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should i get the hydra if i can afford it?

Battler
Honored Guest
hello.

i have ordered a rift a month and a half ago and waiting for it to arrive. i found that the best way of passing the time
while waiting for the rift is watching rift videos and lurking the forums. what i came to ask is as a vr enthusiast should i get the hydra?
Namielus' Oculus Virtual Lounge:
26 REPLIES 26

PremiumRumpus
Explorer
I managed to grab a Hydra on sale for $40 + tax, free shipping.

It's awesome! Even just playing around in Minecraft, it's surprisingly nice to use.

That being said, I'm not sure if it's worth the $100+ price most places are asking for it. Maybe just keep an eye out for a sale, grab it then?

Edit/Note - I should also mention, that while the Hydra is very reactive, it's also very sensitive to interference. It won't cause it to stop working, but it does cause jitter in the control. (Being too far away from the control base will also cause this).

I live in a basement apartment, and no matter what distance I am from the base, there is always a tiny, tiny bit of jitter.

Veritas781
Honored Guest
I own a Hydra, and for FPS games I prefer it over keyboard and mouse or gamepad for campaign/single player modes. However, using it in any kind of competitive multiplayer match puts you a slight disadvantage in my opinion. As someone who is usually amongst the top 3 in multiplayer FPS matches (depending on the game of course), when I try to use the Hydra I just get owned.

That being said, once configured properly, the Hydra does an excellent job of accurate positional tracking and I can't wait to see more games developed for the OR with peripheral tracking in mind, FPS or otherwise.

darren
Honored Guest
My opinion: No.

The hydra is pretty much an intermediary device. It's not really going to give you full problem-free tracking of your hands and you've got to stay constrained within a bubble of the base unit. Any devices nearby might cause noise interference. My hydra didn't work out-of-the-box. I still won't know if it works until Gallery: 6 Elements comes out (that is the only reason I got the hydra).

It turns out tracking the hands, head, and body is a difficult problem, but the best way actually that I've figured out how to do it is with a device like the PlayStation 4 Eye.

You need something that can see you and understand where your hands are. (It's also best if the device's company hasn't patented generation of marketing information by spying on you).

if you've got a device that cn see your hands, body, and head, you cn get positional tracking, hand tracking and everything. We just need such a device for the PC. LeapFrog Motion might be it who knows. We really need something approved by Oculus so we know this is the way we're going to do things and it really needs to be a complete and the best option. If it's half-baked in any way it could literally kill the company.
"Collecting user blood samples is critical for the operation of the device. We have struggled with our ability to communicate our vision about how user blood sample collection is the future of VR gaming." - Microsoft

sven
Protege
The hydra is pretty much a must-have controller for VR. Until the Hydra 2 is released 🙂

geekmaster
Protege
"sven" wrote:
The hydra is pretty much a must-have controller for VR. Until the Hydra 2 is released 🙂

Agreed. I had five Hydras until I sent one to a Rifter in Argentina, and now I only have four. :cry:

sinoth
Honored Guest
The hydra is a great piece of tech. I've enjoyed using it in the handful of demos that feature it. If you can find it cheap (~$50) I'd go for it. Eventually I hope we'll get a wireless version, but it is still fun to play with now. I think we'll see more hydra integration in demos as time goes on.

geekmaster
Protege
Hydra controllers can be easily modified (by those technically inclined) to be much smaller, such as could be attached to a wrist strap or HMD. There is a thread at MTBS3D that goes into great detail.

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=120&t=13771&p=72263#p72255

And notice that small internal Hydra controller photo in PalmerTech's post at that link.

mrgreen72
Superstar
"sven" wrote:
The hydra is pretty much a must-have controller for VR. Until the Hydra 2 is released 🙂

+1

geekmaster
Protege
"mrgreen72" wrote:
"sven" wrote:
The hydra is pretty much a must-have controller for VR. Until the Hydra 2 is released 🙂

+1

Nay, too risky. You should wait for the Hydra 9! :lol: