Nick72x
Established Member
I bought a Meta Quest 2 recently and it’s been amazing!
I played and loved Red Matter and Red Matter 2, and this was enough to convince me to buy a high end PC and play Half Life Alex, DCS VR and BoneLab.
I’m loving VR and can’t ever go back playing games on a monitor, but I’ve looked around and I don’t see a potential upgrade for the Quest 2, here’s why.
PICO 4: Looks to be slightly better than the Quest 2 in most of the important aspects, but overall not a significant improvement.
If I didn’t have a headset already I’d buy the PICO 4 for sure, but not to replace the Quest 2.
HP Reverb G2: Tempting for the big increase in resolution and sharpness. Really tempting for Sim racing and Flight sims (seated games), but reports suggest the G2 has the worst in class controller tracking, Windows Mixed Reality is dead, and while a tethered [tie (an animal) with rope or chain so as to restrict its movement] option may be acceptable for seated games, I’ll never have a tethered headset as my daily driver.
Valve Index / Varjo Areo / Pimax 8K: I could go into detail on each of these, but they all fail for me by only offering 6dof with base stations and being tethered headsets. I’ve talked about tethering above, and bare in mind I’m getting zero noticeable latency / frame drops with Quest 2 Air Link, and can’t personally see any drop in graphics fidelity (over Quest 2 tethered).
Yes base stations offer best in class tracking, but the massive inconveniences of base stations (setup time for play space relocation being the most important), is just not worth the minor improvements over good inside out tracking.
As for the near future, I’m not too hopeful:
Quest Pro: I can’t see it offering much for the following reasons.
1) Development focus is for AR and social apps, not gaming.
2) High cost will mean low user base and games will not be developed to take advantage of the potential of eye tracking and foveated rendering.
Sony PSVR2: Looks like this will be a beautifully balanced package in terms of technology / price, but for me the tethered headset kills it. I’d also be concerned that serious sims will never come out on a PlayStation format, so it will never be my daily driver. If it turns out you can use the PSVR2 for PCVR titles (which I doubt) I might reconsider, but even then it could only ever be my second headset due to the tether.
We will have to see what the Quest 3 and the Pimax Crystal finally deliver, but I’m not that hopeful about either.
What I want in a new headset (in order of importance)
1) untethered with inside out tacking.
2) minimum 2160x2160 1200 dpi resolution @ 90fps
3) eye tracking with foveated rendering
4) fully supported by AAA and Independent developers
5) PCVR capable
It’s not much to ask, but I see nothing in the pipeline that’s going to deliver this any time soon.
What are you looking for in your next headset?
I played and loved Red Matter and Red Matter 2, and this was enough to convince me to buy a high end PC and play Half Life Alex, DCS VR and BoneLab.
I’m loving VR and can’t ever go back playing games on a monitor, but I’ve looked around and I don’t see a potential upgrade for the Quest 2, here’s why.
PICO 4: Looks to be slightly better than the Quest 2 in most of the important aspects, but overall not a significant improvement.
If I didn’t have a headset already I’d buy the PICO 4 for sure, but not to replace the Quest 2.
HP Reverb G2: Tempting for the big increase in resolution and sharpness. Really tempting for Sim racing and Flight sims (seated games), but reports suggest the G2 has the worst in class controller tracking, Windows Mixed Reality is dead, and while a tethered [tie (an animal) with rope or chain so as to restrict its movement] option may be acceptable for seated games, I’ll never have a tethered headset as my daily driver.
Valve Index / Varjo Areo / Pimax 8K: I could go into detail on each of these, but they all fail for me by only offering 6dof with base stations and being tethered headsets. I’ve talked about tethering above, and bare in mind I’m getting zero noticeable latency / frame drops with Quest 2 Air Link, and can’t personally see any drop in graphics fidelity (over Quest 2 tethered).
Yes base stations offer best in class tracking, but the massive inconveniences of base stations (setup time for play space relocation being the most important), is just not worth the minor improvements over good inside out tracking.
As for the near future, I’m not too hopeful:
Quest Pro: I can’t see it offering much for the following reasons.
1) Development focus is for AR and social apps, not gaming.
2) High cost will mean low user base and games will not be developed to take advantage of the potential of eye tracking and foveated rendering.
Sony PSVR2: Looks like this will be a beautifully balanced package in terms of technology / price, but for me the tethered headset kills it. I’d also be concerned that serious sims will never come out on a PlayStation format, so it will never be my daily driver. If it turns out you can use the PSVR2 for PCVR titles (which I doubt) I might reconsider, but even then it could only ever be my second headset due to the tether.
We will have to see what the Quest 3 and the Pimax Crystal finally deliver, but I’m not that hopeful about either.
What I want in a new headset (in order of importance)
1) untethered with inside out tacking.
2) minimum 2160x2160 1200 dpi resolution @ 90fps
3) eye tracking with foveated rendering
4) fully supported by AAA and Independent developers
5) PCVR capable
It’s not much to ask, but I see nothing in the pipeline that’s going to deliver this any time soon.
What are you looking for in your next headset?