RIFT DK2 - Worth it now?

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Support for the DK2 is due to end 12 months after the CV1 release, so maybe not that great of a purchase.

Soon to be a nice paper weight.
 
Soldato
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Support for the DK2 is due to end 12 months after the CV1 release, so maybe not that great of a purchase.

Soon to be a nice paper weight.

Oculus support for it has ceased a while it says so on their web pages yet there are many many games that still work with it and future games should work okay that dont depend on the touch controller.
eg current game Dirt Rally is pretty impressive

Its not going to suddenly stop working. Thats like saying the PS2 is a paper weight because the PS4 has been out ages and support for the PS2 has stopped.

It-still-works !
 
Caporegime
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I'm thinking of grabbing a DK2 for around £100, I can't justify the current retail prices, I want it for predominantly FSX and Project Cars (I'm hoping it'll work with Combat Flight Sim 2 & 3 but doubt it)

I've a 780ti at the moment and have read it'll work with a DK2 but am wondering if future updates will render it useless? Or can I just stick with older SDK's that work?

Not too bothered about future releases, if I like it I'll bag a used CV1.

I suspect the novelty will soon wear off mind you.....
 
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I just built a new pc and since I was spending over 2k on the machine I thought I would dip my toe in the VR water and pick up a DK2 for £100 (in April). I have to say I'm having a great time with it. There isn't a great deal of support for it left on the oculus store but there are a few experiences still available there. Steam VR works great with it too. The only main issue is that the majority of newly released games rely on touch controllers so you have to be careful to choose games with controller or keyboard/mouse support. I mainly bought it to use with the VorpX injector and that has been an absolute blast so far. It's a little expensive as software goes but for me it's been worth every penny. I've been playing Dishonored, Battlefront, Deus Ex HR, Titanfall 2 and even a couple of older games like Jedi Knight 2. Running a 1080ti I set the game res up at 1440p and the games look gorgeous for the most part. The screen itself isn't an amazing resolution and has really noticable SDE but I took the unit apart and applied a matte screen protector to it which has pretty much negated the black lines at the expense of a little blurriness. For £100 I am totally happy with it just to see what all the fuss is about so to speak. I can't say it's made me desperate to buy a more expensive model either, I think I'm happy to play with this one until they bring out an affordable 4k model but for now it is a great proof of concept for me.
 
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I just built a new pc and since I was spending over 2k on the machine I thought I would dip my toe in the VR water and pick up a DK2 for £100 (in April). I have to say I'm having a great time with it. There isn't a great deal of support for it left on the oculus store but there are a few experiences still available there. Steam VR works great with it too. The only main issue is that the majority of newly released games rely on touch controllers so you have to be careful to choose games with controller or keyboard/mouse support. I mainly bought it to use with the VorpX injector and that has been an absolute blast so far. It's a little expensive as software goes but for me it's been worth every penny. I've been playing Dishonored, Battlefront, Deus Ex HR, Titanfall 2 and even a couple of older games like Jedi Knight 2. Running a 1080ti I set the game res up at 1440p and the games look gorgeous for the most part. The screen itself isn't an amazing resolution and has really noticable SDE but I took the unit apart and applied a matte screen protector to it which has pretty much negated the black lines at the expense of a little blurriness. For £100 I am totally happy with it just to see what all the fuss is about so to speak. I can't say it's made me desperate to buy a more expensive model either, I think I'm happy to play with this one until they bring out an affordable 4k model but for now it is a great proof of concept for me.

This is pretty much where I see myself in regards to buying an Occulus. I may throw £100 to have a relatively decent experience but I wouldnt be looking to spend £500+ at all. Its good to hear your DIY mod has had a good effect too.
 
Soldato
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Whats the best way to get dust off the screen without making things worse? I have been changing lenses and I think I have dust or dirt on the actual screen, as I can see 3 or 4 black marks/dots on the screen. They look a bit like the SDE, but more noticeable with light colours and stand out more.
 
Soldato
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Would I be wasting my time with a cheap DK2 for racing games on an i5 2500k and Radeon HD6970? PC is fairly old now I guess. I tried the CV1 at an event and it was great. Think it was project cars maybe, not sure (was racing a radical at brands hatch). Still was poor resolution but the immersion was fun. Actually makes going fast easier!

I've never used a DK2. Tried the DK1 and it was fun but way too pixelated to be worth really playing seriously.
 
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Would I be wasting my time with a cheap DK2 for racing games on an i5 2500k and Radeon HD6970? PC is fairly old now I guess. I tried the CV1 at an event and it was great. Think it was project cars maybe, not sure (was racing a radical at brands hatch). Still was poor resolution but the immersion was fun. Actually makes going fast easier!

I've never used a DK2. Tried the DK1 and it was fun but way too pixelated to be worth really playing seriously.

If the idea is to play Project Cars I think the answer is unfortunately yes, due to the relatively low res I personally need to have supersampling on as high as possible to smooth out those jaggies so I can see the apex in the distance. I play with everything on low except DS2X AA and SS @ 1.6 and its acceptable but still not great, however the immersion far outweighs the lower res/graphics settings for me. Obviously having AA and SS on eats up GPU grunt and if your FPS drops lower than 75fps it will half to 37.5fps which is a bit vomit inducing. To give you an idea of requirements, with the settings above at a constant 75fps my overclocked 980Ti is running around 80-90% load.

On the bright side, there are a lot of other games that dont need the horsepower of pCars so its not that you wont have any fun with it :)
 
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I just built a new pc and since I was spending over 2k on the machine I thought I would dip my toe in the VR water and pick up a DK2 for £100 (in April). I have to say I'm having a great time with it. There isn't a great deal of support for it left on the oculus store but there are a few experiences still available there. Steam VR works great with it too. The only main issue is that the majority of newly released games rely on touch controllers so you have to be careful to choose games with controller or keyboard/mouse support. I mainly bought it to use with the VorpX injector and that has been an absolute blast so far. It's a little expensive as software goes but for me it's been worth every penny. I've been playing Dishonored, Battlefront, Deus Ex HR, Titanfall 2 and even a couple of older games like Jedi Knight 2. Running a 1080ti I set the game res up at 1440p and the games look gorgeous for the most part. The screen itself isn't an amazing resolution and has really noticable SDE but I took the unit apart and applied a matte screen protector to it which has pretty much negated the black lines at the expense of a little blurriness. For £100 I am totally happy with it just to see what all the fuss is about so to speak. I can't say it's made me desperate to buy a more expensive model either, I think I'm happy to play with this one until they bring out an affordable 4k model but for now it is a great proof of concept for me.
So by installing the VorpX thing you can play conventional non VR games on the DK2?? I ask as I have seen some DK2 headsets on eBay for around £100 and I'm tempted to get one but I honestly have haven't got a clue what I'm buying and what it can and can't do
 
Soldato
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Thanks for the answers guys! Think I'll probably take the plunge into VR when the next-gen is out, unless the CV1 rift gets a fair bit cheaper (and I can also then upgrade the PC!).
 
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Donohue... that's exactly how it works. Vorpx works by injecting itself into non VR games. It can be a bit hit or miss.. the "officially supported" list isn't that large but there are a lot of cloud based profiles to try and I've had success with plenty of games that aren't on the list.

The main trouble I've had so far comes when sorting out headtracking...different games interpret this in different ways so it depends on what you're looking for. Sometimes I can get compeltely free motion to turn the character with my head, sometimes the character direction is controlled by the gamepad but I'm able to move the crosshairs around the screen with my head, sometimes headtracking won't work at all. Personally I'm enjoying the challenge of getting each game sorted but if you were looking for something "plug and play" then it might drive you nuts. Some games just won't work for love nor money for me even though they are on the official list. There is a great amount of community support for Vorpx though so it's normally pretty easy to find help with specific games unless you're trying to play something ancient or obscure. It also hooks into VLC and other media players to allow you to watch video on a massive screen in the headset. I watched a bit of Dr Strange on it yesterday and it was pretty great. It did make me wish the screen was a higher res though!

It costs the same as a game.. so it's definitely worth watching some youtube videos to see what the experiences can be like. (just search vorpx and a game title.. there are plenty of videos of Skyrim, Far Cry etc). It seems that you are more likely to come across motion sickness using vorpx as the games weren't designed for VR so tend to have you running around and spinning a lot. When I tried Minecraft with my son for example I had to take the headset off and go and sit outside in the breeze for a few minutes because I felt so queasy. Most proper VR titles keep you stationary and work on just looking around and then warping to another location. I've been playing a lot of Titanfall 2 on my DK2 lately and wall running in that can be a bit overwhelming at times! If you can't handle the full 3d experience in some such games there is also a virtual cinema mode which is pretty cool and can be switched in and out with a couple of clicks mid game. (There is a Vorpx menu that comes up when you press delete. It allows you to alter all the settings live whilst you play to tweak the experience) Virtual Cinema is like playing the game on a massive tv. Obviously the resolution is pretty awful so it's not a great trade off but all in all it's a lot of fun if £100 isn't going to break the bank for you. If you happen to be playing a game that works with the 3d support properly then you can really end up feeling like you're watching another world through a window in this mode.

As for what the DK2 can and can't do... it can't use touch controllers (it can use the leap controller but that doubles the price... can't speak on that as I didn't get one.). That means that the majority of "modern" VR experiences aren't possible. If you're happy to play with mouse/keyboard or gamepad though then you're fine for playing non touch games and any vorpx titles. As long as games say they support Oculus Rift, and offer one of the above control methods.. I have had no problem running them. Batman Arkham VR, Eve Gunjack and Lucky's Tale for example all work brilliantly with no fiddling around. I have had absolutely ZERO luck running older VR tech demos from the DK1 era. They don't recognise the headset and all the forum posts online are written using menu options that have since been removed from the oculus software.
 
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Donohue... that's exactly how it works. Vorpx works by injecting itself into non VR games. It can be a bit hit or miss.. the "officially supported" list isn't that large but there are a lot of cloud based profiles to try and I've had success with plenty of games that aren't on the list.

The main trouble I've had so far comes when sorting out headtracking...different games interpret this in different ways so it depends on what you're looking for. Sometimes I can get compeltely free motion to turn the character with my head, sometimes the character direction is controlled by the gamepad but I'm able to move the crosshairs around the screen with my head, sometimes headtracking won't work at all. Personally I'm enjoying the challenge of getting each game sorted but if you were looking for something "plug and play" then it might drive you nuts. Some games just won't work for love nor money for me even though they are on the official list. There is a great amount of community support for Vorpx though so it's normally pretty easy to find help with specific games unless you're trying to play something ancient or obscure. It also hooks into VLC and other media players to allow you to watch video on a massive screen in the headset. I watched a bit of Dr Strange on it yesterday and it was pretty great. It did make me wish the screen was a higher res though!

It costs the same as a game.. so it's definitely worth watching some youtube videos to see what the experiences can be like. (just search vorpx and a game title.. there are plenty of videos of Skyrim, Far Cry etc). It seems that you are more likely to come across motion sickness using vorpx as the games weren't designed for VR so tend to have you running around and spinning a lot. When I tried Minecraft with my son for example I had to take the headset off and go and sit outside in the breeze for a few minutes because I felt so queasy. Most proper VR titles keep you stationary and work on just looking around and then warping to another location. I've been playing a lot of Titanfall 2 on my DK2 lately and wall running in that can be a bit overwhelming at times! If you can't handle the full 3d experience in some such games there is also a virtual cinema mode which is pretty cool and can be switched in and out with a couple of clicks mid game. (There is a Vorpx menu that comes up when you press delete. It allows you to alter all the settings live whilst you play to tweak the experience) Virtual Cinema is like playing the game on a massive tv. Obviously the resolution is pretty awful so it's not a great trade off but all in all it's a lot of fun if £100 isn't going to break the bank for you. If you happen to be playing a game that works with the 3d support properly then you can really end up feeling like you're watching another world through a window in this mode.

As for what the DK2 can and can't do... it can't use touch controllers (it can use the leap controller but that doubles the price... can't speak on that as I didn't get one.). That means that the majority of "modern" VR experiences aren't possible. If you're happy to play with mouse/keyboard or gamepad though then you're fine for playing non touch games and any vorpx titles. As long as games say they support Oculus Rift, and offer one of the above control methods.. I have had no problem running them. Batman Arkham VR, Eve Gunjack and Lucky's Tale for example all work brilliantly with no fiddling around. I have had absolutely ZERO luck running older VR tech demos from the DK1 era. They don't recognise the headset and all the forum posts online are written using menu options that have since been removed from the oculus software.
Thank you very for the reply, I think I'll hold and save for the fully released Rift and touch controls, Robo Recall and Super Hot VR look absolutely brilliant!
 
Caporegime
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Hmm. So my work looks likely to enable an Oculus a Rift CV with a monthly payment over the year, I'm just not really sure. I generally play games like The Division, will be getting D2 and Anthem as well and have been a previous FPS player. I have played Elite Dangerous in the past but found it rather shallow. I'm in two minds.
 
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