What's the best way to play PC VR games for cheap?

The Merge and Samsung gear VR headsets pictured side by side, on a green and purple gradient background.

(Image course credit: Mix, Samsung)

While our inclination of the best VR headsets will have got you gloriously immersed in your darling games, they aren't exactly affordable pieces of kit. Only VR doesn't have to be expensive. If you already have a smartphone in your self-possession, in that respect's a cheap and easy VR solution waiting to slingshot you into the 21st century—one that involves spending little Thomas More than $30.

Thanks to Google's Cardboard VR project that surfaced back near the daybreak of realistic reality, a whole host of cheap answers to VR have sprung rising. Many of these involve housing smartphones in clever enclosures, designed to mimic high-last VR headsets at a fraction of the toll. But don't think because these are mobile-centric devices you're banished to playing mobile games.

Mattel view master in hand with mobile in situ — (Image credit: Mattel)

Thanks to the advanced displays and processing office available in current genesis smartphones, a wider frontier has become available for those looking to do some PC-powered VR gaming on the twopenny-halfpenny. With apps equal TrinusVR for Android, and battle of Ivry for iOS, you can relate your VR viewer to a PC, and retrofit games for VR viewing. AMD even has is own software, Radeon ReLive for VR that lets you stream VR games from your Radeon-powered gaming PC, straight to a mobile device.

These mobile apps work by turning your headphone into a remote screen for your PC and processing the image to produce or simulate 3D. While they do better with software designed for VR use, they also include modes that allow older games to operate with VR-like features. Inside information like head tracking are handled via mouse emulation or software so much as opentrack, which uses phone sensors, operating theater FreeTrack, which sack use your webcam.

TrinusVR provides ill-trea-by-step instructions for mise en scene adequate play PC VR games on mobile. We tested it with a variety of games, including Crysis 2 and Elect: Dangerous, on a couple of different VR viewing audience, and the setup took no time at every.

Facebook vice president of VR Hugo Barra demonstrates how to use the new Oculus Go during the annual F8 summit at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California on May 1, 2018. — (Image credit: John Edelson/AFP, Getty Images)

Keep in mind, should you be at each cognisant to VR motility sickness, the lower refresh rate and deficiency of head tracking with these VR apps might leave you feeling queasy. The like goes for playing games not designed for VR with a headset on. But if you have an iron stomach and are dying for a cheap taste of VR, these can offer you a foremost step.

Though, patc it provides an introductory VR experience, these apps are nowhere near the same league as dedicated VR computer hardware. Top-shelf tech, such as the Oculus Quest 2, bequeath run rings around these viewers in terms of visual fidelity, latency, and control accuracy. As IT stands, nevertheless, this is still the optimum way to get into PC VR gaming for ungenerous.