**The Oculus subreddit, a place for Oculus fans to discuss VR.** The original Oculus Rift (AKA the CV1) was the first VR headset I ever bought myself, after first trying the PSVR at a friend’s house. I remember being blown away by the feeling of being in the world of whatever game I was playing. Since then I’ve used the original HTC Vive, Oculus Quest 1, Valve index, and Quest 2, but I figured a week or two ago that I’d break the Rift out of storage and see how it stacks up 8 years later. Starting off, the CV1 was kind of a pain to set up, since my GPU only has one HDMI port that I use for the monitor, so I had to wait for my HDMI to DisplayPort adapter to come in before I could set the damn thing up. Once I got everything set up, using the CV1 honestly felt like going back to 2016. Honestly it impresses me how solid this headset is even 8 years later. Obviously, it’s not perfect. You still need a decent PC to run it. But overall, the display and color of the OLED panel looks pretty good even now, the tracking is pretty solid (I might buy a third sensor to get full 360 degree tracking), and the controllers just melt into my hands. First off, I think the original Oculus Touch controllers are the best VR controllers ever made, aside from the Valve Index controllers. They melt right into my hands, and with the tracking rings being at the bottom, they kinda secured my hands in place so I wouldn’t drop them. Second, the on-board speakers on the headset are really good, even by today’s standard. To start with, they’re loud. Really loud. Like, I had to turn them down to 40% loud. Even besides that, they have really good definition and bass, which really brings everything together. The display and field of view are the only thing holding this headset back nowadays. The screen door effect is much worse than something like an Index, or Quest 2/Quest 3. But the color accuracy and vibrancy of an OLED panel still can’t be beat in my opinion. The field of view, however is a big drawback, looking like you’re peering into the world with binoculars. The big advantage for me, is unlike the Quest headsets, the Rift uses native HDMI to transmit the image into the headset rather than USB. The result being zero compression, and a clearer image than using something like quest link. Honestly, I think my eight year old Oculus Rift might become my daily driver for PCVR again. And if you can find a good deal for one on Ebay, I would buy it all over again.
