I'm thinking about getting a VR setup. I want to use it in blender to do some 3D modeling and sculpting, maybe a little gaming too. I have a Ryzen 9 RTX PC, so I'm not worried about lacking power. I can get a slightly worn HTC Vive for $150 with all the controllers and lighthouses. I'm just wondering if that's a good way to get into VR, or if I should spend more on something else.
@h1yman Pretty old 2016 tech and hard to say how much life you’ll get out of those used components. I guess if you can try it out to make sure everything works fine it could be an inexpensive way to get your feet wet in PCVR.
As long as you’re prepared to buy used/discontinued equipment an oculus rift S might be worth considering. I have owned one and also a Vive headset. The rift s was much simpler to setup imho and had a bit better clarity with less SDE. Should be about the same price as a used Vive.
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
The biggest issue with the original Vive was the controllers (I hated that design). The headset was ok, although I preferred the Rift CV1 (and later the Rift-S).
It should still work pretty well, and at a cheap price it would be fine. But it is pretty old (low res, no built in sound, strange controllers).
With how low res it is, I'm not sure how well Blender stuff will work.
I'm all for using older things instead of throwing them away but when it comes to technology like this I think you'll buy it and within 6 months want to buy something more recent (again, I suppose there's nothing wrong with that).
I’d also recommend the Rift-S if cheap PCVR-only is what you’re looking at. It was very under-rated at the time, people seemed to look down on Meta going to a third-party design, but it’s by far the most comfortable headset I’ve ever used… with eye relief adjustment too, I did some really long sessions in that headset.
13700K, RTX 4070 Ti, Asus ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming, Corsair H150i Capellix, 64GB Corsair Vengence DDR5, Corsair 5000D Airflow, 4TB Samsung 870 , 2TB Samsung 990 Pro x 2, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, Quest, 2, 3, Pro, Windows 11 Pro 24H2 (10.0.26100)
I've owned (still own) the original HTC Vive and a few later generation products, and for $150, unless you want to play with the Lighthouse setup (they have moving parts, are a bit finicky), I'd suggest you look for a Quest 2 on eBay (they cost about this much) and a PC link cable. The Quests are newer tech, no big hassle with setup, and still accessible to Steam/etc. on the PC.
