Welcome to My Tech Gear, and welcome to another Tech Tip Tuesday!
Now today I thought I'd focus on the Oculus Quest 2. Now there are lots of questions on
the internet, and pretty much everyone's asking the same questions again and again.
Certainly in the forums that I'm involved in I'm seeing those same common questions crop
up all the time. So I thought I'd do a video of the top 10 most frequently asked questions,
and give you the answers that you're looking for in one place. Let's get into it!
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Thanks! So as I've said, everyone seems to be asking the same questions time and time again.
It's very similar, typically around whether you should buy things, which one should you buy,
should you go wireless, should you get a pc, what game should you buy. All these types of
questions are cropping up very very often so let's get straight into the answers to these...
So the first question off the bat is about should people actually buy the Quest to in
the first place, or should they keep the Quest 1 if they've already got it, or should they upgrade
to the Quest 2? What about the Rift S? Should they buy that instead? Well, all I can say about that
is that the Rift S is discontinued. The Quest 2 is Facebook/Oculus's main headset going forwards.
I did do a little bit more of a detailed video going into the ins and outs,
like if you've already got a Quest 1, should you upgrade to Quest 2?
Link to it up there if you want to go and have a look through that.
Short story, Quest 2, for $299 for the base 64GB model, it's a really good headset to buy.
And the next question is around which size should you get? So should you get the 64GB model,
or the 256GB model? Now 256, obviously four times as much storage as the other one. Now it does
cost an extra $100. So whether you should get the bigger model depends really on what you're going
to use it for. It is worth bearing in mind that when you buy games they are linked to your Oculus
account. They're not tied to your headset so you can uninstall game if you run out of room, and
then if you want to install it again you can. You don't lose that game by uninstalling it off your
headset. So for me I bought the 64GB model, and if I run out of room, which I haven't yet, I'll just
uninstall the games that I don't play anymore, install the new games, and if I want to play those
games again I'll just install them again and take something else off. I think if you're going to
have a massive large library of games then getting the larger headset is probably worth it, but for
me it really wasn't. It comes down to personal preference and really what your needs are.
Next is around accessories. People ask about the accessories for the Oculus Quest 2. As of
the time of this video the number of accessories you can get is somewhat limited because there just
aren't many manufacturers at the moment that have got accessories out for it. However, I
did do a 'best accessories for the original Oculus Quest'. So if you've got an original Oculus Quest,
and you're wondering, link up there as well. I would say the type of accessories in that list
still apply to here. So for the first one we're looking at the head strap. The head strap out of
the box that comes with it, I don't particularly like it. I don't find it particularly secure.
Some people find it comfortable. I would say, try it first, and decide whether you think it's worth
upgrading or not. If it is there's a couple of options at the moment. There is the elite strap
that oculus provide itself. Now there are some issues on the internet with people saying that
the strap is breaking. I've had one and I've had no issues with it at all. If it does
break for you don't forget that you are under warranty so you could get a replacement anyway.
There is also a GOMRVR halo strap which you can get if you go to aliexpress.
I haven't tried it personally, but other people have had some really good luck with that as well.
Controller grips is another one that is quite common, or was quite common with a Quest 1. We
haven't really seen any dedicated controller grips for the Quest 2. There are a lot of
companies out there that say they have controller grips that work with the Quest 1 and the Quest 2.
I would be really cautious of that because the controllers for the Quest 1 and the Quest 2 are
significantly different. The Quest 2 controllers are a different shape and they are significantly
bigger. So I don't see how you can get a strap that really properly fits both. It might at a
bit of a stretch, but I would want to wait for dedicated controller grips to come out for them,
and at the end of the day if you try your controllers and you're finding yourself
holding them quite well, I wouldn't bother getting a grip, but just see how you go.
A facial interface replacement, for me, was always the must-have, and the first,
replacement I would recommend for anyone getting the original Oculus Quest, and you're starting to
see third party accessories coming out for it now. So VR Cover have the jump on pretty much any other
manufacturer at the moment because they partnered with Oculus. So they now have their leather clad
facial interface replacement, which you can go and buy on their website, or I think it's on amazon as
well. Certainly replacing that foam cover with a faux leather cover, I think, is a lot more
hygienic. Especially for those more high-energy games. And I'd recommend getting a case for it so
you've got something easy to store it in. You can get some really good cheap ones off of Amazon and
Aliexpress. And last but not least, rechargeable batteries. I think any household should really
have these because it doesn't matter whether you need batteries for the Oculus Quest controllers,
or the remote controller for your tv, or anything else you've got in the house. Having
rechargeable batteries is a responsible thing to do especially from environmental perspective.
The next question is around what games should I buy? Now this is a pretty loaded question and it
depends who you are as to which games you should focus on. I've done a variety of videos over
different genres and focuses on which games are best for which people. Certainly if you're just
starting out then I would focus on games that are comfortable games. So they're going to ease you
into VR. If you're past that stage and you want to focus on particular genres then there is the
'Top 10 fitness games', if you want to start sort of getting a bit more active. If you're more into
horror games then 'Top five horror games', sort of spook you out a little bit is always a good
place to go as well. Games are coming out for the Oculus Quest all of the time, and they're just
getting better with age. So keep an eye out on the store. Keep an eye on channels, like my channel,
and other people's channels, and the media, and just keep an eye out for the games that are coming
out. And of course don't forget SideQuest. So SideQuest is an alternative Oculus Quest store
that allows you to get games you can't get on the official store. Now in order to use SideQuest,
you will have to go and install sidequest, and do a few bits and bobs to get your Quest working
with it. Now I've done a step-by-step guide on how to set this up, which is actually my
most successful video to date, so it's obviously something that's really relevant for many people.
So check out my 'Top five best games on SideQuest' and don't forget to look at the step-by-step guide
as well so that will tell you how to get it set up so you can look at those games in the first place.
So how can you show other people what you're playing, when you're playing it?
Well, you can cast from your headset to typically a TV so everyone else who's sitting in your lounge
for instance, watching you look like a bit of an idiot, can see what you're actually doing
on the tv. Now by casting it, you need to cast it to something that is Chromecast compatible.
So typically the most common route is people that have an Android or a Google TV,
can transmit straight to that TV. If you don't have one of those you can go and buy a Chromecast,
which is a little HDMI dongle thing, that you can plug into the back of the TV
and it turns into a smart TV. They're typically pretty cheap as well.
You can also cast to a PC screen as well. So if you go to oculus.com/cast,
it will give you instructions around how you can cast from your headset straight to a computer
screen. So that might be quite handy if you haven't got a dongle that's plugged into your tv.
Next up is motion sickness. So for a lot of people they're going to get motion sickness when
they start playing games in VR. This is largely because your body is telling you one thing, like
I'm standing still, but your head and your eyes and everything else that is immersed in the game
is telling you that you're running across a cliff, you're falling off a cliff, climbing a bridge,
flying through the sky, doing anything that your body is telling you that you're not.
So that separation causes motion sickness, or cyber sickness as some people call it. In order
to prevent that a lot of people say that having ginger, so whether that's a ginger drink or ginger
cubes or crystallizations, to eat that before you play can actually help settle your stomach
whilst you're playing. It's good to get fresh air on you. So whether that's opening a side
door to get a bit of a breeze into the house, a lot of people play with a fan right in front of
them so it blows air on their face. I will say if you're going to do that make sure that the fan is
outside the boundary area where you're playing so that you don't just run headlong straight into it!
Fundamentally it's about keeping cool, and at the end of the day, take it easy. If you do get
motion sickness, it takes a while to get into VR, and to get those symptoms becoming less.
So as soon as you start to make yourself feel as though you're going to be nauseous, stop playing.
Don't try and push through it. Generally you'll end up feeling worse. If you do take it easy,
build up slowly, and you'll be playing some pretty immersive VRgames before you know it.
It is really good to see some game developers actually building this into their games.
So games like Population One for instance, you can change the foveated view. So basically,
when you run, it will shrink your view to a bit of a tunnel view, because that helps
reduce motion sickness. The downside of that is you kind of lose your peripheral vision so you
can't see someone coming from the side and shotting you in the head, but I don't think
there's any easy solution for that. It's great to see game developers recognizing that this is
an actual problem and they're trying to do things to make it easier to get people into the games.
Next question is around do I need a PC to play games on the Oculus Quest?
Well the answer to that is you don't need it. If all you're going to do is load games from
the Oculus Quest store and buy them from there and play them standalone on your headset then
no, you don't need a PC. However, if you want to play PC based VR games,
and you want to link your Oculus Quest to it, then yes, you will need a PC to play. So it depends.
So if you do want to play PCVR games using your Quest, how do you do that? Well you do need to
connect your Quest to the PC, and there are two options to do that. First option is using the
Oculus Link. Now that is a USB cable that connects your Quest to the PC. The one that oculus sells by
default is a five meter long cable USB-C to USB-C, and that costs $80, which isn't cheap. There are
some other alternatives on the market, Playlink do one which costs about $50 i think, or $48,
something like that. Anker do one, which Pculus actually recommends, but it's only a three meter
cable. So if cable length is an issue for you you may not want that. However it is only $18
which is significantly cheaper. That's probably the easiest way of setting things up. The other
option is Virtual Desktop. This allows you to wirelessly link your oculus quest to a pc.
Now in order to do that you are going to need the virtual desktop app. You need to do a few other
things to get it set up as well so it's not as easy as the cable but it's not that complicated.
You'd need to go through a step-by-step guide. Actually, if you'd like a step-by-step
guide let me know in the comments down below and I'll create one for you guys. So whilst virtual
desktop itself is only 20 bucks, which does make it sound a lot cheaper than the cable, you do need
a good wi-fi router in your house. So depending on whether you've got one of those or not
that could add a couple of hundred dollars maybe to the price of the virtual desktop.
So if you know you want a PC to do PCVR based gaming, the question is what spec do you need
for a PC? Well it does kind of depend because the specs needed for the oculus link and the virtual
desktop are slightly different. If you want the oculus link then you do need an Intel i5 4590,
or AMD Ryzen 5 1500x CPU or better. Windows 10 is recommended, as is at least 8GB of RAM. From
a graphics card perspective you're looking at at least an nvidia 1650 super card, or an AMD 5000
series as well. Now you can go higher than that, but that's probably the minimum recommendation in
order to get that working. Virtual desktop on the other hand says you can get away with the 2500k i5
processor, again it's windows 10 is recommended, and you're looking at a 5 GHz router, so an AC
router, which is WiFi5, has to be pretty good. The recommendation though is to go for a WiFi6 one,
and that's an AX router. Virtual desktop don't actually say that there's a minimum spec graphics
card that you should buy however I'd pretty much stick with the same level graphics card as
I mentioned for the oculus link cable. What we're starting to see with games that come out with the
oculus quest is that the games are now starting to drive the minimum spec of the graphics cards
rather than the technology that joins the pc to the quest. If we take Half-Life:Alyx for instance,
then they're recommending a GTX 1060 6GB model at least, and preferably 12GB of RAM. So as we see
development houses really pushing the boundaries of what VR can do,
the specs of those pcs are going to keep going up. So whilst you've got some good recommended specs
here I'd certainly say, if you can push to the next level of card, I'd certainly look at that.
And possibly last but not least, the most controversial question I think is around
should my child under 13 play on my VR headset? Now Facebook has turned around and said no one
under the age of 13 should play on the headset, and this has created a lot of controversy around
whether it's safe for children to play on it. Now anything in moderation I think is OK,
and anything to access is not. So I think common sense should prevail in most circumstances.
There is no scientific proof to say that VR in the long term will harm your children. There's also no
scientific proof to say that it won't, as with most things in life. I will say that the reason
behind Facebook putting 13 on the limit though is because it means they don't have to worry
about child accounts. In the US, there's a big massive thing around under 13s being children
and having to be protected. So youtube's having it. Like when you make a youtube video, you have
to say whether your video is made for children or not. That age 13 is that cut over point where
you go from a child to a non-child account. So by Facebook saying that you have to be 13
they basically circumvent all that and say we don't want any of that. We don't actually want
to bother with it so we'll just say you can't be younger than 13. The side effect of that though
is that for a child to use an oculus quest headset, they need to use a facebook account,
because facebook own oculus. So they're going to have to probably use your facebook account
in order to use the quest. Now my son uses the VR headset, and I've got my facebook account on it. I
don't have any issues. I do actually watch what he plays though. So I would say do likewise yourself.
So there you have it! That's the top 10 questions that most people seem to be asking around the
oculus quest 2. I hope that quick run through really gave you most of the answers that you
needed. If you want to dive into more details you can go to the links that I provided throughout the
video. If you want to look at any of the things you want to buy, I've put links in the description
down below to make it super easy for you. Please let me know in the comments down below what you
thought of the video. If you did like it don't forget to hit that like button. If you didn't like
it hit the dislike and let me know in the comments down below why you didn't, and if you here, still
like the video, hit that subscribe button down below, and as always...See you in the next one!