The ultimate Oculus Rift setup: Oculus Ready PCs and VR accessories

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You've been interested in high-end VR for a long time, and now you're ready to jump in and the Oculus Rift VR headset is your choice.

Now, the panic sets in - can your PC cope? Do you need expensive headphones? Should you try to find an Oculus Touch-less Rift?

Read this: Incredible upcoming Oculus Rift games

You actually get a LOT in the Oculus Rift bundle, making features like this more difficult to write. That includes: the Rift headset with bundled headphones, two Touch controllers, two sensors, a wireless Xbox One controller, Oculus Remote and the HDMI and USB cables you need.

Here's a look at all the other Oculus Rift gear, some of it money-no-object, you might need to create your perfect setup. We'll update this list as and when new Oculus Rift accessories and Oculus Ready PCs get announced.

Choose your Oculus Ready PC

The ultimate Oculus Rift setup: Oculus Ready PCs and VR accessories

You can already buy a range of Oculus Ready PCs from the likes of Dell, Asus, Lenovo and Alienware plus Falcon Northwest, Aorus and Cyberpower PC. HP has also got an Oculus Ready PC, called the Omen, coming soon.

There are a couple ways to grab an Oculus Ready PC. The first and most simple way is to buy an Oculus Ready PC bundled with a Rift and Touch Controllers. That way you have less to worry about. You get your headset, you get your controllers and you get a powerful PC. You can pick these bundles up at stores like Best Buy or Amazon for around $1,000.

You can also buy these Oculus Ready PCs separately. There are a host of desktops and PCs from the above manufacturers that have systems capable enough for virtual reality. These can range from around $600 for a Cyberpower to around $2,000 for a beastly Falcon Northwest. If you don't want to buy a prebuilt system, you can also save money by building your own PC.

If you're buying a new PC, just make sure you meet the minimum requirements for Rift. You'll need at least 8GB of RAM, an Intel i3-6100 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200 processor or better, a Nvidia GTX 960 or AMD Radeon R9 290 or better, one USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI 1.3 video output and at least Windows 8.1.

Read this: How to actually set up your Oculus Rift

The recommended specifications are a bit higher, opting for a Nvidia GTX 970, an Intel i5-4590 or AMD Ryzen 5 processor, and three USB 3.0 ports. If you build all of that up and are still unsure your PC is ready, you can download a tool for Windows that allows you to check whether your PC is compatible.

There are also VR-ready backpacks you can buy from the likes of Zotac and MSI. They'll run you around $1,900. The goal is to make VR more immersive by making it feel like you're not wired to a desktop PC sitting on a desk a couple feet away from you. However, they're still pretty big question marks, with heat, battery life and weight being issues.

Oculus Touch

The ultimate Oculus Rift setup: Oculus Ready PCs and VR accessories

The obvious first purchase, Touch "makes the Rift worth it" according to our updated Oculus Rift review. The half moon-shaped, handheld controllers give you three buttons per hand as well as a clickable thumb stick, trigger for for your forefinger and a trackpad. Don't forget, you'll need to buy and set up the second sensor for these to work.

Read this: Oculus Touch prototypes in pictures

There's a strap to keep them in place and the best bit - for anyone used to Vive or PS VR Move controllers - is that they're battery powered. Buy a stash of AAs and you'll always be good to go. A total of 54 games and apps are already compatible with Touch and you get Toybox for free. You can take a look at the launch titles here, but the library is ever expanding.

(or bundled), oculus.com | Amazon

Oculus Earphones

The ultimate Oculus Rift setup: Oculus Ready PCs and VR accessories

When you buy the Rift, you get a pair of removable on-ear headphones, but now Oculus is offering a second option. The Oculus Earphones are an affordable-ish pair of earbuds designed for high noise isolation and optimised for VR spatial audio. They're comfortable and do the job, but we wouldn't say they're essential.

At the moment, for those who want to use other headphones directly with the Rift (rather than via the PC), we'll have to wait for third party headphone makers to work with Oculus. There's also open source CAD files.

, oculus.com | Amazon

Leap Motion + VR Developer Mount

The ultimate Oculus Rift setup: Oculus Ready PCs and VR accessories

An alternative to Oculus Touch, the gesture control sensor clips to the front of your Rift with the plastic VR Developer Mount and can track what your hands are doing with its 135 degree field of view.

Read this: Leap Motion is about to put your hands in motion VR

In terms of what you can actually do with it, Leap Motion points to a bunch of demos and open source examples. Great value and you can experiment with its futuristic PC controls too.

, leapmotion.com | Amazon

Virtuix Omni

The ultimate Oculus Rift setup: Oculus Ready PCs and VR accessories

Now we're getting into seriously invested gamer accessories, starting with the Virtuix Omni motion platform. This is aimed at anyone who wants to turn their spare room into a VR arcade. It lets you walk, run, jump, strafe, go backwards and sit down in VR environments, all while strapped in to the gaming accessory.

Included in the main bundle is the Omni platform itself, Omni Shoes, Omni Tracking Pods, an Omni Harness, and some demo games. But you can also use Virtuix's platform with both new VR games and VR ready legacy games due to the fact that it translates your movements into analog gamepad input.

$699, virtuix.com

Teslasuit

The ultimate Oculus Rift setup: Oculus Ready PCs and VR accessories

Teslasuit's Kickstarter campaign just got cancelled but the team has promised that it will return with a more affordable version of its Pioneer Development Kit smart suit later in the year. The original shipping date was set for October 2016, but now the company is aiming for Q4 2017.

The original price was £1,119 for the full suit with cheaper standalone jackets and trousers so we can see why not everyone was able to pay for it. The waterproof and washable neoprene and conductive thread Teslasuit has an electro-haptic feedback system with a mesh of 16 sensors around the garment. Early demos include VR Digital Paintball. Yes.

You can head over to Teslasuit's website to reserve your suit for $10.

£1,119, teslasuit.com

SubPac M2

The ultimate Oculus Rift setup: Oculus Ready PCs and VR accessories

If you don't have the patience to wait for a Teslasuit, there is an alternative you can get you hands on right now and it's called the SubPac M2.

Read this: SubPac's CEO - We want people to feel the bass 24/7

You won't get the full body immersive audio experience but the wearable backpack uses haptic feedback technology letting the user feel explosions and in-game audio. It's like having a subwoofer on your back. There's Bluetooth support so you can stream music to it as well and the battery will get you 6+ hours of immersive audio.

$349, subpac.com | Amazon



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Lily is a writer and editor specializing in tech, video games, marketing, education, travel writing, and creative fiction. 

She has over 10 years of experience covering the technology beat.

Lily has a passion for VR and AR technologies and was associate wearables editor at TechRadar US, before joining Wareable as US editor in 2016.

Lily will graduate in 2023 with an MFA in Creative Writing.

In her spare time, Lily can be found knee-deep in zine collaborations, novel writing, playing Dungeons & Dragons or hiking and foraging for mushrooms.


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