The latest Steam Hardware Survey (SHS) is out, and as usual it provides insight into the dynamics of the PC hardware configurations favored by gamers. What caught our eye this month was the impressive surge in Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 / 3060 Mobile usage, one of the best graphics cards. Added together, these 3060 category Ampere GPUs become the only double digit percentage ranked entry in the survey. It's arguable whether such a merge is ‘justified’ or not, but the previous two GeForce generations don’t separate out the desktop and mobile GPUs as far as the SHS is concerned.

Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060 has become something of a legend for mainstream gaming. It has every right to its success, as it was priced competitively, provided a great gen-to-gen performance uplift, and can still be used for PC gaming fun today. Ironically, Team Green might be looking forward to the demise of the GTX 1060 more than its rivals, as it continues to frame modern PC gaming in terms of features that aren’t supported by ye olde Pascal architecture — ray tracing, DLSS, and so on.

It's no surprise the GeForce GTX 1060 is still holding onto the official top spot in the SHS GPU tables with 7.24% (DX12 PC gaming figures derived from the survey will be used throughout this article). It's even made sporadic gains over the last few months — perhaps cards have been sold by upgraders and are being subsequently enjoyed in ‘new’ entry level systems.

Again, bear in mind that there's only a single entry for "GTX 1060" in the charts. That aggregates GTX 1060 6GB and 3GB desktop variants, plus any laptop models as well. There's no question that the 1060 was a very popular card back in its heyday, though it's less so now.

If we merge the GeForce RTX 3060 and 3060 Mobile into one, using Steam's data, it turns out the unified RTX 3060 entity eclipsed the GTX 1060 between May and June of this year. In the newest September data, the RTX 3060 products are very clearly in the lead with a total of 10.53%, the only GPU to make double digits in the table.

Even as separate line items, the GeForce RTX 3060 and 3060 Laptop GPUs are 6th and 5th, respectively. If we didn’t ‘help’ the RTX 3060 with the merged figures, they could still easily make it to first and second position on their own steam (sorry) sometime in 2023. Also note that there's no launch window in sight for the RTX 4070 or below. Nvidia’s increased pricing might mean something like the RTX 4050 could end up as the best selling Ada Lovelace generation GPU.

Elsewhere in the Steam survey, hexacore CPUs have very firmly cemented their lead over recent months. In OS usage, Windows 11 continues to look strong and will certainly break the 25% milestone before the next survey is published.

Lastly, there has been some VR headset controversy. Upload VR noted that Valve has had to step in and correct the VR headset market share information, as it had some ‘extreme’ figures for the Oculus Quest 2 (now Meta Quest 2) and ‘Other’ headsets. Apparently, there might be some misreporting in this segment due to the hardware detection method.

And that is reason enough to question all Steam hardware survey results. We've long wondered whether Valve uses proper statistical methods (ie, fully random sampling), rather than looking for other trends in hardware use. Sadly, Valve never says precisely what it's doing, though it remains the best publicly available insight into PC hardware.

Sony is drip-feeding information about its next PSVR headset. The company today revealed details about the new virtual reality controllers it will be using with the PlayStation 5.

Hideaki Nishino, senior vice president at PlayStation, wrote that the new "orb" style shape will be just as innovative as DualSense. The design somewhat resembles what we've already seen from Oculus.

Each controller has the adaptive triggers you find in the DualSense PS5 controller, as well as new haptic feedback and finger detection. The headset will track the controllers with a ring on the bottom of the controllers.

Each controller has "grip" L1/R1 buttons and L2/R2 triggers, as well as an analog stick. The left controller has the square and triangle buttons, while the right controller gets cross and circle.

These controllers will finally put to rest the PlayStation Move controller, which debuted in 2010 with the PlayStation 3 for motion controlled games. While the Nintendo Wii made motion controllers popular, the Movo continued on as Sony's VR controllers with PSVR, which used their glowing orbs for tracking.

We've yet to see the next PlayStation VR headset, which could become one the best VR headsets for gamers, but Sony says the controllers should be in the hands of developers soon.

Virtual reality (VR) long traveled the road to relevance. But even after head-mounted displays (HMDs) became a reality, got trimmed down and usable for consumers, there were still massive barriers to entry in terms of the computing power, sensors, space and money required to enjoy it in your home.

The Oculus Quest has been one of the best VR headsets since its debut for that very reason. By eliminating the need for base sensors, connection to a powerful PC or even a smartphone, the standalone form factor eliminated many of the nuisances that make VR seem like a fuss.

At its Facebook Connect (formerly Oculus Connect) event today, Oculus introduced a new standalone headset, which you can check out in our Oculus Quest 2 review. But with that also came  the announcement that Oculus will no longer make the Oculus Rift S or any PC-only VR headsets. 

“We’re going to focus on standalone VR headsets moving forward,” Oculus said in today’s blog post today. “We’ll no longer pursue PC-only hardware, with sales of Rift S ending in 2021. That said, the Rift Platform isn’t going anywhere.” 

Oculus noted that more Rift titles are on the way. It didn’t confirm when it will stop supporting the Rift S, as it did with the Oculus Go. 

Many VR enthusiasts won’t be surprised at today’s announcement. Standalone VR makes it easier for new users who aren't PC gamers, plus helps keep the price down and just makes the whole setup and home experience easier. 

“All of this is also good for the entire ecosystem because a bigger audience means stronger opportunities for developers to build sustainable businesses on the platform,” a Facebook spokesperson told Tom’s Hardware.

“Overall, when we can make VR this immersive and this affordable, we believe it can mean a significant step toward becoming a household technology that connects people like never before.” 

The original Oculus Rift certainly helped make a name for VR, and the Oculus Rift S was a commendable follow-up that eliminated external base sensors.  According to Steam’s Hardware & Software Survey, the Rift S represented 23% of VR headsets on Steam in August, compared to the Quest’s 11.2% (HTC's Vive was at 21.5% and the Valve Index at 15.6%). But combined with the original Rift, Rift-branded headsets made up 35.5% of the VR HMDs on Steam.

Facebook told us that both enthusiasts and developers see standalone headsets as the future of VR, due to ease of use. This would be particularly key if Facebook plans on helping to actualize Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s goal of 1 billion VR users. 

The phasing out of the Rift S means Oculus will offer a direct competitor in the PC-connected headset space, which generally offer more powerful and immersive experiences than a standalone headset. But that doesn’t mean Oculus doesn’t see itself competing with something like the HTC Vive Cosmos or Valve Index.

For one, users can connect the Quest 2 to a PC if they purchase an Oculus Link cable. Oculus Link also lets you play Rift content on the Quest 2. Oculus told us it’s investing in “ongoing improvements” with Oculus Link in terms of performance, reliability and visual quality. This fall, Oculus Link is expected to exit beta and gain support for 90 Hz gameplay with supported games. Additionally, there’s new Rift content in the works. 

“All of that means our PC platform isn’t going anywhere,”the Facebook spokesperson said. “In fact, we've seen significant growth in PC VR via Oculus Link, and the Rift Platform will continue to grow while offering high-end PC VR experiences, like Lone Echo II and Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond well into the future

In terms of fidelity, the Quest 2 has a leg up on the Rift S and earned a higher rating in our review (4.5 stars versus 3 stars). A notable part of that story is in the specs.

With the Rift S phased out, the Quest 2 will be the star of Facebook’s VR lineup. But when asked, Facebook wouldn’t commit to having just one VR headset on the market from then on.

So it’s a new era for VR, and in some ways it feels a sad. But it also seems the quest for innovation that can tempt more people into getting into VR continues. 

The Facebook Reality Labs research team today highlighted new advancements on the audio front of their augmented reality (AR) work. The ultimate goal is to create a pair of AR glasses. These steps are part of the process to refining the end product.

Seeing Facebook bring more attention to AR is pretty exciting. Oculus has continued pushing virtual reality (VR) closer to the mainstream since being acquired by Facebook, making some of the best VR headsets on the market. That includes the standalone Oculus Quest, which works without tethering to a pricey gaming PC or phone. We've yet to see a pair of AR smart glasses see as much success as the Quest. 

As Facebook Reality Labs progresses towards the final design of its AR smart glasses, they have considerable work ahead of them to ensure the product is desirable and immersive. Recent developments take place in two areas: Audio Presence and Perceptual Superpowers, (which sounds a lot more exciting than the actual technology but is still notably useful).

"The mission of the team is twofold: to create virtual sounds that are perceptually indistinguishable from reality and to redefine human hearing," Facebook's blog post says. 

Audio Presence is centered around reconstructing audio for a virtual environment, so the sound comes from appropriate directions. This is essentially like perfecting surround sound for AR. Refining the Audio Presence is a huge step in creating immersive environments.

When it comes to Perceptual Superpowers tech, the name may be a little generous. But don't let that discredit the seriously useful nature of what it does. This technology is designed to reduce distracting background noise so you can amplify the volume of your target audio source—like a conversation you're having at a table in a crowded restaurant.

Work like this is crucial to creating an optimized AR experience and directly tied to Facebook's AR glasses efforts, although incorporating the technology is still "a ways away," according to Facebook Research Scientist Manager Ravish Mehra. 

"Imagine being able to hold a conversation in a crowded restaurant or bar without having to raise your voice to be heard or straining to understand what others are saying," Facebook's blog says. 

"By using multiple microphones on your glasses, we can capture the sounds around you. Then, by using the pattern of your head and eye movements, we can figure out which of these sounds you’re most interested in hearing, without requiring you to robotically stare at it."

Facebook wants its AR smart glasses to be stylish and understand the visual and acoustic world around you in order to provide useful information.

"When you walk into a restaurant, for example, your AR glasses would be able to recognize different types of events happening around you: people having conversations, the air conditioning noise, dishes and silverware clanking," the blog explains. "Then, using contextualized AI, your AR glasses would be able to make smart decisions, like removing the distracting background noise — and you’d be no more aware of the assistance than of a prescription improving your vision.

Following in the footsteps of Apple and Google locking down their respective app stores, Oculus is finally taking the fear we all had when Facebook bought it and making it a reality. This October, the company will start ending support for Oculus accounts and replacing them with Facebook accounts. 

In a post on its website today, Oculus announced that starting this October, new Oculus users will have to log into their Oculus HMDs with a Facebook account. 

Those with an existing Oculus accounts have two years to merge it with a Facebook account. Beginning in 2023, Oculus will completely end support for Oculus accounts. At that point, if you don’t merge your account with a Facebook account, Oculus can’t promise full functionality for your device.

“We will take steps to allow you to keep using the content you have purchased,” the company said of users who don’t merge accounts, “though we expect some games and apps may no longer work.” 

Oculus explained that this might be because of features that will be shifted to requiring a Facebook account or because of developers choosing to no longer support an app or game.

The company claims that the change is due to the ease-of-use presented by a single log-in, as well as upcoming Social VR features, like Facebook Horizon. Still, it’s unclear why support for Oculus accounts needs to end to make these features accessible for Facebook users. 

Oculus noted that you can still maintain a separate VR profile even after merging accounts. You just need to ensure that your Facebook profile is set to only be visible to yourself after merging it with your Oculus account. Then, your Oculus friends won’t be able to find you by your Facebook name.

These privacy features are supposed works both ways, too. After you merge your accounts, you'll be able to use special settings to control how much of your VR activity shows up on your Facebook timeline, Oculus said.

If you’re like me, then your Facebook account sits mostly abandoned except for the occasional moment when someone needs to plan an event. If you’re like my editor, then you don’t even have a Facebook account. Whether this change stems from Facebook trying to use Oculus to revitalize its platform, or Oculus failing to stand on its own without the platform, we do not know. Regardless, it does point to a new and unfortunate deterrent to some of the best VR headsets on the market.

After a shadowy teaser in March, HP today finally pulled the sheets off the Reverb G2 VR headset (available for pre-order now at $599). Like the prior HP Reverb, this is a Windows Mixed Reality (MR) PC-powered headset with inside-out tracking. This time around, however, HP is targeting the gear toward gamers more than businesses, touting Valve-created lenses and SteamVR support to get the job done. 

Valve, of course, is the company behind the Steam gaming platform and who also helped developed the HTC Vive and HTC Vive Pro, finally launching its own VR headset, the Valve Index, last year. The Index uses external base stations for optimal tracking. The Reverb G2 on the other hand doesn’t require base stations, thanks to four inside-out tracking cameras. The Windows MR headsets doesn't claim to offer the same level of fidelity as the $999 (with base stations) Index. 

HP’s Reverb G2 will be available this fall. The old Reverb debuted at $599 for the consumer edition, while the Oculus Rift S, another PC-connected headset and what HP pegged the Reverb G2’s closest rival, debuted at $399.  

HP Reverb G2 Specs  

In our HP Reverb review, we praised the comfort and high-resolution image quality the HMD offers. In fact, we consider it the best VR headset for those who need Windows MR. However, its dependence on Windows MR tracking is what ultimately held it back.

The prior Reverb targeted both enterprise and gamers with two different SKUs. In a press briefing, HP said its pushing its Reverb G2 as one SKU, with the primary focus being mainstream gamers.

“The primary goal of this was to develop the best immersive gaming experience, “John Ludwig, lead VR product manager at HP, said.

In its press briefing, HP pointed to data finding that in 2020, the number of gamers worldwide will hit 2.7 billion. It added that the global VR market is projected to reach $50 billion by 2025, but HP expects this figure to be even bigger. 

The Reverb G2 is still a Windows MR headset, although it can run SteamVR apps. 

Valve-Made Lenses 

The Reverb G2’s Valve-made and calibrated Fresnel lenses promise improved optics. The prior Reverb prioritized high resolution, enabling business applications, such as allowing architects to identify visual differences in leather grain. HP’s new VR headset focuses on improving the immersive experience with upgraded lenses designed with greater focus on clarity extending out to the edge and hardware-adjustable interpupillary distance (IPD). 

These aren’t the same lenses you’ll find in the Index, which has larger LCD panels with larger lenses. The Reverb G2 opts for a smaller design that keep the HMD more lightweight (1.21 pounds compared to the Index’s 1.78 pounds).

Although they have the same resolution as the Reverb, HP claims the new panels offer more clarity, higher contrast and are brighter. There should be no mura, something the original Reverb was guilty of, Ludwig admitted. Still, Ludwig doesn’t claim that the headset is free from visual artifacts.  

“There’s always gonna be a little bit of something,” he said when asked about godrays and smudging. “These are still Fresnel lenses, so everyone’s got a little something going on. It's really just a matter of what you see once you get in there.” 

The new Reverb G2 still uses an RGB subpixel stripe. This means that each pixel has a red, green and blue subpixel that, at least in the Reverb and Sony PSVR’s case, lends more realistic colors. OLED competitors, such as the Oculus Quest, use a PenTile layout, where each pixel only has two subpixels and can’t make every color. RGB subpixel stripes also allow for greater pixel density and, therefore, a smaller HMD. The Reverb was remarkably comfortable, and HP is promising the same with the Reverb G2, which weighs only 1.6 ounces more than its predecessor.  The Reverb G2 also supposedly has an improved facemask cushion to distribute the weight on your head better. 

Ludwig also claimed that the Reverb G2’s pixels have reduced image persistence, so the pixels are lit up for a shorter amount of time. This results in less of a smearing effect in the display and less nausea for those prone to feeling ill in VR, the exec said. 

Upgraded Controllers 

The prior Reverbs used Windows MR controllers that showed faulty tracking and really held the headset back. The new Reverb G2 is said to improve on the older HMD with 6-degrees of freedom tracking that’s more than twice as good, since there are now four cameras instead of two. HP has added a camera to each side of the Reverb G2 to track hand movements. 

“There's a lot of overlap in the front cameras but less overlap on the side cameras,” Ludwig explained. “That's how you get over two times controller tracking volume even though we have only two times the number of cameras.”

But although this is the first Windows MR headset to have more than two cameras, the Bluetooth controllers still use Windows MR tracking, so we’ll see if these new controllers really are enough to bring a marked improvement or put it on par with what comes with other PC-connected mainstream headsets, like the Oculus Rift S and its Oculus Insight tracking. The Rift S still seems to have an advantage over the Reverb G2 in having five cameras. Moreover, the Reverb G2’s cameras are still the same resolution as the original Windows MR tracking cameras. 

Nevertheless, the Reverb G2’s controllers also bring redesigned ergonomics. HP worked with Valve and Microsoft for the new layout, which see the removal of trackpads and the addition of A, B, X and Y buttons. The menu button and Windows thumbstick remain; however, the grip button is now analog and, therefore, reports a value instead of just a 1 or 0. 

The new controllers each run on two AA batteries (included). They are backwards compatible with other Windows MR headsets, like the prior HP Reverb and Samsung HMD Odyssey+, and can be purchased separately. 

Valve Index Speakers on the HP Reverb G2 

The Reverb G2 uses the same speakers found on the Valve Index for 3D spatial audio. That’s not a bad thing. In our Valve Index review, we praised the open-back speakers that hover 10mm over your ears and output clear, loud audio with surrounding noise still audible if necessary.  

The Reverb G2 also has the same dual microphones with noise cancellation that the original Reverb had. 

SteamVR Gaming on Windows MR 

Like the prior Reverb and other Windows MR headsets, the Reverb G2 supports SteamVR applications through the Windows Mixed Reality for Steam VR app. Ludwig, lead VR product manager at HP, told press there’s been a “big improvement year over year” with the  experience, making it comparable to native SteamVR gaming. 

PC requirements remain unchanged from the original HP Reverb and call for an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 (or Nvidia Quadro P5200 / AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200) or better, along with an Intel Core i7 and 16GB of RAM.  

HP’s first Reverb shined as a Windows MR headset with high-res images and a comfortable fit. When it came to competing with non-Windows HMDs, however, the Reverb couldn’t quite compete. The Reverb G2, a collaboration with both Valve and Microsoft, is still on Windows MR, so we’re not sure if it’s enough to win over gamers familiar with options from the likes of Oculus and HTC Vive. But if enough gamers do get on board, it could be just Windows MR needs to get more competitive in an increasingly XR market.

According to HP's announcement, SteamVR saw almost 1 million more HMDs connected in April, which is three times the previous biggest monthly gain. 

A tech company finally admitted the recent Coronavirus outbreak could be a problem. Facebook told UploadVR yesterday that the virus is expected to affect the production and availability of its hardware, which includes its Oculus VR headset line. 

UploadVR originally reported on Wednesday that Facebook stopped accepting orders for the Quest earlier this week, saying that it was "out of stock." Facebook then sent the outlet the following statement to explain the Quest's situation:

"Oculus Quest has been selling out in some regions due to high demand. That said, like other companies we’re expecting some additional impact to our hardware production due to the Coronavirus. We’re taking precautions to ensure the safety of our employees, manufacturing partners and customers and are monitoring the situation closely. We are working to restore availability as soon as possible."

In addition to the Quest, this would presumably impact Facebook's other hardware offerings, like the Oculus RIft S and Portal devices. 

Facebook probably isn't the only company grappling with production issues because of the Coronavirus outbreak, (which you can read more about via the CDC and WHO). But it appears to be among the first to admit that it's having these problems.

Reports about other companies, such as Apple and those in the memory market have claimed that production hasn't been too badly affected by Coronavirus despite the forced closure of some factories. Others have pointed to impacts in Chinese markets.

Meet The Oculus Go Headset

Update November 29, 2019: 

We've been tracking the best Black Friday tech deals and have discovered that the Oculus Go is now cheaper than ever. It's currently on sale for $150 at Amazon, $50 off its regular price.

Original review, May 1, 2018:

Imagine going to a fancy burger joint and being asked to bring your own bun? That's what the VR market has been like up until now. No matter how much or little you spent, you either needed a high-end PC or a premium smartphone to use the best VR headsets. Enter Oculus Go, a standalone VR system with its own Snapdragon 821 processor and everything else you need built-in.

The Oculus Go isn’t going to replace the PC-connected room-scale-capable systems like the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Windows MR headsets. But the standalone device offers better performance and a more convenient form factor for experiencing VR content than smartphone-powered headsets such as the Google Daydream View and Samsung Gear VR.

Design: Rift-Like 

The Oculus Go has a functional design language that doesn't stand out for being either beautiful or ugly. The device is a light shade of gray with very little contrast. The body of the visor has a smooth plastic finish, while the faceplate is made of a dull aluminum which acts as a heatsink for the SoC and surrounding components. The fabric surfaces are a slightly different shade of gray. The only real contrast is the black face cushion that surrounds the lenses.

The Go borrows some design elements from the Rift (such as the shape of the faceplate and how the head strap attaches to the visor). However, the construction of the two headsets is markedly different. For instance, the Go doesn’t offer spatial tracking, so it doesn’t have embedded sensors.

On the top the headset, you’ll find a pair of volume adjustment buttons and power button with an LED indicator light that shows when the device is charging, paired via bluetooth or powered on. The left side houses a micro USB port used for charging the device, and a 3.5mm audio jack to plug in a headset.

The headset features internal speakers and a microphone, so you don’t need headphones to use the device, but Oculus recommends using a headset for the best voice communication. Oculus offers the Go headset with 32GB or 64GB of internal storage. Our sample came with 32GB.

The Oculus Go features a 3-point head strap, which is made of a fabric. Inside, a foam rubber cushion fits snugly against your cheeks and forehead to seal off light from the world around you. The nose space doesn’t have a cover, so you can still see the real world through the slit if you look down.

Glasses-Wearers Welcome

The Go has a novel solution for glasses wearers -- a spacer, which you can install under the foam cushion to push the edges of the foam out and give you a few millimeters of extra clearance for corrective lenses. I don’t wear glasses, but I deferred to a friend who does to test the spacer. While he has trouble wearing the Rift, the Go fit over his glasses with ease.

For people who don’t want to wear their glasses with a headset at all, Oculus is introducing a corrective lens accessory, which you can slip over the Go’s lenses to make it a prescription VR headset. Oculus said the corrective lenses will be available for Rift owners as well.

Improved Lenses

Speaking of the lenses, they are significantly better than what you'll find in the Rift. Oculus told us that it put considerable effort into developing the “perfect lens” for VR, and while we’re not convinced that they are perfect, they do provide a much clearer image than the older design.

The Oculus Go lenses are curved, Fresnel-style lenses like those in the Rift headset, but they produce much less lens flare distortion. The new lens design features a somewhat triangular shape, instead of the round with one flat edge design we usually see in VR headsets.

Display Panel: High-Res, But Not as Good as Rift

The Oculus Go offers a marginally higher resolution than the Oculus Rift headset, but to call it superior would be somewhat disingenuous. The Rift features 2,160 x 1,200 pixels spread across two 90Hz OLED display panels. The Go features a single 2,560 x 1,440 fast-switch LCD panel that operates at 60Hz or 72Hz, depending on the application. 

We suspect that the lower refresh rate is a symptom of the available processing power and not a limitation of the panel technology. To keep the costs down to a palatable level for the mass market, Oculus chose a dated Snapdragon 821 processor, which is the similar to the chip found in the two-year-old Samsung Galaxy S7.

Oculus also developed features that enable it to squeeze even more performance out of the aging hardware, such as Fixed Foveated Rendering, which enables developers to push high-fidelity graphics to the sweet spot of the display and lower fidelity graphics in the periphery to reduce the GPU load. The company also created processes such as Dynamic Clock Speed Adjustments, which lower the clock speed of the SoC when it's not in demand to help preserve battery.

Battery Life

The Oculus Go features an internal 2600mAh Lithium-ion battery, which provides between 1.5-2-hours of continuous gaming, or approximately 2-2.5-hours of video content. In our experience, Oculus’s runtime ratings are accurate. I squeezed a little more than 2 hours out of our headset with a combination of gaming and video, and got nearly 3 hours out of it while doing nothing but watching Netflix.

It takes approximately 3 hours to charge the Oculus Go fully with the provided charger. The instruction guide says not to charge it with other chargers, including portable battery backups. You also should not charge the headset while it’s on your face.

Controller

The Oculus Go package includes a motion controller, which features a large trigger button, a trackpad for your thumb, an Oculus menu button and a back button. Like the Daydream VR or Gear VR controllers, it features 3-degrees of freedom tracking, which allows you to point in any direction, but it doesn’t have any depth-sensing capabilities so you can’t reach into the virtual world.  Similar to the Daydream platform, the menu button on the controller enables you to recenter your view at any time. 

The motion controller is an odd shape, but felt comfortable in my hand. I wasn't even tempted to put it down while watching video content.

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Living With The Oculus Go Headset

Setup Process

The initial setup process of the Oculus Go is simple, but it requires an Android or iOS device with a companion app to configure. When you first run the Oculus app, the software will pair with your headset via Bluetooth and then ask you to enter the credentials for your Wi-Fi network so the device can download updates. It also has you configure the controller for left or right-handed use.

Sit, Don't Stand

Once you've got the Go paired and you're ready to start playing, pick a nice chair for yourself and stay seated. Unlike the Rift and other spatially-tracked VR systems, the Go doesn’t include internal or external sensors to track headset position. You aren't meant to walk around with it on and could hurt yourself if you do.

Not For Young Children

For kids under 13, this device should be called the "No Go." Like other VR makers, Oculus advises against putting the headset on children who are 12 or younger, fearing that it could affect their development.

Extensive App Library

The Oculus Go headset is surprisingly capable, and there is a large library of content available for it. On launch day, the new headset will adopt the entire library of Gear VR content, which has more than 1000 games and apps. Whether you wish to be transported to fantasy land, or seek to learn about the universe, there should be something in the Oculus store for everyone from teenagers to seniors.

A TV Screen Replacement

If you don't have a large screen TV in every room of your house (and who does), the Oculus Go could give you a large canvas for movie-viewing. While earlier VR headsets lacked the clarity required to replace your TV, Oculus Go, with its new lenses and improved display panels, is the first VR device that you can use for long Netflix sessions.

Netflix and Hulu offer apps for the Oculus Go, and you can access YouTube content through the native web browser. I was surprised at just how much I enjoyed consuming video content on the Go. I tried watching TV on Netflix with our GearVR, and while it certainly worked, I found that one episode of a show was enough time in the headset. While testing the Go, I spent multiple hours in the headset and ran the headset’s battery to the warning point.

Cross-Platform Multiplayer Experiences

The Oculus Go and Gear VR share the same development platform and multiplayer games that run on the Gear VR will automatically run on the Oculus Go. Developers can also enable cross-play with gamers using Rift headsets.

Earlier this year, at GDC, we had a chance to try a short demo of Settlers on Oculus Go in an online match with Oculus Rift players. And Settlers isn’t an anomaly. Many of the games that you can find one the Oculus Store are single-player titles, but Oculus is encouraging developers to make multiplayer games for the platform. The company also encourages devs to make their games compatible across all Oculus VR platforms when applicable.

Bottom Line

The Go is, by far, the most comfortable mobile VR headset that I’ve ever tried. In fact, it’s more comfortable than most high-end, VR headsets that I've tried. I would rather spend two hours with a Go on my face than just about any other head-mounted display.

The headset lacks spatial tracking, which limits the types of experiences that you can enjoy with it.  But most people would be more than satisfied to sit on their couch or lay in their bed, and play a stationary game or watch a movie. 

If you want the best VR experience money can buy, consider the HTC Vive, Vive Pro or Oculus Rift, all of which offer a more immersive experience. And, if you have a compatible phone and want to save the money, Samsung's Gear VR is a great value. However, the Oculus Go offers the best balance between price and user experience of any headset you can buy.

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Oculus VR unveiled a wave of new features coming to the Oculus Quest—including hand tracking—expected to release by early 2020. The team revealed the new features September 25 at Oculus Connect 6 (OC6). The Oculus Quest headset was initially released in May of 2019. This isn’t the first wave of updates since it’s release, but it might be the most ambitious.

The latest announcement at OC6 promises a variety of new features and services to the Oculus Quest—the most prominent of which is the new hand tracking component. This new addition tracks your hands for a more realistic interaction in the VR world. There are no more controllers, your hands are the controllers.

The headset tracks your hands using the built-in cameras. The tracking software works with deep learning to accurately process the position of your fingers and hands.

The team also announced Passthrough+, a feature designed to bring your surroundings into view while using VR. The headset can remain in place while displaying the surroundings to the wearer in real-time.

Additional services include Oculus Link, which allows Quest users to access Rift content and some titles with a gaming PC. This service works with a standard USB 3 cable, but Oculus VR plans to release an optical fiber cable later this year with Oculus Link in mind.

Quest users can also access more than 50 Oculus Go apps beginning next week. Any previously owned Oculus Go apps will transfer if they’re available on the Quest.

Most of the new features will roll out by the end of 2019. Those awaiting the new hand tracking features will have to wait until early 2020 for the update.

First-Gen VR Gets a Reboot

The Oculus Rift S ($399 / £399) VR headset replaces the original Oculus Rift, but it isn’t a successor in the traditional sense of the word. Oculus is not calling the Rift S a second-generation device, which begs the question: What is the purpose of the Rift S headset?

To help unravel the answer, we put the Rift S through its paces.

Meet the Oculus Rift S

The first thing that comes to mind when I look at the Rift S is that it doesn’t look like an Oculus product. Between the design of the Rift, as well as the Oculus Go and Oculus Quest, Oculus products generally share a distinct design language. Oddly, the new Rift S does not resemble its siblings in the same way. But that’s because Oculus didn’t design the Rift S, as bizarre as that seems.

Oculus was busy developing the Quest standalone headset, so it outsourced the design of the Rift S. The company partnered with Lenovo to help manufacture the Rift S, and Lenovo turned to Sony to license the PlayStation VR (PSVR's) industrial design for the new headset. The Rift S isn’t a carbon copy of the PSVR, but there are many distinct features that carry over from Sony’s headset.

Like the PSVR, the Rift S includes a button on the lower left that lets you to adjust the distance of the visor from your face to make room for eyeglasses. The headset also features a rigid strap with a dial for adjustment found on the rear. The shape of each component is slightly different, but the Rift S’ design looks like it was derived from the PSVR.

Rift S Specifications

Higher Resolution

The Rift S even shares the single-display specification of the PSVR, which means that the new headset can’t offer mechanical IPD (interpupillary distance, the amount of space between your eyes) adjustment. Oculus provides software to calibrate the IPD spacing, but the range of the Rift S is narrower than the original Rift.

The Rift S headset may only have one display, but at least it offers improved visuals. The original Rift offered a combined resolution of 2160 x 1200, whereas the Rift S ups the ante to 2560 x 1440.

However, the original Rift included an AMOLED display, which produced deep blacks and rich color. The new headset includes a fast-switching LCD screen, which limits its ability to reproduce true black levels.  The upshot is that the display in the Rift S features an RGB stripe sub-pixel array, which improves image clarity and reduces screen door effect.

Lower Refresh Rate

Despite having more pixels to drive, the Rift S supports the same entry-level PC requirements as the original Rift. Oculus countered the higher resolution with a lower refresh rate to maintain a similar fill rate.

When Oculus launched the Rift, the company said that a 90 Hz refresh rate was the sweet spot that enabled most people to enjoy VR without motion sickness. These days, the company doesn’t seem as concerned with that figure, and given our experience with the 72 Hz Quest and now the 80 Hz Rift S, we would agree that the need for 90 Hz was grossly overstated in the early days of consumer VR. After spending a week using the Rift S, I can’t tell the difference between 90 Hz and 80 Hz.

Improved Cable

The Rift S features an improved tether cable compared to the original model. At  5m, the new cable is a meter longer than that of the Rift. It's also a thicker gauge, which in theory should be more resistant to twisting. The new cable also features a DisplayPort interface, as opposed to the HDMI interface on the original model. The package includes a DisplayPort-to-Mini-DisplayPort port adapter to enable support for some laptops, but the Rift S does not support laptops with HDMI only.

Headphone-Free Audio

The original Rift included built-in headphones that you could adjust to fit directly over your ears. The Rift S doesn’t include headphones, but it does offer a built-in audio solution.

Like the Go and Quest, the Rift S includes small speakers in the head strap that pump audio towards your ears. The sound quality is acceptable, but unlike with the Quest and Go, the Rift S’ speakers are relatively far from your ears. As a result, everyone around you can hear nearly as clearly as you can.

The headset includes an audio jack on the left side, but the head strap design makes it difficult to wear most gaming headsets.

Oculus offers an earbud accessory, but it doesn’t sell headphones like the ones from the original Rift.

Non-Removable Cushions

The cushions on the Rift S are perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the new headset. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned about VR devices, it’s that sharing them is wholly unpleasant when you can’t clean the cushions easily.

No headset maker gets the cushion part right, but the Rift S really gets it bad. The rear and front cushions on the head strap are made of a soft foam material that isn’t moisture resistant. After a few rounds of an active game, these cushions become a sodden mess that is downright unpleasant.

To make matters worse, the cushions are glued to the head strap, so replacing them with an aftermarket product isn’t possible.

The face cushion isn’t much better than the head strap cushions. The foam feels cheap and doesn’t offer much padding. It’s also glued to the headset and absorbs sweat like a sponge. Luckily, this one may be replaceable because the whole facial interface is removable. Hopefully, aftermarket options will debut soon. 

Tracking From the Inside

The biggest change between the Rift and the Rift S is the tracking system. For the first-generation Rift, Oculus developed tracking technology called Constellation that relied on external cameras that must be placed strategically in your room. The Rift S uses the company’s new Insight tracking system, which derives its position data from cameras that are inside the headset. It’s the same technology that the Quest uses, but the Rift S uses a slightly different camera configuration.

The Quest includes four cameras, whereas the Rift S has five. There are two cameras on the front of the Rift S. Oddly, Oculus chose to partially occlude the front cameras with an overhang on the front face of the headset. Fortunately, the company stuck one camera on the top center of the visor to keep track of your hands when you raise them above your head. The final two cameras are on either side of the device.

Oculus’ Insight tracking is quite robust. The room tracking seemed to work flawlessly as long as there was light in the room, and tracking for the new Oculus Touch controllers was nearly as good. I did notice a few hiccups with the controller tracking, but that seldom occurred, and I wasn’t able to replicate it when it did.

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Setup, Performance and Conclusion

New Oculus Touch Controllers

The Rift S headset comes with a pair of Oculus’ new Touch controllers. The redesigned controllers offer the exact input options found on the original Oculus Touch controllers, but the new model has a slightly different button layout.

You still get a menu / Oculus button, A, B or Y, X buttons and a joystick on each controller, and they each feature a trigger and a grip button. But all the buttons are packed into a tighter package. The new controllers don’t have a thumb rest either, and I found myself inadvertently resting my thumb on the menu button while playing games that don’t use the face buttons, like Beat Saber.

The handle of the new controllers felt more ergonomic in my hand, with a slightly larger grip that has space to rest my pinkie.

The new Touch controllers are powered by replaceable AA batteries, which you install under a magnetic cover on the handle. Unfortunately, the magnets in the new controllers aren’t as strong as those in the first-gen Touch controllers. As a result, it’s easy to accidentally knock the cover loose while playing some games.

Simple Setup

Thanks to the internal camera system, the process to calibrate your play space is much simpler with the Rift S than it is with the previous Rift headset. It usually took several tries to position the cameras correctly with the Rift, and you had to walk around your space while carrying a Touch controller to map out your designated play area.

With the Rift S, the process takes but a few seconds, and it’s so simple that most children could do it without trouble. When you first put the headset on, you’re greeted with a black and white version of your real environment. The software will ask you to confirm the height of your floor. If it’s not accurate, you can set the floor height manually by reaching to the floor with your Touch controller.

To mark your boundaries, you trace your play space with the controller by pointing at it from a distance like you’re holding a laser pointer. Confirm the guardian boundaries, and you’re up and running. The whole process can be completed in less than a minute.

SteamVR Configuration

Like the original Rift, the Rift S is compatible with SteamVR. However, the setup process doesn’t quite map with the new hardware. SteamVR expects external sensors when configuring a room-scale play space, which doesn’t work with the built-in Insight cameras.

The workaround is to configure SteamVR for standing and seated use. The Oculus Guardian boundaries work while playing Steam content.

Performance Results

For our performance tests, we use Nvidia’s FCAT VR, which does not support the Oculus Home platform. As a result, our evaluation tests were performed in Steam VR. Content played through the Rift’s native platform may demonstrate better performance.

The test suite included Space Pirate Trainer, Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope, Arizona Sunshine and Beat Saber. We ran each game at SteamVR’s recommended resolution of 1492 x 1608 (82% render scale)—a curiously low setting for this hardware—which works out to 2,399,136 pixels on screen.

In our recent review of the HP Reverb, we compared the Reverb against the HTC Vive Pro. Both of those headsets have higher resolution displays than the one in the Rift S, but we wanted to compare their performance anyway. (SH) 

We ran the tests again at 2160 x 2328 (172% render scale), which produces 5,028,480 pixels for the GPU to render. That puts it in the range of the Reverb’s 5,070,975 pixels and the Vive Pro’s 5,059,714 pixels. That resolution should also better represent the capabilities of our test system when paired with the Rift S.

Space Pirate Trainer

Space Pirate Trainer is a fast-paced game, which should be a good test for the Rift S’ lower refresh rate display. It also features a dark backdrop, which gives us an excellent example of the black levels that LCD can produce.

Unsurprisingly, our test system had no trouble delivering more than adequate framerate to run SPT. At no point did our system dip below the required 80 fps. The gameplay was smooth, and the slight drop in refresh rate had no negative impact on the perceived performance.

Beat Saber

Beat Saber was probably the biggest test for the Rift S headset because of the accelerated pace of the action. No other game gets your arms moving quite so fast, which puts a strain on not just the tracking system, but also the display in the headset.
Beat Saber’s swords are bright blue and bright red, and the background is mostly dark. The graphics give the display’s refresh and pixel persistence a run for their money.

The low-persistence display in the Rift S handles Beat Saber quite nicely, although it's possible the lower refresh rate may have affected my performance at the higher difficulty levels. I can’t tell if it was a tracking problem or a display latency issue, but I found myself consistently missing notes when playing with Oculus’ new headset that I don’t usually have trouble with while playing with my Vive.

Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope

Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope is the only game in the lineup that didn’t perform as we would have expected. Despite achieving unconstrained framerates far above the necessary 80 FPS required to drive the display, our FCAT results returned numbers that averaged in the high 70s.

Inside the headset, the framerate dips weren’t noticeable, but the fact remains that there was some performance issue going on in the background. This game likely requires an update with some optimizations from the developer to run perfectly on the new Rift S, but the performance we observed  should be sufficient for most people.

Arizona Sunshine

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Arizona Sunshine on the Rift S also run exceptionally well on our RTX 2080. With the headset configured for 1492 x 1608, we observed a framerate in the the 220-fps range.

With the resolution boosted to 172%, the system still cranked out more than 130 fps. The delivered framerate never dipped below 80 fps throughout our tests.

Conclusion

The existence of the Oculus Rift S confounds me. In some ways, it’s a superior product to the original Rift headset. It’s easier to configure, doesn’t require strategically placed tracking sensors, and it doesn’t produce the dreaded godrays that plagued the first version. However, in some ways the Rift S is a step backwards from the old design.

The first time I laid eyes on the Oculus Rift CV1, I was immediately impressed with the industrial design. The cloth outer shell was something I had never considered before, but it gave the Rift an elegant appearance. Oculus put a lot of effort into picking the perfect materials for the Rift and integrating the right feature set to give the device the legs it needed to succeed in the market.

The company also engineered several mechanisms that made using the Rift a great experience. The headset included a clever lens adjustment mechanism that allowed you to dial the device in for your specific interpupillary distance. It also included a slick spring-loaded head strap system that facilitated removal of the device readjusting the straps. And Oculus was ahead of the curve with integrated headphones to eliminate the need to put another device on your head to enjoy VR gaming.

The Rift S doesn’t incorporate the best features of the original Rift. Instead of building on the innovative choices it made the first time around, Oculus chose to throw the good out with the bad and start over again. And I’m having a really hard time understanding why. Oculus had all the makings of a great Rift successor in the Quest, but it chose to hand the reigns to Lenovo while it worked on building the Quest.

The Rift S isn’t a bad headset. In fact, there is a lot to like about it. But the original Rift set a high bar and the new headset doesn’t move it any higher. If you’re shopping for your first VR headset, the Rift S is worth your consideration. But if you already own a Rift or a Vive, there's no need to consider upgrading to this newest model from Oculus.

Image Credits: Tom's Hardware

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Oculus Quest Review

The Oculus Quest could be the device that turns the VR market around and attracts the masses. It’s easy to use, simple to setup, performs well and is reasonably priced. It’s basically a game console built into a headset, and it’s much better than what you’re probably expecting.

Oculus revealed the Quest, a $399 standalone 6-degrees of freedom VR headset, last fall at Oculus Connect 5. After several years of anticipation, it appeared that what Oculus was cooking up would have a significant impact on the VR industry. And now that I've spent a week with Quest, I can firmly say this release marks a pivotal moment in the history of the VR industry. Quest is going to change the game.

Oculus is taking pre-orders for the Quest now, with shipping taking place on May 21. If the Quest doesn’t jump-start VR adoption, we may be forced to give the VR doomsayers a bit more credit. This headset checks all the right boxes and leaves very few desirable features off the table. If this can't get the market to the billion VR users that Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg envisioned when he spent $2 billion to purchase the Oculus brand, I don't know if anything can.

Oculus Quest VR Headset Specs

A Long Time Coming

Oculus has been building towards a standalone, un-tethered VR solution for a long time. The company first revealed Project Santa Cruz in October 2016 at Oculus Connect 3. Santa Cruz was a prototype concept of a Rift with a PC built onto the back. In October 2017 at Oculus Connect 4, Oculus gave us a glimpse of a near-production-ready version of Project Santa Cruz, which would eventually evolve into Quest.

Quest isn’t Oculus’s first attempt at a standalone VR headset. Last year, the company released the Oculus Go. The headset supports basic 3-degrees of freedom (DoF) tracking. It superseded the Gear VR platform but didn’t raise the bar for VR devices very high. As an entry-level device meant to introduce people to VR, Oculus Go does a great job. But its limited tracking function ultimately cripples its capacity to deliver the full experience that the PC-connected Oculus Rift offers.

The Quest bridges the gap between the Go and the Rift and offers full room-scale (or warehouse-scale) 6-DoF movement in a tether-free, standalone package.

Powered By Snapdragon--Circa 2017

Oculus Quest gets its processing power from a Snapdragon 835 SoC, which would have been cutting-edge when Oculus started working with the platform in 2016. But it’s a surprising move for Q2 2019, when there are far more powerful chips in Qualcomm’s catalog. Still, developers have managed to squeeze impressive performance out of the mature mobile chipset (more on that later).

All-Star Feature List, Top-Notch Fit and Finish

The Oculus Quest might be the best-looking VR headset that I’ve ever laid hands on. It looks and feels like a high-quality product and something you would want to own. All the materials are well-refined, and the fit and finish are fantastic. It’s clear Oculus has learned a thing or two about headset design over the years. The new device improves on the looks of both the Rift and Go.

Like the Rift, the Quest features a fabric-wrapped exterior, which gives it an elegant look (at least when it’s new). The Rift introduced the fabric exterior for allowing infrared light to pass through it, but the Quest does not use infrared lights or external sensors for its tracking system, so the fabric here is for aesthetic purposes. However, it may facilitate heat dissipation for all the internal components. While the Go has a metal faceplate that acts as a heatsink to keep the parts chilled, the Quest has a plastic faceplate with no visible ventilation holes.

The Quest also has the best features of the Go headset, including the head strap-based speaker system and the removable / washable memory foam face cushion.

Superior Visuals

The Oculus Quest headset runs off a less-powerful computing platform than the Rift, but that didn’t stop Oculus from improving display hardware in the new headset. The Oculus Quest features dual 1440x1600 displays, which is a significant improvement over the Rift’s 1080x1200 per-eye resolution.

To compensate for the lower computing power and higher resolution, Oculus opted for a lower refresh rate to lower the performance requirements.

The Rift features 90Hz displays, and at launch, Oculus claimed that 90Hz was the minimum requirement to prevent motion sickness. Since then, the company has loosened its stance on that metric. The two panels in the Quest also refresh 72 times per second, as does the Go, and the upcoming Oculus Rift S is supposed will feature 80Hz.

Even still, the Quest headset demands a much higher pixel fill rate. To drive the Rift, your GPU must deliver 233,280,000 pixels per second, whereas the Quest’s Snapdragon SoC needs to contend with 331,776,000 pixels per second. It’s a miracle that this mobile chipset can handle that kind of workload, but it pulls it off with flying colors.

The Quest also includes a mechanical IPD adjustment system, which enables you to dial the lenses in to match the distance between your pupils. This is a notable feature because the Rift S will use software IPD adjustment, so the Quest has a leg up here.

Best of all, the Quest boasts the impressive Fresnel lenses that Oculus developed for the Go, which help to minimize the dreaded godray image distortion that plagues the 1st-generation Rift.

Insight Tracking System

In addition to driving the graphics, the Qualcomm processor must also simultaneously calculate the headset and controllers’ positions.

To break the headset free of the host computer, Oculus created the Insight tracking system for the Quest. It uses headset-based cameras to map the surrounding environment. The Quest uses four cameras with fish-eye lenses to keep track of movements. Two cameras are mounted on the upper corners facing outwards and slightly to the rear. The other two cameras are on the bottom edge, facing forward and down to keep track of the floor and lower half of the space.

This is quite different from the Rift's external sensor-based tracking solution called Constellation, which tracks infrared patterns on the headset with cameras that sit on your desk. The cameras demand a high level of USB bandwidth and sensors that you must wire to a computer.

New Touch Controllers

The Insight cameras are also used to monitor the movement of your Touch controllers. The new controllers include all the same buttons in more or less the same layout as the original Touch controllers. However, Oculus moved the halo with the tracking LEDs to the top of the controllers so the headset-based cameras can see them with less occlusion.

When the controllers are visible to the cameras, the tracking fidelity is as good as you get with the Rift. And when you reach beyond the view of the cameras, Oculus uses software and the gyro information to estimate your controllers' position. Unlike the Windows Mixed Reality controllers, which don’t track well outside of the camera range, the new Touch controllers work well beyond the camera’s field of view.

The new Touch controllers are quite a lot like the old controllers, but with improved ergonomics. The company made the handles slightly thicker, which is a change that I welcome. The original controllers were a bit too small, and my hands always cramp while using them. The new shape is much more comfortable for me.

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Let's Go on a Quest

Convenient, but not as Comfortable

The head strap on the Quest is like the Rift with spring-loaded retention arms that allow you to keep the straps in place when you remove the headset. Quest also incorporates semi-rigid, rubber-like material for the head strap, which is flexible enough to squeeze into a small bag and sturdy enough to balance the weight of the visor. Oculus redesigned the rear of the strap to fit people with large heads, but that seems to have come with a compromise on comfort. The strap on the Rift is much more comfortable on my head.

Companion App Configuration

Before you can play games on the Quest, you must configure the device. This includes pairing the headset to your smartphone, connecting it to your local wireless network and calibrating your play space for safe operation.

When you first pull the headset out of the box, it should have a charge on the battery, but Oculus recommends that you give it a full charge before you do anything with it. It’s also a good idea to keep the headset plugged-in while you run the initial setup because there will be firmware updates to download before you can use it.

Next, you install the Oculus mobile app on your smartphone. It's available on the Apple App and Google Play stores. Once you have the app running, open the settings tab and select Pair New Device. If the headset is within proximity, you should see it listed in the app. Bluetooth must be on to connect to the headset. Look through the lenses on the Quest to retrieve the pairing code.

Once the headset is paired to your phone, you can enter your Wi-Fi password to connect the headset to the internet. If the headset requires updates, you'll be prompted to install them.

The companion app lets you make changes to the headset’s settings, including adjusting power setting and switching the headset to developer mode. From here, you can also change the language or perform a factory reset on the device.

Additionally, the companion app also is where you buy and install content from the Oculus Store. You can select content from the store and initiate the download and install it directly from your phone. As long as the headset is within range of the Bluetooth radio, it should retrieve the software from the store.

Map Your Guardian Boundary

One of the most significant advantages of the Quest headset is its easy configuration process. Unlike the Rift, which requires precise placement of multiple tracking cameras and usually numerous attempts at tracing your space to get it right, the Quest has a straightforward process.

When you first put the headset on in a new environment, instead of a virtual world you’ll be presented with a black-and-white view of your real environment, fed to you through the four cameras on the front of the headset. This view has depth, unlike the monochromatic view that you get with the HTC Vive’s single camera. However, the fisheye lenses on the Quest’s cameras somewhat obscure the perspective, so objects appeared unnaturally distant when I reached for them.

If the headset doesn’t recognize the space, it will ask you to configure the Guardian barriers. First, you must confirm the floor height. If it appears off, select the reset button and reach to the floor with one of your controllers.

Once the floor height is assigned, you can proceed to trace the safe play space. With the Rift, you would carry the controller around the edge of your play area. With the Quest, you stand in the center and point at the edge of your floor space to map the safe zone. And that’s it! The process took me less than five minutes to complete.

The Quest can store up to five Guardian spaces, so you can move the headset between locations without re-calibrating it every time. I tried two spots in my home, and the headset remembered each space and where the Guardian barrier should be. All you need to do is scan the area with the headset to enable it to detect the topology of the room, and the Guardian configuration loads.

Unified Home Experience

Last year, Oculus rolled out Oculus Core 2.0, which featured a redesigned Oculus Home environment with a new storefront, library and settings console. The Oculus Quest leverages the same software environment, so anyone familiar with the Rift platform should feel right at home in the Quest environment.

Rift Games on Mobile

Oculus said that by the time the Quest ships in the third week of May, there should be 50 titles to enjoy. These include familiar and popular titles like Superhot VR, Space Pirate Trainer, Beat Saber and Dead and Buried II. I tried out all four of these titles on the Quest and was pleasantly surprised by how similar they are to their PC counterparts.

The differences between the two versions of Superhot VR and Beat Saber are so minute that they are nearly imperceptible. Both games run smoothly, and I did not notice any dips in the frame rate even when I moved around rapidly in Superhot VR or swung my arms violently with a fast-paced song in Beat Saber.

Space Pirate Trainer is one of my favorite VR games, and I’ve played hours of it on all available platforms. I’m delighted to say that Space Pirate Trainer on Quest is the same game I’ve become accustomed to on all VR platforms. Game studio I-illusions had to reduce the texture resolution to keep the performance up to par, but the game is otherwise identical to the original version.

Creed: Rise to Glory is also virtually the same game as the desktop variant. The texture resolution appeared to be reduced, and it may lack a few shaders to liven the graphics, but the graphics trade-off was well worth the freedom to move around unrestricted by cables.

Up to 3 Hours of Runtime

The Oculus Quest features an internal Lithium-Ion battery pack that cannot be removed, so you won’t be able to keep extra charged batteries on hand. Oculus hasn't disclosed the mAh rating of the battery, but said you could expect between 2-3 hours of use depending on what you’re doing. Room-scale gaming will be on the lower end of that estimate,  while watching 360-degree videos or using the virtual theater to watch 2D videos should get you closer to three hours of use.

A full charge should take roughly two hours. You can also use the headset while it is plugged into a charger for extended play.

Is That a VirtualLink Port?

A USB Type-C charge port is located on the left side on the visor, and Oculus includes a 10-foot charging cable in the box, which should give you plenty of slack if you need to plug in while you play. The extra long cable makes us wonder if Oculus has plans to enable PC tethering at some point.

The USB Type-C interface could eventually enable you to plug your Quest into PCs equipped with a VirtualLink port. Oculus has not confirmed plans for such a feature. Although, in March, Oculus VR CTO John Carmack tweeted “Sorry, no promises, but I hope so!” in response to a question about PC-tethering, so it’s not entirely off the table.

Conclusion

I didn’t know what to expect from the Oculus Quest. Ever since the first time I tried a room-scale VR system, I knew one day we’d see standalone devices with the same capabilities, and that would be my ideal VR system. When I heard of the Quest, I hoped it would be good, but until I put one through its paces, I had no idea how good it would be.

I have the luxury of having access to many premium VR headsets. Sitting next to me as I type this is one of every Oculus device, my pick of Vive headsets and the Pimax 5K Plus. But now that I have a Quest at my disposal, I don’t think those devices will see much use anymore. It’s rare for me to identify something as a favorite definitively, but I can’t shake the thought that Quest is currently my favorite VR headset. I wasn’t anticipating it would be this good.

Put simply, the Quest captures everything good about room-scale VR, and it does away with everything annoying and frustrating about PC-connected VR systems by giving you everything in a standalone package. And surprisingly, Oculus made very few compromises with the Quest system.

If you’re OK with reduced texture resolution compared to a PC-based VR system—and let’s face it, millions of console gamers are—the Oculus Quest delivers everything most people need in a VR system. This is how you capture the masses. That’s how you change the game.

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Look out, HTC and Oculus. Valve, the company behind Steam, is releasing its own VR hardware. At a press event, I played several games and demos on Valve’s new Index headset and controllers ($499 / £459 to start, $999 / £919 in full), that showcased the device’s powerful graphics and real-time finger tracking in a room-scale setting. Overall, the experience was an exciting taste of carefree hand and finger movements in VR and proof that Valve is already a formidable player in the VR hardware space.

It’s no surprise that Valve can make a good VR headset, as it already helped develop the HTC Vive. The Index is Valve’s attempt to build a more direct relationship with its customers than its current focus on PC gaming development and distribution. The Index targets experienced, existing VR users who want more from this generation of VR, including longer play times, better input and higher fidelity.

Display

The Valve uses two 1440x1600 panels, matching the output of the HTC Vive Pro and topping the Vive, Oculus Rift and its upcoming replacement, the Rift S.

Like the HP Reverb, the Valve opted for LCD panels over OLED. During the press event, Valve said LCD offers 50% more subpixels than OLED, aiding text legibility and fidelity in scenes with a lot of color. LCD also lends for smaller gaps between individual pixels and a greater fill factor, which means less of that screen door effect. According to Valve, the Index has a 50% fill factor, compared to OLED’s 16%.

To fight the nauseating effect of the world looking blurry when you turn your head in VR, the Index uses low-persistence displays. Tracking is conducted through Valve’s Lighthouse Tracking technology, which basically fills the room with light you can’t see to create a reference point for the headset and controllers. Alongside the resolution, this is all supposed to contribute to the image’s sharpness.

In terms of field of view (FOV), Valve said the Index offers a 20-degree greater FOV compared to the “typical” Vive experience, thanks to some neat tricks.

Those lamenting the Rift S’ lack of a physical IPD adjustment (for changing the space between the two panels to match the distance between your pupils) will appreciate the IPD sliding knob on the bottom of the Index that prompts an on-screen display of your IPD, showing you the distance in millimeters as you adjust.

There’s also a knob on the right side of the headset that you can turn to move the eye tubes closer or farther away from your eyes. Moving it 1 centimeter alters the FOV by 30 degrees. In that way, Valve claims that every user can experience the Index’s full FOV. When I watched a movie and trailer on YouTube, I felt that my full FOV was filled, from the wide screen filling in my front views and the virtual seats taking care of the peripherals. However, I would appreciate an on-screen display to help with fine-tuning like there is with the IPD.

Outside-In Tracking

The Index uses outside-in tracking and therefore requires external base stations. You can use up to four, for a seated 10x10 meter play space. Unlike the Rift’s three required base stations, these don’t need to connect to the PC via USB. However, the Index HMD and controllers are also compatible with Vive base stations.

With inside-out tracking coming in the Rift S and Reverb and standalone headsets like the Oculus Go and upcoming Oculus Quest and HTC Vive Cosmos, it’s very surprising to see Valve come out with a headset reliant on intrusive base stations. But the company explained that it wants to use the highest-quality tracking in order to drive fidelity. And, it’s clear Valve is marketing Index to VR enthusiasts seeking the most premium-grade VR system, not newcomers.

As for using the Index’s two cameras for eventual inside-out tracking, a Valve rep said “we can’t predict the future.” For now, the cameras will be reserved for computer vision experiences.

Audio

Audio is covered by two nearfield off-ear speakers that don’t make contact with your ears, but instead hover above them. The idea is that they put audio into your environment and let your ears react for a more natural sound.

The speakers definitely surrounded me in noise, to the point where I couldn’t hear the person standing next to me asking questions. In a Boneworks demo, I particularly appreciated the surround-sound like feeling of the audio, which played dramatic music when I was cornered, making things all the more intense and nerve-wracking and ultimately causing my death. I also noticed that I could hear the music from someone playing Beat Saber about 5 feet away.

You can push the speakers forward and backward to align perfectly with your ear or to open your ears to your real environment. In testing, I didn’t feel any ear pain or discomfort.

Comfort and Customization

The Index uses antimicrobial fabric, has a back knob for making the headset tighter or looser and comes with an adapter for people with smaller heads.

In a fun twist for modders, the Index HMD has a surprising amount of customization possibilities. The front faceplate is removable and magnetic, so Valve is expecting cool print options from third parties and individual customization.

When you take off the faceplate, you’ll find what Valve is unfortunately calling the “frunk.” Here, users can access a USB 3.0 port with connectivity back to the host PC. Valve will make the CAD files for the full headset and the expansions ports available so third-parties can use them to make accessories.

Index Controllers

People following VR may better know the Index controllers under their former development name, Knuckles. Valve is finally releasing its VR controllers with the Index headset, or separately for $279 / £259 per pair. The controllers are compatible with any Steam game and headsets using SteamVR tracking.

Each controller uses the same antimicrobial fabric as the handset and has 87 sensors, including optical ones for detecting the location, motion sensors for understanding how it’s moving through space, capacitive sensors to read the location of your fingers and thumbs and force sensors for reading pressure. The latter worked well in a demo where a robot asked me to give it a very firm handshake.

Real-time finger tracking means you can place your hands in any position, like a peace sign or fist, and it’ll translate in VR simultaneously. Two different adjustment straps keep the controller secured to your hand, so you can do open-hand movements like throwing.

Each controller has a combination trackpad / button with haptic feedback and some sensors of its own. The button placement is intuitive; by the end of the first demo, I felt like I could find each input without removing the headset.

What I did struggle with was getting the controller to consistently read all 10 of my fingers. It seemed to be very specific to the adjustment of the two straps. Without the bottom strap pulled tight enough, my middle, ring and pinky fingers weren’t squeezing the controllers tightly enough, and the game would think my fingers were lifted.

Without getting the adjustment for accommodating different hand / finger sizes perfect, my hands were too high or low, and the game would think my pinky was my ring finger. This made virtual games of rock paper scissors, or the ability to pick up, hold a key and turn it in a lock, or the dream of making a VR peace sign a struggle.

Ultimately, with everything perfect, the finger tracking worked pretty well. But that implies the controllers were strapped on pretty firmly. We’ll have to wait until our full review to see what that means for hours of playtime.

Gaming

The Index HMD and controllers are compatible with the entire Steam library. I tried out several demos that were heavily reliant on hands, including No Man’s Sky, Boneworks and Vacation Simulator, and also watched 2D content on the Index. It delivered all content smoothly without any glaring mudra or screen doors. I very rarely noticed any aliasing, and this only occurred in very white or bright scenes or in the periphery.

The Index supports a 120 Hz refresh rate but is backwards compatible with 90 Hz and can even go up to 144 Hz as an experimental feature. Impressively, some of the demos I saw were run at 144 Hz, yet, with no motion blur I couldn’t independently tell the difference between the 90, 120 and 144 Hz demos. A spokesperson said 144 Hz works with some games with a GeForce GTX 980 graphics card.

No Man’s Sky showed off the brilliant display capability of the Index’s 4.6 million pixels, with fantastic reds, oranges and yellows filling my FOV. When I jet-speeded through space or leaped around rapidly I was pleased by the Index’s ability to keep up. The controllers were great for shooting at rocks I wanted to mine, while finger tracking was an amazing asset for using my hands to pull levers and push buttons to fly my spaceship.

Boneworks really showed off the dexterity and control enabled by having full hand and finger control in VR. I was able to grab and throw items; although, it took a few tries for me to be able to do it fluidly. I also appreciated that I never had to worry about making sure I squeezed hard enough to hold a weapon or swing it at an opponent.

The controllers charge via USB-C and reportedly offer over seven hours of battery life with a 1,100 mAH capacity Li-Ion polymer battery.

Valve Index Price

Valve will start taking pre-orders for its HMD and controllers on May 1 for the U.S. and EU. Products will ship by the end of June. Since both offerings are compatible with SteamVR base stations 1.0 and 2.0, it’s selling its hardware in various packages.

What About HTC?

Tom’s Hardware asked Valve if it’d still be working with HTC to develop hardware, and a spokesperson said “Valve continues to collaborate with HTC and a growing set of SteamVR hardware partners. We’re excited for their future products and our future collaboration.”

Still, it’s clear that Valve is seeking to take a piece of the VR pie from HTC with convenient compatibility with the same hardware Vive users already own, as well as Oculus.

Bottom Line

Off the bat, Valve enters the HMD arena with a few advantages. For one, it helped develop the already-popular HTC Vive. Plus, it’s releasing the Index alongside its highly anticipated controllers. Then there’s the obvious. Steam already has its hands all over the PC gaming market. In fact, it will release its first flagship VR game this year, which will be compatible with any headset using Steam.

Valve is putting out a premium system, banking on VR gamers wanting more out of their setups. Its finger tracking is certainly a fascinating grab, and its display seems to hit all the sweet spots for comfortable gaming.

At $999 for a full set, Valve is asking a lot, especially for those coming from the Oculus side. And with the need for base stations, Valve is cutting its potential market even further, especially as more inside-out tracking and standalone HMDs come out at lower prices. On the other hand, it has Vive-like room-scale tracking, and its controllers are the best finger tracking innovation we’ve seen since trying out the $6,000 XTAL headset.

A Vive Pro set is just $100 more than the Index's kit for enterprise-grade VR. The Index might woo gamers seeking that level of experience, while more conservative and new VR users will certainly lean more toward something like the $399 Rift S or Quest. 

It’ll be up to Valve to prove to VR gamers that they require a system of this caliber and need to spend at least $499 more than they already did on their current VR setup to do so.

Photo Credits: Tom’s Hardware

Oculus today announced a new VR headset, the Rift S. With a higher resolution display, integrated audio and other features, it's meant to improve on replace the original Rift while only raising the price by $50.

This isn't Oculus' first Rift followup--the company announced the Oculus Go in 2017 and revealed the Oculus Quest in 2018--but it's the first to follow in the Rift's footsteps by relying on a PC instead of a smartphone, like the Go, or standalone VR experience, like the Quest.

Rift S will rely on some of the tech introduced with the Go and Quest. UploadVR reported that the headset uses the same 2560x1440 LCD panel as the Go, which improves on the Rift by offering 40 percent more pixels with three subpixels each instead of two.

The new headset will also use the same lens technology as the Go and the Oculus Insight inside-out tracking, which Oculus announced alongside the Quest in September. However, the Rift S will use five cameras instead of the Quest's four. The controllers are also similar to Oculus Touch, but they've been redesigned to work in tandem with Insight. 

The Rift S also features a new head strap, integrated audio and Passthrough+ technology that Oculus said "utilizes core Oculus runtime advancements, including ASW, to produce a comfortable experience with minimal depth disparity or performance impact."

The Rift S was co-developed with Lenovo, by taking feedback from the company's use of VR and augmented reality and gathering insight from the Lenovo Legion gaming community. Oculus said Lenovo helped design the headset "for increased comfort, better weight distribution and improved light blocking." It's also supposed to offer "a simple, single-cable system for a clutter-free experience," so long as you don't use the headphone jack.

The Rift S will be available sometime this spring--just like Quest--with a $399 price tag. That compares well to the original Rift, which settled at $349 after a series of price cuts. (Just remember that you'll also have to supply the gaming PC, of course.)

More information about the headset and the option to receive an email alert when it's available is on Oculus' website.

Rift S' system requirements are below/ You can also download the company's compatibility tool to see if your system is ready to go.

Oculus Rift S System Requirements

Want to comment on this story? Let us know what you think in the Tom's Hardware Forums.

SteelSeries today launched a new gaming controller, the Stratus Duo, boasting dual wireless standards for cross-platform compatibility across PC, virtual reality (VR) and more. 

The Stratus Duo features both Bluetooth 4.1 and 2.4GHz connections, which SteelSeries claims will allow for direct plug-and-play support with Windows, Android, Oculus Go and Samsung Gear VR over Bluetooth. For devices without Bluetooth, the included USB wireless adapter will enable use of the 2.4GHz connection. A single button on the controller allows users to swap between the two connections. Moreover, you can also charge and play over a wired connection, though the USB cable is still micro-USB, not Type-C, unfortunately. SteelSeries hasn't stated the capacity of the on-board battery but said it'll last over 20 hours.

The Stratus Duo’s layout seems very similar to a standard Xbox controller, albeit without the offset analog joysticks. The joysticks feature the new Hall Effect magnetic sensors which SteelSeries say are more durable and accurate, with minimal deadzone, compared to the older Stratus XL. The controller will also be compatible with the new SmartGrip accessory, a phone mount for SteelSeries controllers.

The SteelSeries Stratus Duo controller sells for $59.99 on the SteelSeries website.

SteelSeries Stratus Duo Controller Specs

If you've been waiting for Virtual Reality headsets to drop in price, this could be your lucky week. Because of the holiday shopping season, you can save a lot of money on popular VR hardware and software.

Save $100 to 200 on the Best VR Headset Available

HTC’s Vive Pro is a pricey device, but if you want the best VR headset available today, the Vive Pro is the clear winner with its dual 1440 x 1600 pixel displays, mechanical head strap, integrated headphones and Valve’s second-generation tracking system.

But, for many, the headset alone will not be enough. Amazon has the Vive Pro VR System Kit for $1,385.01, a $15 savings ; that comes with the headset, two controllers and two Steam VR 2.0 base stations.

• Vive Pro VR System Kit for $1,385.01 ($15 off)

Oculus Games on Sale, too

While its headset deals seem to be over, Oculus also has some great deals on content. The company is currently running the “Fall into Fun” sale, which features nearly 50 titles with discounts ranging from 16% to 80% off. Now’s your chance to grab Arizona Sunshine or Skyworld for 50% off or save 39% on Seeking Dawn.

PlayStation VR From $199

Sony just celebrated two years with the PlayStation VR on the market and the company is still investing heavily in the PSVR platform. With top VR titles such as Skyrim VR, Doom VFR, Creed: Rise to Glory, Firewall Zero Hour and Beat Saber, available on the platform, and Borderlands 2 VR coming next month, Sony’s PlayStation VR is an excellent option for a home VR system.

You can pick up a full bundle, which includes the headset, the camera, Creed: Rise to Glory, Superhot VR, and two Move motion controllers for $349.99.

You can also get PS4 consoles for as little as $199, so even if you haven’t invested in Sony’s current gaming platform, you can get yourself started for under $400, which is an incredibly compelling price for a complete virtual reality platform.

• PSVR Full Bundle for $349.99 (reg $427)

TPCast Wireless Kits On Sale

TPCast is offering sale prices on both its Vive and Ocurlus Rift wireless adapters. The Vive adapter is $259, reduced from $299 while the Oculus adapter now goes for $299, down from $319.

TPCast’s offer should be of particular interest to Vive owners with Ryzen-based PCs because HTC just announced that its wireless solution isn’t fully compatible with AMD’s platform. 

On Friday, Red Dead Redemption 2 launched on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, leaving PC gamers out in the cold while console players run through adventures in the wild, wild west. But some code in the game's companion app, as first reported by RockstarIntel, has references to a PC version.

The code hints at features including virtual reality support for the Oculus Rift, as well as PC-specific settings like frame limiters, reflection and anti-aliasing, motion blur and auto-connecting to PC services through the companion app.

They include:
PARAM_FrameLimit
PARAM_Oculus
PARAM_fxaa

Of course, none of this guarantees that the adventures of the Van der Linde gang will come to the PC. These could be vestiges of PC development that were later abandoned or simply for some sort of internal testing. But while the original Red Dead Redemption never came to PC, Rockstar's other games have come in time. Grand Theft Auto V, for instance, came out on PC a little over a year-and-a-half after the console versions. However, we're still waiting for Red Dead Online to launch on the systems that can already play the game.

If you have thoughts on an eventual PC release of the game, let us know in the comments below.

People browse the web on practically every device they own. Mozilla knows that as well as every other browser maker, which is why Firefox is available for PC, mobile devices and, as of today, the Viveport, Oculus and Daydream platforms via the new Firefox Reality browser.

Firefox Reality is based off the Firefox Quantum core Mozilla developed for mobile devices. The organization said this allows its browser to perform well on VR, AR and mixed reality devices because it doesn't expect the full power of a connected PC to be devoted to browsing the web. Firefox Reality also features private browsing, just like other versions of Firefox, if you don't want someone knowing what you're up to in VR.

Mozilla said the rest of the browser was designed with VR, AR, and mixed reality headsets in mind. Firefox Reality windows are presented on top of a cutesy woodland background and support for voice search means you won't have to use the on-screen keyboard too much (though it's still an option when you're, ahem, browsing in private).

That's about the extent of Firefox Reality's current VR, AR, or mixed reality-specific features. The browser's also missing some basic tools, like bookmarks and Firefox Account support, but Mozilla said it plans to release those features and 360-degree video support "in the coming months." The organization is also calling for immersive content creators to share what they're working on to see if they can be promoted in the browser.

Those promotions could hint at Mozilla's real plans for Firefox Reality. The organization said it's "working with creators around the world to bring an amazing collection of games, videos, environments and experiences that can be accessed directly from the home screen." Offering easy access to those immersive experiences could allow Firefox Reality and Mozilla to make the web a more viable platform for that kind of content.

Currently, developing for a specific platform is a lot like releasing something on a video game console. Large developers can probably afford to develop their product for multiple platforms, but smaller outfits will likely have to focus on a single platform. This creates a disparity in content that the web (as well as standards like OpenXR) could fix. 

This is just version 1.0 of the browser; Mozilla said that version 1.1 is "right around the corner." People who want to contribute to the project can do so via GitHub or the organization's support website. In the meantime, Mozilla will continue to court devs so it can bring more immersive experiences to the web.

You can download Firefox Reality from the Oculus Store, Play Store and Viveport store by searching for "Firefox Reality."

Big lawsuits between big companies often take years to play out, and Zenimax’s copyright infringement case against Facebook is one of those cases. On May 22, 2014, Zenimax filed a lawsuit against Oculus VR and its parent company, Facebook, Inc. for “unlawful exploitation of intellectual property,” which alleged that Oculus stole a piece of computer code that was integral in making the Rift headset function. Oculus issued a response the following month and declared that “there is not a line of ZeniMax code or any of its technology in any Oculus VR product."

In early 2017, the courts finally heard the arguments of both companies, and a jury sided with Zenimax. The company was seeking $4 billion in damages; the jury awarded it $200 million for breach of contract and $50 million for copyright infringement. The jury also awarded $250 million in damages, of which Palmer Luckey was on the hook for $50 million, and Brendan Iribe was required to pay $150 million.

Following Zenimax’s copyright win, the company went straight for the jugular by seeking to bar Oculus from selling the Rift and Gear VR headsets. Fortunately for Oculus, that idea was shot down by the courts. That wasn't the end of this legal battle, however, and Bloomberg reported that U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade in Dallas heard the case on Wednesday. Zenimax argued that “a permanent injunction is the only way to stop” Oculus’ copyright infringement. The judge agreed with Oculus that a sales ban would “place an unfair hardship.”

Judge Kinkeade also slashed the financial penalties in half. Facebook is still on the hook for $250 million for breach of contract and copyright infringement, plus $54 million for a year and a half of interest. Luckey and Iribe can let out a sigh of relief, though, because Kinkeade threw the $250 million in damages out the window.

Facebook is understandably pleased with the outcome, but the company isn’t giving up the fight. Bloomberg reported that Facebook VP and deputy counsel Paul Grewal indicated that the company would be “appealing the remaining claims.” Zenimax isn’t ready to back down either. The company announced that it would consider its next move, but also said it's pleased that the copyright infringement was upheld.

The team at Tom's Hardware is here to help you make the best computer hardware purchase decisions and squeeze every last drop of power out of your rig. We want to know what you use all those precious processor cycles for, which is why we've started a new series: Power User Profiles. In the first of our Power User Profile series, we're talking to a VR developer about what he uses to make his magic.

Hamburg, Germany based VR/AR Art director Vladimir Ilic (VRHUMAN on our forums) has been in the VR scene for a while, recently making waves on Twitter with his #VREVERYDAY Project. We recently reached out to Vlad to learn more about his work, his favorite apps, and the hardware inside his rig.

1. Tell us a little about your background and what you do.

My name is Vladimir Ilic (VRHUMAN) and I´m a VR/AR Art Director based in Hamburg, Germany. I’ve done some cool VR projects with companies like Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, Facebook, Oculus, and Samsung.

I started my design career in Graphics, Industrial and Transportation Design where I created everything from German cars, digital user interfaces and print productions like the IKEA catalogue.

For a few years now, I've been focusing all my creative energy on VR/AR where I experiment and expand on the current state of the technology.

Working in VR/AR design and art direction demands an open mind and a hunger to learn and improve. That’s why I started projects like the Artifacts Piano Bar and #VREVERYDAY where I force myself out of my comfort zone to improve my skill set and curiosity on a daily basis with experiments in the context of VR.

2. What Kind of Computer do you use for work?

I like my workspace to be minimalistic without much clutter or distraction. It helps me to stay focused on my work and stay organized.

Working in a cutting-edge field like VR demands an insane amount of computing power from almost every component in my system.

I custom built my Windows PC with an all-around setup focused on 3D modeling, rendering, gaming and game development.

Here are some specs:

VR Hardware powered by the system:

My go-to VR HMD is the Oculus Rift with touch controllers and dual Sensor Setup! The Oculus Rift has great product design, utilizing different materials and haptics within a small form factor. There are some things I would want to improve, and I can´t wait to try the Santa Cruz version which addresses some of my issues. I also use the HTC Vive and Samsung Odyssey.

3. What are the most demanding tasks you perform?

For my Workstation:

Rendering: My current workflow for rendering animations and stills involves Cinema4D from Maxon and Otoy´s Octane GPU renderer. There is never enough GPU!

Development: Most of my interactive VR work happens inside Unity3D which gives me all the tools to create interesting narratives.

I´m currently focused on High-End VR (Oculus Rift, HTC Vive) which demands a lot from every component in the system. As mobile VR gets more accessible (Oculus Go just came out) I plan on experimenting more with that sector.

3D Work: I have a background in "traditional" 3D modeling which I still to a lot. My software of choice for this task is Maxon´s Cinema4D which offers a fantastic UI and a lot of exciting functions which help me in my creative VR process without interrupting creative flow.

For me:

Staying organized

4. What apps do you run?

Cinema4D for rendering, 3D modeling, and animation. Substance Painter for texturing designs and assets. AMD ProRender and Otoy´s Octane for rendering. Unity 3D for development. Brave Browser for a productive internet experience. Nvidia Shadowplay for recording video. Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer for editing images and creating vector graphics. Spotify for Jazz and background noises.

Oculus Home and Steam for gaming and VR creation apps like Oculus Medium, Masterpiece VR and Tilt Brush. They are all fantastic applications but there is a disconnect when creating worlds and assets on a 2D screen and going back and forth to prototype the look in VR.

I´m dreaming of a universal VR ecosystem where I can perform most design related tasks inside VR with seamless transitions between them. Modeling, sculpting in one frame,  and grabbing the model and throwing it into a texturing toll in another frame, where I also have all the tools to perform AI-guided UV unwrapping and context to finish the artwork.

5. Which of those apps or tasks would choke a mainstream computer?

Definitely everything VR related like the creation apps and games. The current state of creating art and designs in VR comes with tradeoffs. Polycount is hard to keep in check when intuitive workflows and a great user experience must be at top priority. There are built in resolution settings in most apps but the outcome and topology is a gamble at the moment so there is always post work involved with Cinema4D´s poly-reduction tool for example.

Displaying to VR HMDs at this time involves rendering an image for both eyes at very high framerates. Until foveated rendering supported by eye tracking becomes a thing we are wasting a lot of computing power on generating pixels the user does not even see.This goes for everything VR at the moment, whether it be gaming, creation tools or edutainment.

6. What are your biggest bottlenecks on your current computer?

I need way more graphics processing power to be more productive in every way. A single Nvidia GTX 1070 was pretty cool a year ago but as projects have gotten more demanding and complex, a multi GPU setup with current high end gaming cards would save me a lot of time.

With a lot of Unity Projects and VR paintings/sculpts in their raw exported form storage also becomes a concern. At the time of writing this I´m at day 126 of my #VREVERYDAY series, which means I'm generating a ton of large files every day that need to be backed-up and archived.

7. What are you currently playing?

To be brutally honest, I should play/test all the latest VR games but rarely find the time to enjoy them in a relaxed context. I love playing games with great story and aesthetics/setting. My favorites right now are:

• The Witcher Series
• Stardew Valley
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• The Final Fantasy Franchise

8. Any questions for the Tom's Hardware Community?

I've been looking for a powerhouse VR laptop workstation for months now, but can´t decide on which system to go with!

My job demands that I travel all across the world and every time I´m away from my tower workstation I miss working in VR. Currently I´m considering the recent Asus Zephyrus laptops but haven´t made up my mind yet.

I would love to hear your recommendations for a lightweight / simple and nice-looking VR ready laptop which I can take everywhere I go and do basic VR design and Unity development on.

You can follow Vlad's work at VR-Human.com and on his Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram feeds.

One of the first mainstream standalone VR headsets, Lenovo's Mirage Solo promises a compelling experience, with no need for a phone or computer. With a speedy Snapdragon 835 processor, a high-res display and inside-out spatial tracking, at first glance, Lenovo's headset appears to have an edge over the other leading standalone headset, the Oculus Go.

The Mirage Solo’s superior specifications come at a significant price, though. This $399 headset is twice the price of Oculus’s offering, but as part of Google's Daydream ecosystem, it has a limited set of apps. A loose fit and the lack of included headphones also detract from the value.

Design and Fit

The Mirage Solo headset is white with light gray and black elements that add some contrast to the design. Wrapped in moisture-proof fabric, the forehead cushion is firm and supports the weight of the device without compressing fully. The rear of the head strap includes a mechanical dial that controls the tension and size of the head band. There's also a rear cushion that's softer than the front one.

The Mirage Solo visor hangs from a single mounting point that resembles a hinge. However, like with PSVR headset, the visor mounting point is a slider, which allows you to pull the visor forward to fit different shaped faces or to make space for eyeglasses.

Unfortunately, we had trouble getting the sweet spot of the lenses to line up with our pupils because the tilt of the headset is completely dependant on the fitment of the head strap. We had to choose between a balanced fit or clear visuals. Neither option is ideal for long term use. 

The headset is great at closing off the real world, though. Even when the lenses weren’t lined up correctly, we still weren’t getting any light bleed from the outside world. The face cushion is comfortable but it's bare foam, which will absorb sweat like a sponge.

Expandable Storage

The Mirage Solo’s superior specifications come at a significant price, though. Lenovo’s headset twice the price of Oculus’s offering, but we’re not convinced that it produces twice the value. The Mirage Solo is a Google Daydream device, which currently has limited software support despite the platform existing for two years already. $399 is a lot to ask for a device that doesn’t have a lot of content. The hardware would need to be pretty special for most people to justify the cost.

Design Elements

The Mirage Solo headset is white with light grey and black elements that add some contrast to the design. It features a balanced crown head band, which suspends the visor in front of your face like the PlayStation VR headset. Most of the weight of the headset rests on your forehead. The forehead cushion is firm and supports the weight of the device without compressing fully. It’s wrapped in a fabric material that shouldn’t absorb sweat too much, but it is not moisture proof.

The rear of the head strap includes a mechanical dial that controls the tension and size of the head band. The dial has a ratcheting mechanism that holds the tension when you let go of the dial. It’s best to remove the headset before attempting to loosen the dial to take the load off the ratchet. The rear cushion is softer than the forehead cushion, which is comfortable on the back of your neck. It features that same fabric cover as the forehead cushion.

The Mirage Solo visor hangs from a single mounting point that resembles a hinge. However, like with PSVR headset, the visor mounting point is a slider, which allows you to pull the visor forward to fit different shaped faces or to make space for eyeglasses. The release button to adjust the slider is on the bottom left of the visor.

We would prefer a hinge to adjust the fitment over a slide. We had trouble getting the sweet spot of the lenses to line up with our pupils because the tilt of the headset is completely dependant on the fitment of the head strap. We had to choose between a balanced fitment or clear visuals. Neither option is ideal for long term use.  

The headset is great at closing off the real world, though. Even when the lenses weren’t lined up correctly, we still weren’t getting any light bleed from the outside world. The headset includes a soft rubber facial interface that contours to the shape of your face. And the foam cushion is soft on your skin. However, the face cushion is bare foam, which will absorb sweat like a sponge, and there’s no way to replace it with a better option (or a dry one). None of the cushions on the Mirage Solo are removable.

Expandable Storage

The Mirage Solo features a USB Type-C port on the left side of the visor, which is used for charging the device. The port also supports data transfer, so you could potentially use it for peripherals or to access files on a thumb drive. The headset also includes a microSD slot so that you can expand the 64GB of internal storage.

No Speakers, Poor Headphone Compatibility

The audio controls and power button are located on the right side of the visor. The headset includes volume up and volume down buttons and a 3.5mm jack for headphones. Unfortunately, you may have trouble getting your headset to plug into the port because Lenovo recessed it into the visor. Most of out headsets didn’t fit because their plug ends are too wide for the recess hole. And the Mirage Solo doesn’t include internal speakers, so if your headset doesn’t fit, it’s earbuds for you. At least Lenovo includes a set in the box.

6-Degree-of-Freedom Tracking System

In the center of the headset’s faceplate, you’ll find two cameras which enable Google’s WorldSense inside-out tracking technology. Unlike the cameras on Windows MR headsets that point outward to provide spatial tracking for the headset and the motion controllers, the WorldSense cameras face directly forward, and they can’t track the included controller.

Google’s WorldSense tracking enables 6-degrees of freedom (DoF) movement for the headset, which allows you to duck and bob and move your head fore and aft. However, despite the name “WorldSense,” Google’s tracking system isn’t meant for walking around in VR spaces. The platform doesn’t include a boundary system like HTC’s Chaperone technology, but it will warn you to back up when it detects an object in proximity. The Mirage Solo headset is best used in a standing position, not a room-scale configuration.

Controller

The included wand controller isn’t meant for 6-DoF movement anyway. The Mirage Solo includes a controller just like the one that comes with the Daydream View headset. It features a clickable trackpad, two face buttons, and 3-degrees of tracking fidelity. You can’t flail your hand around in 3D space with this controller, but you can point a cursor for basic interactions with games and applications.

Specifications

Setup Process

The Lenovo Mirage Solo is a true standalone device. It does not require a companion app to configure it like the Oculus Go does. The entire configuration process happens with the headset on your face.

When you first fire up the Mirage, you will need to configure your Wi-Fi network so that the device can access the internet to download content and updates.Once the headset is connected to your router, you’ll need to setup a profile on the device with a Google account and you're good to go.

Visual Clarity

The Lenovo Mirage Solo features a 5.5-inch, QHD 2560 x 1440 75Hz LCD panel, which translates to 1280 x 1440 pixels per eye. Lenovo installed dual Fresnel-Aspheric lenses, which provide good clarity at the sweet spot. However, the lens spacing isn’t adjustable, and we noticed distortion around the perimeter of our field of view. Our view inside the Mirage Solo also seemed narrower than on the Oculus Go.

When we managed to line the headset up just right, the image was crisp and clear. But because of the poor adjustability of the head strap, we rarely witnessed the proper sweet spot. And if you’re scared of a little bit of screen door effect (SDE), this won’t be the headset for you. The display in the Mirage Solo is a nice resolution bump from the Rift, but it’s not good enough to circumvent SDE.

Not Great For Movies

The Mirage Solo has the same resolution display as the Oculus Go, but the image clarity delta between the two is significant and became especially apparent when we tried to watch Netflix. You would think that the more powerful Mirage Solo would decode streaming better than the Oculus Go, but that wasn’t our experience. Lenovo’s headset struggled to decode the video at 720p, and the image was often blocky and devoid of fine detail.

We also ran into a problem where the headset would shut off after a few minutes of Netflix while we were laying in bed. Lenovo explained that when the headset is in a dark room, and the controller doesn’t move for a few minutes, the Mirage Solo goes into “Backpack Mode,” which is meant to prevent unwanted battery drain while you’re carrying it around.

Google is working on a solution for this problem, which will be part of the first software update for the device. We’re not sure we’d want to wear the Mirage Solo to watch a movie in bed, though. The head band doesn’t make a good pillow.

Short Entertainment Is Better

The Mirage Solo is much better suited to viewing YouTube content, though. We could watch high resolution YouTube videos with no hitches in the quality of the stream. Lenovo's headset also works well for watching immersive YouTube content, such as 360-degree videos and content created for Google’s new VR180 video platform are especially compelling. The stereo view that VR180 cameras produce matches well with the fixed IPD of the Mirage Solo headset, which results in clear VR video with undistorted depth profiles.

Better Mobile Gaming Experience

The Mirage Solo headset handles rendering 3D graphics to a much better degree than decoding video content. The Qualcomm 835 SoC ran every game we threw at it with ease, including  new titles with spatial tracking enabled.

Titles that support Google’s WorldSense tracking technology offer a new level of immersive fidelity not previously seen in mobile VR systems. And the games that developers can produce for this system could be far more engrossing the content available for 3-DoF VR systems. How developers will react to WorldSense remains to be seen, but with 40 titles available upon launch, we’d say that developers are keen to adapt Google’s new tracking system.

The Mirage Solo should provide a nice performance boost in the 250+ standard Daydream titles too because it doesn’t need to worry about the background processes that a smartphone would have that eat up CPU and GPU cycles. The headset can dedicate all of its resources to the game experience. We don’t have an effective way to test the performance of the Mirage Solo, but in our experience, it performs just as well, if not better, then our Pixel 2 with Daydream VR.

Battery Life

The Mirage Solo includes a 4,000 mAh Lithium-Ion battery, which is supposed to provide up to 2.5hrs of continuous use. However, in our experience, the runtime is actually longer than that. We were surprised to get roughly 3-hours out of the headset’s first charge, which was a combination of video content, 3-DoF games, and WorldSense-compatible games. We’re inclined to believe that you would get 2.5hrs of gaming out one charge, but we wouldn’t be surprised if you could stretch it closer to 4-hours of just video content.

Bottom Line

On paper, the Mirage Solo has all the qualities to make it a winner: A high-end SoC, 6-DoF spatial tracking, decent battery life and plenty of storage for content.

Sadly, we had issues with the fit, it doesn't come with headphones and the Daydream ecosystem has a limited number of titles. For half of the Solo's $399 price, you can get the Oculus Go, which has a wider library of content, built-in speakers and a better video streaming experience, though it doesn't have as many degrees of freedom. However, if you want to be part of Google's ecosystem and appreciate the inside-out tracking, the Mirage Solo is worth considering.

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The next Oculus headset could give you a whole lot more to look at. Today, at Facebook's F8 conference, Oculus Head of Project Management Maria Gernandez Guajardo unveiled "Half-Dome," a new prototype headset with a wider field of view and improved visibility for objects that are close to your face.  She also revealed that Oculus is developing advanced hand tracking capabilities so you can use your real fingers in the virtual world.

Ever try reading a notepad in VR? Current headsets have fixed focal distances, which works well for viewing things a few feet away from you, but not so great for objects that are right in front of your face. The company's new Varifocal technology moves the internal displays closer or further from the lenses based on the content.

Guarjardo’s team also managed to increase the field of view in the headset to 140-degrees, which is roughly a 40-degree improvement over the Rift headset. And Oculus’s engineers managed to squeeze these improvements into a headset that's the same form factor and weight as the Rift.

In addition to the increased field of view and adjustment focal distance, the new headset features motion-capture cameras on the front to track hand and finger movement. Guajardo said that Oculus is “investing in new AI technology” to help bring your hands into VR in a more convincing way.

Today, the Oculus Touch controllers allow hand interaction in VR, but Oculus wants to bring your real hands into VR. For several years, Leap Motion has been leading the charge in finger and hand tracking, but Oculus’s new solution could surpass the capability of Leap Motion’s current tech for complex VR interactions. Oculus developed a motion capture technique called Deep Marker Labeling, which uses machine learning to interpret hand gestures as tracking markers. 

Oculus also uses the front-mounted cameras for 3D capture of the environment around you. The headset pumps the camera data through computer vision algorithms, which it can use to recreate a 3D rendering of the real world around you with stunning accuracy. If Oculus’s demonstration is to be believed, the company’s room-scanning technology seems to be more advanced than you'll find on Microsoft’s HoloLens.

Oculus didn’t say when we would see a product with the advanced cameras and focal system. We hope to see these innovations in Oculus’s upcoming Santa Cruz standalone VR headset. However, if we had to bet, we’d say the 140-degree FOV would be reserved for the next desktop connected Oculus headset, whenever that may materialize.

Oculus announced that it formed a strategic partnership with Xiaomi and Qualcomm to bring affordable standalone VR to the worldwide market. Xiaomi signed on to build the Snapdragon-powered Oculus Go headset, and it will make a Xiaomi-branded clone for its home market in China.

Oculus first revealed the Oculus Go VR headset at the Oculus Connect 4 conference in October. The company said that the upcoming HMD would be a self-contained unit with all the processing and battery power built into the body of the device. It also revealed that the Oculus Go headset would support all the applications and games on the Gear VR platform.

In October, Oculus wasn’t forthcoming about the specifications of the device, but sources close to the matter told us that the Oculus Go would be powered by a Snapdragon 821 SoC. Today, Oculus and Qualcomm confirmed what we were told in October. Most standalone VR devices feature Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 835, but Oculus went with the older chip to keep the price down. The Oculus Go doesn’t need the more powerful processor; after all, the content on the Gear VR platform must support all models of Gear VR, and the first Oculus-ready phones included Snapdragon 821 chips.

Oculus also revealed that it would be working with Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi to manufacture the Oculus Go headset. Xiaomi will in turn license the hardware design and sell it under the Xiaomi brand as the "Mi VR Standalone" headset.

The Xiaomi Mi VR Standalone HMD is for China only, and it operates on the company’s proprietary Mi VR platform. Xiaomi’s headset doesn’t support the Oculus Store, but it does support the Oculus Mobile SDK, which enables Oculus developers to bring their content to Xiaomi’s platform.

When Oculus announced the Oculus Go HMD, the company said it would be available in early 2018 for as little as $199. Hugo Bara, CEO of Oculus, didn’t have anything more to say about the release date, but he said we could expect more details soon.

As always, games are a major focal point in the latest round of VR announcements, and Oculus used its keynote at Oculus Connect 4 to show off some new titles coming to the platform. Virtual reality is an opportunity for small, independent developers to stand out, but it could also be another way for major studios to garner a larger audience.

Coming Later This Year

Some of the titles featured at the event are coming later this year. Downpour Interactive’s military simulator shooter Onward is currently available on Early Access, but its development is nearly over. Oculus announced that a release date is scheduled for sometime in November. There’s also Turtle Rock Studios’ Face Your Fears, which challenges you to confront your phobias in virtual reality. Next month, you can use the game to experience a new piece of content, which will allow you to explore the interesting, yet terrifying world of Stranger Things. Considering that the show’s second season arrives at the end of October, the VR tie-in is designed as a compelling way for fans to engage with the fictional world.

Disney, specifically Pixar Animation Studios, is also throwing its hat in the ring with Coco VR. The experience will serve as a companion to the movie Coco, which hits theaters in November. You’ll get to explore the colorful Land of the Dead, play instruments, and take pictures with some of the film’s characters.

Insomniac Games, which created the spell-casting VR title The Unspoken, also revealed an upcoming, single-player expansion called “Acolytes.” You’ll wander through the streets and rooftops of Chicago as you discover the city’s magical past. However, your main objective is to investigate the murder of an acolyte. Five different classes and thirty spells are at your disposal, and you’ll need them to take down terrifying Demons and Wraiths. The expansion arrives later this year as a free update.

Games For 2018 And Beyond

Oculus also has a few titles slated for release sometime in 2018. Ready At Dawn has two VR titles under its belt with Lone Echo and Echo Arena, and the studio is already working on an first-person shooter expansion on the latter game called “Echo Combat”. The short trailer didn’t reveal much about the new content save for a mysterious figure and a note that it's coming next year. Fans will also see the next step in the story of Jack and Olivia at some point in the future, although the studio was mum on additional details.

After you watch the recently released Blade Runner 2049, you can further immerse yourself in the science fiction world with Magnopus’ Blade Runner 2049: Memory Lab experience. You’ll explore the memories of other people, but it seems that you’ll encounter a strange recollection that could put you in danger.

If you want to be a superhero, you can try out the upcoming Marvel Powers United VR, which is a collaboration between Oculus Studios and Sanzaru Games. In it, you’ll take on the role of a franchise character — in this particular trailer, it was Thor, but the Hulk featured prominently as well — and fight the many enemies that stand in your way. Depending on the hero you choose, you can use your Touch controllers to wield different powers and weapons.

As a final treat, the company featured a brief video from Respawn Entertainment, the studio that created the popular Titanfall series. It seems that it’s working on a virtual reality title as well, although the developers didn’t reveal any details, and the brief gameplay footage shown onscreen was blurred out. Unlike the other titles above, we’ll have to wait until 2019 to try out Respawn’s first step into VR.

More For Your Library

The continued stream of content, especially games, for Oculus is a sign that virtual reality is still a popular platform. From basic standing experiences to fully interactive titles, there’s a wide gamut of VR titles available for everyone.

Respawn’s entry into the VR space is also noteworthy because it’s one of the first AAA developers to make the jump from traditional platforms to VR. If its maiden game is deemed a success, it could lure even more customers to try, and eventually purchase, an Oculus Rift.

Not everything at this year’s Oculus Connect 4 is new VR hardware. The company also announced Rift Core 2.0, a rework of the Rift software. Rift Core 2.0 seems to just be a moniker for the user experience elements, and today's announcements include Dash and a new Oculus Home.

Dash is a central UI for accessing all of your Rift menus--a command center designed for use with Touch controllers rather than a gamepad. Dash runs as an overlay, letting you multitask within VR, switching between apps, games, and connecting with other users.

One of the most compelling parts of Dash will be the ability to access any desktop application within the VR environment. You can essentially pause your VR game, for example, and then open, overlay, and pin the desktop experience. Each of these applications, including the desktop, have their own virtual displays inside VR, and you can pin them anywhere in the field of view and resize them. The idea that you'd spend all of your time--including productivity tasks--behind an HMD may seem a bit far-fetched for some people, but Oculus talks about VR as the ultimate display replacement some day. For now, the ability to multitask outside of pure VR entertainment will offer the chance to test the company's theories here.

Oculus claims these are more than physical mirrors, and that the applications will have access to other features of the Oculus Runtime, including technology like Asynchronous Space Warp. The company has worked with Nvidia and AMD on this, according to Nate Mitchell, Head of Oculus Rift. The company is actually using Dash to debug Dash. Mitchell said that because Dash is built using the company's UI framework (React VR), it will eventually be accessible to developers for adding new ideas.

Oculus has also reworked Home as part of Rift Core 2.0. Mitchell said that the biggest customer request was the ability to customize your Home space. The company has provided a variety of items for users to do this--various furniture, toys, works of art to play around with. You can use Touch to place these objects around the room. There are some neat little ideas here, like game achievements to place on your virtual wall, virtual game cartridges to place into a virtual console to start a new game.

You can visit the Home spaces of other users, and they can visit yours. At some point in the future, the company will also let users create shared spaces.

These new Rift Core 2.0 experiences will be in beta in December, and will come as a free update.

Oculus is making aggressive moves to bring standalone VR to the masses. The company announced not one, but two upcoming self-contained VR headsets at Oculus Connect 4.

Earlier this year, a report surfaced that suggested Oculus would enter the standalone VR headset market with an affordable, self-contained device that it would reveal at Oculus Connect. Oculus wouldn’t confirm that such a device exists, but ultimately it proved to be true.

Portable Mobile VR

During the opening keynote presentation of Oculus Connect 4, the company revealed Oculus Go, an affordable, lightweight, standalone headset for the masses. Oculus said the Oculus Go fits within the “sweet spot” between the Gear VR’s portability and the comfort of the Rift. The headset features a soft, breathable mesh fabric for the face cushion and soft elastic head straps.

The VR Go headset also features a new generation of Oculus-designed lenses that offer the same field of view as the lenses in the Rift headset, but with less lens flare distortion. The Oculus Go headset also includes an all-new fast-switch LCD, which reduces screen door effect and improves visual clarity compared to OLED displays.

The Oculus Go headset also features an integrated binaural audio system. Unlike the Rift, which includes speakers that are attached to the outside, the speakers in the Oculus Go headset are built right into the headset. The Oculus Go headset also offers a 3.5mm audio jack in case you prefer to use headphones.

Oculus said the Oculus Go headset is “binary compatible” with the Gear VR ecosystem. Every app that runs on the Gear VR will work with the Oculus Go, and vice versa. Developers that build for one platform are automatically supporting both systems. As such, it stands to reason that the Oculus Go headset would feature processing hardware derived from the mobile market.

Oculus didn’t reveal the internal workings of the headset, but we expect that we’ll find out that it is powered by a Qualcomm SoC. Qualcomm is a clear leader in mobile processing hardware for VR devices, and it offers multiple reference platforms for standalone VR devices. Oculus's competitors (Google and HTC) have already announced devices that use Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 VR SoC.

Oculus said it would begin shipping Oculus Go developer kits to developers in November. It didn’t give a concrete retail release date, but the company said it would start selling the headset to consumers in early 2018 for $199.

Untethered High-End Experience

The Oculus Go headset isn’t the first untethered VR device that Oculus showed off. Last year, at Oculus Connect 3, the company revealed an early prototype of an Oculus Rift with processing power built into it called Project Santa Cruz. Oculus had been adamant that Santa Cruz was just a prototype, but the company flipped the script today and revealed that Santa Cruz would, in fact, become a product that you can eventually buy.

Oculus revealed a new generation of Project Santa Cruz that takes that experience to the next level. Last year, Oculus showed off a standalone headset with no input method. This year, the company showed off Santa Cruz Controllers and headset that look ready for the mass market.

The new Santa Cruz headset features four ultra-wide field of view Constellation cameras that offer inside-out special tracking. Oculus positioned the integrated cameras on the front corners of the Santa Cruz headset. Two cameras point down to the front, and two cameras face up and to the front. The four cameras offer near-wraparound tracking, which enables you to wave the controllers behind your shoulder without losing the tracking.

The Santa Cruz controllers are similar to the Touch controllers, with a few key differences. The Touch controller features a halo ring with IR LEDs that wraps around your fingers. The Santa Cruz controllers also feature a halo ring with IR LEDs, but they are on the tops of the controllers, instead of wrapping around them. The new controllers also feature a touchpad, like the Gear VR controller, instead of a thumbstick.

Oculus did not reveal a price point for the Santa Cruz headset, and it didn’t commit to a time frame from the release, but the company said that developers would have access to the new platform some time next year.

Google just made one of the best VR experience even better: Google Earth VR now supports Street View, which will enable you to travel the world from the comfort of your home.

Google released Google Earth VR last November as a timed exclusive for HTC Vive, and the application came to the Oculus Rift platform in April. Google Earth VR lets you explore the globe from a bird’s-eye view and take in sights that you wouldn’t otherwise have access to. Google also cherry-picked a list of sights to explore that feature higher resolution imagery.

Google Earth VR is impressive, but it came up short of delivering the full Google Earth experience in VR. The application allows you to fly through the air above cities, and in some cases, you can get close enough to cruise between high-rise buildings, but Google Earth VR doesn’t make you feel like you’re a tourist visiting a new location. That is, until Thursday, when Google added the Street View component.

Google Earth VR Street View features ground-level imagery from 85 countries around the world. When you zoom in to the lowest altitude in locations that offer Street View images, you’ll see a bubble on your navigation controller that will transport you inside a 360-degree image of the area. Google said the 360-degree images come from the Street View team as well as user submissions. Street View locations include AT&T Park in San Francisco, which lets you see what it’s like to be part of the crowd. Google also pointed out that you can visit the set location for Old Port in Game of Throne’s Westeros, which you’ll find in Croatia.

The Google Earth VR Street View update is already available. If you have Google Earth VR installed, you should get the update the next time you log into Steam or Oculus Home. The full version Google Earth VR is exclusive to the high-end VR systems from HTC and Oculus, but you don’t need a top-end headset to enjoy Street View VR. Google’s Android and iOS Street View apps support Google Daydream and Cardboard HMDs, too.

Introduction

When HTC’s Vive launched at $800 and Oculus’ original incarnation of the Rift surfaced for $600, friends and family made it a point to stop by my place for their first tastes of VR. Most of them loved the experience, but nobody ran out and bought an HMD of their own.

More recently, the Rift + Touch kit went on sale for $400, while HTC permanently dropped the Vive’s price to $600. Suddenly, people I know were taking the leap and asking for help building fast-enough PCs. Most of all, I encouraged, buy as much graphics horsepower as possible.

But what about the platform that beefy GPU lives on? How much muscle do you need backing up your favorite GeForce or Radeon card? Oculus sets the bar low, specifying a Core i3-6100, Ryzen 3 1200, or FX-4350 at minimum. However, the company recommends a Core i5-4590, Ryzen 5 1500X or more. HTC suggests a Core i5-4590 or FX-8350 at least. If only there was a way to quantify the benefit of stepping up from entry-level to a more potent host processor...

As it turns out, we’ve already done a fair bit of work to establish a toolset and methodology for benchmarking PC hardware in virtual reality. If you haven’t already read our primer, check out FCAT VR: GPU And CPU Performance in Virtual Reality. That piece introduces the VR rendering pipeline, two approaches to collecting performance data, the ways we can present it, and it introduces our first batch of results. We showed how Oculus’ asynchronous spacewarp technology works, how quality settings affect a game like Chronos, how Nvidia’s Pascal and Maxwell architectures stack up to each other, and how AMD’s Graphics Core Next architecture compared earlier in 2017.

On one page at the very back of our story, we took a peek at host processor performance in Arizona Sunshine, a game purportedly imbued with special CPU extras for owners of Core i7 CPUs (which of course made it controversial). It turned out that a Core i7-6950X and Core i7-6700K did, in fact, enjoy a performance advantage over Core i5-6600K. And all three Intel chips decimated AMD’s FX-8320.

Eager to expand on those initial findings, we put together five distinct platforms, came up with ways to test 11 different Oculus Rift titles, and talked to some of the developers about the ways they utilized host processing resources in their VR games.

What (And How) We Tested 11 Different Games in VR

Compiling all of the necessary hardware was our first challenge to overcome. Again, we’re an international team, and launch-day hardware gets spread all over the world. A few companies stepped in to help fill in the holes, expressing interest in answering the same questions we were asking.

MSI set up all of our host platforms, providing its X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC (for Skylake-X), Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon (for Kaby Lake and Skylake), X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium (for Summit Ridge), and 990FXA-GD80 (for Vishera).

The company also sent over a Core i9-7900X for us to use as an ultra-high-end contender. We added our own Core i7-7700K to represent the top of Intel’s mainstream Kaby Lake family, and we purchased a Ryzen 7 1800X to compare the performance of AMD’s Zen architecture. Core i3-6320 and FX-8350 serve as floors, upon which the faster CPUs build.

Given Ryzen’s sensitivity to memory performance, we knew our choice in DDR4 would be scrutinized. G.Skill sent its F4-3200C14D-16GFX FlareX kit to complement the Ryzen 7 1800X and its F4-3200C14Q-32GTZ kit for our other DDR4-based configurations. Both were set to 3200 MT/s for testing.

We used a F3-2133C10Q-16GXM Ripjaws X kit at 2133 MT/s to go with AMD’s FX-8350. In this way, we were able to maximize throughput on every platform. The CPUs with dual-channel memory controllers were limited to 16GB (from one DIMM per channel), while the X299 setup featured 32GB (allowing the same one DIMM per channel).

In an effort to give each platform comparable thermal performance, we approached Corsair about a high-end closed-loop solution that we could use on Skylake-X, Socket AM4, LGA 1151, and Socket AM3+. The company sent over its Hydro-series H110i, which not only fit all of our test platforms, but also facilitates the cooling needed to keep our Core i9 from throttling.

Everything else was held constant. We used a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti to alleviate graphics bottlenecks as much as possible, a 500GB Crucial MX200 SSD, and the familiar be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 850W PSU. Windows 10 was installed fresh and completely updated before we started downloading games from Oculus’ store.

We still have two PCs sitting side-by-side able to collect data using the hardware- or software-based approaches to FCAT VR. Our primer established the software version’s efficacy, though, so we’re using that utility exclusively to save time and provide insight not otherwise available from video-based analysis (such as unconstrained frame rate, calculated from real frame time measurements).

Again, if you’re interested in learning more about hardware performance in VR and want to get the most out of today’s deep-dive, FCAT VR: GPU And CPU Performance in Virtual Reality is the best place to start.

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Arizona Sunshine

Arizona Sunshine is a great place to start—not only does it allow us to pick up where we left off in our VR performance primer, but it also comes first alphabetically in today’s 11-game suite.

Our 150-second test starts on the bridge towards the game’s beginning, right as you pick up a second handgun. We run through abandoned cars on the highway, blasting zombies along the way, stopping just before the roadblock leading to the mine.

The FCAT VR output makes two observations obvious on its own. Most clear is the FX-8350’s struggle. It actually hamstrings our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, keeping the card from rendering 90 real frames per second on its own. Instead, Oculus’ runtime is forced to step in and synthesize frames to prevent stuttering. As a result, 41% of our test sequence’s 13661 frames are the product of asynchronous spacewarp.

Our look at CPU performance in Arizona Sunshine six months ago showed the FX-8320 suffering similarly, though the more taxing test we use today goes a step further to illustrate FX’s shortcomings in games.

Second, the Core i7-7700K’s frame time over time plot (in red) looks better than the rest of the field. Although the Core i9-7900X, Core i7-7700K, Core i3-6320, and Ryzen 7 1800X suitably support our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti in its quest to maintain 90 real frames per second, render times lower than 11.1ms per frame reduce the chance of an errant drop. So, you want as much headroom under there as possible.

Indeed, if we take the frame time results measured by FCAT VR and convert them into a theoretical “unconstrained frame rate”—the performance you’d see if v-sync didn’t force the Rift's output to 90 Hz—Core i7-7700K does emerge a winner.

Vertigo Games didn’t respond to our request for comment, so we can’t tell you just how extensively the developer optimized for threading. But we do know that Arizona Sunshine employs the Unity engine, does not support GPU-accelerated PhysX, but does offer more sophisticated physics effects through the “Advanced CPU Extras” checkbox, which we enable.

Beyond four Hyper-Threaded cores, it looks like the highest clock rate and IPC throughput yields the best unconstrained frame rate. The Core i9’s extra cores don’t help, and we can assume its previous-gen architecture isn’t an asset against Kaby Lake, either.

Ryzen 7 1800X roughly matches the Core i3-6320. And if you’re dabbling with VR on an FX-based platform, you’re doing the experience a serious disservice by limiting your graphics card’s performance.

Core i7 and Core i9 achieve the lowest 99^th percentile frame times, though it’s notable that four of these five platforms land under 11.1ms in that comparison.

Every CPU registers at least some frame time spikes. That’s why you see the “Worst” column jump up quite a bit. Core i9 encounters the fewest dropped frames, while Ryzen 7 fares the worst. Still, 21 dropped frames in a 150-second sequence isn’t subjectively perceptible.

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Chronos

Chronos is one of the Rift’s launch titles, and at the game’s Epic detail settings, it’s one of the most graphically demanding workloads we’ve seen for VR.

Our test sequence lasts 80 seconds, starting from the protagonist’s first moments on the beach and ending before he passes through a specific doorway.

Thanks to the power of our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, all five platforms avoid dropping into ASW mode through our Chronos benchmark. That doesn’t mean they perform similarly, though—there are clear differences in the frequency of dropped frames, indicated by red spikes in each interval chart.

We again see Intel’s Core i7-7700K achieve the lowest frame times over time. Curiously, it appears the Core i3 lands in second place, followed by the FX we’ve been recommending against. Intel’s Core i9 and AMD’s Ryzen 7 look like the last-place finishers.

Every platform enables a constant 90 FPS delivery to the Rift. But converting frame times to unconstrained FPS illustrates the differences in headroom each host processor offers.

It’s strange to see the Core i3 landing, as predicted, in second place, with AMD’s FX behind it (and ahead of Core i9/Ryzen). In a graph of CPU utilization over 60 seconds, Chronos only appears to use about 8% of our Core i7-7700K, suggesting that the game doesn’t even fully utilize one of the processor’s cores. It’s possible, then, that the fabrics and meshes touted by AMD and Intel serve to hurt the performance of their massively parallel CPUs by adding latency.

Although AMD’s FX-8350 causes the most dropped frames, Core i9-7900X and Ryzen 7 1800X do demonstrate the worst frame times in our 50^th, 90^th, 95^th, and 99^th percentile measurements. They also present some ugly worst-case frame time spikes that are clearly visible toward the end of our frame time over time line graph. 

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Damaged Core

You have to play through quite a bit of Damaged Core before reaching a point that can be accessed for easy and repeated testing. Our benchmark sequence includes 80 seconds of enemy forces assaulting a reactor. The frame times look sinusoidal because the benchmark involves turning from one side to the other in four-second intervals.

A GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is plenty fast for Damaged Core’s most demanding settings. But this Unreal Engine 4-based shooter still scales based on processor performance.

Frame time oscillations make it hard to tell which CPU is fastest. But we definitely see AMD’s FX-8350 struggle the most with high frame times and troublesome variance. In places, insufficient performance causes the FX to trigger ASW. As a result, ~5% of the run’s frames are synthesized by Oculus’ runtime.

This does serve to shelter the FX from dropped frames, though. We observe 35 drops, while Core i3-6320 drops 46 frames and Ryzen 7 1800X drops 53.

Intel’s Core i7-7700K achieves the highest unconstrained frame rate, leaving lots of headroom under the 11.1ms ceiling that translates to 90 FPS. Core i9 lands in second, telling us that there’s either minimal scaling beyond 4C/8T in this game, or that Core i9’s other architectural changes hurt performance more than its extra cores help.

High frame times set FX-8350 apart from the rest of our field in each percentile measurement. And it’s those spikes in the beginning of our benchmark that determine the worst-case peaks.

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EVE: Valkyrie

For many early adopters of Oculus’ Rift, EVE: Valkyrie was the experience that got them enthused about VR. CCP Games continues updating EVE, most recently with beta Touch support.

We ran our tests after the developer added Ultra-quality settings, applying volumetric lighting, multi-sample G-buffer anti-aliasing, specular highlights, Lens-Matched Shading, and Multi-Res Shading. These features were added specifically for owners of Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070, 1080, and 1080 Ti cards.

The Station 27 chronicle we used for testing isn’t particularly taxing, but it’s far more consistent than a chaotic dogfight would be. Consequently, we observe fairly even frame times from each platform.

All five CPUs work well enough with the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti to enable >90 FPS throughout our 200-second recording. The Core i9, Core i7, and Ryzen 7 deliver particularly clean-looking runs, while Intel’s Core i3 encounters a couple of additional dropped frames. FX-8350 drops 64 frames during the course of its benchmark. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise, given higher frame time variance and a propensity for breaking above the 11.1ms mark.

That brings up an interesting point: how are we seeing frame times in excess of 11.1ms from the FX-8350, but still experiencing 90 frames per second without dropping into ASW mode? If you look back at our Chronos results, the same thing happened. We did explore this phenomenon in FCAT VR: GPU And CPU Performance in Virtual Reality and determined that “...the envelope can expand/contract due to preemption/parallelization done by the VR runtime. Oculus' adaptive queue ahead feature is designed to facilitate this, so an 11ms cut-off is not absolute, though it’s generally true. In short, optimizations are not enough to keep you from dropping frames if you render at >11ms for an extended period of time.”

All of the calculated unconstrained frame rates exceed 100 FPS. However, Core i7-7700K’s frame times afford it a 36% advantage over FX-8350, a 22% lead over Core i3-6320, an 18% edge on Ryzen 7 1800X, and even a 9%-better finish than Core i9.

The Core i7, Core i9, Ryzen 7, and Core i3 frame times look good all the way through our 99^th percentile measurements. FX-8350 is consistently ~2ms higher than the Core i3. And those two spikes visible in the frame time over time plot show up in this chart when we single-out each CPU’s worst frame time result.

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Gunjack

This is another CCP Games title based on Unreal Engine 4. Gunjack was introduced for Gear VR back in 2015 and later adapted to the Rift and Vive in 2016. There are no graphics settings, though, so although CCP Games updated Gunjack with higher-resolution graphics, better textures and effects, and higher-quality audio, it’s still meant to be broadly accessible.

Not surprisingly, then, a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti cuts through this workload easily. Dropped frames are sprinkled through our interval charts, but all five platforms render 90 real frames per second through our 80-second sequence.

Unconstrained frame rates in the 200, 300, and 400 FPS range are uncommon, though the deltas between CPUs look pretty familiar. From top to bottom, Core i9-7900X facilitates ~41%-higher results than the FX-8350. Of course, we actually see all of these output at 90 FPS.

Huge frame rates are indicative of tiny frame times. Indeed, four of our five contenders achieve 99^th percentile frame times under 4ms. Isolated spikes across our frame time over time plot correspond to the “Worst” column, though these are outliers at best.

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The Mage’s Tale

The Mage’s Tale doesn’t have adjustable quality settings either. However, this UE4-based title, funded by Oculus VR for the Rift, is definitely more demanding than Gunjack. We capture 80 seconds of the introduction as a benchmark.

Big frame time spikes cause a significant number of dropped frames on AMD’s FX-8350. But these don’t last long enough to engage ASW mode.

Dropped frames dot the other four plots as well, corresponding to big frame time spikes.

Interestingly, that green line peeking out below the others hints at a Core i9-7900X win.

Converting measured frame times to unconstrained frame rates confirms the -7900X’s superior performance. Ryzen 7 1800X also nips close at the heels of Core i7-7700K. And FX-8350 isn’t as far behind Core i3-6320 as we’ve seen in other games.

CPU utilization generally doesn’t jump above 10% or so on a Core i7-7700K, so the Core i9’s advantage probably isn’t a result of its 10 Skylake-based cores. We suspect that The Mage’s Tale responds well to larger L2 caches.   

Ninety-five percent of FX-8350’s frames land under 10.1ms. Jumping to the 99^th percentile measurement sees this figure rise to 11.2ms. That’s where a lot of the dropped frames come from. Moreover, extreme spikes as high as 346ms are an order of magnitude more severe than the worst frame times encountered on our Core i3, Ryzen 7, and Core i9 platforms.

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Project CARS

A maximum-detail run through a Nürburgring replay in Project CARS yields a fairly consistent benchmark. This is perhaps the most demanding workload in our suite—even a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is forced to its knees by extreme levels of anti-aliasing.

All five platforms are hammered by Project CARS’ top detail settings, imposing ASW across our 80-second test sequence.

As we’ve become accustomed to seeing, AMD’s FX-8350 incurs the highest frame times. Occasionally, this means ASW has to synthesize two frames for every real one. A series of spikes in the first quarter of our benchmark cause the same issue on Core i7-7700K.

Those anomalous spikes cause Core i7-7700K to trail Intel’s Core i9 in our average unconstrained frame rate graph. Of course, this came as a surprise to us, so we asked the Slightly Mad Studios team to weigh in on our findings.

From our discussion, it sounds like Project CARS doesn’t specify thread affinity on the PC, so all available threads are, in fact, utilized. However, the benefit of this depends on the granularity of tasks being scheduled and dependencies that might result in a stall. There is, then, a saturation point where the advantage of more cores bottoms out.

Cache utilization can become a factor as well. SMS CTO and technical director Ged Keaveney adds, “we are sensitive to [L2 cache usage] on some of our threads, and that can have a big impact depending on the thread topology the OS scheduler chooses. They tend to only care about available time slices and not cache usage, so patterns can occur where multiple cache-heavy threads can end up on the same cluster and the caches get hit harder.” Taking that information into account, in addition to the Core i7’s troubled first quarter, helps explain how Core i9 might establish its lead.

The jump between our 95^th and 99^th percentile frame times on Intel’s Core i7-7700K is wholly attributable to the benchmark's beginning sequence, culminating in a worst-case 43ms frame. Through most of the test, though, Core i7 is well-behaved.

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Robinson: The Journey

Developed on CryEngine V, Robinson: The Journey offers a number of graphics options that we crank up to tax our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Collecting performance data involves running a circular path around the perimeter of Robin’s downed craft, including passes by the power-providing creek and lots of foliage.

Monitoring resource utilization during our run shows Robinson using more host processing power than any other game we’ve looked at thus far. Perhaps that’s why Crytek recommends at least a Core i5-4590.

When we break each platform’s performance out into their separate 90 FPS intervals, we see that AMD’s FX-8350 does fall back on ASW once, briefly. Everything else pumps out 90 real frames per second.

More interesting, perhaps, is Intel’s Core i3-6320. Its frame time plot appears to weave in and out with Ryzen 7 1800X (in other words, it serves up stellar frame rates for a dual-core CPU). But the interval chart is dotted with dropped frames. We might guess that, at certain points, two cores can’t feed the GeForce card fast enough, and a frame is dropped. But this deficit is brief. It doesn’t last long enough for the runtime to kick into ASW. After all, the 90^th percentile frame times are under 11ms. That deeper look at performance is illustrative enough that we’d advise against a dual-core CPU—even a Hyper-Threaded one.

Average frame rates (in this case, a look at unconstrained FPS) often miss important subtleties. It looks like Core i9 and Core i7 fare similarly, followed by Core i3 and Ryzen 7. But as we just established, Intel’s Core i3 has issues keeping up.

Even a look at frame times fails to pinpoint Core i3’s hiccups. It still looks comparable with Ryzen 7.

Counting the dropped frames, however, Core i3 is clearly in a league of its own.

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Robo Recall

If EVE: Valkyrie is the game that hooked a lot of enthusiasts into spending money on VR, then Robo Recall is the title that reminded them they made a good decision. Ironically, Epic Games released it as a free-to-play title (with the purchase of Touch) based on its Unreal Engine 4.

Our benchmark is 150 seconds long, running from the beginning of the first mission. We use High Graphics Quality, 4x on the Antialiasing MSAA scale, a pixel density of 1.0, and no adaptive resolution. Planar Reflections and Indirect Shadows are both enabled.

FX-8350 posts high frame times and lots of up/down variance. This causes AMD’s previous-gen platform to force our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti into ASW mode for about 23% of the test.

Ryzen 7 1800X has some issues of its own, though. A number of frame time spikes cause a disproportionately high dropped frame count. Core i3 isn’t immune, either.

We asked Epic Games founder Tim Sweeny for any information he might be able to provide about how UE4 handles the latest CPU architectures. He responded that the engine generally provides excellent scaling to four cores, and worthwhile scaling up to 8-10 cores in complex scenes.

He continues, “We'll be improving this significantly over time. Sixteen cores in a consumer CPU was a (very pleasant) surprise to everyone, and there's some good headroom for future optimization. Bottom line, if the CPU makers can keep it up, we have solutions that will scale to lots more cores, given sufficient development time.”

The unconstrained frame rate graph shows Intel’s Core i7 and Core i9 on equal footing, while Ryzen 7 and Core i3—the CPUs that dropped the most frames—line up fairly evenly as well. FX-8350 presents the lowest frame rate; however, more than 3000 synthesized frames help smooth the slower platform’s performance, preventing some of the drops that’d otherwise show up without ASW.

Core i7-7700K’s strong performance is evident from its worst-case frame time: a mere 11.8ms.

Ryzen 7’s issues with frame time spikes aren’t prevalent in the raw data. Ninety-nine percent of the CPU’s frames are rendered in less than 11.8ms. But that last percent includes frames rendered in up to 85ms.

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Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope

Older gamers will remember Serious Sam from its early beginnings in 2001. The fast-paced shooter translates amazingly well to VR, thanks to Oculus Touch. Incredibly enough, Croteam goes so far as to recommend a Core i7-6800 or equivalent CPU, along with a Radeon R9 Fury or GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card! That’s a $400+ host processor and $400+ GPU.

Despite Serious Sam’s hefty recommendations and our merciless selection of Ultra settings across the board, this game runs smoothly on our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. To be sure, it’s largely GPU-bound. Only AMD’s FX-8350 needs help from Oculus’ runtime to maintain smooth performance towards the end of our 80-second test, which is when on-screen action is most hectic.

Croteam senior programmer Dean Sekulic confirmed for us that many-core CPUs shouldn’t affect graphics performance much. The Serious Engine 4.5’s multi-threaded renderer is API-agnostic, supporting DX11, DX12, Vulkan, OpenGL, OpenGL ES, and even DX9. But it benefits little beyond a core count of three. The physics and collision system is where more cores help out. Sekulic says he believes it uses all detected cores, minus one.

It’s entirely possible that this physics/collision system, or Skylake-X’s quadrupled L2 cache per core, is responsible for Core i9-7900X’s narrow victory over Core i7-7700K in our derived frame rate measurement.

Core i3 succumbs to Ryzen 7 here (although the Core i3 does drop a few more frames), while FX-8350 presents one figure to sum up the weakness we saw in our frame time over time plot.

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The Climb

The Climb is a CryEngine-based title that Crytek suggests pairing with a Core i5-4590, at least. And if Robinson was any indication, this game might be expected to brutalize our lowest-end CPUs.

In fact, the dropped frames we see on our Core i3-6320 are even worse than they were in Robinson, causing the dual-core chip to average 80 delivered frames per second.

FX-8350 fares worse on paper, as it imposes high-enough frame times on our GeForce GTX 1080 Ti that the runtime kicks over into ASW on several occasions. But the resulting experience is smoother—we prefer the FX’s 1800 synthesized frames to the Core i3’s 1500 dropped frames.

Core i9, Core i7, and Ryzen 7 all appear to perform admirably. Let’s convert those frame times to frame rates once more...

Similar to Robinson, this CryEngine-based title favors Core i9 ever-so-slightly more than Core i7. This time, however, Ryzen 7 lands ahead of Core i3, which is of course hampered by dropped frames.

We know there’s an issue here from Core i3’s 50^th percentile frame time of 11.5ms...and it only gets worse from there. By the time we’re looking at the 99^th percentile, frames take as long as 14.5ms to render. And the worst-case frame time is a sluggish 29ms.

Incidentally, that’s right up there with FX-8350, though the FX-based platform’s other results are even worse. ASW cuts in early to smooth out those less-than-ideal render times, though.

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Conclusion

VR gaming generates excitement. But even 18 months after we first reviewed the Oculus Rift, significant barriers to widespread adoption remain.

Most material is the price of VR. You have to buy an HMD. And while the Rift and Vive both cost a lot less than they did in 2016, that’s still an outlay of several hundred dollars. There’s also the investment in a high-end gaming PC. Both Oculus and HTC go out of their way to bring minimum requirements down through technologies like asynchronous spacewarp and asynchronous reprojection, respectively. But there’s a big difference between the “barely cutting it” experience and high-quality VR. Our tests today push maximum-quality settings through a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Really, that’s not the best way to isolate platform performance, since graphics bottlenecks stand to mask differences between host processors. When we’re immersed in VR, however, we want beautiful visuals.

Premium content is also in short supply. Those AAA titles that do exist knock this medium out of the park. They’re still pretty rare, though. And because the install base of HMDs is relatively small, developers aren’t making much money creating new games. You’re seeing stakeholders like HTC and Oculus subsidize the hefty development costs in order to get good games out of the door. Once those games exist, a greater number of enthusiasts will see the value in spending hundreds of dollars on new hardware. It’s a chicken-and-egg issue that works itself out slowly, and only after significant investment.

The pace at which this industry moves is breathtaking, though. Some of the developers we spoke with had an idea of how previous-gen platforms behaved under their games. Most could only speculate how newer architectures like Core i9 and Ryzen might fare since they hadn’t gone hands-on yet. And they all seemed to have moved on to new projects already. Clearly, the best is yet to come as those talented studios apply what they learned from the games we tested today.

As is usually the case after a cursory look at performance, a bit of data begs for more. We wanted to go wide on game testing, narrowing the comparison platforms to keep the workload manageable. And while it’s great to see how so many different engines handle such a wide range of hardware, a retrospective look back makes us wish we had Core i5 and a lower-end Ryzen chip to fill in holes in the middle.

The good news for enthusiasts building high-end PCs is that Core i9, Core i7, and Ryzen 7 are all capable of backing a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Frankly, though, if your primary focus is VR gaming, the Core i7-7700K really can’t be beaten. It’s a top performer and $90 cheaper than the Ryzen. You could pick up the -7700K and a GeForce GTX 1080 for less than a Core i9, leaving money left over for a couple of games.

Slower CPUs and flagship-class graphics cards obviously create balance issues. It’d be far more likely to pair an older FX or Core i3 with a GeForce GTX 1060 or Radeon RX 580, not the GTX 1080 Ti we used. But then you’re talking dialed-back detail settings in order to maintain playable performance. Until we’re able to generate some data with more mainstream configurations, we’d guess that mid-range GPUs are best paired with Core i5 or Ryzen 5 host processors at a minimum, rather than the baselines Oculus/HTC specify.

If there are specific combinations you’d like to see tested, or if you have questions you’d like to have your favorite developers answer, let us know in the comments—we’ll see what we can do!

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Hidden Path Entertainment’s upcoming VR multiplayer real-time strategy game, Brass Tactics, is coming to Oculus Rift on October 19, and the developer is offering a sizeable discount for pre-ordering.

Brass Tactics is a multiplayer real-time strategy game built exclusively for the Oculus Rift that puts you in control of a tiny army of miniatures on a virtual tabletop-scale world. It offers table-top style RTS gameplay, without taking up a large space in your home. Hidden Path Entertainment announced Brass Tactics at GDC earlier this year, and the developer had a working version of the game for us to try. Our first impressions of the game left us impressed and “of the opinion that this is the type of game VR needs.”

Brass Tactics isn’t the first kick at the VR can for Hidden Path Entertainment. The developer has two other games on the Oculus store, including the VR remake of Defense Grid 2, which launched alongside the Rift and later for GearVR, and Witchblood, which is available for both platforms.

The Oculus Store page for Brass Tactics is live, and you can now pre-order the game at a 15% discount. If you buy before October 19, you’ll pay $25. Once the game is out, the discount goes away, and the price goes up to $30.

Jules Blok, better known as CrossVR, the developer behind the popular ReVive utility, revealed that he’s now part of the team that is shaping Khronos’s proposed OpenXR standard. Blok’s experience with compatibility issues between VR platforms could prove invaluable to the OpenXR working group.

Last December, the Khronos Group announced the Open VR Standards Initiative, which aims to solve the compatibility problems between the various VR platforms and simplify the process of deploying applications for multiple VR HMDs. Before Khronos revealed the Open VR Standards Initiative (now know as OpenXR), it managed to wrangle the support from many of the key players working in virtual reality and immersive technology including Oculus, Valve, Google, AMD, Nvidia, and many other top VR companies. But it’s not always top companies that have the most to contribute—especially in a new medium. Independent developers often innovate quicker in this space because they have the freedom to experiment, and often, nothing to lose.

Membership to the Khronos Group is open to any company that wants be in involved in its initiatives, provided they are willing to pay for the membership. Membership fees for the Khronos Group are expensive, which ensures that the companies that join are serious about the contribution. On the flip side, it also creates a barrier for independent developers that may have something to contribute, but can’t afford to join.

Blok is a good example of a small-time developer who has a lot to contribute to a project like the OpenXR. He's an independent hobbyist developer, who in his spare time created the ReVive application that creates compatibility between the Oculus Home and HTC Vive hardware so that you can play Oculus-exclusive content with a Vive headset. Blok offers the ReVive application free of charge, so he doesn’t get revenue from its use or distribution. He recently opened a Patreon account so people could contribute to further development of the ReVive application. He set a stretch goal of $3,500, which would allow him to purchase an Associate Member membership for the Khronos Group so that he could contribute to OpenXR.

Blok’s Patreon page is currently at $2,161 per month, but he doesn’t have to worry about shelling out the $3,500 fee anymore. The developer posted an update to let his patrons know that he is now a member of the Khronos Group and the organization waived his membership fee.

“I've joined the OpenXR working group.Thanks to the support on Patreon I've joined the OpenXR working group. OpenXR is a new open standard for VR that will allow VR developers to support all headsets through one API. It's currently still being developed and estimated to release in 2018.Just like Revive, OpenXR is an attempt to unify the VR market. However, unlike Revive, OpenXR is being developed with cooperation from the actual platform owners like Oculus and Valve. I'm excited to have the opportunity to help develop this new standard.“After contacting the working group, they've decided to sponsor my membership. This means the membership fee is being waived and the $3,500 from you Patrons can be spent on the Revive project instead.”

There’s no doubt that Blok’s experience in this field would be of great value to the OpenXR Working Group, and it seems like the people at the Khronos Group would agree.

If you have plans to buy a PlayStation VR system this week, wait until Friday. Sony just announced a price drop that kicks in on September 1 that will save you some money. The deal is especially lucrative up in Canada.

Competition is heating up in the VR hardware industry, and it can only mean good things for consumers. It’s safe to say that the early adopter phase of home VR is coming to an end, as prices are dropping and more options are about to hit the market. Sony is feeling the pressure to make its console-based VR system a better value and reworked the PSVR bundle prices to stay competitive.

When Sony released the PlayStation VR peripheral in the fall of 2016, the company offered the most affordable premium VR system that you could buy for your home. Sony’s VR headset pairs with the company’s PlayStation 4 console, which makes it accessible to tens of millions of people, and the headset sold for less than the competing Vive and Rift headsets. You could buy the bundle package with the PS4 Camera and the Move controllers for less money than it would take to buy an Oculus Rift without motion controllers, or you could purchase a PS4 and a PSVR for roughly the same cost as an HTC Vive. The original price for the PSVR system offered a compelling value against the competition; today it’s starting to get hard to swallow because the Vive and Rift are both cheaper now than they were at launch.

Oculus got the ball rolling with price drops, and it appears to have set off a chain reaction. On March 1, Oculus lowered the price of the Rift with Touch controllers to match the original launch price of just the Rift headset. For the first year of the Rift’s existence, it lived in the shadow of the Vive’s capability, but the lower price made it hard to ignore the value the Oculus offered. As if that weren’t enough pressure on HTC and Sony, Oculus dropped the price of the package to $399 for the summer. The summer sale is still running, but when it ends, Oculus plans to set the Rift’s price at $499 permanently.

Last week, HTC Vive announced a price drop of the Vive system, too, which brought the price down from $799 to $599. The company insists that it’s not caving to pressure from Oculus, although if that’s true, we suspect that HTC is preparing for heavy competition from the Windows Mixed Reality platform and Microsoft’s five hardware partners: Dell, Acer, Asus, HP, and Lenovo. Microsoft’s Windows MR platform is set to launch along with the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. Dell just announced that its Visor headset would be available in mid-October, and it would retail for $359. The Dell Visor doesn’t include motion controllers, but for an additional $100, you can purchase a bundle that has them.

With price drops and low price points from all the PC-connected VR systems on the market, Sony’s PlayStation VR platform becomes a tougher sell. Sony offers the PSVR in two flavors: The PlayStation VR Worlds bundle, which includes the headset, its cables, the two Move controllers, and the PS4 camera to track the headset and controllers for $499, and the Core bundle, which omits the game, the camera, and the Move controllers and costs $399. If you had a camera already, this bundle could get you into VR somewhat cheaper, but if you didn’t, you would have to purchase one separately, which negated the value proposition.

At the end of the week, Sony will introduce a new price structure for both the Core and PSVR Worlds bundles. The company isn’t dropping the price of the PSVR Core bundle, but it said it would sweeten the pot by adding the camera to the package, which effectively amounts to a $59 discount. Sony didn’t add anything to the PSVR Worlds bundle, but the company said it would lower the price by $50 on Friday.

If you live in Canada, the price drop is even more dramatic. When companies set their market prices, they set them in USD and then convert them to local currencies, which means the price varies from country to country based on their exchange rates. Currency exchange rates fluctuate constantly, but the product prices stay constant for long periods of time. Sometimes that means that the company makes a bit more money per sale, and sometimes that means the consumer gets a raw deal.

When Sony set the original price for the PSVR, the Canadian dollar wasn’t performing well against the US dollar. As such, a $499 PSVR Worlds bundle would set a Canadian buyer back $700. In recent months, the Canadian dollar’s value has increased relative to the US Dollar, which means Canadians have been paying higher and higher prices for VR (and everything else, really). Sony’s new pricing structure reflects the stronger Canadian currency and offers Canadian customers bigger discounts. In Canada, the PSVR Core bundle will drop from $549 to $499 (with the camera), and the PSVR Worlds bundle will drop from $699 to $579. A $120 discount is not too shabby, especially leading into the holiday shopping season.

The new prices for Sony’s PlayStation VR bundles start on September 1.

OSVR HDK2 Product 360

When Sensics and Razer started OSVR, the group’s mission was clear: create an open source VR platform to give developers and hardware manufacturers a starting point upon which they could build their own HMDs and accessories. The OSVR movement is still dedicated to its original purpose, but it's shifting some focus toward end-users now that it has an HMD with specifications in many ways comparable to the competition, along with native support for hundreds of SteamVR titles.

Last summer, we looked at the Hacker Developer Kit 1.4. The OSVR group suggested that its HDK 1.4 offered developers a budget-oriented alternative to the expensive HTC Vive and Oculus Rift HMDs. However, we found the software support too limited, the hardware too clunky, and the tracking system too unrefined to recommend. Only curious tinkerers and hardware developers had any business messing with the OSVR headset.

Shortly after we received our HDK 1.4 review sample, the HDK2 was introduced, featuring a dual-screen display boasting the same resolution as HTC's Vive and Oculus' Rift. Given a relatively poor first impression from the OSVR HDK 1.4 and a then-recent price drop from Oculus, we didn't think the HDK2 would compete.

Eager to prove us wrong, the forces behind OSVR sent Tom's Hardware an HDK2 HMD for a fresh take.

Specifications

Product 360 & Software Suite

You would be hard-pressed to identify the OSVR HDK2 sitting next to an HDK 1.4. After all, the latest version employs the same housing. Its body is made of injection molded flat-black plastic. Up front, there's a removable faceplate containing an array of IR lights, and the facial interface consists of a pliable rubber-like material with a soft foam gasket attached by Velcro.

The HDK2 headset features a three-point head strap with an elasticized band that wraps around your head, plus an adjustable Velcro strap for support on top. The two side straps and over-head support come together at the back where they attach to a rectangular block equipped with more IR LEDs for rear tracking. A single data cable passes up through the box, over the top of the Velcro strap, and into the HMD’s faceplate. Another cable from the faceplate passes over the top, powering those rear IR LEDs.

Unfortunately, there's still a mess of cables to contend with. Both versions of the HDK employ a breakout box for the data and power connections that you must attach to your belt or pants. A single cable with a proprietary connection comes out of the HMD and runs down your back to this breakout box, which exposes ports for HDMI, power, a headphone jack, and USB. The HDKs include a four-meter power and HDMI combo cable.

The OSVR HMD doesn’t include a mechanical IPD adjustment, but it does come with a feature missing from Oculus' Rift, HTC's Vive, and even the PSVR: you can adjust the focus for each eye independently using dials on the bottom of the headset. These adjustable lenses aren’t as useful as they sound, though. The dials have a range from 4.5 to -2 (the lower the number, the closer the lenses sit to your eyes), but the convex lenses touched my orbital bone and nose at a setting of 2. Anything closer was uncomfortable on my face, so even if my eyesight was poor enough to require extreme adjustment, this wouldn't work as a long-term solution.

The lenses that come installed in the OSVR HMDs are vastly different from what you get in the Rift or Vive. Oculus and HTC utilize a Fresnel-based design to help reduce the distortion caused by putting the screen too close to the lenses, while the OSVR HMD does not. Rather, the HDK2 uses the same round convex lenses found in the HDK 1.4. These round lenses produce a nice, clear image, but you must look straight ahead for maximum fidelity. Along the edges of your view (and thus, within your periphery), the lens shape distorts the image and reduces its clarity by a large degree. As a result, the OSVR HDK2 has a narrow sweet spot with perfect clarity. If your fitment isn’t ideal, the visual experience won’t be either.

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System Requirements & Setup Process

Part of the OSVR HDK 1.4's charm was its mainstream hardware requirement, owning to a single 1080p display refreshing at 60Hz. In comparison, the Rift, Vive, and now HDK 2.0 utilize twin 960x1200 screens at 90Hz. The faster refresh rate and higher cumulative resolution necessitate a much more capable gaming PC. Where the HDK 1.4 demands 124.4 million pixels per second from the GPU, the HDK 2.0 wants 233 million pixels per second.

For the HDK 1.4, you could conceivably get away with a GeForce GTX 660 (note, you had to use an Nvidia GPU; Radeons weren't supported when we evaluated the HMD). The OSVR HDK 2.0 calls for more powerful cards, though it now supports AMD hardware, so that's good news.

Interestingly, there isn't an explicit list of recommendations from the OSVR group. It's tempting to use Oculus' and HTC's original baselines as general guidance. But remember that Oculus lowered its bar when the company announced Asynchronous Spacewarp. The OSVR platform doesn't support ASW or any equivalent. Moreover, the HDK 2.0 doesn't support Asynchronous Timewarp or reprojection, which are needed to make a GeForce GTX 970/Radeon R9 290 viable for smooth VR. You'll want to aim higher as a result.

Setup Process

Vast improvements were made to the setup process since the last time we looked at an OSVR HMD. Back then, the software was very much a work in progress and installation wasn't unified in any way. We had to configure different applications in order to support native OSVR content and SteamVR games.

In the year since we first played with an HDK 1.4, OSVR released a Windows-based installer that includes all of the drivers and utilities needed to use the HMD with native content and SteamVR-based applications.

Windows Installation Package

The software installs an OSVR Server console, which is responsible for the HDK's runtime. It also installs a firmware update utility, some test applications, and a tray icon that facilitates access to these apps, along with configurable settings. You can start, stop, or restart the OSVR Server Console from the tray icon.

When you start the OSVR Server Console, it opens to give you a glimpse of what’s happening in the background. The server console also logs the headset and tracking camera’s operation in real-time.

At which point the tracking camera sees the HMD, it takes a few seconds to calibrate the HMD's location. If the headset isn’t still during this process, you’ll see an error in the log. The console constantly polls the tracker’s camera, though, so as soon as the headset is sitting still, calibration continues.

OSVR's new setup package also makes it so that you don't have to reinstall the software every time you want to switch from native to SteamVR content and vice versa because it includes the drivers for both platforms.

Valve helped out by officially embracing the OSVR platform in November and adding a content category for OSVR-compatible software. To date, over 300 titles are purportedly supported, though we've found multiple examples that we couldn't get running. By getting behind the platform, Valve removed the need to opt into a private beta branch of SteamVR to run an OSVR HMD. Now SteamVR detects the headset, so long as you have OSVR Server running.

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What Can (And Can’t) You Do With The OSVR HDK2

The HDK2 falls into a strange market position, which is compounded by the fact that OSVR is sending mixed messages to its customers. Officially, this is a developer kit intended for companies wishing to hack together hardware add-ons and prototype ideas. MindMaze’s facial expression sensor system is an ideal example of what the OSVR hardware is intended to enable.

However, OSVR’s marketing tells a different story. Its advertisements lean heavily on the idea that you can play over 300 games from Steam with an OSVR HMD, implying that the platform is also suited for the same gamers shopping for Rifts and Vives. OSVR even runs promos that bundle SteamVR games and HDK2 headsets.

Supposedly, the HDK2 is supported by a broad library of VR-capable games on Steam. But this doesn't always mean what it sounds like. For example, Phosphor Games committed to adding OSVR support to The Brookhaven Experiment, which sounds exciting until you realize that The Brookhaven Experiment requires hand controllers and OSVR doesn’t have a native hand control solution. You could use the Razer Hydra controllers if you happen to own a set, but Razer stopped selling these some time ago. Rather, OSVR suggests using the Nolo VR hand control system as a room-scale and hand tracking system along with its HDK2.

The Brookhaven Experiment isn’t the only example of a game that “supports” OSVR but not really. The Steam store page for Kismet, a seated VR fortune-telling game, suggests compatibility with the OSVR HMD and gamepad input, but I found that to be false. Instead, I was presented with an option to launch for Oculus' Rift or HTC's Vive. There was no option for OSVR. The game fired up in HTC Vive mode, but I still couldn’t play it. Kismet wouldn’t accept my Xbox One controller for input. It asked for trigger input from the Vive controllers, which I obviously couldn’t provide.

Simulation Games

HTC and Valve are going after the room-scale VR experience, which is definitely worth pursuing. But not all games benefit from a room-scale space, and not all gamers want to walk around in virtual reality. There exists a subset of the gaming community content to sit down and drive a race car, fly a plane, or pilot a starship.

The simulation market is primed and ready for virtual reality, and a headset unencumbered by costly hand controls could be a compelling buy for these folks. Sadly, the OSVR HDK2 falls short of ideal. Its tracking solution, which we'll go into more detail on, ruins an otherwise enjoyable simulation experience.

OSVR Native Content

OSVR’s website lists 28 applications imbued with native support for its HMD. The list is a tad misleading, though. Whoever's in charge of curating that page isn't on top of keeping it up to date. Of the listed titles, at least one appears to have been canceled: the site for Infinite brings you to a 404 page, and the developer’s website suggests that it’s not in the business of creating games.

Most of the OSVR Native Content titles are, in fact, SteamVR games. Their developers may have put in extra effort to ensure the OSVR HMDs are compatible. However, they don’t offer any other distribution option, so you end up using SteamVR to run the games anyway.

Still A Developer’s Tool

The OSVR HDK2 is a better consumer device than the HDK 1.4, but it's ultimately a tool for developers more than a product for gamers. After all, OSVR still calls this its Hacker Developer Kit.

Fortunately for developers, OSVR does offer detailed documentation, SDKs, and a variety of tools and plug-ins available on GitHub. Moreover, now that SteamVR features native support for OSVR hardware, developers can use Valve’s OpenVR platform and the company’s vast resources to create software explicitly designed to run on the HDK HMDs.

Hardware Prototyping

One aspect of the Hacker Development Kit that we didn't cover in our initial review is the freedom to modify it. Being an open source platform, OSVR designed the HDK with hardware tinkerers in mind. The HMD is easy to disassemble and alter, and OSVR encourages enthusiasts to explore their ideas.

The HDK's simple assembly allows you to prototype and pursue those ideas without building a custom HMD or potentially damaging an expensive Vive or Rift. As an example, MindMaze used an OSVR HMD to develop its Mask facial expression detection hardware. Once the company knew the concept worked, it developed a refined unit for HTC's Vive.

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How We Tested The OSVR HDK2

Testing the HDK2 proved challenging. The last time we looked at an OSVR HMD, we had access to a pre-production version of Futuremark’s VRMark, a USB oscilloscope, and a photodiode to measure the headset's motion-to-photon latency. Unfortunately, Futuremark subsequently canceled its plans to release the HMD latency evaluation tool. The build we used in our preview was the first and only one we ever received, and it no longer works, meaning we can’t compare the new HMD to our old results.

Basemark came to the rescue with its own latency evaluation tool in late 2016. The VRScore benchmark suite includes a synthetic performance test to evaluate the performance of your PC. The company also sells a professional version that requires a special dual-lens latency detection device called the VRTrek. Basemark’s software supports the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive platforms, as you would expect. It also supports OSVR—or so we thought.

We managed to run VRScore on the HDK 1.4 when the benchmark first launched, but there seems to be an issue with the latest OSVR Windows Installer version. We received a pre-release build of OSVR's software, 0.8, which is now available to the public, and it doesn't seem to be compatible with VRScore.

VRScore does detect the HMD, but getting the latency test to run proved futile nevertheless.

When we received VRScore, we learned the hard way that not all PCs are compatible. Basemark’s VRTrek device plugs into a microphone input jack, but the software itself requires a Realtek audio codec to function correctly. Unfortunately, not all Realtek controllers are created equal. We discovered that our X99-based test rig wouldn't work. So we pulled out an older Z87-based system. Tragically, the motherboard from that PC recently failed, leaving me temporarily without a VRScore-compatible computer.

I then built a PC with an Asus Prime X370-Pro motherboard and a Ryzen 7 1700. Fortunately, the new PC works well with VRScore. Sadly, it wouldn’t play nice with the OSVR HMD. We had no trouble running a test on our Oculus Rift and HTC Vive using this machine, but the OSVR headset was more temperamental than a two-year-old.

At first, everything seemed fine. But it all fell apart after our first attempt at running the test. Basemark’s suggested procedure says you should collect at least three data points in order to eliminate outliers. Our first pass returned a score of 144, which was far beyond anything seen from a Rift or Vive.  The second pass ended at 121, indicating that we needed a fourth result at least. The third test failed completely, kicking back a score of N/A. And that was the last time we could get the benchmark to run.

We fought the configuration, reinstalling the HDK software, the VRScore package, and the graphics drivers. Nothing helped. Basemark’s troubleshooting guide says to ensure the VR Experience mode shows up on the HMD, but it doesn’t explain how to get it there if it isn't appearing, except to restart the software. Of course, that didn't help.

Reaching out to Basemark confirmed our fears: the OSVR Windows Installer software is not compatible with the VRScore performance evaluation tool. Basemark says it's already aware of the problem and expects to have a solution in VRScore 1.1, expected to ship soon. When the update rolls out, we’ll circle back to compare the HDK2, HDK 1.4, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive.

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Subjective Evaluation

Without software to accurately measure and compare the OSVR HDK2 to its peers, all we can do is give our subjective impression. We ran the headset through a series of real-world workloads and evaluated it from the perspective of a gamer. The tests included a selection of SteamVR titles, along with observations of the HMD’s physical comfort.

Using The OSVR HDK2

The OSVR HDK2 isn’t a major improvement over the HDK 1.4. It offers better graphics quality, sure. But it comes up short in a number of other important metrics: it doesn't fit well, it's heavy, the cables are cumbersome, and its tracking accuracy leaves much to be desired.

Last year during our evaluation of the HDK 1.4, we ran into issues with the IR camera system. An OSVR representative even told us to disconnect the camera and rely solely on orientation tracking from the IMU for Steam games. We had hoped that OSVR would improve the tracking camera for its updated developer kit, but you get the exact same camera this time around.

OSVR recently released beta 0.8 of its HDK Windows Installer, which is supposed to improve the IR tracking system's accuracy in native and SteamVR content. It shouldn’t be necessary to disconnect the camera with the latest update, but it’s still possible to run an OSVR HMD without one. The OSVR Server Console skips the calibration process if it doesn’t detect the IR tracking camera.

Despite claims that the new software update “vastly improves” positional tracking, I hesitate to endorse OSVR's assessment. Language like that implies a satisfying step forward. And while the latest update does offer better tracking than what came before, gamers will still find this solution lacking compared to the more refined competition.

Tracking problems were my primary criticism of the OSVR HDK 1.4. Sadly, tracking remains the OSVR HMD’s greatest weakness. Razer and Sensics focused on upgrading the display to match the current industry standard resolution of 2160x1200, which is nice. But the partnered companies should have directed their efforts at replacing their tracking implementation.

OSVR believes it can solve the problems with software updates. However, I suspect that the camera is primarily to blame. The IR sensor rests inside a quarter-inch-wide opening, and it’s recessed by a couple of millimeters. The camera has no trouble detecting the HMD's position when the headset faces the camera, but it has trouble when you turn your head away. The OSVR HMD doesn’t have side-facing IR LEDs, leaving a big gap in the tracking space. When the camera loses track of the headset, the IMU is supposed to take over, but it doesn’t match the camera’s tracking well. The transition between the two tracking modes is jarring; when you turn your head, the image doesn’t follow correctly. The OSVR HDK 1.4 suffered a similar artifact.

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Conclusion

Last summer, when OSVR launched the HDK2, purchasing that headset made good sense for developers. Those who wanted a more affordable option than the $800 HTC Vive or $600 Oculus Rift could pick up a $400 OSVR kit and start working on VR games at the same display resolution as the two pricier enthusiast-oriented headsets.

The landscape is a lot different today, though. In December 2016, Oculus finally released its Touch controllers and altered the status quo. Suddenly, the emphasis switched from gamepad-oriented experiences to motion control-enabled apps. A lack of motion controls on the OSVR platform severely diminishes its viability as a development environment for future content.

Oculus further eroded the HDK2’s value proposition in March 2017 when it knocked $100 off the Rift, taking its price down to $500. Unless you’re in dire straits (don’t buy VR if you're short on cash), spending an extra $100 on the Rift is well worth your money. The difference in comfort alone justifies Oculus' premium.

Unfortunately, I can’t recommend the OSVR HDK2 to simulation fans, either. High-end sim hardware is incredibly expensive. It’s not hard to spend a couple thousand dollars on a comprehensive racing cockpit or flight simulation system, and top-tier kits with hydraulic force feedback mechanisms can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Even entry-level racing wheels and HOTAS setups cost hundreds of dollars. If you’re willing to spend that kind of money on a specialty peripheral, spring for the VR HMD that offers a premium experience.

The Open Source VR concept is an excellent idea in the same way that an open source operating system like Linux is appealing. The concept of an open hardware platform that you can customize to fit your needs sounds great until you realize that, without a well-defined set of guidelines, the platform is destined to sparse support. Most developers just want an ecosystem they can use to deploy their wares.

The OSVR concept is wonderful for companies like MindMaze that want to build their own hardware. Ultimately, though, an accessory can only succeed when there are customers buying into the product. Any dev hoping to make money in this business has to turn to the platforms gamers have at home. So even if you build your prototype with an OSVR HDK, you’ll end up selling the final design into the worlds of HTC's Vive, Oculus' Rift, or both.

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All The E3 VR Games

Every year during the Electronic Entertainment Expo (more commonly known as E3), the biggest names in the video game industry congregate in Los Angeles to reveal the hottest new titles in development and announce release dates for the games we know are coming. Now that virtual reality hardware is part of the video game industry, we expected to be bombarded with news of exciting new concepts and perhaps a few triple-A titles.
Our expectations of a mass influx of VR games proved to be somewhat over-optimistic, but the few games that are coming look excellent, nevertheless.

Here’s a list of all the VR games that developers talked about at E3 2017.

Lone Echo / Echo Arena

Lone Echo is a story-based single player game with cutting-edge graphics fidelity. In it, you play as Jack, a cybernetic AI android stationed at a mining facility on the surface of Saturn. The game is set in zero gravity, and the developers provide two forms of locomotion: You get wrist-mounted rocket boosters as though you’re wearing an Iron Man suit, and you can also use the environment to get around. For example, you can grab onto nearby objects to pull yourself toward them and push yourself away.

When Jason Rubin, Oculus’s VP of Content, revealed Lone Echo during the Oculus Touch Game Showcase at Oculus Connect 3, he called it “one of the single largest VR productions to date.” Rubin didn’t talk about the release date at OC3, but we have the answer now. Ready At Dawn revealed that Lone Echo would hit the Oculus Store on July 20.

Ready At Dawn also revealed that it split the game into two separate entities. Lone Echo’s multiplayer component is now a separate game called Echo Arena, which the developer plans to release alongside the Lone Echo single player campaign on July 20. Echo Arena will initially be free for everyone with an Oculus Rift thanks to Intel’s desire to jumpstart an eSports following for the game; Intel paid Ready At Dawn to waive the price of the game for a limited time.

Fallout 4 VR

Last year during the Bethesda E3 press presentation, the company revealed that it had a team of developers toiling over Fallout 4 to adapt it to virtual reality. Bethesda didn’t show anything about the title last year, but the company said it had figured out a locomotion system that didn’t involve teleportation.

During this year’s presentation, Bethesda confirmed that the game is called Fallout 4 VR, and it revealed the first footage of the game in action.

Fallout 4 VR is a rebuild of the complete Fallout 4 game, and as such the game carries a triple-A price tag: Bethesda said it would launch in Q4 for $59. The Vireio Perception development team better start looking for a new game to add room-scale support to.

Doom VFR

Fallout 4 isn’t the only triple-A property that Bethesda announced at E3 last year. The company had a VR version of the lauded Doom series on hand for journalists and industry insiders to try. The Doom VR game featured a fast-paced teleportation action that struck a balance between not making people sick, and not killing the vibe of the gameplay.

At this year’s E3 presentation, Bethesda revealed a gameplay trailer that gives the public a glimpse of the excitement that can expect from Doom in virtual reality. Bethesda also updated title of the game. Doom VR is now know as Doom VFR. The company is leaving it up to you to figure out what the "F" stands for.

Doom VFR is a standalone game in the Doom series, not a remake of the recent Doom game. Bethesda plans to release the game in Q4 this year. You can pre-order it on Steam for $29.

Skyrim VR

Skyrim is one of the most desired and requested games for VR. Ever since the days of Oculus developer kits, people have tried to hack Skyrim to work in VR using tools like Vireio Perception and Vorp X. Soon, you’ll have an official channel to explore the vast world of Skyrim in virtual reality.

Bethesda revealed that it’s bringing Skyrim to PlayStation VR later this year. To be clear, this isn't a limited VR experience; the developer is porting the entire game over to virtual reality, so you can enjoy complete immersion into the Elder Scrolls universe.

Bethesda said Skyrim VR will hit the PSVR in November. The company didn’t say if the game would eventually make its way to Steam VR for Vive owners to enjoy, though, the company said it plans to support "as many platforms as [it] can."

Space Junkies

Ubisoft announced that it’s developing a new IP called Space Junkies. The game will be a VR-only title for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and it will feature 1v1 and 2v2 air-based combat. Space Junkies players get jetpacks that let them bring the battlefield into the air.

Ubisoft said it built a new VR game engine, which it called Bridgitte, to help create VR environments.

Ubisoft didn’t say much else about the title other than that it plans to release the game in the spring of 2018.

Transference

Ubisoft partnered with SpectreVision to bring emotional storytelling techniques from cinema to the virtual reality medium. SpecterVision (co-founded by Elijia Wood) and Ubisoft’s FunHouse division are building a psychological thriller that could make you question reality.

Imagine living through someone else’s memory. Then imagine not being able to decipher the difference between your reality and someone else's. SpectreVision and FunHouse seek to explore that idea with Transference.

We don’t know much about the game yet, and Ubisoft said it doesn't plan to launch it until the spring of 2018, so it may be a while before we do.

Star Child

When most people think about virtual reality games, they imagine a first-person experience that transports you to a new place. VR games don’t have to be first-person experiences, though, and no company knows that as well as Playful. Playful developed a third-person platformer game called Lucky’s Tale, which ended up bundled with every Rift HMD back when the hardware launched.

Now Playful is back again with another third-person VR game called Star Child. Whereas Lucky's Tale was an Oculus Rift exclusive, this new game is exclusive to the PSVR. It's slated for release in 2018.

The Inpatient

Supermassive Games announced The Inpatient, a psychological thriller set in the Until Dawn universe.

The story of The Inpatient unravels 60 years before the events of Until Dawn, in the Blackwood Sanitarium—the same setting as the first Until Dawn game. When The Inpatient begins, you wake up in Blackwood Sanitarium with no recollection of how you got there. Jefferson Bragg, the owner of the sanitorium, greets you and assures you that he’s there to help. But how can you be sure?

Supermassive Games didn’t announce a release window for The Inpatient, Sony said the game is a PSVR exclusive.

Bravo Team

Supermassive Games is a developer that likes to keeps its employees busy. The company made three announcements during the PlayStation E3 press conference: a non-VR game called Hidden Agenda, the Until Dawn prequel (The Inpatient), and a first-person cover shooter called Bravo Team.

Bravo Team puts an emphasis on teamwork. The game features a single-player mode where you work with AI teammates as well as an online co-op component that lets you and a friend work together to stay alive. Bravo Team features intense firefight action that demands that you use the environment for cover.

Supermassive Games said Bravo Team is in development for PSVR, but the company didn’t say when it would be available.

Monsters of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV

SquareEnix is building a VR game for fans of fishing games and the Final Fantasy series. (We're not sure how much overlap there is in that Venn diagram is exactly, but hey, who are we to judge.) Monsters of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV is a first-person virtual reality fishing simulator set in the universe of Final Fantasy XV.

Join the characters from Final Fantasy XV on a fishing trip and catch your quarry in the serene environments found in the FFXV game. Just be sure to watch your back, because there's more than bass and walleye in those waters.

SquareEnix said Monsters of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV would makes its way to PSVR in September.

ROM: Extraction

First Contact Entertainment released ROM: Extraction last year on Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and the company is preparing the bring the FPS game to the PlayStation VR later this year. First Contact Entertainment said the PSVR version of the game will include exclusive content for the platform. The upcoming version of the game features a handful of new levels and new unannounced game modes.

First Contact Entertainment is also embracing Sony’s new Aim Controller rifle peripheral and is developing a handful of new gun models that are compatible with the controller.

First Contact Entertainment said ROM: Extraction would hit PSVR this fall.

Moss

Playful isn’t the only developer toying with the third-person perspective in VR games. Polyarc revealed a third-person platformer title for PSVR called Moss.

But Moss offers a unique take on the idea of a third-person perspective, though. Your role is that of a giant who helps the hero of the game, Quill--who is a sword-wielding, gauntlet-wearing mouse--in his quests by manipulating the world around him in ways a teeny tiny mouse could never imagine doing.

Polyarc said Moss would be available in time for the holiday season. The game is a PSVR exclusive.

Archangel

Archangel from Skydance Interactive is a high-intensity, first-person mechanized combat game for virtual reality. In Archangel, you pilot a six-story-tall mech and steer it into battle against waves of enemies. Your mech is on rails (and by proxy, so are you), but within that gameplay the company figured out an effective means of locomotion that doesn't make you sick.

Partially, it's because your mech moves slowly, as you might expect a giant machine to, but because you feel like you're inside of a vehicle, your brain accepts the movement and vestibular disconnect just as it does when you're, for example, speeding down the highway in a car.

Skydance Interactive told Tom's Hardware in March that Archangel would land on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and PSVR in July. At E3, the company revealed that PSVR would get a two-week timed exclusivity period.

No Heroes Allowed!

Sony’s first-party developer, Japan Studio, revealed its virtual reality RTS game, No Heroes Allowed!, at the Tokyo Game Show in 2016 as a PSVR title for the Japanese market. During Sony’s E3 presentation, the company revealed that No Heroes Allowed! would make its way to western markets, too.

In No Heroes Allowed!, you are the God of Destruction in command of a monster army.  You and your cohorts, Badman and Badmella, are on a quest for domination of the tiny virtual tabletop world in front of you. (Speaking of third-party gaming...)

We still don't know when No Heroes Allowed! will land, though.

The Persistence

Firesprite spoke about The Persistence, a procedurally generated first-person sci-fi horror game that puts you in the shoes of a random passenger of “The Persistence”—the first spaceship to ever travel faster than the speed for light.

While traveling to a distant black hole, something happened that mutated the members of the crew. The only people left on the spaceship are locked away in cryo-sleep, and in an attempt to save the rest of the passengers, the onboard AI system awakens one person at a time so they can try to sneak past the mutants, fix the ship, and return to Earth.

Because The Persistence features procedural map generation, the layout is different every time you play the game. It also features random character generation.

Every person on the spaceship has different traits and abilities, and not everyone has the skill set to complete the task. Your success relies on the luck of the draw as much as it does your ability to use your cunning to outwit the mutants around you.

The Persistence doesn’t have a release date yet.

Superhot VR

Superhot (the developer) brought Superhot (the game) to virtual reality as an Oculus Touch launch title in December. In May, the company expanded the game’s distribution to the Steam VR platform to allow Vive owners to join in on the slow-motion firefights of Superhot VR.

At E3 2017, the company revealed that it’s taking Superhot VR full circle with a PSVR version launching this summer. Superhot didn’t announce a definitive release date, but the company said the game would arrive “in just a few short weeks.”

Sparc

At E3, CCP Games made a surprise announcement about its upcoming VR eSport game, Sparc. The developer that brought us the Eve Universe of games, including the VR dogfighting game EVE: Valkyrie, announced that Sparc would launch as a PSVR timed exclusive. CCP is no stranger to timed-exclusivity agreements. The company famously inked a deal with Oculus to bundle EVE: Valkyrie with the Rift HMD for a limited time.

CCP said Sparc would land on PSVR this fall. The developer didn’t say how long the exclusivity period would last, but don’t expect the game on Vive or Rift before 2018.

Farpoint Cryo Pack DLC

Impulse Gear released its debut game, Farpoint, alongside the PlayStation Aim Controller on May 16, and the company is already preparing to roll out the first extra content package. The DLC update, which is free, is called Cryo Pack, and it adds two new frozen regions to the alien planet that you can explore. The Cryo Pack DLC includes re-skinned enemies that blend in with the icy environment as well as a new suit for you so you can survive the sub-zero climate.

The Cryo Pack DLC will be available on June 27.

The Talos Principle VR

Late last year, Croteam released a VR remake of Serious Sam: The First Encounter, and in February the company revealed that Serious Sam VR: The Second Encounter and Serious Sam 3 VR: BFE are both in development. Croteam also revealed that its only non-Serious Sam game, a first-person puzzle game called The Talos Principle, would make its way to VR this year.

Croteam didn’t announce the release date for The Talos Principle VR, but the company is showing the game to the press in private sessions outside the Los Angeles Convention Center, which suggests that it's preparing for the game’s release.

Pico Interactive’s Goblin is an Android-based VR headset with 3DoF tracking, a 2.5K display, and a companion motion controller for under $300. That may seem like a lot when compared to a less expensive Gear VR or Daydream headset, but with the Goblin, you don’t need a $1,000 smartphone to power it. Everything is built right into the headset.

The VR industry is transitioning away from treating mobile VR as a smartphone accessory and moving towards treating mobile VR as another category of consumer electronic. The race for standalone VR headsets is well underway, and we’ll soon have access to a smattering of VR HMD choices that feature onboard processing and storage and don’t rely on a companion smartphone.

Most of the big players in VR are pursuing standalone headsets of one form or another. Last August, Intel revealed the Project Alloy “merged reality” HMD and got the standalone VR bandwagon rolling. In September, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon VR820 SoC, which it designed for standalone VR headsets. The Snapdragon VR820 processor was the first clear sign that the VR hardware industry was making moves towards self-contained HMDs. A month later, at the Oculus Connect 3 conference, Oculus showed off a standalone headset prototype based on the Rift. That product won’t see the light of day for a while, but that reveal somewhat set the tone in the industry and the pace started to pick up from there. We’ve since heard announcements from HTC about a standalone Vive headset, and Google launched a standalone Daydream HMD reference design at Google I/O.

Now, a little-known company called Pico Interactive is joining the big players at the table with its own offering. And Pico even beat the big dogs to the punch (likely thanks to Qualcomm’s VR HMD Accelerator program). Pico Interactive announced that pre-orders are now open for the company’s Goblin VR HMD, which it plans to start shipping to customers in 6 to 8 weeks.

“One of the biggest pain points for consumers interested in virtual reality headsets is the high cost of entry,” said Paul Viglienzone, vice president of business development, Pico Interactive Inc. ”We believe the price point of the Pico Goblin solves this issue for casual gamers, families and many tech enthusiasts. With its all-in-one wireless design, the range of great games, and ultra-portability, the Pico Goblin aims to shake up the VR world this summer.”

Pico Interactive positioned the Goblin as an entry-level Android-based VR HMD for people on a medium budget. The Goblin HMD features a Snapdragon 820 SoC, 3GB of memory, and 16GB of storage. It also features a 5.5-inch 2560x1440 display that operates at 70Hz. Pico also includes a 3DoF motion controller like you would find with a Daydream HMD. Those are pretty good specifications for mobile VR. To put it into perspective, the Samsung Galaxy S7, which is an excellent companion to the Gear VR, features a Snapdragon 820 SoC, 4GB of memory and a screen with the same resolution. The difference here is that Galaxy S7 would have set you back $600 a year ago, plus you would need at $99 Gear VR. By comparison, the Pico Interactive Goblin is $269, and you don’t need anything else with it.

Pico Interactive is even sweetening the pot for pre-order customers. The company is offering a $20 discount and “five premium VR games” to anyone who orders a kit before its release this summer. Pico didn’t say which games come with the headset, but the company said there would be 50 titles ready to go on launch day.

For more information about the Pico Goblin, or to place an order, head over to Pico Interactive’s website. The company is also developing a premium standalone headset called the Pico Neo, but that hardware isn’t on sale yet.

The former face of Oculus hasn’t been seen or heard from in an official capacity since September 2016, and he won’t be making any more appearances on behalf of Oculus in the future: Palmer Luckey is leaving Oculus, effective March 31.

If it weren’t for Luckey, the VR industry might not exist as it does. We certainly wouldn’t have the Oculus Rift, and the Samsung Gear VR probably wouldn’t have happened if Oculus weren’t around to stir up buzz around VR and help bring VR technology to the mobile market. And if Oculus didn’t exist, Valve may have waited a lot longer before attempting to bring its VR tech to market. Indeed, anyone who enjoys virtual reality has a lot to thank Mr. Luckey for. But he will no longer be part of the future of the company he founded just a few years ago, and therefore he won’t have anything to do with the next stage of Oculus VR.

There was a time when you couldn’t read an article or watch a video talking about virtual reality without someone mentioning the inventor of the Rift. Every time Oculus had an announcement, you could bet that Luckey would make an appearance on stage. And, for a long time leading up to the release of the Rift hardware, you could count on Luckey to chime in on the /r/Oculus Reddit community with answers to questions from eager fans. After the Rift's launch, the founder stopped interacting on Reddit, but the lights didn't truly goout on his public communication until September 2016.

On September 23, 2016, The Daily Beast published a story that outed Palmer Luckey as a financial backer and potential founder of Nimble America, a pro-Donald Trump organization that paid for anti-Hillary Clinton advertisements. Luckey denied being a founding member of Nimble America, but he admitted to giving money to the organization in a statement that he posted on Facebook that evening:

I am deeply sorry that my actions are negatively impacting the perception of Oculus and its partners.The recent news stories about me do not accurately represent my views.Here’s more background: I contributed $10,000 to Nimble America because I thought the organization had fresh ideas on how to communicate with young voters through the use of several billboards. I am a libertarian who has publicly supported Ron Paul and Gary Johnson in the past, and I plan on voting for Gary in this election as well.I am committed to the principles of fair play and equal treatment. I did not write the "NimbleRichMan" posts, nor did I delete the account. Reports that I am a founder or employee of Nimble America are false. I don’t have any plans to donate beyond what I have already given to Nimble America.Still, my actions were my own and do not represent Oculus. I’m sorry for the impact my actions are having on the community.Palmer Freeman Luckey

That was the last time we heard from Luckey. Though he remained an employee of Facebook and part of Oculus, Luckey’s role within the company was never clear after the scandal, and he hasn't posted on social media since that day. He was also absent from the Oculus Connect 3 industry event, which took place weeks later. And he was nowhere to be found at the Oculus booth at GDC 2017.

As recently as December, Facebook and Oculus said that Luckey would remain a part of Oculus, but things may have changed after the bombshell judgment against Oculus, former Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe, and Luckey himself. The lawsuit left Oculus on the hook for $350 million, Iribe for $100 million, and Luckey for $50 million.

We don’t know the details behind Luckey’s departure. Oculus had this to say about Luckey's departure:

“Palmer will be dearly missed. Palmer's legacy extends far beyond Oculus. His inventive spirit helped kickstart the modern VR revolution and build an industry. We're thankful for everything he did for Oculus and VR, and we wish him all the best.”

Oculus representatives couldn’t comment further on the situation, but it’s hard to imagine that Luckey would walk away of his own accord.

Update, March 24, 2017, 10:30am PT: Dan Walsh, Director of Communications at Harmonix reached out to inform us that the developer made progress with Xbox 360 guitar compatibility and expects to have a patch sooner than previously thought. “Support for Xbox 360 wired and wireless controllers is going to be coming in the first patch for Rock Band VR, likely hitting next week,” said Walsh.

Months ago, Harmonix told us that existing Rock Band guitars would work with Rock Band VR. We expected that meant you would be able to dust off your old gear and give at a new lease on life, but it turns out that if your guitar is for the Xbox 360, you're out of luck.

Recently, we’ve seen a lot of hype about virtual reality peripherals. HTC announced the Vive tracker at CES 2017 along with a variety of specialty peripherals such as rifles, pistols, and even a firehose—and those trackers pave the way for ideas such as full-body awareness systems and trackable pet harnesses. Sony will soon enter the specialty VR peripheral market with the PSVR Aim controller, which is set to launch alongside Impulse Gear’s upcoming shooter Farpoint. But Oculus is getting into this market first.

With all the recent news about VR accessories, it may be easy to forget that Oculus revealed the first VR game with which you would require a specialized controller in 2015 when it partnered with Harmonix to bring the Rock Band franchise to virtual reality—specifically, to the Rift platform.

Xbox 360 Controllers Didn't Make The Cut

Oculus worked with Harmonix to create a special bracket that lets you attach a Touch controller to the neck of a Rock Band guitar, which Oculus included in the Touch controller bundle. When we found out about the included bracket, we reached out to Harmonix for more details and Dan Walsh, the company’s PR manager, confirmed that the bracket comes with Touch controllers so that you wouldn’t have to buy a new guitar to play Rock Band VR if you already have one. We took that response to mean that any Rock Band guitar would work with Rock Band VR. However, we’ve come to find out that all Rock Band guitars are not equal.

Rock Band VR has ample support for PlayStation guitars. You can use the PS4 Fender Jaguar or PS4 Fender Stratocaster on Windows 7, 8.1, and 10. The game also supports the older PS3 Fender Stratocaster as long as you have the matching dongle. (Harmonix said the controller won’t pair to a standard Bluetooth dongle.)

Support for Xbox controllers is a little dicey. The game doesn’t support the Xbox 360 guitars at all. Josh Harrison, Social & Community Lead for Harmonix, said in a Reddit post that the developer “would love to support [Xbox 360 controllers] as well.” The company isn’t looking for a cash grab to make customers buy new hardware. “Compatibility on 360 is just trickier for various reasons,” he said, while noting that PS3 controllers are supported.

Xbox One controller support isn’t perfect either. Rock Band VR supports both the Fender Stratocaster and Fender Jaguar (with mandatory firmware update) guitars for Xbox One, but you must be running Windows 10 to use them. Microsoft previously limited the Xbox One wireless controllers to Windows 10, but it later backed down and allowed the controllers to work with Windows 7 and 8.1. It’s unclear why Rock Band guitars are limited to Windows 10.

Available Now

Rock Band VR features 60 songs for you to rock out to, including hits from Pearl Jam, Aerosmith, Blink-182, Fleetwood Mac, and Paramore, among others. Harmonix said the DLC tracks from previous games aren’t compatible with Rock Band VR, so the library is limited to those 60 titles for now. The developer has DLC tracks in the works, though, including six songs from Aerosmith that will be available soon for $3 each.

Rock Band VR is available now. You will need an Oculus Rift, Oculus Touch controllers, and a guitar peripheral, as well asthe latest graphics driver from Nvidia, to play the game. Oculus sells the game through the Oculus Store for $50. If you need a guitar, bundles with Xbox One or PS4 guitars sell for $70.

Oculus paid for the development of Rock Band VR, which mean the game will remain an Oculus exclusive. Harmonix said it currently has no plans to bring the game to other VR platforms.

Somewhat quietly, Qualcomm is full bore into the VR/AR/MR business. At CES, Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon 835 SoC--billed as dedicated to “immersive experiences”--and the hardware launch foil for the new chip was Osterhout Design Group’s (ODG) R8 and R9 augmented reality glasses.

It was no coincidence that Qualcomm, one of the most dominant smartphone SoC makers, debuted the 835 on a device that is not a smartphone. The company was sending a clear message that it’s not interested only in smartphone-based mobile VR like Daydream and Gear VR, but in dedicated, standalone HMDs (be they VR, AR, or MR).

Hitting 10mn

Qualcomm made headlines late in 2016 when it announced that it achieved 10nm with the 835 and also built its 48-core Centriq 2400 Processor. We know the former uses Samsung’s FinFET process, but we aren’t certain about the latter. At the time it was announced, Qualcomm promised that 10nm would grant the 835 a 27% increase in performance or up to a 40% decrease in power consumption over 14nm (not to mention a 30% increase in area efficiency).

Assuming that Qualcomm’s claims hold true, the 835 represents a noteworthy opportunity for the burgeoning XR headset market. It’s no secret that the vast majority of the industry is driving towards untethered, all-in-one HMDs for all manner of XR. That’s an obvious “must have” on the AR and MR side, but even headsets built primarily for VR are yearning to be free, if you will; look no further than Intel’s Project Alloy; Oculus’ Project Santa Cruz; and a smattering of third-party wireless VR devices, technologies, and accessories from Sixa, DisplayLink, MIT, Intel, TPCAST, and Quark VR.

In all cases, what you’re essentially doing is cramming a PC onto a headset. To say that’s ungainly and difficult would be an understatement. You have to balance a great deal of compute power with energy efficiency and weight, and then you still need to figure out what to do with all that sensor data.

The 835 chip promises to address some of those issues. It’s also important to note that there's no separate visual processing unit (VPU) here to offload some of the work from the CPU and GPU. There isn't even a dedicated inertial measurement unit (IMU). Qualcomm leveraged the existing DSP functionality of the 835 to enable headset makers to skip the IMU altogether. According to Jim Merrick, Qualcomm's IoT Marketing Director, "An IMU is essentially a special purpose DSP. We already have a DSP … that’s integrated into our SoC in the first place."

Keep in mind that the Intel Project Alloy prototype has a Skylake-based Atom chip for now, and even the next generation will have just a Kaby Lake CPU--notably, still not a 10nm Cannnonlake processor. Even Microsoft’s HoloLens, which is an exceptional device, relies on a combination of an Intel Cherry Trail chip and a dedicated “HPU” (Holographic Processing Unit). According to Qualcomm, HMDs built with the 835 will enjoy a physically smaller chip with better efficiency without sacrificing any meaningful performance.

Further on the road to efficiency, Merrick told us that all of Qualcomm’s VR reference designs have eye tracking built in, because eye tracking is a “prerequisite” for foveated rendering. Foveated rendering is an answer to the problem of having to render a whole virtual environment, which is a waste of resources if you consider that the human eye can only see so much of a scene at any given time and with any reasonable amount of focus.

When you think of a mobile HMD and Qualcomm’s value, you may think of a lightweight AR headset like ODG’s R8 or R9, but the company is making plays on more heavier-duty, VR-oriented headsets, too. Merrick acknowledged that Qualcomm has been talking with the PC makers who are promising to deliver VR HMDs this year:

A lot of the PC makers are also handset manufacturers, so we have existing relationships with these people. [But] we’re getting a lot of interest. Some of our solutions like the 6DoF, or the single the monocular camera--those reduce cost and shorten time to market. It’s very interesting to people. Our GPU is very robust, we’ve seen a lot of interest in it. Our thermals are very good. I think everyone agrees you want to get to an untethered, all in one type device.

Supporting Operating Systems

Hardware aside, one of the key advantages that Qualcomm offers concerns supported operating systems--or, perhaps more accurately, supported content platforms.

Merrick was adamant about the need for content:

The content pipeline is critical. You know, Oculus has captured the imagination of the industry, specifically, and consumers to a somewhat lesser extent, for the last couple of years. But what has saddled Oculus is a content licensing and delivery platform. There’s some fantastic demos, some great technology there, but there’s not a robust ecosystem. That’s why Sony had the opportunity with PlayStation VR to get better traction. It’s helped Vive with Steam, because they have a content delivery and licensing platform. It’s all about the content.

When it comes to XR, Qualcomm has powerful, superb platforms to offer: Android and Windows. Technically, as Merrick was quick to point out, Qualcomm has always tried to be OS-agnostic. But one aspect sorely lacking on ARM chips (on which Qualcomm’s Snapdragon SoCs are based) was always Windows support. (Steve Ballmer can tell you all about that.)

With an announcement back in December, though, that’s suddenly changing: x86 emulation is coming to ARM, and guess which company will be the first to support it? (Qualcomm. It’s Qualcomm, if you missed the hint.)

If Qualcomm enables Windows to run on its chips, that means the Windows Holographic shell should work, as well. Windows Holographic has its own set of mixed reality applications, of course, but according to Microsoft, it will also support any UWP apps. Therefore, a headset built on the 835 could feasibly run any modern Windows application and Windows HoloGraphic apps.

This is in addition to whatever is in the Google Play Store, because the 835 is already set up to run Android. That includes Daydream apps and, depending on the hardware, Project Tango as well.

And of course, any device should be able to leverage whatever emerges from the WebVR effort being spearheaded by Facebook/Oculus (with their Carmel browser), Google, and Mozilla.

Looking Into The Future

The 835 looks to be a platform upon which Qualcomm rides into the future. It’s built to support deep learning and eye tracking, for example--two technologies that may become rather standard on many XR devices at some point.

Eye tracking will certainly become a go-to feature for many XR HMDs (possibly a must-have at some point). It has great potential as an input method, and as we mentioned, you need it for foveated rendering. SMI is the darling of Qualcomm in this regard; Merrick called the company “the leaders in the space.”

Another extremely compelling technology we’ll be seeing in HMDs is a deep learning component, and on that point, Qualcomm believes the 835 is ready for it. Said Merrick, “Snapdragon 835 has substantial compute capability to run one or many deep neural networks across all cores (CPU, GPU, DSP).” Developers also get to use the Snapdragon Neural Processing Engine SDK.

“This software framework gives developers and OEMs the tools to run trained neural networks on the Snapdragon core of choice based on the power and performance demands of the chosen user experience or feature. Supporting these workloads on the device ensures optimal performance as opposed to relying on a connection to the cloud,” added Merrick.

ODG: The Rider

Given the above, we might say that Qualcomm is a dark horse in the XR field, and if so, ODG is its rider. It’s true that others (see SMI, above) are hitching their wagons to Qualcomm’s platform, but ODG’s R8 and R9 AR glasses feel like a big win for both companies. The buzz around the spectacles at CES was palpable, most notably within ODG’s crowded, multi-story booth, wherein all the ODG reps were sweaty and breathless and excited.

The possibilities that the R8 and R9 promise is enormous, although it would seem that much of that promise is yet to be unlocked. To be frank, the demos ODG gave us at CES left something to be desired. This was partially due to the fact that a few pairs of the glasses that ODG was using for demos were having issues, and there just wasn’t much compelling content to pick from just yet, but the actual demos weren’t especially mind-blowing. Much of it consisted of looking around within 360° videos, so we didn’t even get to experience 6DoF tracking, for example.

However, a rundown of the specifications and features shows tremendous potential. Note that the R8 and R9 are similar in many ways--indeed, it’s difficult to even tell them apart at a glance--but there are key differences. Let’s start with a chart:

Both the R8 and R9 run on Android 7 (Nougat) with the Reticle OS layered on top, and they support the Unity and Unreal engines. Further, an ODG SDK is in the works that would let you enjoy content from essentially any Android platform.

Both pairs of glasses run on Qualcomm’s 835 SoC (2.45GHz) and offer 6DoF tracking, dual stereoscopic displays, 1,300mAh Li-ion battery capacity (mounted in the earpiece), and at least one front-facing camera. Note well that compared to the previous-gen R7 glasses, which sport a weaker 805 chip, narrower FoV, only a 4MP autofocus camera, and only 3DoF tracking, the R8 and R9 offer much more impressive features.

Neither the R8 nor the R9 offer much in the way of field of view, which is an unfortunate limitation in terms of immersion. They can muster just 40° and 50° FoV, respectively. It’s worth noting, though, that the R9 can display in 22x9 (native digital movie format) or 16x9 aspect ratios.

Although the R8 is the “little sibling,” a double-take worthy feature it offers over the R9 is dual 1080p cameras--as opposed to the R9’s single 4K camera--which means it can shoot binocular video.

However, ODG built the R9 with an expansion port on top, so you can add all manner of modules to expand its capabilities. (Who exactly is making these modules remains to be seen.) The idea here is that ODG wants to sell consumers a nice all-in-one package with the R8, but enthusiasts and pros can opt for the R9 and add those modules they need for efficient extensibility. That top-mounted port offers MIPI, USB, and power to flow through it. An ODG rep rattled off many potential add-ons for the port, including night vision goggles, medical detectors, LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), structured light sensors, or multiple cameras.

Unlike the R8, the R9 also offers numerous onboard buttons, mounted on the ear pieces, including the standard Android buttons. However, that’s just one means of input; an ODG rep told us that really, you could employ almost any conceivable input. That could include voice commands, a wireless MEMS controller, controls via smartphone tethered by Bluetooth to the device, and more.

Both sets of glasses are capable of object tracking, so you can place virtual objects in physical spaces. ODG employs SLAM, fused with IMU data and the camera input.

For now, we’ll give the tepid demos a pass; the devices in the booth had been abused for days, and given that neither the R8 nor R9 is actually on the market yet--they’re coming in the fall and spring of this year, respectively--we expect that ODG is still doing some tinkering.

Expect more XR devices running on the 835 to emerge soon, and expect those devices to land on a range of HMD types from AR to VR. What will be most interesting to watch is whether or not some of the major HMD players gravitate towards this ostensibly smaller, lighter, and more efficient platform over the Intel-based chip solutions in Project Alloy, HoloLens, and other upcoming HMDs.

The race for all-in-one XR HMD supremacy is on, and that’s good for both the market in general and consumers specifically.

Landfall made quite the impression at Oculus Connect 3 in October 2016. Now the VR real-time strategy game has debuted on the Oculus Store to give anyone who didn't attend the conference--or missed out on one of the game's open betas--a chance to experience it for themselves.

Landfall is developer Force Field's attempt to use VR to enrich a genre instead of reimagining it. The game isn't a first-person glimpse into the eyes of a soldier or something--it's a bona fide RTS that would be just as much at home on PC or console as it is the Oculus Rift. Players are expected to survey the battlefield, issue commands, and stomp their enemies into the dirt while using the flexible camera afforded by VR to stay on top of everything.

Force Field even all-but-eschewed the motion-sensitive Touch controllers in favor of an Xbox gamepad. (Don't fret: Landfall does technically support Touch, but it merely treats each controller like half an Xbox controller.) This might seem like a waste of VR's potential--why play a third-person RTS with a game controller with an HMD strapped to your face?--but Landfall was actually one of our favorite game demos we played at Oculus Connect 3.

Force Field chief creative officer Martin de Ronde told Oculus that all of these decisions served a purpose. "We think VR holds great promise, not only for experiencing new things, but also to experience existing things differently," he said. "With Landfall, we took the classic top-down, third-person action genre people are familiar with and brought it to the world of VR. By focusing on the familiar, we were able to offer a complete gaming experience, since that’s what we think VR as a platform needs more of."

Landfall can be purchased via the Oculus Store for $30. Don't expect it to reach other platforms any time soon, as Oculus Studios published the title itself.

The Khronos Group, the technology industry consortium responsible for the OpenGL, WebGL, and most recently, Vulkan APIs, is setting its sights on the virtual reality industry for its next collaborative project.

The Khronos Group’s members recently completed a multi-year initiative to bring the Vulkan API to fruition, and now the consortium is steering its focus towards creating a “cross-vendor, royalty-free, open standard” to the VR development community.

The current state of affairs for virtual reality development is like the wild west out there. There are multiple engines to choose from, a handful of platforms to sell software through, and a few different hardware options--all of which are completely different platforms. And each platform comes with its own unique needs.

For a developer to support SteamVR (OpenVR), Oculus (OVR), and OSVR, it has a lot of work to do. Each platform interfaces with the game engine in a different way, and each hardware platform has a unique runtime system. Developers must account for the intricacies of each platform during the development process.

Khronos seeks to address that issue by creating a standard API that interfaces with all hardware APIs and takes the extra work out of the equation for developers. Khronos said that the new standard would include “APIs for tracking of headsets, controllers, and other objects, and for easily integrating devices into a VR runtime.”

With a VR standard in place, all software built to work with the Khronos VR standard would automatically work with all hardware APIs that comply with the standard, which would result in far less fragmentation of the VR market.

Khronos already has a variety of key players in the VR industry onboard with the initiative. The supporting members list reads like a who's who of virtual reality leaders. Almost all the big household names are working on VR products are already involved. Members include Oculus, Valve, Google, Razer, Sensics, AMD, Nvidia, ARM, Intel, Tobii, and more. We’d like to see HTC, Samsung, and other VR-ready smartphone makers join the ranks of the Khronos group and get behind this initiative, too.

“Khronos has been on the forefront of advanced graphics and system APIs for over 15 years, and in keeping with that tradition and obligation to the industry at large has embarked on a new, vitally needed set of APIs and standards for the emerging VR market,” said Jon Peddie, President of JPR. “We applaud the industry-leading companies that are coming together as Khronos members for this endeavor, and expect the whole industry will share our sentiment.”

Qualcomm is curiously absent from the list of supporting companies. Qualcomm designs many of the processors that are used in smartphones and similar devices, and the company recently made the move to build a processor specifically meant for standalone VR devices. If any company should be involved in a VR standard, it should be the company building processors for VR hardware.

Khronos isn’t known for pumping out standards in the blink of an eye. The group spent more than a year working out the finer details of the Vulkan API before finally releasing it to the wild earlier this year. There’s no telling how long it will take the Khronos Group to finalize the VR standard, but it’s not rushing just yet. The group is currently in the “initial exploratory phase” trying to “define the standard’s scope and key objectives.”

The Khronos Group encourages any company interested in contributing to the development of the VR standard to join the group and voice their opinion of what should and shouldn’t be included. For more information about Khronos’ VR standard or information about how to join the Khronos Group, visit www.khronos.org/vr.

Razer and Sensics, the co-founders of the Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) consortium, announced that Valve added official support for OSVR hardware and software to the Steam content distribution platform. Going forward, Steam users can filter the Steam Store to show OSVR-compatible content.

“This is a great milestone for VR, giving users access to more hardware and content and driving Valve’s and OSVR’s shared vision of totally open VR content to everyone,” said Christopher Mitchell, OSVR Lead, Razer.

In addition to the filtering categories, Valve added an OSVR icon to Steam to quickly identify which games and applications adhere to OSVR’s standards. The OSVR icon appears under the game title in the Steam store, where Valve displays the Windows, Apple, SteamPlay, Oculus, and Vive icons.

The inclusion of OSVR hardware and software on Valve’s Steam store helps to legitimize OSVR’s efforts to create an open standard for all VR hardware and software developers. By embracing OSVR, Valve is providing a distribution platform for developers that create OSVR-compatible software, which could help inspire developers to embrace the standard.

"We are delighted to announce support for OSVR titles," said Valve’s Augusta Butlin. "Steam is an open platform for all developers, and adding support for OSVR further expands the massive content offerings for the millions of gamers on Steam."

The list of OSVR compatible software is short, but its only a matter of time before the library grows larger. Razer helped spearhead the OSVR Developer Fund, which has $5 million up for grabs to incentivize developers to create OSVR-compatible content. OSVR said it received hundreds of submissions for funding.

In the meantime, the OSVR Developer Fund already provided capital for 32 OSVR-compatible titles--most of which are available now on Steam.

Immersed 2016 was filled with interesting and exciting exhibits for attendees and the public to experience. There were a dozen Vive setups, a demo from Immersion Vrelia showing off its latest HMD, 360° camera hardware and software, a bow and arrow VR accessory, and more. But the Vrvana Totem mixed reality HMD is the most impressive thing I saw at the show.

We spoke with Vrvana in February about its mixed reality headset, but we hadn’t had the opportunity to try it until now. I expected good things from the Totem, but I wasn’t expecting it to knock my socks off the way it did.

Shoestring Beginnings

Vrvana started on a shoestring budget. CEO Bertrand Nepveu and his four partners founded the company in 2006 with some of his “family money.” Throughout the years, the company received investments from family and friends to keep the company afloat. Nepveu told us that he struggled to find capital funding for his company for years, but that changed when Facebook purchased Oculus.

Suddenly, venture capitalist firms were interested in VR and AR technologies, and they came knocking. A significant investment from a VC firm brought Vrvana’s total funding to a little less than $2 million, which is an incredibly small sum for a company that’s been around for a decade and hasn’t produced a revenue generating product yet. That’s about to change, though. The Totem is currently in pre-production, and the first 50 units will go out to B2B customers before the end of the year.

The Vrvana Totem HMD combines the best of virtual reality and augmented reality in one unit. It offers full VR capabilities, but it also includes binocular pass-through cameras that enable augmented reality features. The headset can seamlessly transition from AR to VR. And because it’s screen-based AR, not projected images like the Hololens, the field of view isn’t limited to a small section of your vision. With the Totem HMD, you get the same FOV in AR as you do in VR— and it’s wide.

What’s Inside?

The Totem headset features a single 1440p display, which is quite a bit higher-resolution than the dual-display setups from Oculus and HTC. The Totem offers 1280 x 1440 per eye, whereas you get 1080 x 1200 per eye from the Rift and Vive. The pre-production model operates at 75Hz, but Vrvana is in discussion with panel manufacturers to secure 90Hz displays for the production model.

Vrvana also created a custom lens design for the Totem. The company designs everything in-house, and one of its founders spent 15 years in the camera industry, so he used that expertise to develop a Fresnel aspherical lens combo that produces a 120-degree FOV. The camera optics are also setup to capture 120 degrees so the pass-through video matches the real-world environment.

The front of the Totem HMD features four cameras. Two video cameras capture the scene around you, and two infrared cameras perform spatial and hand tracking. The HMD also features three IR illuminators on each side of the cameras to improve their accuracy. Nepveu said the pre-production model would also include a front mounted “speckle pattern” laser that will help triangulate depth information.

Inside the Totem, you’ll find a custom FPGA that “does all the mixed reality magic” and an IMU to keep track of inertial movements.

The head mounting system on the Totem HMD closely resembles Sony’s solution for the PSVR. Instead of strapping the headset to your face, the Totem rests most of the weight on your forehead and anchors it low behind your head. The strap expands to make it easy to slip the HMD onto your head, and a dial on the back lets you lock it in place.

Let’s Do This!

Nepveu put the Totem on my head, and I was immediately surprised to see the real world in front of my eyes—on a screen. What I saw on the screen was dark, yet clearly my real surroundings. And I had a true sense of depth because of the dual cameras. We were in a dark room with black walls, which I suspect played a role in the darkness of the screen, but I would have to try the HMD in a brighter environment to confirm that theory.

Moments after putting the Totem on my head, Nepveu told me to reach out and press start, which demonstrated the hand tracking system. He then handed me a booklet of papers and told me to flip it over. The pages each have 12 unique QR codes, and when I glanced at them at the correct angle, a 3D object appeared on top. The first page was a model of the Delorean from Back To The Future, into which I could lean  and inspect the interior. The model wasn’t interactive, but Nepveu said that it eventually would be.

The subsequent pages included a model of a Pikachu, a 3D rendering of some Dewalt tools, and a lightsaber. Nepveu used the Dewalt drill to demonstrate that Totem can replicate presence in AR. He took the page and tried to stick the drill into my face, which made me lurch backward.

The final page featured an attack helicopter, and just when I thought it was over, Nepveu blew my mind once again. He handed me an Xbox 360 controller and said, "Want to fly it?" When he took away the QR codes, the chopper was left in front of my face. I could fly this 3D model of a helicopter anywhere in the room with no restrictions (aside from the physical space that I was in). The helicopter could reach the ceiling above or fly below the table. Once I had the controls worked out, Nepveu hit the space bar to transition the environment to full VR.

Suddenly I found myself flying a digital RC helicopter in a canyon and firing at turrets that opened fire on me first. The demo featured a projected first person view of the chopper’s perspective that I could use to make aiming easier.

The Next Steam VR HMD?

The Totem HMD that Vrvana brought to Immersed 2016 is one of the final prototype models. Vrvana 3D-printed the structure and assembled the HMD by hand, so, it’s a little rough around the edges. But Nepveu said that the shells for pre-production kits are cast from silicone molds, so the quality will compare to a production product. If all goes well with the initial run, the company will finalize tooling and begin production in Q1 2017.

The production version will also have at least one major feature that the pre-production model doesn’t: Vrvana is currently involved in the second round of lighthouse certifications and plans to integrate full lighthouse roomscale tracking into the final product. Vrvana plans to use lighthouse to complement its existing inside-out tracking solution, which will open the Totem up to practically all Steam content (Totem is OpenVR compatible) as well as tracked controllers such as the Vive’s wands. The experimental Vive controllers that Valve recently previewed would go especially well with Vrvana’s hand tracking solution.

The Totem is launching as an enterprise solution because large scale businesses can afford to pay the high price for low production hardware. Nepveu said that it’s possible to bring the costs down enough to sell for $400-500, but that would require the production of millions of units. Vrvana doesn’t have the capital to produce millions of units, but the company is considering a license model that would allow an established hardware manufacturer to bring the Totem to the consumer market with "powered by Vrvana" branding. 

Vrvana already sold the pre-production run of 50 units. The first units are going to automotive, simulation, and amusement park clients, but Nepveu said that if you have an exciting enough project, there might be space for more. Be prepared for the sticker shock, though; Vrvana asks $5,000 for the early Totem HMD units.

Updated, 10/21/2016, 4:11pm PT: The story incorrectly stated that the Totem demo showed off presence in VR when it was meant to say AR. Updated, 10/24/2016, 9:38am PT: The original story incorrectly listed the resolution of the Rift and Vive as 960 x 1200

Samsung’s recall of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone due to the risk of explosion prompted Oculus to disable Gear VR compatibility to ensure the safety of its customers.

Samsung has a mess to clean up, and Oculus doesn’t want to be involved in it. In recent weeks, multiple reports of Note 7 devices exploding and causing fires surfaced. Samsung reacted by exchanging some of the earlier devices, but amidst further reports of exploding Note7s from the newest shipments, Samsung ultimately halted sales and issued a full recall.

“Samsung is working with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to investigate the recently reported cases involving the Galaxy Note7. While the investigation is taking place, Samsung is asking all carrier and retail partners here and around the globe to stop sales and exchanges of the Galaxy Note7. Since the affected devices can overheat and pose a safety risk, we are asking consumers with an original Galaxy Note7 or a replacement Galaxy Note7 to power it down and contact the carrier or retail outlet where you purchased your Galaxy Note7. If you bought your Galaxy Note7 from Samsung.com or have questions, you should contact us at 1-844-365-6197 and we can help you. Galaxy Note7 Owners need to do one of the following:Exchange your current Galaxy Note7 for a Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 edge and replacement of any Galaxy Note7 specific accessories with a refund of the price difference between devices; orContact your point of purchase to obtain a full refund.Customers who exchange a Note7 device will also receive a $25 gift card, in-store credit, in-store accessory credit or bill credit from select carrier retail outlets.”

Samsung said that customers “need” to return their Note 7 devices and exchange them for another model or a full refund. Following the recall announcement, Oculus disabled Gear VR functionality for the Note 7. Oculus didn’t expressly state that it disabled the function for safety reasons rather than liability reasons, but we’d like to think that the company’s motives are more altruistic than self-serving. Either way, preventing harm is the right call for everyone involved.

A blow like this could slow down mobile VR adoption. Oculus and Samsung released an updated Gear VR designed specifically to accommodate the Note 7. With Samsung pulling the Note 7 devices back from customers, we have to image a significant number of new Gear VR kits will end up back in their boxes and collecting dust. Of course, letting your Gear VR collect dust is a better option than risking an explosion inches from your eyes.

The big news from Oculus at OC3 isn’t the launch date and price for Touch. The biggest bombshell of the event is Asynchronous Spacewarp, which lowers the bar for VR-ready PCs to a range anyone can afford.

Virtual reality is an amazing technological achievement that has the potential to change many aspects of our lives, but before that can truly happen, VR must achieve wide adoption. Today, the high cost of VR headsets and the supporting hardware that you need to operate one is one of the biggest factors preventing most people from investing in the new medium. $1500 for an entry level VR-ready PC and Oculus headset is cheap enough for enthusiasts and early adopters with a little bit of money to burn, but it's too much for the average person—even the average gamer.

Oculus had good reason to keep the performance specifications high when it launched the Rift in May. Most PC gamers target 60 frames per second as their performance threshold in their favorite games, and an overwhelming number of those gamers still play on 1080p panels. The Rift has two 1080x1200 (2160x1200) displays, and it requires 90 frames per second at all times for a comfortable experience.

Oculus had to invent Asynchronous Timewarp (ATW) so that it could certify GTX 970 and R9 290/390 GPUs for VR. Brendan Iribe, CEO of Oculus, said that without ATW, “apps would drop more than 11% of their frames.” This would make your VR experience unpleasant, to say the least.

ATW prevents dropped frames by pulling the previous frame back into view with updated head position data from the current frame. ATW works well when you are only tracking head position, but it causes problems with positional movements, such as when you move your hands around with Touch controllers. Oculus had to rethink its approach to frame warping before it could introduce Touch, and in doing so, it unlocked greater performance benefits for the Rift platform.

Just as Oculus invented Asynchronous Timewarp to prevent judder caused by head movement, the company went back to the drawing board to come up with a way to prevent positional judder. Oculus calls its solution Asynchronous Spacewarp. I’ll let Mr. Iribe explain ASW in his words:

“Spacewarp takes the app’s two previous frames, analyses the difference, and it calculates the spatial transform to extrapolate and generate a new synthetic frame.”

Translation: Asynchronous Spacewarp estimates the position of your hands and the scenery so that you never experience judder of moving objects. ASW reduces the framerate of the application to 45 FPS, and it adds a synthetic frame between every other frame to free up system bandwidth for the position calculation. The synthetic frames fill in the gaps so that you always see 90 FPS in the HMD, which lightens the load on the render pipeline. Because of the reduced workload, you don’t need as much graphics performance for enjoyable VR.

Oculus didn’t have a defined minimum hardware specification when it launched the Rift. The company listed recommended hardware specifications on its website, and those were widely accepted as the minimum requirements. Thanks to Asynchronous Spacewarp, Oculus now certifies that much more affordable hardware will deliver the performance necessary for virtual reality with the Rift. You no longer require an in Intel Core i5 or an AMD FX-6300. Now, an Intel Core i3 6300 or an AMD FX-4350 will handle your processing needs. The GPU requirements are much lower now, too. If you have a GeForce GTX 960, you’re in luck, but if you just bought an RX 470, you got a heck of a deal. Oculus considers both of those GPUs VR-ready now. 

When Oculus launched the Rift, it partnered with several vendors to ensure that you’d be able to buy an Oculus-ready PC for $1000. Now that Oculus introduced a new minimum threshold for VR performance, the company slashed the entry point in half. Oculus announced that one of its partners, Cyberpower PC, is offering an Oculus-ready PC that features an AMD FX-4350 CPU and RX 470 GPU for as low as $499.

If it weren’t for the $599 price of the Rift HMD and the $199 extra for the Touch controllers, we’d say that price is no longer a valid complaint about VR adoption. If you have a gaming PC, there's a pretty good chance that your system meets the minimum requirements for virtual reality with the Rift.

Oculus’s biggest event of the year, Oculus Connect 3, runs from October 5 to October 7. We expect to hear big announcements at the developer conference, not least of which includes the price and release date of the Oculus Touch motion controllers.

Oculus Connect is Oculus’s annual developer conference. The company pools together its resources and the wider VR development community to showcase the latest innovations in the VR space. In the past, the conference showcased the latest prototypes and games under development. Now that the Rift is out in the wild, this year’s conference should be more about showing off finished, or near finished software, rather than prototype experiments. In short, we expect OC3 to be more in line with E3 than previous Oculus Connect events.

By the time you read this, day one of Oculus Connect will have already begun. The first day likely won’t be exciting for the general public. You won’t find a live stream (unless you find someone streaming it through Facebook or Periscope) of the first day. Oculus is reserving that time for developer workshops and game demos.

Day 2 is what the world is waiting for. The opening keynote presentation, which is undoubtedly when Oculus will reveal all there is to know about Touch, is scheduled for 10:00 am Pacific on October 6. The keynote is the only presentation that the public can take in live. Oculus promised to discuss the long-awaited Touch controllers at the event, and we expect to hear everything; the games that support the motion controllers, the cost of the hardware, and the date that you can pick them up and play with them in your home.

Following the keynote, attendees of the conference will have an array of developer workshops, such as “Designing for VR Comfort” and “Failure Workshop: Things That Didn’t Work.” Day two is also filled with game demos from 1 pm until 10 pm.

Day 3 is a short day. Game demos start bright and early at 9 am PT, and workshops begin at 10 am. Day three’s workshops include “Accelerating Your VR Applications with NVIDIA VRWorks” and “The Making of Dead and Buried: The (almost) Port-Mortem.” John Carmack will round out the event with an hour and a half long closing keynote that starts at 1:30 pm.

In May during Google IO 2016, Google revealed the Daydream platform, the company’s answer to Samsung and Oculus’s Gear VR. At IO, Google’s Clay Bavor explained that the Daydream platform would be open to all Android smartphone manufacturers as long as they adhered to strict minimum hardware guidelines. Google also talked about a reference HMD design that smartphone makers could use to build their own Daydream HMD.

Google wasn’t ready to talk about the release schedule or go into details about the Daydream HMD in May, but the company is gearing up for the launch of Google Pixel, the first Daydream ready smartphone, and it’s finally willing to spill the beans—at least some of them. Google talked a little bit about its first Daydream HMD along with the Pixel smartphone reveal.

Google is taking on the VR market with vigor. The company took inspiration from Oculus in its Daydream HMD design, but not from the Gear VR, as you might expect. Oculus designed the Rift with a fabric outer shell that is light, breathable, and soft. Google chose to make its mobile HMD out of fabric for similar reasons. Google didn’t go into specifics about the materials that it used to build the Daydream headset, but the company did say that it “worked with clothing designers and makers” to ensure that the HMD is as comfortable as possible. Google said you could keep the HDM clean with a washcloth, and you can remove the face cushion and toss it into the washing machine.

Google plans to offer the headset in three different color trims (Slate, Snow, and Crimson) but the company is limiting the initial release to the slate trim, which is two shades of gray. The snow version is light gray with a beige cushion, and the Crimson edition is red with white trim.

The Daydream headset is a fairly light device, which should contribute to its overall comfort. The Daydream HMD weighs approximately 300 grams with the Pixel smartphone inside, which is less than the Gear VR does without a phone inside. Google also made sure that the HMD could accommodate eyeglasses, unlike the Gear VR.

Google also spent time and resources to ensure that the end user experience is as trouble-free as possible. The Daydream HMD doesn’t require a physical connection to your phone, so you won’t have to fiddle with a cable or an adapter. Your phone will automatically connect through an NFC connection when you place it inside the headset.

The lack of connectors makes placing your phone into the HMD a snap. Simply flip open the front panel, which is held by a latch, place your phone inside, and close the HMD again. You don’t even have to fiddle with the placement of the phone to ensure it's centered. Google implemented an auto-alignment system that does the work for you. The phone calibrates itself for the HMD with the help of two capacitive markers inside the HMD that touch the screen. The software splits the image to either side of those markers, which ensure you always have a centered view.

Unlike other mobile VR solutions, Daydream includes a tracked motion controller that connects to your phone with low-latency BLE Bluetooth to help you interact with the virtual world. The controller includes a trackpad and two buttons on the face, and it features nine IMU sensors (a 6-axis gyroscope and a 3-axis magnetometer) that calculate its spatial orientation. Google said the controller tracking is accurate enough to draw with or swing around.

Google is building partnerships to ensure that you’ll have content to consume with Daydream when the headset comes out later this year. The company highlighted a few notable experiences that are coming to Daydream this year. You’ll be able to explore Star Chart, which lets you explore the solar system and learn about the constellations. CCP Games will launch Gunjack 2, the sequel to its hit VR wave shooter, and a VR experience that ties into the magical world of JK Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them debut on Daydream this fall. Daydream also features the streaming video services from Netflix, Hulu, and HBO, and the New York Times’ VR documentary films.

As you would expect, Google Daydream will also support Google’s products. You’ll be able to watch movies through Google Play Movies, experience your photos like you’ve never seen them inside Google Photos or wander around the streets of the world with Street View VR. You can also take in YouTube content through Daydream, including traditional video, 360-degree video, and stereoscopic video formats.

Google plans to release the slate Daydream HMD in November for $79. Google didn’t say when it would release the snow and crimson trims.

Oculus is gearing up for the consumer release of its hotly anticipated "Touch" VR motion controllers. The company said that Touch will reach customers' hands this year, though we have to wait until Oculus Connect 3 in October to get the full details. There have been signs that point to a possible December launch, but the latest software update may suggest otherwise.

Oculus regularly pushes updates out to its Oculus App, and most of the time, the changes are minor. A recent update added support for up to four IR sensors, suggesting that some form of room-scale support is in the works–at least for developers. Unlike most of the Oculus app updates, version 1.7.0.262257 actually takes you through the setup and calibration process all over again, and during the install, you’ll encounter a Touch calibration section.

The Touch controller setup can be skipped, which is important because only developers have access to the hardware right now. If you decide to continue the setup instead of skipping, you’ll be asked to pair the left controller. Cancelling at this point will trip an error message about hardware not being present, but the installation will continue anyway.

Oculus Connect 3 is still two months away, though, and Touch won’t be available publicly before the event. Perhaps Oculus is gearing up to send out review samples? Or maybe the company just wants to make sure that Touch software is ready to go way ahead of time, so it’s giving developers access to the public installer. Either way, it seems curious to add Touch to the default installation process this early.

Recently, VR Cover announced a line of replacement foam cushions for the HTC Vive. The cushions feature water-resistant PU leather and come in different thicknesses so you can personalize the fit. Now the company is offering an option for Rift owners, too. 

The Vive foam replacements connect to the headset with the existing Velcro, which made the design incompatible with the Oculus Rift. To get around this problem, VR Cover “reverse engineered” the facial interface from the Rift HMD and designed its own replacement, which features a Velcro strip around the edge that is similar to the one found on the Vive.

The company also created a set of foam padding options that are specifically for the Rift. So far, VR Cover has described two versions: a thinner cover that brings your eyes closer to the lenses and effectively increases your field of view, and one that is comparable to the stock foam. VR Cover said it is working on other options that will be announced over the summer.

The Oculus Rift launched at the end of March this year. Prior to the launch, we were told the VR HMD would include a second facial interface that would make room for glasses. Oculus ended up backing away from that plan, but VR Cover has a solution of its own. The company has created a deeper facial interface that leaves room for glasses. The design doesn’t appear to incorporate any relief slots for the sides of your glasses, so if you have a wide head this likely still won’t help.

VR Cover said that it has Oculus’s blessing for this product, too. These aren’t official Oculus products, but the company helped VR Cover refine the design and ensure that the replacement facial interfaces fit properly.

VR Cover is running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of Oculus Rift facial interface replacements and washable foam padding. VR Cover is offering the parts individually for €29 (~$32), in sets of two for €58 (~$64), or in packages of five for €145 (~$160). Each option includes a foam pad of your choice. Orders are expected to ship to backers in September.

Follow Kevin Carbotte @pumcypuhoy. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

This past E3, the Tom's Hardware Community Staff was sent on a special assignment to give you a first-hand preview at E3. We waited in all the lines, walked through all the booths, and played (almost) all the games, in order to bring the Tom's Hardware Community total coverage. To live up to that promise, we walked the entire show floor and recorded the whole thing in full 360 degrees on a Giroptic360 camera. Check out all the videos below for 360-degree walkthroughs of the Bandai-Namco Booth, South Hall, and West Hall.

Don't worry, there are no plugins to download and no software to install. Simply click play on the YouTube videos below to watch. Drag your mouse left and right for the full 360 effect. You can also watch these videos on your HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear, or Google Cardboard for a true immersive experience.

If you liked our 360-degree walkthroughs, be sure to check out the roundtable we hosted with some of our favorite independent VR developers.

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Valve isn’t the only company with a summer sale. Oculus launched its first summer sale yesterday with over 40 discounted titles across both of the company’s VR platforms. The Oculus Home stores for Gear VR and Rift are offering discounts on content for the next two weeks. The company also launched several more titles on both of its platforms.

Some of the Rift launch titles have had their prices slashed by as much as 50 percent, including EVE: Gunjack, Herobound: Spirit Champion and Blaze Rush. Other titles, such as Elite: Dangerous and Adr1ft, have been discounted by 30 percent or more. Even Final Approach: Pilot Edition is on sale, and it launched just yesterday.

You’ll also find some significant deals on the Gear VR during the sale. Land’s End, one of the launch titles for the platform, is on sale for 75 percent off. The mobile version of EVE: Gunjack is on sale for 50 percent off, just like the Rift version. Anshar Wars 2 is also half price, but there’s a bonus if you buy this game.

Anshar Wars 2 just launched on the Rift, and Oculus said that if you buy the game on either platform, you’ll get the other one for free.

Oculus released four games yesterday in addition to Anshar Wars 2. Daydream Blue, another cross-platform multiplayer game, and Zero G VR, which lets you experience being on a spacewalk, are now available for the Rift. Cosmic Rush, a game about surviving in space after an explosion, and Dark Days, a scary puzzle adventure game, have also been released on the Gear VR.

Oculus also released a new video experience called Abe VR, which Oculus describes as the “horrifying story about a misguided robot seeking the unconditional love of humans…at any cost.” A new app called “Welcome to Virtual Reality,” which was built by the same team that made “Welcome to Oculus,” was also released. Oculus said that it’s “perfect for introducing friends, family, or even complete strangers” to VR. And finally, The Discovery VR app has made its way to the Rift, so you can watch Discovery Channel’s 360-degree content from your desktop PC now.

The Oculus Summer Sale runs until July 5.

Follow Kevin Carbotte @pumcypuhoy. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.