A few days ago, I got the 512Gb Meta Quest 3, along with the elite head strap with its included extra built-in battery (giving a total of 3 to 4 hours of play).
For those of you thinking about getting a Quest 3, it is everything as hyped and more. It is smaller, far more powerful CPU, far better pancake-style lenses, wider FOV, higher resolution, etc. With the elite head strap, it is super easy to take on and off, and the rear-mounted extra battery balances the whole unit well.
The interocular distance adjustment is now infinite instead of a trinary choice of ‘A, B, or C’. The eye/lens distance is now integrated and adjustable (choice of 4), so no more separate spacers, either.
Meta’s emerging approach focuses on mixed reality instead of virtual reality. I think they should have done a better job at educating their potential customers about the huge advantages of this paradigm shift. While I intellectually understood the difference between Virtual/Mixed reality, I had no practical experience in application. Having now worked with both mediums, I have a far better appreciation of just how significant this shift actually is.
With VR headsets, the real world disappears and the artificial world becomes your reality. This is problematic because the real world, although hidden, is still around, so you have funny YouTube videos of people running into walls and smashing their TV’s, etc.
With the Quest 3, it’s a whole new approach. The headset has four high-resolution color cameras on its face that reconstruct a very realistic and accurate view of the real world in front of you. So no more running into walls, bumping into furniture, etc. However, there is a slightly reduced resolution that makes reading small print on your phone or desktop problematic. For me, I can almost make out the print on my phone when I look at it while wearing my Quest 3, but not quite.
Bottom line? It’s important to understand that this feature isn’t just an ‘enhanced passthrough’ feature-- it’s a fundamental shift in how you use and integrate the potential of VR with the real world immersively and cooperatively.
So last night, I used the Quest 3 for the first time with Falcon BMS. I flew an ‘Instant Action/Moving Mud’ scenario.
The difference between my old Quest 2 and the Quest 3 is obvious and amazing. With the old Fresnel lenses, there were prismatic artifacts that are inherent to the lenses. With the pancake lenses, there are absolutely no artifacts.
With the old Fresnel lenses, perfectly clear vision was only available in a very small centered area of the lens. Things immediately got increasingly blurry away from that small center. So with the old lenses, you got into the habit of making small head-motion adjustments to keep the area of interest exactly in the middle of the lenses so you can see them clearly.
With the new pancake lenses, the entire (and wider) FOV is perfectly focused. So instead of having to make constant head-motion adjustments, all you have to do is move your eyes around just like you do in real life.
In the cockpit, the obviously higher resolution is immediate and gratifying. The details of the pit are clear and focused. Even when I “lean back” in my cockpit seat, the MFDs are in focus and easily readable. The outside world is just gorgeous, and 4.38 isn’t even out yet!!!
All I can say is that I had high hopes for the Quest 3 ever since they announced it over a year ago, and it has easily exceeded my hopes. Honestly, devs, I am MORE THAN READY for 4.38 to be released, now more than ever.
