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Finally Got my Rift - Vive owner comparison - Plus question about tension straps..

comixcroz
Expert Protege
I got my Vive about a month ago and I just got my Rift on Monday.  I was fully expecting to prefer the Vive.  I have been absolutely loving the Vive and I am amazed by everything it has to offer.  The motion controllers are amazing and the roomscale experience is very, very fun.  The games are hit or miss but there are enough interesting games that have kept me very happy with the purchase.  It is a ton of fun and I do not regret the purchase at all. 

I got my Rift thinking that I might sell it but decided to give it a spin first.  With my DK2 I had already played Chronos and Lucky's Tale.  I thought the games were really fun but didn't pack the punch of the VR experience I had with the Vive.  I may be in the minority but even after playing the Vive for a full month, when I put on the Rift CV1 I was blown away by its overall quality.  I am a video buff and minor differences in quality to others tend to be a big deal to me.  I don't even know the specs here but my personal experience is that the visuals on the Rift surpass the Vive's by a noticeable amount.  I don't know if it is the lenses, the screens themselves or their calibration.  I have heard that the HMD is light and very comfortable but for some reason I never really felt that was going to sway me one way or the other.  After playing VR for a little over a month, comfort and weight is a very big deal.  I put on the CV1 and it is super comfortable and I don't feel weighed down like I do on the VIve.  I remember feeling that way when I first put on the Vive after using the DK2.  This was a much larger jump and I immediately starting dreaming about the ideal experience - the Rift CV1 HMD with the light house tracking and motion controls of the Vive.  The final piece that makes the Rift superior in my opinion is also another factor that I dismissed early on - the integrated headphones.  After playing the Vive and absolutely struggling with the ear buds, they are a very welcome relief and are just there and very comfortable.  Sound great too.  The ear buds on the Vive keep falling out and are just uncomfortable.  

I will not be selling either system, which kind of sucks for my wallet but it is what it is.  I want them both, because they are both "better" in their own way.  The Vive's tracking is better - plain and simple.  Once Oculus puts out the touch controllers, I feel that the tracking will still be superior on the Vive.  

That being said - everything else is better on the Rift in my opinion.  If I absolutely had to choose one - it would be the Rift (and I am shocked to have this opinion).  

Question - Regarding the tension strap on the Rift.  It is supposed to spring back in, correct?  Mine appears to be slightly broken and the tension needs to be created with the velcro.  It does appear to have some spring on one side, but just a minor amount.  The right side has no spring or tension at all - it just glides in and out.  I really don't want to return this for a new HMD as I am really happy with the state of the lenses and the screens are perfect.  

Thanks!
17 REPLIES 17

Percy1983
Superstar
Reminds me of the tested video a while ago, when they said both where great but when in the Vive HMD they wished it could be the Rift HMD.
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Bluesim
Honored Guest
Your opinions are basically the same as mine.  I also have both the Vive and Rift.  I was really wowed by the Vive roomscale stuff and the controllers.  As time has gone by that Wow factor has somewhat faded and I definitely have been using the Rift more often.  I still play some of the Vive room scale stuff but so far none of it is anything that I do for more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time.  Most of it just seems like tech demos

For me, the best VR experiences are the simulators (Cars and Flight Simulators).  For these I'm seated in a chair using either my Steering wheel or flight stick, so no need for Vive controllers.  I also usually play these for long stretches at a time, keeping the headset on for a long time. The Rift wins hands down because of comfort, clarity, lighter weight, less shimmering, integrated headphones and ease of taking off and on.  It's just a higher quality product.

comixcroz
Expert Protege

lenne0815 said:

Compare jitter on both systems, that was the last straw for me, sold the vive instantly.


@lenne0815 I have only had the Rift since Monday, but I haven't experienced any jitter so far.  Now keep in mind, you rarely push the limits of Oculus' tracking solution while sitting in your office chair.  I don't think the Rift system will be able to reliably provide a roomscale experience because I have already had moments where I have "gone out of the tracking zone" while sitting in my office chair.  So I can imagine that you would lose tracking frequently if you tried to get up and walk around.  Having a second sensor for the Touch controllers could solve this issue, but I still don't think it would stack up with the light house system. 

As for Jitters on the Vive, I have experienced those a lot.  It happens every time I try to load up the Valve free software weirdly enough.  I figured if anything would be dialed in it would be that.  Once the software loads its all good.  The bad thing about the jitters on Vive is that it is sudden and it causes motion sickness.  It can happen in the steam menu from time to time and if that occurs you have to to restart the Steam App altogether to get it to stop.  It doesn't happen enough for me to want to return it and it works near flawlessly more than it doesn't.  I'd say a good 80% of the time it works from start to finish, minor problems.  Disclaimer, I do not think the jitters I have experienced had anything to do with frame rate drops.  I believe this because I track frame rates and have a very reliable set up.  I had one instance of jitters from frame drops and it was much worse than the tracking jitters and it was game breaking.  I think the jitter I experience is from temporary loss of tracking on the HMD itself.

Tracking issues with the controllers are most common.  I had to run the room set up twice because the first time the floor wasn't calibrated properly so it was near impossible to interact with items on the floor level.  The most common "bug" on the Vive is tracking errors on one of the controllers in game.  It will start floating around where your hand is sometimes and you have to wave your hand around to get the tracking dialed back in.  Another issue I have with the Vive is with the software.  It is very buggy.  It crashes.  If you don't leave a game through through the ingame system some games will crash and require a Steam VR restart.  Some demos I have downloaded do not work at all.  But again, overall I have had a ton of fun.  I never expected something this new to be perfect.  

comixcroz
Expert Protege


comixcroz did you try dialling back the cam quality because at max setting it can cause issue but there's a slider to lower it? Maybe you can find a better solution there rather than disabling it entirely.


I did try this actually.  Here's the thing though and maybe I just don't understand the technology properly.  If the camera is causing game breaking tracking issues on its highest quality setting, then dialing back the quality will only reduce the tracking issues.  I have tracking issues, as explained above, without the camera on at all.  So I found that to experience the Vive to its fullest, I need to have the camera off completely.  I can get the system to work by dialing back the quality of the camera, but it is not worth the more frequent tracking problems I've experienced.  

lenne0815
Adventurer
😄 so funny how your experience exactly mirrors what i saw when i had both. I dont mean the glitvch / hickup / crappy optimisation jitter with the vive, im speaking of theever persistent base jitter the vive is having. Start steam vr with both and just look slowly around ull notice that the vive behaves like a tiny bouncing ball, hopping around for microscopic amounts all the time.

comixcroz
Expert Protege


comixcroz did you try dialling back the cam quality because at max setting it can cause issue but there's a slider to lower it? Maybe you can find a better solution there rather than disabling it entirely.


I did try this actually.  Here's the thing though and maybe I just don't understand the technology properly.  If the camera is causing game breaking tracking issues on its highest quality setting, then dialing back the quality will only reduce the tracking issues.  I have tracking issues, as explained above, without the camera on at all.  So I found that to experience the Vive to its fullest, I need to have the camera off completely.  I can get the system to work by dialing back the quality of the camera, but it is not worth the more frequent tracking issues I experience. 

comixcroz
Expert Protege


comixcroz did you try dialling back the cam quality because at max setting it can cause issue but there's a slider to lower it? Maybe you can find a better solution there rather than disabling it entirely.


duplicate post - sorry!

comixcroz
Expert Protege

lenne0815 said:

😄 so funny how your experience exactly mirrors what i saw when i had both. I dont mean the glitvch / hickup / crappy optimisation jitter with the vive, im speaking of theever persistent base jitter the vive is having. Start steam vr with both and just look slowly around ull notice that the vive behaves like a tiny bouncing ball, hopping around for microscopic amounts all the time.


Yeah, and I think you kind of get used to it a bit.  I notice that the full game experiences like "Chair in a Room" start to make me feel sick over time in longer play sessions.  This could be the reason.  The thing I cannot handle is when it goes "wavy", that's when I get :dizzy:  motion sick.    I think there are so many working parts in the Vive and neither the hardware or the software is completely dialed in and polished.   The Rift is not as robust in its feature set but feels more like a final product in its use.  

That kind of brings me to a slightly related point, the Vive isn't at the point where I would recommend someone without tech savvy owning. It's not plug and play like a Nintendo Wii system was.  You are constantly setting things up or restarting Steam VR.  Or tweaking settings, or waking up base stations, or updating firmware, or ending a stalled program in Task Manager, the list goes on.  Even if you hired someone to install the system for you, you still need someone on hand to handle the frequent problems that occur.  I can see someone without a knack for Windows getting very frustrated, very quickly.  PC gamers are used to this kind of thing to a level, but reaching beyond that is going to be a challenge.  

I think the games and experiences certainly appeal to a wider audience then the Rift's, but you are required to have a "technician" on board controlling the computer.  Obviously, the people on this board aren't going to have a problem.   But it's just not ready for the masses.  If someone walks into a best buy with more money then sense and impulse buys the thing, I imagine many casual console gamers may have a hard time successfully operating it.  I feel like the Rift is more plug and play with the exception of needing to make sure you have the appropriate hardware to run it, I don't see it being a big technical challenge for people to use. But ultimately neither are going to have that mass appeal.  We'll have to see but it's looking like Playstation VR might be the game changer in this regard.