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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

wickfut
Expert Protege

So you want them to make VR for you?
Although I very much doubt you could go much higher without a framerate hit. I've a high end system and that is about on it's limit in Project cars. Even at the resolution we have now.


Yes. I'd rather be held back by GPU power, which can shift in 6 months rather than be held back by the physical amount of dots on a display which I'll have to wait maybe years until newer HMD's come out. 

And yes, I'd rather they set the bar at the current highest GPU at the time of release. Think about it, in 2 weeks time a 970 is going to be classed as a lower midrange card. 

blanes
Rising Star
hey exigeous, I agree 99% with Thug - 1% is I don't mind seeing cats, dogs or goldfish do the biz down under as I find it soothing, but I digress ! :#  Sim-racing is only reason to have a pc for me and once I raced vr 2 yrs back on the dk2 I was sold - triples became obsolete - but everyone differs and you obviously need the gauges and other fluff to be immersed and have grown accustomed to 4k triples which sounds like you should just stick with it and you have an awesome setup so nothing wrong at all with that for sure.

Only thing I would say, it is possible you know, that if you persisted and gave the cv1 a chance by using it with some degree of commitment for awhile, you may actually find your perception & appreciation of it changes. Your brain will actually forget the resolution to certain degree if you become immersed in the racing, same goes for SDE though I have never heard someone proclaim so vigorously as you have of how bad it now is. Maybe you have super sensitive vision ?  

Anyway going back to Thug's theory - cat gazing as described may desensitize your vision enough to enjoy current gen VR - just a thought !  😉

Lemming1970
Rising Star

wickfut said:


So you want them to make VR for you?
Although I very much doubt you could go much higher without a framerate hit. I've a high end system and that is about on it's limit in Project cars. Even at the resolution we have now.


Yes. I'd rather be held back by GPU power, which can shift in 6 months rather than be held back by the physical amount of dots on a display which I'll have to wait maybe years until newer HMD's come out. 

And yes, I'd rather they set the bar at the current highest GPU at the time of release. Think about it, in 2 weeks time a 970 is going to be classed as a lower midrange card. 



I guess you have zero experience in production or sales then. The bar is already set VERY high.
Modded Coolermaster RC-1000 Cosmos/1000W Corsair HX Series i7 6700k o/c to 4.7ghz Corsair H100i water cooler. Zotac 1080Ti 16 gb DDR4 o/c to 3000mhz Predator XB271HU 27" 2560x1440 IPS G-Sync 165Hz

wickfut
Expert Protege



I guess you have zero experience in production or sales then. The bar is already set VERY high.



Why would I give a shit about the production or sales, or care about what height the bar is?

Myself and many others have spent a large chunk of money on VR to try and get the best experience. If the cost of entry is priced a little higher but generally gives everyone a better experience than I'm all for it.

As people keep saying , this a new tech, either invest and be an early adopter or wait it out until the price lowers.

If companies actually took advantage of SLI and the lowest you could get away with was SLI 970s or a 980Ti then we'd be  in a completely different ball game right now in VR. 

r00x
Adventurer
@Exigeous I agree with the consensus here - you've been led astray by reviews it seems! Sorry about that! Real VR has plenty of issues that need solving, and I'm sure will be solved in the years ahead.

That said, for me, the Rift completely blows away monitors for sim experiences. I couldn't disagree more on the immersion factor comparing multi-monitor setups to the current-gen VR headsets! I let my mother try VR when she came to visit, and you should have seen her play Project Cars. There was this one moment when she totally misjudged a corner and went hurtling off the track towards the barrier and she screamed like she genuinely thought was going to die. Not unlike this woman losing her shit playing the Brookhaven Experiment, actually: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6urJejluX44

However, I am not so bothered by the SDE, which kind of explains my position, as if you discount the res/SDE you are essentially comparing a device which projects a 3D stereoscopic environment around you in real-time versus a few flat monitor images (and the winner in that case is obviously the headset, by far!!).

THAT said... resolution and SDE are top of my list of things I want improved for the next-gen HMDs. I hope they stick to their current strategy of demanding top of the range hardware to drive them and really push the screen res for the second gen. I feel like 4K would be the beginning of truly compelling VR, even though it's still far below what we need to get razor-sharp visuals (which the industry seems to agree would be 16K or thereabouts).


Lemming1970
Rising Star

wickfut said:




I guess you have zero experience in production or sales then. The bar is already set VERY high.



Why would I give a shit about the production or sales, or care about what height the bar is?

Myself and many others have spent a large chunk of money on VR to try and get the best experience. If the cost of entry is priced a little higher but generally gives everyone a better experience than I'm all for it.

As people keep saying , this a new tech, either invest and be an early adopter or wait it out until the price lowers.

If companies actually took advantage of SLI and the lowest you could get away with was SLI 970s or a 980Ti then we'd be  in a completely different ball game right now in VR. 



Why should you give a shit? Well maybe because with out sales there is NO VR. So no one has it. Developers already have a very big decision to make as to whether or not to make a VR game. Clueless comes to mind.
  
I do have a 980 Ti for me I'd say that was minimum spec for games like Project cars.


Modded Coolermaster RC-1000 Cosmos/1000W Corsair HX Series i7 6700k o/c to 4.7ghz Corsair H100i water cooler. Zotac 1080Ti 16 gb DDR4 o/c to 3000mhz Predator XB271HU 27" 2560x1440 IPS G-Sync 165Hz

Exigeous
Protege
Those that have said I should have known better and not had the expectations I had, especially when comparing 3 4k vs. 1080p up close are basically right.  Let me be clear that I definitely had misgivings about the tech which is why I skipped DK2.  Everything I read kept referring to the fairly bad SDE so I knew I'd be unhappy.  The bulk of the "reviews" you read (I say it that way as many have rightly pointed out some dude's opinion isn't really a review) talked about how SDE was no longer an issue and that it was basically gone.  I suppose to that I was thinking of the incredibly high DPI that displays are reaching and when I read it was basically 1080p I was a bit surprised that would be good enough.  I am sorta surprised they didn't go with 4k OLED displays as those exist at these sizes.  I know the answer is they would be far too expensive so I'll just wait until that isn't the case.

I think the comment that now is the convergence, everything is finally at the place where good-enough consumer level VR is possible.  The analogy to the original Pong machines is pretty spot on (although I'd say more Atari 2400).  I recall when I was really little that PacMan was finally released for the 2400.  Then too my expectations were too high as I expected, well, PacMan.  If any of you had/remember it was FAR from PacMan.  It looked nothing like it, was primarily a yellow color (vs. blue/black) and was just awful.  A friend spent the night before at my house so we could go get it first thing in the morning and play it all day.  After about 15 minutes we went to the lake instead (which was probably the better call anyway!).  If that cartridge got more than 15 more minutes of play I'd be shocked!

As for learning to love it while I get the comment that's just not me.  I do actually get very little time to game and as such I try to maximize that time with what I enjoy the most.  While I enjoy screwing around and setting things up I'm not going to spend 2 hours racing in Rift when I can use my 3 displays.  That said I haven't yet raced online with my Sim league yet so I'll do that (tomorrow night) before a final decision.

I will say that running through the training in Eve:Valkerie was really fun and the best thing I've tried yet.  As I *HATE* Xbox controllers with a firey passion (another preference, no need for a war) I'd like to get it working with my Thrustmaster HOTAS (which so far seems *very* hard).  If I can make that work it's about the only thing right now that would make me consider keeping the Rift.  I'd hoped that would be sim racing but for me it just isn't, for those that are enjoying it I say great for you, that's fantastic.  I love it when friends enjoy their toys....

Wildt
Consultant

Exigeous said:

I will say that running through the training in Eve:Valkerie was really fun and the best thing I've tried yet.  As I *HATE* Xbox controllers with a firey passion (another preference, no need for a war) I'd like to get it working with my Thrustmaster HOTAS (which so far seems *very* hard).  If I can make that work it's about the only thing right now that would make me consider keeping the Rift. 


An update is due today that should natively incorporate joystick settings
PCVR: CV1 || 4 sensors || TPcast wireless adapter || MamutVR Gun stock V3
PSVR: PS4 Pro || Move Controllers || Aim controller
WMR: HP Reverb

Anonymous
Not applicable
If the hardware bar is set too high, there will be few people buying the headsets. And if the headsets don't sell, then not many game companies will bother producing software. Yes, if they'd said min spec is a 980Ti, the games might look a bit better. But I for one don't have a 980Ti and don't plan on buying one. So I wouldn't have bought a Vive/Rift. VR needs to sell a lot of headsets to make the truly great software start arriving. So, for now, I'm happy with the tradeoff.

Lemming1970
Rising Star
Exigeous , I think when they say there is little to no SDE they are comparing it to the DK2 not a 4k set up.
I'd not tried ANY VR until the CV1, I certainly wasn't disappointed, Maybe I just had more realistic expectations as to how good 1080p was going to look so close up.

keep with it a little longer and you may come around to the experience rather than the image quality is like.
Modded Coolermaster RC-1000 Cosmos/1000W Corsair HX Series i7 6700k o/c to 4.7ghz Corsair H100i water cooler. Zotac 1080Ti 16 gb DDR4 o/c to 3000mhz Predator XB271HU 27" 2560x1440 IPS G-Sync 165Hz