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I HATE my Rift and I'm both confused and disappointed

Exigeous
Protege
First let me say I don't mean this to be a rant post but rather more of a gut check - in many ways I want to make sure that there isn't something wrong with either me gear (CV1), myself (physically?) or simply my expectations (likely). So let me explain as briefly as I can as I really do want some feedback and input from you guys.

First a bit about me and my system.  I've worked in IT for 20+ years, mostly networking and management.  I've been a gamer since I was about 8, my parents literally had the first consumer Pong game then quickly Atari 2400.  I've been through all the consoles but have mostly been a PC gamer since my 20's with periods of heavy gaming (20+ hours a week) or little gaming (1 hour per 20 weeks).  Currently I have an extremely high end cockpit based sim racing system.  3 27" 4K monitors, 2 Titan Z cards, 6770k, 32GB Ram, RAID0 250GB SSD, etc. etc.  Pretty much spared no expense.  a 5 way ButtKicker vibration system and multiple high end wheels/joysticks from Thrustmaster, Fanatac, etc. etc. (way too much to list).  I'm mostly a sim racer (real racing instructor in real life, race a Lotus Exige) so my entire system is based around racing, mostly Project Cars, iRacing and Dirt Rally.  I do play some flight sims like Elite Dangerous so I was pretty psyched with Eve: Valkerie.

Ok, now that we have that out of the way - don't at all want to seem like a douche/ass/prick, but also want to show that I do know what I'm talking about and am not some total newbie idiot.  I've been sold on VR for a long time, in concept anyway and believe that 20+ years from now we'll look back on it as the 2nd big shift in computing, after the IBM Jr. / Home PC.  I haven't used DK2 in a very long time as when I did it was far too low quality for me with the SDE (screen door effect) way too intense.  I'm somewhat overly sensitive to that as I'm also a home theatre buff and had one of the early home theatre projectors back in the mid-90's, a Sharp HomeVision that was something like 640x480 so at 100" HUGE SDE.  I knew that was a small issue still with most reviews saying it went away almost instantly as everything else is so good and intense.  Ok, let's get started with my issues.

The SDE is HUGE.  As in I can't stand it HUGE.  It's an issue everywhere.  It doesn't go away and I can never stop seeing it.  Even in a dark game like Eve I see it constantly and can't stop letting it drive me crazy.  It's like it's just constantly ruining everything for me.  Next I'm constantly seeing a blur from the lenses to my eyes.  I think it's something to do with the moisture that develops on my cheeks almost instantly.  I keep 3 fans pointed at my face with one pointing up from underneath to get some airflow into the headset and while that helps it doesn't eliminate the sweat.  I'm seated (in my Obutto Ozone cockpit) in a basement room that's very cool compared to the house (probably 65 at the highest) so not a hot room.  After 20+ minutes of time I have to take the headset off for a few minutes to cool my face off and let all the sweat dry enough to get another 10-20 minutes.

When I play Project Cars my thoughts are "this looks horrible, the graphics quality is awful and the SDE is HUGE".  The reviews I read are exactly the opposite, they talk about how amazing it looks, they can't believe their eyes, they are "driving a car" not playing a game.  For me I couldn't feel more the opposite.  When I play my 3 27" setup, on full Ultra at 90+ FPS it looks STUNNING.  Everyone that plays it can't believe how real and amazing it looks.  I put on the headset and it's like I've stepped back 10 years in quality.  It's blurry (as previously noted) and again the SDE is huge.  I swear I keep thinking they put DK2 screens in my CV1 headset.

So, ok, that's enough for now.  I have many other complaints, in fact the only thing I can say good about it is the head tracking is incredibly perfect and smooth.  I am pretty blown away they can do that so perfectly without it ever once jumping or glitching, it really is impressive.  Everything else to my eyes, well, sucks.  I just read someone's first impression of the Dinosaur that attacks you in the theatre and how incredible it was.  My first impression of that was "are you kidding, this looks AWFUL."

Is it me???  If so please help me fix me??  Do I just have far too high expectations??  Help me please?!?!?!  🙂

-Ross
154 REPLIES 154

Zandil
Rising Star
If you are coming from 4K monitors you are going to struggle with the CV1 resolution until you get used to the downgrade.  I have owned a DK2 and CV1, had plenty of fogging issues on the DK2 so know what you mean, but not once have I had any fogging on the CV1, are you generally a sweater and hot person ? If you have it strapped to tight you will sweat more than normal in the CV1.

Shadowmask72
Honored Visionary
It's not you Ross this is current tech VR. Project CARS does help you feel like you're in a vehicle but when you look to the distance the quality is poor and takes away from the positives. I've realized that VR is best when you're not required to look too far into the distance otherwise it's a blurry hell hole that plays havoc with your eyes.

Dial back the expectations man and accept it for what it is. Also, to add. Don't trust anyone's opinion but your own. Anyone can profess to being a "reviewer" these days with little to no credentials making it a minefield of opinions and pure hyperbole. So always take what people say with a pinch of salt.


System Specs: MSI NVIDIA RTX 4090 , i5 13700K CPU, 32GB DDR 4 RAM, Win 11 64 Bit OS.

AnotherCrazyCan
Adventurer
I have to say sorry man because you are used to really nice things in life and VR just isn't to those standards. We've come a long way but we know that with current tech it's going to be far from perfect. The thing is that for those of us who don't have high-end systems or for casual viewers, the Rift absolutely blows us away (or at least I am hoping so, only own the DK2).

We won't hit that high end for at least another 5 years, probably closer to 10 so that displays can increase the resolution over multiple times. I think in Carmacks presentation he said we needed at least 14K to have a "good" VR headset.
Facebook bought Instagram. How exactly did they ruin them?

Cmndr-Hill
Expert Protege
It's not 4K which is a real shame, but in time VR will be. At this time high end PC's are no way near powerful enough to handle 4K VR.

 so glad I'm not used to 4K 

Anonymous
Not applicable
It sounds to me that you are fixated on the SDE and low image quality. I believe that is something one can learn to see passed eventually but, if not - then VR is not ready for you yet.  We would all like VR to have the image quality of 4k monitors but, it simply isn't possible or affordable right now given current hardware limitations.

Movie viewing can be difficult for some due to an inability to suspend dis-belief; we need to stop analyzing what is or is not possible and just watch events unfold as intended by the story teller or viewing the movie becomes pointless. Early VR is a little like that in that we have to suspend focusing on what is currently less than ideal; SDE, pixelation, lens light artifacts, etc., need to be ignored for current VR to be effective.

With a strong focus on game-play, given enough time, perhaps you can learn to ignore current VR limitations. It's not about "trying" not to focus on the negatives but, "focusing" on the positives.

For me, Pcars doesn't satisfy my desire for believable driving physics; for that, I have to wait for AC or iRacing to get VR support.  I do enjoy Dirt Rally though so that is one I look forward to also. The driving dynamics are important for me to feel immersed in the Simulation - probably even more-so with VR.

Anonymous
Not applicable
Speaking from a Vive viewpoint, yeah the SDE effect is there and it's pretty noticeable. The graphics quality is also way below what most 'normal' games display. At this development stage, it's a tradeoff between realistic graphics and immersion, and a tradeoff I'm more than happy to make. I haven't once sat underwater in The Blu and thought 'crikey, I can see a few pixels on those fish'. I've just sat there watching the fish and jellyfish swarm around me. All around me. It's amazing.

benplace
Rising Star
Just like audiophiles will have issues with the headphones, home theater people/high end gaming people are going to have issues with the video quaIity.  You have to realize, the minimum video specs for VR is a GTX 970 which was released in Sept 2014.  You are pushing video to two screens and must maintain 90fps while doing so.  Monitors can get away with 30fps and still look good. I expect Vive/Rift 2 to be much better, but we must wait for the hardware to catch up.

Choronzon
Adventurer

Exigeous said:



The SDE is HUGE.  As in I can't stand it HUGE.  It's an issue everywhere.  It doesn't go away and I can never stop seeing it.  Even in a dark game like Eve I see it constantly and can't stop letting it drive me crazy. 



This is pretty much my take on the DK2. But I didn't expect the same 'can't stand it' reaction with CV1, considering every CV1 review states that screendoor is a non-issue and so much better than DK2.

Lusca
Expert Protege
If it's a real issue, then you might want to sell it while there's a lot of demand. There will likely be much more impressive VR on the market in a couple of years.