Talk me through upgrading from Rift S to Quest 3.

Soldato
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I have such a myriad of questions about it, I don't know where to start!

Firstly, I assume it's a given that I will see a major improvement?

Then, how do I use it? Is the majority (as long as not through Steam) standalone and nothing to do with my PC? Or will I be wanting to use it with the PC to run at its best?

If the latter - should I hold off even bothering with the upgrade until I have updated my PC (2070S, i7-8700K, 16GB)

I would assume something as relatively simple as Beat Saber would work standalone? But if so, what about all the mods? Will they still work?

When using it tethered, are we talking a single USB cable? Or even does it work fine wirelessly?

I am most excited about the upgrade for:
Playing Beat Saber without wires being a pest.
Playing racing sims (PC3, AMB2) with even better long distance viewing (the change from Rift to Rift S made such a difference to judging the approach to distant corners, I'm hoping for a similar improvement again)
Revisiting HL:Alyx (which I still haven't ever completed!)


Any other tips and thoughts also gratefully received!
 
Firstly, I assume it's a given that I will see a major improvement?

Not a 3 owner got a pro myself but yes a big jump up

Then, how do I use it? Is the majority (as long as not through Steam) standalone and nothing to do with my PC? Or will I be wanting to use it with the PC to run at its best?

Myriad of ways airlink (oculus), virtual desktop and steam link are the wireless options for pc use, personally I prefer steam link for steam games and virtual desktop for web browsing, watching netflix, prime Disney etc as you can enable pass through and still see your environment.
I find the pro remarkable at standalone gaming and considering the 3 has a better processor and passthrough this can only get better

When using it tethered, are we talking a single USB cable? Or even does it work fine wirelessly?
Single usb 3 cable but be very careful which one you buy, they may work okay for a couple of weeks then baam :( OEM one is best but pricey, wireless is so good in my mind that you really don't need to tether, some people will disagree. A WiFi 6 or 6e router will be best and lock the 3 to the 5ghz or 6ghz (6e) don't allow anything else to use it.

Not sure how good the 3 controllers are but the pro ones are very good and only rarely do I loose placement and always in a darkish room, I think the s had better tracking but I had three emitters.
Ams 2 runs fine at 72hz on my 1080ti which I think is on par with a 2070 although most is set to low with a 150 percent increase in resulting by steam link
 
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just to expand 1 point.
Tracking is generally good, but its not perfect. dedicated lazer track will win out. the quest pro had wireless controllers or wireless as part of the tracking which helped as i understand it.

Beat saber can be a fast game so your likely notice tracking issues on that game if any.

standalone is so good, not havong to worry about wires. if your gaming for hours consder an external battery pack.

lastly get your self walk about minigolf ad get on : https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...nize-meet-ups.18965126/page-101#post-36865598
not only have the chaps been VR'ing for a while and banter fun, the games good to. so a good way to ask questions as well, get feed back and querry expirences
 
I have such a myriad of questions about it, I don't know where to start!

Firstly, I assume it's a given that I will see a major improvement?

Then, how do I use it? Is the majority (as long as not through Steam) standalone and nothing to do with my PC? Or will I be wanting to use it with the PC to run at its best?

If the latter - should I hold off even bothering with the upgrade until I have updated my PC (2070S, i7-8700K, 16GB)

I would assume something as relatively simple as Beat Saber would work standalone? But if so, what about all the mods? Will they still work?

When using it tethered, are we talking a single USB cable? Or even does it work fine wirelessly?

I am most excited about the upgrade for:
Playing Beat Saber without wires being a pest.
Playing racing sims (PC3, AMB2) with even better long distance viewing (the change from Rift to Rift S made such a difference to judging the approach to distant corners, I'm hoping for a similar improvement again)
Revisiting HL:Alyx (which I still haven't ever completed!)


Any other tips and thoughts also gratefully received!

It has good standalone experiences and the ability to link to your PC too (either via cable or wirelessly)

Beat Saber is available on standalone. You can mod it too with a bit of fiddling around.

PCVR games will generally look better than standalone versions.

Half Life Alyx will likely run on your current rig but you'll almost certainly want to upgrade for better performance. I'm not sure how much improvement you'll see on racing sims without upgrading.
 
I can still play beat saber on expert+ with my Q3 tracking. There's occasionally an issue with the haptic feedback where you do hit the note but don't receive the feedback, it's not as bad as it was though.

When I miss, I still tend to think it was me not quite hitting the block rather than the tracking. I know that especially when there's blocks on opposite sides of the path, I don't always reach across sufficiently.
 
Thanks for all the replies!

I'm not sure I understand fully about the tracking discussion which has started though. You're talking about hand tracking I think - but is the suggestion that running it air-linked to the PC might be having a detrimental effect on that?

And is the consensus that the easiest way to keep custom songs on Beat Saber is to use it attached to the PC?
 
Oh - my router is a Sky Homehub. I am loath to move away from it really, as it is beneficial for the house as a whole that it uses the miniboxes as repeaters. So I hope it is going to be good enough for this purpose. it certainly doesn't have 6ghz.
 
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Thanks for all the replies!

I'm not sure I understand fully about the tracking discussion which has started though. You're talking about hand tracking I think - but is the suggestion that running it air-linked to the PC might be having a detrimental effect on that?

And is the consensus that the easiest way to keep custom songs on Beat Saber is to use it attached to the PC?
Purely talking about the hand tracking.
Rift s used ir emitters and the controller triangulated it's position from 2 or 3 emitters.

Quest 3 has ir emitters on its controllers which the headset then works out location.

Quest pro has its own cameras like the headset to build a picture of its location, they are available separately and can be paired to the quest 3.
 
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The Rift had the external sensors, Rift S has inside out tracking. The Quest 3 hand tracking is very good. And running the headset wirelessly has zero effect on headset or hand tracking. The best option is to get a dedicated router attached to your PC just for VR use.
 
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for reference back to tracking discussion. i've ony used a quest 1, so 3 generations old.
the camera positions and field of view has changed a little since then.
but there are spots were the camera coverage just doesnt work. were having the base stations set up correctly means it will i.e. behind head
i do hear a lot of good feed back since the Q1 but just wanted to point out the tracking isnt going to be the same as using base stations.


Re-router the :

TP-Link AXE5400​

had been mentioned before recently in one of the threads, its only wifi6 not 6e. but those actively running wireless could advise better.
 
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Oh - my router is a Sky Homehub. I am loath to move away from it really, as it is beneficial for the house as a whole that it uses the miniboxes as repeaters. So I hope it is going to be good enough for this purpose. it certainly doesn't have 6ghz.
It seems good, but it's terrible as a mesh system the QOS (bandwidth sharing) implemented by Sky is awful, anymore than about 25 devices and the system begins to start showing cracks
 
you can aklways add a dedicated router/Access Point (AP) to the network.
Theres a few things with it though like placement and conectivity. ideally in same room as pc and pc directly connected to the router for lowest latency. Distance from router/ap
its more a later thing, but something to be aware of. you dont really want the traffic swamoting your other network devices
 
My set up is a Vodafone router in the house with a TP link router set up as an access point in the cabin, the 2.4ghz network shares the same details as the house router with the 5ghz named cabin and a different password. The pro works well with this but @Ravenger has a 6e router and both a pro and a 3 so better to answer question.
 
Next question - as I'm considering a PC upgrade anyway:

I've seen stuff about a 4090 being needed to really drive the headset to its best. Any truth in that?
 
I use a 4070ti to drive my Quest 2, and i've not had any issues as yet.. although the new any UE4 game to VR is supposed to require quite some grunt..

I used to use a 2070 super, and that drove my quest 2 fine, even for games like half life alyx etc..

It really all depends if you have to have all the bells and whistles.. and want to play really demanding games like MSFS2020..

edit: having said the above.. if you can afford a 4090 then get one.. it certainly won't hurt :)
 
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its over priced, very power hungry and nice to have..
in the gaphics sectionthey mentioned about the Supers being released in a few months. might be worth waiting untill then.
 
I have a 6E router and what that allows you to do is increase the wireless VR bitrate up to a level where it's almost indistinguishable from wired.

You don't need a 4090 for the vast majority of VR games, but the modded flat screen games do tend to need a lot of GPU power.

What I did find incredible is that using a modern wireless VR headset like the Quest Pro or Quest 3 with the old Oculus games designed for the Rift gives incredible results. They look as if they were designed for modern headsets and play amazingly well.
 
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