Glossary of Common Terms

D

Deckagear

Was a promising looking headset a while back that garnered a lot of excitement until the CEO went all in on crypto and killed the entire developing company almost overnight. Now, the Deckagear is Deckadead.

Deckard

Code name of Valve's next upcoming headset. Has been due to be announced "any month now" for the past 4 years.

E

ERP (Enterprise Resource Management)

Enterprise Resource Planning is defined as the process of integrating and automating core business processes, The goal of Enterprise Resource Planning is improving efficiency and decision-making. But in the context of VR, this usually has the dual meaning of "Electronic Role Play" and "Erotic Role Play", and is generally defined as users using VR + other technologies to engage in adult activities together over the internet.

F

FBT (Full Body Tracking)

Describes a setup that allows a user to track their body (usually referring to their legs, as head and arm tracking is done via the headset and controller). This is generally done by devices worn by the user, but there are other methods too. See this page.

FOV (Field of View)

The angle in degrees that one can see from a headset. A larger number means you can see more of your surroundings while a smaller one will feel more like you are looking out of goggles. VRCompare has good visuals to see what FOV looks like on each headset's page. Do note that FOV is not a precise measure because not only does it depend on the display optics, but also your eyes position relative to the lens meaning fit matters too.

I

IK (Inverse Kinematics)

Given the rotation and position of 2 points, inverse (or reverse) kinematics refers to an algortihm that can be used to deduce the positions of joins in-between. A common example is the position of the elbow in a VR avatar given we only know the position of your hand and head from your controller and your headset.

M

Metaverse

A term that has been overused and essentially killed via cringe due to Meta's overuse of it, and is now largely avoided.

S

SOC (System On Chip)

Generic term for all in one chips that handle CPU, GPU, and RAM. For VR, common SOC chips include the Snapdragon XR2, and the newer XR2 Gen 2

V

VD (Virtual Desktop)

Short for "Virtual Desktop", a common app used by many to stream their Windows PCVR desktops and VR sessions into their stand alone headsets over wifi

VRC (VRChat)

Short for VRChat, the most popular social VR platform by a wide margin.