HTC Vive vs. Windows Mixed Reality: Which is best for Fallout 4 VR?

With the release of Fallout 4 VR, a whole gang of HTC Vive owners are headed back to The Republic to loot, craft, maim, impale, poison, sneak, and observe what happened to their son, Shaun. The game was touted as an HTC Vive exclusive, but thank you to SteamVR integration, Fallout 4 VR happens to also work on Windows Mixed Reality (WMR). Is it every bit good as it is on the Vive?

The biggest event with playing Fallout iv VR on WMR is undoubtedly the controls. While WMR motion controllers are sort of a mix between Oculus Bear upon and the Vive wands, the touchpads just aren't quite the aforementioned.

Considering smoothen movement — the type that's all-time suited for immersion — requires constant contact with the touchpad, you lot'll quickly discover how it's not as responsive on WMR as information technology is on Vive. It seems like it will occasionally send you lot off in a direction you didn't want to go, and yous'll have to remove your thumb and let if figure itself not. This could have to practise with moisture on the hands during long periods of play.

The WMR controllers also don't let you travel equally speedily as on the Vive. I kept checking my Pip-Boy to see if I was over encumbered, but actually it'southward simply the touchpad not picking up that my thumb is close to the edge. Luckily, there is an option in the VR settings that lets yous choose how fast smooth movement actually moves. With information technology cranked up, the difference becomes negligible, just only if you're used to the medium speed of motion on the Vive.

Sprinting, because information technology requires y'all to actually click downwards the touchpad, works fine all the fourth dimension, only it drains your Action Point (AP) meter and can't exist used continuously. Likewise, if you're especially decumbent to nausea or just adopt using teleportation, movement works just fine using the trigger to point and teleport.

Other than the movement speed result that can be mostly fixed and the occasional direction changes, controls are on an even playing field with the Vive. All buttons from the Vive'south setup accept an intuitive spot on the WMR movement controllers, and the angle at which y'all agree the controller to aim downward the sight of your gun feels just as natural.

Tracking

Fallout 4 VR tin be a physical game involving a lot of quick movements, and the Vive's lighthouses are certainly up to the task of seeing everything. No matter what I was doing, including swinging madly with my bat at gangs of raiders, I didn't feel that my in-game motions were different than my actual motions.

For the most office, tracking on WMR is also precise, just you'll occasionally experience a controller losing its place if it'due south moved likewise far out of view of the sensors on the front of the headset. Still, this is rare and goes to show but how well the congenital-in move tracking tin compete with the Vive's lighthouses.

Graphics and visuals

Now that Bethesda has released a couple of beta patches for Fallout 4 VR's graphical problems, the game looks quite expert on both Vive and WMR. Your PC is using the aforementioned hardware, and the game is going through SteamVR no matter which headset yous're using.

Even so, the display in the HP WMR headset does have a higher resolution (1440 x 1440 compared to 1080 10 1200) than the Vive, and afterward playing Fallout 4 VR for a few hours on both, it's rubber to say that WMR is bringing a clearer picture.

It's easier to pick up targets from a distance — something that's required since the scopes aren't currently showing anything more than than a solid black colour — and overall it's simply more than pleasant to look at. When using WMR, the in-game controllers do show up as WMR controllers, then in that location are no weird cognitive bug. Some of the overlay does sometimes get clipped by the large ring, only nothing game-breaking.

Setup

If y'all look at both setups as coming from a land of no VR at all, WMR is much easier to get going. You plug in the headset, run through a couple of training exercises, trace a border, and you're in, ready to launch SteamVR and Fallout iv VR.

The Vive isn't necessarily a chore, but you do take to gear up upwards your two tracking lighthouses. These don't have to be permanently fixed, but they practise need to be placed relatively loftier and do come with the hardware for wall mounting. The software setup doesn't have much time, but you might have to sit around and wait while controllers and lighthouses receive firmware updates with a wired connection.

Neither setup is particularly painful, but if you're rushing dwelling house with either setup and demand to get into Fallout 4 VR, like, yesterday, WMR should go you there sooner.

Price

Fallout 4 VR requires a respectable gaming rig for it to run properly. Recommended specs from the Steam Shop page are:

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K or AMD Ryzen five 1600X
RAM: 16GB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 or AMD RX Vega 64

Plenty of people are finding that some of the summit 9-series NVIDIA GPUs are running it without a trouble, merely every bit a bottom line, you're going to need something that costs a decent corporeality of coin whether yous're using the Vive or WMR.

Setting operation hardware prices aside, you're looking at about $600 for the Vive system, including wands, lighthouses, and a complimentary copy of Fallout iv VR.

See at Amazon

WMR bundles, which include the headset and controllers, outset at near $400 and go upwards to about $500. One thing to notation is that WMR bundles exercise seem to see some pretty significant price drops during sales; the lowest nosotros've seen is most $200 knocked off the total price.

See at Microsoft Store

Which is better for Fallout 4 VR?

Fallout 4 VR (nearly $60) was made to exist used with the HTC Vive, and it shows. The Vive wands evangelize precise controls, and the tracking is spot on for a game that oft requires wild movements.

WMR, withal, shouldn't exist counted out, and I tin can encounter myself often slipping into the Windows headset for a quick romp when I don't feel similar plugging in the Vive's lighthouses. The control issues I saw definitely aren't game-breaking, and superior visual clarity is certainly a huge perk.

Encounter at Light-green Homo Gaming

We may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more.

It'south hither

The AT&T version of Surface Duo is now getting Android 11

Afterward a very long wait, the original Surface Duo is now eligible to receive its over-the-air Os update to Android 11. Here is what is new and fixed with the biggest update all the same for Microsoft'due south first dual-screen Android device.