From the time Oculus Rift hit the market sometime late in March 2016, VR has never been the same again.

Here is a technology unlike anything you have ever seen or heard; you become one with your favorite VR movie, be right next to your friends or play next to your favorite sporting icon.

It’s all happening here.

Yes, you are all set to go get your Oculus Rift bundle but hold on, is your PC up for this groundbreaking technology?

To experience Rift to its fullest potential you need a PC that is very sensitive because the Oculus Rift dishes out 233 million pixels per second.

ASUS PC Oculus-ready | Oculus Rift Bundle

The basic requirements for the Oculus Rift + ASUS Oculus Ready Desktop PC Bundle are:

• A graphics card : a GTX 970 or an AMD Radeon R9 390
• Intel Core i5-6400
• RAM: minimum 8 GB

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The ASUS G 11CD has Intel Core i5-6400, Nvidia GeForce GTX 970; 8 GB of DDR4 RAM, 1 TB hard drive; making it a perfect choice for the Oculus Rift.

There are other laptops too that offer these specs, but when you purchase the Oculus Rift Bundle which comprises of the Oculus Rift headset with built-in headphones and mic, sensor, remote, Xbox One Wireless Controller along with the ASUS at $ 949 instead of $1049 if bought separately.

Best Features of this combination

Here are a few features that make this bundle worth considering.

• Quiet and cool: Be it video games or the VR a PC generates a lot of noise and operational heat. Depending on the sophistication of the PC these features can be minimized but not eliminated. In that respect, the ASUS PC is really quiet and has a remarkable cooling capacity.
• High-quality headset: The headset though made of plastic and fabric is sturdy and well constructed. The fabric cleverly conceals the LEDs used for motion tracking giving the headset an elegant and posh look. The built-in headphones with the spatial audio are an added advantage.
• Comfortable: Wearing a headset for a couple of hours can be very uncomfortable and even painful, but that is not the case with the Oculus. It is light and can be easily adjusted to suit your comfort level.
• Smooth resolution: You can play almost all games quite smoothly and effortlessly at 1080 resolution on this Oculus Rift bundle.
• Plenty of space: The ASUS has plenty of space to store all your favorite games. The 1TB hard drive also ensures that you have a smooth gaming experience.
• Good support system: There is a very efficient support system that can guide you through any difficulties you have using the VR.
• Adjustable straps: It is paramount that the headset sits perfectly for the best visual experience. The plastic straps are bendable and can be fixed using a Velcro at the end. This ensures that the Rift fits the face perfectly; if it doesn’t the focus changes and you will not experience VR.

Negative Features of this bundle

There are quite a few cons to the combo that can’t be overlooked.

• Installation issues: The drawbacks start from the installation itself. It takes very long and some unresolved registry issues keep cropping up during installation. Several users have been miffed with the setup problems. The system fails to recognize the Oculus app and blanks out umpteen times.
• Graphics Card: Despite been touted as the all powerful, the GT970 card is unable to perform. There have been several instances of system crashes.
• Suspect hardware: The PC is entry level no doubt but that is no excuse for a processor that is really slow.
• Only one working HDMI: Though there are two HDMI ports, only one is useful. This is taken by the Rift; its graphic card renders the other HDMI useless. As a result, you do not get high quality images on your monitor.

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• Faded image quality: It has been observed that the image quality on the screen is faded and has less color saturation and contrast on the Rift when compared to other brands.
• Choice of games: At present, there are no motion-based games with the Oculus rift; almost all games can be played sitting down or standing in one place.
• Motion sickness: There have been instances where users have suffered from intense motion sickness after using the Oculus rift for even a short period of time.
• Headphones disconnect: For no obvious reason the headphones tend to disconnect randomly interrupting the VR experience.
• Uncomfortable for spectacle wearers: People with glasses will encounter difficulties while using the VR because the pupils need time to adjust to the change in focus.
• Expensive: To run the Oculus Rift you need a powerful Computer with high specifications which is an expensive affair.

Advantages over competition

Despite the above-stated drawbacks, the Oculus Rift bundle has several advantages over its closest competitors.

• Optical sensor in the rift: This sensor detects the headset’s position in the real world and imitates that in the virtual world. So whether you lean forward or backward, crouch or kneel in reality you will do the same in the virtual world too. This is a huge advantage over its competitors which do not detect the entire body movement; they only move according to the head movement.
• Oculus touch: This is the icing on the cake. Using a combination of grip sensors, haptic feedback, and controls the manufacturers have designed the Oculus touch which allows you to grasp, pick, fire and do a whole range of thing that you can do with your real hands in the virtual world also.
• Built-in headphones: Just one piece on the head takes care of everything even audio. You need not rely on any external ear buds or headphones because the Rift comes with inbuilt headphones that include spatial audio. So, not only the picture even the sound adds to the experience.
• OLED displays: The ASUS is a gaming machine and you can experience the VR optimally in it because of the OLED display, the current requirement for VR. By using OLED you will not experience any motion blur even when you move your head quickly.
• 360-degree tracking: Probably the only VR that gives the user a full 360-degree view of the virtual world.

Final verdict

Virtual reality is soon to become as common as PCs and laptops if technology continues to innovative and keep the users enticed.

Coming to Oculus Rift Bundle, it will definitely find a place in a technology lover’s gadget cabinet. It’s snug and perfect fit, a well-sorted array of games and the ever increasing apps ensures that the Oculus Rift is here to stay.

The Oculus Rift by itself is flawless and earns full five stars but in combination with the ASUS, there are certain issues that need to be looked at. To begin with, the graphic card fails to impress.  Then there is the issue with room scale option in the Rift that the manufacturers should take serious note of.

Finally, to experience VR optimally with the Oculus Rift the PC should be competent but the ASUS 11 G though claimed to be Oculus Ready has some tinkering to be done to reach that stage.

Despite that, we can still call the Oculus Rift, “the future of entertainment,” if the makers work on the drawbacks. For this well-crafted gadget, a compatible PC (as mentioned earlier) is the key. Hence, when you invest in the Oculus Rift Bundle which includes an Oculus-ready PC you know you are on the threshold of virtual reality.

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