Oculus Quest vs Oculus Rift S: Inside out tracking, no external cameras, the best of VR.

[Overmind One]

Okay, I am finally ready to talk about my new Oculus Rift S VR headset! I just received it on Wednesday June 5, but I was so engaged in it I have not bothered to write about it until now. A little background...my employer has provided a new Oculus Quest headset for employees to use on downtime, and that for me was my first real experience with a VR headset. I have a Google Cardboard, and also another phone-based VR headset holder, but those are NOTHING like purpose-built VR headsets. They cannot provide the tracking or experience a true VR headset gives because there are no controllers and the content is limited. I can only talk about the Oculus Quest and Rift S because I have personal experience with them. But there is also the HTC Vive and the Steam VR and the Samsung Gear and Google Daydream and others. Oculus Rift (the original one) was the VR leader in sales, and continues to be the most advanced headsets. Another note: Oculus is owned by Facebook. Don't worry, unless you WANT to be hooked into Facebook in your VR, you can just use the device without ever having to do anything with Facebook. It does not require you to have a Facebook account.

The Oculus Quest is completely wireless and independent of a PC. The Oculus Rift S is tethered to your PC and uses the power of your PC graphics card and memory. Here is a video comparing them. BTW, all virtual headsets which are tethered must connect with a PC. Mac is not supported by any of them except the HTC Vive, and the experience does not compare to the others available.


I agree completely with the video comparison. I have the opportunity to compare these two headsets on a daily basis. The Quest at work is great, but my Rift S tethered to my gaming computer is noticeably superior in experience and feel. Both units use what is called "inside out" tracking. There are 4 cameras on the Quest headset which track your movements and lock you in virtual space precisely. Every movement translates to your virtual self without lag or glitch. The Rift S has 5 cameras, with one of them being on top of the headset. This provides even more precise tracking than the Quest. Tracking might be the most important aspect of the VR experience. If tracking is off, you feel disconnected from your virtual self. But this never happens with the Quest or the Rift S. The original Rift had external tracking cameras called "towers" which were clunky and could lose tracking by things passing between the cameras and you...like say, a cat or a dog or a person in the room. But the inside out tracking has none of these issues, and no towers.



Another big difference between the Quest and the Rift S is Virtual Desktop. With the Quest, the unit is independent from your PC and you have to buy an app and do what is basically a remote session with your PC. It's clunky and not really useful. With the Rift S, you are tethered to your PC and the virtual desktop app is free with the headset. From within VR, you can see and use your desktop, watch video, send email, whatever you normally do. You can even use your mouse and keyboard (if you are touch proficient). Or, you can bring up the virtual keyboard and use your controllers to type.



In the VR world, you can do your work in a plush penthouse office with what looks like a much larger set of monitors, and can be configured how you want. If you want to see Paris or Rome out of your penthouse windows, or be in a space station Ready Room doing your work, you can have that. So, what about games? WOW. VR Games. VR games are like nothing you have experienced on a PC or even in an arcade! The Oculus controllers have haptic feedback (they vibrate). You can feel the slight vibration of a roller coaster ride, or in a car. It can be disorienting.


You have to remember, this is VR, which is a completely immersive experience. You can turn around, look up, and there is something everywhere. When you pass things, you can turn around and see them behind you. When you look over cliffs, there is the ground hundreds of feet below you. Sound is directional, and you can hear things as they would be in real life.

I have only had the thing since Wednesday, and there is a lot to say about it, but at $399.00 for the Rift S and Quest 64, believe me it is most definitely worth it! You can travel the world using Google VR with street view and other travel apps. The Quest 128 is $499.00, and if you are looking for independence, go for that. But the Rift S is a superior experience in every way, even though it is tethered. The Rift S comes with a 15 foot cable (USB 3.0 + Displayport), and I did buy an displayport and USB 3.0 extension of 6 more feet. Most of the videos showing VR seem to only show people standing and moving around in their living rooms, but the majority of games and apps can be used sitting at your desk or on your couch.



Another thing about the Oculus units is the camera passthrough. While wearing the headset, you can see the outside world by pressing the Oculus button on the controller which lets you see the world in a black and white "shadow world". This is great for picking up your coffee cup, finding your phone or whatever. The Oculus makes you set up a zone called the Guardian which you draw in your play area so that you do not bump into furniture or walls. Once established, when you are in your VR game and you approach the boundaries of your Guardian zone, you are warned in VR, and if you poke your head out of the zone, you get your passthrough view of the outside world. VERY cool.



Enough for now. If any of you have a VR headset and you want to connect with me on Oculus, PM me and I will give you my username.

 

[Overmind One]

WARNING: VR gaming and VR in general is very VERY addicting. Yesterday when I got home, I put on my VR headset and played a game called Dark Days. It looks like this:


Seeing it like this in a video is NOTHING like the experience. The monster you saw in the front seat is suddenly there after you turn your head and look out your window, and it is full sized like you are in VR. Everything in the game looks full sized like in real life, although everything is stylized and not photo-realistic. I think if it was, I would have ruined my underwear! Anyways,, I put on the headset and by the time I took it off, it was two hours later! Yes, there is a clock you can see in VR, but you have to come out of the game to see it.

 

[Overmind One]

Interesting information...

So, it appears the Oculus Quest only supports ONE account per device. Huh? If you have an Oculus Rift S (the tethered one), all you have to do to switch accounts is to sign in to the Oculus software using a different account. Because games are associated with your Oculus account, you can sign into anyone's Oculus desktop software who has a Rift or Rift S and access your games with the headset. Same with Steam VR games. You sign into Steam and go to your library and play your games. On the Oculus Quest, you set it up for ONE user (like a cellphone), and your games show up in there, but you can't add a second profile. To me, that is asinine for a $399 or $499 device for playing games.

How did I find this out? The Oculus Quest at work is set up with the Manager's Oculus account and he only has about 5 games. Since last Wednesday when I received my Rift S, I have purchased or downloaded at least 25 VR games. I have rollercoasters, thrill rides, shooters, space battle games, dinosaur tours, Google VR, many others. My favorite is Brass Tactics:


The biggest selling point for the Oculus Quest is it being wireless. The resolution is lower, the games you can play are limited because of power and also because the Quest will not allow you to access Steam VR games or sign into another account. They advertise that you can carry it around, but seriously? Why would I go out in reality to play VR? It seems to me that the Quest is being marketed to the actual Facebook users who will want to show it off publicly by moving around swinging their arms in Starbucks. If you just want to enjoy VR, the best experience is in the comfort of your own home, which means that a tethered headset is just fine. The Rift S is a superior experience, has better everything than the Quest, plus the whole Steam VR library of games is available. VR porn is interesting too!

Oculus Rift S - 1
Oculus Quest - 0

 

[Overmind One]

I found a way to capture the VR sessions on video, so I will start posting some of the gameplay.

Again, I think it is important to stress the addictive nature of VR. For somebody much younger than me and perhaps with a lot more time on their hands, a VR headset which never runs out of power and hundreds of engaging games and apps that allow you to travel the world and other worlds spells potential disaster. The "incels" could conceivably go without eating, bathing, even putting on clothes. They might never go outside because the real world is not nearly as appealing. Somebody living in a hovel never has to see it if they have a VR headset. Everything in the VR world is clean, perfect and the game lobbies are luxurious and well furnished.

 

[Overmind One]

Okay, I have created my first ever gameplay video for GateFans from the Brass Tactics game I have been raving about. 6 minutes of finished video takes more than 2 HOURS to edit, caption and upload! No wonder most YouTubers make it a full time job. I can't do that, but I can manage an upload every week. Perhaps two. I am uploading the video now, but it looks like it is going to end up being about 3 HOURS of work overall, including playing the game itself.

1. Take the raw video.
2. Convert the .flv video into .avi
3. Load the .avi into my video editor
4. Caption the video while previewing, and edit out the unnecessary parts.
5. Render the edited video
6. Review the finished edited video
7. Upload to YouTube
8. Create the Tags and Description

Total time: 2 HOURS and 50 MINUTES.

I have posted the video on the Brass Tactics thread in the VR Forum (new!). At the time of creating this thread and the thread over there, only 20% of the video had uploaded. It will go live when complete.

 

[Overmind One]

I did not compress the video, so it came to 32GB and I did not notice. It is still uploading! I had to start somewhere. I need to study how others compress their videos for uploading to YouTube.

 

[Lord Ba'al]

I did not compress the video, so it came to 32GB and I did not notice. It is still uploading! I had to start somewhere. I need to study how others compress their videos for uploading to YouTube.

I was wondering why I didn't see the video or thread anywhere.

 

[Overmind One]

I was wondering why I didn't see the video or thread anywhere.

Can you see it now? The video is there too.

 

[Lord Ba'al]

Can you see it now? The video is there too.

I had to search for it. For some reason, those two threads you created are not showing up in the "Recent threads" widget.

 

[Lord Ba'al]

Can you see it now? The video is there too.

I just watched your video on the Brass Tactics thread. If I may offer some criticism, I found the captioning too much in my face. It's right in the center of the screen and in very large letters. I feel if you're gonna use captioning like this, you might be better off placing it either along the top of the video or along the bottom, to the left of the Gatefans logo. And I would probably decrease the font size by 50% at least. Instead of captioning like this, you could also consider speaking your commentary instead of writing it. That way you don't take up any of the content area unnecessarily. You don't have to include a little video of yourself in one of the corners, as so many others do, but just add an additional audio track to the video. I find it more comfortable to listen to someone speak about their content than having to read text. Text, any text, instantly draws my attention. Even text written in languages which I don't understand still grab my attention. This is why I prefer to watch movies without subtitles, because that way I actually get to see and experience the movie, rather than having my eyes be drawn to the bottom of the screen every few seconds. It really makes a big difference for my movie viewing pleasure. As for Youtube videos, having spoken narration also creates a somewhat personal connection. It's as if you have someone sitting in your living room telling you something in person, like a conversation only it's one way. Written text however doesn't create a connection, it remains distant. So spoken text trumps written text by far for these kind of videos, at least as far as I'm concerned. You can still have the spoken text as subtitles as well, but I would not hard-code them into the video but instead use the Youtube feature for it. I believe there's even an automated captioning system for that, but have not looked into it. It'll probably be more work for you to create videos this way, but the difference would be well worth it I expect.

Another thing which threw me off a bit was the jittery camera movement, but I guess that can't be helped since it's a "live" feed of gameplay. However, since this video was intended to show what the game entails rather than demonstrate hardcore gaming prowess, I suppose you could try to take this into account that while creating videos you could try to move your head more slowly and smoothly instead of bam bam from left to right and such.

 

[Overmind One]

I just watched your video on the Brass Tactics thread. If I may offer some criticism, I found the captioning too much in my face. It's right in the center of the screen and in very large letters. I feel if you're gonna use captioning like this, you might be better off placing it either along the top of the video or along the bottom, to the left of the Gatefans logo. And I would probably decrease the font size by 50% at least. Instead of captioning like this, you could also consider speaking your commentary instead of writing it. That way you don't take up any of the content area unnecessarily. You don't have to include a little video of yourself in one of the corners, as so many others do, but just add an additional audio track to the video. I find it more comfortable to listen to someone speak about their content than having to read text. Text, any text, instantly draws my attention. Even text written in languages which I don't understand still grab my attention. This is why I prefer to watch movies without subtitles, because that way I actually get to see and experience the movie, rather than having my eyes be drawn to the bottom of the screen every few seconds. It really makes a big difference for my movie viewing pleasure. As for Youtube videos, having spoken narration also creates a somewhat personal connection. It's as if you have someone sitting in your living room telling you something in person, like a conversation only it's one way. Written text however doesn't create a connection, it remains distant. So spoken text trumps written text by far for these kind of videos, at least as far as I'm concerned. You can still have the spoken text as subtitles as well, but I would not hard-code them into the video but instead use the Youtube feature for it. I believe there's even an automated captioning system for that, but have not looked into it. It'll probably be more work for you to create videos this way, but the difference would be well worth it I expect.

Another thing which threw me off a bit was the jittery camera movement, but I guess that can't be helped since it's a "live" feed of gameplay. However, since this video was intended to show what the game entails rather than demonstrate hardcore gaming prowess, I suppose you could try to take this into account that while creating videos you could try to move your head more slowly and smoothly instead of bam bam from left to right and such.

THANK YOU! I really need this sort of critique.