Oculus vs. Vive - Recommended VR Headset

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  • Does using an oculus create a strange affect while turning ones head in a scene? I heard Phil Read give a presentation in which he recommended the Vive over the Rift because the Rift gives this weird sensation when looking left and right. I tried out a Rift someone had set up after his presentation and had this experience as I navigated a model. Its hard to explain, but it's as if ones whole body is turning rather than just his head - and it's not a framerate issue -table smooth, just a bit off putting. The Vive doesn't seem to have it though - I've been using one with enacape and been very pleased


    Thoughts? I'm considering purchasing another VR device for another computer and like the lower price of the Rift, but don't want to compromise on the user experience

    • Official Post

    There's really not that much difference in that regard - tracking and interpolation/reprojection (required for lower framerates) is about the same quality on both devices. One difference is the field of view that is slightly larger on the Vive. So on the Oculus you'll get more of that "diving goggles" effect - however at the same time the display quality is sligthly better.


    I personally would depend my decision on whether you really want to explore your designs using so called roomscale VR. If that is relevant, I'd go for the Vive, as the tracking setup is much easier (wireless trackers, except for power supply) and you can track larger areas.


    Hope that helps :)

  • We've gone for the Rift purely because the lack of support the Vive has for Walkthrough mode in VR currently. No issues with the Rift thus far I'm pleased to say!

    That's really interesting, so when you talk about the lack of support in Walkthrough mode is that a known issue with ENSCAPE and Revit? or what are your thoughts/ ideas/Knowledge about this?, I mean We are thinking to buy the VIVE to do Walkthroughs with our clients so if there is a problem I'll be so glad to know about the issues you already had, thanks in advance

  • FRANCO With the VIVE you will be able to walk through walls and would have to teleport upstairs and the setup is more complex.

    But you will have roomscale movement.


    The Oculus will recognize walls and stairs and is easy to setup (Works with only one sensor ->no roomscale) and you could perform a more complex setup with 3 sensors for getting roomscale movement.


    You should test both.

  • Hi!


    Does anybody have recommendation on what VR set to buy? Our office is planning to buy one, so the price isn't so important. Im pretty new at VR, but Im guessing its HTC vs Oculus? Perhaps the HTC Vive Pro since it's the latest on the market? And ofcourse the controls are very important, any suggestions on what's easiest to navigate Enscape with?

  • Hi STB-Mondo The Vive Pro has the double pixel count of the Vive. For VR with the Vive (non Pro) I would recommend to use a GTX 1080.

    As the Vive Pro is way more heavy, I would have to recommend a GTX 1080 TI or better a Titan XP.


    But in this case I would recommend to either go

    • for a cheap Oculus Rift if you already have a GTX 1080
    • Or wait for the new RTX series and purchase a Vive Pro with it.
  • Thanks! Right now we only have Quadro cards, but Im planning on a new workstation with a GTX (or RTX) when we buy the VR.


    Any news on Vive (or Vive Pro) supporting "real" walktrough now? I don't think we'll be using roomscale VR, so perhaps Oculus is the way to go. Still it's a couple of years old and a new version should probably be released soon, cause it feels like the resolution will make a big diffrent? Isn't Vive Pro a big step up from Vive? Maybe we'll wait to the spring and then buy a Oculus 2 and a RTX-card.

  • STB-Mondo Sure, if you want to wait for the Oculus thats probably a good choice as well. It shall be released in Spring, but it's the earliest possible date, so it could get postponed.

  • Thanks! Right now we only have Quadro cards, but Im planning on a new workstation with a GTX (or RTX) when we buy the VR.


    Any news on Vive (or Vive Pro) supporting "real" walktrough now? I don't think we'll be using roomscale VR, so perhaps Oculus is the way to go. Still it's a couple of years old and a new version should probably be released soon, cause it feels like the resolution will make a big diffrent? Isn't Vive Pro a big step up from Vive? Maybe we'll wait to the spring and then buy a Oculus 2 and a RTX-card.

    Don't count on the new Oculus Rift showing up this Spring - most people agree it won't be coming out until at least 2020.


    This Spring will likely see the release of their Santa Cruz hybrid headset, which is standalone like the Oculus Go, but also includes positional tracking and dual controllers like the Rift (through camera tracking built into the headset, eliminating the need for external sensors, similar to how the Samsung Odyssey and other Windows MR headsets work). The big difference being that like the Go, it's a mobile headset (ie. no chord and computer powering it), so performance will be an order of magnitute less, and any version of Enscape capable of running on it would likely be more cartoony than realistic.

  • For the price point, I've had a surprisingly great experience using the Windows Mixed Reality Headsets. At any point, one of them are on sale for around $200. They're defiantly better than the earlier versions of Oculus/Vive and they keep up decently well with the newer versions. So far I've done walk-throughs with the Lenovo and HP.


    I'd say their biggest flaw is the hand tracking. If your hands are out of sight from your head (where the cameras are) for more than 5-10 seconds, the tracking feels off. Once they come back in view, it's snaps back, but it's still an issue.


    The big positive is that there is little to no set-up.

  • DraftingDave The WMR headsets are definitely a good VR entry point.

    But they have no roomscale tracking and a significantly higher resolution, which is good and bad at once.

    • Missing Room Scale tracking: People get faster motion sick and it feels less natural
    • Higher Resolution: Requires close to double GPU performance in high resolution as the headsets displays 80% more pixels than Rift and Vive.
      =>A laggy perfomance results in faster motion sickness.