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TOR here: Sorry Man but to be honest I do not know. There is a picture comparison of the generations of night vision put out by a big manufacturer that you can see by going here and scrolling down about halfway. Somebody made a video comparing Gen 1 and Gen 3 that you can see here. I cannot personally vouch for these but they seem legit to me.

As to Gen 1 stuff. Broadly speaking you definitely get what you pay for. This is a great “buy once, cry once” candidate. That being said some folks are not able (or willing) to spend the equivalent of an OK used car on a NOD. Both the spend more and the ‘but I can’t’ rabbit holes can be followed if you want. Personally I decided to suck it up and make the purchase of a NOD. I use
them at work and know what they can do. The massive advantage they
bring is worth the cost to me. What was right for me might not be right
for others. I have used some older stuff on the .mil side, can’t remember what
exactly, it was a long time ago, but it was complete junk. I wish I
could spend a night testing a dozen common models all the way from Gen 1-3
but the opportunity has not presented itself. It is almost certainly better than nothing but how much better and if it is worth the money I cannot say.

 You can probably get some or most of what you want done with the kind of model you mentioned, which I thought about getting myself but decided against it for reasons I cannot remember, though they will be degraded in relation to a more expensive set. I am trying my best to help but really don’t know. [If anybody with experience using modern Gen 3 stuff also has experience
with commercial off the shelf Gen 1 stuff like the model mentioned and
is interested in writing about it please leave a comment or contact me
at theotherryan@yahoo.com.]

Now we can go to something I know more about. Unless you are using night vision as a dedicated sniper setup for varmit hunting the right answer is to mount the night vision on your head, probably using some sort of helmet. The reason for this is that you are going to do a whole bunch of stuff with night vision that requires your eyes but doesn’t need a gun pointed at it. Stuff from walking around to turning back to make sure a buddy is behind you or whatever.

When an optic is said to be “NVG compatible” what (I believe) they mean you will be able to use it in line with a NOD. In plain English it means you can see the reticle/ dot through a NOD. If the NOD is on one eye and you try to aim the rifle with the other you would see with the night vision through one eye and with the other a lit optic on the ambient light surface. I have never done this but I suspect it would work badly.  The way to use a weapon in conjunction with a NOD is to have it on your
face and aim the weapon via an IR laser. To do this you need a legit IR laser
that is able to be zeroed and can hold said zero. A DBAL which is basically a civilian legal equivalent to a PEQ-15 costs about a grand. Yeah this sucks, I am knee deep in said suck right now. If anybody knows of a legitimately viable alternative I am interested. (Rednecking the cheapest IR laser you can find onto a gun won’t cut it. It won’t be able to get or hold a zero and thus will not be able to hit #*$ * with it, sorry.)

Anyway I hope this helps our friend C and maybe a few other folks.  As always input is appreciated.