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Ask Slashdot: Best Virtual Reality Headsets?
Quantus347 writes: Straightforward question: I held off for a year to let the various manufacturers shake out the bugs, but now it's down to either a virtual-reality system or a new generation console. So I ask you, the Slashdot community, what are your personal experiences with any of the various VR systems out there? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What little things annoy you the most? What features make a given product the best (or worst) option? "Sprinkle us with wisdom from your mighty brain!" For reference, the HTC Vive costs $799.00, while the Oculus Rift with Oculus Touch motion controllers costs $598 (which is the price after the recent markdown from $799). These prices do not include the necessary hardware required to power each headset. The PlayStation VR ($399.99), Samsung Gear VR ($99.99), and Google Daydream View ($79.00) are also available for less moolah.
I have both the Rift and the Vive, and the Rift is collecting dust. Rift may have better ergonomics, but the Vive has a much higher 'just works out of the box' factor with better tracking and software. It is sadly also becoming a choice made on principle. The Rift was supposed to be the open system, but after the Facebook money they have turned into what is by far the most closed system of them all right now.
I personally believe the visuals are close enough to not care but...
Rift has reduced screen door effect making it better than Vive
Rift has slight smaller field of view making it worse than Vive
Rift has a slightly darker screen and often people prefer the brighter more vibrant colors of the Vive.
Rift has worse lens flair issues than the Vive
Rift and Vive have different focal planes. One requires you to focus a few feet in front of you while the other at infinity. Some people find one more comfortable than the other.
Rift's head strap is simply better engineered to stay in place and balance the weight of the device so you can play longer. It also has integrated headphones which makes it faster/easier to put on/take off. However, if you don't have a head shaped for it the Vive's elastic bands can be more comfortable. Vive offers more flexibility for people who wear glasses as you can adjust the distance between your eye and the lens independent of how it's mounted on your head. HTC is releasing a deluxe strap that is similar to the Rift in the next couple months.
The Vive strap is annoying enough to many where you'll find plenty of people (myself included) elected to fix the problem using off the shelf parts like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
We have a product that runs now on Rift, Vive, and PSVR and will soon on Daydream and upcoming mobile and Windows VR. Take my opinion for what it's worth.
Comfortable VR requires low-latency motion sensing, screen displays with pixels on/off for precise periods to avoid blur or flickering, simulation and rendering that is at least 60 fps, and asynchronous reprojection of that output to 90 or 120 hz. All of the above VR systems are capable of comfortable VR running applications that meet that framerate requirement. Many would additionally argue that head-position tracking is a requirement for comfortable VR, because otherwise the world "moves" with your head. We say it's definitely better to have than not, as long as it has the same low-latency as rotation sensing and is reliable.
Applications also need to minimize the difference between acceleration you see with your eyes and feel with your balance. Our research shows people have different trigger thresholds for simulation sickness, and different sensitivities to different types of acceleration (for instance most people can handle differences in forward acceleration than vertical, and both better than turning). Different applications have many ways to address this: low detail backgrounds or background occlusion when turning, "cockpits" that turn with you, shuttering of FOV to reduce peripheral detail when turning, teleporting, acceleration limits, head-synced turning, level design that encourages more or less accelerations and vertigo, room-scale only movement, etc. You will have to jump in yourself and find what you are capable of and what applications do the trick for you.
The rest comes down to features and ecosystem of each VR system. Hardware systems have been evolving very rapidly but here's a brief rundown.
Vive & Rift are very similar from sensing and screen and computing requirements,wide fields of view, high application framerates, They both now require a tether to your PC with I5-4590 & GTX 970 or better performance. Vive came out with full room-scale position sensing and two hand-controllers, which has led to a lot of great room-scale applications. Rift came out with built-in headphones which are key to enjoying the full VR experience, as sounds can be "binaurally" mixed to sound like they are coming from precise locations, and is lighter than Vive. There are a lot of Vive add-ons available now or soon that include face covers, wireless transmission, tracking pucks and alternate head mounts with headphones.
PSVR actually has a higher screen refresh (120 hz) than Vive & Rift (90 hz) which makes looking around (with async reprojection) feel more crisp. But most PSVR applications run at 60 fps rather than 90 fps like most Vive & Rift apps, which makes object animations and positional travel less crisp. PS4 Pro apps can hit 90 fps at about the same level of detail but that depends on the developer. The PSVR's screen might be the brighest and uses a different pixel technology, less little dots and more solid squares, that is a matter of taste. It's a little heavier than Vive but is balanced between front and back so the weight rests on your forehead--in fact its screen guard doesn't even touch your face like Vive & Rift, and can move out and in for easier use by glasses wearers. PSVR's position tracking relies on visible light which is a bit less robust than the other two, though all of them have problems in direct sunlight.
Microsoft VR is further out but looks to be aiming for PSVR level performance on PCs with less than Rift/Vive specs. A notable feature is "inside-out" position tracking, coming from their Hololens research, which doesn't require external cameras like Vive/Rift/PSVR.
Daydream on a Pixel phone (Snapdragon 821) is surprisingly good for mobile. In our tests it has about twice the power of S7 running on GearVR, which our application can't yet run on with sufficient detail. Its applications require 60 fps but it has asynchronous reprojection to what feels like a 90 hz screen refre