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Question

The "Why I Still Love My Oculus Rift CV1 in 2026" Thread

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
February 20, 2021
200 replies
91506 views

I've gotten slightly tired of repeating all the awesome stuff about the Oculus CV1 on Oculus Subreddit and in here - so why not try to collect all the great arguments for still using the Rift CV1 in a thread?

1. It's oled. Even with the oled mura (SPUD) Rift CV1 is still a lot darker than lcd hmds. It may not matter to all, and sure you can live just fine with lcd, but for those of us wanting to experience a really dark night in Skyrim, wanting to have true night vision in Saints and Sinners (and not constantly needing a flashlight) - and to enjoy all the very dark horror games - oled is still king. Although Rift CV1 and the original Vive aren't completely the same, they both use oled panels - and these results indicate differences in blackness comparing oled (Vive) and lcd (Index) hmds:

"Black level in nits:

Index: 0.153

Vive: under 0.02 with true blacks turned off via black smear compensation (default).

Vive: 0 with true blacks turned on, black smear compensation disabled via running the headset in secondary display mode."

https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/comments/c5sxu5/brightness_blackpoint_and_gamut_measurements_of/

In a few games, like Saints and Sinners - and Westworld Awekening - I found some very dark locations where I basically can see nothing using the Index (lcd), while I clearly can make out objects using Rift CV1. In those cases Rift CV1 provides true night vision, while lcd cannot show very poorly illuminated objects making everything vanish into a grey lcd-fog of pure nothingness 😉 That's probably why all the otherwise dark tunnels in Alyx are lit up with so many lamps, because you need light to create great blacks using lcd, and Alyx was made for lcd (Index). Also having oled or not in extremely dark games like Phantom Covert Ops is the difference of being able to see all the awesome tiny ripples and subtle reflections in the surface of the water or not.

2. Sound is second to none using the CV1, primarily the deep bass, thanks to the awesome Rift CV1 headphones. Even Index cannot provide the same bass as CV1 - at all. It's very easy to test. Try the song Embers in Pistol Whip and compare CV1 with whatever hmd you'd like. Even Index has close to no bass in that song, while the CV1 is simply perfect - the difference is close to day and night:

Also the larger Oculus exclusive games took years to make, like Asgard's Wrath, Stormland, Defector and Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond. Although such games were launched when Rift-S and Quest 1-2 hmds were available, these games were primarily developed using Rift CV1 hmd. In short, if you do not use Rift CV1 for these games, you're not experiencing sound effects and music exactly like the devs intended. This may mean you're getting too much or too little bass, and that may affect immersion. Maybe casual gamers don't care about this and might even accept the extremely poor piped-audio quality of Rift-S and Quest hmds, but getting the optimal sound experience should matter to audiophiles and enthusiasts.

3. Rift CV1 Touch controllers are built like tanks. Using Oculus subreddit, the amount of photos showing broken Rift-S and Quest controllers are numerous, and there have been many statements about the poor quality of newer controllers, also including Valve Index controllers. The new Reverb G2 controllers do not get a lot of love too, but more due to design and weight distribution. Instead, old Touch are still considered the reference when it comes to quality, design and durability. Batteries may even last for months - while some never controllers (like for the Reverb G2) may eat up batteries like there's no tomorrow 😉

4. Tracking. Although having sensors is quite a hassle for those needing to set them up for each VR session, permanently placed sensors provide next to no inconvenience and provide a level of tracking probably only beaten by the base stations used for Vive and Index hmds. Having used the Valve Index for 19 months, I really do not notice much difference between CV1 and Index tracking, which is a testament to the awesome tracking provided by the CV1. Although CV1 isn't included here, Index tracking was scientifically measured to be extremely much better than what inside-out solutions provide:

Results - tracking accuracy - lower scores are best (hint: Cosmos did not win ;))

https://forums.oculusvr.com/community/discussion/91998/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-which-one-has-the-best-or-worst-tracking-of-them-all

I would be very surprised if Rift CV1 is much worse than Index. Using Rift CV1 360 degrees tracking (needs at least 3 sensors) you can hold your hands on your back for as long as you'd like - you'll never lose tracking. And you can play in a totally dark room, you do not need any light for perfect tracking. Also kojack compared CV1 tracking here to both HP Reverb G2 and the Quest 2 - I hope he doesn't mind quoting him here:

"Tracking seems fine on the (HP Reverb) G2, it just has way worse coverage. It's too easy to lose sight of the controllers below or near the headset. Hold your hands out in front and they seem ok. While moving around the WMR home scene, there's big panels to look up at and I kept the controllers at waist level. The laser pointers on the controllers made it obvious every time the position tracking dropped out when I tilted my head up a little.

CV1 tracking is great, I prefer it to anything else. Q2 (Oculus Quest 2) tracking seems ok, but also has worse coverage than CV1. For example in Audica, if I try to throw the guns underarm from a resting position, they just release from my hands and float at my side, while on the CV1 they'd be thrown correctly."

https://forums.oculusvr.com/community/discussion/91084/hp-reverb-g2-available-pre-orders-up-november-release-date-confirmed/p39

5. Using temporal antialiasing (TAA), which is used for DLSS, does not create a blurry image with the Rift CV1. Some may not be aware of this - and that's entirely plausible for those never having tried using an oled hmd. In games like for example MADiSON VR, Metro Awakening, Riven. Ark Park, Robinson the Journey, Asgard's Wrath and Stormland, enabling TAA or DLSS using a lcd hmd easily creates a very blurry image quality. Like having your eyes dropped with liquid butter - or something. Using TAA or DLSS with Rift CV1 you get super-sharp image quality, maybe due to the screen-door effect (SDE) fooling our brains to experience a holistic and sharp image by filling out the blanks (blanks = the black stripes between rows of lit pixels which essentially make up the SDE). Furthermore, compared to other kinds of antialiasing like MSAA, TAA or DLSS does not cost a lot of gpu performance. Having to replace TAA or DLSS with 4xMSAA (or worse) may provide ok-ish image quality by severely reducing frames per second (fps), especially when combined with high levels of super sampling (ss).

6. Some games profit from the SDE and reduced res of the Rift CV1. Although many are annoyed with the Rift CV1 due to the low res and especially the SDE, sometimes the SDE can be a friend. Using high res lcd hmds with tons of subpixels may provide clarity so far ahead of the Rift CV1 that there's really no comparison. Unfortunately such clarity may also reveal tons of flaws and shortcomings in many (older) VR games. Using high-res lcd hmds, low res textures may easily be spotted and may reduce immersion. The advantage of the Rift CV1 SDE may in many cases be like having scanlines in MAME games (MAME = Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) - or just an interlaced image quality. Remember how some games looked on lcd monitors, when some of us switched from using CRT monitors (or TVs)? The difference in image quality using Rift CV1 or a newer high-res lcd hmd may easily be like:

Image quality with scanlines (like CV1 SDE)

Image quality with no scanlines (like modern high-res lcd hmds)

There are many games where low-res textures look so much better thanks to the Rift CV1 SDE, while everything looks a lot more pixelated using high-res lcd hmds. Again a game like Phantom Covert Ops comes to mind - that game looks great using Rift CV1, but using Index you can easily see all the ugly low-res textures. Even a game like Arizona Sunshine looks so much better using Rift CV1 due to lack of jaggies and it's much harder to notice any low-res textures. One thing that amazed me in that game was the thorns on the cactus plants which looked very real using Rift CV1 ss 2.0, but using Index it's so easy to see the low-res 2D thorns on the plants which now looked incredibly fake and thereby broke the immersion.

7. Physical interpupillary distance (IPD) slider. With the Rift CV1 you do not just have one big panel like in Rift-S and Quest 2, but you have two separate oled panels. One for each eye that can be physically moved. This allows for simply perfect IPD adjustment (or close), covering IPDs from about 58 to 72 mm, probably only beaten by the original Vive hmds allowing for up to 73-74 mm. Rift S is more or less locked to 64 mm, while Quest 2 has three locked positions (58, 63 and 68 mm).

8. Comfort. This is a matter of individual preferences, but it's my impression that many still find the comfort of CV1 as second to none. Personally I do find CV1 comfort a lot better than the Valve Index, even though the Index is great. With the small weight of 470 grams and the way you wear the CV1 hmd, I rarely notice it's on my head when I'm using it.

9. Using high levels of super sampling, visual acuity may be a lot better than many persons seem to believe. Having tested the Rift CV1 with high levels of super sampling I found some quite surprising results. This is a comparison of how many meters you can go back from a text and still be able to read it - note that higher res provides increased ability to zoom out while still sharply seeing objects and textures:

Rift CV1:
Ss 1.0 = 4 meters
Ss 2.0 = 6 meters

Valve Index:
Res 100 % = 4.5 meters
Res 200 % = 6.5 meters

Source: https://forums.oculusvr.com/community/discussion/91907/testhmd-fov-sde-res-super-sampling-the-rift-s-against-everything-else/p1

I consider these results quite amazing, and they prove that increasing levels of super sampling has a profound effect on Rift CV1 image quality. I've heard several CV1 users say that you don't benefit from more than ss levels 1.3 to maybe 1.5 using Rift CV1. That's why we need science and to test subjective experiences thoroughly. Properly testing the Rift CV1 there's even a noticeable difference comparing ss 2.0 and 2.5. Going from ss 2.0 to 2.5 will probably require a RTX 3080/3090 or better to get 90 fps in many games, and the difference between 2.0 and 2.5 is more subtle than going from 1.5 to 2.0. For many it may come as a great surprise that perceived sharpness and ability to read signs etc. (=visual acuity) may really not be much different using Rift CV1 ss 2.0 or Valve Index res 200% - even though persons subjectively may feel that the res is so much better using a lcd panel with tons of subpixels, like the Index.

10. Many games were made for oled hmds - thus using an oled hmd may be the only way to play these games "the way it's meant to be played". This is one issue I've become more and more aware of since I got the Index. Many games made for Rift CV1 simply don't feel "right" using other solutions than the Rift CV1. Chronos may be a nice example. Chronos plays nicely using the Valve Index, but even forcing res 200% I can still see some jaggies and pixel crawling. And the blacks, textures and colors are nice too, but seem to lack something here and there. Now, using the Rift CV1 ss 2.0 there's simply no doubt I get the vision the devs intended to provide. I no longer see jaggies, and blacks and colors look the way the should - and I no longer notice any textures I think would benefit from a slightly higher res. Same with Mage's Tale: using lcd many surfaces look fake, like made of melted plastic - gold surfaces look fake - but using Rift CV1 everything looks so much more real, even including the gold. In short, there are still many of reasons to love the old Rift CV1. Even if the competition is fierce these days, there are many games and apps where the old Rift CV1 stands tall and bows to no one.

I've probably missed something - do let me know in a post below, if there're even more reasons to still love/like the Rift CV1! 🙂

Show previous replies

Fredrum

Up and Coming

UPDATE: I figured it out it was my driving wheel controller that was grabbing the input and once I realized I could get past the IPD setup screen. Not figured out how to get Assetto Corsa working with it yet but hopefully will.

Hi Everyone! I just dug my old Rift CV1 out of the closet to try and play some car games on my PC.

But I'm having trouble getting the setup working with the Oculus setup app. Without it it seems SteamVR doesn't work.

The Oculus app is stuck at the IPD setup step. It says to 'push any button to continue'. But the Rift does not have any buttons to press and my Touch controller is not yet linked so that doesn't work. No keyboard button works.

Does anyone know how to get around this?

Cheers!

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

Good to read that you found the solution 🙂

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

Fredrum

Up and Coming

Thanks yes I did get Assetto Corsa working in the end (only $9 cad on steam) but there was another hurdle as I assumed the 'Oculus' display type would work but then eventually figured out that the Oculus app was running OpenXR and I had to select the Oculus OpenXR experimental display type in AC. I guess I could swith both back to regular Oculus display driver but I like the sound of using OpenXR.

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

So how does CV1 fare against a new hmd like Pico4? - Here's a long review from Reddit:

"So, first of all, here was the previous post I made. https://www.reddit.com/r/virtualreality/comments/18zou9h/comment/khjhp9n/?context=3

TLDR of previous post:^{While I found the Pico 4 very comfortable, had great peripherals and menu and when fully in focus was very high resolution/detailed, I found it less immersive and far more 'flat' than my memory of the CV1.}

TLDR of current post: ^{I literally bought a used CV1 just to try it again (first time since 2018 as many users said it was just my memory playing tricks on me. No, It is more immersive and a better experience in} ^{many ways} ^{and ill describe them below and expand upon the last post.}

Comfort: ^{Pico 4 wins by a long way. The CV1 is very front heavy and isn't comfortable to lift up off your face while needing to look at other things outside of your VR headset, it pushes down on your eyebrows if you do which is very uncomfortable, and it also feels like it presses on my nose slightly when ive got it in the sweet spot making it harder to breathe}

IPD adjust: ^{CV1 wins. While I think having an automatic IPD adjustment with small 0.5mm increments is great overall, I simply prefer being able to jump in a game and tweak the IPD adjustment then and there on the fly to get it perfect. It makes it much easier for others to quickly adjust to their taste too.}

Resolution: ^{Pico 4 wins by a long way. Not much more to say, the resolution of the Pico 4 is} ^{vastly superior} ^{to the CV1. The downside of this is that it is harder to push high res on the Pico 4 via a PC, but its still a comfortable win. The main thing I would mention was that I could easily push 2-3 super sampling on the CV1 which made things like text significantly more readable while still also being able to achieve a smooth 90fps}

Motion Comparison: ^{CV1 wins. Fast motion is vastly superior over HDMI and on the OLED's, there is} ^{significantly} ^{less motion blur when moving your head quickly, to the point where it is not noticeable unless you look specifically for it. By comparison, when playing flight games in the Pico, I would notice huge motion blur when rolling around in the aircraft a lot and looking down at the ground at objects moving quickly in my vision.}

Contrast & Color: ^{CV1 wins by a fair margin, but not quite in the way you'd expect. The low resolution of the CV1 makes it harder to notice how much it shines with its contrast and colours, but things feel far more immersive and rich, and therefore deep and realistic in the CV1 even with a low resolution. The obviously limitation the CV1 has is that it simply cannot shine as much as it should if it was higher res, you cant notice minute differences in colours and black levels because, well, theres too few pixels to see those details.}

^{This is also why the Pico 4 is} ^{so bad.} ^{I'm normally in the IPS panel camp over OLED as I think a great IPS is easily enjoyable enough compared side by side with an OLED. OLED is objectively better, but I dont} ^notice ^{a good IPS being worse unless shown a direct comparison. The problem with the Pico 4 is, you know immediately this thing is an LCD, it looks washed out like a really cheap crappy LCD screen you buy on eBay used for 30 bucks, just with a high resolution. As a result of the high resolution, you really, really notice the bad colors and contrast. So that extra resolution is a double edged sword that not only makes it shine, but also highlights its negative attributes} **^{significantly}**^.

Lenses: ^{CV1 wins by a significant margin. Now this might trigger some people because its the whole pancake vs Fresnel lenses thing, and people might gawk at the idea that I'm comparing nearly a decade old Fresnel lenses with a modern VR headsets pancake lenses, but hear what I have to say. The Pico 4 has decently higher FOV than the CV1, but there is an} ^{enormous problem} ^{with how you view that extra FOV. The issue is that the outer ~35% of the lens is so blurry it looks like someone has taken a blowtorch to it. Seriously, it looks like 144p resolution, if not} ^worse, ^{the next 20% or so suffers less, id say it looks something like 480p, so its ok, but the visual contrast between the centre of the lens which looks fantastic, and the outer 50% is} ^horrendous.

^{By comparison we have the CV1 with its Fresnel lenses and worse FOV. Here's the thing though, almost 100% of what you see in the lens is equal quality, its literally the outer 5% or less that is slightly, and I mean} ^{very slightly blurry.} ^{Some of you will point out that by comparison with the Pico 4, the entire lens is blurry due to the low resolution, and that might be true, but what I find far more immersion breaking is the contrast in quality, not the quality overall. Imagine you are playing a PlayStation game on the TV and only the central 50% is sharp, and the res of the tv looks like you slapped Vaseline all over it, quite frankly, id rather play on an older lower resolution tv than like this.}

^{This effect is drastic in my opinion. Ill give you an example of where you really, really notice it. Imagine you are playing a flight game, flying along in your plane. You pressed the key to lower the flaps so that you can land, and you want to turn and look over your shoulder back at the wing to visually confirm the flaps have been retracted. Well, you cant in the Pico 4, you have to turn significantly more to get the flaps into the inner 50% of the lens, because its that **bleep**ing blurry outside of it, so I found myself needing to literally use the swivel in my office chair and really lean into the turn to see it in the quality you expect wearing that headset, not only that, because your eyes are naturally drawn to the edge of the lens, its very, very immersion breaking. By comparison in the CV1, you look to the edge of your lens, which looks like it has the same quality, and you turn your neck and lean slightly to fully look back at the wing, great, job done.}

^{I've not seen this point really made in reviews and posts, I think perhaps because a lot of VR users now started in the Quest 2 days and never really used the CV1, and if they have they've put it on for a moment and then recoiled at how bad the resolution is, but this is what spurred me to write this post, as a reminder to this point.} ^{You can have as} ^{much resolution and FOV} ^{as you want, but if the experience} ^{isn't consistent} ^{throughout the} ^{vast majority} ^{of the lens, its} ^pointless ^{and actually can be a} ^negative

Battery vs Wired: ^{This will come down to personal preference, but as someone who is used to wearing a wired headset for gaming, I prefer having a wire over a headset that runs out of battery extremely quickly, and takes an eternity to charge. If the Pico lasted 2x as long and charged twice as fast as it does, it would be a clear win, but even then, having a direct hook-up to the GPU is vastly superior to the quality achieved over USB/Wireless. I found the Pico 4's charging time to be unbearable, but thats my personal view and it will differ person to person.}

Screen Door Effect: ^{Pico 4 wins, obviously. I dont notice the SDE that much and it dosent really bother me, but this ties in largely with the resolution part, the Pico 4 is just leagues ahead at this point and much easier to look at when at peak sharpness.}

Final thoughts, its an interesting comparison that I enjoyed doing. I worked in VR from 2016-2018 during all of the craze out in the west coast over its future, doing lots of media including live events, feature films and gaming, so was very familiar with the headsets around at this time, but haven't used them since 2018. While I think the Pico's resolution in terms of pure sharpness at its best is fantastic and its crazy to see how much VR headsets have come, I really think people either haven't tried the older wired headsets or really tried the right applications to understand just how many ways the old ones are better. I'm not saying the CV1 is better, but it is far more consistent in its experience than a Pico 4, and quite frankly it feels like all of the improvements of the Pico 4 over the CV1 come with big caveats that really damage the improvement to the experience.

If I had both here still and had to throw someone in a flight simulation game, particularly a combat one where you're looking over your shoulder, looking directly up in the air (when you're inverted) and trying to track enemy aircraft as you dance around the sky, yes, I do think the CV1 is actually better. Its blurry by comparison but its smoother and consistent in its visual clarity. I think the experience is truly ruined when you're flying along in full focus, then have to go inverted and try to track an aircraft in the edge of your vision and you just suddenly go from a modern sharp experience, to feeling like you're using the very first Oculus Rift DK1, thats how bad it is.

I'm going to step away from VR for a few more years until more progress is made, I think the wireless headsets have some amazing apps and AR experiences but I am not interested in them right now. Hopefully in a few years some sort of wireless headset will be released with a port for direct hook-up with a GPU like the CV1, that dosent have horrible lenses and has the visual clarity and smoothness of OLED, until then, I just dont think VR is there yet.

Interested to hear anyone's thoughts, hopefully my comparison was somewhat interesting and if you're triggered that I'm comparing a modern expensive headset to a used 50 bucks rift, well, tough, it is what it is haha."

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/virtualreality/comments/1959os9/pico_4_vs_cv1_immersion_follow_up_i_tried_the_cv1/

That said, very impressive to see a simmer preferring CV1 to Pico4 - simmers normally crave the very high res to clearly see for example distant enemies in flight sims. For sims I would normally not recommend CV1, but I would recommend CV1 for many other dark games - or games using temporal antialiasing. See some older posts where I've renommered games for CV1.

Concerning the res, it's no big deal due to super sampling. Maybe it's hard to understand, but using extreme super-sampling, the SDE kinda works like bars in front of an extremely high-res image, but when you move the bars go away and to your brain gets highly exposed to the high-res image quality.

I just tried Barbaria (OpenXR drivers) and I really do not think my experience with CV1 ss 2.5 was reduced compared to Index res 300% (apart from the much smaller fov):

Index also has some blur in the periphery, while CV1 is clear almost to the edge of the panels - so is a smaller high-res sweet spot really much better than a giant lower-res sweet spot?

Rift CV1 has 2 x 1080 x 1200 panels = 2.6 million pixels

PSVR2 has 2 x 2040 x 2000 = 8.2 million pixels

PSVR2 should totally blow the CV1 out of the water due to having more than 3 timers higher res and also being oled? But if I could choose, I'd greatly prefer Rift CV1 ss 2.5 (27 mill pixels) in 90 fps compared to PSVR2 (8 million pixels) with no/little super-sampling in 60 fps with reprojections. Sure, PSVR2 would be king if I could connect it directly to my RTX 3090. But low panel res with much super-sampling easily can provide much better immersion than high-res with little to no super-sampling. 2c.

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

Bootstrap Island is working awesomely with the Rift CV1 - I wrote a post about the CV1 in the thread about the game:

https://communityforums.atmeta.com/t5/VR-Experiences/Bootstrap-Island-has-launched-can-you-survive-like-Robinson/td-p/1156288

As written, you'll get a full experience with the Rift CV1, due to non-blurry DLSS/TAA, and great clarity at night due to oled.

Note, the red color on the bottom screenshot shows that I'm close to being dead 🙂

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

Anonymous

A mooch round the 'classic' 0culus Rift home using a 2017 version of the PCVR software (not the rubbish mobile copy) . Recorded on the Quest 3 in 4K. CV1 headset and sensor cables are just not long enough.

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

Where did you find the old Rift CV1 Home? Thanks!

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

Anonymous

I have a copy of the download cache for the full oculus software from 2017. In that software there's the original avatar editor and the two home rooms. The home room allows you to toggle between the 'Classic' home and the 'Cityscape' home (the one with the blimp, transistor radio and koi pool)

If you are comfortable editing the registry, you'll need to add/delete a key to toggle between the two.

Post #47 in this thread gives more detail.

Installing older oculus software. | Page 3 | Overclockers UK Forums

If you want a copy of the files, just give me a shout.

Anonymous

The original oculus avatar from 2017 running in the current meta software recorded in 4K

Anonymous

oculus home 'cityscape' airship flypast.

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

Awesome to see - and saddening too. So much effort and money went into making the PCVR Homes, now all is just washed down the drain - no respect for keeping the legacy/history alive. Here today, gone tomorrow.

Right now my link to PCVR games and apps do not even work in the Rift Store (=PCVR Link Store, lol) - that is, I can see and search for games, but when clicking on a game, I get an error (could be a regional error, I don't know). This is using a normal internet browser, the PCVR store works when using the phone app or desktop app though. The Quest Store works perfectly - tells you where Meta's priorities are. Steam does not have such issues - at least not to my knowledge.

Meta should embrace their legacy, not treat it stepmotherly - which is exactly, what they are doing now. There was no excuse for deleting all our Homes - Meta spends billions on tech that might not at all make any kinds of ends meet, but can't afford to keep old users' beloved Homes alive?

Well, I do appreciate Lone Echo still working on my Rift CV1, but to me it really feels like Meta delivered their top VR quality content in 2017 - 2019, while it's been downhill ever since.

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

Choleni

Honored Contributor

It's not an regional error, unless we are in the same region...... but I don't believe you are in Germany too😂

The removed homes are a thing that i won't forgive them.
I would understand, if they will not longer give this to the users for free, because they have a lot work with it.
But they could have changed it to a payed app or something like that.

Anonymous

I've uploaded the files to dropbox for the original oculus home and avatar editor. Here are the links.

https://archive.org/download/Oculusness/Oculusness.zip

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/agipxs9gc2tatl58d7dun/h?rlkey=u8zp14dtdhgfc3ls29mlhpc4b&dl=0

Clicking on the .exe files runs the oculus/meta runtime and after a few seconds you're in the home or avatar environment. If you start off in the 'Cityscape' home with the radio and the Koi pool you will need to go into the registry and create a new DWORD. It's very easy to do.

Type regedit into your search bar and click on the regedit utility to open it.

Go to - Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Oculus\Home

Right click on Home and new and create a new DWORD (32 bit) Value

Name the new DWORD EnvironmentIndex

Give the EnvironmentIndex a Value data of 0

When you next fire up the home software you'll be in the home with the wrinkly rugs and the fire pit. This also auto generates a new DWORD called RUG_STATE, changing the Value data of this to 1 or 2 defines whether the rug has wrinkles or not.

Changing the EnvironmentIndex Value data to 1 changes the home room back to Cityscape.

The text below can be copied into two notepad text files. If you rename the file extension from .txt to .bat these files now become batch files which quickly and easily allow you to toggle between the two homes with a single click on the desktop.

(Notepad file name - Change to Cityscape)

echooff
REM Modify the EnvironmentIndex value in the registry
REG ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Oculus\Home" /v EnvironmentIndex /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
echo EnvironmentIndex value updated successfully!

(Notepad file name - Change to Classic)

echooff
REM Modify the EnvironmentIndex value in the registry
REG ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Oculus\Home" /v EnvironmentIndex /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
echo EnvironmentIndex value updated successfully!

also below are the two lots of text that can be pasted into notepad and the notepad files renamed as .bat

These batch files allow you to toggle between the two rug states without having to enter the registry again. You may initially have to tidy the RUG_STATE DWORD name in the registry to remove any letters/numbers so it just reads RUG_STATE

After that, just running the batch files wrinkles/dewrinkles the rug.

(unwrinculus)

@echo off
REM Modify the RUG_STatE value in the registry
REG ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Oculus\Home" /v RUG_STATE /t REG_DWORD /d 2 /f
echo RUG_STATE value updated successfully!

(wrinculus)

@echo off
REM Modify the RUG_STatE value in the registry
REG ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Oculus\Home" /v RUG_STATE /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
echo RUG_STATE value updated successfully!

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

Great thanks - just got the files - looking forward to try it! Also thanks for the elaborate instructions.

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

This kinda used to be the scenario - but Anonymous deserves a medal by bringing back what I thought had been completely lost. For the first time in about 6 years, I'm back into the Home I never wanted to leave - but was forced to leave as it was deleted from the Oculus Desktop app:

This screenshot is taken using Rift CV1 ss 2.5, or 27 million pixel per frame combining both eyes. So by far not the image quality you'd get starting the Rift for the first time in 2016-2018. The new Homes 2.0 were introduced in June 2018:

https://www.geeky-gadgets.com/oculus-home-update-20-06-2018/

The original Homes 1.0 were more simple, I believed also used for GearVR, but nicely enhanced for PCVR:

See the nice real-time reflections in the water - and the high-res textures. you can even see the thread and stitches in the pillow to the bottom left

Another user once mocked me for caring about this old Home - and especially the carpet - but this carpet is awesome and has tons of details:

Looks real enough for me. This must be the "rug state" with the wrinkles - which I greatly prefer 🙂 Also the wrinkles increase the poly count

There is no locomotion in the Homes 1.0, but you can move all over by using your real-world feet:

Just have to watch the Rift CV1 tether walking around 🙂

A few more screenshots:

Note sure the Homes 1.0 look dated, using CV1 ss 2.5 the image quality is way beyond what any mobile gpu can render today.

Btw, I started up in Cityscape first, never was may favorite Home, but it does not look bad - nicely animated fish swimming in the water:

Note the real-time reflections in the water - plants and vases etc. are high-polygon models, although the environment is much limited in size compared to Homes 2.0

Even today this would be considered nice PCVR graphics, right?

I do have some mixed feelings, being able to run this software today also shows that if Meta/Facebook/Oculus wanted, they could easily have made a Homes 1.0 app in the Rift Store - for all of us missing these Homes.

Maybe some think it's funny, but I literally spent hours, maybe even days, in Homes 1.0. Often I would just sit there while new games and apps downloaded - or also just to relax after a long day at work. Taking away what was given and appreciated without asking, is not great customer service. Especially when it turns out it's so incredibly easy running the Homes 1.0 even today.

Again, Anonymous thanks for the effort, you're a true hero!

Now, let's see if I can Revive this thing to run it with big fov and 45 million pixels per frame, lol 🤓

Also if we somehow could run the Homes 1.0 as Homes in the current version of the Meta PC Desktop app, it would be so much better than the current white grid of emptiness, maybe one day...

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

Anonymous

Hold onto your hats...... there's also a dark theme linked to the time the PC is set to.

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

I think my hat just blew off there, lol - but a nice touch, maybe also to better show the oled blacks of the CV1, which aren't much exposed in daylight.

This thread is about the CV1 - but I can shortly mention that the Homes 1.0 can be Revived if wanted. The Homes 1.0 do integrate with the Oculus Desktop app, and are much easier to start compared having to inject Revive every time, so I think I'll keep the old Homes 1.0 primarily to use with the Rift CV1. Also these Homes were only available for Rift CV1 - when Rift-S arrived, Homes 1.0 were gone and replaced with Homes 2.0 - thus the nostalgia with Homes 1.0 primarily belongs to the Rift CV1 (also Index res 500% did look great, but I'm really fine with CV1 ss 2.5).

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

Forgot to post these images taken while wearing the CV1 - this game named Phantom: Covert Ops is my Splinter Cell VR, even if I'm not walking 🙂

I'm no expert on algea floating in water, but this looks amazing

See the fine ripples/patterns in the water? I really only notice them using oled

The game shines with oled - and was made for the Rift CV1 - dark places like this really are ruined using lcd hmds

Note the real-time lighting and water reflections

Meta/Facebook/Oculus really did try - they made the most immersive computer experiences ever known, but still VR did not sell. Problem is that you need to buy a VR hmd to experience this - and to have a gaming PC. Also many are prone to nausea in games like this.

To me Phantom: Covert Ops is a 10/10 using Rift CV1 ss 2.5 in solid 90 fps with maxed out in-game graphics settings. And sadly I'm one of the very few in the world who has played the game using the correct hmd and optimal settings for graphics.

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

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