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Rift-S User Reviews - comparing Rift and Rift-S (pros and cons)

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
One of the first new Rift-S owners' review and comparison:


My early impressions of the S from a CV1 owner.


My Rift S came in today and after spending a quick couple of hours with it here are my take aways.

NOTE: I need to spend much more time in the headset but here are my initial thoughts/ramblings.


Optics

WOW, the best part about the Rift S by a long shot. I have a 63 IPD so right on the money and the edge to edge clarity is quite a large jump up from the CV1.

The LED panel does seem a bit of a drop in quality from its younger brother but the clear optics are something else. It’s almost too clear at times as I do see some aliasing.

One concern I have is the refresh rate, not so much if you are hitting 80 but when ASW kicks in it’s not as smooth as when running on CV1. This may be down to early software support? I hope so. But it’s one of my main concerns at this point.

I was able to use my desktop in OH though and comfortably read text. The jump up here is quite remarkable.


Audio

The audio solution is quite frankly crap. A 3/10 at best. I really hope we have some 3rd party options here.


Comfort

It’s fine while the headset is on and you are using it. For me it’s about the same comfort as CV1. One thing I noticed though, you can’t take it off and rest it on your head. I did this frequently with the CV1 so that I can control my pc. It does seem to put a bit of pressure on my forehead, not sure how I’ll go after a long session. I also maybe need to spend more time on how to adjust it for comfort.


Tracking

It’s been flawless so far but I haven’t really spent too much time testing it out. Early signs are good.


Summary

Early signs are positive but I’m already preying for a decent 3rd party strap with good audio, and possibly a redesigned facial mask. I would say Oculus have provided optics, tracking and touch. Lenovo probably looked after the rest.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/bqv9e2/my_early_impressions_of_the_s_from_a_cv1_owner/

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

180 REPLIES 180

Anonymous
Not applicable
Ah ok now I know, thanks.

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
Seems like SteamVR doesn't (always?) work with the digital IPD on the Rift-S - this will probably be fixed, but for now maybe this can help:

SteamVR Games IPD Fix (Also works on other OpenVR supported HMDs)

First of all, i didn`t find it. Original post is 3 months old so I just want to repost it to make sure more people sees it. Sometimes, infact often, games on SteamVR does not fetch IPD information correctly. Many people calls it scale issue and its casued by wrong IPD input. This is very imported for simply every game you play and will fix all scale issues. Just measure your IPD and your good to go.


SteamVR must be active at first. Otherwise you wont see anything on your browser.


- Go to your internet browser and enter:

http://localhost:8998/console/index.html

- Then enter the following like where it says "Type a command" (just bottom of the page):

settings steamvr.ipdOffset -0.00XX


It`s in meters thats why there are 0 in the begining. XX will be your IPD lets say like 66mm then you will put:

settings steamvr.ipdOffset -0.0066

Restart SteamVR and done!


Kudos to: u/MechanicalCuff

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/br9r2z/steamvr_games_ipd_fix_also_works_on_other_openvr/

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
This is more worrying, because even though I got 64 IPD, my sons (ages 7 and 11) use the lowest possible IPD (like 57-58). Now should I get Rift-S and let my sons pay the IPD prices? I really don't want to switch between Rift or Rift-S - or Index. I was starting to consider a Rift-S + Index solution instead of Rift + Index, we'll see... 

PSA for people with 72 IPD

Just got my Rift S today and with my wide ass 72 ipd it's basically unusable. By closing one eye and moving sideways I'd say it's about 69 ipd max for at least somewhat good clarity. It's such a shame since the panel seems really nice and I fell in love with it after setup, but the lack of ipd adjustment just kills it for me. God damn Zucc what have you done.

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

RuneSR2
Grand Champion

Quick Rift S impressions coming from CV1

The setup was an absolute joy, dead easy and loved mapping out the guardian in the real but gray 3d world. Loved taking all my cameras down and making my living room look tidy once again.


The headset is very comfy, very quick to put on and off, no nose gap, total darkness! Build quality while doesn’t feel as luxury as the CV1, it does feel robust and already took a smack to the HMD faceplate in Space pirate with no scuffs or anything. First thing I noticed was the extra bump In image sharpness. It’s like a blur has been lifted. There are hardly any god rays, the blacks are pretty similar to my old CV1 but i used to run with SPUD because I hated the black smear. In aircar, it was really nice to see extra clarity in the distance, and vox machinae you could see the extra details on the giant robots, making it even more immersive. Text is A LOT more sharper and easier to read. Because of the extra clarity, Antialiasing doesn’t seem to work as well as it did before, sharpness still shows the pixels, even SS around 1.8x, but it’s a none issue because the image is generally way better. It feels similar to a 1080p screen now to give you an idea. I could swear the FOV is a tiny bit smaller but it might just be me as I didn’t use my CV1 for a couple of months and was immediate looking out for it. Refresh rate isn’t an issue, maybe just becomes slightly more apparent if something fast zips past you, or explodes, but it’s still smooth as anything.


The audio on the headset is pretty poor, but good enough if you just want to quickly pop on the headset and do something where it doesn’t need total immersion. I whacked in my Shure 425 in ear monitors and was totally immersed again!


Touch controllers are pretty much the same except for a higher ring which can sometimes hit the other controller in certain circumstances.


Tracking is better in some places, worse in others, if I go out my way to do something behind my back and not look, I can get it to freeze. Also if you hold a rifle like in Arizona sunshine, bringing it too close to the HMD freezes the controller. I soon adjusted to it though. No dead spots in the edges of my play area. Happy/content with tracking


Overall I’m really pleased! Any questions, just ask


TLDR


Positives

  • clarity/lenses

  • comfort

  • easy setup and tidyness

  • robust


Negatives

  • onboard speakers weak

  • definitely no increase in FOV

  • touch rings above controller can collide

  • tracking right close to the HMD

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

CrashFu
Consultant
After a quick (hour+) session, I can ditto most of the above review.  Black levels are great, I can't see SDE whatsoever, haven't noticed any God-Rays...  I was seeing some jaggies at the edges of objects,  but I don't think I had the particular apps at their highest graphical settings, and I wasn't using any Anti-Aliasing either.  When looking at high-detailed textures or high res video, the difference from previous-gen VR is huge, and If you have the hardware to run games at max settings and crank up the AA or super-sampling or whatever, I'm sure they'll look fantastic on Rift-S.

Unlike the person above, I thought the FoV looked slightly larger, not smaller!  I must have the ideal face-shape, because I was able to set the eye-relief as close to my face as it could go, where it definitely felt snug, but in a comfortable way   (this thing is really well-padded, and conforms to my face well)

The volume of the onboard speakers was good, and positional sound was just as good as headphones..  but the lack of bass sure is noticeable (as expected)  and there was a certain unfavorable quality to the sound that I'm not sure how to describe.  I don't know if 'tinny' would be the right word?   I'll leave that up to an audiophile.  Overall,  it's certainly usable, but I will be trying out headphones for sure.

The controllers are just great. Everything about them.  They're simply a more refined version of what was already the best VR controls on the market.  Didn't notice any issues with the vibration strength, either.   Only minor complaint is that because of the ring being on top, if I let go of the controllers (and let them dangle from the wrist strap)  they have a tendency to rotate 

As for tracking,  it was overall very good and smooth.   The way the controller positions 'stick' to your face when you pull them too close to track seems adequate for gameplay (since you still have 3DoF on the controllers in that position).   However, every now and then the controllers would kind of 'hiccup' out of position slightly,  sometimes just for an instant, or stick in a (tracked) position for about a second?  A couple times it threw off my aim while playing 'In Death', so that's slightly worrisome..  I've unplugged and replugged the headset, and now I'm going to restart my PC / the Oculus client and play some more.  I'll be watching carefully to see if these tracking hiccups occur any more after that.

Edit:  It's also possible that the controller-tracking hiccups could be from the very large mirror at the front of my play area?  If restarting everything doesn't clear them up, I'll have to try covering up the mirror..

Edit 2:   Played some Robo Recall,  and didn't experience any tracking hiccups whatsoever! So I guess I did just need a quick restart after the initial setup.    Also, it looked incredible.  With the graphics set to high, Anti-Aliasing on 2, and SS at 1.0,  there were significantly less jaggies than in the previous couple things I tried (First Contact and In Death)  so it really is a matter of your PC hardware and individual apps' graphics settings, not any notable limitation of the Rift-S hardware.
:grin:


I am starting to notice one weak area of the tracking:   If you try to throw something like a baseball  (holding it over / behind your shoulder, then whipping forward and releasing)  the object will often fly off at an unintended angle, presumably because you're letting go so soon after re-entering the tracking area that it doesn't have enough frames to judge trajectory from??

Hopefully, this will become less of a problem as they continue to refine the tracking software.  As it is now, I'm wondering if games like Echo Arena would be hard to play..

Might try that in a bit, but first, I'm eager to play some Apex Construct.  :blush:


It's hard being the voice of reason when you're surrounded by unreasonable people.

RedRizla
Honored Visionary
Agree with all of the above and not much to add, but a simple solution to stop the controllers having hiccups near to the face mask is to let us use an external sensor. I've said it in another thread, but I'll add to that by saying this hiccup could be solved if Oculus allow us to use their existing sensors or make a small external sensor addon for those people who want one.

Hopefully they will give an external sensor careful consideration as an addon. I'll be keeping my Rift CV1 for FPS like Onward if they choose not to do this and I have problems with rifle scopes etc. It would be the icing on the cake if they allowed me to use a sensor for front facing on Rift S. I'm not bothered about the audio or anything else, but I don't like any hiccups with tracking in-front of me.

I was also worried by comfort but this has to be the most comfortable VR headset I've worn. I actually hope they stick with this halo design. On the Rift CV1 the foam used to hurt my face by pressing against it to much. That doesn't happen with this halo design and is super comfortable.

I'm really pleased with my purchase of Rift S. To me the display looks so much better then the Rift CV1 and having no godrays and more clarity is a joy to behold.

Anonymous
Not applicable
Here's mine:

Okay, so I've had my Rift S for three hours now and I can see why so many people were raving about the Go as a media device.

The difference in clarity is pretty much night and day between the Rift and the Rift S. Yes, it could be better of course, with a higher resolution display to match the Index, but for just 400 quid it's worth upgrading from the Rift to the Rift S.

I had a few problems setting the thing up at first, the setup couldn't see the cameras for some reason. Tried a different USB port and it continued without a problem.

I also had some severe tracking issues with the headset (the controllers were fine though) but resetting my PC and at the same time installing a Windows update solved the problem.

First up is the bad side of things. The audio. Whilst the sound isn't bad by any means there isn't quite enough bass and no noise cancellation so I can hear my PC with the headset on. My PC is LOUD though, I've got 6 fans in the thing lol

If you weren't spoilt by the excellent audio of the OG Rift though I don't think you'd have too many complaints.

Now for the head strap. I've got a funny shaped head so I have to fiddle about with it every time I put it on but once it's on it's comfortable and doesn't move (so far!). The best thing about the shape of my head is that I can see a slightly larger FOV compared to the Rift and the eye relief is excellent, loads of room for glasses and it's going to save me from having to buy prescription lenses.

Lenses and display. The OG Rift had excellent lenses and displays and the Rift S is no different. You can still see SDE and god rays but they're GREATLY reduced. Like I've said above in terms of a difference in clarity it's night and day.

I've played Witchblade with 2.0 super sampling and it looks STUNNING. Also tried Virtual Desktop watching both YouTube and a few VR Porn videos (purely for SCIENCE) and, again, it really is a night and day difference. You really notice the difference in clarity and the difference in SDE.

I also spent an hour or so in Elite Dangerous and for me personally (my Rift hasn't been spuddled so my black levels on my Rift aren't great) the black levels are a LITTLE less dark than that of the Rift but it's nowhere near a dealbreaker, it's something you'll quickly get used to.

Touch controllers. I don't like them but I'll get used to them. They work fine, tracking has worked fine so far but I really haven't really tested its limits at all. The problem I have is with the ring placement moving.

With the old Touch controllers when placed down with the ring on a surface the handle of the controller is at an angle of 45°, whereas with the new ones the angle is 90°, so picking the things up is awkward. Again, not a deal breaker, and something I'll get used to.

If anyone is on the fence about getting one I highly recommend that you do so, worth every penny of the 400 quid I spent on it just for VR Porn lol

Anonymous
Not applicable
The clarity of text for desktop viewing is greatly improved. Games ? Not a great deal of improvement. If you think you're getting clear graphics, think again. There is still a screen door effect. Do NOT buy if you like sound/audio like me (an audiophile) I was hugely disappointed. The sound is an afterthought and TERRIBLE. Tinny, hardly any bass and just AWFUL. It does have a headphone socket so you can plug in your own, which does improve the crap in-built audio, but who really wants yet another cable dangling ? Oculus, either give us a PC untethered version (YAY) ! or keep working on your boring mobile kiddies toys (yawn), not both. 
The headset itself is comfortable, but it's just a copy pretty much of the psvr headset, nothing new or innovative.
I have tried the other 2 headsets available soon (can't divulge on forums, see youtube) and they are vastly superior in visual clarity and sound. If you're not in a hurry, WAIT. This review would have been so much better had the audio not been so miserably a let down after the standard Rift headphones had such good all round audio goodness.

Anonymous
Not applicable
I tested Rift S for about an hour. It is great, even better than I thought. Screen door and God rays are GONE as far as I can tell. I think Oculus even made some improvements over Go, the optical quality is amazing. Maybe if you go out hunting for pixels, you'll see them, but if you are just playing it is seamless. I had an Odyssey+ for a week, and S is even better than that IMO. Everything looks clear and crisp. I mean, of course the resolution could be improved but I didn't find it to be a problem and everything looked satisfactory to me. Not sure why the reviews have downplayed this, it's a solid upgrade for sure.
Tracking seems good. Setup was MUCH easier, and I didn't have any detection problems with the USB or DisplayPort (even with 6 foot extensions). I still have to actively test the tracking (behind the back, etc.) but for normal conditions it seemed as good as original Touch was (but again, only 1 hour of testing). I like the feel of the new controllers and the button placement and shape is a minor but welcome improvement.
Ergonomics were much better than CV1. It doesn't crush your face, it didn't fog up (I had this problem consistently with CV1), and it felt lighter and more comfortable. I'm 68.5mm IPD and it still seems okay. On the far edge of the screen it is a little blurry (if you have 64mm or closer it should look perfect) but even so it was acceptable to me.
The audio was just okay. You're probably better off with headphones to really get into the experience, but I do like the comfort aspect of being able to test something quickly without headphones. The ones on CV1 would always catch on my glasses frames, especially annoying when you are developing. Now it is more convenient for quick tests.
I still want to test more, but I'm impressed. Watching the demos like First Contact and DreamDeck (that I have probably seen 100 times) was like watching them for the first time in HD. I'll report back later after I have gotten deeper into some games (maybe I can finally finish Arktika.1?) but my initial impression is that this is quite amazing.

KlodsBrik
Expert Trustee
Damn sde and godrays gone ? Coming from you Cyber, im even more tempted to pick up an Rift-S as well when I finally will be able to pick up my Quest. (  Im buying from a danish shop. ( The electricmutant ). It was first suppoed to be availabe for pickup the 24th. That changed to the 27th. Yesterday it then changed to 5june. 😞  )
Be good, die great !