I found bumping down the Gamma in DCS World from the default 2.2 (at least that was what mine was set at) to 2.0 helped get rid of much of the brightness and seemed to make the colors pop more…
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The other issue I have with the display quality is apparently called chromatic abberation.
Here is a poor MS Paint visualization on how it looks to me in DCS:
Can anyone with the Reverb and the Tomcat check if they have anything like that? Just look dead ahead and move your eyes only to check the edges of the canopy rail. Do you see any blue or red glow? It is always in the periphery, so moving the head towards it makes it go away.
I just wonder whether that is normal or I have a faulty unit.
Or might this somehow be due to me missing that HP app that would correct such optical effects with software?
Good news. After uninstalling WMR for the 3rd time, including WMR for Steam, restarting the PC at each step, updating Windows (for which today there were some updates) and reinstalling everything from scratch again, I am now having the HP Reverb App and could successful pair my second controller. Unfortunately the chromatic abberation is still as bad as before.
I also alternated plugging in the Rift again in an effort to better compare the two headsets. It is difficult to make a true comparison though without having them directly side by side. While the Reverb obviously has the vastly superior resolution and almost no screen-door effect, I do have the impressions that the Rift retains its (limited) sharpness better right towards the edge. An instrument scan without moving your head around seems actually easier with the Rift, as with the Reverb the picture becomes very blurry at the edge. This might be further amplified by the chromatic abberation which in my case becomes severe to the edge. On the Rift I can not discern any noticeable chromatic abberation in comparison.
I’ll give this a whirl today and report back.
I’m going to give this cable extension a try - at only three feet, I’m hoping it won’t mess with the signal going to the Reverb. I just want something I can plug and unplug the DisplayPort cable into that doesn’t involve me getting on the floor and crawling to the back of the computer. I’ll report back if it works.
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More bad news, today the headset started turn black when looking toward the ground in DCS. It seems to be related to heavy scenery, as looking towards the ground over the desert was ok, while over Abu Dhabi the screen would turn black after 2-3 seconds and then blink on and off in that interval.
It might be a DCS problem, but having read about a lot of Reverbs going dark I doubt it…
Hey MBot, I see that you reported this as a software issue, but do you have the new version with the clip thingy that secures the headset lead to the cord that runs to your PC? Probably stating the obvious, but a lot of early adopters, @BeachAV8R included, reported losing the image due to a loose connection there. I’m thinking looking at the ground would add tension at the connection point.
As far as the chromatic aberration, I haven’t checked the Tomcat yet, but I think that I see CA under some conditions. It’s usually when the sun is low on the horizon and at certain angles reflecting off the canopy. I write it off as a phenomena that pilots often have to deal with, such as we don’t always hardly ever get an airplane with a pristine canopy or windshield. Could be an issue that perhaps the sim is not completely compatible with every VR. It seems like whether I am driving my car or in a rental aircraft that certain times of the year I’m continually dealing with glare, especially with all the glass in cockpits. In Prepar3D I notice it more than DCS, so much so that I thought that my headset was broken. But then change course or aircraft and it’s gone. Perhaps it’s a trade-off devs make when coding to both 2D and 3D environments. I can guess that you are going to say, “But it’s not there with my Oculus.” 
Anyway, I noticed it a little bit when trying the Viper at Nellis last night. But the experience overall was so amazing that for better or worse, I probably overlooked the annoyances.
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Some good ideas there. The physical act of looking down also came to my mind, but then I could also look up at the sky, roll the plane inverted and still loose the image. I do apparently have the newer production lot, as I have clip thingy.
Unfortnately my chromatic aberration is very noticable and pretty bad. When looking ahead and reading mission texts in the top-right corner, the text is pretty much rainbow colored.
I think I just got a Monday-Model. I will use it some more over the weekend and if things don’t get better, go to the support.
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Seeing that my plain GTX1080 has quite a bit of trouble dealing with the higher resolution of the Index, I’m trying to figure out how much of an upgrade a 2080Ti would be… So, can I ask you guys with 2080Ti’s driving the crazy resolution of the Reverb, are you able to run at either Reverb native or SS resolution, with MSAA enabled and still maintain 40ish FPS?
With the 1080 it seems I can choose between SuperSampling/shimmering or Undersampling/no shimmering, none of which are especially pleasant to behold…
Edit: And that would be in DCS 
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So I decided to descend into the hell that is HP support. After over a week of back and forth over mostly administrative nonsense, today I finally talked to someone from support that actually addressed my questions. Their response: Chromatic aberration is normal and the blackouts are because of insufficient hardware (GTX 1080). They think you would need two 2080 in SLI for flightsims. Yeah right…
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Sounds like you got connected to people that don’t know what they are talking about (as usual). I found HP support to be a mixed bag. The guy I was talking to in the laptop or whatever division was nice enough…but absolutely nobody I spoke with really understood VR or their own headset.
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Would that be good for any VR? …and what is SLI?
Slow, Low, and Indestructible…
Scalable Link Interface
Wheels
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While inside-out tracking may do away with an external sensor, in an effort to improve the awful tracking when looking down, I had to set up an additional lamp. Oh the irony…
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SLI - understand (sort of) thanks.
Actually, wouldn’t it be better for each GPU cart to put out a single output the each eye-screen of the VR goggles? So a GPU dedicated to the left eye and the other dedicated to the right eye? There are probably issues some issues like two video cords going int one headset, and probably some computer stuff. I have a Masters is in Information Systems Management, not Computer Science so I a venturing not foreign territory here. I’m sure somebody ca set me straight f this is too zany. 
I still can’t believe how awful the tracking of the Reverb is. Even with a desk lamp shining directly onto my lap, tracking still frequently fails completely when looking down into the cockpit.
And screen blackouts in DCS when looking at the ground still set in after about 30 minutes of play. Framerate remains very good, so it can’t be a performance issue. It is really weird, as it almost seems to be related to slant range to the ground. When the camera is at ground height, the blackouts set in when the view tilts through the horizon. The further up above the ground the camera is, the further the view can tilt down. At any height I can find the exact angle where above everything is fine and a few pixels below I get blackouts. Even in very simple scenes with no discernible difference in the scene complexity between 1° up/down. What the hell could this be?
Chromatic aberration, which is still very noticeable to me, is now the least of my concerns with the headset.
Still trying to figure out my Reverb blackouts 
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WTH?!
There must be something glitching inside?
Remind me. Did you RMA it and get a new one?
Tested it on another PC?
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I haven’t yet RMA because I am concerned that they simply declare it a software issue. My one call I had with HP support wasn’t very reassuring as they were very dismissive and declared that this is due my 1080 being insufficient to drive the headset. I will probably have to RMA the unit but will then do so via the shop I bought it from. I still want to collect more evidence first though. I will have to set-up Il-2 again to test it there too. DCS and Il-2 are really the only VR titles I have…
I have now the suspicion that this is also related to heat. The problems start only after a while of playing. Yesterday evening it worked for over an hour before things went south. I also noticed when hand holding the device with the displays running to investigate things, the blackouts eventually went away after some minutes. After putting the Reverb back on my head they reappeared again after some minutes. So this might indicate that the blackouts are related to the headset heating up. I have now removed the nose guard in an effort to improve cooling.
How temperature are related to where I am looking at in DCS is beyond me tough. And the blackouts definitely appear when I am looking down in DCS. Down meaning looking below the horizon, so also looking up while being inverted. I even noticed the blackouts when looking at the Walleye display in the Hornet cockpit (TV of bomb heading towards the ground). This is just so weird.