HP Reverb Review

[Mr Latte]

So how good is it with all those pixels?

For Sim Racing we may not need to rely or care much on the windows mixed reality for the controllers and tracking. The concern with this, is more to do with the GPU loads as covered in the second video but seems a 1080Ti or RTX 2080 level of card is a good basis to start from.

Whats your thoughts guys, Valve Index has won me over with a current pre-order but I'm still waiting to learn more about it before fully committing.

Enjoy the videos and discuss...

 

[Gadaga]

Wow. 1.5 meters in front of my head? My screens are against a wall and I do not have 1.5 meters but nlyi one. Can they be closer if there are two lighthouses?

 

[RCHeliguy]

You can stick a couple light houses in the corners of your room. The upside is that you get full accuracy and you could do room scale with that. Mine should arrive this month and I'll figure out where I'm going to mount them when they get here.

The new 2.0 base stations don't require line of sight with each other, so they could be on the wall behind your monitors as long as they have a clear view of the HMD.

 

[Bjarne Hansen]

Would be very surprised if the index doesn't come with inside-out tracking before long maybe even before first release.
Just sim use.
My neighbor changed to Samsung O+ from HTC Vive after he saw how easy it was with my WMR headset.
No reason they can't have both options for tracking!

 

[Gadaga]

Yes I agree that not needing any hardware to do the tracking is a real argument for us (not using controllers so no need for precision there)

 

[RCHeliguy]

I would be completely shocked if the Index ever got inside out tracking in it's entire lifespan. It makes zero business sense for them to go in that direction at this time.

Edit: <deleted comments>

 

[Bjarne Hansen]

Inside-out tracking is not poor headset tracking somebody even messured it to be more accurate than both Rift camera and lighthouse #1 tracking at least.
Not sure where I got it from but it was here recently somebody publish his data.
And Pimax do not have inside out tracking it has buildin gyroscope like most if not all headsets and got the 6 degres of movement.
There was enough Pimax users without lighthouses to facilitate a change to how the VorPx software works .
Not sure I'df that is many or few but it was enough of complaints.
Inside out tracking are a much better option for seated VR than outside tracking not just economic but also technical.
Just like outside tracking are a better technical solution for roomscale VR.
So very few people on this forum will agree with you about tracking regardless how often you bring it up

 

[RCHeliguy]

I'm not going to argue about this anymore. I shouldn't have commented.

 

[Apelsin Elise]

I have over 500 hours in HMD Odyssey @ Assetto Corsa. Inside out tracking is not a problem — off-center blurriness / screen door effect is. I will take higher resolution over external tracking any day and twice on Sunday.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I have over 500 hours in HMD Odyssey @ Assetto Corsa. Inside out tracking is not a problem — off-center blurriness / screen door effect is. I will take higher resolution over external tracking any day and twice on Sunday.

You understand the Reverb has more pronounced off center blurriness than just about anything else out.

Currently there are only two headsets with edge to edge clarity. The StarVR and the Index which both use base stations.

The new Rift S and Pimax have a better than most off center clarity.

 

[Apelsin Elise]

You understand the Reverb has more pronounced off center blurriness than just about anything else out.

If it does it goes back to HP. Reviews are mixed on this.

The Index is clear from edge to edge.

The Index has the exact same resolution and lower refresh rate compared to Odyssey. IMHO this is just not good enough no matter how clear the lenses are.

 

[Apelsin Elise]

Currently there are only two headsets with edge to edge clarity. The StarVR and the Index which both use base stations.

Edge to edge clarity seem to be subjective as early reviewers do not agree on this (they uniformly agree on resolution though). I'll reserve my judgement before I try HP Reverb by myself, by the end of June hopefully.

I could care less about base stations and the reasons those are being used by StarVR and Index. WMR inside-out tracking works extremely well in seated environment.

 

[RCHeliguy]

The Index uses more resolution than the Odyssey. Just like the StarVR showed dramatic improvements is detail clarity than the Pimax 5K+ because of both better optics and less cropping of the panels, the Index has more useful resolution.

The Pimax crops or throws away 24% of its resolution. Likewise the Odyssey crops more resolution away than the Index. That means less magnification and less SDE and more resolution with the Index.

You must be confusing headsets with regard to refresh rates. The Index supports 80, 90, 120 and 144 fps.

Don't forget that higher frame rates will also increase the percieved resolution.

The Index won't compare with the Reverb in the Reverb's center area, but it will everywhere else.

 

[Apelsin Elise]

I stand corrected. The Index indeed supports 80, 90, 120 and 144 fps (though IMHO 120 and 144 fps are wishful thinking for race sims on current generation of PC hardware).

It's all speculation at this point. We'll see once the actual units start arriving...

 

[RCHeliguy]

I'm hoping 120 is doable, but will also believe it when I see for myself. Time will tell.

If my i9-9900K can't push that frame rate, we will have a good data point.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

The Pimax crops or throws away 24% of its resolution. Likewise the Odyssey crops more resolution away than the Index. That means less magnification and less SDE and more resolution with the Index.

I have read about Pimax, but Odyssey cropping is new to me. Have any data to back that up?
For inside out tracking on Index, the bad news, the cameras they put in are not suitable for that function. Missed opportunity or intentional move to push their overpriced stations. BTW, they will be completely disabled on release until late summer, guess just as with frunk Valve just doesn't know what to do with the feature they put in.

 

[RCHeliguy]

The base stations are a bit pricey.
I'd love to have the cameras allow a masked view of my cockpit controls.
I think the frunk is mostly for people experimenting, so mine may very well stay empty for the life of my Index. Unless someone comes up with something cool for it. of course I won't know what that is until someone actually comes up with it. So I'd say it's a crap shoot.

As far as late summer goes... So what? I won't see mine until end July, early August. Many others will be waiting until the end of September for theirs. It's hard to miss functionality that I've never had before.

What I've read about cropping is that the Index crops less than the Vive Pro and Odyssey because of it's two element system. What I've never seen are exact numbers about the percentages there.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

What I've read about cropping is that the Index crops less than the Vive Pro and Odyssey because of it's two element system. What I've never seen are exact numbers about the percentages there.

Two elements of what? Odyssey and Vive Pro both use dual AMOLED screen.

 

[RaceNut]

Display visual overlap? (Center)

 

[Apelsin Elise]

Original Odyssey is a very good VR headset. For 1440x1600 per eye I don't think it gets any better than this. I've tried Odyssey+ and now I'm convinced that optical trickery to enhance perceived panel resolution (and get rid of screen door effect) do not work. It just blurs the image.

Still, I'm looking for something better. I hope HP gets it right with Reverb.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I have owned both versions and Odyssey+ is just as sharp as original one minus SDE. The problem was that at the time of the release default renderTargetScale of MR SteamVR driver was set too low, causing rendering at lower resolution thus blurring the image due to resampling. It has been fixed since then, today at SS 210% (closely matching internal resampling resolution max) and Advanced supersample filtering enabled it's razor sharp
Picture of AC through the lens

Of course higher res and RGB stripe with more subpixels will beat it no questions. Wish it was OLED though.

P.S. BTW, with Windows 1903 they screwed up that renderTargetScale so now everyone is complaining again about how blurry WMR looks. The fix is coming though.