HTC to announce two new VR headsets

[dburne]

https://www.roadtovr.com/htc-announce-vive-focus-3-vive-pro-2-report/

 

Should be interesting. Vive Focus 3 and Vive Pro 2 expected.

 

VIVECON - May 11th.

Edited May 6, 2021 by dburne

[Habu_69]

I will be watching this keenly. Upgraded Dec 2020 from Reverb G1 to G2 and was under-whelmed by the modest VR headset improvements that cost 640 USD. G2 quit working in Feb. and HP gave me a full refund. So, I plan to use the G1 until a VR headset with more impactful improvements is available.

[Eugel]

I am generally happy to see VR being further developed.

But after the terrible Vive Pro I´m not sure if I´ll ever buy a Vive again.

[Supmua]

It is going to be very interesting in the next 6-12 months with the new Vive headsets, Decagear, and possibly Valve Index 2.  Until then, enjoy your current headsets

[Taz1004]

12 hours ago, Eugel said:

I am generally happy to see VR being further developed.

But after the terrible Vive Pro I´m not sure if I´ll ever buy a Vive again.

 

Vive Pro is the best VR headset I've owned/tried.  It was overpriced at the time but for how long it's lasting, now it was worth it.  Few flaws it has can easily be fixed with mod/upgrade and resolution is same as Index.  Being it Steam native also makes it stable and SteamVR 1.16 really brought new life into this thing.  DCS is super smooth and clear.

Edited May 7, 2021 by Taz1004

[freehand]

7 hours ago, Taz1004 said:

 

Vive Pro is the best VR headset I've owned/tried.  It was overpriced at the time but for how long it's lasting, now it was worth it.  Few flaws it has can easily be fixed with mod/upgrade and resolution is same as Index.  Being it Steam native also makes it stable and SteamVR 1.16 really brought new life into this thing.  DCS is super smooth and clear.

 

Which other head sets have you owned/tried ?

[Taz1004]

2 minutes ago, freehand said:

Which other head sets have you owned/tried ?

 

I am VR content developer so I've worked with most of them for development and tried them all except Quest 2.

And just to clarify, I'm not saying Vive Pro is best at every aspect.  Just best overall.

Edited May 7, 2021 by Taz1004

[freehand]

Just now, Taz1004 said:

 

I am VR content developer so I've worked with most of them for development and tried them all except Quest 2.

So you like the vive moded  over a G1/G2 ?

[Taz1004]

Just now, freehand said:

So you like the vive moded  over a G1/G2 ?

 

Yes

[Supmua]

Agree about the Vive Pro. When used in combination with Reshade it can produce crazy good VR images, even though not as sharp as newer headset. Brightness, contrast and saturation from OLED panel is pretty hard to beat.

[freehand]

Just now, Taz1004 said:

 

Yes

Interesting I own the G1 but the lead is driving me crazy.

Edited May 7, 2021 by freehand

[Eugel]

Hm, maybe I was unlucky with my Vive Pro then. Or my expectations were too high.

The headset rattled and squeaked quite a bit, the audio was bad, the IPD knob sometimes didn´t react at all, sometimes the IPD would change by itself when I put the headset on and the foam started to disintegrate.

 

On top of that, the stepup in resolution from the original Vive was nice, but apart from that, there were no improvements. The screendoor effect was as bad and the light rays I felt were even worse than in the old Vive. And motion smoothing caused so much distortion that it was simply unusable for me.

[Supmua]

Perhaps your expectation was too high or maybe you had a bad headset, mine doesn't squeak and IPD knob is fine.  The foam is quite soft compared to newer headsets but that's subjective.  In terms of screen quality, which is less subjective than build quality, there's plenty of positives.

 

The positives.  The OLED screen use (I believe also this applies to Samsung Odessey), has superior perceived brightness, color, contrast compared to typical LCD VR screen--much better from using back to back between Vive Pro/Index/Quest 2.  The color rendition and image reproduction is superb on the OLED, especially when flying at night or during scenes that has wide dynamic rage (dusk, dawn, etc.).  Clouds also look very good (at least in MSFS) with nice highlights and shadows.

 

The current negatives.  Distance sharpness and fine detail are not as good due to pentile display (i.e. screendoor effect).  Motion response is also not as fluid as LCD with fixed 90Hz refresh rate.  These can probably be fixed with newer generation screen with higher resolution.

 

An OLED VR headset with high resolution would be my ideal, and this makes me wish I could afford an XTAL.  I'm just hoping somebody will bring out a consumer-level OLED VR headset again someday.

[Taz1004]

8 hours ago, Eugel said:

Hm, maybe I was unlucky with my Vive Pro then. Or my expectations were too high.

The headset rattled and squeaked quite a bit, the audio was bad, the IPD knob sometimes didn´t react at all, sometimes the IPD would change by itself when I put the headset on and the foam started to disintegrate.

 

On top of that, the stepup in resolution from the original Vive was nice, but apart from that, there were no improvements. The screendoor effect was as bad and the light rays I felt were even worse than in the old Vive. And motion smoothing caused so much distortion that it was simply unusable for me.

 

Bad audio and squeaks aren't the usual complaints of Vive Pro so my guess is you probably got a defective unit.  There's 3rd party software that basically squeezes more pixels in smaller display area which makes screendoor less noticeable by increasing detail level.  By default, Vive Pro was drawing a lot larger image than what you can see through the lens.  About 30% more on my Vive Pro.  SteamVR's latest beta 1.17.8 seems to have included this feature as FOV adjustment.

Motion smoothing was fixed in 1.16 through fixed throttling and additional prediction setting.  This on top of DCS 2.7 run smoother and stable than it ever did.  And my PC is still very outdated i7-4790K and GTX1080.

 

However, I never recommended Vive Pro to my clients unless they needed wireless option because I agree it's not great out of the box.  It needs to be modified.  But most of the mods are easy and makes huge difference.

[peachmonkey]

On 5/8/2021 at 6:46 AM, Eugel said:

The screendoor effect was as bad and the light rays I felt were even worse than in the old Vive. And motion smoothing caused so much distortion that it was simply unusable for me.

 

In the original configuration the VivePro sucks monkey balls, agreed 100%.

 

However, its hardware supports an amazing mod:  lens swap with GearVR hmd.  It's a ~$50 mod:

1) print new lens adapters (~$20 on 3dhubs.com)

2) buy an old 2016+ version of GearVR headset (~$40 used)

 

Once you swap the lenses the transformation is short of amazing:

- sweet spot is 100% of the whole lens

- zero god rays

- zero glare

 

It baffled a lot of people why HTC decided to go with such crappy Fresnel lenses for it. Once you change it the inky black colors + 100% sweet spot + 0 glare/god rays beats any HMD out there.

[DerekSpeare]

All they need to do is provide a 130+ degree FOV and have the clarity of the G1 (or better) and they would have a winner.

[peachmonkey]

4 minutes ago, DerekSpeare said:

All they need to do is provide a 130+ degree FOV and have the clarity of the G1 (or better) and they would have a winner.

 

G2 is ~90 degree FOV   (taken from IL2)

VivePro is ~105 degree FOV  (from IL2)

 

Those 15 degrees surprisingly make quite a bit of difference.   If VivePro2 keeps the ~105 degrees minimum and then bumps the resolution to G2 levels... keep the OLED's..  man, it's gonna be one sweet HMD.

[Taz1004]

And if you've done the Lens mod on Vive Pro, you can actually increase FOV further.  Increasing the physical IPD pulls left/right lens and screen apart giving you bigger FOV.  This technique doesn't work if you have default fresnel lens with small sweet spot but because GearVR lens eliminates sweet spot and all part of the lens is clear, increasing IPD effectively gives you bigger FOV.

 

I set my Vive Pro physical IPD to max 75mm (You can actually spread them out further by "gently" moving the lens directly by hand instead of the knob) and set in-game IPD adjustment to my actual IPD.  This physical Lens IPD adjustment is another advantage of Vive Pro.

Edited May 9, 2021 by Taz1004

[Supmua]

5K res, 120 degree FOV, 120 Hz for the new Vive Pro 2.

I preordered one, these things will likely fly off the shelf quickly. 

Edited May 11, 2021 by Supmua

[Darpa]

My first headset was an original Vive with base stations (1.0) and controllers. Does anyone happen to know that if I get the new Vive Pro 2 headset would I still be able to use the original controllers and base stations or would I need to buy newer ones. Thanks

[Supmua]

It is fully compatible with base station 1.0, and I would think the original wands as well. 

[dburne]

Tempting but I just got my Index. At least I have the Lighthouse 2.0 tracking and Index controllers already now.

[Darpa]

Thanks Supmua... I think I might jump in also then

[Supmua]

4 minutes ago, dburne said:

Tempting but I just got my Index. At least I have the Lighthouse 2.0 tracking and Index controllers already now.

You can probably return the Index still, Don.  Maybe keep the controller and base stations. 

[unlikely_spider]

Seems enticing, though I don't have any base stations and only have WMR controllers, so it seems I have to wait for the full kit and then decide if I want to spend that much.

 

I do like the headphones on the Reverb G2 where they don't touch your ears. I wish the Vive had that style.

 

Edit - hmm... can someone confirm that I can buy Index base stations and just this Vive Pro 2 headset?

 

Edit 2 - and how do you apply the discount code to the pre-order?

Edited May 11, 2021 by unlikely_spider