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Lost on the technical front? It may not have hand tracked controllers yet but everyone I know who's used both prefers the rift as an HMD because of slightly hig

by kirrent 10y ago

Lost on the technical front? It may not have hand tracked controllers yet but everyone I know who's used both prefers the rift as an HMD because of slightly higher perceived quality of image and greater comfort. While I acknowledge myself that it's pretty much a line call, saying the Vive destroys it on the technical front is disingenuous at the very least.

mklim 10y ago
> It may not have hand tracked controllers yet This is a huge technical difference. "VR" without being able to reach out and touch the thing in front of you is barely VR at all. The difference between roomscale + motion controls and just having a ~180* tracked HMD and a gamepad is almost as wide as the gap between VR and flat monitors themselves. Once Touch comes out the only substantial difference will be that Oculus doesn't encourage devs to use games that depend on 360* tracking over multiple square meters of space while Valve does, which is a little more grey, but at launch I'd very much agree that the Vive solidly beat out the Rift technically. It's not disingenuous to say it at all. You can artificially constrain your comparison to just the HMDs and then find basically no difference, but if you compare the entire Vive VR system to the entire Rift VR system at launch, the Vive is clearly technically superior. Disclaimer: own a Vive, love it. I have tried both motion controlled/roomscale/seated/gamepad experiences pretty extensively on it, every time my reaction circles back to this.
- kirrent 10y ago
  Oh sure, using a proper room set up with a Vive is something else entirely. I just wouldn't necessarily have thought of touch not being launched as a technical difference but rather one of availability. Tomahto Tomayto I guess.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  It's a huge difference, but only for ~6 months and then Oculus will be at parity. Given there's not really that much content on either platform yet, it's pretty moot in terms of the long term consequences. It's a big deal for anyone who is trying to have a lot of VR experiences in those 6 months, but will be inconsequential when we look back at VR history a decade from now.
Alphasite_ 10y ago
Most people do give the rift the edge, but it's not a huge difference on either side, for example the rift fits some people extremely well but those with glasses or wider faces tend to prefer the Vive. Image quality on the other hand is about tradeoffs and their value really depends on the game. Other issues such as room scale vs seated/180 is yet another set of considerations and frankly, the Vive has the clear edge there even if you disagree as to its utility.

by kirrent 10y ago

mklim 10y ago

> It may not have hand tracked controllers yet This is a huge technical difference. "VR" without being able to reach out and touch the thing in front of you is barely VR at all. The difference between roomscale + motion controls and just having a ~180* tracked HMD and a gamepad is almost as wide as the gap between VR and flat monitors themselves. Once Touch comes out the only substantial difference will be that Oculus doesn't encourage devs to use games that depend on 360* tracking over multiple square meters of space while Valve does, which is a little more grey, but at launch I'd very much agree that the Vive solidly beat out the Rift technically. It's not disingenuous to say it at all. You can artificially constrain your comparison to just the HMDs and then find basically no difference, but if you compare the entire Vive VR system to the entire Rift VR system at launch, the Vive is clearly technically superior. Disclaimer: own a Vive, love it. I have tried both motion controlled/roomscale/seated/gamepad experiences pretty extensively on it, every time my reaction circles back to this.

kirrent 10y ago
Oh sure, using a proper room set up with a Vive is something else entirely. I just wouldn't necessarily have thought of touch not being launched as a technical difference but rather one of availability. Tomahto Tomayto I guess.
erikpukinskis 10y ago
It's a huge difference, but only for ~6 months and then Oculus will be at parity. Given there's not really that much content on either platform yet, it's pretty moot in terms of the long term consequences. It's a big deal for anyone who is trying to have a lot of VR experiences in those 6 months, but will be inconsequential when we look back at VR history a decade from now.

Alphasite_ 10y ago

Most people do give the rift the edge, but it's not a huge difference on either side, for example the rift fits some people extremely well but those with glasses or wider faces tend to prefer the Vive. Image quality on the other hand is about tradeoffs and their value really depends on the game. Other issues such as room scale vs seated/180 is yet another set of considerations and frankly, the Vive has the clear edge there even if you disagree as to its utility.