Oculus Rift S - First Impressions

Posted this on iracing but might as well copy and post it here if it helps anyone, or anyone would wish to add re their experience or other sims.

Really great upgrade, I wouldn't want to go back to the rift OG. Seeing things I never saw in my CV1. Stopped on the track to check the distance you could pick braking boards out with real clarity, between 200-300 ft, pin sharp as you go between markers, that alone makes a huge difference, and that was tested at Watkins Glenn with the little white on black boards at the end of the first straight. All the onboard info, relative etc, crystal clear, just takes a glance now, no leaning in which I had to do previously, same with in car dashes.No real sense of a sweet spot anymore though that clearly still exists, and SDE pretty much gone.

Going round belle island was a joy with all the billboards sharp and clear. Best thing I can probably describe is in replay mode, previously it was fine, but mid distant objects and far were more 'well I know that's a tree'. Now they are clear trees. Is it a 1080p rendition, well not quite, but not so far short now that it's going to bother you given the immersive bonus of VR. There is a ton of extra detail to enjoy and things I'd never seen in VR before, from the clarity of grandstands, signage and car detailing, to waves on water and the rendering of grass. Any brake marker you want now you can have.

The sound is not too bad. I tried it with some Cooler Master MH751's and given all the extra fuss of separate headphones, I'll stick to the in build speakers for now, bright and crisp like the displays, though it will definitely annoy sound buffs. The spacial audio is also much better on the S with the build in than on the Rift OG. It gets the job done to start with, possibly better for some VR experiences, but if you want the real gruff sounds then headphones required.

It's a definite upgrade, I'd say a worthy one, and it's no more taxing on the GPU meaning you still have all your headroom for the other aspects of image quality, AA, SS etc.

Absolutely zero change in the experience going to 80hz. Great if you wear glasses too. Tracking perfect. Zero light bleed in the headset and yet to get foggy for some reason. FOV feels slightly wider to me, but it's marginal, certainly felt wider in tin tops.

Very very happy with it, VR feels right now, not just an impression of a great experience. Top upgrade for 400 in my opinion and a sensible path while waiting for VR 2.0. Don't get mega hyped that you are suddenly going to be in the VR world of your dreams, it takes a few hours to understand the delights of the S, but it's way more than a side upgrade and is a great fit if you don't want to upgrade your PC. Solid improvements, really big impact. Highly recommended on first impressions.

NB the only other game I've briefly tested in is rF2, and I have to say it's a bit of a game changer in that too.
 
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Great. I will stick with oculus and upgrade for the S.
All the other new Headsets need a big upgrade in the GPU and that is an extra 800-900$ for me. With the Oculus S you don’t need to upgrade your GPU and you will have a better graphics clarity and that what I miss mostly with oculus rift.
 
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I would like to go for the Rift S, but without adjustable IPD I'm not sure it will work out for my 59mm IPD. Have you experienced any problems related to the IPD?

I should have stated, mine is set to 67.5. No noticeable issues for me. At 59mm I'd want to be scouring some forums, oculus reddit etc for someone's experience. The CV1 is still a great bit of kit, the S resolves a lot of the clarity in the distance issues or at least gets them to the level where they are really acceptable, it still has that VR feeling, but now you can pick out brake boards with ease and distant buildings and stands remain defined really adding to the immersion.
 
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I also got my Rift S today. The visual clarity is a big improvement. Text is crisp, god rays mostly gone. Colors are a bit better on the Rift CV1. Audio is an issue, I'm using earbuds myself.

The biggest issue I'm having with Assetto Corsa during night races is that it's not black but grey-ish. That was to be expected from LCD panels but I read it wasn't that bad but it's actually not that great at all compared to the CV1. I would say the 80 Hz refresh rate is noticeable (with racing titles) particularly when OSW kicks in.
 
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I also got my Rift S today. The visual clarity is a big improvement. Text is crisp, god rays mostly gone. Colors are a bit better on the Rift CV1. Audio is an issue, I'm using earbuds myself.

The biggest issue I'm having with Assetto Corsa during night races is that it's not black but grey-ish. That was to be expected from LCD panels but I read it wasn't that bad but it's actually not that great at all compared to the CV1. I would say the 80 Hz refresh rate is noticeable (with racing titles) particularly when OSW kicks in.
Yeah there is definitely a different colour pallet, colours pop more, contrast pops less. Most headsets are heading LCD because of the subpixels so we'll have to live with it for now. I noticed but it didn't bother enough to take away and enjoyment, I'd take the improvements in fidelity as compensation 100 times out of 100.
 
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I ordered an S and a Quest for multiplayer gaming in-house (non-sim racing), but I'd be curious to hear about comparisions between Odyssey+ and the Rift S, as I currently prefer the clarity of the O+ to everything else I've tried.
 
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I ordered an S and a Quest for multiplayer gaming in-house (non-sim racing), but I'd be curious to hear about comparisions between Odyssey+ and the Rift S, as I currently prefer the clarity of the O+ to everything else I've tried.

Same as the O+ according a someone on iracing, but with a much bigger sweet spot (my experience is that clarity is pretty much wall to wall), less all the hassle of WMR but with the ease of set up and spot on tracking.

Do report back with your conclusion when you've had some time with the S, be good to read.
 
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Inside out tracking means everyone with motion is out on this one, otherwise I would have bought one already. Don't know why they wouldn't launch it with backwards compatible support for the og camera tracking on top of the inside out.
 
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  • Deleted member 197115

I haven't heard of anyone actually having problem on motion systems with inside out tracking. Is that your personal experience or just a guess?
 
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I just received Oculus Rift S. First impressions are very good. Compared with original Rift I noticed better clarity straight away. Objects in the distance are sharper, bigger sweet spot and also it is much more comfortable at least for me.
I was choosing between Oculus Rift S and O+ but I am really happy that I chose Rift S. I tried O+ before and for me it looked blury and had very narrow sweet spot. It wasn't the most comfortable heatset either.
In addition I could run Rift S without any issues on my system (2070 MQ) whereas I would have struggled if I bought Reverb or Index.
 
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The biggest issue I'm having with Assetto Corsa during night races is that it's not black but grey-ish. That was to be expected from LCD panels but I read it wasn't that bad but it's actually not that great at all compared to the CV1. I would say the 80 Hz refresh rate is noticeable (with racing titles) particularly when OSW kicks in.

This was the thing I was most interested in and this will result in me not getting an S. Guess I have to wait for a different better-than-rift headset in the same price range.
 
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This was the thing I was most interested in and this will result in me not getting an S. Guess I have to wait for a different better-than-rift headset in the same price range.

It's a tough one. I hope I will get used to it. The rift s has so many upsides compared to the CV1 that I'm going to keep it. Night racing is only a fraction of my racing time anyway. As for the refresh rate, it's hard to tell really. Feels a little less fluid as before but you get used to that.

Maybe it's a non-issue for you, if you can try it out somewhere you could see for yourself.
 
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I'm following this with interest. I want a clear upgrade in the visual clarity over the CV1 and I'm still undecided which one I get. Your comments on the Rift S makes it more interesting that I initially thought.
 
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I'm following this with interest. I want a clear upgrade in the visual clarity over the CV1 and I'm still undecided which one I get. Your comments on the Rift S makes it more interesting that I initially thought.

Having spent some more time with it - my conclusion is that the upgrades it presents hit the sweet spot for sim racing. At near range the cars dash and info boxes are now very clear, so you can drive a car from it's dials and instruments (can vary slightly sim to sim, iracing is particularly good). The mid range is a large improvement so you can now clearly pick out brake markers, details on other cars and all those goodies. And the far view has gone up in resolution so that immersive sense of being at the track is much closer way better and that sense of focus pop in gone hugely diminished. The downside of that, with the Rift OG layer of visual vaseline gone is that you start to notice standard imperfections as you would on a monitor such as AA.

The major issues that were inherent in the CV1 now resolved to a much better baseline experience. I can understand why many reviews called it a minor upgrade, in some ways it is in other games, but in sims it absolutely hits the mark because of the above and it feels like a worthy jump.

The rest comes down to budget and usability. Do you want to spend more than 400, and if you do will you need to upgrade your PC. Is it a bonus for you not to have a sensor locked to your rig, does that open up other VR experiences for you. You can't knock what you get at the price point and its an oculus, it feels like they engineered it, but you might want to wait to see what else comes to market now they have set a new mid range standard
 
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if not in a hurry I would wait for the valve index reviews, higher resolution, bigger FOV and higher refresh. seem like the biggest overal upgrade out of the new VR that are announced.

I am also keeping an eye out for the HP reverb, how bad is the WMR in actual use if its only for iracing?
 
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if not in a hurry I would wait for the valve index reviews, higher resolution, bigger FOV and higher refresh. seem like the biggest overal upgrade out of the new VR that are announced.

I am also keeping an eye out for the HP reverb, how bad is the WMR in actual use if its only for iracing?

But then you need to upgrade your PC to run at such high refresh rate/resolution. In addition you need to run sensors or live with inferior tracking of wmr. For me not having to set up any sensors is a big advantage. And if you plan to play other be titles not only sims she tracking is very good compared with wmr.
 
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I presume all the people moaning about the tracking is completely irrelevant for sitting down in a cockpit and simracing? Similarly, if the sound does become lacking I assume bunging some headphones on isn't such a hardship compared to the people that are jumping around their living room hitting things?

I'm this --> <-- close to hitting "Pay" :laugh:
 
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But then you need to upgrade your PC to run at such high refresh rate/resolution. In addition you need to run sensors or live with inferior tracking of wmr. For me not having to set up any sensors is a big advantage. And if you plan to play other be titles not only sims she tracking is very good compared with wmr.

I understand the disadvantages,
but I would guess a lot of sim racers -who have a rig anyway- won't mind the two extra cables. I don't need to upgrade my PC just for this. I upgrade regularly, I think many sim racers/gamers do.

The possible advantages with the Index being from an actual game oriented company and with specs improvements over the whole line, I would at least wait for reviews before buying anything new.

one last remark, although I have a very cheap second hand Rift I can't justify giving any money to those ad-pushers at Facebook.
 
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