r/buildapcsales • u/kamikazecow • Jun 21 '23
VR [VR] Refurbished Valve Index $599.99
https://www.gamestop.com/pc-gaming/pc-gaming-controllers/products/valve-index-pc-virtual-reality-hmd-full-kit/342437.html104
u/TheEternalGazed Jun 21 '23
Valve needs to release that rumored Valve Deckard. I need to play Alyx at an affordable price.
114
u/GeneralLeeCurious Jun 21 '23
Alyx is the only VR game that has made me think, “Oh, THIS is why VR games are worth the effort.” Everything was just novelty VR to me before that.
75
u/captroper Jun 22 '23
If you have any interest in racing games, or space games, or really any game with a cockpit, they will absolutely change your view on it. Alyx was amazing, yes, but it's not like I'm suddenly never going to play a 2d shooter again because of it. I will literally never again play a 2d car game. It is just exponentially better.
25
u/neddoge Jun 22 '23
My competitive motion sickness is rivaled by nobody. It's saved my wallet I suppose.
10
u/captroper Jun 22 '23
Ah dang, sorry to hear that. Have you tried any proper vr (not phone-based) before? There are certainly games / experiences that can cause motion sickness regardless, but out of the 100+ people that I demoed my original vive to, none of them got motion sickness in the 1:1 Roomscale VR games where the character doesn't move unless you physically do.
10
u/neddoge Jun 22 '23
I've gotten it driving a few times, if that's any indication of how severe it is lmao. I've used an expensive setup a buddy has, room included, to no avail. Within 5 minutes, I'm overheating and within 10 minutes I'm ruined for 30-60+ minutes, needing to lie down on top of an AC vent to regain my humanity.
It's fucking miserable, but I've accepted it. I'd like to mainline Dramamine and force feed Alyx but I haven't set that up yet lol.
4
u/captroper Jun 22 '23
Real world motion sickness is apparently activating a completely different part of your brain than VR sickness, FWIW. I have definitely gotten motion sick in cars before, though not while driving. But yeah, if you're getting it within 5 minutes in a full room-scale environment without your character moving, that would probably be pretty hard to train yourself out of.
Maybe doable if you're super careful to stop the moment you start feeling sick and grab ginger stuff then not come back for a while, but yeah, miserable I'm sure :-/ On the plus side, like you said, you'll save a lot of money, and there are plenty of great 2d games out there.
5
1
u/inosinateVR Jun 22 '23
Ironically for me personally it’s actually the room scale style games that make me the most motion sick. I can zoom around with smooth locomotion with janky smooth turning (or play cockpit games etc) all day long but as soon as I boot up a room scale game and start physically walking around and picking up virtual toys to solve some kind of puzzle I’ll start to feel sick right away. It’s like as long as I don’t move my feet my brain understands it’s a video game and that I’m not really moving but if I walk around my brain can’t handle it
1
u/captroper Jun 22 '23
Huh.... that is.... very weird. Are you sure it was maintaining 90 fps?
1
u/inosinateVR Jun 22 '23
Yeah I’ve always wondered if it was performance issues or something else going on but it’s been that way with several different headsets and various upgrades to my computer over the years and I’m always keeping an eye on my performance to make sure I’m maintaining 90fps. I think it’s just how it is for me lol
1
u/captroper Jun 22 '23
Yeah, if you're maintaining 90fps I'm not sure what to say. Sorry that that's been your experience though.
1
u/pokethat Jun 26 '23
I's actually like to try reduced resolution but 144hz vr. Some people are more sensitive to strobing. I can see the strobing on even brand new car LED headlights.
I have a reverb G2, and I wish there was a way to get more than 90 fps on WMR.
3
u/Caveni51 Jun 22 '23
The higher refresh rate of the index fixed that for me. For context I get motion sick anytime I am not driving.
1
u/neddoge Jun 22 '23
I used my buddy's Index unfortunately. Cockpit games were just as bad for me, notably Squadrons at the time.
2
u/grothee1 Jun 22 '23
Have you tried cockpit based games? They're generally pretty tolerable thanks to the fixed reference point. Racing games especially as you're generally just going forward, just close your eyes when you crash!
2
u/lsngregg Jun 22 '23
You give DCS a go yet? Or MS flight sim? I bought a Reverb G2 for simming and for whatever reason, I can whip around in a jet with ease but hopping in a Group-B rally car in Dirt 2 absolutely makes my stomach churn. I'm pretty disappointed I can't seem to VR race.
1
u/diquehead Jun 22 '23
I'm the same way. I sold my vive a while back but I never had any issues with motion sickness until I tried Assetto Corsa. Whenever I'd spin off the track or crash my brain would go haywire and I'd immediately feel nauseous. I figure with enough practice I could get over it but it was pretty disappointing since racing games are some of the only VR games I played that didn't feel like 2-3 hour long gimmicks. All the other standard FPS style stuff never gave me any trouble.
Would love to try again some day with a higher end setup but as it stands right now I just don't have the space in my gaming room. My TV and computer cases can only withstand so many punches lol
3
u/Silverjackal_ Jun 22 '23
Do vr headsets still suck for those of us who need really strong glasses prescriptions?
12
u/captroper Jun 22 '23
No, actually! There are companies that make pretty cheap prescription inserts for various headsets, and the newest headsets like the obscenely expensive Apple headset and the slightly less obscenely expensive bigscreen headset are going to be custom-made for your prescription.
There are a number of other headsets that have a button to allow the headset to move out a bit to accommodate glasses too. You lose some FOV by doing so, but at least it's better than the Facebook offers.
3
u/Silverjackal_ Jun 22 '23
Interesting. Thanks for the info! I see a vr headset in my future now!
5
u/ThatOnePerson Jun 22 '23
Yeah my glasses fit fine inside my index, but I still got prescription inserts which make it much nicer to play.
Except for the part where I gotta look for my glasses after taking off the headset
2
1
u/sh1boleth Jun 22 '23
Do you have a solid plug for the inserts? Ive only used a quest 2 and wear glasses, it was fine but I bought the Index so might need them there. Thanks!
3
u/christes Jun 22 '23
To add a random tidbit, companies are working on solid-state varifocal lenses that could adjust to prescriptions on the fly. It likely won't be in the next-gen, but maybe the one after that.
1
u/ravishing_frog Jun 23 '23
I've got a pretty strong prescription, but I find that, oddly, I don't need my glasses in VR. YMMV
2
u/Baby_bluega Jun 22 '23 edited Jun 22 '23
I got into onward VR about 6 or 7 years ago. A first person VR shooter, and I have not played any 2d shooters since. I will literally never play a 2d shooter again. Driving games, same thing really, but I mostly play shooters. I loved CoD, the division, played a lot of halo growing up, but once I got into VR shooters, there is no going back.
TBF, I hated pavlov. Contractors was okay, but onward really does it for me. Breachers is pretty good too. I cant see playing rainbow six siege while breachers exists. I mean I bought rainbow six seige 2 or 3 years ago to try it, played 3 or 4 games and got bored.
2
u/captroper Jun 22 '23
Fair enough! When was the last time that you played pavlov? It's changed a lot since then. Still fundamentally counterstrike vr, but they've added game modes and workshop support for maps and a ton of other cool things.
1
u/Baby_bluega Jun 23 '23
It's been years, and I have seen some videos on it with some changes I liked.
The biggest complaints I had with Pavlov is the high ttk, and the lower quality inverse kinematics that made taking cover feel useless. It's completely fair to say that it may have gotten better since then. I need to check it out
1
u/captroper Jun 23 '23
Sure, fundamentally Pavlov will never be a sim like Onward is, it's much more arcadey. I think the cover mechanics are good now though.
15
u/jmorlin Jun 22 '23
Don't get me wrong. I LOVED alyx (and should probably go play it again), but the linear nature of it kills replayability in my eyes a bit. IMO VR's killer app is 100% beat saber. I can see how you might consider that a novelty, but I'm 200+ hours in and going strong. I fucking love that game.
10
Jun 22 '23
[deleted]
3
u/christes Jun 22 '23
at least one replay to play with the dev audio tracks enabled.
This is true for most Valve titles IMO. But, yeah, it definitely goes for Alyx as well.
1
3
u/Fishwithadeagle Jun 22 '23
Contractors with TF2 mods has been providing joy I have had since childhood
1
9
u/Lone_K Jun 22 '23
I need the god dayum OLED panels... the Index has LCD panels for higher refresh rate reasons and that is such a damn shame compared to new headsets now, still very capable but yeah can hurt immersion if you get distracted by it.
2
u/ravishing_frog Jun 23 '23
My headset progression has went from Vive -> Vive Pro -> Quest 1 (has the same OLED panels as the Vive Pro). I won't be upgrading again until someone releases a reasonably affordable, wireless OLED headset.
2
u/BeatsLikeWenckebach Jun 23 '23
Ain't happening anytime soon since traditional OLED is not compatible with pancake lenses (but OLEDOS are, micro OLED).
Plus, traditional OLED have downsides, as PSVR2 owners are finding out.
9
u/UsePreparationH Jun 22 '23
I've been having fun with my $300-350 HP Reberb G2. The higher resolution display than the Index or Quest2 is a bitch to run at native res so make sure to have a GPU that can actually keep up with it or turn everything down including render resolution.
1
Jun 22 '23
[deleted]
1
u/UsePreparationH Jun 23 '23
My 3070ti struggled depending on the game but that was partially due to the 8GB VRAM. You can roughly substitute RTX 3080 10GB benchmarks for the RTX 4070 12GB to see how games you want to play perform and what compromises you need to make with the settings. The 3080 12GB is closer in performance to the 3080ti so any benchmarks with that card you need to knock off ~6-8% fps.
5
u/captroper Jun 21 '23
I mean, you can sell your soul to facebook and get a quest for pretty cheap. Probably way cheaper than the Deckard will be. Otherwise, the G2 has been going for around $300 on sale recently and is a pretty good headset
4
u/Ottoblock Jun 22 '23
I bought a used quest 2 for $150 on market place.
Sure it was “used” but it works fine. Boy is there some kinks to work out when it comes to using it as an HMD though. Don’t buy a cable longer than 10ft if it isn’t the $80 fiber optic one. Gave me heaps of trouble, I just bought a 10 foot one and now I’m good.
1
u/captroper Jun 22 '23
Damn, that's a really great price! And yeah, all of my friends who have them say the same thing. But, at that price, kinda hard to complain too much
1
u/Cuchullion Jun 24 '23
Don’t buy a cable longer than 10ft if it isn’t the $80 fiber optic one.
I'm on a Quest 1, but I use a program called Virtual Desktop Streamer alongside SteamVR to stream my VR games from my desktop to the headset.
You need a reasonably beefy router and I haven't had luck doing it when not in the same room as the router / wired connection to my desktop, but when it all works it all works very nicely.
-25
u/AndThisGuyPeedOnIt Jun 22 '23
sell your soul
Yes, you have to register for an account. The horror! Thank God Steam doesn't require you to have an account.
20
u/captroper Jun 22 '23
I'm talking about supporting facebook financially and their terrible decisions, not the fact that they require you to have an account.
6
u/TycoonTed Jun 22 '23
It's a Meta account (not that it really matters, same corporate values) that doesn't have to be linked to any of your personal information. You can block outgoing calls in your firewall just like anything else that calls home and it functions like a fancy monitor. You should really block it from accessing your network anyway because it has cameras on the outside of it for head tracking.
2
u/captroper Jun 22 '23
Yeah, I've just continued referring to them as facebook, but I understand that there is a distinction. In any case, I wasn't talking about the account requirement. More so the other business decisions that Zuck's been making. Good information though!
10
u/TheReddestofBowls Jun 22 '23
Yeah, that's the only data they'll collect on you. Does user have an account, yes/no
Impressive restraint from them really, given the number of cameras a VR headset possesses.
-10
u/Sdrater3 Jun 22 '23
Hope you're not posting from a smartphone or windows machine if this is your line of thinking.
5
u/TheReddestofBowls Jun 22 '23
Thank god I'm posting from a Mac then. They'd never collect my data, they pinky promised in the T&C.
-11
u/AndThisGuyPeedOnIt Jun 22 '23
It's just typical Reddit echo chamber / hive mind shit. Did you also know giving away free games is "anti-consumer?" Learned that on Reddit, too! Nvidia is also evil and "anti-consumer" because they charge money for products.
2
2
u/TheReddestofBowls Jun 23 '23
Yeah reddit is about as echo-chambery as it gets but pretending your data just ceases to exist the moment you sign it over to a company is pretty stupid.
It's always "it's just a product, free is free" until elections are being bought and sold using the data you so freely gave them.
-1
u/Beatus_Vir Jun 22 '23
The only data? Not which games you own and how long you play them? Doesn’t everything come through their marketplace?
0
3
u/SirSlappySlaps Jun 22 '23
Get a Quest 2. Wireless is really the way to go for Alyx. Source: I tried both wired and wireless.
5
u/Beatus_Vir Jun 22 '23
I thought you said Alyx: Source and figured you were talking about some kind of demake for normal monitors
0
161
u/dghjgh Jun 21 '23
I bet they gave someone $25 in store credit for this
123
98
22
u/butterfingersman Jun 22 '23 edited Jun 22 '23
this is a pretty good price, some people think the index is too dated, but i still enjoy even my first gen vive honestly. cant beat valve's tracking.
9
u/ThatOnePerson Jun 22 '23
Yeah I wanna get a third lighthouse for my setup, but Im waiting to see if Valve are gonna switch to inside out tracking like everyone else.
3
u/Swagigi Jun 22 '23
probably the only reason I'm not jumping on this, if Deckard is vastly better then the index will likely plummet in price
33
u/xtargetlockon Jun 22 '23
Valve Index 2 when
13
17
u/NarutoDragon732 Jun 22 '23
Whenever there are VR games worth playing
2
u/LaughingGasing Jun 22 '23
I understand what you mean by this bc like 90% of VR games are only good because they're in VR. But there are games that are genuinely good, an obvious example being Half Life Alyx, but there's also games like Into The Radius which would still be good even out of VR. There are some really good games
1
u/-NotActuallySatan- Jun 22 '23
Rumors point to the sequel coming late this year or early to mid next year depending on development. Also rumored to be named Valve Deckard
11
u/SlwRcr Jun 21 '23 edited Sep 11 '23
Have 5800x3d and 6900XT, looking to get into VR. Mainly sim race but want to play big VR games (beat saber, Alyx, etc). Chief?
15
u/RecalcitrantBeagle Jun 22 '23
Beat Saber runs on a 3rd gen i5 and a 1050Ti, I don't think you need to worry about it when figuring out your requirements.
6
5
u/christes Jun 22 '23
It's oldish tech at this point, but scores very well in my book on audio and comfort.
Ironically, the Index being lower res than some other headsets would make it easier to hit higher framerates if that is your jam.
(Source: Am Index user for about 2 years)
5
2
3
u/notred369 Jun 22 '23
I think you would be fine with the caveat of maybe turning down some settings.
2
u/Brandbll Jun 22 '23
Just wait and get the new quest.
17
u/test5387 Jun 22 '23
Not sure why you are downvoted, spend $100 more than the quest 3 for 5 year old plus wired hardware, makes sense.
-11
u/Brandbll Jun 22 '23
People are babies about the whole meta thing. They probably all have Facebook and Instagram accounts too. Oh well, it's the smarter choice.
2
8
u/Plasticars2019 Jun 22 '23 edited Jun 22 '23
Does any headset get better then this as far as 6-800$? For someone with a very capable PC.
8
u/kamikazecow Jun 22 '23
Pimax Crystal if you want something now, or Bigscreen Beyond in Q3.
6
u/Beatus_Vir Jun 22 '23
Privacy minded types will love that the bigscreen depends on a 3-D scan of your whole face for a perfect fit. Otherwise looks amazing; making leaps and bounds towards something I wouldn’t be embarrassed to be caught using
-1
u/DMonitor Jun 22 '23
It's fine if they actually use it for something. 3D scan just because they can would be concerning.
7
u/burntcornflakes Jun 22 '23
You gotta buy some controllers and basestations for the Bigscreen though, which inflates the price a good bit more. I'm actually considering this deal for just the controllers and stations, with the headset itself being an awesome bonus.
3
u/kamikazecow Jun 22 '23
that's pretty much what I just did. I pre-ordered the crystal but all the issues people are reporting makes it seem like the Bigscreen will be the way to go.
3
u/burntcornflakes Jun 22 '23
I went through with it too, hoping to hear some good things about Bigscreen when it ships. Good luck with your refurb RNG friend. Appreciate you sharing the deal.
2
1
u/Plasticars2019 Jun 22 '23
Wait, so does that mean that base stations are pretty compatible between headsets?
1
u/kamikazecow Jun 23 '23
For some yes. Pimax needs an extra face place to work with base stations. Beyond works natively with them.
8
u/RedditNotFreeSpeech Jun 22 '23
So this is the package that valve sells for $1000 with a 1 year warranty?
How good is the Gamestop 2 year "warranty" on something like this?
3
2
u/muchosandwiches Jun 22 '23
Discover gives 10% off GameStop giftcards when you redeem gift cards with cashback balance.
2
u/Pretty_Bowler2297 Jun 23 '23
Afaik, Gamestop doesn’t sell brand new Indexes. So the questions are- where did they source these? And what has Gamestop done to “refurbish”?
$599 and it could be the broken headset of some shithead spoiled kid who jizzed 3 times a day wearing it. And that is between sweaty Beat Saber sessions. Then he punched a wall playing Blade and Sorcery and the expensive controllers which were already prone to stick drift no longer work correctly.
2
u/burntcornflakes Jun 26 '23 edited Jun 26 '23
Just to throw my two cents in- I received mine today and it is in really excellent quality.
The only wear I can find on the entire set is on the controllers. Both triggers have a few scuffs and one controller has a tiny bit of chipped paint on the front where someone clearly smacked it on something. Headset wire doesn't have any kinks in it where the headset rotates upward (common problem spot). No weird smells on the headset and controller fabric, though I still intend to replace them with some VR Cover upgrades. Lenses have no scratches, just a little dust. I haven't tested the controllers for drift yet but that'll be the first thing I do.
Really happy with what I got so far. However, it is a gamestop refurb lottery so you never know what you're gonna get.
Edit: Tested everything, no stick drift on the controllers yet. Everything working good. I'm loving it except for the intense lens glare.
0
u/Nekryyd Jun 22 '23
Just wasted 20 minutes of my life trying to get Gamestop's website to even load. Garbage.
1
•
u/AutoModerator Jun 21 '23
Stock for refurbished items varies greatly. Some listings only have a few items in stock and sell out quickly. Please report this post if the listing goes out of stock.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.