Consider the Oculus Rift S if you’re seeking one of the top VR headsets. Experience the gaming with oculus rift like never before!
Since Oculus founder Palmer Luckey initially exposed the world to the Oculus Rift in 2012, virtual reality has come a long way.
The Oculus Rift S, now acquired by Facebook, should be the next step forward for the company’s high-end, PC-based virtual reality experiences. However, in terms of advancements and new capabilities over the original Oculus Rift, this is more of a baby step. The Oculus Rift S isn’t a direct successor to the Oculus Rift 2. But it’s a strong contender when it comes to the top VR headsets on the market in 2021.
If you keep up with technology, you’ve probably heard about the Oculus Rift S. That’s because both Apple and Microsoft utilize the letter ‘S’ to denote an incremental improvement. It also indicates that the item is backward compatible and will eventually replace the original. All of these attributes apply to the Oculus Rift S.
As a result, the Oculus rift s headset outperforms its predecessor, the original Oculus Rift, in many ways, particularly in terms of accessibility. This VR gear, however, isn’t the generational leap forward that many had hoped for. The Rift S, in fact, makes some trade-offs that feel like a step backward. In conclusion, the Rift S is a nice game – but not ‘next-gen’ good.
What you will see here!
Price and Availability of Oculus Rift S
The Oculus Rift S costs $489.00 / £349.79 and is available now. That’s far less than the price of the original Oculus Rift, which is a good deal for oculus rift s.
It’s also a lot less expensive than its nearest competitors, the HTC Vive, Vive Pro, and the upcoming Valve Index, which all require additional tracking sensors to work. Despite the fact that we haven’t completed a thorough review of the Valve Index, its no-holds-barred attitude to quality makes it appear to be the most fully realized VR experience to date.
Headset Design of Oculus Rift S
The Rift S was developed in collaboration with Lenovo, unlike the Oculus Quest, which was developed in-house by Oculus. As a result, the headset is simple, black, and curved like the original Rift. It contains design aspects that are comparable to the Lenovo Mirage Solo and Explorer headsets. Two conspicuous outward-looking cameras on the front panel interact with two more on the lower left and right corners, as well as a fifth facing upward, to enable positioning tracking and environment recognition without the need for external sensors, as the previous generation did.
Aside from the sensors, the harness is the most significant difference between the Rift S and its predecessor. It’s still a three-point headband with a strap that goes so over top of your head. But it’s much more like the Sony PlayStation VR or the Lenovo Mirage Solo in terms of design. The visor is attached to a huge, curved piece of plastic that rests against your forehead, with side straps that wrap around to a padded plastic arch that extends across your back. A wheel on the rear arch tightens and loosens the entire assembly, which may be fine-tuned with the hook and loop fasteners on the elastic top strap to obtain the perfect fit.
Unlike the Rift, which has attached on-ear headphones, the Rift S employs speakers that beam sound into your ears, similar to the Oculus Go and the Oculus Quest. You can use your own headphones via a 3.5mm jack on the side of the headset.
PC Requirements
To utilize the Rift S, you’ll need a computer. An Nvidia GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 480 graphics card, an Intel i5-4590 or AMD Ryzen 5 1500X or higher CPU, as well as a minimum of 8GB of RAM, are all recommended by Oculus.
Those were some serious specs two years ago, but if you’ve bought even a midrange gaming PC since then, you’re undoubtedly covered. All you need is Windows 10, a DisplayPort or Mini DisplayPort port, and a USB 3.0 port.
New Controllers
The Oculus Touch motion controllers are redesigned for the Rift S, as they are for the Oculus Quest. They’re little copies of the previous controllers, with the same motion-sensing capabilities and physical controls. The two devices are symmetrically mirrored, with a noticeable black grip and a circular ring that extends from the top to allow for six degrees of freedom (6DOF) position tracking via the headset’s cameras. The ring location is the most significant alteration from the original controllers; it extends up over each device’s physical controls, surrounding your thumbs while providing plenty of room to move.
An analog stick, two face buttons, as well as a system button are located on the top panel of each controller. A pair of triggers sit beneath your index and middle fingers on the underside of each grip. A single AA battery powers each controller.
Sharper Display of Oculus Rift S
The Rift S receives a display update over the Rift, in addition to its outward-facing cameras and internal speaker system. Instead of an OLED panel with a resolution of 1,080 by 1,200 for each eye, the Rift S employs an LCD with a resolution of 1,280 by 1,440 for each eye. Its refresh rate is a little slower, at 80Hz to 90Hz, but that’s still fine considering the Oculus Quest’s 72Hz refresh rate was fine for us. The switch from OLED to LCD is puzzling, especially given the Quest still has a higher-resolution OLED panel (1,440 by 1,600 per eye, the same as the HTC Vive Pro), but that’s still a step up from the Rift.
The display on the Rift S is bright and clear. Despite the fact that it has a lower resolution than the Oculus Quest, neither headset appeared grainy or distracting with individual pixels. Games like Beat Saber and Thumper provide excellent contrast with brilliant colors that stand out against dark backgrounds because of the LCD panel’s satisfyingly dark black levels.
Screen specs
There are also changes on the inside. Again, on paper, these appear to be improvements, but in practice, the picture is less clear. The Rift S replaces the twin OLED screens of the original Rift with a single LCD screen with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 for a clearer image.
However, the refresh rate is reduced from 90Hz to 80Hz. This is done to keep the price low while still keeping the device’s minimum requirements the same as the Oculus Rift. It allows more people to join without having to change their PC hardware. However, because the screens do not update at the rate your brain perceives, it may aggravate those who suffer from VR-induced motion sickness.
Mileage will vary, as will your ability to spot the difference. However, as explained later, the Rift S is the first VR headset that has made me physically ill. It’s tough to say whether this is due to the hardware changes or the program. However, it demonstrates that the shape has yet to be developed in any case, and the resolution increase was barely noticeable anyhow.
Performance of Oculus Rift S
Despite its simplicity of setup, the Oculus Rift S had several stability concerns. It is found that far exceeded the system’s suggested minimum specs, Oculus would frequently fail to respond while booting up its software, leaving the screen black. Similarly, when waking the headset from sleep, this can happen. Sometimes the only way to fix it was to unplug the headset entirely, rather than restart the computer.
It appears that the use of Steam VR has compounded the problem. Despite the fact that it’s a competing game, Valve, the company that owns Steam, has managed to make Rift hardware compatible with Steam VR software. This is fantastic because it significantly expands the number of games available for the Oculus Rift, including Steam VR PC exclusives The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR and Fallout 4 VR. However, running both the necessary Oculus Home program and the Steam VR platform at the same time will cause the screen to crash or the controls to become confused on a regular basis.
Moreover, despite having an SSD drive, the Rift S would occasionally delay my PC boot-up performance to an utter, five-or-more-minute crawl unless the headset was unplugged completely.
Is the Oculus Rift S worth the money?
If you’re fresh to the realm of virtual reality headsets, this is certainly worth your time. Overall, it performs an excellent job of providing an immersive and hassle-free virtual reality gaming experience. That isn’t to imply it is without flaws; nonetheless, you must decide for yourself!
Oculus Rift or Oculus Rift S: Which is better?
The first Oculus Rift contained two 1,080 x 1,200-pixel displays, one for each eye, with a refresh rate of 90 Hz. The Rift S has a single 2,560 x 1,440 resolution display with an 80 Hz refresh rate. Environments are significantly sharper and clearer because of the Rift S’s enhanced display.
Does Oculus work with PS5?
Officially, neither the PS4 nor the PS5 are compatible with the Quest 2. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, given Sony’s confirmation of the introduction of their own PSVR 2 headgear in 2022. Sony obviously prefers that customers use their VR headsets instead of a third party’s.
Conclusion
The Rift S, like its predecessor, has no external sensors, making it easier to use. It includes five cameras for tracking from the inside out. Despite the fact that Quest and Quest 2 are built for mobile VR, they may also be utilized for PC VR.
The Oculus Rift S is a feasible alternative for clinicians wishing to include virtual reality because of its high level of accuracy and precision, low cost, and usage of inside-out tracking.
If it had been built on top of the prior edition, it may have resulted in a much superior product. If you already own a good VR headset, unless you’re a hardcore user, this isn’t worth picking up unless you’re a hardcore user. However, if you’re fresh in the field of virtual reality, this is a must-see!
