VR News: HP Reverb - Second Gen headsets are on the way

2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Rift S announced!

This headset looks like the bees knees. Oculus is so comfortable, so adopting that is a win.

At $600, still less than an RTX, and that’s the problem. I’d buy it in a heartbeat even at that price, but my primary VR use is DCS and no way my RTX2070 will run those resolutions without major barf inducing frame rates. I don’t think a 2080ti would either. Vulkan is a big no-show for DCS, so it looks like going to have to wait for a generation or two of cards before something like this makes sense.

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I wonder if an option with these headsets is to ‘under sample’ until we get DCS running better or we can afford 2080 Ti’s sort of cards?

Just like we over-sample on existing units, it makes me wonder what running 0.8 PD on this would look like? It might be ok, and then lets us tweak as the hardware changes, without buying new headsets


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Hi @fearlessfrog,

I thought that was an interesting idea and had some time over lunch (working from home today). Here is what I found.

I have a Lenovo Explorer headset with an i5 7600K driving a (poverty) GTX 970 . So your mileage will vary :slight_smile:

I derped out and selected the “Low” preset with “medium” textures and “low” shadows (to avoid potato cockpit). I should have selected the “VR” preset. The mission was the F-5E Free Flight, starting off by closing up on the other plane then diving away and doing a low pass over the city to the right. I’m using the built in frame rate monitor because I don’t have time to set up anything more complex right now.

Starting with PD setting going from high to low:
1.4: 30 to 40 fps, averaging 33. Gauges clear though some cockpit captions still difficult to read.

1.0: 33 to 55 fps, averaging around 40

0.8: 32 to 60 fps, averaging 40 around aircraft and buildings and 50 clear of those objects. Periods of solid 60 fps for several seconds at altitude with nothing around. The cockpit is still readable, though the gunsight has gone blocky. Not sure how this would hold up for something with a detailed HUD like the Hornet. Warbirds would be fine.

0.5: We all know this will be unusable but I had to try it. Menus are hard to read. Cockpit is now hard to read. Performance is 32 to 60 fps, with 50 fps near planes or buildings and around 60 fps away from those things. Not really usable.

Since I used the “low” preset rather than the “VR” preset, I went back to the “VR” preset with PD 1.0 and got 30 to 50 fps, averaging 30 around planes or buildings and 40 near the ground away from planes or buildings. I am thinking about trying these settings with the 0.8 PD, but I’m out of time now.

Not sure if this is worth anything, was just interested to try it out and thought I should share my findings with you.

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I don’t know how it’s called but more than raw power we need software technology to render with different quality the center of the vision and the peripherals


Then may be they will add eye tracking to move the high render zone as we move the pupils


Until that yes we need high power and high end cpus and gpus
 and belive me, it was many years I wasn’t into pc hardware like now!

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Foveated rendering, or imaging.
Yes, this will probably be the next big thing in VR.

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Much appreciated!
Testing VR stuff on a 3000 bucks PC is easy.
Your test gives me hope that I will be able to find a good setting for the RTX2070 I am going to buy.
I don’t mind low settings, I play on a 770 (!) equivalent right now and can still enjoy the sim, so I am used to it. :smiley:

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I have pretty much made my mind that this is going to be my VR upgrade. While I loved the Rift since the first time I put it on almost 3 years ago and I haven’t played flight sims without it ever since, it was also apparent that higher resolution is required. Frankly I initially expected to upgrade to a higher resultion Rift 2 within 1-2 years. It seems that time has now finally arrived, though a Rift 2 it is not (looks like one though).

I think this will also be the time to do a system upgrade. My CPU is now 5 years old and it wasn’t exactly cutting edge back then (i5 4670). I am already reading up on current hardware. The i7 9700K looks like a good choice. I got a 1080 together with my Rift which I guess is still an ok card with room for improvement with the new CPU. The difference to a 2080 seem pretty small considering the steep costs (and a 2080 Ti is just way too expensive).

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One interesting way to look at the clarity side of the new headset is ‘pixels per degree’:

HP Reverb - 25
Vive Pro / Odyssey - 15
Pimax 5k - 14 (because it has a larger Field of View)
Oculus Rift - 11

Will be interesting to see how DCS and X-Plane users get on with this in being able to see in the cockpit and spot. I use the O+ at PD (pixel density in DCS) 1.6 with a 1070, so I don’t think it is really beyond a 2070 or a 2080 to run a PD 1.0 with one of these things surely?

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I’m hoping so. The $200 or $300 premium isn’t really standing in my way. The only reason I haven’t bought a Pimax yet is because I’m just not so convinced of their longevity and build quality.

I first blush, non-high production value from MRTV and some text thoughts on it. I sure do wish they could get the blacks of OLED


https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsMR/comments/b48guy/i_tried_the_hp_reverb_it_could_be_the_right/

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Don’t be racist!


ok in fact I have no clue what you were saying.

Haha
I think LCDs have a bit more grey to their blacks whereas the OLEDs can give a deeper black with more contrast (and arguably richer colors). But I don’t know if there is maybe a pixels per square inch barrier to upping resolutions with OLEDs
I dunno


Ah, Ok. Sorry I just didn’t make the connection there. :smiley:

Does anyone else find it a bit ironic that the Rift S chooses to use a Odyssey style ‘Halo Ring’ head grip this time around (as from Lenovo), and that the HP v2 Reverb WMR set has now dropped the halo band and copied the exact Rift 1 layout. Ships that pass in the night


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I can’t help thinking that someone at Oculus are now saying ”we should’ve teamed up with HP, then everybody would’ve thought we built this for them, instead of the other way round”
:wink:

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I think this headset, running on the Oculus VR platform, would have been amazing.

I also just fired up my O+ again, with the realization that I might have to look seriously at the Reverb. I’m still not getting along with WMR/SteamVR though. It’s working, but just not working great. Until I can find out what I’m doing wrong to get to the point where I feel I am getting a better experience from the O+, I see little point in committing to the Reverb. It’s not the hardware, it’s the software that seems to be the problem.

Hmm
that’s odd, or at least, it hasn’t been my experience. My order of operations is pretty straightforward.

My O+ is normally just sitting on my desk in sleep mode. I pick it up and put it on, which auto-activates Windows WMR and takes me to the WMR Cliff House. Once in the Cliff House, I have a little “TV screen” that I point at that launches SteamVR, which takes a few seconds to load. Once in SteamVR’s house, I choose what game I want to play from the wall.

I just timed it - it took 17 seconds for WMR to launch and get me ready in the Cliff House. From there it took 15 seconds after selecting the SteamVR “portal” window to reach SteamVR.

My only real complaint about the O+ was that it didn’t come out of the box with the comfort features I added (the headstrap and the replacement face cover) which added probably $75 to the ultimate cost of the headset. And I prefer the Rift Knuckles to the O+/WMR ones for sure, although I’ve learned to like the new ones.

I like not having to have the external sensors for tracking, but I do think the external sensors track better when wands are out of view or behind your ear
usually not a problem in the kind of games I play (sims), but occasionally that manifests itself with a glitch in tracking if I have my head craned one way and my controller is out of the periphery.

I live with the shortcomings because the picture is just so much better (in my opinion) and everything else just falls to the wayside.

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