cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Why not to buy the Oculus Rift S

Gerrah
Honored Guest
So I have had my Rift S since the fall of 2019 and have come to one conclusion. I should have just bought the Valve Index in the first place.
For $400 it seemed like a good deal for an intro-level headset and seemed to be a good one at that. Wrong. I can't stand to play with this thing anymore. As a player I love action games which isn't good for the Rift S. Anytime I play a game with significant vibrations the controllers completely loose their tracking for a few seconds and I am stuck with my virtual fists across the map on the floor while I get cut up by my enemies because I can't block them. Second, I will be in the middle of a game with my buddies when all of a sudden my hands are frozen in place and I end up having to restart everything. Third, gotta love that Oculus Software with it constantly telling me  I need to update my software for my headset time after time after time. I swear I have restarted the headset 30 times in one sitting just because it kept saying I needed to. Low and behold I just needed to unplug and plug it back in. First world problems, I know. Honestly though, you get tired of trying to play your favorite games only to discover that the headset is your real enemy.

And yes to the Oculus Support team, I have done all your troubleshooting "tips" and it does nothing. The headset makes games that would run smoothly on any other headset completely unplayable. Now I am stuck with a $400 headset collecting dust in my closet while I wait on my Index to come.

My advice to potential Rift S buyers, don't do it. It is not worth it and the constant loss of tracking is unbearable. 

And to the keyboard warriors who will blame my system hardware. I have a AMD RX 5700 and a Ryzen 7 2700.
25 REPLIES 25

Umpa_PC
Rising Star

Gerrah said:
And to the keyboard warriors who will blame my system hardware. I have a AMD RX 5700 and a Ryzen 7 2700.



And that means nothing ! 
FWIW mine runs fine, and I even post my full PC specs too ::smiley:
Enjoy your Index, and you should have no problems selling the Rift S
Oculus Rift S - Oculus Quest 128GB
MSI trident 3 7RB-200UK Intel Core i5-7400 3 Ghz x2
MSI GTX 1050 Ti (4GB) & MSI Aero GTX 1060 OC (6GB) & MSI Aero GTX 1070 OC 8GB
16 GB RAM x2, 1TB HDD x2, 1TB SSD x2
Windows 10 Home Edition Version 10.0.18363 Build 18363, Oculus version 17, Quest Version 17
Fan Cooling by Zotac FireStorm - AfterBurner cause me problems.

Kareshi
Heroic Explorer
Here is my 2 cents on the matter too:

The headset itself is pretty good, comfortable, definitely an upgrade over the CV1 some areas like visuals and comfort.

But here is where the issues lies.... Way back when the Rift S and Quest came out, they were both having issues when tracking the controllers close to your head, which they eventually fixed and that's great, then after that the Rift S was having some small issues that they fixed as well that eventually lead to version 1.43, which it was the Rift S's highest point in terms of stability and performance.

Leading up to the next update which Oculus had the brilliant idea of merging both Rift Platform and Quest into a unified update cycle to make it "Easier" and "Faster" to push out updates, as opposed to working separately and so on with both platforms, in doing so not only doing the biggest mistake in VR history, but also introducing a lot of performance issues with the Rift S across multiple users and their different PC builds, with hopes of them trying to fix it in later versions such as v13, that came and all it did was focus on social aspects and oculus link...

Okay, I guess we can wait a bit more and see what v14 has to offer to help us with our performance issues, that came and nothing of it was related to the Rift S whatsoever, though some people reported a bit better performance, but not 1.43 better. So we waited, v15 came and again, only oculus Quest and Social notes... Starting to get impatient here, v16 comes out and again the same crap... Rift S getting no love, no attention, no points of the multitude of users on the Oculus Forums being addressed by the Staff there.

Then comes the biggest update of them all, v17! Guess what that one comes with? You guessed it, more Oculus Quest and Social! Hurray!!, but wait there is more!!!, not only did they do that, but they managed to make the Rift S even worse, as well as mess with the Rift which for some users it was working perfectly fine up to that point.

And how did they make it worse you ask? How about Blue Screens of death constantly happening? More USB3.0 related issues? After people kept mentioning that, the staff finally had to step out of their asses and comment about the Rift/Rift S, after many months, since December they haven't said jack about them until now, with a lot of people losing hope and being angry at them.

But that's not the end of the issues, I've asked multiple times and directly quoted the Staff with questions that don't pertain to performance issues or anything such as:

Why can't we downgrade our software so we can be on the one that performs best for us?

Why has the Rift S not gotten any features at all since it's launch?

Why is the Rift S not being supported nearly as much as the Quest?

All of them ignored as if they were never asked.

So if you're planning on buying an Oculus Product, get the Quest, wait for news and see if the Rift S finally gets the proper treatment it needs, OR buy elsewhere, WMR as old and bad as it is compared to the Rift S in some ways, at least that actually works, HTC Vive, old yes but it actually works and you can upgrade it to a Pro, or the Index if you wish and all of them actually work and get updates.

I've given Oculus many many months to even mention the Rift S and it's issues, the only thing we ever got was a tweet and a blog post by Oculus celebrating both the Quest and S 1st year anniversary.

if you still want to buy the Rift S, then by my guest, but don't say you weren't warned.

PS: I still think the Rift S is the best all around headset for PCVR because of it's price, but I'm not going to recommended when the software team hasn't done jack with it and is letting it die off.

Kareshi
Heroic Explorer

Umpa_PC said:


Gerrah said:
And to the keyboard warriors who will blame my system hardware. I have a AMD RX 5700 and a Ryzen 7 2700.



And that means nothing ! 
FWIW mine runs fine, and I even post my full PC specs too ::smiley:
Enjoy your Index, and you should have no problems selling the Rift S


Fact is it has issues and if you can't notice them, or "don't have them" the thread is not for users like you, so why post?

Everyone is free to post in every thread (provided it's not repeatedly off-topic or against the rules) just as you post your dissatisfaction in many threads. That's ok too.

Kareshi
Heroic Explorer
Pointing out legitimate issues in software and how they handle the community isn't dissatisfaction, it's legitimate issues that need addressing but constantly ignored. Saying "Mine works fine" on a thread about having issues with the HMD doesn't add to anything, some people can't even tell the difference, but adding onto the issues the HMD and software is having does, keeping it in topic is better than bloating it with "mine works".. To each their own I guess.

edit: as for "many" you mean here and the PTC/Release notes that never address the Rift S, or the Rift at all. Again, legitimate issues.



Pointing out legitimate issues in software and how they handle the community is "dissatisfactory" ? Okay ha.

Not sure what you mean there. Pointing out issues is ok, as I said.
Doing so in many threads is ok, as I said.

Doing so, then asking other people not to post their views is less ok.

Kareshi
Heroic Explorer




Pointing out legitimate issues in software and how they handle the community is "dissatisfactory" ? Okay ha.

Not sure what you mean there. Pointing out issues is ok, as I said.
Doing so in many threads is ok, as I said.

Doing so, then asking other people not to post their views is less ok.


Person makes a thread talking about issues with the Rift S, factual issues that many people are facing.
Someone coming in and saying "Mine works" doesn't add anything to the topic at hand.
Someone pointing out more problems that need resolving which are related to the topic DOES add to the topic at hand. 

When the talk sticks to what the topic is, it makes it easier to gather all the feedback and hopefully gets sent back to the team. By bloating the topic with comments unrelated to the main topic just... bloats it and pushes legitimate comments to the side. 

Simple concept to understand.

Dial it back @CallMeJay360 
We've both made statements that are simple to understand. One of us wants to keep people posting freely, the other seems to want to prevent those that they aren't happy with.

One of us is a moderator.

The topic is why someone shouldn't buy a Rift, people are entitled to respond why people should. If only one view is allowed in every thread without allowing a counter-view, this wouldn't be a forum.

Kareshi
Heroic Explorer
I don't understand the threat when it's all been civil, you being a moderator adds nothing to the conversation, but feel free to wave the flag.

I's not about having ONE view on anything, it's about providing constructive comments so that the people that can do something about it, can see them and fix them, you know? People like Staff members, developers, those with the power to change the software for the better.