

MRTV made a video

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0179MXKU8

Would this work? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074VMTP68/

No, you need Bluetooth 4.0 for the motion controllers to be paired with your system.

Unfortunately if you don't have any adapters available nearby that support 4.0 you'll have to order online.

This is the USB adapter recommended by Microsoft.

• https://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Bluetooth-Adapter-Raspberry-Compatible/dp/B009ZIILLI/