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Oculus Rift Display Quality: Horrible

Aroddo
Protege
Ok, my Rift just arrived and it installed without a problem.
This is actually the first time I ever used any modern VR device.

And the highly praised quality of the display is utter shit!

The whole 'screen' you see looks like you see it through fine wire netting.
Small Text is barely readable, because the resolution feels like an old CRT VGA display.

Imagine it like this: The text above fills your ENTIRE viewport. And not only is it pixelated - you also can effortlessly see that the white font is made up out of different colored lines! Think TV before they invented LC-Displays.

Oh, the 3D effect is top notch. But you might as well be using an iPhone 1 and view it from 10 cm away to get a feel for the perceived resolution.

NOTHING you see or read on the internet prepares you for how bad the display quality is.

Cancel your orders, then try it out first if you can, then either buy or wait for the next generation.
Don't be an idiot like me and buy on good faith.

220 REPLIES 220

jademan
Heroic Explorer
Sorry, Aroddo, your opinion is yours, but it differs from the general concensus quite a bit. Maybe something else is going on here.

I'm just wondering if such an extreme reaction is due to not having the Rift properly calibrated, or fit on your head. There is indeed a sweet spot, and getting it fit right is key. Make sure the strap on the back of your head is pulled down about as far as it will go towards your neck. Play around with it - you should find the sweet spot and the best fit for you.  Text is not perfect, but should not be as blurry as you are describing.  There will be a "screen-door effect" but overall this is much improved from previous gens, and should not be much of a distraction once you're tuned in right otherwise and into a game.

Like others have said, after fitting/calibrating correctly, I would recommend playing with some more of the free content for now, like Showdown as was suggested. If that doesn't show you the potential, I don't know what will. Believe me, the vast majority of Rift users are very happy with their purchases.

TwoHedWlf
Expert Trustee

Aroddo said:

Oh yeah, that's another thing where the Rift sucks: If you wear glasses in the Rift, they immediately fog over. 



My hours of time using the rift with glasses on lead me to believe you're full of crap.

Also, I look forward to your rants about god rays....That's if you can ever force yourself to use your rift again.

Category5x
Protege
The resolution is currently limited by two factors.  

1 - The state of the art in GPU technology.  There is simply no reasonable way most people could ever manage to render 90fps at much higher resolution consistently.  Maybe once pascals optimizations start to arrive, or even the next generation beyond we can start to think about 1440p and 4k.  I agree, it will make things much sweeter.

2 - Cost and yields of small, low power high resolution displays.  When the yieds on tiny oleds improve, higher resolutions will be viable at this price point.  I figure we've got 2 years until we see 1440p versions, and 3-5 until we reach 4K VR.

I hate to say it, but I think we'll be wishing for better until we get to 8K displays.  Of course, I think the lens tech is limited as far as the detail it can display thus far, so improvement will likely need to come there too.

For now, it's about experience and immersion, and the rift excels so much at those things that most people will forget all about the resolution limits in no time.

Tranquil789
Explorer
I purchased an Oculus Rift, it won't arrive until August, but I knew from reading on these boards that I shouldn't expect great quality, I've heard people say that when you go from the Rift to a real monitor it's like a graphics update to the game. But I bought the rift knowing all of that, just because I want to be totally immersed in a game and that doesn't bother me if I loose some video quality to get it.

You should just sell it right now while people are dying to get one, this is THE time to sell it, I imagine you might even make a profit from it if you sell to the right person I.E. desperate

krectus
Protege
I agree the screen was much lower quality than I had expected.  Comparing it to an iphone 1 isn't a stretch.

However the image may look like garbage when in the home screen and looking at menus, this issue does all but go away once you are immersed in a VR game.  You BARELY notice the issue when you are active in a game and REALLY notice it when you are in menus and such.

But for a $600 "high-end" device the screen resolution is a joke and one of it's worse qualities.  They spent a lot of time getting a lot of things right, I wish they would have done so with the screen resolution.  It's embarassing that this is the released version.

I'm not going to return mine, but I am annoyed.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
The screen resolution feels pretty similar to... real life resolution. You know, walking around at work or the kitchen or a public park. I'm not sure what's so annoying about realism.

krectus
Protege
what???  that's the most inaccurate, absurd thing I've read all day and I read through most of this thread today.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
I think we need to cite specific examples. Obviously not everything has real life scale. For example, Crystal Rift and Dreadhalls do not. But now I'm just doing your work for you. Why don't you list the things you've tried specifically, that you believe have annoying/terrible resolution.

I can name one that has amazing resolution: Chronos.

Now you!

krectus
Protege
You're talking about a whole different thing man.  We're talking about the screen door / mesh effect that the low resolution of the screen causes.  I'm sure Chronos has some amazing scale and overall great immersion but we're talking about how you're looking at the main menus and they seem like you're looking at a pixelated/pointilism picture.  How text can be hard to read because of how it looks all jaggy and low quality through the screen's low pixel density.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
So you're talking about the 60 seconds or less that you spend looking at a menu before you spend hours looking at something beautiful and immersive? And those 60 seconds are enough for you to feel embarrassed and annoyed?

Can you be specific still, which menus exactly? Surely not Oculus Home, cause it looks great and even non-gamers can read everything perfectly. So... which menus?