The "Why I Still Love My Oculus Rift CV1 in 2025" Thread

[RuneSR2]

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-b...

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...

5. Using temporal antialiasing (TAA) 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 Ark Park, Robinson the Journey, Asgard's Wrath and Stormland, enabling TAA using a lcd hmd easily creates a very blurry image quality. Like having your eyes dropped with liquid butter - or something. Using TAA 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 does not cost a lot of gpu performance. Having to replace TAA 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...

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! 🙂

[JetG]

Can’t say I have had any issues with the CV1 either, cable has held up just fine. I think I had to tighten one of the headphones once as it became a little loose, but that’s about it. The hardest thing with the CV1 imo is getting all the usb ports to flash green with an AMD chipset, but a add in card with a fresco logic chip fixed that issue mostly (still get the odd orange on cables plugged into the motherboard direct).

I just feel like OLED is the only way to go with VR, washed out blacks and no shadow detail really break immersion for me.

[RuneSR2]

For those having a slow Sunday, maybe looking for some nice content for the CV1, I recently found the old app The Homestead - it's free on Steam:

More info here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/731950/The_Homestead/

https://timeandhistory.com/the-homestead/

The Homestead isn't that old - it's from 2019. Still seems to be made with temporal antialiasing (blurry using Index, sharp with CV1). The app supports native Oculus drivers for optimal performance - I did feel that CV1 looked and performed better than Index, because I did not need to push res that high with CV1 to get nice image quality and good performance. Sure Index res 500% wins - but then I'm down to 27 fps, lol. 

The Homestead is like a visit to a very small museum - it's a massive 25GB for very few rooms - but give it a try if you'd like to experience some art today, but don't want to leave home 🙂

A few screenshots, not my best, but might give a few impressions:

All is 3D - note the reflections in the floor - you got full locomotion and can teleport too

Some art - you can toggle a voice (guide) to get a brief description of some pieces

You'll find a few sculptures too - you can choose between low, medium and high settings for graphics. This is high

Note the light reflections from the windows in the glass - but this does put much strain on your gpu 🙂

Mostly modern art is in The Homestead - not really sure what this  painting is about, and pink... 🤔   

When apps and games start to use extremely realistic and demanding graphics, I've found that a low-res hmd like CV1 has many advantages - because I do not need to push res as much to get acceptable image quality and nice performance. Like The Homestead, therefore I also use CV1 instead of Index for the Riese Project (Unreal Engine 5 ith Lumen and Nanite, the extremely heavy stuff, lol):

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2142400/The_Riese_Project__Prologue/

Devs recommend a RTX 3090 or better for Riese Project, and they are not trying to be funny. Fortunately, the game looks great using CV1 ss 1.8, and 45 fps ASW 2.0 is my friend, not my enemy 🤗 Also do not go beyond CV1 ss 1.8 (about 15 mill pixels per frame combining both eyes, this also goes for other hmds), as this will cause graphical glitches and artifact due to restrictions within the game engine - so ss 2.0 (and beyond) does not work correctly. Riese Project uses OpenXR, so remember to set OpenXR to the Meta Desktop App, not to Steam. 

[RuneSR2]

For the (according to Steam) still numerous Rift CV1 users there's still no reason to feel left behind. Even though Meta succesfully has totally killed the Rift Store by giving it no love or sales for years, Steam is still going strong. 

Recent games and apps with full native Oculus driver support include:

Resonite (new social platform where you can get a new Home)

Resonite on Steam (steampowered.com)

https://communityforums.atmeta.com/t5/VR-Experiences/Resonite-VR-just-launched-a-great-alternative-t...

Crossfire: Sierra Squad (awesome game, currently the most sold game on PSVR2, it even beat Beat Saber 🙂)

Crossfire: Sierra Squad on Steam (steampowered.com)

https://communityforums.atmeta.com/t5/VR-Experiences/Crossfire-Sierra-Squad-might-be-the-best-VR-arc...

 

New free movie Aonar (only supports Oculus hmds - does not work with my Valve Index)

Aonar on Steam (steampowered.com)

Hellsweeper (supports native Oculus drivers, will fully integrate in the Oculus library)

Hellsweeper VR on Steam (steampowered.com)

With Rift CV1, oled does provide less washed-out colors, and some SDE better hides the many low-res Quest textures - compared to lcd hmds like the Index. The game is using OpenXR drivers which provide optimal performance for the CV1. This is a Quest port though with new shiny surfaces and some dynamic shadows - I refunded, but many seem to like the game. 

Hello Neighbor VR (full native Oculus drivers, does not support my Valve Index)

Hello Neighbor VR: Search and Rescue on Steam (steampowered.com)

https://communityforums.atmeta.com/t5/VR-Experiences/Hello-Neighbor-VR-Search-and-Rescue-looks-great...

Do not underestimate Hello Neighbor VR - it got many bad ratings on Steam due to only supporting Meta hmds. It's a solid 8/10 - maybe even 9/10 - with the Rift CV1. Feels like Maniac Mansion VR, where you have to switch between different kids to solve puzzles and free your trapped friend.

Btw - The combat sim DCS also supports native Oculus drivers:

DCS World Steam Edition on Steam (steampowered.com)

A few models like the Apache helicopter AH-64D fully supports Touch, but many planes do not work properly without HOTAS. You get two free planes for a start (the DCS base game is free), and the old plane (can't remember its name) does work perfectly using only Touch - and you can also fly the other free jet plane (SU-25), but cannot shoot (but much like the MSFS2020 🙂 )

[Fredrum]

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!

[RuneSR2]

Good to read that you found the solution 🙂

[Fredrum]

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.

[RuneSR2]

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_t...

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. 

[RuneSR2]

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-l...

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 🙂

[oculusness]

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.

[RuneSR2]

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