

Since then, Oculus was acquired by Facebook for $2 billion and remains one of the giants of VR. The company was at the forefront of hardware development thanks to founder Palmer Luckey, who developed the first prototype as a teenager. In many ways, Oculus Rift is the trailblazer of the virtual reality headset market.

#BEST VR HEADSET WINDOWS#
#BEST VR HEADSET PC#
Acer, ASUS, Lenovo, HP, and Dell are among the leading PC vendors who have embraced Windows Mixed Reality. This means users can run VR content and games without needing blistering hardware. Wanting to make VR and MR more accessible, Microsoft created Windows Mixed Reality, which puts less processing burden on headsets. In many ways, Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality platform is a direct response to the expensive and specification-demanding HTC Vive.

Samsung Hmd Odyssey Windows Mixed Reality Then there is the fact you will need a high-powered PC to run the Vive, with HTC suggesting a minimum of an Intel Core i5-4590 CPU and a GeForce GTX 970 GPU.Ģ. Cost is definitely the Achilles heel of HTC’s HMD, and many people will find the $600 price tag too much to justify. However, like the Vive itself, these accessories are expensive at $149.99 each. The Vive has been around long enough that it also gets interesting peripherals, such a Hyper Blaster and Racket Sports Set for shooting games and sports. In fact, the room scale tracking of the Vive is still what sets it apart from its main rival Oculus Rift.

The latter are important additions because the bases allow the Vive to create a “whole room” VR experience.ĭespite the presence of powerful alternatives, the HTC Vive is an impressively technical headset which tracks movement within a 10-foot virtual cube. It is hugely powerful and comprehensive as it ships with two motion controllers and two base stations. From tech giants like Samsung, Google, HTC, and Sony, to the virtual reality giant Oculus, the HMDs we have chosen are the topVR headsets of 2018.ĭespite being among the first VR headsets on the market, the HTC Vive remains the most consistent package. We have listed the leading virtual reality headsets for PC, mobile, and consoles. There are dozens of HMDs on the market, but only some of them stand out as the best available. For a completely immersive experience, virtual reality is changing the way in which we consume media and interact with content.
#BEST VR HEADSET SOFTWARE#
Major tech companies have embraced VR with devices called head mounted displays (HMDs): headset devices that act as a gateway between computing devices and the user.Īround these devices, software vendors and developers have created hundreds of games and applications that work in the virtual space. In just a few short years, virtual reality (VR) has transformed from a prospective technology to a fully functional nascent market.
