Oculus Rift S PC Powered VR Gaming Headset - Windows

* Modified 2020-Sep-05 * As of October 1, 2020, a Facebook account will be required to use this material. Existing users have until January 1, 2023 to hide on Facebook, otherwise most features will not be available and titles might not work at all. AVOID this hardware and company and go with a Vive or other VR option. I for one will not continue to use this product. simple that Facebook continues to develop and is now trying to impose on all users of the Oculus line. As a long-time Oculus user, I find this repugnant and will not put up with this type of corporate behavior. Note reduced to one star because no stars are possible...* Modified 2019-Jun-02 - marked by ** - ** I have used Oculus headsets since the first beta before Facebook owned them. This headset promises to be the first step r make virtual reality accessible to the PC masses. It uses a single connection, no external sensors and is plug and play (in theory). The graphics are slightly better than the last iteration, noticeable, but not huge. The controllers are also slightly better than the previous generation and very easy to adapt. The new transparent camera and guardian system works great. If you're new to Oculus, this is a visual barrier to let you know when you're about to encounter things in the "real world." With the headset on , you see a camera view of the real world. You trace your play area with a 'laser' and it defines your play space, surrounded by virtual walls. Setup is simple and intuitive. Responsiveness is excellent and much better than the single or dual sensor tracking of old. There is no break in motion when one sensor loses sight of the headset, as this headset tracks from the inside out. outside using cameras placed all around the helmet. Lens glare is also gone. Bright scenes had no edge glare (halo) like the last series. Colors were good and vibrant.** In dark scenes, the LCD screen shows its weakness with washed out blacks (more gray than black). In dark scenes, it is very difficult to distinguish the elements due to a lack of contrast. still not seeing things in the dark with a flashlight. Unlike the last panel, this severe lack of contrast and black level is a major drawback of OLED panels for space sims (Elite Dangerous, etc.) or shooters where there will be a lot of dark areas.**** not vapor as fast as older units although I notice my face is much more 'sealed' to the front of the unit. That's good and bad (for me). It is good in that it seals pres than fully light. However, I used to cheat and peek through the holes through my nose to see the keyboard etc. in the past. Now I have to physically lift the device to find the keyboard , etc. Note that I use my Oculus more for seated games (Elite, Project Cars, Assetto Corsa, etc.) than for standing games. When playing standing games with the touch controllers, a better seal would be better. If you want to peek into the 'real world', you can double tap the Oculus button on the touch controller to activate the cameras. This works well, and is well thought out, for situations where you're turning around from shooting zombies and getting tangled in your headphone cord.**** Built-in sound is very weak with no bass. A cannon shot sounds like a "clink" rather than a "boom" in War Thunder for example. The headphones use the directional sound of the strap to direct the sound towards your ears. Unlike the last version, the headphones will not fit the straps of this version. Although it includes a built-in microphone, I prefer to use noise canceling headphones for games that also provides richer sound (for seated play). This design simply doesn't allow for that. The sponge on the sides of the strap (used for comfort) creates a 3/4-1" offset (20- 25mm), on each side, which keeps the headset arms (and ear pads) away from your head. ear or in-ear headphones. If you're using earbuds, that won't be a problem. ** Speaking of the strap, it works surprisingly well with a single dial to tighten the device to your head. It pulls the headset towards your face and there's a trigger to pull the lens part (the big box) away from your face. If you wear glasses, it's much better than the last set. It's a bit more difficult to focus because the "box" doesn't rotate in any way. Overall it's a mix of good and bad compared to the old unit. Definitely easier to put on, although it becomes fully sealed again each time it's removed, but harder to enter the sweet spot for focus. Once set up it stays put together very well **Note - I increased the rating to 2 stars after getting a replacement and further testing. ** So why a star? Because it doesn't work. When first plugged in you will need to update the BIOS on everything (headset and controllers). Then you go through the VR setup. The first issue was a black screen when asked to continue setup in VR I unplugged it from one display port and plugged it into another and it started working I finished setup and jumped into a game .After less than 5 minutes of playing the screen goes black again.It was still on because I could see the backlight but no picture or sound from Oculus home.I can hear system sounds coming from the headset though.A reboot later and it still doesn't work. Unplug and plug back into a new port and it's still dead as a door knob. So much for QA. Oculus app shows all the green checkboxes next to it. device, as if everything is fine when it is certainly not the case. **I received a replacement from Amazon for another try on this model. The replacement also crashed during installation, but then worked so far. It looks like the first one might have had a faulty board which when heated failed. I am rating 3 stars because increasing resolution and reducing "screen door" effect does not solve the problem of lack of rich blacks and contrast. Old panel was better in this regard. Also, the strap change, while comfortable, completely negates the use of higher quality headsets. Sound is just as important to immersion as the visuals. In this regard, the sound of this headset is a big step backwards. Practical yes, but practical no. As for performance, I had the opportunity to run it through a few benchmarks. This headset runs at 80fps (ideally) versus 90 FPS on the latest Rift. On the surface it seems to be worse, but in practice this is not noticeable and did not cause any discomfort at all. I also noticed that this headset was able to track at 80 FPS in games that previously dropped to ASW (45 FPS) .ASW is Oculus' method of dynamically creating fill frames when the frame rate drops below ideal. This helps with discomfort and creates a smoother playback picture even if the frame rate is less than the desired 90. This headset didn't drop below 80 in most of my tests using the same settings as the previous unit which would have stayed in ASW with the same settings Obviously the unit helps graphics cards better at render images faster. **I'm using a current gaming rig with an Intel 8700k and an NVidia 1080ti. Fair enough standard and worked reliably with the old headset. For $400 and after years of waiting for an upgrade day i had hoped the headsets were meant to last more than 10 minutes. I feel like I'm testing the original again. It's clear to me that they have a number of issues to address. It comes back immediately. ** After spending some time reviewing the latest drivers etc, this still seems like an early release, but worth $399. The alternative I would consider is the new Vive index. However, the Vive is MUCH more expensive at $1000. Also, it still requires satellites to be placed in the room and therefore may suffer interruptions (it works generally fine in practice). This makes it less portable and more of a pain to switch between seated and standing play in many situations. Also, the touted 144 FPS refresh rate is highly unlikely in any other game than from simple whack-a-mole type games (Beat Saber etc). You'll need some serious hardware (2080 etc) to push that frame rate. The Vive's controllers also seem better (how it is held, crosshairs tracking, etc.), but it's not fully implemented yet and there are a lot of questions around the game with legacy device support. For these reasons, the Oculus seems like the best mainstream offering. If you mainly play things like Arizona Sunshine, Beat Saber, etc, this really is a very easy headset to use, and is much easier to set up and store too.**