Valve Index first impressions

[Madarao]

So I just received my valve index today and I have to say I'm not impressed and a little disappointed. The headset i switched from is the Hp reverb g2 and thats the headset I've had the most time on.

1) Visual downgrade was a big minus when switching to the Valve Index. I went from being able to read things in nice clarity back to oculus rift s quality for visuals.

2) The audio is not better than the HP Reverb G2. The Valve Index does have bass I'll give it that. The HP reverbs audio has bass as well AND its clear. This is not to say the audio is bad, the audio is very VERY good, just not as good as hp reverb g2 audio

3) The setup for the Valve index is shockingly easy and the overall setup experience between the Valve Index and the Hp reverb G2, I prefer the valve index. Less crazyness with software unlike the Hp reverb G2. Luckily i had industrial strength velcro to be able to attach the base stations to my walls, but if i didnt have that i can easily see how much of a pain point that is for people who live in apartments where the landlords dont want them drilling into walls or the person not having an easy way to sit the stations on top of something.

4) The absolute BIGGEST plus of the valve index is the fact that it doesn't use windows mixed reality. The Hp Reverb G2 requires WMR and boy is it AWFUL. Its actually 90% of the reason why i spent 1000 dollars for a visual and audio downgrade with the valve index (did i mention the Hp reverb g2 can be bought for 400 when its on sale from HP?) Hp does not have a way to factory reset the headset, open xr RUINED my hp reverb and i continually lost video.

5) The controllers feel really nice and have the actual proper hand position for holding something irl. The downside is that the tracking for it is not super nice for people with small hands (if someone knows how to shorten the sensor field without hardware modification so it matches up with my tiny hands that would be great)

Overall. The cost of the headset is a bit much for its dated visual quality, the controllers are nice and other than an adjustible hand size sensor kinda thing no changes are needed whatsoever to those. Keep the simple setup and the controllers, upgrade that visual quality and make the controllers compatible with the next headset you guys will make and i guarantee you that you'll have me as a customer for a long time coming.

I know this is your first in house headset and these comments do not come from a place of hate, i really want valve to succeed even more with vr and i hope you take these comments to heart and improve on the next iteration. You guys honestly knocked it out of the park with this first attempt and I'm excited for what you have to bring next.

[Valhalla Awaits]

The headset itself is now really really dated. Keep in mind when this came out it competing with the Rift (Pre-facebook) and the very first HTC headset. By modern VR standards the Index is now fairly ancient.

The controls are still the best in the VR market somehow though. Noone has made anything better yet so those are worth getting.

The tracking is also still the best of any headset, or at least on-par with it. (HTC also has access to that tech since it was made in conjunction with them.) Most other headsets have of course moved onto inside-out tracking, which while much easier to setup, are much much MUCH less accurate and inferior to base stations in every other way, except cost and ease of setup.

The valve index headset itself does have the best "built-in" audio around as long as your playing in a quiet place. The comfort of the headset has fallen a little behind a few of the better headsets though since the index is much heavier and bulkier than almost everything out there now except the insanely large Pi-max stuff.

The part where the Valve index is now "WAY" behind in is the visual quality of the headset, it's just about dead-last compared to everything and anything VR related in the past few years. The Index uses the old pancake lenses which are obsolete, it uses a much lower resolution display than even entry level budget headsets do now, and it uses the now obsolete LCD screen tech.

And of course it lacks any of the newer tech, like face tracking/body tracking/eye tracking/foveted rendering etc.

On the plus side, the obsolete resolution of the headset means you can run games on lower end hardware instead of needing a 3090/4090 to play the latest stuff.

[Valhalla Awaits]

I do wish Valve would update the headset itself, they can keep the controllers and base stations as both are still cutting-edge in the VR market. But the display needs to be updated with eye-tracking, a LED display, the modern lenses everyone else now uses, and of course a much higher resolution display as it's now DEAD LAST in the VR market in resolution.

PS: Oh and it obviously needs to be wireless. Once you use wireless VR you can't go back to dragging a tripping hazard around with you. (Or a spider's nest of wire pulley's from the ceiling like I had.)

[Madarao]

Publicado originalmente por Valhalla Awaits:

I do wish Valve would update the headset itself, they can keep the controllers and base stations as both are still cutting-edge in the VR market. But the display needs to be updated with eye-tracking, a LED display, the modern lenses everyone else now uses, and of course a much higher resolution display as it's now DEAD LAST in the VR market in resolution.

PS: Oh and it obviously needs to be wireless. Once you use wireless VR you can't go back to dragging a tripping hazard around with you. (Or a spider's nest of wire pulley's from the ceiling like I had.)

I completely agree with everything you said in both posts. All valve needs to do is to upgrade the headset hardware imo. The audio may not be as good as the hp reverbs imo, but they do NOT need to upgrade it. Its still excellenet. Controllers feel great, setup is awesome, base stations arent too much of a hassle to put places *seriously for you folks worried about the base stations, get a solid chair, industrial strength velcro you can get from home depot, and put them on the walls* All that really needs to be upgraded is the headset with the visuals.