Somnium VR1 Sept Headset Update

[evanswillo]

What version have you ordered and where about are you.

Yes I have been in the VR1 sub culture since its was first announced and ordered on the 1st possible day.

All I can say is wow what a headset, currently running at 90hz and its looking gorgeous.

Anyone thinking about any other headset please please think again, yes this an expensive piece of kit and therefore will not be the right choice for those on a budget, but those of lucky enough it is well worth the money.

And we are only just starting to explore its capabilities.

I will try and bring some numbers to demonstrate .

Again US ordered headsets are due to start being delivered in the new year now that the fcc have finally completed their approval.

[Gun Jam]

Im in America and I got the ultimate edition.

Are you actually able to get 90Hz? I have the G2 without quad views or anything. It will not maintain 90 fps in any situation other than looking up at the sky at 30,000 ft.

It sounds like this is going to be worth the wait. FCC / In America / in EU / Basic / Ultimate edition.... 3 units a day is 3 units a day. Its going to be a minute.

I expect production to increase but if you're at this output now it seems unreasonable to expect say 50 units a day at lest for the next year.

Edited December 23, 2024 by Gun Jam

[evanswillo]

Yes 90hz and a beautiful image flying alongside a F16.

You are in for a real treat.

I'll try an grab some images over the next couple of days

 

[Gun Jam]

Awesome thanks man!

Can you tell us your pc specs and settings to get 90fps?

Which map? What altitude?

Quad views right?

Main DCS settings?

[evanswillo]

Not sure if you can see the fps but its a steady 90fps this was a 4 ship f16 trip around Nellis.

My rig is a 7800x3d 4090, I am only just scratching the surface of what the VR1 is capable of.

Edited December 27, 2024 by evanswillo

[Gun Jam]

how much are you having to under sample the VR1? Is it at 80%?

[evanswillo]

At the moment 70% as we are using the SteamVR runtime.

[Gun Jam]

what HMD did you have before? and how does the VR1 compare at 70%?

Ugh its going to be a long 3 months lol

[evanswillo]

I came through the original Oculus eco system from CV1 to Rift S, then G1 to G2 . I learnt about the VR1 really early and I made the decision to not invest in the Aero or any of the Pimax HMD's. 

Its display cannot be compared as this is a significant upgrade, but I do believe this is a headset that I can grow with for the foreseeable future.

I have no complaints about the VR1. The Discord group is a good place to visit as more and more headsets are delivered.

New Year will see first US orders being sent out.

Have you actually placed your order ?

 

[Gun Jam]

Thats good to hear.

Yes my order was placed as soon as it was possible to do so. My reservation date was like oct 11 23... which is kind of early but i guess not as early as I had hoped.

just waiting for the shipping email.

[Gun Jam]

I just got a shipping notification. should have it Wednesday. If you didn't pre order one during the pre order period, you likely aren't getting one this year (this was expected but despite that production rate is less than my pessimistic exception)

 

Will let you guys know how this works out

[evanswillo]

Congrats welcome to the team, lots of good stuff happening with development of OpenXR runtime and 72hz 90hz 120hz.

 

[Gun Jam]

It Arrived!

My very initial first reaction hardware wise:

I pulled the box out of the box... This is like a pelican case its beautiful but probably set me back 300 usd. I would have rather it been a decent cardboard box and saved the 270.00 This thing has a ton of cords and it needs base stations you aren't taking it anywhere... Whatever, its going to arrive safe thats for sure, I dont know what to do with this case now..hum

The headset is very well built that's obvious the second you pull it out of that case.. nice 10/10

Its lighter than i expected but feels like 2x the weight of the reverb G2. Its volume is a bit more than expected.. hum okay!

So obviously we aren't going to waste time with anything else lets see how it fits... eeek.... I had low expectations annnnnnd despite my low expectations I'm still disappointed to the point that it has me worried. Crap this is not good. I was expecting the head strap the suck but its actually the face gasket. The G2 fit me fine there was 0 issue with that. This thing feels like a hard piece of plastic and it only make contact with my face over about 30% of the surface area, the dead center of my forehead and my cheek bones. It has tons of light leak I can get 2  fingers in on each side by the temples. I suppose with enough work this can be solved. I knew this would be an issue its just worse than expected. dammit... let's move on  

There are more cables than expected but fine lets just plug them in and get on with it. It finds all the USB no problem but wont connect the the Display port. Turns out that with dual monitor this is a problem. I could get it to connect with one monitor unplugged. So it moved my second monitor to motherboard display port and figured that would solve this issue... NO. It seems that having both monitors running allows it to connect... I have no idea whats going on here yet.

I was annoyed about having to run light house base stations... ugh. I got that thing setup and found out it only needs power no usb! The power brick is bulky and this thing needs an on off switch I dont want it running all the time. But so far this is the first win as it is the only thing so far that sucked less than expected... cool Ill take it.

Get everything setup best I can in the software... I have no idea what the hell im doing but wanted to just have a go at DCS. I load an instant action mission in the f14b and am met with a clear image that has a bit of double vision to it and despite being clear is really awful to look and and gets worse the further out an object is. the gauges are super clear but  I feel like Im fighting to focus on them... closing one eye seems to help. Distant objects are a disaster. I ran the instant action takeoff on either PG or Syria it had a wingman behind me and f15s parked to the left. my brain knew they were f15s but I could really only see the tail looking back at my wingman was not pretty either. This is very hard to describe as the image really does "appear" clear but its a total mess. This was unexpected to some degree I was really hoping for a win here. Im still pretty sure this is software. The FPS is very low the menu screen is a jerky mess at 65fps and I get about 25 fps in that instant action takeoff mission this is at 80% render res in the VR1 software but im quite sure its not setup right. FPS is good in the steam vr home but same issue with double vision a sharp looking awful image that degrades quickly at distance.

 

in software i tried to run all the calibrations for eye tracking and IPD but I have no idea what needs to be running. When I start the VR1 software I cant calibrate eye tracking  I have to start steam VR too. Then I can calibrate eye tracking but with the VR1 software running and steam VR running I cant launch DCS steam VR gives me a runtime error.

 

I could really use some help with the software loading requirements (this was a problem with the G2 back in the day... it had a very specific startup order). So when you go to launch DCS what do you start first? second? third?

Thank you!

 

 

[Gun Jam]

Ive got to spend some time with the VR1 and can now write say a 20 day observation after having spent maybe 5hrs in DCS playing online for at least 1hr at a time and probably another 3 hrs offline in short 10 to 30 min sections.

The weight is noticeable but it is actually okay you do wish it was more like the g2 but can be lived with and you'll get use to it. Counter weight in back is required, 10 bucks worth of quarters should get you close.

The face gasket is trash the studio foam one for the pimax makes this usable.

the headstrap is not bad Ive tried the bobo m2 but couldn't get as good a fit using the stock arms on the VR1. a 3d printed solution to getting the arm length right may allow the M2 to be a superior solution. Ill stick with the stock strap for now.

The primary issue is a massive decrease in image clarity that is about 1/3 of the image and runs horizontal through the center of the FOV. initially my brain could not isolate the issue it just knew something was really wrong. People suggested that it can take time to get use to the lens design of the VR1. I really attempted to do this and in attempting to get use to the VR1 I became quite aware of exactly what was going on and now its even more impossible to ignore. I spend most of the time now head down looking up through the top 1/3 of the FOV. This is a really really nice image... like amazing. The center 1/3 however is more like G2 quality but then add fuzziness, chromatic aberration and slight double vision that is stacked vertically. I dont see myself getting use to this considering that now after about maybe 8hrs its actually become worse mostly because im not confused by it anymore and quite aware of whats going on so now it draws my attention to it. If you smeared clear grease over the center 1/3 of your monitor you could adapt and learn to work around it  after a long time you would "get use to" this but it would never look clear like the top 1/3 and bottom 1/3 of the screen because its not... you just got use to it sucking and it still sucks after a year but you're "use to it" I think thats where im at with the VR1. I'm hoping a software fix can address this or perhaps an adjustment to fit... but the fit doesn't seem that bad now. I know they claim to have really calibrated these and a lot of care was taken in making sure the image was as good as it could be... despite this it feels misaligned as in broken. 

Im going to let some friends check it out and see if its just me.

[Stellatny45]

Is the artifact something you can demonstrate on thru-the-lens images for Somnium to review?

[Gun Jam]

I don't believe so because when I close one eye or the other the image is fine. I want to load something like TestHMD and test it more in other environments but I dont have controllers for it most of those platforms need controllers to function. Im trying to decide what to do about that.

[Talisman_VR]

Ordered Visionary Edition today to replace my Pimax 5k+.  

Happy landings,

Talisman

[Gun Jam]

On 4/6/2025 at 8:58 AM, Talisman_VR said:

Ordered Visionary Edition today to replace my Pimax 5k+.  

Let us know your thoughts. I still am working on last attempts to get mine to look okay. Ive had some luck with an updated warping profile but the center of the FOV is still unacceptable in dcs.

[Talisman_VR]

23 hours ago, Gun Jam said:

Let us know your thoughts. I still am working on last attempts to get mine to look okay. Ive had some luck with an updated warping profile but the center of the FOV is still unacceptable in dcs.

Likely to be May/June by the time I take delivery in the UK and get a new PC rig set up.  Do you have the Visionary Edition?

[Gun Jam]

Of next year? I pre orered min in like oct 23 and just got it last month.  I have the ultimate edition.

[evanswillo]

I have the Titan version so between us we should be able to be of assistance once headset arrives, please tell us your PC specs.

 

[Gun Jam]

1 hour ago, evanswillo said:

I have the Titan version so between us we should be able to be of assistance once headset arrives, please tell us your PC specs.

 

Well maybe Evan will be. I do know some setup stuff but I never got mine to look good yet. Shoda from sominum has been helping me a bit I need to get back in touch with him. The center fov is still poor, some gains were made by switching warping profiles but still not better overall than the g2. 

[Talisman_VR]

On 4/10/2025 at 3:06 PM, Gun Jam said:

Of next year? I pre orered min in like oct 23 and just got it last month.  I have the ultimate edition.

This year, I hope, lol.

[Gun Jam]

I put my ultimate edition on ebay just now the auction should go live in like 3 hrs if anyone else is brave enough to try it even if its at half cost  

[Twwhitey]

On 6/1/2025 at 3:30 PM, Gun Jam said:

I put my ultimate edition on ebay just now the auction should go live in like 3 hrs if anyone else is brave enough to try it even if its at half cost  

This legitimately bums me out… I “ordered” an Ultimate back in Sept ‘24 - with what is now appears to be a misguided hope that was going to be *the* MR/VR device we’ve all dreamed of - alas delivery estimate went from Nov/Dec to Jan/Feb to Mar/Apr then beyond at which point I gave up and cancelled (my $4000 order) but honestly hoped it worked out for those that did get one and as an option in the end.   Alas I resigned myself to the Pimax offering (egads much to even my surprise) because I needed “something” new and minimally functional to replace my literally ancient Reverb G2.   I still had hope that maybe Somnium after a bit of polish and time to mature would be an option… but sounds like it didn’t work out for you… sigh.  Still waiting for a Pimax Super in June ‘25 after all this time… it’s exhausting.  Hope the auction worked out for you and at some point these VR manufacturers deliver for anyone other than YouTube influencers at some point…