Quest (2) top tips

Oculus Quest 2 (by Meta, formerly Facebook)

You may be surprised to see us recommend that our customers buy a VR headset. If you would like to know why, scroll down to the bottom for the answer.

TOP TIPS

STORAGE CONSIDERATIONS

Consider storage space management when looking to purchase titles. You might find it a good idea to try all the free content, filling your memory with the free titles to find any that you really like and want to keep.

Then purchase those that you know or feel you want, deleting the free ones you aren’t worried about.

FREE TITLES WORTH A LOOK:

Free demos of some top titles are available and worth a look.

Free titles available we recommend include:

Rec Room, Star Wars Droid Repair Bay, BigScreen, Echo VR, Bogo, Mission ISS, Alcove (if others in your family have VR), Quill, Firefox Reality (Great for delivering You Tube 360 experiences), VTime XR, VR Chat.

PAID TOP TITLES
Beat Saber
Job Simulator
Superhot
After The Fall
Arizona Sunshine
Pistol Whip
Synth Riders
Oh Shape
Star Wars: Galaxies Edge
The Climb 1 & 2
Population One
Jurassic World
Robo Recall
Richies Plank Experience
Red Matter

What NOT to expect to find, are some of the titles that you may have experienced in Centre VR. These are NOT available on a Quest 1 or 2, as a standalone headset:

Google Earth
The Blue
Dick Wilde 2
Half Life Alyx
Bookhaven
Raw Data
Budget Cuts (1 & 2)
and a lot of other titles.

YOU CAN PLAY THESE TITLES….BUT….

There is a way to play these titles (those that require more computer power than available in the Quest 1 or Quest 2) by connecting your Quest to a powerful, VR capable PC. These are quite costly, with the minimum specification being an i5 processor, plus a reasonably powerful graphics card, such as an NVidia GTX1070 or above. Most typical, non gaming laptops, and basic PC’s usually do not have powerful cards like these.

CONNECTING THE QUEST TO A PC

There are now 3 ways to connect a Quest headset to a PC.

1. Link Cable
2. Air Link
3. Virtual Desktop (wirelessly)

 

1. Link Cable

Meta sell an official link cable which works but is quite expensive. There are many others on Amazon and Ebay that are much cheaper and work perfectly. We use a third party unit that we find more liable and is longer, which we need.

2. Air Link

This provide a fantastic wireless PC experience, but is quite complicated to set up, can be unreliable, and is prone to the usual issues that wireless systems do. Mostly radio interference and congestion. Its is extremely difficult to have a reliable and quality wireless system with multiple units (especially 30) which is why we currently use cabled systems in Centre VR. We are working on the wireless systems for the centre though.

3. Virtual Desktop

We would recommend that even if you use air link, you consider the Virtual Desktop software. It costs a few pounds, but appears more reliable and more capable than air link, and is far more configurable to get the best from the system.

With all the wireless systems detailed above, the wireless router is one of the most important parts of the chain. It has to be a very fast one for the wifi element, in order to cope with the demands of VR.

There is a huge amount of information and YouTube videos available on the subject, so for now, we will not go into detail here.

 

 

COMFORT

Probably the single most disappointing side of the Quest 1 and 2 is the comfort level out of the box. Meta have tried to make these amazing units as low priced as possible, without compromising the visual experience, but at the expense of the audio and comfort.

To help make the unit much more comfortable, we recommend changing the head strap for a third party one. Meta do make some optional straps, but they are not as good as many other third party ones, and are also quite expensive. One Meta head strap suffered manufacturing issues and was reported to be breaking easily.

We use the HTC Vive Deluxe Audio Strap, which may seem pricey at just over £100, but it increases the comfort of the Quest a lot, plus provides a massive upgrade to the audio. There are several ways to connect the Vive DAS to the Quest, with the method being called the “FrankenQuest Mod” (Frankenquest Mod Video) with many videos and online articles available. We have added this modification immediately to all our Quest headsets.

Another good head strap is this one available from Amazon, its cheaper but does not have any headphones included:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B094J91ST9/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_CTTV9MQ7JK0G0D6P0527

 

We also add a superb Rebuff Reality VR POWER battery back to the back of our Quest headsets, which provides for many hours more play time, in the now more comfortable Quest headset, and makes it so much more comfortable because the battery balances the headset with its weight. This makes a huge difference to the comfort of the headset. The weight of the Quest is all in the front part which will press against the players face and forehead.

We are so impressed with these batteries that we hope to be selling them in 2022 as the main UK reseller, along with another amazing product they produce called VR EARS. https://rebuffreality.com/

 

Click the image to visit the site

If you have a PC you can connect the Quest to it to open up some more possibilities, even if it is not powerful enough for VR.

The Meta Quest system is a little like a PlayStation, in that games are made especially for them, and you can only buy games officially offered by the manufacturer. Meta has this in place as standard for the Quest 2, although there is now a second store that allows you to obtain other titles not curated by Meta.

However, the Quest 2 is based on Android OS, and enthusiasts originally created another way to allow others to put games onto the Quest 2.

Its a long and quite complicated set up to add these titles, but if you wish to try it, then Google Sidequest and follow the many online video tutorials, and you should be able to then add many other free and some paid apps, not curated by Meta.

 

 

If you have any questions about the Quest 2, please feel free to ask our team or email [email protected].

We believe that the Quest will help the VR market to develop. We hope you will enjoy your new gadget.

Why do we recommend the Quest or Quest 2?
(By Colin Parnell, Founder and Managing Director, Centre VR)

Centre VR was founded because of my own personal VR experiences.

I had no interest in VR, and was going about my daily job as a camera director for live events. I was working on the “Gadget Show Live” event at the NEC in Birmingham for the third year.

A feature of the show was the new HTC Vive. Every day I would direct the cameras to show the 4,000 audience members how the person that Jason had plucked from the audience was reacting to the VR, and showing them what the person was seeing whilst in VR. I still had no interest, as I really didn’t get it. I had obviously not tried a VR headset at this point.

After one of the 6pm shows, HTC invited the crew to the stage to try VR, which I nearly didn’t bother with. Jason Bradbury was so excited about the product on and off stage, I decided to make the effort.

I was immediately blown away by it, and as a television programme maker beforehand, I saw that the future of training would be with this technology.

I drove back home to Bournemouth after the event, and immediately purchased an HTC Vive, eager to show it to my family and friends to get their opinions.

I remember explaining how amazing it was to them, whilst I was underwater with a Blue Whale. I heard a bored, unenthusiastic “yeah, great…” remark in reply. It was at that point I realised I was the only one having a great time, so I took it off and let them take turns. With only one person in VR at a time, and all the rest bored of watching (as you know), I realised the whole family needed a headset, plus some titles that we could play together. I also smashed my hand controller into a TV, so I also realised we needed more room. Centre VR was born.

So whilst we know that the Quest may reduce the number of times a Quest owner may visit Centre VR, we also know that titles are expensive to buy. We can offer over 140 titles to play and experience, including those that require a £1,500+ computer to play them on, as all our headsets are powered this way.

We also offer a huge, safe play area, where there is no risk of hitting any of your precious home possessions, pets, friends or family members, but most importantly, we offer you the ability to all play together.

Of course, we also offer exclusive content such as our amazing adventures by Ubisoft, in the Assassins Creed and Prince of Persia universes, plus our rapidly expanding range of other adventure titles.

And, by adding our coffee shop, top brand pizza coming soon, and the ability to host awesome parties, we hope that owning a VR headset will encourage you to try more titles with us, and play together in groups, as families, and as friends.

Coming soon, we also have an amazing new project that will allow up to 10 players to run around our entire venue in VR, wirelessly, seeing and playing with each other, in new free roam adventure titles.

We have exciting plans for 2022, and look forward to welcoming you to Centre VR.

Colin Parnell
Managing Director
Centre VR Limited