There are many ways to make Elite: Dangerous a more exciting, addictive game. A solid HOTAS controller, great audio hardware, and a decent high-quality display will greatly enhance your experience, but you can do even more. Adding a VR headset to this game allows you to literally put yourself in the captain’s chair. Being able to turn your head and see the dashboard menus light up while you hold the throttle and joystick is amazing, but which headset will give you the best experience?
Here’s a quick look at the benefits of using HTC Vive versus Oculus Rift to play Elite: Dangerous!
comfort
Without a doubt, if you’re going to play Elite: Dangerous in VR, you need to feel comfortable. This game is best enjoyed for many hours of gameplay and no one wants to go halfway through a multi-star hyper jump to suddenly take a break because the headset is uncomfortable. You have to make sure that the VR headset is something you really want to wear for a long time.
Oculus Rift headsets are designed to be easy to take on and off with a hinge system that stays firmly on your head while you play. The foam padding around the display keeps the plastic from touching your face, but it doesn’t extend to the entire headset, so light often comes in from the nose hole. The Rift also has headphones built into the headset so you don’t have to put anything else on your head, but if you’re more comfortable with your existing headphones, it can be tedious to remove your headphones and adjust the sound to go through something else. than Rift during the game.
Read more: How long is too long in VR?
The HTC Vive is heavier than the Rift, and while a Deluxe Audio Strap is coming soon to fix that, it’s not included, so you’ll have to pay to upgrade. It currently takes a bit of trial and error to set up the elastic strap that Vive offers to be comfortable enough for extended wear, but once you get it set up for your needs, it’s very comfortable. The Vive’s face pad is also made of foam, letting in very little light, and also much more comfortable for glasses. Instead of built-in headphones, the Vive offers a headphone jack and a pair of headphones that can be easily swapped out for whatever headphones you prefer.
If you need to keep your glasses on hand and are willing to work to tidy them up, the HTC Vive is the more comfortable of the two headsets. If you want something that you can shoot and shoot quickly and don’t have to worry about glasses, the Rift is a more comfortable option.
Performance
Both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive have the same functional resolution for each eye, 1080×1200, but there are some slight differences in the hardware required to do so. Oculus lists an Intel Core i3-6100 as the minimum processor required to power the Rift, while HTC lists a Core i5-4590. However, both headsets still require an Nvidia GTX 1060 to power the headset.
This means it’s possible to use a slightly older PC to power the Rift if you have a capable GPU installed, but if you’re looking to fully immerse yourself in the Elite, there’s a good chance it won’t matter much to you. What’s important is using your GPU to push Elite: Dangerous to do something fun called supersampling to make the game look even better.
Supersampling renders the Elite: Dangerous output at a much higher resolution than expected for a headset, meaning the image in the headset is crisper and sharper. In games like Elite, where there is a huge amount of detail everywhere, the difference is significant.
Read more: How to use SuperSampling for Elite: Dangerous
