My HP Reverb experience coming from O+

[crazyave]

Ok, so if you didn't read in the other HP Reverb thread about it being in stock, I was lucky enough, along with a friend, to get one of these ordered off Amazon this week. Today it arrived and my friend and I got together to set them up and compare them to our old sets.

 

 

My system: 8700K, 2080ti both water cooled and OC'd, 32GB RAM, Odyssey Plus

 

 

My friend's system: 4770K, 1070, 32GB RAM, no-name Walmart blue light special VR HMD he paid $30 for with a $30 bonus package... so literally free! (1280x1440 resolution).

 

 

Quick version: We're both sending them back. I'm sticking with the O+ and my friend is ordering an O+ tonight. I'm not joking.

 

 

Long version: I had my O+ dialed in with steamVR set to as close to native resolution as possible and DCS PD set to 1.3 with MSAA 4x, AA 4x, most things set to high. It's very flyable, 45-60 fps in open areas and mid 30's to 45 in cities.

I won't detail my buddies setup and testing but we did comparisons with the headsets and my system was getting 30% better fps with the same settings and headsets every time.

First thing when I put the HP on, without adjusting any settings from my O+ setup, the SDE was REALLY noticeable. I thought, yea no problem it will go away with some setting adjustment, nope, not at all. The HP doesn't use the cool pixel method they use on the O+ so my eyes would catch the lines of pixels and also some kind of horizontal banding/dimming of the pixels and all I'd see is the screen vs the game for a few seconds. My eyes would constantly be seeing the SDE and I couldn't concentrate on the game. BOO! Massively shocked. We also had two brand new Reverbs and they both looked exactly the same. I maxed all settings out, same thing.

As long as I'm starting with the negatives, I'll just finish those off... 1-2 dead pixels, broken headphone mount, and after 10min of play the headset disappeared, killing the game, and wouldn't come back on for several minutes. When this happened the cord was ever so slightly twisted near the headset, so I can confirm it may have to do with the cable, but wow, it was hardly twisted that much at all, like 10-20 degrees, definitely not outside anything you expect it to be able to handle. I can twist my O+ a few times around with no issues. Both units were brand new, sealed from the factory, not used. Massive fail for QA on mine. My buddy didn't have dead pixels or a broken headphone. As for colors, yep, as you would expect, compared to the O+ OLED screen, they look more washed out, but that alone would not be a deal breaker for me, personally, but definitely noticeable. My actual eye's IPD is about 64mm, and I was getting the cross eye thing in my headset on my computer, but not on my buddies setup, so not sure if that was my computer or the headset, but it was terrible and did not change even setting it in the software in WMR and DCS. FOV, wow, it is significantly narrower than the O+, or it could be just that you see the edges of the screen and headset much more than the O+, we could not conclude exactly what it was but the O+ felt a LOT more like you were IN the plane vs the Reverb. More immersion with the O+ for sure. with regards to "dive mask" look and/or FOV.

Even after all that, knowing I was sending it back for good, I went further to compare. On the positive side, if you are lucky enough to not to have your eyes focus on the SDE it is actually much clearer and easier to read text than the O+, but you really have to look for it. The other benefit is I could run much lower settings for the same or better visuals, which would boost frame rates a ton, not quite double, but at least 50%. MSAA could go off with only slight shimmer. At the same time, PD in DCS could be set back to 1.0 with about the same shimmer as the O+ but with MSAA 4x and PD 1.3. That was pretty impressive. That's it, no other real positives, the headset is light weight.

 

 

Wow, is this the first negative review of the Reverb? I am totally shocked, from all the reviews both official and personal, it seemed like a done deal, but my buddy and I had quite the different experience. Even at the same price as the O+ I'd probably stick pick the O+ over the Reverb. Just my opinions for all this, it's a very subjective thing, all of it, so YMMV as always. Now waiting for Samsung to come out with something new!

[Baldrick33]

Having come from a OD+ to Reverb your experience is the opposite of mine. I was impressed with the OD+ coming from a CV1 as it pretty much got rid of the SDE albeit at the expense of sharpness. Adding things like transparency AA turned it to a blurry mess but fiddling with settings and adding supersampling and sharpening where available in game would help.

 

The Reverb gets all the sharpness back and then some in terms of clarity and the only SDE I see are some very fine dots against a white background if I look hard for them, the rest of the time I just don't see any.

 

Sure the resolution could be even higher and it will come but for me it makes the OD+ feels like the best of the last gen devices and the new LCD displays although giving a little trade off in colour vibrancy offer much greater clarity.

 

Of course I am also lucky to have a fully working set, the quality assurance on this roll out must be an all time low!

[Wmacky]

Interesting perspectives. I have a Reverb, that arrived last week,still sitting here in the box, and a Pimax 5K that I've only confirmed that it's working. Should be a interesting comparison.

Edited July 27, 2019 by Wmacky

[hansangb]

Just make sure you have the hotfix from MS that fixes the WMR resolution issue. Otherwise, you won't be using Reverb at its maximum resolution. Not in Windows 1903 anyway. On my computer, it didn't load the fix automatically. I had to download it manually. Just google for WMR resolution fix, came about a few weeks ago.

[Wmacky]

I upgraded to the latest version of Win last week ( from 18something) I assumed it contained the hot fix. How to be sure?

[whitav8]

Go to Windows 10 Updates and check to see in the update history that you have KB4507453. You also need to be using beta for SteamVR.

[Naruto]

I upgraded to the latest version of Win last week ( from 18something) I assumed it contained the hot fix. How to be sure?

 

Windows 1903 patch and updated WMR for SteamVR Beta

Hey everyone -

 

If you are on Windows 1903, you can now download KB4507453 through Windows update.

 

We also have an updated WMR for SteamVR Beta available with a number of changes.

 

You can read the full details here:

 

https://steamcommunity.com/app/719950/discussions/0/1640915206497451607/

 

 

 

http://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4507453

[Secoda]

There are plenty of negative reviews. No surprise it was shipped back. Most of the first batch were. I do think most of the Reverb's were returned without ever having them properly setup. It is difficult to get it setup correctly or quickly.

Edited July 27, 2019 by Secoda

[crazyave]

Just make sure you have the hotfix from MS that fixes the WMR resolution issue. Otherwise, you won't be using Reverb at its maximum resolution. Not in Windows 1903 anyway. On my computer, it didn't load the fix automatically. I had to download it manually. Just google for WMR resolution fix, came about a few weeks ago.

 

 

 

Yep, I had 1903 with KB4507453 since 7/13 and saw a nice improvement with the O+, so the HP Reverb testing we did was with this update.

[crazyave]

There are plenty of negative reviews. No surprise it was shipped back. Most of the first batch were. I do think most of the Reverb's were returned without ever having them properly setup. It is difficult to get it setup correctly or quickly.

 

 

 

I don't think we missed anything, we spent an entire day tweaking our settings with it, but tell me what you mean and I'll let you know if we missed it.

 

 

I've spent many hours messing with the VR settings. At one point I actually set all settings to the lowest values and went through them all one at a time testing the FPS change, but I'm not infallible, what do you think we might have missed?

Edited July 28, 2019 by crazyave

[eaglecash867]

Do you have motion reprojection on or off? Not sure if you had it turned on with your O+. I have that turned on with my Reverb, and with PD 1.0 and MSAA at 2X in DCS, its smooth as glass. I'm not looking at an FPS counter though, just seeing how everything looks and feels with my eyes.

 

Seeing the edges of the lenses was a problem for me too. Its like there's not enough space between the facepad and the lenses for some of us, so I fixed that by applying a foam weather strip to the facepad. That took away the haze around the edges and also improved the focus.

 

I never had an O+, so I don't know what it is like with clarity versus SDE, but the original O I found to look like I was looking at the world through a soft-focus camera. Pleasant to the eye because of not being able to see the blemishes, but it really lacked the sharpness and pop that I had gotten used to with my CV1. I think Samsung called that deliberate hobbling of the optics the "SDE filter". Compared to my CV1, the Reverb has no SDE unless I really choose to focus on that, but its unmatched in terms of clarity.

 

FOV is pretty much on par with the CV1, but I'm already used to the scuba mask feeling, so that doesn't really bother me. With the Reverb, I'm not only getting vastly improved visuals over my CV1, but I'm getting vastly improved performance because I'm no longer having to run PD higher than 1.0, and going above 100% SS in SteamVR has no noticeable benefit to the quality of the visuals. So, there's no upconvert/downconvert process that has to take place with every frame, which really kills performance.

 

Also, power is important, so hopefully you already have a PCIe, PSU powered USB card in your rig for your HMD.

 

One of the ear pieces was broken off? Are you absolutely sure the slotted nut that holds it on didn't just come loose and is floating around in the box somewhere? What I found is that HP doesn't torque those slotted nuts down like they should, so that causes all kinds of issues with intermittent sound that gets worse over time. Get out the magnifying glass and see if you can see that there appears to be screw threads sticking out the side of the headband. If you can see screw threads, and they don't look damaged or broken, chances are the slotted nut that goes on there came off and is rolling around in the bottom of the box.

Edited July 28, 2019 by eaglecash867

[crazyave]

My Asus MB has USB 3.0/3.1 native so no need for an add on card.

 

The broken headphone was definitely broken off before I got it; it seems very fragile looking. The bolt was still in the headset. That didn't matter to me because I don't use headphones anyway. I would have kept it anyway if the performance was there.

 

Reprojection was ON.

 

The clarity was there, but the width of the black lines between the pixels was clearly visible for us, and hard not to focus on. My buddy says his $30 1280x14440 HMD has similar SDE to the HP. I noticed that every other group of 7-8 rows of horizontal pixels had a slightly different tint to them, so a striped look; when I'd look up and down I'd see the effect and focus on the screen instead of the image being projected. I also just remembered there was a weird chroma effect outside of the small sweet spot, a kind of yellowy gradient on one side of the edges of things being displayed. Not terrible, but not something I get in the O+

 

When I try to find the individual pixels in the O+ I really can't single them out! I can see some really super thin diagonal black lines between some pixels and general kind of blurry look, but not SDE how I see it in the HP. It was way too distracting for me. Perhaps if you came from a headset with similar SDE and had gotten used to that, you wouldn't notice as much?

 

That's a good sounding mod for the dive mask look, that would be interesting to try because it was a major ding to the immersion experience for us. Wouldn't that allow you to see the flat edges of the screens more though? With the HP I could look at the edges of the screen with my eyes and clearly focus on them. There was also some round parts and flat screen edges visible. With the O+ the round edges are just into my periphery and I can't get focus on them so they don't distract at all.

 

I couldn't get myself to enjoy the HP more than the O+ even after playing with all the different settings for a whole day. Going into this, I was 100% certain I was going to love the HP hands down! I can see how maybe someone could look past the bad stuff if just the clarity mattered above all else to them and/or the performance boost from being able to lower settings. I'm looking more at the whole experience. The immersion in the O+ was easily better for us, I don't know what else to say, it was a disappointing but easy decision. This next thing doesn't matter as much to me vs performance, but the whole unit also just seemed to lack quality, it felt very cheap, from the cable twist issue to the straps and the headphones; not to mention the dead pixels. My buddy also said his got so hot today (he's still testing his) he could smell plastic melting inside... he's an electrical engineer so I trust his judgement, but I did not experience that on my unit. Price also was not a factor for me, the performance just wasn't there. I'd be happy to pay double the price if the performance was there!

 

I'm really perplexed when people say they can't see the individual pixels, like I read in some reviews. it's the first thing I noticed and the #1 reason I like the O+ better.

 

I'm not trying to marginalize anyone's positive experience with the HP by sharing my experience. If it works for you, awesome! Enjoy! Personally, I was shocked that the performance was so low in many respects compared to what I've read. Good Luck! Give it a shot and make sure you have a good return policy to fall back on.

[Naruto]

My Asus MB has USB 3.0/3.1 native so no need for an add on card.

 

The broken headphone was definitely broken off before I got it; it seems very fragile looking. The bolt was still in the headset. That didn't matter to me because I don't use headphones anyway. I would have kept it anyway if the performance was there.

 

Reprojection was ON.

 

The clarity was there, but the width of the black lines between the pixels was clearly visible for us, and hard not to focus on. My buddy says his $30 1280x14440 HMD has similar SDE to the HP. I noticed that every other group of 7-8 rows of horizontal pixels had a slightly different tint to them, so a striped look; when I'd look up and down I'd see the effect and focus on the screen instead of the image being projected. I also just remembered there was a weird chroma effect outside of the small sweet spot, a kind of yellowy gradient on one side of the edges of things being displayed. Not terrible, but not something I get in the O+

 

When I try to find the individual pixels in the O+ I really can't single them out! I can see some really super thin diagonal black lines between some pixels and general kind of blurry look, but not SDE how I see it in the HP. It was way too distracting for me. Perhaps if you came from a headset with similar SDE and had gotten used to that, you wouldn't notice as much?

 

That's a good sounding mod for the dive mask look, that would be interesting to try because it was a major ding to the immersion experience for us. Wouldn't that allow you to see the flat edges of the screens more though? With the HP I could look at the edges of the screen with my eyes and clearly focus on them. There was also some round parts and flat screen edges visible. With the O+ the round edges are just into my periphery and I can't get focus on them so they don't distract at all.

 

I couldn't get myself to enjoy the HP more than the O+ even after playing with all the different settings for a whole day. Going into this, I was 100% certain I was going to love the HP hands down! I can see how maybe someone could look past the bad stuff if just the clarity mattered above all else to them and/or the performance boost from being able to lower settings. I'm looking more at the whole experience. The immersion in the O+ was easily better for us, I don't know what else to say, it was a disappointing but easy decision. This next thing doesn't matter as much to me vs performance, but the whole unit also just seemed to lack quality, it felt very cheap, from the cable twist issue to the straps and the headphones; not to mention the dead pixels. My buddy also said his got so hot today (he's still testing his) he could smell plastic melting inside... he's an electrical engineer so I trust his judgement, but I did not experience that on my unit. Price also was not a factor for me, the performance just wasn't there. I'd be happy to pay double the price if the performance was there!

 

I'm really perplexed when people say they can't see the individual pixels, like I read in some reviews. it's the first thing I noticed and the #1 reason I like the O+ better.

 

I'm not trying to marginalize anyone's positive experience with the HP by sharing my experience. If it works for you, awesome! Enjoy! Personally, I was shocked that the performance was so low in many respects compared to what I've read. Good Luck! Give it a shot and make sure you have a good return policy to fall back on.

 

I think there is something wrong with your system or setup. You're friends system is not very good for the reverb. I had the reverb for a bit before I RMA it and there was no significant SDE with awesome clarity. I have had the Rift CV1, Rift S, Pimax 5K+, Index, SO+ and the Reverb. The Reverb was by far the best resolution and had the best clarity and SDE with similar performance. The SO+ is a good HMD with no SDE but its blurry where the reverb beats it in clarity. I have a second Reverb coming next week.

Edited July 28, 2019 by Naruto

[Baldrick33]

The clarity was there, but the width of the black lines between the pixels was clearly visible for us, and hard not to focus on. My buddy says his $30 1280x14440 HMD has similar SDE to the HP. I noticed that every other group of 7-8 rows of horizontal pixels had a slightly different tint to them, so a striped look; when I'd look up and down I'd see the effect and focus on the screen instead of the image being projected. I also just remembered there was a weird chroma effect outside of the small sweet spot, a kind of yellowy gradient on one side of the edges of things being displayed. Not terrible, but not something I get in the O+

Did you try this with other apps other than DCS? As I mentioned your experience is very different to mine and every other comparison I have seen between the OD+ and Reverb. Something sounds really off even though it is two devices. What about the Cliff House, this is night and day between OD+ and Reverb in terms of clarity of the detail on the floor and sharpness of text? If I look at a block of white sky I can just make out a very fine grain if I look hard for it, otherwise the SDE is non-existent.

[eaglecash867]

My Asus MB has USB 3.0/3.1 native so no need for an add on card.

 

 

:doh: People having problems keep saying things like this. I'm not asking about that because I think your motherboard doesn't have USB 3.0/3.1 ports. Motherboard ports do not provide sufficient power to run an HMD at its full potential. I don't care what the motherboard manufacturer claims, it is not enough power in most cases, especially if you have a HOTAS and other items already plugged into other motherboard ports. A PSU powered PCIe card is an absolute must if you expect to get reliable performance out of your HMD. Its only a $28.00 investment and cures all kinds of headaches. I've been experimenting with this stuff on two very high quality, self-built gaming rigs for the last 3 years and I've made my Rift CV1 work in configurations that Oculus said wouldn't work, and the keystone to that whole thing was having strong, clean USB power provided by a dedicated card that mounts in a PCIe slot and gets its power from a dedicated cable that plugs directly into the rig's PSU. My Reverb also works, with phenomenal, glass-smooth, black-out free performance.

 

With the earphones, you say that the bolt is still there, so we're back to looking around in the box and seeing if there is a slotted nut rolling around in there. Its a small, round, cylindrical piece of hardware that sort of resembles the head of a slotted screw. But, its not a screw, it has internal threads. I'm not doubting that the unit arrived with one of the earphones detached, I'm trying to tell you how its put together and how you can easily fix it if you look around in the box and find the key piece of hardware that rattled loose. As I said, HP installs those, but they seem to have forgotten to tighten them down. They can easily rattle loose, depending on how much movement and vibration the box was subjected to on its journey that eventually took it to your door. The way HP designed the earphones to be detachable is actually a really clever design, and it is not at all fragile. They just forgot to tighten the nuts. Turn that box upside down over a white bed sheet or something and shake it. If the nut hasn't already fallen out on your floor and gotten lost (its pretty tiny) it should fall out on the sheet.

 

Sorry about being frustrated, but you asked what you might be missing, and you seem to be telling me "Oh, I don't need to try that, I have this instead." I also have no interest in whether or not we like the same HMD. I'm trying to help you get your Reverb working properly with proper setup so we can determine if you're actually experiencing hardware failure. The horizontal lines you are seeing shouldn't be there, and an LCD display running short on power could easily exhibit that kind of behavior, along with visible, dead pixels, and lines of varying color and intensity. :smilewink:

Edited July 28, 2019 by eaglecash867

[hansangb]

My Asus MB has USB 3.0/3.1 native so no need for an add on card.

 

The broken headphone was definitely broken off before I got it; it seems very fragile looking. The bolt was still in the headset. That didn't matter to me because I don't use headphones anyway. I would have kept it anyway if the performance was there.

 

Reprojection was ON.

 

The clarity was there, but the width of the black lines between the pixels was clearly visible for us, and hard not to focus on. My buddy says his $30 1280x14440 HMD has similar SDE to the HP. I noticed that every other group of 7-8 rows of horizontal pixels had a slightly different tint to them, so a striped look; when I'd look up and down I'd see the effect and focus on the screen instead of the image being projected. I also just remembered there was a weird chroma effect outside of the small sweet spot, a kind of yellowy gradient on one side of the edges of things being displayed. Not terrible, but not something I get in the O+

 

When I try to find the individual pixels in the O+ I really can't single them out! I can see some really super thin diagonal black lines between some pixels and general kind of blurry look, but not SDE how I see it in the HP. It was way too distracting for me. Perhaps if you came from a headset with similar SDE and had gotten used to that, you wouldn't notice as much?

 

That's a good sounding mod for the dive mask look, that would be interesting to try because it was a major ding to the immersion experience for us. Wouldn't that allow you to see the flat edges of the screens more though? With the HP I could look at the edges of the screen with my eyes and clearly focus on them. There was also some round parts and flat screen edges visible. With the O+ the round edges are just into my periphery and I can't get focus on them so they don't distract at all.

 

I couldn't get myself to enjoy the HP more than the O+ even after playing with all the different settings for a whole day. Going into this, I was 100% certain I was going to love the HP hands down! I can see how maybe someone could look past the bad stuff if just the clarity mattered above all else to them and/or the performance boost from being able to lower settings. I'm looking more at the whole experience. The immersion in the O+ was easily better for us, I don't know what else to say, it was a disappointing but easy decision. This next thing doesn't matter as much to me vs performance, but the whole unit also just seemed to lack quality, it felt very cheap, from the cable twist issue to the straps and the headphones; not to mention the dead pixels. My buddy also said his got so hot today (he's still testing his) he could smell plastic melting inside... he's an electrical engineer so I trust his judgement, but I did not experience that on my unit. Price also was not a factor for me, the performance just wasn't there. I'd be happy to pay double the price if the performance was there!

 

I'm really perplexed when people say they can't see the individual pixels, like I read in some reviews. it's the first thing I noticed and the #1 reason I like the O+ better.

 

I'm not trying to marginalize anyone's positive experience with the HP by sharing my experience. If it works for you, awesome! Enjoy! Personally, I was shocked that the performance was so low in many respects compared to what I've read. Good Luck! Give it a shot and make sure you have a good return policy to fall back on.

 

 

Crazyave, if you like O+ better, by all means stick to it. You're not marginalizing anyone's experience at all. VR is personal, I've noticed. I didn't mind CV1's resolution or SDE as much as some people.

 

I saw no difference between CV1 and the original Odyssey. Yet others saw a big improvement. So clearly age of your eyes matter! :D

 

The low performance is odd though. But I don't recall what your HW spec is. In my setup, Reverb was the same if not better than CV1. It was very very smooth. *HOWEVER*, I didn't try the Rift after DCS released the optimization incognito. So it could very well be that CV1 is better than Reverb (not surprising, I don't think). I'm one of those that saw immediate improvement in VR with the update.

 

I use the Persian Gulf, F18, Ready on the ramp (or something like that, it's the one where you start out parked next to other F18s on the airfield) missions. And like dburne, I saw an improvement in the Normandy, A10C, CAS instant mission. That one is a headscratcher.

 

Anyway, enjoy your O+. If you like, it, that's all that matters.

[crazyave]

Did you try this with other apps other than DCS? As I mentioned your experience is very different to mine and every other comparison I have seen between the OD+ and Reverb. Something sounds really off even though it is two devices. What about the Cliff House, this is night and day between OD+ and Reverb in terms of clarity of the detail on the floor and sharpness of text? If I look at a block of white sky I can just make out a very fine grain if I look hard for it, otherwise the SDE is non-existent.

 

Cliff house was very evident for SDE, given the solid bright colors. I thought DCS would look better because it's darker, but the sky and white areas really stood out in DCS. Yea, I don't know what could have been off between two headsets and completely different settings. We definitely went through every setting in WMR, SteamVR, and DCS. I'm very familiar and comfortable with all the settings for VR as I've tuned and tuned to get just the right performance in DCS since that's what it takes. Even if there was an issue with the resolution/etc the dive mask look was a pretty huge factor as well, which was not a setting issue. The one thing that does look better in the HP is the text, if I could train my eye not to look at the SDE then I could definitely read finer text, not doubt, I'd say you could read text twice as easily as with the O+, but along with the SDE it was not a big improvement overall. I actually felt the improved frame rate from turning the settings down (when I retuned for best FPS) was a more immersive improvement than the graphics quality. I could get 50% better FPS, which is pretty huge. I'm already pretty happy with my FPS on the O+ so that was not a big selling point in my situation.

[crazyave]

:doh: People having problems keep saying things like this. I'm not asking about that because I think your motherboard doesn't have USB 3.0/3.1 ports. Motherboard ports do not provide sufficient power to run an HMD at its full potential. I don't care what the motherboard manufacturer claims, it is not enough power in most cases, especially if you have a HOTAS and other items already plugged into other motherboard ports. A PSU powered PCIe card is an absolute must if you expect to get reliable performance out of your HMD. Its only a $28.00 investment and cures all kinds of headaches. I've been experimenting with this stuff on two very high quality, self-built gaming rigs for the last 3 years and I've made my Rift CV1 work in configurations that Oculus said wouldn't work, and the keystone to that whole thing was having strong, clean USB power provided by a dedicated card that mounts in a PCIe slot and gets its power from a dedicated cable that plugs directly into the rig's PSU. My Reverb also works, with phenomenal, glass-smooth, black-out free performance.

 

With the earphones, you say that the bolt is still there, so we're back to looking around in the box and seeing if there is a slotted nut rolling around in there. Its a small, round, cylindrical piece of hardware that sort of resembles the head of a slotted screw. But, its not a screw, it has internal threads. I'm not doubting that the unit arrived with one of the earphones detached, I'm trying to tell you how its put together and how you can easily fix it if you look around in the box and find the key piece of hardware that rattled loose. As I said, HP installs those, but they seem to have forgotten to tighten them down. They can easily rattle loose, depending on how much movement and vibration the box was subjected to on its journey that eventually took it to your door. The way HP designed the earphones to be detachable is actually a really clever design, and it is not at all fragile. They just forgot to tighten the nuts. Turn that box upside down over a white bed sheet or something and shake it. If the nut hasn't already fallen out on your floor and gotten lost (its pretty tiny) it should fall out on the sheet.

 

Sorry about being frustrated, but you asked what you might be missing, and you seem to be telling me "Oh, I don't need to try that, I have this instead." I also have no interest in whether or not we like the same HMD. I'm trying to help you get your Reverb working properly with proper setup so we can determine if you're actually experiencing hardware failure. The horizontal lines you are seeing shouldn't be there, and an LCD display running short on power could easily exhibit that kind of behavior, along with visible, dead pixels, and lines of varying color and intensity. :smilewink:

 

 

 

Interesting, this is the first I've heard of a PCIE USB card being required to make an HMD work. I don't recall any reviewers saying they needed it, otherwise I would have bought one. How many people have seen this improvement? Why is it not discussed? Why wouldn't the HMD manufacturers recommend getting one? It seems to be plenty of people are reporting great results but don't have an add on card, or am I missing something? Do you think it would help with my O+? If so, I'll pick one up, that's no problem, plenty of free slots.

 

 

The headphone's plastic connector was broken in half, definitely not a bolt missing or a nut coming out. Must have happened during packing. They are very flimsy, not hard to see why they broke it just packing the box. Again, not something I cared about, I don't use them. Just shows the quality they designed though.

 

 

Appreciate the suggestions, I'm certainly willing to give things a try, I'm just a bit skeptical given that no one has mentioned needing some of these things. As far as software settings go, I'm confident we tried everything possible to get the best performance out of the headsets. Maybe this last set that went out had more/different issues than other previous releases..?

[eaglecash867]

Interesting, this is the first I've heard of a PCIE USB card being required to make an HMD work. I don't recall any reviewers saying they needed it, otherwise I would have bought one. How many people have seen this improvement? Why is it not discussed? Why wouldn't the HMD manufacturers recommend getting one? It seems to be plenty of people are reporting great results but don't have an add on card, or am I missing something? Do you think it would help with my O+? If so, I'll pick one up, that's no problem, plenty of free slots.

 

 

The headphone's plastic connector was broken in half, definitely not a bolt missing or a nut coming out. Must have happened during packing. They are very flimsy, not hard to see why they broke it just packing the box. Again, not something I cared about, I don't use them. Just shows the quality they designed though.

 

 

Appreciate the suggestions, I'm certainly willing to give things a try, I'm just a bit skeptical given that no one has mentioned needing some of these things. As far as software settings go, I'm confident we tried everything possible to get the best performance out of the headsets. Maybe this last set that went out had more/different issues than other previous releases..?

 

I was skeptical too when I read about it in the Oculus forums years ago, and it was an Oculus rep who was recommending them. He even posted the link for the card they recommend which I bought from Amazon. Here is the link:

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FPIMJEW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

I was skeptical because I already had an external, self-powered USB hub, and conventional wisdom told me that it should be more than enough. But, because of the nominal cost of the card, I bought one anyway, and my random HMD and HOTAS disconnects were solved forever.

 

Strange though that you haven't seen this discussed anywhere, because this comes up all the time on these forums. A lot of us made the change years ago and had our problems solved. Others in that HUGE HP Reverb thread started just a couple of months ago have made the plunge, and have also had their problems solved. It hasn't worked for everybody, because there ARE legitimate hardware and quality control issues. That happens with everybody's equipment, especially when the first edition of a new product hits the shelves. But that hasn't been the issue in all cases. OLED HMDs, such as the O+, because of the fact that they're using LEDs, are inherently less power-hungry than the LCD panels that the top manufacturers seem to be opting for in the latest releases. That could be a reason that it hasn't been an issue for your O+.

 

The cost is nominal, and although it isn't a guarantee since you very well could have gotten a defective unit, its a logical troubleshooting step that won't make your rig less capable. :D

[Svsmokey]

Interesting, this is the first I've heard of a PCIE USB card being required to make an HMD work. I don't recall any reviewers saying they needed it, otherwise I would have bought one. How many people have seen this improvement? Why is it not discussed? Why wouldn't the HMD manufacturers recommend getting one? It seems to be plenty of people are reporting great results but don't have an add on card, or am I missing something? Do you think it would help with my O+? If so, I'll pick one up, that's no problem, plenty of free slots.

 

 

The headphone's plastic connector was broken in half, definitely not a bolt missing or a nut coming out. Must have happened during packing. They are very flimsy, not hard to see why they broke it just packing the box. Again, not something I cared about, I don't use them. Just shows the quality they designed though.

 

 

Appreciate the suggestions, I'm certainly willing to give things a try, I'm just a bit skeptical given that no one has mentioned needing some of these things. As far as software settings go, I'm confident we tried everything possible to get the best performance out of the headsets. Maybe this last set that went out had more/different issues than other previous releases..?

 

Actually , i think many if not most headset users use pcie usb cards , for the greater power , and in the Rift's case , because the headset and sensors require so many usb ports . Oculus , at least , does make a specific reccomendation .

[crazyave]

Crazyave, if you like O+ better, by all means stick to it. You're not marginalizing anyone's experience at all. VR is personal, I've noticed. I didn't mind CV1's resolution or SDE as much as some people.

 

I saw no difference between CV1 and the original Odyssey. Yet others saw a big improvement. So clearly age of your eyes matter! :D

 

The low performance is odd though. But I don't recall what your HW spec is. In my setup, Reverb was the same if not better than CV1. It was very very smooth. *HOWEVER*, I didn't try the Rift after DCS released the optimization incognito. So it could very well be that CV1 is better than Reverb (not surprising, I don't think). I'm one of those that saw immediate improvement in VR with the update.

 

I use the Persian Gulf, F18, Ready on the ramp (or something like that, it's the one where you start out parked next to other F18s on the airfield) missions. And like dburne, I saw an improvement in the Normandy, A10C, CAS instant mission. That one is a headscratcher.

 

Anyway, enjoy your O+. If you like, it, that's all that matters.

 

 

Definitely enjoying it! My buddy is stoked to get his soon as well after trying mine on his system along with the HP and his old 1280x1440 cheapie back to back. I am still really looking forward to newer and better HMD's though, there's lots of room for improvement. I really wish I could see the improvement others have raved about, I just couldn't find anything that made my experience more immersive overall. Even my buddy who has never used the O+ or HP immediately had the same experience, it wasn't even that close of a decision.

 

 

 

I definitely noticed a difference in FPS at some point, but between the DCS changes and 1903 update I couldn't tell which one had improved things. I'm pretty sure it was the DCS changes, just not 100% sure. I did not measure the changes, but experience wise it was pretty noticeable. Especially on certain maps. We didn't notice as much on Nevada, just the others.

 

 

My buddy and I sometimes do a cat and mouse chase in the mountains in F15s where he tries to lose me. It's an absolute blast! I try to stick as close to his plane as possible. Awesome training for advanced formation flying. By doing this it really pulls out the immersion factor of the HMD and whole setup. If the immersion isn't good, you can't follow someone great, maybe half a mile or mile at best under poor conditions. With a good frame rate and good FOV you can stick within 50ft of someone! SOoooooo fun!!! This sim is the BEST!

 

 

I can't wait for an improved HMD from Samsung, they did a great job with the O+.

 

 

System is 8700k and 2080tI both water cooled and OC'd with 32GB of RAM. I'm using FSSB and TUSB on a Cougar I bought when it first was released, 2002?

[crazyave]

Actually , i think many if not most headset users use pcie usb cards , for the greater power , and in the Rift's case , because the headset and sensors require so many usb ports . Oculus , at least , does make a specific reccomendation .

 

 

 

Send me your recommendation, I'll buy one today.

[jojo]

Cliff house was very evident for SDE, given the solid bright colors. I thought DCS would look better because it's darker, but the sky and white areas really stood out in DCS. Yea, I don't know what could have been off between two headsets and completely different settings. We definitely went through every setting in WMR, SteamVR, and DCS. I'm very familiar and comfortable with all the settings for VR as I've tuned and tuned to get just the right performance in DCS since that's what it takes. Even if there was an issue with the resolution/etc the dive mask look was a pretty huge factor as well, which was not a setting issue. The one thing that does look better in the HP is the text, if I could train my eye not to look at the SDE then I could definitely read finer text, not doubt, I'd say you could read text twice as easily as with the O+, but along with the SDE it was not a big improvement overall. I actually felt the improved frame rate from turning the settings down (when I retuned for best FPS) was a more immersive improvement than the graphics quality. I could get 50% better FPS, which is pretty huge. I'm already pretty happy with my FPS on the O+ so that was not a big selling point in my situation.

 

 

Ok, so there is no problem with HP Reverb SDE. This is just you personnal preference, you're just used to O+ soft picture.

 

I just upgraded from CV1 to Rift S, and yes there is still SDE but not a deal breaker for me.

And I will definitely purchase a 2160p LCD headset when I'm sure it's reliable because I want clarity above all else: personal choice.

 

 

 

Each one his preferences...some other people went from O+ to Reverb and do like it.

[jojo]

Actually , i think many if not most headset users use pcie usb cards , for the greater power , and in the Rift's case , because the headset and sensors require so many usb ports . Oculus , at least , does make a specific reccomendation .

 

 

I used the CV1 with MSI gaming laptop : no power issue.

With desktop gaming computer : no power issue.

Now Rift S on desktop computer: still no power issue...

[eaglecash867]

I used the CV1 with MSI gaming laptop : no power issue.

With desktop gaming computer : no power issue.

Now Rift S on desktop computer: still no power issue...

 

It all depends on how much stuff you have running on your USB buses. If you have minimal USB equipment, you'll never see a problem. Most simmers though, with HOTAS, and numerous other controllers plugged in, will benefit from having a powered card. Svsmokey is right about the specific recommendation from Oculus. Its how I found my card. They even told us CV1 users the specific model they tested and found to work best. My gaming rig is also handling the task of being a massive audio/video server for my home network, so I have 3 high-capacity external USB drives all plugged into USB ports on it. Each thing you add to the bus knocks the USB voltage down by fractions of a volt. Each device on the USB bus, as well as each component within those devices, will have varying operating voltage thresholds and you will start to notice strange behavior and random disconnects unless you have a way of boosting the available power.

Edited July 28, 2019 by eaglecash867