is VR worth it with my specs or should I upgrade first?
is VR worth it with my specs or should I upgrade first?
You're considering purchasing a used Oculus CV1 from eBay or an Oculus Quest directly from Amazon, and you want to know if it would be a worthwhile investment given your current PC specs – an i7-3770 CPU, GTX 970 GPU, 8GB RAM, and Corsair VS550 PSU. You’re particularly interested in the Oculus's ASW 2.0 feature which syncs frames to 45Hz, aiming for a smooth VR experience without excessive frame spikes or drops. Your potential games of interest include Half Life Alyx, Boneworks, Interkosmos, Pavlov, Lone Echo, Echo Arena, Subnautica, Alien Isolation, and Beat Saber. You’re planning on using USB 2.0 as your connection method due to Oculus Link's compatibility with it.
You’ve researched the Oculus Quest’s ability to function as a PC VR headset via Oculus Link, noting that this feature initially only supported USB 3.0 cables but has recently been updated to work with USB 2.0 connections. You are seeking feedback from others who have similar hardware configurations and experience running VR titles on these headsets.
Here’s a rewritten version of the text, aiming for natural and fluid language:
“Let’s talk about setting up your VR experience. You’ll want to ensure you have enough memory – 8GB is pretty close to the limit, so if you can get 16GB with an additional DIMM, that would be a great upgrade, especially for things like VR. There might be some occasional dropped frames, but they shouldn't really break your immersion.
When it comes to choosing a headset, I’m personally quite fond of the Oculus/Meta Quest 1. I find the inside-out tracking – where the headset tracks its position without external sensors – can sometimes cause brief interruptions in controller tracking when you move your hands around. Honestly, I prefer the more reliable setup of the Quest 1.”
My boyfriend has pretty much the same setup as you and he plays most of what you've listed on his CV1 with few issues. The odd dropped frame here and there but nothing immersion breaking. The only thing I'd suggest is grabbing yourself another 8gb DIMM to bump up your memory capacity to 16gb, 8gb is on the edge of being a tad low for VR in my experience (Also own and regularly use a CV1). Other than that I'd say you're grand.
With regards to which headset to get, I'm admittedly biased and would recommend picking up a CV1 if you can find one in good nick, I'm personally not a fan of the inside out tracking tech in the newer HMDs. I find that even though it doesn't happen often, the break in controller tracking when I move my hands out of the line of sight of the tracking camera's in the HMD is pretty jarring at times. Though that being said the Quest does have the added bonus of being able to use it without a PC, so there's that. =) If it's your first VR experience I doubt the controller's breaking tracking would be that bad.
The ASW you're talking about is short for asynchronous spacewarp, basically it's just VSYNC for VR. I usually disable this using the Oculus debug tool for the most part, I only use it if I find I'm dropping frames quite regularly, it does help to smooth out the frame rate at times.
If you do decide to go for a Rift CV1 though you will have to make sure that both the headset and at least one sensor is connected via a USB3 port. I use 3 camera's and have had to purchase a USB3 PCIe card in order to not overload the USB controller on my motherboard. But should you have to do this they only cost a tenner from Amazon so it won't break the bank. Ha ha.
Here’s a rewritten version of the text, aiming for natural flow and human-like language:
“I’m trying to get my Oculus set up properly, and I've run into a bit of a snag. The computer case and motherboard don’t have USB 3.0 ports – it seems like the recommended solution is a separate adapter which costs around $30, but that’s outside my budget right now. That’s why I was considering the Quest; it only needs one or two USB connections (they've updated it) and has a refresh rate of up to 72Hz, which would be easier for me to manage with my current hardware. I’m planning on buying it in August. If it isn’t available then, I might look at the CV1 or even upgrade my graphics card instead. Also, I was wondering about ASW – does that really make a huge difference during intense gaming sessions?”
Always happy to help whenever I can. =)
Ahh I see, in that case then the Quest is understandably the best option for you right now. If this will be your first VR experience then you'll likely not even notice the problems that I've mentioned with regards to the tracking, I only notice it because I guess I'm just used to having external sensors by now. Ha ha.
ASW
can
help, just the same as VSYNC can help at times. As I said previously, if I'm playing a game that rarely drops below 90FPS then I tend to disable ASW as on the odd occasion that I do drop below 90 the jarring jump to 45 is a little immersion breaking. However that being said for games where I struggle to hit or regularly drop below 90 then I leave it enabled as it does definitely help to smooth out the overall experience. If I were you I'd experiment with ASW on and off and see which you prefer? As a rule of thumb though if you dislike VSYNC then I doubt you'll enjoy using ASW very much. It's an entirely subjective opinion though of course and I by no means condemn the use of ASW. =)
Alright will do, Thank you for your answers
I feel like 72fps will be easier to reach with my specs, though I might be wrong because specs vary from game to game also there's ASW 2.0 which I think fixes some problems I don't know if the CV1 supports it.
Also it might work better for me because it doesn't even need a PC to run some games, but I will connect it with a USB 2.0 port of course and try out oculus link.