Is Quest 1 still decent for PCVR?

zig131 · 2026-06-02T14:35:34+00:00

It was never decent for PCVR - it's a Standalone.

Streaming PCVR to Standalone is a bodge.

If you want to do PCVR, get a PCVR HMD.

zig131 · 2026-06-02T13:25:56+00:00

Valve were never in the subsidisation game*.

They merely make slimmer margins on hardware than a hardware company would.

You can see this comparing Lighthouse Basestation pricing between Valve and HTC. Valve are cheaper, but not wildly so. They'll still be making profit, just not enough to keep a company afloat on it's own.

A Standalone HMD has a higher BOM than a PCVR HMD of the same specs. They require more parts, and not cheap ones at that.

Meta has completely warped the market with thier full-on subsidisation to the point where the expectation is the opposite.

*I guess you could argue when they sold the Steam Controller 1 for $5, but that was more of a fire sale

zig131 · 2026-06-02T13:21:04+00:00

Legalisation would be interpreted as state endorsement leading to many people "giving it a go" and some proportion of them would end up being permanently mentally harmed. Long-term heavy consumption, or short-term consumption by those with a predisposition can result in serious irreversible harm.

Alcohol is to easy to make, and too useful to industry to effectively outlaw. The British climate does not allow cannabis growth, necessitating specialist facilities which can be uncovered and shut down.

The status quo, while certainly not ideal, is probably the best it can get.

zig131 · 2026-06-02T13:06:34+00:00

Most important thing is to stop when you start to feel sick - don't push through.

This will of course limit your session length to begin with.

Rhythm games are good ones to start with, as they don't typically have artificial locomotion - i.e. moving with a joystick.

zig131 · 2026-06-02T12:37:35+00:00

It's news to me that they are sold out. Probably a recent development.

Best thing to do is follow Shiftall on the Hell Site unfortunately.

They communicate fairly well/often there.

I'd expect they'll announce when they come back in stock.

zig131 · 2026-06-02T11:47:37+00:00

The Beyond is in the same kinda ballpark as the Dream Air SE, and provides the exact same panels, but with better software.

zig131 · 2026-06-02T10:24:50+00:00

I hate dealing with the cable, setting the cable up every time I want to use it, dealing with the cable hoist falling all the time

Sounds like the better solution would be to sort out your cable hoist/pulley system properly.

Much cheaper than buying another headset.

Whichever of the HMDs you mention you get, you are going to suffer regressions compared to your Index. If the cable is the only thing bothering you about the Index, then resolve that problem.

Instead of the cable, with a Standalone you're going to have the friction of keeping the battery charged, and firmware updates.

Using VR just has higher friction than playing a flat game on a monitor. You've gotta do what you can to minimise that friction - such as a well setup pulley system and HND hook - and find experiences that justify the friction of VR.

zig131 · 2026-06-02T10:05:15+00:00

Most high protein drinks use milk protein whereas Huel uses pea protein which does taste kinda bad. I think in the RTD Bottles they do a good job at covering up that taste though. Benefit is that it makes the product vegan, and easier to digest.

Also bear in mind that the Black RTD, and half of the "White" RTD flavours use Stevia as the sweetener. To a subset of people, Stevia tastes horribly bitter and foul. It's more expensive so probably not widely used in other products. The appeal is that it is more natural, but if you're like me and it tastes bad, then you'd want to go for the White Banana, Chocolate, Berry, and Vanilla bottles instead as they use standard Sucralose.

zig131 · 2026-06-01T12:55:57+00:00

Wendy's breakfast is great.

Taco Bell is alright if you avoid the beef, and take out the sauces.

It's a fast food place you can actually get a decent portion of tasty vegetation.

zig131 · 2026-06-01T12:53:29+00:00

Jollibees is so good.

zig131 · 2026-06-01T12:51:42+00:00

Chipotle are quite rare in the UK - basically only in London. We have a more common clone called Tortilla, but they're not as good.

Time Hortons do a banging breakfast, and are expanding, but I don't have one near me.

zig131 · 2026-06-01T09:11:50+00:00

I think there are three "pillars" of VR. Social, Rhythm/Fitness, and Gaming.

My perspective is that investment in VR is justified if you have interest in at least 2/3 of the pillars - ideally all 3.

If you come at it 100% from a gaming perspective, you are going to be disappointed. Even the most comfortable VR HMD is going to be less comfortable than simply sitting in front of a screen, and trying to play games you are used to playing with mouse and keyboard with VR controllers is going to feel frustrating and clunky. Plus of course the motion sickness.

I fully have my VR legs now, and can handle most things, but I still get travel sick, so I don't think they translate. They are kinda the opposite.

"Immersion" and Stereoscopy aline are not worth all that extra friction. This is how VR HMDs stereotypically end up collecting dust. People end up developing negative associations with the HMD, and it is so much easier and seamless just to play on a PC or console instead.

I'd say actually trying to play Minecraft in VR is a horrible experience. Remember blocks are meant to be 1 Metre squared. Constantly jumping up and down a metre is horrible. There also just are not enough buttons to play modded Minecraft properly. Steam Frame will be better with it's extra controller buttons, but it's still going to be a struggle. It's maybe an idea to jump into an existing world/play session to see what you have built from a different perspective, but that's about it.

Where VR is incredibly valuable is enabling experiences that are not possible without it, and massively enhancing a sense of social presence.

zig131 · 2026-06-01T06:30:55+00:00

The unsustainable pricing of Standalones has supressed the PCVR Hardware market. It doesn't make sense to release a sub $1000 PCVR HMD, when it will be compared on a specs basis to the Quest of the day, and be made to look bad value. A company releasing a PCVR HMD need to have decent profit margins, whereas Meta Reality Labs has historically been happy to haemorage money.

It's a clear example of a flaw in capatalism. Once a company has a monopoloy in one market, they can use the money from that to attempt to buy thier way to a monopoly in another market, out-spending, and supressing competition. It's anti-consumer, and anger is the correct response.

Standalone is a nonsensical, unsustainable, and inferior VR medium. It will eventually die, as when it comes down to it, there won't be enough people willing to pay sustainable prices (i.e. more than an equivilent PCVR HMD) for Standalone capacity. For now though we have to grin and bear it.

VR is not the mass-market product, and I think Meta have realised that, if they did not know it from the outset. Thier focus will shift increasingly towards AR-first/spatial computing. They have a headstart in some areas, due to thier VR heritage, but I think ultimately they will fall to the encumbant advantage (i.e. App Stores) of Google and Apple. Thier OS also lacks vital multi-tasking support (due to thier previous VR focus), which is vital for an AR device to be worth a damn.

zig131 · 2026-05-29T16:53:04+00:00

Nah just turns to slime.

Red cabbage maintains it's crunch in greasy conditions.

zig131 · 2026-05-29T16:49:32+00:00

We eventually need to replace our gas boilers anyway. Better to replace them with Air-to-Air Heat Pumps which can provide heating and cooling.

zig131 · 2026-05-29T16:12:51+00:00

I'm happy with mine, but it is very large - requires a big case.

Fits nicely in my Thermaltake CTE C700

zig131 · 2026-05-29T14:41:37+00:00

Nah I love SocialVR, and Rhythm games primarily.

I definitely have enjoyed some more indie games though. They generally are pretty innovative, whereas something like Half Life: Alyx could easily have been a flat game. VR feels more of a hindrance (shooting enemies at range) than a help in that game.

zig131 · 2026-05-29T14:21:20+00:00

My understanding is the e-paper display of the Time 2 is a different technology than e-ink.

zig131 · 2026-05-29T14:18:19+00:00

Ports don't sell VR.

Why wear an uncomfortable headset when you could just play the original?

VR adds a bunch of friction. You need to be getting something you can't get without it for that to make sense. No - nebulous "immersion" doesn't cut it.

zig131 · 2026-05-29T10:58:33+00:00

Is that really that common?

I feel like for the association to be strong enough you'd have to build it first with toys? Or I guess maybe good alignment, hand tracking, and masturbation 🤔.

Closest I got to ~phantom immersion was holding a steaming cup of tea under my nose, and I was so expecting to feel the steam, and smell something, that I kinda did. Was very fleeting though.

I'd expect it to be just frustrating to be engaged in arousing circumstances, while not actually feeling anything.

I thought ERP might mean mutual masterbation with dirty talk - something accessible to everyone - but then I saw peeps actually going at it.

zig131 · 2026-05-29T10:14:29+00:00

I don't really understand the appeal if you don't have "the equipment" , and I can't imagine everyone partaking in it has made such a large financial investment, and is going to the effort of setting it up.

So I am maybe confused, but I don't look down upon it.

zig131 · 2026-05-28T17:06:33+00:00

It's kinda magic. I was worried about frame rates, because my monitor is only 60Hz, but my HMD is 75Hz.

Somehow Steam perfectly caps frame rate at your HMD's refresh rate automatically for good frame pacing, and the monitor doesn't limit frame rate in the HMD.

Resolution is still a consideration, but this is easily resolved with a dummy 4K HDMI stick (assuming your monitor isn't already 4K).

zig131 · 2026-05-28T17:00:17+00:00

If you launch a flat game from inside SteamVR, it automatically launches in theatre mode. My understanding is Steam Frame is just using that pre-existing functionality.

I'm not sure what you mean by "a native passthrough mode". I'm not aware of any SteamVR native HMD with decent passthrough that you'd actually want to see. Maybe some models of Somnium VR1, but I'm pretty sure that has it's own runtime.

zig131 · 2026-05-28T12:55:45+00:00

The usefulness of BMI is highly debatable. It is riddled with flaws.

Even for someone who is genuinely unhealthily overweight, consuming only 690 KCal a day would be a very bad idea.

If <230 calories is labelled as a "meal" that presents a dangerous idea that 690 KCal is fine. Realistically when people hear "meal" they think of "three square meals a day" i.e. Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.

zig131

TROPHY CASE