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Buy Quest 2 or wait for Quest pro with eye tracking?

RedRizla
Honored Visionary

Would it be worth buying the Quest 2 now or waiting for Quest pro? I've heard Quest pro has eye tracking, but some people are saying it's not much use for games yet because there are no games that use it. I thought eye tracking was hardware related and would work without the need for it to be added to a game?

8 REPLIES 8

Nobody knows yet. Wait for the relase, or at least a full announcement.

Mradr
Protege

Quest 3 wont have a lot of the tech you will see in the Quest 2 Pro release, but keep in mind while they did upgrade the CPU/GPU to be around 30% faster - that isnt really enough to see amazing improvement over all. It would allow some games/software to be near limits to be playable - but games wont be targeting the Quest 2 Pro all that much. Mainly software and that will be limited in design as well. 

 

Quest 3 will more than likely be running a new SOC and more than likely improve a lot more in both GPU and CPU while being more cost effective for gaming / general public needs.

 

Quest 2 Pro will include new features such as eye tracking and face tracking - but unless you already have titles in mind that can even make use of them - ... it will be a nitch use case. 

 

With that said, the Quest 2 Pro will more than likely be more than enough for a while to come. Oculus/Meta doesnt plan to release Quest 2 Pro as a Quest 3... and Quest 3 will be more than likely just a updated SOC and a few extra nices to haves to keep in the price point they are wanting to be in there, so it should have an ok life line for a bit. So if you have money it should be "Safe" to buy if you are ok to burning some of it incase they release another headset with updated hardware in the future with in 2-3 years. I believe they are already have line up another headset for Quest Pro 2 once the screen and SOC improvement for next year or so. Mainly depends on when Apple plans to release and that screen technology.

iMight404
Retired Support

Realistically, the only game I can see this being prominently used in is something like VrChat. It mainly depends on when you want a headset, and what features you are a make or break for you. If you're ok with waiting, I'd say the next headset would be a good pickup, especially given the fact that we're already so far out from initial release. That, coupled with the fact the Quest 2 has bumped in price recently should make it a safe pickup in the future for not too much on top.

Take your destiny into your own hands. Sand cannot keep a shape by itself, but add water and it becomes malleable. Fate can be such, if you add the right element.

kojack
MVP
MVP

For eye tracking, there's 3 main ways it could be used.

1 - Controlling avatar eyes.

Having the eyes of your avatar move would suit things like VRChat as mentioned.

If this was added as part of the Oculus Avatar system, games using that should get it, assuming it's possible. Last time I went into Avatar rendering (in Ogre3D with C++), the Oculus Avatar SDK gives you a list of meshes and where to render them, you don't need to know what they represent, so having eyes separate shouldn't hurt it.

But programs like VRChat don't use Oculus Avatar, so they would have to be explicitly updated to use eye tracking. Many existing custom avatars might not have movable eyes. Mods won't help, since VRChat banned mods.

 

2 - Controlling the Game/UI

Using eye tracking would let you look at controls on the UI to use them, look at objects to target them, etc. This is all extremely game specific, they'd have to be written to explicitly support it.

 

3 - Controlling rendering

You could do depth of field, where it focuses on things you look at and anything closer or further is blurred. If provided a z buffer (needed for ASW 2) then the Oculus runtime could potentially do this automatically to any game, but there's things that could go wrong. Just think of a camera with bad auto focus that is more interested in anything besides what you want it to focus on. It's like how I have to turn off ASW in Elite Dangerous, because the UI is incompatible with it.

The other rendering option is foveated rendering. The Quest series already have fixed foveated rendering as a developer option, that's where the centre is highest res. With eye tracking you could adjust the location of highest res to match your eyes. This is another thing that developers would need to enable, as far as I'm aware Quest's foveated rendering is not automatic and defaults to off (since it can hurt quality).

 

So the advantage to getting eye tracking in Cambria is going to be zero for any existing game, at least for now.

 

Face tracking is even less useful right now.

 

The thing that I'm more concerned about with the Cambria design is the controllers having cameras.

The positive is tracking would work anywhere around the headset, no blind spot, since the controllers are doing their own tracking.

The potential negative is desyncing of controllers and headset tracking spaces.

Right now we have the problem where Quests/Rift-S get lost and don't recognise the environment (maybe lighting changes, people moving around, etc). But the controllers still work since it's using Constellation instead of Insight. If the controllers use Insight as well, you now have three devices that can lose tracking individually.

Also the matter of tracking drift comes in. I've done testing of Quest tracking, if it can't see or recognise the original starting scene, its tracking will drift over time. I've seen it drift around 7m off of the correct position (including 1m vertical) in extreme conditions. Using camera tracking on the controllers means they all potentially have drift, in different directions. There is no fixed reference (the headset) to anchor the tracking as such.

 

The other thing the Cambria apparently has is colour passthrough. If Oculus gave developers access to that, there's some really cool things we could do. But they won't, it's a privacy issue. The passthrough SDK doesn't actually give you access to the stream, just some control over a blend.

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@kojack  Nice summary mate, thanks and cheers.

i9 13900K water cooled, RTX4090, Z790 MB w/wifi6e, 32Gb 6400 ram, 2x2TB SSD, 1000W PSU, Win 11, QPro, Q3, w/Link and Air Link, Vive Pro1 with Etsy lens mod and Index Controllers

RedRizla
Honored Visionary

Thanks for the repiles. I expect this Quest 2 pro to be a lot more then the Quest 2, so I'm still unsure what to do. I won't be playing mobile VR, it was mainly going to be used to play wireless PC-VR. So would Quest 2 be the better purchase for that and does it still feel like you have a brick on your face unless you get a halo strap?

Yes and yes. The Quest pro is undoubtedly going to be focussed more on business and productivity, which is why it's likely to be three times the price of the Q2. It'll still play Q2 games but if that's not your focus, why pay over the odds for tech you won't use.

 

There is every chance that PCVR will be further compromised on it as well - Meta definitely seem to be downplaying PCVR more and more.

 

A halo strap is one of the best things you can buy for a Q2, particularly if you can stretch to a counterweight battery as well.


@RedRizla wrote:

Thanks for the repiles. I expect this Quest 2 pro to be a lot more then the Quest 2, so I'm still unsure what to do. I won't be playing mobile VR, it was mainly going to be used to play wireless PC-VR. So would Quest 2 be the better purchase for that and does it still feel like you have a brick on your face unless you get a halo strap?


For good wireless PCVR I think the Q2 is the most sensible option.  I'm loving my Q2/rtx3090 wireless with Air Link.  With the Elite strap with battery it's one of the most comfortable headsets I've ever owned, and I've owned lots, lol!  Everyone's head size/shape is different so 'different strokes for different folks'.  After market accessories really depend on your personal preference.  I've found it best to buy from Amazon so they are easy to return if you don't like them.

 

Actually the stock strap is not too bad imho.  I used it for a year with a 20000mahr battery pack attached to the back strap with a couple of Velcro straps and a short 1.5ft battery cable.  Nicely balanced the headset and was pretty comfy.

 

If I didn't already have a Q2 all dialed in and had a big pot of $'s laying around I'd probably go for a Quest 2 Pro (Cambria).  Thanks to covid postponing annual oversees holidays for the past 2.5 years I do have a fairly big VR war chest.  However, I think it might be best to spend that in the next year or two for true gen2 wireless PCVR headsets and PC upgrades.

i9 13900K water cooled, RTX4090, Z790 MB w/wifi6e, 32Gb 6400 ram, 2x2TB SSD, 1000W PSU, Win 11, QPro, Q3, w/Link and Air Link, Vive Pro1 with Etsy lens mod and Index Controllers