I’m a visual artist working with Unreal Engine 5.8, creating immersive environments, abstract landscapes and sculptural installations.
I’m currently choosing my first VR headset and have narrowed it down to the Meta Quest 3 (512 GB) and HTC Vive Focus Vision.
My workstation has an NVIDIA RTX 5080 (16 GB), AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 64 GB RAM.
My main priority is a stable, straightforward workflow in Unreal Engine, with as little technical troubleshooting as possible. I’m particularly interested in using VR Preview to explore and develop my existing Unreal environments.
I’d really appreciate hearing from developers who have practical experience with either headset, especially in UE 5.7 or 5.8.
A few questions:
Stability: Which headset offers the most reliable PCVR workflow with Unreal Engine and OpenXR?
Image quality: How noticeable is the difference between Quest 3 via USB Link (compressed) and Focus Vision via DisplayPort (uncompressed), particularly with detailed textures, organic surfaces and complex environments?
Performance: Does Quest Link’s video encoding introduce meaningful GPU overhead or latency in demanding Unreal scenes?
Eye tracking: Has anyone successfully used Focus Vision eye tracking in Unreal Engine through OpenXR or the VIVE SDK? How difficult is it to implement with Blueprints?
General experience: Which headset would you recommend for an artist who is relatively new to VR development and wants to focus on creating rather than troubleshooting?
I’m also interested in eventually presenting interactive VR installations in galleries, where reliability and ease of use for visitors will be important.
Any real-world experiences, comparisons or advice would be greatly appreciated.
stability quest3, HTC only supports up to 5.4 as of now from memory, or you can update there api on the plugin yourself. Vive headsets were excellent in the past and reliable but with the frequency of updates and support, i would say sub par. Had every issue known and unknown using a focus 3 particularly on unreal, not so much in unity.
image quality not tried the vision but for focus 3 and quest 3 over wifi, i found the quest to look better or on the same level generally.
you can circumvent that issue by packaging an exe and launching straight to meta quest link and drop the steam vr but vive has there own headset port software that talks to steam so i imagine same latency issue?? but for my work i always target 90fps - 120fps so not really experience issues, additionally meta released an update allowing cable tether i believe at 120fps too. i haven’t tried quest 3s though and if you think you will use it lots i would steer clear of the reduced model version.
can only speak of the focus 3 and the adapter, which they advertised at the start at 120hz and since changed the wording and scrubbed the internet of the hardware specs (even wayback sites don’t have access to it, but they used 2 60hz cameras one for each eye and interpolated between frames and alternated between each eye 60hz + 60hz = 120hz right?)
on implementation of it, starting out stick to there plugin sample which is has most of the logic you want done via blueprints but as i stated earlier only works out of the box on 5.4 and depending upon what your goal is you need to see what the actual hardware is not what the label is
general experience - AVOID HTC headsets, they are problematic, updates are sporadic at best and inconsistent, early adoption of the focus 3 had updates happening fairly regularly but also kept breaking things without stating it would break anything, and then a patch wouldn’t happen for months, we had to lock down updates on the pc due to how bad it got. just generally wanted to burn the headset, but when it works its great. but we had such a bad experience i wouldn’t recommend anyone a htc headset ever again. the quest headset works fairly reliably and just cant fault it, the installation of there plugin may seem daunting at first but plenty of videos on how to do it. they also regularly update it and the built-in tools that come with the plugin are really, really, really convenient and just and absolute delight to work with. highly recommend as first time developer, the only draw back i personally see between the two, is who are you developing for? the quest is widely adopted as a headset for gamers and streamers due to the affordability but the focus was marketed as the must have business headset and is used widely in that domain.
additional advice would be go to the developer forum, see how easy it is to access as you will be surprised at what you can find and have access to without signing up. the only other advice i could offer is look at the recommended hardware as certain gpus are no longer supported but you will find they work just not as well. i had a 3060 6gb on a laptop and was supported when i bought my own quest and a month later it wasn’t and still i can use it, just not to the same level as a 4080/5080
Thank you very much for such a detailed and helpful response. I really appreciate you sharing your practical experience.
I’m increasingly leaning towards the Quest 3, especially because stability and a straightforward Unreal Engine workflow are my main priorities.
I’m a visual artist working with large, detailed sculptural environments in Unreal Engine 5.8, using Nanite and Lumen, on a workstation with an RTX 5080 (16 GB VRAM).
One final question: Have you personally tested Quest 3 with Unreal Engine 5.8 using PCVR via Meta Quest Link?
I’m particularly interested in whether VR Preview works reliably with the standard OpenXR plugin, without requiring a custom Unreal build or additional Meta XR plugins.
And have you had any experience using Lumen and Nanite in PCVR projects?
I highly recommend you test these headsets before purchasing. Apologies if this sounds ranty…
I personally find Valve Index to be the most stable and easy to use system for developing in VR. It’s very comfortable and easy if you are constantly popping in and out of VR.
I have found all META headsets to be a complete nightmare to develop for or to even use as a tool for developing. The primary reason is their PC link system is incredibly unreliable and unstable, constantly failing and dropping you in there “home” setting. It makes iterating incredibly frustrating whereas with the Index it is basically just another display. I have had students that literally spent hours just trying to get their headset to “see” their PC, whether it’s through a link cable or wireless. Basically the Quest hardware is great but the software gets in the way and that doesn’t even get into the issue about everything you do with it being recorded by META.
Index is sadly end of life. I’m hoping Steam Frame will be just as easy to work with but I can’t speak for it yet.
Also with regards to VR development in Unreal…nothing is straightforward or stable. Features are constantly broken on updates or only rendering in one eye, etc.. I would expect it to be a major pain but you can also get great results.
Thank you for sharing your experience. This is really useful.
I’ve just ordered a Meta Quest 3 with the official Link cable, primarily to explore my existing Unreal Engine 5.8 environments on an RTX 5080 workstation.
My priority is a stable workflow for repeatedly entering VR Preview, rather than developing standalone Quest applications.
Have you personally tested Quest 3 with a recent version of Unreal Engine using a wired Link connection? And if so, did you encounter the same reliability issues?
I’m particularly interested in working with detailed Nanite environments and potentially Lumen.
I have had issues with all META headsets (Quest 2, Pro, 3). I also teach a VR-centric class at a large university so I see a lot of configurations (not just an issue with my personal gear) over many years and basically 99% of the time there are issues with those headsets. I just did a talk a few days ago where we had to abandon any demos in VR for this very reason…It’s just too much of a hassle to reliably get them working for PC VR.
However, you may have a different experience. I have had brief moments where things “just work” and all is well. Then an update drops (for META Horizon, NVIDIA drivers, Windows updates, UE updates, etc.) and it’s back to square one. I would just go into this expecting something less than stable and so much the better if it works well for you.
Unreal has its own issues. I find iteration is more and more unreliable, meaning I have to restart the editor frequently to get back to stable frame rates. I now tend to develop mainly in flat mode (with a simulated VR pawn) and then only go into VR only when necessary. Not ideal.
You have a good rig but even still when enabling Nanite and Lumen you will either have challenges reaching good fps or have other image quality issues and visual bugs (reflections or GI often rendering in one eye). You will have to make tradeoffs and I recommend implementing DLSS.
Have you had any experience with the HTC Vive Focus Vision using its DisplayPort connection for Unreal Engine development? I’m particularly interested in whether it offers a more stable workflow than Quest 3, even if the Fresnel lenses are a compromise.
I’m working with UE 5.8 on an RTX 5080, creating detailed sculptural environments using Nanite and Lumen. Reliability and image quality are both important to me.
No but I have a lot of experience with the original HTC VIVE (HDMI) and the Valve Index (which used Display Port). They were both very reliable and predictable in my experience. Also the HTC VIVE PRO is being used in a current project at a museum and it has been very reliable in that context (but I didn’t use it for development).
FYI I am also a visual artist so iteration and reliability are incredibly import to my process. More important than resolution and image quality.
Thank you! It’s really helpful to hear this from another visual artist.
Based on your experience with the original Vive, Vive Pro and Valve Index, would you consider the HTC Vive Pro 2 a good choice for a reliable PCVR development workflow in Unreal Engine?
I’m considering a complete Vive Pro 2 kit, mainly because it combines a direct DisplayPort connection with significantly higher resolution.
Reliability and smooth iteration are very important to my artistic process as well.
I would imagine it will be reliable compared to the META headsets. It might be more finicky to get it up and running the first time but once you do it should be a stable experience.
I strongly recommend trying out a few of these options if you can before buying. It really comes down to personal preference, fit and feel, etc. Basically all of the HMDs have shortcomings and it’s just a question of trying them out and setting your expectations accordingly.
If you have the money you might also consider the Bigscreen Beyond as it supposedly has great displays and is a much more minimal device than VIVE Pro, etc. It uses the same tracking tech as VIVE Pro and Index. I just wonder how long that tracking tech will be supported now that Valve has chosen a different path with Steam Frame (wireless). Personally I’m most excited about the Steam Frame but I also know it has shortcomings.