What would you pick? I thought of the oculus quest 2 because it doesn’t need base stations like the index does
Plus $700 cheaper
Ocarina of time is on a VR mod and I have to try it now
I have both an original consumer release Oculus Rift (known as CV1) as well as a Quest 2 that I use primarily with a PC link for modded Beat Saber (though Beat Saber runs natively on Quest, mod support there is abysmal).
The Quest 2 isn’t a bad headset by any means and is better than CV1 in key ways, but it comes with a few cons compared to the Index or even Rift CV1:
- The Quest 2’s stock head strap is crap. Like super crap. It’s not-so-affectionally known as “the jockstrap” by the community, and it sucks because it’s simple cloth and doesn’t cup your head like the strap on the Rift or Index
- The Quest 2 is noticeably heavier, thanks to containing the hardware of a midrange Android smartphone along with a chunky battery, which exacerbates the first issue because it puts a lot of extra pressure on your face
- The Quest 2 doesn’t have actual headphones, just tiny speakers on the visor that fire vaguely in the direction of your ears.
- For PC VR functionality you’ll need to use a USB-C link cable, which can be finicky
- PC VR functionality also requires a USB 3.1 or 3.2 port because it pipes the picture through USB (unlike CV1/Vive/Index which use HDMI)
- In the near future, the device won’t be usable without a Facebook account.
That said, a few modifications can make the Quest 2 a lot more usable.
Replace the jockstrap with a third party strap.
Do not buy the official Oculus upgrade strap. It’s basically the Rift’s strap which is good, but it breaks with even mild use and costs too much. Be wary of many of the Chinese odd brand straps on Amazon, many of those break just as quickly
A popular option is the Vive Deluxe Audio Strap (DAS) attached with 3D printed adapters. This also neatly solves the headphone problem. This is what I use.
Get a counterweight or battery to attach to the back of your head strap.
This helps counteract the extra weight of the headset and balances it across the top of your head instead of pulling forward.
I’m using a custom made fabric covered counterweight from a little cottage business in New Zealand since my main use is PC VR and thus extra battery doesn’t do anything for me.
Get a decent PC link cable.
Much like the official head strap, the official PC link cable is actually kind of crap… it’s expensive, its connection is finicky and it can’t charge the Quest while it’s being used, meaning you’ll run out of battery after an hour or two of usage. The one that works best for me is the Cable Matters 16.4ft Active USB-A to USB-C cable, which gives a rock solid connection and charges.
So you’re looking at a substantial outlay in addition to the Quest 2 to make it nice to use. Still cheaper than an Index, but personally if I had not been given the Quest 2 by my workplace for after-work group games, I would’ve bought an Index instead.
I recently got into VR myself. My brother lent me his Vive Cosmos, which uses similar inside-out tracking to the Quest 2 but without any possibility of stand-alone usage. It was pretty decent, but the VivePort software was dodgy as hell and it had a few (what I felt were) significant limitations when it came to tracking the controllers both close to the headset and out of view of the headset.
I then made the “mistake” of trying his Vive Pro setup, which uses the same base station tracking as the Index. The control tracking was significantly better, and even tracking the headset itself was more reliable in that I never had to adjust for a shifting “home” direction. As a result of just how different and more pleasant the experience was, I now own a Vive Pro with Index Knuckles (the Vive Wands are terrible unless you just want to flail your arms around, like for Beat Saber).
With that having been said, I’m taken to believe that Oculus’ inside-out tracking is significantly better than the Vive or WMR (I have briefly tried some Acer thing a few years back but wasn’t impressed). I’ve no idea whether it’s as good as the base station tracking but it is definitely better than the competition. So perhaps it would be “good enough” for whatever it is you’re planning to do with it.
The major caveat with the Facebook hardware is, naturally, Facebook. You don’t actually own the hardware so much as you have a long-term lease on it - when Facebook goes down it’s almost impossible to use the device in “offline” mode, and their EULA stipulates that they’re free to use whatever audio and video data it happens to harvest for whatever purpose they please. If for some reason you wind up banned from Facebook (as early Quest 2 adopters were due to a technical glitch) you also lose access to both your library and your hardware. But they do subsidise the price due to this (note the recently-announced Vive Flow is about twice the price of the Quest 2, despite being technologically inferior).
For my money, I wouldn’t touch Oculus hardware with a 20-foot pole. The privacy issue is one thing, but that wasted bandwidth used to actually invade your privacy just bugs me - plus I’d need a Facebook account.
Worth mentioning is that Facebook Connect (formerly Oculus Connect) is scheduled for 10am PST on the 28th (ie this Thursday). Current speculation is that they’ll be announcing either a Quest Pro or Quest 3 (rumours can’t seem to decide), which should have a higher refresh rate, maybe at last some kind of hardware IPD adjustment, and potentially a total of 17 cameras (13 on the headset, two each on each controller).
From experience the Quest 2’s tracking is at least as good as the base station tracking on the Rift CV1 with two base stations plugged in, maybe a tad better since it’s harder to step out of frame with the Quest 2. Both get confused if there’s sunlight coming through a nearby window but this is likely a weakness common to any kind of IR-based tracking.
Yep. As I said in my previous post, I wouldn’t have a Quest 2 if it weren’t given to me. I’m hoping that the hardware will eventually be jailbroken but if not I might be buying some other VR headset anyway.
They’ve pushed an update for the Oculus Go which effectively jailbreaks it, so far as I’m aware. Mostly because without such an update it will be rendered useless - they’ve discontinued it, so it’s only a matter of time before it won’t work at all while still linked to Facebook. I bring this up because I’m wondering how much of this particular update will be useful for jailbreaking more recent headsets.
*ed: I didn’t explicitly mention this earlier and I really should have: given the choice, I’d only get a Vive, Vive Pro, or Index. Main reason being that these three run natively through SteamVR - the other Vive headsets (eg Vive Pro 2, Vive Cosmos, etc) require VivePort which, as I mentioned, is an extremely dodgy piece of software, which has to then ride on top of the already-a-little-dodgy SteamVR, making for an experience that usually involved a hard reset after each session (though sometimes it would just crash itself instead of the system).
You can also find original Vive units second hand for fairly cheap as people have upgraded. Just either wash or replace the padding before use, as VR tends to be a very sweaty experience at the best of times.
I’ll join you in hoping the unlocked Oculus Go OS helps Quest 2 jailbreaking efforts. The hardware isn’t bad but Facebook is so bleughhh…