An Overview Of Virtual Reality: Oculus Rift and HTC Vive

Virtual reality is in a really weird place right now. We have technology, such as the Oculus Rift orHTC Vive, that can sort of deliver on the concept of virtual reality, but while we may have technology for it, there’s not exactly a whole lot of software available for it. And if there is software available for it, much of it are just tech demos and not necessarily full-fledged games.

Now, there are a few full-fledged virtual reality games games out there, such as Alien Isolation, Dear Esther, and Dying Light, to name just a couple. However, there’s not necessarily enough content to make it worth dropping nearly $2000 to play them, as you’ll not only need the virtual reality headset, but a high-end machine as well.

With those thoughts in mind, virtual reality really is in a interesting place. The technology is sort of there, but not quite there, and there’s not even close to enough software available yet. It really is in a weird place. But, the emerging technologies still have a lot of potential.

Oculus Rift

The Oculus Rift will truly be the first PC gaming virtual reality headset available, and at a cheap price point in comparison to what the Vive will be. However, the Oculus isn’t exactly what we picture virtual reality to be…yet. It requires a hard connection to your PC for the user to be able to play, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but many folks imagine virtual reality is a truly wireless experience. In this case, users will be sitting down, playing with a controller in hand, kind of as you would on a gaming console.

Oculus’ Rift will cost a whopping $600 for those that are interested in making a leap into virtual reality. It has some hefty PC requirements, and there won’t be a whole lot of quality software available for it on launch day, particularly because it doesn’t have Valve backing the project. However, there will still be some good games available, but not many. You can find a whole list of games available around launch day here. As a forewarning, the only software the Oculus Rift will be able to run are PC and Xbox One Games. VR-compatible movies will be available for it, but companies are still deep in production for those.

Oculus says the Rift’s minimum requirements are a Intel i5-4590 processor, 8GB of RAM or more, and Windows 7 SPI (or higher). A Nvidia GTX 970 or AMD 290 graphics card or higher will be required, as well as access to a few ports on your computer (USB, HDMI, DVI, etc). The Rift will be able to run on less than this, but performance isn’t going to be great at all. That said, it’s highly recommended to have a high-end machine available for it.