The HTC Vive was my first VR headset, and it heralded the dawn of a new age in gaming – especially for immersive sims which work best with VR. It’s a first-generation VR headset and it shows. But it also signals that VR is viable and it’s here to stay.
Sims is where VR truly shines
Even though I thoroughly enjoyed room scale VR, I feel sims is where true longevity lies for VR. Seated sims don’t have locomotion problem and the added situational awareness is amazing for flight, space and racing sims.
Steam VR support
The best part about the Vive is that it uses the SteamVR (and OpenXR) ecosystem and Valve is amazing when it comes to support. This mean it just works out of the box and doesn’t have to rely on the “walled garden” approach that companies like Meta or Apple have.
Lighthouse tracking
The lighthouse tracking is the best tracking ever. Period. Even newer headsets with all the tracking cameras etc. can’t hold a candle to lighthouse tracking. There is just nothing else to say here because nothing else comes close.
Room Scale VR revolution
While this aspect is not relevant fort sims, the room scale VR aspect adds variety to VR gaming. I do enjoy the odd shooting or sword slashing or arrow launching games. I especially LOVED the music games like Beat Saber.
Comfort
Comfort is not VR’s strong suite. The headsets are bulky, heavy, get hot and have long and heavy wires. That is another reason why VR works best with seated sims because it’s easier to sit with it than to jump around with it.
Clarity
The clarity is not the best but its passable for a first gen headset. Even the pixel count is increased, GPUs wouldn’t be able to run that many pixels. So we just have to wait for technology to catch up. The per eye resolution is 1080×1200 but remember the actual render resolution has to be much higher than that because of edge distortion.
Final verdict
The only competitor to the HTC Vive is the Ocuslus Rift and the Vive is a better buy there for sure. It has higher resolution and a better ecosystem. So if you are looking to buy a VR headset, its your obvious choice.
The real question is should you get a VR headset at all?
For flight and racing simmers, the answer is a definite yes. I barely play sims without VR anymore. Almost all sims support VR and they add a level of immersion that makes the sims feel like sims. For me, VR has become far more important than even joysticks, HOTAS, or a racing wheel.
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