The State of VR Gaming

Where is VR at the moment ?

Just lately ive been thinking about my VR experience and how far its come in the last few years and to be honest not very far.

I started with the Oculus Rift CV1 and that has been my goto headset for quite a while
In the meantime i tried the HTC Vive , Rift S, Quest 1 and even a Lenovo Mixed reality headset
But i always stuck with the CV1 because of the Controllers and Tracking.

I know its very much a personal preference thing but i always found the HTC Vive wands too heavy and also the lack of a thumbstick not too my liking and after talking to quite a few VR users most seem to feel the same.

Also the Inside out tracking on the Rift s and the Quest 1 was nowhere near as good as the CV1 with the sensors.

So the CV1 was my daily driver until last year when i started getting issues and getting replacement parts for the CV1 was difficult as all i could find were used items on Ebay and there were never in excellent condition .

So my quest (sic) for a new headset began

The Rift S was my first stop but the low 72Hz frequency and not so good controller Tracking soon killed that idea.

The Vive pro looked promising but again those 2016 Wands ??

I decided to go for the Valve Index as the Heasdset resolution looked a mssive upgrade from the CV1 and the Knuckles Controllers with the Finger tracking looked great , and they are both the headset and the controllers are the best i have owned but the reliability of the Index and controllers is worrying, so far i have had to replace both controllers and the Headset Lead and the controllers are starting to get trigger squeak again .

luckily they are still in warranty but it does concern me what happens when they are out of the year warranty as steam are always constantly out of stock of the controllers and the headset unless i want to buy another complete set for £999 which i dont want to do or i should say i cant afford to do.

So i also tried the Meta Quest 2 to see if they had improved since the Quest 1 and i must admit it has, but for standalone only , for PCVR use the Quest 2 just cant match the Index for pure VR Gaming due to image quality and Latency.

The way the Quest 2 becomes a PCVR headset is with one connection through USB C which basically sends all Data including Video to the quest but this means the Video is compressed and that all adds Latency.

The Pico 4 is similar but a workaround using a USB C to Ethernet adapter and Virtual Desktop seems to work better than the USB C connection and i will have more info on that in a post soon.

So basically where am i at now ?

I have the index and a Pico 4 at the moment but looking back at the days of the CV1 i dont feel as if it has been a massive jump forward , yes i have better graphics and a faster refresh screen but thats about it.

Where is the Eye and face tracking, why has the tracking not improved for outside in headsets, in the case of HTC why have they not innovated on their controllers ?

As good as standalone VR is it just cant compare with PCVR, after playing Half Life Alyx you will see a massive difference

The reliability seems to have taken a step backwards, the choice between Standalone and PCVR is a real issue as not one headset can really do both.

There are headsets i would love to try

The Pimax 4K but i cant find anywhere that i can try it out and no way i will order one just to get stuck with it if i dont get on with it. and even then it still needs the Index controllers to get the best out of it.

HTC always have had a great VR lineup but they have stuck with those og wands since 2016 , cant understand why they never put out a redesign they could have dominated VR.

The Quest 3 is hopefully out this year but really i think its just a more powerful Quest 2 and still without a decent PCVR Experience.

The pico 3 neo looked like a good alternative as it had a great standalone capability along with a proper Display port connection but it was really just a Beta headset and they since released the Pico 4 which did away with the display port.

So it seems as if not one company can decide which way VR is going to go and keep releasing headsets and controllers that dont have any real unique features that would make them stand out and also give themseleves a true market killer.

In conclusion i feel that it just needs someone to make that one great headset very similar to the Pico Neo 3 with great standalone VR and a great way to connect to pc just like a PCVR does.

TBH if the Quest 3 did the above and seeing the new Controllers with the cameras they have to improve tracking then all the other companies would be worried.