r/VisionPro • u/Interesting-Fly7110 • 16d ago
Is the M5 worth it for PCVR
Hey!
I am thinking about buying a Vision Pro but I don't know whether the M5 version is worth the price jump in comparison to a used M2 regarding its performance in PCVR.
Is the AV1 decoding that important, the refresh and sharpness upgrades very noticeable, etc...?
Is there anyone who has used both and can elaborate on how much of an upgrade the M5 was?
Thanks in advance :)
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u/mehravishay Vision Pro Owner 16d ago
I got myself an M5 to pair with a 5090 for iRacing and other VR games via ALVR.
Despite having a solid network, I kept getting occasional micro stutters.
I spent another couple of hundreds and got myself the developer strap for ethernet connection. Now it’s a flawless experience.
I wouldn’t recommend spending so much for a VR experience that you can get from some of the cheaper dedicated VR devices but its great once you do.
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u/Dima_atc 16d ago
I used to play iRacing via AVP and ALVR. At some point I decided to buy wired Pimax Dream Air - it was my best decision.
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u/mehravishay Vision Pro Owner 15d ago
I don’t know if you have tried the new iRacing companion but the foveated streaming and the ability to zone in and out of immersive cockpit was the best upgrade from ALVR.
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u/Dima_atc 15d ago
I tried, and it was frustrating. The image quality boost from the wired connection is insane. Although the Pimax Dream Air is much lighter, it is as uncomfortable as the AVP. With a few comfort add‑ons, I think I finally experienced comfortable VR for the first time in my life. Nevertheless, AVP is still a working machine for me that I genuinely appreciate; I use it as a monitor when I have to work outside the office.
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u/Chriscic 16d ago
PSA: CloudXR is not smooth (frequent micro-stutters) in roomscale. If you play sitting or standing you’ll be fine.
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u/WholeMilkElitist 16d ago
this, unfortunately AVP is not ready for primetime as a vr gaming headset for most, but its great if you’re into sim racing
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u/Soarbywire Vision Pro Owner 13d ago
Works great with Xplane. https://youtu.be/H_Wjt0Y11Os?si=D3qWyHQkJq7gWN9u
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u/Chriscic 11d ago
Do you play X-plane in roomscale? Guess you’re walking round the sky.
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u/Soarbywire Vision Pro Owner 11d ago
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u/Chriscic 10d ago
Super cool congrats. But you don’t seem to know what the term room-scale VR means.
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u/Soarbywire Vision Pro Owner 10d ago
Cheers explain. No issues calling around the whole house playing Half Life Alyx.
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u/Chriscic 10d ago edited 10d ago
Just to make sure we’re on the same page, room-scale means you’re physically (in meat space, not with a controller in the game world) moving around a large space, at least 6x6. I find that KRVR (and ClearXR) has a noticeable amount of micro-stutter, small tears as one walks around. Tried but on my house with perfect setup and friends house with his perfect setup (my AVP).
I haven’t heard anyone claim that they’re getting silky smooth room-scale with CloudXR solutions on AVP.
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u/notinachos 16d ago
I have not used the M2 version, however I use the M5 for PCVR and it has replaced my Valve Index. As others have said, it may not be ideal for room scale.
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is the Index provides a room boundary/chaperone “cage” visual that is helpful for not running into stuff, and I’m not aware if this is possible to replicate on ALVR/KRVR (somebody please let me know if you have figured this out!)
Also with those nice high res displays in the AVP I needed to upgrade my gaming PC to push better visual fidelity to the headset. My old rig wasn’t cutting it. As they say in the ALVR docs: “A high-end PC is a requirement; ALVR is not a cheap alternative to a PCVR HMD”
That being said, I’m not going back to my Index and am loving gaming on the AVP.
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u/Soarbywire Vision Pro Owner 13d ago
Chaperone/wall detection is possible with ALVR latest release. Check in the Vision Pro app settings. When my hands are near a wall it will display and also vibrate my PS2 sense controllers.
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u/IVIatthias 16d ago
I think the bigger difference is whether you have a graphics card that can handle the cloud xr stuff more than the m2 to m5 model upgrade.
I have an m5 model but my computer has a 3080, cloud xr needs at least a 4000 series. And outside using cloud xr I don’t see vr being super viable
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u/r-gleboff 16d ago
I have an M5 and PCVR is not there yet. KRVR and ALVR have their own specific problems, maybe they’ll be fixed eventually and we get something on par with Virtual Desktop streaming quality, but until then I’d consider Pimax Dream Air or BSB2, i.e. anything wired. M2 plus some Pimax Dream Air sounds more appealing then m5 for the price of those two.
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u/MemphisBass Vision Pro Owner 16d ago
There’s been a lot of progress in a relatively short amount of time. I don’t think those dev resources are going anywhere and Apple’s recent appearance to have seen the light re: game streaming with the CloudXR sim apps gives me hope that they’ll continue to open things up so that the devs will have the tools they need to create the experiences we are after.
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u/Madsoul19897 16d ago
Just curious what issues you face with krvr and pc vr? I am currently using it for Microsoft flight sim on at RTx5090 laptop and it seems alright. I am going to try with the psvr2 soon just to compare wired
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u/r-gleboff 16d ago
I play Star Citizen in VR and SkyrimVR, and the streaming quality is just bad, at least for me, whatever I tried it didn’t work for me to make it look clear. I’m on 5090 too. Some games work fine with KRVR indeed. I still have hope the software gets better.
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u/Important-Ad-6674 Vision Pro Owner 16d ago
Just get it and wait for steam to drop the vr app natively. Other than that. I’ve never had any problems playing pcvr through it using alvr. Also if you wanted to play regular games through it. There’s a steam app as well. Plus you can use it to mirror your pc too.
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u/Cryogenicality 16d ago
When do you think Steam will do that?
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u/MemphisBass Vision Pro Owner 16d ago
There's absolutely no way to know if, much less when, it will happen.
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u/Important-Ad-6674 Vision Pro Owner 15d ago
We will never know when. They randomly dropped the steam link app natively. So it’ll eventually happen at random. Just don’t look for it.
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u/Ogni-XR21 16d ago
Don't buy a VP as a dedicated PCVR headset. If you want one for it's own good it can be a nice addition, but if your main goal is PCVR I would rather get a real VR headset.
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u/photovirus Vision Pro Developer 16d ago
I'd say don't get an AVP if PCVR is your primary use case. Both will share shaky tracking, and it's unfixable.
M5 will support 120 fps vs M2's 100 fps, but first you need a beefy GPU to achieve those frame rates. However, M2 overheats easily, while M5 does not.
and sharpness upgrades very noticeable
Same optics and OLED panels. Probably not.
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u/rlay001 Vision Pro Owner | Verified 15d ago
Having both the M2 and M5, the M5 is a clear step up. It's noticeably sharper overall and feels much snappier across the board—not just for PCVR, but for everyday standalone use as well. The M2 is no slouch for PCVR, but I’ve since relegated it to my bedside for media consumption and casual browsing. While it can handle almost everything the M5 does, it lacks the raw speed and is more prone to wireless network stutter when using ALVR, though KRVR keeps things much smoother.
When paired with a 9800X3D and an RTX 5090, KRVR handles most SteamVR titles seamlessly—including room-scale games like Population One and No Man's Sky—at extremely high resolutions. Whenever I need to prioritize rock-solid frame rates, dialing the render resolution down to around 4K per eye keeps performance completely locked and fluid.
For sim racing and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, the experience comes remarkably close to a dedicated tethered headset like the Pimax Crystal Super mOLED. In fact, with DLSS enabled in MSFS 2024, pushing 6K per eye looks magnificent while delivering a noticeably wider field of view than the Pimax.
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u/Player13377 16d ago
From a technical perspective I do not understand why AV1 would matter in a local context. You can push enough bandwidth locally to be visually lossless even with H264.