Oculus Quest (Santa Cruz)

[Camalot]

I'm really excited about this as ive been wanting to get into VR for a while, i was eyeing up the go but the 3DOF put me off a bit.

The price of a rift, and the fact i need a PC as well and also having the headset linked to a pc really put me off, so the quest is sounding right up my street.

Cant wait!

 

[DONOHUE07]

I have a Rift I used pretty much daily, I let my 7yr old son play Rec Room for an hour (his own child account, mic off etc) as treat if he’s done well in his school spellings during the week, I’ll likley pick up the Quest for Rec Room alone so we can play together, perfect for those rain soaked wash out Sundays!

 

[nicknack35]

Well looking at Specs my PC is capable to run Rift, But after seeing what others have said about cable been annoying i know for a fact id get annoyed with it and end up not using it. But VR is something i really want to try, Even though im not really a gamer this could turn me into one quite easily. Did look at getting the PS4 PRO and trying VR on that for the TV in living room. Another thing my HTPC rig is in the Bedroom which i don't think be ideal for room to play besides i think it would annoy the Mrs which would be great LOLOL

 

[DONOHUE07]

Well looking at Specs my PC is capable to run Rift, But after seeing what others have said about cable been annoying i know for a fact id get annoyed with it and end up not using it. But VR is something i really want to try, Even though im not really a gamer this could turn me into one quite easily. Did look at getting the PS4 PRO and trying VR on that for the TV in living room. Another thing my HTPC rig is in the Bedroom which i don't think be ideal for room to play besides i think it would annoy the Mrs which would be great LOLOL

The VR headset cable isn’t that big of a deal, don’t get me wrong I would love a wireless Rift adapter, I would buy it day one should it ever be released, but after a while you just learn to live with it, there’s a few ways around it, run a hdmi extension behind you and play ‘front facing’ or if you have the room, setup of an overhead pulley system (google Midwec Oculus Rift) my friends have this inexpensive (£20) pulley and it’s absolutey glorious! There’s no pull on the headset at all, it gives complete freedom, I would love it myself but I game in my living room and my Mrs would hit the roof if I rigged this up!

The Quest is going to be HUGE, I believe it’s going to push VR to the masses, but, let’s not kid ourselves, the graphics processor is only a snapdragon 835, As much as I’m looking forward to it, it’s not going to be on par with a Rift/WMR/VIVE, far from it, while the launch line up is rumoured to be strong, the games are going to massively downgraded from there PCVR counterparts. PCVR will remain top of the tree for along time yet, but standalone VR is the future

 

[Pottsey]

The VR headset cable isn’t that big of a deal, don’t get me wrong I would love a wireless Rift adapter, I would buy it day one should it ever be released, but after a while you just learn to live with it, there’s a few ways around it, run a hdmi extension behind you and play ‘front facing’ or if you have the room, setup of an overhead pulley system (google Midwec Oculus Rift) my friends have this inexpensive (£20) pulley and it’s absolutey glorious! There’s no pull on the headset at all, it gives complete freedom, I would love it myself but I game in my living room and my Mrs would hit the roof if I rigged this up!

The Quest is going to be HUGE, I believe it’s going to push VR to the masses, but, let’s not kid ourselves, the graphics processor is only a snapdragon 835, As much as I’m looking forward to it, it’s not going to be on par with a Rift/WMR/VIVE, far from it, while the launch line up is rumoured to be strong, the games are going to massively downgraded from there PCVR counterparts. PCVR will remain top of the tree for along time yet, but standalone VR is the future

I don't understand why you think a mobile headset that is twice the price of the last mobile headset for only a tiny bit more power and a tiny bit better screen is going to bring VR to the masses. The prices alone is going to make it low volume, the GPU is to weak for decent games as well. Have I missed something? I just don't see why the Quest will do any better then the Go.

As much as I like VR it’s fundamentally flawed and I don’t see it going mass production anytime soon. It’s an niche product for niche games and short experiences. Its a shame but the style of games that work best in VR are also some of the least popular style of games. Siting in a bridge crew or in a cockpit is fantastic for some of us but its not what the masses want.

 

[DONOHUE07]

I don't understand why you think a mobile headset that is twice the price of the last mobile headset for only a tiny bit more power and a tiny bit better screen is going to bring VR to the masses. The prices alone is going to make it low volume, the GPU is to weak for decent games as well. Have I missed something? I just don't see why the Quest will do any better then the Go.

As much as I like VR it’s fundamentally flawed and I don’t see it going mass production anytime soon. It’s an niche product for niche games and short experiences. Its a shame but the style of games that work best in VR are also some of the least popular style of games. Siting in a bridge crew or in a cockpit is fantastic for some of us but its not what the masses want.

You are comparing the 6dof Oculus Quest to the 3dof Oculus Go, and they can’t be compared they are chalk and cheese. The Go is for media consumption, the Quest is for gaming, the line up of games for the Quest is already impressive, ports of desktop PCVR games are in the works, the likes of Rec Room, SuperHot and Beat Sabre are on the way, £400 is expensive sure, but this no more than the cost of a new console, this is what the Quest is, a standalone VR console, with 50 confirmed games ready for it at launch. I’m intrigued to see what the game developers can do with the snapdragon 835..

I mostly play VR shooters, but to be honest thanks to VR I now play genres of games I wouldn’t normally play, VR just makes everything better, at least it does for me

 

[Pottsey]

You are comparing the 6dof Oculus Quest to the 3dof Oculus Go, and they can’t be compared they are chalk and cheese. The Go is for media consumption, the Quest is for gaming, the line up of games for the Quest is already impressive, ports of desktop PCVR games are in the works, the likes of Rec Room, SuperHot and Beat Sabre are on the way, £400 is expensive sure, but this no more than the cost of a new console, this is what the Quest is, a standalone VR console, with 50 confirmed games ready for it at launch. I’m intrigued to see what the game developers can do with the snapdragon 835..

I mostly play VR shooters, but to be honest thanks to VR I now play genres of games I wouldn’t normally play, VR just makes everything better, at least it does for me

By the time the Quest is shipping wont the snapdragon 835 be coming up to 3 year old and wasn’t that good at graphics when it came out yet alone today. I do not expect much from game developers on that more so when it’s not that much faster than the chip in the Oculus go.

It’s just not a big enough improvement to do much decent with it. VR is about the immersion, experience and atmosphere which you cannot do without good graphics which the snapdragon 835 cannot do. PCVR games will have to take a large graphics downgrade to work on the Quest which in turn is going to downgrade the immersion, experience and atmosphere.

The Quest is a step in the right direction but I still feel it’s a long way from going mainstream. I am still tempted to get one mind you but at that price I keep thinking better wait for the Rift 2 where I can get decent games and decent graphics.


EDIT: it’s worse than what I first thought. The PSVR is 1920 × 1080 and the snapdragon 835 would have to take a downgrade in graphics to run at that resolution. Then bump the resolution up to over x4 time higher which the quest runs at and you have to take another very large hit to graphic quality to stay playable.

The quest going by specs is going to have no better graphics then the Go if not worse than the Go when running at full resolution. I expect the batch of 50 games will most made up mostly of those cheesy mobile class games as that is about all that is exacted to be able to run on it. At that price if you want to game you will be better off going for a full Rift.

 

[redrevis]

I expect the batch of 50 games will most made up mostly of those cheesy mobile class games s that is about all that is exacted to be able to run on it. At that price if you want to game you will be better off going for a full Rift.

It's really not looking that way at all:

Confirmed Games:

BOGO
Covert
Dead and Buried
Death Horizon
Face Your Fears 2
Moss
Rave Runner
Robo Recall
Sairento VR
Superhot
Tennis Scramble
The Climb
Vader Immortal Ep. 1 (A Star Wars VR Series)

Teased/Rumored Games:

Apollo 11 VR
Beat Saber
BoxVR
Hardlight Blade
Pavlov
Rec Room
Space Pirate Trainer
The Brookhaven Experiment
Thrill of the Fight 2

I think this headset will surprise people with what it can do considering it's specs. Oculus have said they are going to be very strict with what is allowed to be published for the Quest, so if the game isn't up to scratch it shouldn't get in the store.

 

[Ravenger]

It's really not looking that way at all:
I think this headset will surprise people with what it can do considering it's specs. Oculus have said they are going to be very strict with what is allowed to be published for the Quest, so if the game isn't up to scratch it shouldn't get in the store.

On PC you've got a lot of head-room, so games don't have to be as optimised. A lot of VR games could be optimised for the Quest with negligible reductions in visual quality, provided the effort is made to do so, and Oculus are actively helping developers optimise games for the Quest.

That's not saying that the Quest could run all VR games acceptably - Lone Echo might be tricky for example, but by far the majority of VR titles aren't that demanding. Potentially the biggest issues would be RAM and onboard storage space.

 

[bigmike20vt]

i wonder .... could it be that the 835 is not 100% finalised and at the last minute it could come out with an 845?

my understanding is it is essentially a drop in replacement chip so would not need huge redesign and it would not harm developers... it would just mean that launch games would not push the quest to the limit, leaving headroom for better looking gen 2 titles.

probably talking rubbish but................. it would not surprise me if it happened.

(it would not be the 1st time last minute changes were made to a console)

Xbox 1 chip had an increase in clock speed
sega saturn had a new 3D accelerator added to it.
ps3 iirc had more ram added (as did ps4)
(iirc the gpu in the PS3 was actually a late addition to the design as well - sony had planned on the cpu being powerful enough to do it all)
xbox 360 launch titles were only using 1 core of the cpu...

 

[Pottsey]

On PC you've got a lot of head-room, so games don't have to be as optimised. A lot of VR games could be optimised for the Quest with negligible reductions in visual quality, provided the effort is made to do so, and Oculus are actively helping developers optimise games for the Quest.

That's not saying that the Quest could run all VR games acceptably - Lone Echo might be tricky for example, but by far the majority of VR titles aren't that demanding. Potentially the biggest issues would be RAM and onboard storage space.

It doesn’t work like that, it doesn’t matter how much effort is made to do so. The PSVR only has to push 2,073,600 pixels while the Rift has to push 2,592,000 pixels. But the thing is the Quest which has the weakest graphics chip of them all has to push 4,608,000 pixels. The pixel increase alone means you need to double performance via optimisation which shouldn’t be possible. Then you have to somehow optimise a massive amount further to make up for the weaker graphics chip.

The quest has to do twice as much work on weaker hardware. I do not see how you can optimise for that with a negligible reduction in visual quality. That is why many of those games will be basic mobile phone style games that are far behind the PSVR and Rift games.

One way to look at it is to look at the Go. The current GO games will be what the Quest it like from a graphics point of view.

 

[Ravenger]

The quest has to do twice as much work on weaker hardware. I do not see how you can optimise for that with a negligible reduction in visual quality. That is why many of those games will be basic mobile phone style games that are far behind the PSVR and Rift games.

One way to look at it is to look at the Go. The current GO games will be what the Quest it like from a graphics point of view.

I agree that the Quest is massively under-powered compared to a PC based headset, but the fact is a lot of PC VR games are not as optimized as they could be, and a lot of PC games have relatively simple graphics that could be optimized to run on the Quest with little visual degradation.

Most Go games are converted Gear VR games and are not optimized for the Go itself. The Go (and the Quest) are more capable than the hardware specs would suggest as they don't have to run all the extraneous processes that phone based VR does on similar hardware. Also Oculus have been great at getting the hardware to do stuff it wasn't originally designed for, like getting an unused part of the snapdragon chip to perform chromatic aberration correction for very little additional overhead.

Quest games will definitely not be mobile phone quality (unlike the Go, which I agree is a disappointment in this regard). Oculus have stated the quality bar to get on the Oculus store will be much higher for the Quest, and much closer to full rift experiences.

 

[silvagti]

To be fair I would have been concerned about the graphics on the Quest had I not tried the less powerful Go and found it was actually pretty decent. I'd have personally preferred if they'd charged slightly more for the device and included a better chipset and more ram but I guess they didn't want the price creeping up towards £500.

I'll reserve judgement until I see the game running on the Quest but I'm not concerned by the hardware specs at the moment.

Here's a good teaser trailer reel showing some of the titles confirmed. It's looking like a pretty impressive line up.

 

[DONOHUE07]

The line up alone convinces me that the Quest will not disappoint.

Content is king, and the confirmed content list alone is enough convince me that this is going to be huge, Beat Sabre and Rec Room will sell Quests alone should they arrive

 

[silvagti]

The launch line up is certainly looking strong in terms of the titles. Hopefully they can make good on their promise of rift quality experiences.

I'm surprised that rec room hasnt been announced yet as it seems ideally suited to the Quest.

 

[SupraWez]

Some of the GO games are damn impressive, I'm looking forward to the quest

 

[Uncle Petey]

Definitely not something that interests me, but anything that gets more people interested in VR can only be a good thing for all of us.
Even on Bigscreen, I've seen and talked to a hell of a lot of people new to VR using the GO. Many of whom don't really know much about the PC based stuff like the Rift and are genuinely interested in how it all works.
There's also been quite a lot of women getting in on the VR party in there, so products like the GO/Quest can't be doing that bad a job in getting new users interested in this stuff.

 

[redrevis]

I'm surprised that rec room hasnt been announced yet as it seems ideally suited to the Quest.

Games like Rec Room and Beat Saber are going to be huge sellers for the Quest. It makes sense for them to keep these under wraps until close to the launch. I wouldn't be surprised if either of these games end up being bundled with the Quest on launch.

 

[Ravenger]

It'll be interesting to see how Robo Recall looks and plays on the Quest, as it's one of the standout Rift titles. If they can get a decent version of that working then that proves a lot of other Rift games could be ported too.

 

[silvagti]

Rumours that Oculus Rift V2 is being cancelled?

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...-next-generation-oculus-rift-2-headset-for-pc

I'm guessing this means Oculus are giving up on PC based VR to focus entirely on their mobile based platforms (Quest/Go) ?

Seems like a sensible strategy at it means they aren't dividing their efforts supporting two entirely different platforms. If anything it makes me more excited about the Quest as they obviously feel it's the product they're going to put all their efforts behind to build a platform/ecosystem for the future.