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Computer games.

The Series S is by far the best value console. With Gamepass you can get by with pretty much everything being included in some form or another. All of the MS titles hit day 1, you've got access to pretty much all of EA's games with an included origin sub......rumours abound that Uplay will also be coming to gamepass.......coupled in with MS's aquisitions (namely Blizzard/Activision and Bethesda) the AAA title day 1 release is looking pretty extensive. Add in all the indie gems that get included, gamepass is well worth the monthly sub price.

MS just need to get the family plan version going, so I can stop paying for Gamepass ultimate and 3 gamepass for PC subs (still cheaper than buying games outright)
Nice one, sounds like Series S is the one for me
 
I wouldn’t have a clue about all the graphic cards and what else he has in it. Just know it was all custom built by someone called ginger6 and cost us over a grand. It’s about 18 months old now and works really well.

oh my...

well, all you need to do is call up the SYSTEM icon of the CONTROL PANEL, and there it should give you the key bits of info. Ideally for demanding PC VR games, and to handle the resolution of the Quest 2, you want something like this (or better):

- Intel i5/i7 CPU with 6 or 8-cores (or AMD Ryzen equivalent).

- NVidia GTX-1070 (or AMD).

- 16GB RAM

- SSD Hard Drive


These things are built as standard in most Gamer PC's of the last 2-3 years, so hopefully yours is too.
 

oh my...

well, all you need to do is call up the SYSTEM icon of the CONTROL PANEL, and there it should give you the key bits of info. Ideally for demanding PC VR games, and to handle the resolution of the Quest 2, you want something like this (or better):

- Intel i5/i7 CPU with 6 or 8-cores (or AMD Ryzen equivalent).

- NVidia GTX-1070 (or AMD).

- 16GB RAM

- SSD Hard Drive


These things are built as standard in most Gamer PC's of the last 2-3 years, so hopefully yours is too.

I wouldn’t have a clue about all the graphic cards and what else he has in it. Just know it was all custom built by someone called ginger6 and cost us over a grand. It’s about 18 months old now and works really well.

Just hit the windows key and type 'system information' and hit enter. That is the quick, easy way to see what hardware you are packing
 
some people still play seated, but i make a free space of about 3x3m so i can physically stand/crouch/turn, even walk a few small steps.

next-level stuff!


...and makes you feel less of a couch potato.
My son is well into Boneworks and it's sequel which is releasing next week. He had me playing the first one yesterday. Good fun, but not something I would do remotely regularly. My preferred VR experience is DCS.
 
PSVR has a huge amount of interesting exclusives which gamer-aficionados rave about like Farpoint, Astrobot, Iron Man, Firewall Zero Hour, Wipeout Omega, The Inpatient, Deracine, How We Soar, Dreams, Blood & Truth and the pant-wetting Resident Evil 7 (tho' there's an unofficial VR mod for Steam versions now). Also Hitman 3 in VR.

There's the Playstation Gun Aim Controller for extra FPS immersion feels.

PSVR Headset has two versions: the first has more cables so is a pain in the arse to set up, but has slightly better clarity/contrast then V2. V2 is probably more recommended as there's only one main cable. You'll also need the camera, and Move/Navigation controllers (ones from PS3-era work too), tho' some games also accept Joypad.


These games sometimes struggled with framerates and textures on classic PS4, but perform well on my PS4 Pro, will be even better on a PS5.

Overall: better graphics, and deffo better exclusives, than the Quest 2.


But Quest 2 has four advantages over PSVR:

1) wireless (realistic boxing with Thrill Of The Fight would be impossible otherwise).

2) and PC-compatibility, including Steam. That's how i'm playing the Half-Life 2 VR mod, via 5m long USB-cable. Wireless-to-PC is also possible but my framerates always suffer.

3) better hardware resolution: noticeable when playing high-end PC VR games like Half-Life: Alyx or Lone Echo. With cable then. Also less 'Screen-Door Effect' when looking at solid bright background colours, like a sky or wall.

4) controllers included, no other hardware necessary unless you wanna link to PC.

bonus) despite PSVR having much more interesting exclusives...Quest 2 has arguably the single greatest one of all: Resident Evil 4...the complete original game in VR...and wireless!


Alternative: wait for the improved PSVR mark II. Not V2 of the PS4-version, but the brand new PS5-optimised Headset coming out early next year. Unfortunately, it won't be compatible with any of those fine exclusives I listed. Dumb move from Sony.



I'm a bit of a VR-nut. Curiousity means i've owned most of the mainstream ones. PSVR vs Quest 2 is a close call, for sure. I reckon it boils down to:

PSVR exclusives vs PC-gaming compatibility.

Owned the psvr and Quest 2 and Quest 2 wins hand down due to Wireless. Can't believe the next psvr is still wired.
 
My son is well into Boneworks
i've done the first hour or so...impressive all-in gameplay, but feels a bit too loose and the lack of compelling world-building hasn't brought me back to it.

For me, my top 5:

- Thrill of the Fight (realistic boxing sim)
- Half-Life: Alyx/Half-Life 2 VR mod
- Resident Evil 4 on Quest 2
- Lone Echo (hard sci-fi adventure)
- Skyrim PC VR (was never arsed about the flat-screen version, comes alive in VR!)


My preferred VR experience is DCS.
had to look that up:




Quite specialist that! I hear VTOL is meant to be good too, for those who are into realistic Flight mechanics but want more action:




There's also a Sturmovik one.


Owned the psvr and Quest 2 and Quest 2 wins hand down due to Wireless. Can't believe the next psvr is still wired.

It makes sense to be wired for the same reason PC-VR is wired...to enjoy the highest-fidelity graphics at optimum performance. To basically be able to play the very best games available.


Quest 2 wireless is great for very specific aims (in my case old games like Resi4, or sports stuff like the boxing), but otherwise most native games on it are quite naff. They're on par with a Wii graphically, and often have about as much content as those bundled Wii mini-games.

Some folk have managed to get a usable wireless connection to their PC, so they're apparently playing Half-Life: Alyx etc wirelessly, but 5G @200Mb/s is necessary, and my provider only manages 50Mb/s so too laggy for me.
 

i've done the first hour or so...impressive all-in gameplay, but feels a bit too loose and the lack of compelling world-building hasn't brought me back to it.
Right, it is basically Gmod in VR. So, sadly it is essentially a sandbox, and its the community who build worlds in it.

Some folk have managed to get a usable wireless connection to their PC, so they're apparently playing Half-Life: Alyx etc wirelessly, but 5G @200Mb/s is necessary, and my provider only manages 50Mb/s so too laggy for me.
I think you are mistaken. Your internet connection to the outside world is irrelevant. Its the strength of your connection from your headset, to your access point to your computer (ie, your internal network speed - your LAN).

Boneworks, Elite Dangerous, DCS and MSFS 2020 all run FLAWLESSLY on my computer via Airlink (wirelessly) because I have a 5Ghz (when I checked I was looking at a local 800Mbps wifi connection back to my computer - I can probably get more if I mess with the Wifi settings - get off onto a nice unused channel) connection direct to my wifi access point, which then has a cat6e cable back to my PC. Probably wouldn't be enough to run a Pimax 8k though.....that would deffo have to be wired.
 
I think you are mistaken. Your internet connection to the outside world is irrelevant. Its the strength of your connection from your headset, to your access point to your computer (ie, your internal network speed - your LAN).

I've tried all sorts: getting a Giga-capable router with 5G, setting up local wireless network where devices are connected to that 5G. Deactivating everything else. But the router isn't providing me with more than 7MB/s internal bandwidth (50Mbits/s), which matches the cap on our internet (due to old cabling in this block of flats).

Tried both Airlink and Virtual Desktop.


Maybe it's something silly like the LAN cable from the router to my PC is pre-Giga, or there's some annoying hidden 'energy save' feature on the router which is capping it. Or something i haven't thought of.

I'll have to take a closer look. 800Mb/s would be pretty amazing.
 
I've tried all sorts: getting a Giga-capable router with 5G, setting up local wireless network where devices are connected to that 5G. Deactivating everything else. But the router isn't providing me with more than 7MB/s internal bandwidth (50Mbits/s), which matches the cap on our internet (due to old cabling in this block of flats).

Tried both Airlink and Virtual Desktop.


Maybe it's something silly like the LAN cable from the router to my PC is pre-Giga, or there's some annoying hidden 'energy save' feature on the router which is capping it. Or something i haven't thought of.

I'll have to take a closer look. 800Mb/s would be pretty amazing.

Had another look: cable is Giga, Router settings fine except i was on a channel with a handful of neighbours so changed that. Got rid of other WLAN devices. Even disconnected internet. Set Airlink bitrate to max fixed rate of 200Mb/s (doesn't appear to offer higher values, even with dynamic). My 5G-WLAN does show a nice 780Mb/s status in the OS Control Panel.

In Task Manager when OCRServer is running it actually shows around 170Mb/s, which is near the 200Mb/s fixed-rate and much better than 50Mb/s. Yet HL:Alyx at my preferred High-graphics settings is still laggy and jerky (when compared to playing with cable). It's a little smoother on Low-settings, but some jerks/jitters still...jerkiness being a hefty immersion-killer in VR.

My GPU's memory is maxing out at 8GB, even causing a warning on the Alyx title screen. It's a 3060ti so quite capable. The OCRServer is taking around 35% of the GPU's usage with encoding jobs. My CPU (5600x) is a 6-core, maybe having 8 will help remove some of the jerkiness.

Maybe living in a huge complex of flats doesn't help either....wifi-interference and all that.


Conclusion: it's possible to use Quest 2 wireless for high-end Steam games, but there's some obstacles or compromises in getting there, at least for this user. USB-cable performance is stable and consistent, so will likely stick with that, especially for fast-paced shooters. The trick is being somewhat aware of where the wire is so you're not tripping over it...been fine so far.
 
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get off onto a nice unused channel) connection direct to my wifi access point, which then has a cat6e cable back to my PC. Probably wouldn't be enough to run a Pimax 8k though.....that would deffo have to be wired.
oh didn't see this bit before. yeah, as i described above i'm surrounded by dozens of neighbours, no such thing as an unused channel...i did select one which has least use (tho' it's 4am here, by the time the day arrives things will look different again).

The Pimax comment is interesting: what's yr CPU, GPU & RAM? There's so many variables. My Airlink is struggling with HL:Alyx on High-settings with my 5600x/3060ti/32gb, encoding the almost 8 million total pixels of the Quest in one home amongst several dozen other homes within throwing distance.

The 8k has around double the Q2: more than 15m pixels...(if using the full FOV).


What's your take on the Pimax experience? I've got the 5K+ and despite loving the wide view and great clarity i don't feel it has the same feeling of depth as Oculus, or even Vive, headsets. And i get eye-strain from it. According to a VR-youtuber it's because the Pimaxes aren't calibrated properly out-of-the-box, and you have to do a lot of settings-fiddling, and trial 'n error.

My theory is the reason Oculus/HTC/Valve haven't gone the wide-FoV route is because the calibration gets too tricky, especially when out-of-the-box the aim is for most players to be able to play comfortably right away.
 
oh didn't see this bit before. yeah, as i described above i'm surrounded by dozens of neighbours, no such thing as an unused channel...i did select one which has least use (tho' it's 4am here, by the time the day arrives things will look different again).

The Pimax comment is interesting: what's yr CPU, GPU & RAM? There's so many variables. My Airlink is struggling with HL:Alyx on High-settings with my 5600x/3060ti/32gb, encoding the almost 8 million total pixels of the Quest in one home amongst several dozen other homes within throwing distance.

The 8k has around double the Q2: more than 15m pixels...(if using the full FOV).


What's your take on the Pimax experience? I've got the 5K+ and despite loving the wide view and great clarity i don't feel it has the same feeling of depth as Oculus, or even Vive, headsets. And i get eye-strain from it. According to a VR-youtuber it's because the Pimaxes aren't calibrated properly out-of-the-box, and you have to do a lot of settings-fiddling, and trial 'n error.

My theory is the reason Oculus/HTC/Valve haven't gone the wide-FoV route is because the calibration gets too tricky, especially when out-of-the-box the aim is for most players to be able to play comfortably right away.
I don't have a Pimax.......the only VR in this house is the PSVR (vomit inducing) and Quest 2. My comment on the Pimax is more that the airlink probably isn't going to be handling 4k*2 at 90fps+ ;et alone my computer being able to push the pixels.......

My computer sports a 5800x, 32GB 3600CL14 and a Red Devil 6700XT (with 12Gb VRAM). Only MSFS makes VRAM an issue, at the highest detail settings.

Other reasons could be your cable from PC to router.......or possibly the placement of your router. 5Ghz hates walls (2.4Ghz has far superior penetrating power), it should be considered line-of-sight only, so make sure your headset and router are in the same room with nothing interrupting said LOS
 

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