Reverb vs Index 2020 Question

Hardware & Tech Questions
1

I have a funny question…
Can any Mudspiker provide a TL;DR of the Valve Index vs HP Reverb?

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Have owned the Index and now own the Reverb. What would you like to know sir?

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Well, usual caveats that VR can be quite a personal opinion thing:

Index Pros

  • Comfort and variable fit (physical IPD adjustor for Geckos and Beakers out there)
  • Refresh Rate of 144hz. Best in show.
  • Big sweet spot and nice lenses
  • Outside In Tracking (best for physical VR)
  • Finger tracked hand controllers (probably best there are)
  • EDIT: Field of view as pointed out below, less scuba mask ish

Index Cons

  • Price, price, price. PRICE
  • Resolution good for games but not perfect for sims, (resolution of 2880×1600)

Reverb Pros

  • Resolution, (resolution of 4320 x 2160), for driving or flying a huge difference, as you can read things like it is a 1080p monitor
  • Light unit, ok comfort (not great but moddable with a headstrap for $20)
  • Cheaper than Index? HP Support experience for me has been great, but variable.

Reverb Cons

  • No physical IPD adjustment
  • Thick cable makes it more or less a sims headset for sat-down play (or standing with some waving)
  • Controllers are cheap and not great, very ordinary tracking. Fine for sat down, but lack of cameras on inside-out tracking not as good as Rift S or Quest

Does that sound right @Kinger?

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Wowza. That was fast… and good.

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It does, but I would also add that the Index has better colors than the Reverb. I would also say that the Reverb appears to have less SDE than the Index. Index appears to have been FOV than the Reverb as well. I felt much less like I was wearing scuba gear in it. That said, if you are coming to the Reverb from say a Rift or Rift S I don’t think you’d be disappointed in the FOV.

Both are excellent headsets honestly and as I’ve said before you really benefit from trying as many sets as you can (this is where generous return policies help) to see what is most important to you.

Clearly I chose the Reverb as my current headset even though overall I’d give the nod to the Index as being the more “complete” headset. However, the Reverb with its best in class resolution just factored more heavily in my decision based on the types of games I enjoy in VR.

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What graphics cards are driving those with? Nvidia 2080 TI’s, I would guess? I am curious if a 2080 Super can handle it.

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A 2080 will be fine. In fact my experience is that performance is better on the Reverb for me than on the Odyssey, or even the Rift.

The thing that’s missing about the resolution debate is that to make things look clearer on other headsets, the Pixel Density or Super Sampling resolution needs to be put high to make things more readable. This means that the display panels are being given more pixels than they can physically display, but it helps as a form of anti-aliasing, in a brute force way.

What was unexpected was that a Reverb at a PD/SS rate of 1.0/100% is very clear, and actually performs better than a Odyssey Plus or Rift S at 1.5/250%. Real pixels really help!

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I don’t have an Index, so I can’t speak to it.

But regarding the Reverb, I would have initially put the WMR software into the “Cons” category as it is a little bit clunky, but Microsoft has actually been steadily improving it over the past year and I think they are making good progress. So now maybe it is more of a “Neutral” than a Con. I came to WMR from the Rift, which had very seamless operation.

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I am considering getting a video card and headset for my birthday this year but don’t want to break the bank on it. I do enjoy all of may physical panels and such… but it is so damn tempting. I have the Oculus Rift CV1 but the display isn’t crisp enough to use (read instruments) and my 1070 can’t drive it. But I need to figure out just how much I would actually use it … and I am horribly bad at determining that :slight_smile:

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Same with SteamVR, as that’s slowly got a lot better.

In fact for the Reverb, I don’t think I’ve needed to configure anything. I just left SteamVR with all of its defaults and the only thing was switch on reprojection on the WMR side - apart from that just all out of the box stuff.

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1080ti for me.

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Fridge, about 9 months ago like you, I was pondering upgrades using a 1070 and Odyssey+. In May to improve frame rates and video performance I upgraded my entire system (proc, ram, M.2 SSD and a 2080 card - the 2080 Super wasn’t out yet :frowning: ). This fall, after reading so much about the Reverb’s superior resolution, I took the plunge with that too. Both brought significant improvements and I am so glad I did it. Specifically the panels in DCS are incredible with the Reverb and that plus the overall performance improvement were totally worth the investments. I kept my Odyssey+ for non-sim VR use. Colors are a bit richer and the lighter cable makes active VR gaming a better experience. But for sit-down sims (DCS, Assetto Corsa, Elite Dangerous, etc.) the Reverb is incredible!

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Thanks for the info @Stretch! I ordered a 2080 Super that should be here in a couple of days (I don’t live near a depot like @fearlessfrog does). Going to wait until later in February to add a VR Headset … likely the HP Reverb :slight_smile:

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