Is Passthrough Worth it?

[SaltyMan69]

It's really hard to gauge if passthrough is really worth it or not for VaM
I have a VR headset already but it doesnt have cameras. So i'm debating wether or not being able to have passthrough really heightens
the experience potential or not. Or is it just going to be a gimmick that I can only use with select few scenes anway or can it be used with all scenes?
Don't know if it will be a waste of 300 bucks to grab an Oculus 3s instead.

 

[atani]

Potentially you can use in any scene if you are willing to remove the environment and make adjustments, but it wouldn't make sense to use passthrough in all scenes.
I have a headset with passthrough, unfortunately with no depth camera, and it allows me to have different experiences than one without. I use it once every 10 VaM sessions or less, and you either use passthrough ready scenes or edit others to make them suitable enough.
Worthwhile buying a new headset just for that feature? Possibly not, depends on the person's interests.

 

[spidaman75]

I love passthrough, nothing like your girl in your own room !

 

[SaltyMan69]

Potentially you can use in any scene if you are willing to remove the environment and make adjustments, but it wouldn't make sense to use passthrough in all scenes.
I have a headset with passthrough, unfortunately with no depth camera, and it allows me to have different experiences than one without. I use it once every 10 VaM sessions or less, and you either use passthrough ready scenes or edit others to make them suitable enough.
Worthwhile buying a new headset just for that feature? Possibly not, depends on the person's interests.

Thanks for your feedback man

 

[LubaFoto]

I love passthrough, nothing like your girl in your own room !

Can you provide a proof to yourself, that you're ain't having sex whit a ghost and not a Vam character. With halloween coming, I I wouldn't take a chance.

 

[booyakshaka]

If you are buying a quest 3 purely for MR in VAM, I would probably say no.

But I tried it yesterday for the first time and the experience was honestly amazing! Certainly not without flaws, but it was much better than I expected.

If you also like games, then MR has amazing potential in my view and experience, two games worth looking at are The Cabin and Espire 2.

I'd further say that once you play untethered, you won't ever want a cable hanging from the headset ever again, especially for games that involve a lot of body movement. I honestly won't even consider any future headsets that aren't fully wireless.

Once caveat, to really pimp out your quest 3 should you get one isn't cheap, I bought an elite strap (BOBOVR S3) with cooling fan to face, a super-comfortable back of head support and high capacity hot-swap batteries. Further, I bought a PC Wifi adapter (PRISMXR Puppis S1 )
that only streams between PC and Quest, and Virtual Desktop. Altogether they added about £300 to the cost of a Quest itself.

I'm not in a position where I can throw money around willy nilly, but I don't regret a penny of my Quest 3 and accessories

 

[SaltyMan69]

If you are buying a quest 3 purely for MR in VAM, I would probably say no.

But I tried it yesterday for the first time and the experience was honestly amazing! Certainly not without flaws, but it was much better than I expected.

If you also like games, then MR has amazing potential in my view and experience, two games worth looking at are The Cabin and Espire 2.

I'd further say that once you play untethered, you won't ever want a cable hanging from the headset ever again, especially for games that involve a lot of body movement. I honestly won't even consider any future headsets that aren't fully wireless.

Once caveat, to really pimp out your quest 3 should you get one isn't cheap, I bought an elite strap (BOBOVR S3) with cooling fan to face, a super-comfortable back of head support and high capacity hot-swap batteries. Further, I bought a PC Wifi adapter (PRISMXR Puppis S1 )
that only streams between PC and Quest, and Virtual Desktop. Altogether they added about £300 to the cost of a Quest itself.

I'm not in a position where I can throw money around willy nilly, but I don't regret a penny of my Quest 3 and accessories

____________________________
Nah I get it, I rode a CV1 for like 2 years since 2017 then got a pimax until present day and I gotta be honest
while the resolution and FOV is nice and the customer support was way better than oculus for my CV1 cause Oculus was like
"Yeah this shit's fucked we dont have replacement parts supported for CV1 anymore(after2yrs)". Pimax didn't send me a head strap back
then though I had to get a paprt 3D printed to graft a vive headset onto it Lmao. (surprisingly durable to this day)

But it's been like nearly 3.2 years of pimax time and the weightyness and cables getting in my way on
more occasions than just VaM is definitely getting old man. It's an interesting beast but the fact that it predates the
passthrough cameras and the cost for the pimax crystal is more than I wanna re-invest for idk I might just keep the pimax
and consider the quest as a light solution.

Can you tell me more about the Wifi adapter for virtual desktop thing? I did briefly consider that too it seems like it'd be
way better than a physical cable for sure. How does it configure with VaM can I use SteamVR with Oculus 3s with vive trackers?
Or would you have to do something different to get vive trackers working with oculus with or without pc connection? Definitely
been pondering the desire for more freedom or less bulk in the form of index at one point but decided index isn't
different enough to justify. Considering I basically have everything but the headset.

 

[booyakshaka]

This is link to the adapter I got. you don't need Virtual Desktop for it to work, Quest comes with proprietary Air Link, but VD is highly recommended from everyone in the know (which doesn't include me btw!). There are two versions, one on steam. one on Meta store, you need the one from meta, NOT steam. If your PC has a good Wifi adapter built in you won't need the Puppis S either, but since I started using it I am getting even better stability than I got with the USB-C cable, which I didn't get with the wifi adapter on PC.

As far as your trackers go, I assume you are talking about extra body trackers on hips or legs etc? I think they work, but honestly would be better off asking in meta reddit or similar.

If I was in your shoes, I would bundle up the headset, controllers and trackers etc and try and sell in an effort to fund for a Quest 3 rather than a Quest 3 S, the quest 3 S is pretty much identical but from what I've read, the pass through isn't as good, and seeing as this is a main driver for getting one, I think you'd regret not getting the Quest 3.

If pass through wasn't something you weren't particularly interested in, the S is a good deal, but it IS intended as an introduction to VR, features being cut to bring the price down etc. The price of the Quest 3 has dropped a bit from original release I am sure.

A (time consuming) solution would be to order them both, one at a time if needed from amazon, and return the one you don't want

From what I've read though, don't judge pass through capabilities by the quest S, looking on amazon I see they have refurbished quest 3 for about £70 more than the quest S, note this is a smaller storage size than the new quest 3 as they have discontinued the 128gig version. Older quest 3 and quest 3 S both have 128g, the only new models of quest 3 now are 512g, but if most stuff you will be using is stored on PC that's not an issue. I have a fair few games on the quest itself, and am at half capacity of my 128g. Games built for the quest itself are nowhere near as bloated, and if you take some off to make room it doesnt take long to re-install.

Wow this was way longer than i excepted haha, lemme know if any more questions

 

[Aikz]

I've got a quest3 and VAM with passthrough is a lot more impressive than I thought! Especially when it got updated a while ago, can read text off my phone, especially when the lighting is good. It gets even better if you play around with lighting/subscenes in VAM. If you match the lighting and set up correct positioning with the real objects in your room it looks pretty real, pretty amazing experience to see someone who's not actually there walking around in your room and then sit down on a real chair (among other things).

I don't know the difference with the new quest 3S so I can't tell you what to buy but I'm happy with the pass-through function and think it's worth paying some extra for (I would easily pay another 200$ for higher quality cameras in my quest for example). Also with VD it's really easy to switch on and off, and there's quite some content creators who build in passthrough options for their scenes.