HTC Vive or Oculus Rift

[rusteberg]

I have some projects coming up where VR would be useful and want to start experimenting with it.... First logical step seems to be buying a headset and it looks like these two options work with vray. My main question, for those of you with VR experience, is there a preference between these two headsets? From performance, comfort, setup, etc? Thanks in advance for any input.

[rpo81]

Hi,

i would prefer the HTC Vive/VivePro solution. Setup is really easy also if you want to use it with a mobile workstation. The 2 base stations comunicate via bluetooth with the host computer and need only power cable and no wiring connection to pc. Rift tracking cams needs to be connected directly with pc. The tracking is very robust. In my opinion the wear comfort for the Vive is also better than Rift if you wearing glasses. Installation via Steam is also super easy. Regarding performance in therms of image quality i think Vive and Rift performs fairly the same. The Vive Pro indeed has better resolution and the screen door effect is less prominent.

Hope that helps in your decision.

Best regards,
Ralf

[rusteberg]

Thank you very much for your feedback Ralf !

[rpo81]

With lower budget you can also buy a mixed reality headset from Samsung, HP, Asus, etc.. I bought the HP mr headset this year for testing purposes. The hardware works good with surprisingly robust inside out tracking. Image quality and comfort is compareable to vive with less visible screen door effect. But the controller runs only with battery and can not be charged. Also the software installation procedure (windows 10) made some problems and took me 2 day to get it work. But at the end you just need to connect the headset to pc no additonal basestations or tracking cameras.

Best regards,
Ralf

[samuel_bubat]

I personal use the Vive mostly for development with the UE4 engine. Both headsets are very similar. Both headsets have the same resolution. The Oculus has a slightly sharper image in exchange to a smaller Field of View but it' s not really much of a difference. I personally would rather have a sharper image than a wider FOV. But as I said the difference is very subtle. For the Vive you'll need more space to place the Base Stations around your working place but the tracking is better. The Oculus uses a small camera. Meanwile you also can have roomscale VR with the Oculus when using more than one camera. What Ralf said is not quite correct. The base stations of the Vive do not communicate via Bluetooth. The basestations have fast moving motors with IR Lasers wich are captured by sensors on the Headset. The headset and controlers calculate/triangulate their position in space with these lasers pretty much like the GPS system (or in case you' re familiar with aeronautics like a VOR beacon). The tracking of the Vive is very accurate. But those basestations are mechanical devices with fast moving parts and they will break, sooner or later. In two years we had to replace one basestation. Regarding comfort I prefered the Oculus. The Oculus is also a bit cheaper at the moment. But you can "upgrade" your Vive system with the Vive Pro. HTC meanwhile offers a wireless solution. But TPCast a third party developer also offers wireless solution for both. I' m pretty happy with the Vive. Also it' s worth to look what others have to offer. For example the Samsung Odyssey looks interesting with a resolution of the Vive pro, better price and all the tracking is made directly by the headset. But I haven' t tryied it myself.

[rusteberg]

Thanks for the info Samuel! Very useful information!