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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 won't be available and titles might not work at all. AVOID this hardware and this company and go with a Vive or another VR option. For my part, I will not continue to use this product. It's an outright spyware campaign that Facebook continues to develop and is now trying to impose on all Oculus line users. As a long time Oculus user, I find this repugnant and will not put up with this type of corporate behavior. Rating reduced to one star because no stars are possible...* Modified 2019-Jun-02 - marked by ** - ** I have been using Oculus headsets since the first beta before Facebook owned it. This headset promises to be the first step in making 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 system of transparent cameras and guardian works very well. 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 real-world camera view. You trace your playing area with a 'laser' and this defines your playing space, surrounded by virtual walls. Setup is simple and intuitive. The responsiveness is excellent and much better than the single or dual sensor tracking of old. There is no break in motion when a sensor loses sight of the helmet, as this helmet tracks from the inside out using cameras placed all around the helmet. Lens glare is also gone. Bright scenes had no edge glare (halo) like the last series. The colors were good and vibrant. ** In dark scenes, the LCD screen shows its weakness with washed out blacks (rather gray than black). In dark scenes, it is very difficult to distinguish the elements due to a lack of contrast. Playing Arizona Sunshine as a test, I knew the area and still couldn't see 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. It's good and bad (for me). It is good in that it almost completely seals out the 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. It works well, and is well thought out, for situations where you're running around shooting zombies and getting tangled in your headphone cord. **** Built-in sound is very weak without bass. A cannon shot sounds like a "clink" rather than a "boom" in War Thunder for example. The headset uses the directional sound of the strap to direct sound to 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 using a noise-canceling headset for gaming which also provides richer sound (for seated gaming). This design simply does not allow that. Sponge on the sides of the strap (used for comfort) creates a 3/4-1" (20-25mm) offset, on each side, that holds the helmet arms (and ear pads) away from your head.the ear or in-ear headphones.If you're using ear buds, this won't be a problem.** Speaking of the strap, it works surprisingly well with a single knob to tighten the device to your head It pulls the helmet towards your face and there is 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 little harder to focus because the "box" doesn't rotate in any way. Overall 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 is removed, but more difficult to enter the sweet spot for focusing nt. 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 is not. t work. When first plugged in, you will need to update the BIOS on everything (headphones and controllers). Then you go through the VR setup. The first issue was a black screen when asked to continue the setup in VR. I unplugged it from one display port and plugged it into another and it started working. I finished the setup and jumped into a game. After less than 5 minutes of playing the screen goes black again. It was always on because I could see the backlight, but no picture or sound from Oculus home. However, I can hear system sounds coming from the headphones. A reboot later and it still doesn't work. Unplug and replug a new port and it's still dead as a door button. So much for quality control. The Oculus app shows all the green checkboxes next to the device as if everything is fine when it definitely isn't. **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'm rating 3 stars because the increased resolution and reduced "screen door" effect doesn't solve the problem of lack of rich blacks and contrast. The old panel was better in this respect. Also, the change of strap, while comfortable, completely negates the use of premium helmets. Sound is just as important to immersion as 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 80 fps (ideally) versus 90 FPS on the latest Rift. On the surface it seems to be worse, but in practice it 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 the ideal. This helps with discomfort and creates a smoother playback picture even if the frame rate is lower than the desired 90. This helmet did not drop below 80 in most of my tests using the same settings as the previous unit which would have remained in ASW with the same settings. Obviously, Unity helps graphics cards better to render frames faster. **I'm using a current gaming rig with an Intel 8700k and NVidia 1080ti. Fairly standard fair and worked reliably with the old headset. For $400 and after years of waiting for an update, I had hoped the headsets were meant to last more than 10 minutes. I feel like I'm testing the beta version of the original again. It is clear to me that they have a number of issues to deal with. 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 $1,000. In addition, it still requires the placement of satellites in the room and can therefore suffer from interruptions (this usually works well in practice). This makes it less portable and more of a pain to switch between seated and standing play in many situations. Additionally, the touted 144 FPS refresh rate is highly unlikely in any game other than 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's held, crosshair tracking, etc.), but it's not fully implemented yet and there are a lot of questions around gaming 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. **