Wow just played halflife alex again but now with the link cable and the debug settings on 850 bitrate and in the oculus app the sampling on 1.5… My yaw dropped… Damm what did that look good!Those lenses are amazing!
Finally got my Quest 3 and I must say it’s an impressive headset! I LOVE pancake lenses that’s for sure, damn, edge to edge clarity and 100% geometrical stability, no distortion, this is really my cup of tea. The FoV is of course disappointing compared to my XTAL but I can already see that I’d prefer fast action games on the Quest 3. Going to have some more fun with this thing the coming days.
The quest 3 actually feels like an Index 2: it doesn’t really excel in anything particularly, but it does everything ‘just right’.
It already leaves me longing for a next version though, just a bit more resolution, and a bit more FoV would be great 
Meta sure knows how to make quality stuff, that’s for sure, wish they’d release a high-end headset!!
Either way it’s hard for me to go back to other types of lenses after having tried pancake … I now know for sure I won’t be buying the Varjo XR4 or the Somnium VR1, or any headset that doesn’t have pancake lenses …
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I find Q3 tracking quite distracting, especially for work when using controllers to type some text, due to missing rings it often get occluded but when it looses tracking instead of staying in the same place it just jumps right into the face, once Carmack left their software became way less polished. I had no issues with Q2 tracking. Even playing beatsaber you sometimes can lose tracking if keep your hands resting in the bottom position. Swithing to mouse fixes the issue though.
For standalone apps its very good, but when using as a PC VR HMD it doesn’t compete with index despite better visuals in terms of resolution, less glare and 15% more e2ec , on index I have also very good e2ec. But I have to admit it started to do a better PC VR job than a Q2. I also didnt try new AV codec.
Index strengths vs Q3;
- better performance (not due to resolution but due to drivers stack optimizations, + good reprojections and other stuff)
- better smooth fps
- wider fov (but Q3 is still quite decent in this regard)
- perfect latency - Display port is diplay port
- miles better tracking, hmd itself on Q3 tracks ok (IMO Index feels smoother still)
- Q3 has quite meh mic, it hurts social vr, but they get it a bit better with software
- constant meta’s bugs, every update, its just for games with such an approach as it constantly drainds time when something is off in software, audio drivers, VD desktop DPI in slave Vbox OSes, some other friction, its still ok, but is way from perfect
- I don’t touch audio & comfort points, while you can mod Q3 quite ok, it still feels a bit less polish and premium than index. Though less form factor of Q3 feels good. Eye relief of the default gasket is meh but it kinda works.
- Q3 has color banding
- Overlap on Q3 is worse than Index, for me personally, it feels ok but not perfect
Q3 strengths over Index
- Res, Glare, E2EC
- Standalone xp
- mobility
- pancake profile
- MR features
- newcomers friendly ( if you dont get banned by facebook) in regard to initial setup & not requiring a PC
Myself I can’t replace the index with Q3 but I use them both, Valve is very strong at software & drivers, Q3 is a very good hmd for what its (standalone, 2D productivity). On Bigscreen threads I often see ppl first time trying naitive VR after wireless PC VR on Quests and they are amazed how smooth it works there. Still waiting my BSB unit to see if anything can replace my aging index. I also hate aspheric lenses, CA & warping. Glad that there are still some manufactures that care about geometry stability & cognitive VR comfort like Q3/Index.
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Yea those lenses are realy great i must say,could you imagine if this quest 3 was oled 
|So bring on this quest 3 pro !
By the way i never had any tracking problems(and i returned alot of headsets that used insided out tracking because off the bad tracking because i am used to lighthouse tracking,but i still didnt had one game that gived me problems like fps shooters etc on this quest 3)
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Yeah no tracking problems here. The only thing from @Teigue 's list I do recognize are bugs. I had to redo 2 parts of the setup process due to strange bugs and I couldnt get the link cable working at first, only after rebooting the PC it suddenly started working … One would expect a huge company like Meta to do better there for sure.
Other than that pancake really are incredible
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Haha I must say I love my Quest 3 more and more. It’s actually my first wireless headset and damn I love it! Together with those crystal clear pancake lenses and Mixed Reality this is really a whole new world of fun. Now enjoying that Miracle Pool game you linked @john2910 really nice indeed!
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Bradley is speculating that the quest pro 2 might arrive soon https://twitter.com/SadlyItsBradley/status/1749105484034908555
If it does then that’s going to be an instant buy for sure!
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i am now addicted to racketclub playing doubles online is sooo much fun lol…
Yea it has a realy nice fun factor the quest 3,and no more moving your headset to get in the sweetspot!
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that could be cool and intresting!
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Yeah I really hope that’s coming up. The quest3 is really nice but I can’t help but think “wow what if we’d have those pancake lenses with just a bit more resolution, a bit more FoV and an OLED panel” … That would really be incredible.
The tech is there. Somebody just needs to put it all into 1 headset.
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i realy realy hope so what you mentioned…that would be a amazing headset!
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For sure! Also Google and Samsung are still working on their upcoming headset, this one definitely will be based on pancake as well (Google won’t want to sacrifice there) and rumours are that it aims to compete with the Vision Pro so should be high-end as well.
2024 is going to be a great year for VR/XR for sure!
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