Everything You Need to Know Before You Begin
I work at one of the central buildings at my university and we finally got our hands on a virtual reality set up for the student entertainment center. When I first heard that we were getting not one, but two setups, I was curious as to how that was going to be pulled off. We don’t have a ton of extra space for a setup but there was a smaller section of the backroom that made a good spot. Even though it was a small space, we were sure we could make it work.
I imagine a lot of people second guess getting a VR set up if they have a small room. For starters, I’ll say that it’s totally doable to set up a VR gaming room in a small space. Our space measures 9 diagonal feet which isn’t that big at all. From my experience, VR setups feel a lot bigger than the actual space itself once you’re in the world.
In this article, I’ll go over every important thing I learned setting up our VR room. The process isn’t any different than if you were to do it at home which is why I know this will be of value to some people. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave one below or reach out at entertainmentden.ns@gmail.com and I’ll do my best to respond.
Table of Contents
Lessons Learned
Essential Equipment
Planning Your Set Up
What PC Specs Do You Need?
Best Games to Try for First Timers
Take It to The Next Level
Related Questions
Is Now a Good Time to Jump Into VR?
Lessons Learned
There were some important takeaways throughout the entire set up as well as once it was up and running. I hope people that are planning their set up find this section the most useful so it can help you anticipate some things you may not have realized.
Watch tutorial videos on how to play certain games. None of the games we have explain the controls very well especially if you’re new to VR. There’s also a lot of things you can do that you may not have been aware of. Even after your grasp the basics, there’s usually a few more things your avatar can do that you wouldn’t naturally know about.
Pad the space you have because you will eventually smack into something. The virtual box that appears as you near the edge of the play area is super helpful. But even then, you will make a sudden movement that will break the bounds of the box and will hit something. Once you get super comfortable with the size of this space, you might find you’re even more prone to doing that.
It’s best to have a room with a uniform texture. Making it the same color isn’t that important. But the closer you can get to creating a room with fewer bookshelves and irregular objects throughout, the more accurate the tracking will be.
Plan to have long cords running to the PC even after you manage your cables. Don’t put your set up in a spot where people will have to work over you when you’re playing (pets included). VR isn’t at the point where it can have the best quality AND be a cordless experience. For now, you’re always going to have to watch where you step, rotate, and bend over when playing. You can get some accessories to help mitigate this process but we found that it doesn’t work that well.
There are important accessories that were extremely necessary for us. Students can basically come and play whenever they want. A good number of people do every day. That said, we had to buy a higher quality headset “frame” to easily fit around anyone’s head with ease. The default headset that came with the HTC Vive was extremely insufficient. Not sure if it was a marketing strategy, but their audio accessory frame proved to be way better and easier to use (plus it came with headphones). We also got some internal sweat guards and some cleaning stuff to keep the lenses smudge-free.
Essential Equipment
In short, you’ll need the headset, motion capturing cameras, and a PC that can meet the demands of the games you want to play. I’ll cover the components in more detail throughout this section as well as some unique differences between the HTC VIVE and Oculus Rift headsets. Both of them are the best for VR gaming. I estimate the total cost (in addition to a gaming PC) of a VR set to be around $700 including some necessary accessories and installation costs.
We’ve already gone over some general guidelines for the PC specs, but if you want to read more on this you can check out my articles on my first PC build and how I chose specs that would work really well for VR in more detail
Headsets, base stations, controllers: Vive set for $500
These are not the final prices you’ll end up paying for a complete VR headset. It’s almost a must for you to buy Vives headset band accessory so you can comfortably wear the headset and incorporate headphones. The same is true for Oculus and these cost up to $100 for both. You might even need to get a third motion sensor (not included) for your set up.
I haven’t really found any major discrepancies that really set the Oculus Rift and HTV apart. If you google any real comparison of the two, you’ll find that people are just trying really hard to find minute differences. They’re basically the same except the Oculus Rift is cheaper than its rival.
Vive claims that it’s the resolution is 1440p but if you do the math between resolution-per-eye on the Oculus, it does 1200p– not a big difference at all. HTC Vive goes for $499 while the Oculus is $100 cheaper. The more expensive one is of slightly better resolution but not by any noticeable difference.
Since this article is more about how to actually create a VR room, I’ll just link to a really good buyer’s guide article that I found. It’s also relevant to people who are thinking about getting more budget style headsets and not the highest end ones.
Motion Cameras
Oculus and Vive both come with two motion cameras. Sometimes getting a third one is necessary if you have a room with moderate obstruction. We don’t have anything blocking our small set up so we do really well with just two sensors. The other one is in the opposite corner of this picture.
Our Vive sensors don’t need to be plugged into our PC so they were way easier to set up compared to the Rift (the rift requires its sensors to be hooked up directly to the PC and will take up USB ports).
Planning Your Set Up
If you are planning on creating a dedicated room, I would look into getting some wall padding. People smack into the wall (myself included) all the time when playing. As long as you’re adjusting your room to accommodate this type of movement in a safe space, you’re on the right track.
Installing the base stations is super easy, but it needs to be done correctly.
For best placement, put sensors in the opposite and diagonal corners of the room. You need around 10 ft of diagonal space to set up a decent area for playing. The sensors should also be placed a minimum of 6.5ft off the ground. We mounted ours to the highest corner of the ceiling. You ultimately want the sensors to be looking down at the players.
In order to track the accuracy and placement of the base stations, we used a free downloadable app called DeskScene. It’s a virtual space you can use to see where your sensors are and how well they’re tracking your movement.
Your PC can just hang out somewhere near the setup, it’s okay if it’s close to the tracking box. You’ll want quick access to it throughout your session.
What PC Specs Do You Need for VR?
You can have a wide range of specs starting at the GTX 1060 and up. The two most important components that will affect your performance will be the graphics card and the processors (followed by the RAM but even 8GB had good benchmarks in my research).
Take a look below to see the specs that we have for our set up. It’s more on the higher budget side.
- Graphics Card: GTX 1080
- Processor: Intel Core i7 7700k
- Ram: 16GB
- CPU: 4.2 GHz
- OS: Windows 10
We went overkill on the specs but that is not necessary!
As I took a look at the specs something stuck out to me almost immediately. All of these parts combined got us a build that destroys VR and I honestly don’t think it was necessary. While it’s awesome, we only use these PCs for virtual reality and nothing else. In general, most VR games aren’t that demanding and I’m confident we could have saved $1000 on our builds and achieved the same level of performance.
The Oculus Rift yields a resolution of 1080 x 1200 in each eye, which makes the total 2160 x 1200 while the HTC VIVE can do 1440p. The best way to gauge whether or not your graphics card can handle the specs is to treat the headset’s resolution just like a monitor. I would assume my GTX 1070 could handle 1440p monitors and the HTC VIVE with some moderate adjustments to display settings.
Minimum Recommended Specs for Smooth Performance
It’s pretty apparent that our set up is well suited for the most demanding VR games. But I do not think that you need specs that high in order to achieve good performance. I know I said earlier that having a TX 1060 or above is the best practice if you want a completely smooth performance, but people have also had good results with lower end cards like the GTX 970. I made a quick table of some of the recommended requirements for some of the most demanding VR games.
Minimum Specs According to Steam
I’m usually a little skeptical when it comes to Steam’s minimum requirements. Sometimes their recommended settings still aren’t enough to make the game playable. For this reason, I double checked the benchmark performances of each of the following games and included some of them to make sure they ran well.
*I’m going to default to Steam recommending Windows 10.
Elder Scrolls Skyrim
Processor: i5 6600K or AMD Ryzen 5 1400
Memory: 8GB
Graphics: GTX 970 or AMD RX 480
I’m actually really impressed with how well this graphics card can run a game this demanding. After looking at other framerate test videos, you can expect to achieve around 65 FPS for this game on 1080p!
Tales of Glory
This game is nowhere near as optimized as Skyrim so it’s way more demanding and requires better specs to run smoothly.
Minimum:
Processor: i7 or equivalent
Memory: 8GB
Graphics: GTX 1070 or equivalent
Best Games to Try For Firstimers
All of these games can be played on either the Oculus or Vive platform (since they’re all on Steam). It’s always interesting to watch someone play VR for the first time at this level. I felt it was extremely necessary to include this section if you’ve never played VR before and want to get mindblown.
Richies Plank Experience
This was the first game I was exposed to in VR and I absolutely flipped out the same way my girlfriend did (so glad I got it on video). Your brain will literally think you’re going to fall off the plank as you attempt to walk across two skyscrapers. The game lets you fly around a virtual city and put out fires. The controls are hard to get used to at first, but it’s perfect for starters.
Job Simulator
This is the only game where pretending you have a desk job among the ranks of the corporate ladder is actually really fun and intriguing. This is also a great game for small rooms and it’s perfect if you want to play from a chair the whole time. There’s a decent “campaign,” where you try to snoop on your co-worker robots or give presentations that you design from your virtual office.
Beat Saber
I’ve never really played this one but every one of my coworkers hypes it up so much. You’re basically flying in space trying to smash music notes to certain songs and there are all kinds of crazy explosions, colors, and effects that take place if you’re doing it right. You’re gonna look really weird while you’ll play this too.
Batman Arkham City
This is one of my favorites just because it really attests to where single player and storytelling in VR is about to go. I see a lot of room for them to get better, but playing this game you really feel like you get to be Batman. I definitely recommend this one if you see it on a Steam sale.
Holopoint
Remember that scene from the first Hunger Games where Katniss is training with her bow in that virtual room of people running around her? This one is exactly like it! It’s also great for our set up because the game doesn’t require you to horizontally move that much. There’s a lot of ducking and slipping while shooting arrows at figures. This one, along with SuperHot, are two of the most iconic VR games right now.
How to Take it To The Next Level
Some of these ideas may seem completely crazy (and downright unaffordable unless you’re loaded). But you have to admit that a lot of these “accessories” will eventually be streamlined into an affordable component of future VR gaming.
Motion Platforms!
I did an article on the awesome new tech of VR motion platforms that goes over the different companies spearheading these innovations. If I could go back in time, I would convince our management to save up and buy one of these $4000 machines. It’s nowhere near ready to hit the everyday gamer, but you can still buy them if you’re really set on getting one.
Gun Controllers
I think most people are going to find VR gun controllers extremely fascinating. It’s pretty obvious how it works and tracks your movement but it’s also neat to think about where this technology is going to go in the future.
MagP90.com is one of the leading companies (Chinese) for developing all kinds of different VR weapons. This would include everything from SCAR-Ls, M16A4s, and even RPGs. If you go to their site, you’ll see that their arsenal is well over $200 for most items. They look incredibly realistic (not sure about the weight and balance) and their RPG costs $3000! The SCAR-L model even has a simulated recoil on it when you pull the trigger.
If I really wanted to get one of these, I would look into getting something similar to the PSVR Aim Controller and mount my two controllers on that. It’s not that important to have a gun that looks like the real deal since you won’t be seeing it during play. You’ll definitely need a bigger space to play games like the guy in the video. It would be cool if you could find a way to use nearby furniture as cover or something of that nature.
Thoughts on VR Gaming Gloves
I don’t think now is a good time to buy VR gaming gloves. The technology isn’t there yet and I haven’t come across anything that even remotely looks user friendly. The most ubiquitous product on the market is the Captoglove. This product is only for VIVE and it’s an early attempt at VR gaming gloves.
I didn’t find as much info as I wanted to on it which makes me think it’s not the best way to play games yet. You can watch people on Youtube playing triple AAA games like Skyrim and Crisis but they’re basically moving their hand around as if it was a shapeshifted Xbox controller. It also doesn’t support Open VR / Steam VR so the games would all be from a 3rd party platform.
Related Questions
Is VR bad for your brain? The world record for the longest VR session was 36 hours and the only thing he felt afterward was extreme tiredness and some physical dizziness which should be expected. Other than that he was reported to be just fine. My girlfriend is skeptical of the effects that realistic games can have on people but I think that’s really far out even with how far we’ve come. Spatial awareness can be impeded for a a few moments after a session but no one has reported anything worse than that.
Is a VR set up kid friendly? It can easily be. I feel like kids (ages 10 – 13) will honestly appreciate VR the most since mature gamers have played a lot and VR feels like a downgrade to graphics and other specs. With the exception of two games, every other game we have is kid friendly but it’s also fun for adults. It’s kind of like the Wii when it first came out, and the dad in the family had the dryest looking avatar.
Can you play steam games on Android VR? Yes- you have to download the Steam compatible application in order to get it running. Some triple AAA titles obviously won’t work very well but there’s a lot of knock-off games similar to things like Counter-Strike GO that are just as fun if you’re on a budget.
Will VR get cheaper? The source I looked at say the answer is yes. There haven’t been enough expected sales for the high-end headsets and this means companies will be forced to drop their prices. The sheer cost of getting a set up is the biggest reason. There is also a lack of content that is living up to the hype of what VR could be. Think of where regular PC games are and how extraordinary they’ve become. You can’t help but notice the downgrade combined with clunky VR user experience. I’m not sure how much it will go down, and it feels like a waiting game at this point.
Is Now a Good Time to Jump Into VR?
I’ll start off by asking you another question. Are the current VR games aligned with your style of play/genre? If you’ve read this far, chances are that it is. If you don’t have a set up yet, it’s really important to understand what the total price of all this equipment will cost you. I would expect to pay between $1500 and $2000 for a complete set up including a PC, headset, accessories, games, and additional software.
There’s one more thing worth mentioning if you’re deciding if now is the best time to get VR or wait.
Oculus Quest
The Quest was announced in September 2018 so there isn’t a lot of info regarding the release date. All we know is that it’ll be a wireless and fully integrated headset that doesn’t require a PC or cords. That’s the best thing about it! Since it’s not hooked up to a PC, I would expect it to have some downgraded graphics. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing at all.
It goes back to what you’re gaming preferences are. If you want a fully immersive experience and care less about cutting edge graphics, it might be well worth the wait for this thing to come out. It would immediately nullify all these things you would have to plan for if you got a present-day set up (base stations and cord management). If you want the most cutting edge stuff now, want to stay up to date with it and have a good gaming PC, then I hope this article gave you everything you need to know about creating a virtual reality room. Thanks for reading!
If you have any suggestions for articles that you want to see, feel free to leave a comment or reach out at entertainmentden.ns@gmail.com.