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Rift S - Please read before you buy - Tracking problems with realistic FPS sims & Archery
SkScotchegg
Posts: 1,328 Project 2501
EDIT: NEW UPDATE PLEASE READ - Read this first before continuing - Oculus has now released a new beta update called 1.39 which fixes many of these issues - I have eddied my main post of this thread so newcomers to Rift S can read this good news on how to fix their issues before continuing...You have to go into your Oculus software, click settings, click the Beta TAB at the top, click the button next to "Public Test Channel" which will automatically download Oculus software 1.39 and restart Oculus. Once you have installed this software update you will see that tracking has been massively improved for FPS games when holding two handed rifles and aiming down scopes. I have tested this on Onward today and played for over 3 hours and now the game is very playable. Before this update I couldn't play any FPS with two handed weapons, now they all seem to work fine!! Well done Oculus devs and thanks for the software update! 
Original post below:
Hey everyone, I got my Rift S on launch day and was initially really impressed. But since then I have tried a wider verity of games and have since discovered a glaring issue with Rift S which is the tracking.
Before Rift S launched I was worried about the sound, that was my only concern, and yeah the sound isn't great but when I used my own headphones that solved the problem so when I was playing Robo Recall, Beat Saber, and Audica etc it all looked and performed fantastic and I soon forgot about the sound as I was enjoying the games so much.
But last night I bought Contractors on Steam which appears to be a great multiplayer FPS with great graphics but unfortunately is completely unplayable on RIft S! There's simply no other way to say it.
FPS games like Onward, Contractors, Pavlov and Archery games like In Death/Sacralith just aren't going to work with Rift S. You can't aim down the sites, soon as you hold your right hand up to your face in the normal position to look down the sites of a rifle or to look down an arrow the tracking freezes in place and stops working and makes it impossible to aim.
So after playing with Rift CV1 for the past 2.5 years this is completely dreadful. And btw the first year or so with CV1 I only had 2 front sensors which worked perfectly, the only reason I bought a 3rd sensor in the 2nd year was for pavlov so I could pick up weapons from the floor, so since then I used 3 camera setup in my dinning room and the Rift tracking was 100% perfect and never lost tracking for me.
If your planning on only playing Arcade games like Robo Recall, Superhot, Beat Saber and Audica, you will be fine, go ahead and buy Rift S and enjoy the amazing clarity of the optics and increased resolution.
But if you want to play FPS games or Archery games, your basically buying a product that does not work, your wasting your money and would be better buying a 2nd hand Rift CV1 off ebay/amazon.
Of course we heard in the past that Oculus could enable the old CV1 room sensors through software, I desperately hope they do this, otherwise for people like me that enjoy FPS/Archery games as well as the usual Arcade games, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place, because I like Rift S, but what am I suppose to do? Use Rift CV1 for half my games library??
I'm quite shocked and hugely disappointed by this, I think maybe what other people were saying about Lenovo was right, I don't think Oculus/Facebook should have partnered with them because if this is the outcome then, well, no thanks.
I feel sorry for everyone who has pre-ordered expecting to play Onward/Contractors/Pavlov/In Death/Sacralith etc and expecting this to be good. I think we need to all sign a petition to Oculus to enable the old CV1 room sensors for proper tracking otherwise they will have a lot of refunds going in and also this is very bad for people new to VR. In fact I'd go as far as to say that all FPS and Archery games should be taken off Oculus store for Rift S owners until this is resolved because otherwise what's the point? Everyone buying those games will have to refund I suppose.
Sorry for the rant guys, but I felt compelled to inform the community of this. People need to know how bad this tracking really is.
And also before Rift S was released people were saying the future is inside/out tracking. Well I'm sorry guys, but you couldn't of been more wrong. Inside/out tracking only works for Arcade games, sim racing games, elite dangerous and maybe Quest if Quest mainly uses Arcade games too? I'll leave that part for Quest users to comment on.
I own Rift CV 1, Oculus GO and now Rift S, was planning on buying Quest too but I'll hold off on that for a while until I read more reviews.
Original post below:
Hey everyone, I got my Rift S on launch day and was initially really impressed. But since then I have tried a wider verity of games and have since discovered a glaring issue with Rift S which is the tracking.
Before Rift S launched I was worried about the sound, that was my only concern, and yeah the sound isn't great but when I used my own headphones that solved the problem so when I was playing Robo Recall, Beat Saber, and Audica etc it all looked and performed fantastic and I soon forgot about the sound as I was enjoying the games so much.
But last night I bought Contractors on Steam which appears to be a great multiplayer FPS with great graphics but unfortunately is completely unplayable on RIft S! There's simply no other way to say it.
FPS games like Onward, Contractors, Pavlov and Archery games like In Death/Sacralith just aren't going to work with Rift S. You can't aim down the sites, soon as you hold your right hand up to your face in the normal position to look down the sites of a rifle or to look down an arrow the tracking freezes in place and stops working and makes it impossible to aim.
So after playing with Rift CV1 for the past 2.5 years this is completely dreadful. And btw the first year or so with CV1 I only had 2 front sensors which worked perfectly, the only reason I bought a 3rd sensor in the 2nd year was for pavlov so I could pick up weapons from the floor, so since then I used 3 camera setup in my dinning room and the Rift tracking was 100% perfect and never lost tracking for me.
If your planning on only playing Arcade games like Robo Recall, Superhot, Beat Saber and Audica, you will be fine, go ahead and buy Rift S and enjoy the amazing clarity of the optics and increased resolution.
But if you want to play FPS games or Archery games, your basically buying a product that does not work, your wasting your money and would be better buying a 2nd hand Rift CV1 off ebay/amazon.
Of course we heard in the past that Oculus could enable the old CV1 room sensors through software, I desperately hope they do this, otherwise for people like me that enjoy FPS/Archery games as well as the usual Arcade games, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place, because I like Rift S, but what am I suppose to do? Use Rift CV1 for half my games library??
I'm quite shocked and hugely disappointed by this, I think maybe what other people were saying about Lenovo was right, I don't think Oculus/Facebook should have partnered with them because if this is the outcome then, well, no thanks.
I feel sorry for everyone who has pre-ordered expecting to play Onward/Contractors/Pavlov/In Death/Sacralith etc and expecting this to be good. I think we need to all sign a petition to Oculus to enable the old CV1 room sensors for proper tracking otherwise they will have a lot of refunds going in and also this is very bad for people new to VR. In fact I'd go as far as to say that all FPS and Archery games should be taken off Oculus store for Rift S owners until this is resolved because otherwise what's the point? Everyone buying those games will have to refund I suppose.
Sorry for the rant guys, but I felt compelled to inform the community of this. People need to know how bad this tracking really is.
And also before Rift S was released people were saying the future is inside/out tracking. Well I'm sorry guys, but you couldn't of been more wrong. Inside/out tracking only works for Arcade games, sim racing games, elite dangerous and maybe Quest if Quest mainly uses Arcade games too? I'll leave that part for Quest users to comment on.
I own Rift CV 1, Oculus GO and now Rift S, was planning on buying Quest too but I'll hold off on that for a while until I read more reviews.
UK: England - Leeds - - RTX 2080 - Rift CV1 & Rift S - Make love, not war - See you in the Oasis!
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Hello mate, I own both Skyrim and Arizona Sunshine so I'll be happy to try those for you later today when I get home from work, I'll be home in about 8 hours time so I'll reply back soon as I've tried but I do expect it to be the same as the games I mentioned above.
I would recommend tapering your expectations back if your still planning on buying Rift S mate, I don't want you to be disappointed which is why I posted this thread. Like I said in my original review in the other thread, what you see inside the Rift S is fantastic, the visual clarity is amazing compared to CV1, I was really impressed.
But In Death is my favourite games of all time in VR and now I can't aim long distance headshots in In Death because the tracking won't allow it.
Other Rift S owners noted problems in Echo Arena, I didn't have a problem playing Echo Arena or it's lobby, it was perfect for the most part. Same as Robo Recall because in that game you hold the guns out in front of you.
The way to fix this is if Oculus enable the old CV1 room sensors, but we need to push them hard to do this!
Scoped weapons in Fallout 4 work fine. I've always used my left and to steady my right (weapon holding hand), same now with no apparent difference in tracking.
I guess Onward may be different so will try that at some point.
Didn't the Onward devs say they're amending the gun mechanics to work better with the S? I'm guessing that means adjusting the gun grip position to be an inch or so further away from your face. No idea what the real rifle distance between the butt of the stock and the grip is but I'm sure a realistic compromise can be made.
As the S is now the default Rift and likely to be reasonable popular, I'd say the chances are good that devs will make the necessary changes.
There's probably slightly different mechanics in different games, bound to be some that don't work well with the S.
I have a feeling though the Bethesda offerings won't be updated as there are several existing bugs that never got sorted out, so as long as those games work ok with the S then I'm not too concerned. I think other devs will be more willing to sort out problems.
Body position can be vastly different though depending on if your going for short range to long distance.
Old school recurves are a whole nother subject where being a marksmen really is an artform.
That requires you to lead with the arrowhead and elevate the bow for distance to where you believe the target will be.
Skeet shooting is very similar to this without the need for much elevation alteration.
Rifles and such add the lining up of sights to ensure you are firing straight but you are using the same aiming principles.
Breath control, Aiming, Windage, using your dominate eye to track your target.
And in Contractors that was the worst game so far, for me Contractors is completely unplayable on Rift S. the gun just spazzes out and freezes everytime you move your rifle up to normal position, even when your not really looking down the sites but your bring it up to your shoulder it just freezes and makes it impossible to aim.
Going back to "In Death", I've always been really good at this game, I've always enjoyed getting headshots from really far away but now I can't do it.
Also in Contractors I tried to hold riffle in a weird way to compensate for the tracking to see if it made a differance, I tried to hold it further out in front of me...not that you would ever do that when playing this game or any other game like it, but when I did try to hold it further away with both hands the tracking kicked back in.
If they really wanted this type out inside/out tracking to work they should have fitted maybe another 5 cameras on the headset which could see everything, even at close range.
That's interesting, I'll be home soon and I have Apex Construct too so I'll check that one out. Is that game not more Arcadey then In Death though? I have quite a few Archery games but I find that In Death is the most realistic in terms of having the best bow mechanics.
I bought Apex Construct a few months back but only played it briefly.
Pavlov,
Apex Construct
Onward
Skyrim
And then I'll report back.
These are the games I've just tried today:
Skyrim
Pavlov,
Apex Construct
Onward
Gun Club VR
===Tried last night===
In Death
Constructors
And I'm sorry to say but all of these games are now unplayable in Rift S due to the poor tracking. As well as the ones I mentioned previous which were In Death and Contractors. So that's 7 games in total I've tried.
4 games with rifles and 3 games with Archery, if you play Skyrim without using a bow then I guess you won't care if you just play melee and/or spell casting then Skyrim would be ok for you but using the bow to hunt out in the wild is one of my most favourite things to do in Skyrim.
When playing Pavlov, Contractors, Onward and Gun Club, I just can't use any kind of rifle for zooming in or even a basic sight like red dot doesn't working either. It's really bad guys, like just wait until you try it for yourselves, you'll see what I mean. It's terrible and ruins the game play and immersion.
Oh man, this is depressing. I'm glad they enable the use of two headsets in Oculus software (perhaps they knew about this and predicted this! lol) because I'm going to have to play all FPS and Archery in CV1 from this point onwards and play all other types of games in Rift S. I'm glad I didn't sell my CV1 now, otherwise I'd be screwed.
Yeah please do. I feel like we're going to need the whole community to pressure Oculus to sort this out.
I'm not sure what you mean by lots of people, I've not read of more then 2 people who said they could aim in Skyrim and Apex.
And even in that video you just linked if you look at the uploaders comment under the video he wrote this:
"Another Pavlov Rift S tracking test. In these tests, I wiggle the rear hand while backing my hands up to the headset. Watch for the sudden halts of the wiggling. This should give you an indicator of how far into the sights you can get before you lose tracking. Tested with 3 weapon types and 3 scopes."
If you watch the video you can even see the halts when it gets stuck and freezes, that is what I have experienced too. Also he is purposely holding the riffle further away then you would naturally when playing these types of games.
I promise you 100% when everyone gets their hands on Rift S who has pre-ordered and they try the 7 games I mentioned we're going to have a shit storm.
All I want to do is run around in Onward, aim my rifle and shoot! Same with In Death I just wait to aim, shoot and get a HS with my bow and arrow but I can't now because your constantly fighting the tracking, it constantly freezes and get's stuck when it loses tracking due to the hand been so close to the head.
I can play Robo Recall, Superhot, Beat Saber, Audica etc fine, it's just these 7 games. The games that do work are the games where you hold your hands out in front and not constantly bringing your hands close to your face.
EDIT: Also I'm not trying to be arrogant when I say this, I'm really not but there's no other way to say it, if anyone uses a bow in In Death and try's to do long distance HS and tells me it doesn't freeze or get stuck then they're either lying or don't know what they're talking about.
Same goes for Onward & Constructors etc, there's no way you can run around, hold up your rifle with your hand at your face and aim and shoot, there's simply no way without fighting against the tracking cutting out.
EDIT 2: Also one last thing, I find that aiming from the hip or lower chest works ok in these games, using pistols is ok too because you hold them out in front. It's just any kind of rifle that you hold up high with any type of scope/sight where the problems start.
Well, I plan to keep CV1 too for games that need it, Index for the rest - unless Index reviews reveal serious problems...
"Ask not what VR can do for you – ask what you can do for VR"
Sounds like a plan mate. Well if I come across negative in my post I don't mean to, I just wanted to express my disappointment and help the community out by letting them know what to expect if they're already pre-ordered Rift S. I've got 4 hours before bed so I'm going to spend the majority of that time playing Audica/Beat Saber and maybe some Robo Recall. I'm sure I'll have a great time with Rift S and these 3 games.
I'm not going to let it bother me, I'll just wait a few weeks/months and see how Oculus responds.
And yeah I'm also very interested in Valve Index, one of the reasons I didn't pre-order was because I don't like god rays and I heard it has bad god rays due to two layers of optics on top of each other, so we'll have to wait and see but the main reason I want Index is for the extra FOV and refresh rate. If the reviews turn out fantastic I'll no doubt buy that too.
I am hopeing a update fixes the issue because such an issue is a manor problem with the ammount of FPS style games for VR
Now that's what i call hedging your bets mate
By the way, this sounds pretty awful and needs sorting as soon as possible. This must have been noticed during testing!
Aourus Pro Z390 - i7 8086K 32GB Ram - MSI RTX 2080 Ti Gaming X Trio 11GB - Windows 10 / GT Omega WS - NLR V3 - RS6 - Jetseat kw-908 / Fanatec CSW 2.5 / Fanatec ClubSport V3 pedals / Fanatec SQ Shifter 1.5 / Fanatec CS HB V.1.5 / HE SQ Shifter / SHH Shifter / TH8A Shifter / G27 Shifter - Button Box / DSD Button Box / BBJ Button Box / Wind simulator / Rift - S
Ha yea I meant major don't let me type with my iPhone or worse when I am getting food prepped for Dinner!
I am making Fajitas tonight BTW.... Yum!