How viable is the Vive for Non-Roomscale use?

[Reya]

I do not have the Room to set up the Vive for anything other than a Seated setup. I was originally going for a Rift but my reaserach has led me to believe the Oculus is going to end up like the Apple store(I don't want to turn this into a discussion about Vive Vs Rift). My question is it worth getting a Vive when I can't make use of Roomscale tracking or wether I should give up on VR for now?

[chuck]

You can set it up in a “Standing” format, which works really well. In the seated position you will have issues crouching to sneak and peeking around corners. I have a small room and tried both setups and went with standing, I can still move around a lot, and it is much much more immersive than being seated. It will take a few days for your legs to get used to playing Standing, but better for you in the long run than seated. You can still sit when you want in the game, but it is visible that you are seated and looking up at everything, although you can play as a Hobit...

[The Maddog]

I use my Vive to play a lot of seated games (Elite: Dangerous or Project Cars for example). It's perfectly viable for seated or standing play.

That said....it's a bit pointless paying the price for the Vive if you cant really take full advantage of it's roomscale ability....so I'm going to suggest a Windows MR headset instead.

The good news is, Microsoft have a partnership with Steam so you'll be able to play all SteamVR games on it and access all the content Microsoft has. Ideal for seated gaming and has controllers so you can do standing or roomscale games as well (if you can manage in the space you have or move).

As for the Rift...yes Oculus are pretty much segrating themselves off from the rest of VR and building a walled garden as it is around their headset and content. I suspect will be the only headset that is a PC periphial from them since they 've already annoucned Santa Cruz which is a stand alone Rift unit (you dont need a PC for it). You also need to consider Oculus is Facebook who can and will sell your user data to the highest bidder.

However...you could buy one and just never buy anything from Oculus. You do need to install Oculus home but beyond that it will function totally fine connected to Steam.

[drakkar123]

Originally posted by Gnilneelps:

I do not have the Room to set up the Vive for anything other than a Seated setup. I was originally going for a Rift but my reaserach has led me to believe the Oculus is going to end up like the Apple store(I don't want to turn this into a discussion about Vive Vs Rift). My question is it worth getting a Vive when I can't make use of Roomscale tracking or wether I should give up on VR for now?

I had the exact same concerns that you just mentioned. I don't have the room or any real interest in room scale. I also really don't want to stand around for hours to game either, so I really only care about seated play. Intially I had intended to get an Oculus as well. But after discovering the Oculus's walled off garden model, there was no way in hell I was going to buy it. Valve has adopted and promoted an open VR platform, which will make a big difference in the long run. But I recently bought the Vive, and so far, it has exceeded my expectations, and its more than flexible enough to accomidate any play style you want. Room scale is definitely NOT a requirement and I have found no major issues at all, whatsoever, using the Vive for seated only. The Vive has met all of my needs and eceeded my expectations, and I have had no issues using it however I want. You are able to adjust your height manually as well, so I have been able to use it seated for standing only games, with the unit believing that I am standing, even though I am actually sitting.

It is absolutely worth getting the Vive, and no, I would NOT recommend some other second rate VR headset just because you don't want to use room scale, and you definitely don't need to give up on VR either. The Vive still has the most and the best VR titles available, and it was designed to accomidate multiple playstale preferences. Most games are designed for seated or standing anyway. Out of the few titles that are available for room scale, most that I have seen, seem to have the additional option to also use them for standing/seated as well. I'm sure there are probably exceptions, but I haven't seen any personally, and I looked somewhat throroughly before I bought the Vive to be sure it wasn't going to be a problem for me as well.

The extra cost of the Vive is not because it can be used for room scale, it's because of the higher quality techonology used in it. It has much more accurate and sophistocated tracking than any other VR system. For example, some use a cheap camera for tracking or some really cheap headsets use no tracking at all, the Oculus uses accellerometers, gyroscopes, and an optional camera for limited room scale, which also costs extra. The Vive also has much higher quality fully tracked controllers as well. The Vive also has an integrated front facing camera, which is used for collosion prevention but can also be activated to see, without taking the entire headset off. One could argue that these things might have been necessary for room scale to be possible. However, they definitely still have a benefits all around, regardless of the playstyle used, and once someone is able to see the entire system for themselves, or you very closely compare it to another system, its easy to see where all of the added value went. There really is no comparing the qualtiy of the Vive to other VR headsets, because the Vive blows them all away in that department.

But as someone that bought the Vive with limted space and the explicit intention of using it for seated only, I have had no problems or regrets with it. So if you are interested in it, I can confidently say that there is no reason it wouldn't work for the circumstances you mentioned.

[Libre]

I have tried to see the minimum distance at which the Vive works and it is really short. And if you are going to use them sitting, with only one lighthouse it is usually enough, just remember you must name it as A.