Is VR dead?

[RCHeliguy]

I put Dirt Rally 2.0 through it's paces with my D-Box in the bouncier Greece stages with some Finland for good measure.

The Beyond stayed put on my face so everything looked perfectly clear all the time.

I managed to knock a few seconds off my best time on a stage I know pretty well.

75fps was perfectly fine, which doesn't surprise me anymore. So was 90fps.

I saw ZERO glare in Dirt Rally.

Here is where it gets interesting.

The dark blacks, excellent contrast and color made the dashboard and my surroundings feel much more natural and realistic. The instrument cluster never looked so good. The bright metallic rings surrounded by jet black looked phenomenal in the Audi Quattro

Driving through the woods, the shadows were much more vivid. It also felt more 3D. My perspective seemed better.

I would say that the BSB despite any compression looks much better at 90fps than the Aero does at 90fps. The jet blacks, contrast, color and the fact the headset stayed perfectly connected to my face was a huge improvement.

I do forget that I'm wearing a headset and after a while I can't feel it.

Also the Xumee DAC/amp is letting more details through than the built in Aero headset amp driving my Sure 846 Gen 2's. Dirt Rally 2.0 never sounded so good and full of rich details I never noticed before.

I continue to be completely blown away by this headset. VR has never felt so good, so natural or immersive.

The fact that I was gauging corners better than I was in the Aero, is a icing on the cake

 

[jgf]

Just encountered this high-handed, elitist even, statement from a Rennsport dev, "No real sim racing game can exist without VR". One simple statement denouncing an entire world of racing sims.

Funny thing was, in all the photos in that article not one person was using VR.

 

[ltnordb]

Just encountered this high-handed, elitist even, statement from a Rennsport dev, "No real sim racing game can exist without VR". One simple statement denouncing an entire world of racing sims.

Funny thing was, in all the photos in that article not one person was using VR.

Well VR makes so much sense for racing sims that I agree that no proper sim should be launched without vr support. Looking at you EA WRC.

 

[Gelly916]

@RCHeliguy my greatest concern about the BSB is the compression at 90hz. How would you compare overall image quality, at 90hz, to that of the Aero or Reverb?

Your confidence in the headset is swaying me. I still worry about compression and FOV though.

 

[RCHeliguy]

@RCHeliguy my greatest concern about the BSB is the compression at 90hz. How would you compare overall image quality, at 90hz, to that of the Aero or Reverb?

Your confidence in the headset is swaying me. I still worry about compression and FOV though.

First of all 75 hz looks a lot better than I expected and flat out looks better than the Aero a large amount of the time. I absolutely did not expect that.

It looks better than the Reverb G2 ALL THE TIME.
In iRacing at 75hz the dashboard and digital displays look better than I've ever seen them. Arrows lines, signage all look fantastic. At 90hz the dashboard looks about as good as it does with the Aero at 90fps. All I can think is that moire' factors in more than I thought it did in terms of the clarity of what I'm seeing.

In fact I think that may have been what I thought was banding with the Aero. Subtle gradients with the Beyond look smooth and that's at 75 or 90 hz and I think rather than banding I was getting periodic moire' with the Aero because it would be like a faint green stripes. Artifacts like that hurt the image quality.

The sharp in focus sweet spot on the Beyond is larger than the G2 and it has more FOV than the G2 and it feels like it has more FOV that the Aero. It does have more vertical FOV. Part of that may be because it is pitch black around the displays.

The FOV of the Beyond feels much better to me than the letter boxing of the Aero that I got used to, but still noticed.

It will not win any FOV awards or edge to edge clarity awards, but it's different.
When I was using the G2 I felt like I was looking down a tunnel and I had to look around with my head and I DID NOT LIKE IT! With the Beyond I don't get that tunnel effect and it is so natural to look around that it feels like you can see more of your environment easily.

That is a hard point to explain, and is something you almost have to experience to understand. You don't feel the weight and the overall experience is light years better.

Anyway, I'm blown away. I've never had a VR experience like this before.

 

[ltnordb]

As a reverb g2 user looking to upgrade I got to admit this sounds very tempting.

Please report on long session use, does it get clammy after an hour or more of driving for instance?
And do you think you’ll settle on 75 or 90hz for racing?

 

[gamma123152]

I saw ZERO glare in Dirt Rally.

Everyone including all the hyped youtubers seemed to see it(and saw it as the biggest downside) except you. Magic. Or did you only do night races?

At 90hz the dashboard looks about as good as it does with the Aero at 90fps.

I wonder how they managed to fix the compression to make 3,686,400 pixels on the BSB to look as good as 7,833,600 pixels on the Aero in terms of resolution/sharpness/clarity. Without any further info: they didn't. Of course the contrast/colors/blacks are much better on the BSB, but he was asking about the compression. Sounds like magic again.

I'm 100% sure that the BSB is a great HMD for many(one of the best out there currently without question). But you're overhyping it. The device has glare and the compression is visible. That you don't notice is, is great for you of course but even all affiliate marketing selling youtubers mentioned these downsides frequently with the most recent release of the HMD so it simply doesn't sound believable what you state.

But yes, many many Crystal owners also don't seem to see chromatic abberation at all and even a smaller amount of Crystal owners see the blue shift. This while it's clearly visible for me and I'm 100% sure that it's also there for the other Crystal users(not all to the same extend, but it's simply a part of the lens design/current barrel distortion profile).

This kind of behaviour was also the case for the Aero: many didn't see the CA+color shift or even the warping distortion or the motion blur. But all these issues were clearly there for everyone at the time that I had the unit and many stated that these issues weren't there at all and that the image was perfect. This was all false of course, so they still kept hyping it. Only a minority of the users at that time acknowledged these issues. But since the Crystal/BSB is released; most Aero users seem to acknowledge the con's of the Aero and many of them bought an Crystal/BSB afterwards and then started to hype these units now and the hype goes on for the new devices.

To extend it even further; a forum member here even stated that there was zero pixelation/shimmering going on with the Reverb G2. That he never saw pixels in the HMD. This is proven by science to be only possible above 60/70PPD. But still the person was claiming this.And a other user said that he never needed OLED or miniLCD because the blacks of the Reverb G2 were perfect. But of course both weren't the case; shimmering is going on in every title because of the low PPD and the blacks aren't perfect at all(FAR from it).

So many users that own a certain device seem to overhype their experience for unknown reasons. You see this effect with many hardware all over the internet. Why this is the case? I don't know, but it's surely the case and I see it over and over again everywhere.

The best solution to this is to always try the HMD for yourself, so that can judge it for yourself to see if you can live with the shortcomings. And if you don't, then you return the device. But with the BSB this is not possible to my knowledge because of the fixed IPD/custom molding. Or do they have a return policy?

 

[wajdi]

First of all 75 hz looks a lot better than I expected and flat out looks better than the Aero a large amount of the time. I absolutely did not expect that.

It looks better than the Reverb G2 ALL THE TIME.
In iRacing at 75hz the dashboard and digital displays look better than I've ever seen them. Arrows lines, signage all look fantastic. At 90hz the dashboard looks about as good as it does with the Aero at 90fps. All I can think is that moire' factors in more than I thought it did in terms of the clarity of what I'm seeing.

In fact I think that may have been what I thought was banding with the Aero. Subtle gradients with the Beyond look smooth and that's at 75 or 90 hz and I think rather than banding I was getting periodic moire' with the Aero because it would be like a faint green stripes. Artifacts like that hurt the image quality.

The sharp in focus sweet spot on the Beyond is larger than the G2 and it has more FOV than the G2 and it feels like it has more FOV that the Aero. It does have more vertical FOV. Part of that may be because it is pitch black around the displays.

The FOV of the Beyond feels much better to me than the letter boxing of the Aero that I got used to, but still noticed.

It will not win any FOV awards or edge to edge clarity awards, but it's different.
When I was using the G2 I felt like I was looking down a tunnel and I had to look around with my head and I DID NOT LIKE IT! With the Beyond I don't get that tunnel effect and it is so natural to look around that it feels like you can see more of your environment easily.

That is a hard point to explain, and is something you almost have to experience to understand. You don't feel the weight and the overall experience is light years better.

Anyway, I'm blown away. I've never had a VR experience like this before.

How is the sweet spot? Do you lose it with motion so you have to adjust the headset?
How is the the comfort after 2h of intense racing session ?

 

[RCHeliguy]

How is the sweet spot? Do you lose it with motion so you have to adjust the headset?
How is the the comfort after 2h of intense racing session ?

I'll start with the last question. I haven't had a single 2 hr period where I haven't removed my headset yet. I've been switching between settings and testing a lot of things out. I'll also mention it doesn't have a button like the Aero for bringing up a desktop screen, so I'm taking the headset off my face to look at my monitor to make any setting changes. Also changing the refresh rate between 75/90 Hz currently requires exiting completely out of steam.

Since the sweet spot can mean two things.

1. You need to position the headset and lenses in front of your eyes very precisely. There is very little wiggle room. Some people have complained it takes them minutes to get their headset positioned. I'm doing it in a few seconds and have a couple visual indicators that I Iook for to make sure I have it on right.

2. The image looks very sharp while you are looking straight ahead and near straight ahead. It has a larger in focus area than the G2 and you don't get the tunnel effect, but it doesn't have great edge to edge clarity. So the FOV gives you supporting information around the center, but you will end up moving your head around to see things. This is something that I think everyone has said.

So far I've not had the headset move on my face with motion, but let's start with the obvious.

The stock strap is crap. People have complained about it coming loose and about getting it situated quickly.

Mine has held in place during Rally stages while I'm being bounced around using just the main headband with that 3rd party head Q2 support to cup on the back of my head. I'm not using the over the top strap. There are two adjustment sliders on the head strap. Currently I have one of them captured in the head support and the other outside. This means that it's currently asymmetrical on the back of.my head. It's not bothering me in the least, but I could still see this coming loose.

I've ordered a Frogglez goggle harness that looks much more solid and it won't come loose. It has velcro adjustments on each side. Below is someone else's picture. Mine is delayed in shipping, so I'm not sure when I'll get to try it out.

 

[RCHeliguy]

As a reverb g2 user looking to upgrade I got to admit this sounds very tempting.

Please report on long session use, does it get clammy after an hour or more of driving for instance?
And do you think you’ll settle on 75 or 90hz for racing?

So far I've worked up a sweat in it playing one room scale game where I was in it for just over an hour. According to my fitbit I've gotten up to about 120bpm. So far I've not noticed it in game bothering me in any way including feeling clammy.

I did notice it feeling moist when I took it off.

This may be a very personal thing. I never thought it felt funny even when I first put it on and others have remarked that it felt weird or that it was odd at first but then felt like it disappeared after it warmed up.

I like 90hz for Dirt Rally. It has a great sense of immediacy, and YES I think the Beyond looks better in Dirt Rally at 90hz than the Aero does. Sorry. The dark blacks, higher contrast and colors look fantastic making it overall look better. I won't suggest there are no compression artifacts, I'm sure there are, but since the visuals are much more organic, I don't notice them. Also for some reason the dash instruments in DR2 still look amazing at 90hz. I would have run 120hz in DR2 with my Index if I could, and 90hz in the Beyond looks faster than 90hz in the Aero.

For iRacing I think I'll use 75hz. The Beyond shows less aliasing artifacts than the Aero does and looks amazing. Once again I think some of that may be because there is no moire' at all. I'm not sure.

Also let's be absolutely clear about this. I'm not suggesting that the Beyond displays have the edge to edge clarity or FOV to match what the Crystal has.

What I'm saying is that my experience in VR is much better than it was with my Aero.

 

[RCHeliguy]

So many users that own a certain device seem to overhype their experience for unknown reasons.

FWIW with the Aero, I noticed the motion blur immediately and said as such. I didn't notice the red shift until the red shift tool became available and then it jumped out at me. Since then I've noticed CA with it. The other issue was distortion when you look at a point in space and move your head while looking at it. FYI, the Beyond doesn't have that distortion issue, but you won't look that far from the center while using it, because of the lack of edge to edge clarity.

I was worried about a number of different issues with my Beyond before I got it.

I know that some people are very sensitive to persistence, and I couldn't know how I was going to react until I saw it with my own eyes. Most seem fine with it, but some have had to drop the brightness down to 80% and at least two outliers I know of SadlyitsBradley and one other on the BSB Discord have dropped it as low as 40%. So that is a complete wildcard.

Second I loved the Index for 4 years and never had any issues with glare. I only noticed it in the title screens on for a couple games. Others were bothered by this. So there is some deviation here.

Glare also varies between titles sometimes dramatically. The VR Flight Sim guy said that compared to the other titles he's tried with the Beyond that MSFS where he spends most of his time is probably the worst title for glare.

To date I've only really noticed glare when I glance down at the very bottom of the displays, and I've only done this to look at the fpsVR view so it hasn't bothered me in game.

There are some people who went with the facial scan IPD value. I highly recommend getting a far IPD measurement from your optometrist. My scan value was 4mm too large compared to my Optometrist value. Many people are getting accurate scans as well, but some like me had different IPD values.

To Bigscreen's credit, they have been very quick handling support issues. I saw one guy saying that he got a corrected IPD headset just 3 days after he contacted support.

There are also some issues with cushions fitting people and Bigscreen has been working with people to address those issues. They are also working on a version 2 of the cushion that reduces pressure on the bridge of your nose, because some people are having an issue with that.

So I've already pointed out that the head strap as it comes is crap.
There are variables per person, that can't be predicted like persistence sensitivity.
There are different levels of sensitivity to things like Glare.
The facial cushions are still being worked on to be comfortable to more people.

I'm not trying to point a rosy picture that doesn't exist.

On top of this, I have a "standard" cushion. They also have a "thin" cushion that can increase your FOV like MRTV got. However while I could have ordered mine with a thin cushion, it was suggested that I wait off just in case my brow touched the lenses, or eyelashes got too close since it might be a couple months before I could get a replacement cushion if that one didn't work.

 

[RCHeliguy]

FWIW, I don't have a problem being called on anything I've said.

Every morning since I got my Beyond last Tuesday, I've felt surely I'm going to start noticing something I don't like.

The last time I got a headset that I immediately completely liked from day one was the Index.

Based on the reviews of others in the Bigscreen discord, I've adapted to the Beyond quicker than some others. There are some who liked it instantly, but also some who spent time getting things figured out. Many have commented about the glare.

Regarding glare, I'm seriously wondering why I didn't notice any glare in the cockpit of a helicopter in DCS. I was absolutely expecting to see it there. I don't know what to say about that. I've barely noticed any glare in any title so far. And yes, I know, others have been pointing to glare as being a very big deal. I'm just not seeing it.

My contacts correct my vision well and I have about 0.75 cylinder of astigmatism correction in both eyes that is nearly horizontal. 170degrees and 180 degrees.

At this point I don't think it makes sense to assume that everyone will have that experience and I can't explain it.

 

[gamma123152]

I didn't notice the red shift until the red shift tool became available and then it jumped out at me. Since then I've noticed CA with it. The other issue was distortion when you look at a point in space and move your head while looking at it.

I believe that your replies are honest, let's have that be clear. I'm very sensitive (WAY more than average) to visual issues in VR. So I notice such things always almost instantly. So what you just named here with the Aero, are things that I spotted within less than a minute after putting the Aero on my head but it took you way more time to even spot them. This is probably also the case for your experience with the BSB. You're clearly overblown by the visuals, which is of course a great thing. But in such a scenario you easilly overlook things, just because of the positive feeling that you're experiencing with your great new device.

So this is exactly what I tried to say with my previous post. It's VERY difficult to find a proper review that covers ALL con's of a HMD because many reviewers are overblown by the upsides of a new device (done on purposely by some, but surely not by all(proven by you)). This because many enthusiasts are just emotional about their new experience/newly received device. That's at least what I observe over the years.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I absolutely agree that enthusiasm over a new toy is always a factor. Emotions have a huge impact on how we perceive everything.

Each day as I worked through different titles, room scale FPS games, then sim racing, then flight, I've been waiting for something to jump out at me.

I've run it in daytime and bright games, games where the lighting changes a lot, night races, hell pits and creepy jump-scare environments.

I've gotten hot and sweaty in it and I've whipped my head around in it.

I fully expected that it would take me time to adapt to it than it did. Specifically the fact that I am looking around more with my head and less with my eyes which I absolutely hated with the G2 and yet doesn't bother me at all with the Beyond. It seems completely like a double standard, and yet no issues with this.

There is more room to look around than with the G2, but not the edge to edge clarity that the Aero had and by all accounts that the Crystal and Quest 3 have.

Then there is the question about whether I "won the lens" lottery, or if some combination of my contacts prescription and this has any impact on what I'm seeing. I've even asked this in the Beyond forum and was told that they are all within tight tolerances.

It's not easy to pin down why this headset is so agreeable to me.

 

[wajdi]

So it’s a XR-4 new headset .
Dual 4K display.
Aspheric lenses.
Inside outside tracking
Mixed reality ..dual 20mp cameras for pass through.
Auto focus sensors
High quality spatial audio headset ( noise cancellation).
Local dimming
HFOV-120
VFOV-105
No annual subscription needed this time
It looks a big bulky headset.
Price 4K?

 

[HoiHman]

So this is exactly what I tried to say with my previous post. It's VERY difficult to find a proper review that covers ALL con's of a HMD because many reviewers are overblown by the upsides of a new device (done on purposely by some, but surely not by all(proven by you)). This because many enthusiasts are just emotional about their new experience/newly received device. That's at least what I observe over the years.

I'm usual like you to. I noticed the motionblur and the barrel distortion instantly with the varjo aero and packed it up for the return the same night after trying it out.

Usually i'm more critical when trying out new products and the wow factor comes in a later stage.

The "1 month review" of Bradley, which is pretty positive, although he starts with all the cons first.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I tried to convey my thoughts.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

So it’s a XR-4 new headset .
Dual 4K display.
Aspheric lenses.
Inside outside tracking
Mixed reality ..dual 20mp cameras for pass through.
Auto focus sensors
High quality spatial audio headset ( noise cancellation).
Local dimming
HFOV-120
VFOV-105
No annual subscription needed this time
It looks a big bulky headset.
Price 4K?

I thought you were joking on price.
$4k regular, $10k auto focus variant.

Varjo's Auto-Focus XR-4 Mixed-Reality Headset Boasts Specs to Rival Apple Vision Pro

The Finnish startup's latest hardware pushes the boundary on how external cameras might mix reality, but in a PC-tethered design.

www.cnet.com

I see that VR is getting more and more affordable with each year.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Crazy, but it seems to be more extreme all the time!

 

[gamma123152]

So it’s a XR-4 new headset .
Dual 4K display.
Aspheric lenses.
Inside outside tracking
Mixed reality ..dual 20mp cameras for pass through.
Auto focus sensors
High quality spatial audio headset ( noise cancellation).
Local dimming
HFOV-120
VFOV-105
No annual subscription needed this time
It looks a big bulky headset.
Price 4K?

Disappointing, 4840 euro. "No annual subscription" oh they are so nice to their customers to not ask for annual fee's this time

And it's unclear what the stereo overlap is, how the lighthouse tracking is going to work and if the local dimming will work at launch. The Aero also had "local dimming" in it's initial specs. but they never got it to work and now the removed it from the product page. Promised, but never delivered.

They also didn't say if the fixed their lens issues, more FoV is nice but I would rather know first if: the motion blur, the CA/color shifting, the warping/distortion the mura, the stereo overlap, the blurred sides of the sweetspot are all fixed. Without that the new HMD will be worthless.

The VR3/XR3 which also had such an insane price also suffered from the same issues as the Aero regarding the lenses, I spoke to someone who owned that headset (still has it, collecting dust) and his to go daily headset is the Crystal because of all these lens issues. He paid about the same price as the XR4 for that HMD, and it's worthless in his opinion.

The great thing about this is that we know that there are some amazing 51PPD panels on the market, that in the future come available to other(normal priced) HMD's probably. So the future of VR looks promising.

EDIT: Lighthouse tracking module is going to be ! YES I'm not joking ! 1000 euro excl. tax. So about the price of an BSB. The tracking alone! They are NUTS at Varjo.