The game looks perfect - but only when using Rift CV1

[Rune]

My suspicion was confirmed as I changed OpenXR from Index and Steam to my old Rift CV1 and Oculus/Meta.

Now the game started in the Rift CV1. Ss 2.5 was too much, but got solid 90 fps or close with ss 2.0 (note that Rift CV1 ss 2.0 is 17 mill pixels res or the same as Index res 200%, which is 18 mill pixels per frame when combining both eyes). That's using an oc'ed RTX 3090 and maxed in-game settings. Note that temporal antialiasing (TAA) is extremely blurry using lcd hmds, but totally sharp with Rift CV1, maybe due to the SDE fooling the brain (like scanlines).

Suddenly, gone was the blur, all looked as sharp as can be with the CV1.
Some lcd users have complained that ambient occlusion was wrong causing shimmering textures and incorrect depth perspective. And I get that too with the Index, so issues are more profound than just TAA blur. And some places are too dark for lcd, can't see a thing.

But using Rift CV1 (=oled panels) all is perfect, no blur, no shimmering textures and ambient occlusion is perfect - and inside dark caves I can see everything. Even controllers work better.

I think Hubris has been in development for 4 or 5 years, and that it originally was never designed for lcd.

It feels like an Oculus game, devs even followed Oculus advice of only supporting OpenXR. Feels like a true Rift CV1 game.

But could also just be a game made for oled - so might work wonders for Vive (Pro) too.

I'll be using CV1 going forward, even with lower res and the SDE, image quality is night and day better than blurry Index with some shimmering textures and lack of proper blacks.

[Mr V]

Nice catch! I've noted from my Index playthrough how dramatically blurry this game is in the headset compared to most others I've played, especially different from the desktop mirror view.
Will reference this post in my review of the game.

[Rune]

Originally posted by Mr V:

Nice catch! I've noted from my Index playthrough how dramatically blurry this game is in the headset compared to most others I've played, especially different from the desktop mirror view.
Will reference this post in my review of the game.

Thanks, also just to mention it, the game is still great using Index and res 200% to reduce the blur, but I'm fully convinced this game was made for old oled hmds - using Rift CV1 totally feels like "the way it's meant to be played", to quote Nvidia :-)

I have both Index and Rift CV1 connected to the same rig, so easy to choose the better hmd for every game or app.

[bernardb]

I'm also playing on Rift and it looks amazing... sharp and crisp... 3080, 32GB, i9-9900

[Mr V]

Originally posted by Rune:

Originally posted by Mr V:

Nice catch! I've noted from my Index playthrough how dramatically blurry this game is in the headset compared to most others I've played, especially different from the desktop mirror view.
Will reference this post in my review of the game.

Thanks, also just to mention it, the game is still great using Index and res 200% to reduce the blur, but I'm fully convinced this game was made for old oled hmds - using Rift CV1 totally feels like "the way it's meant to be played", to quote Nvidia :-)

I have both Index and Rift CV1 connected to the same rig, so easy to choose the better hmd for every game or app.

I don't see myself being able to sustain 200% SS to counter the blur. I've a 3080ti and ryzen 5900x, good ram etc, but Hubris can barely sustain 120fps at native resolution, with frequent drops to 60.
Even on the black screens with nothing being rendered the GPU is being pushed very hard. But I wonder if it's an issue with my config and this particular game, based upon what you both have said...
Either way, the blur is tolerable due to the environment fidelity being stable enough to compensate for it, just.

[V I D A L]

Originally posted by Mr V:

Nice catch! I've noted from my Index playthrough how dramatically blurry this game is in the headset compared to most others I've played, especially different from the desktop mirror view.
Will reference this post in my review of the game.

That is because the game is rendering 50% resolution by default. During the entire tutorial I also found the game quite blurry. (using Index). As soon as I got to the planet and accessed the game menu, under graphics you can bump up resolution scale back up to 100% and also adjust a sharpness slider. Looks fantastic then.

[[XGS]DonkyBoY]

It is NOT blurry in my Reverb G2

[BoterBoon]

I played this game on quest 2. It looks astonishing on quest 2 imo.

[Rune]

Originally posted by Mr V:

Originally posted by Rune:

Thanks, also just to mention it, the game is still great using Index and res 200% to reduce the blur, but I'm fully convinced this game was made for old oled hmds - using Rift CV1 totally feels like "the way it's meant to be played", to quote Nvidia :-)

I have both Index and Rift CV1 connected to the same rig, so easy to choose the better hmd for every game or app.

I don't see myself being able to sustain 200% SS to counter the blur. I've a 3080ti and ryzen 5900x, good ram etc, but Hubris can barely sustain 120fps at native resolution, with frequent drops to 60.
Even on the black screens with nothing being rendered the GPU is being pushed very hard. But I wonder if it's an issue with my config and this particular game, based upon what you both have said...
Either way, the blur is tolerable due to the environment fidelity being stable enough to compensate for it, just.

The trick is to use 80 Hz (=80 fps) with the Index res 200% - and then to disable motion smoothing to gain some more performance. 120 fps is a no-go with res 200% and the Index for sure :-)

Unless many have tried the CV1, they may have no idea what some of us are talking about regarding blur and shimmering textures - and the black levels.

The TAA blur is very easy to see using G2 in Asgard's Wrath (haven't tried Hubris though with G2) - but if some don't notice it - or think the game should look this way, I guess that's a gift :-)

[Rune]

Originally posted by MORK:

I played this game on quest 2. It looks astonishing on quest 2 imo.

Originally posted by V I D A L:

Originally posted by Mr V:

Nice catch! I've noted from my Index playthrough how dramatically blurry this game is in the headset compared to most others I've played, especially different from the desktop mirror view.
Will reference this post in my review of the game.

That is because the game is rendering 50% resolution by default. During the entire tutorial I also found the game quite blurry. (using Index). As soon as I got to the planet and accessed the game menu, under graphics you can bump up resolution scale back up to 100% and also adjust a sharpness slider. Looks fantastic then.

No, not at all - first thing enthusiasts do is to max out the in-game res of course. Then you continue to further bump up res using SteamVR res - or the Oculus Tray Tool, for example - depending on the hmd you use. When I write about using Index res 200%, then the 200% is added upon the max res used in the game.
Still the game is extremely blurry using lcd hmds due to TAA. Nothing new here, TAA has always been horribly blurry using lcd. Same with TAA games like Asgard's Wrath, Stormland, Gnomes & Goblins etc.
Some who have never tried oled panels like Rift CV1 may have no clue what I'm writing about here - and that may be a good thing.

[Cyborn]

Originally posted by Mr V:

Nice catch! I've noted from my Index playthrough how dramatically blurry this game is in the headset compared to most others I've played, especially different from the desktop mirror view.
Will reference this post in my review of the game.

don't forget you can bump up the sharpness and rendering in the graphics option menu ofthe game, so make sure to play with that a bit.

[Rune]

To put things into some perspective - RoadToVR gave the game a 5/10 rating and used a Quest 2 (lcd) hmd and a very slow GTX 1080 to play the game:

https://www.roadtovr.com/hubris-review-steam-pc-vr/

The GTX 1080 is the minimum requirement meaning they can't add much super sampling if any to reduce the blurry TAA - and they'll get shimmering textures and bad blacks too.

I can mostly get 80 fps using Index 80 Hz and an oc'ed RTX 3090 (2.5 times faster than GTX 1080) with in-game graphics settings maxed and then adding res 200% to greatly reduce the TAA blur - I still get some shimmering textures and bad blacks. I think the game looks fine using this setup - feels at least like a 8/10 experience to me.

But then using the Rift CV1 ss 2.0 (same effective software res as Index res 200%) - seeing how sharp everything suddenly looks - seeing that all shimmering textures now look perfectly - and I can now see all details in the dark caves - surely this game is a 10/10 - but I'm not done with the game yet, but gameplay and presence in the world are simply awesome.

Bottom-line, using a fast enough rig and the right hmd will greatly impact your experience. Thus user experiences may differ greatly for this game - while a game like Alyx looks awesome on all hmds I guess (Alyx does not use TAA).

[Rune]

Originally posted by Cyborn:

Originally posted by Mr V:

Nice catch! I've noted from my Index playthrough how dramatically blurry this game is in the headset compared to most others I've played, especially different from the desktop mirror view.
Will reference this post in my review of the game.

don't forget you can bump up the sharpness and rendering in the graphics option menu ofthe game, so make sure to play with that a bit.

Bumped that up to the max too - like in Lone Echo and Star Wars Squadrons :-) TAA sharpness is great, but does not solve the blurriness enough. Again, check out Kayak VR, they had similar issues at launch, but have now patched the game, and it looks totally awesome with the Index now.

[[XGS]DonkyBoY]

Originally posted by Rune:

Unless many have tried the CV1, they may have no idea what some of us are talking about regarding blur and shimmering textures - and the black levels.

The TAA blur is very easy to see using G2 in Asgard's Wrath (haven't tried Hubris though with G2) - but if some don't notice it - or think the game should look this way, I guess that's a gift :-)

I have Oculus Rift DK2 / CV1
HTC Vive
and
HP Reverb G2 v2

And have no idea what you are on about...
The Oculus Rift CV1 looks like trash compared to the Reverb G2, such low resolution and distracting screen door eww (I actually get motion sick in the CV1 and must use teleport movement in games. I never expected to be able to play something like Hubris ever)

In the Reverb G2 the image is soooooo much nicer and I can tell by using my eyes that it is much much sharper... something to do with more pixels producing a better looking picture.
(For me an added bonus with the superior image quality = I can sprint and jump over cliff faces to grab ledges with out the insta puke)

The difference is night and day between the 2 headset's. While the Oled in the rift may have better contrast levels and blacker blacks it is disgusting to look at compared to the superior resolution of the G2. I do not see any texture shimmering or blur at all.

[Rune]

Originally posted by XGSDonkyBoY:

Originally posted by Rune:

Unless many have tried the CV1, they may have no idea what some of us are talking about regarding blur and shimmering textures - and the black levels.

The TAA blur is very easy to see using G2 in Asgard's Wrath (haven't tried Hubris though with G2) - but if some don't notice it - or think the game should look this way, I guess that's a gift :-)

I have Oculus Rift DK2 / CV1
HTC Vive
and
HP Reverb G2 v2

And have no idea what you are on about...
The Oculus Rift CV1 looks like trash compared to the Reverb G2, such low resolution and distracting screen door eww (I actually get motion sick in the CV1 and must use teleport movement in games. I never expected to be able to play something like Hubris ever)

In the Reverb G2 the image is soooooo much nicer and I can tell by using my eyes that it is much much sharper... something to do with more pixels producing a better looking picture.
(For me an added bonus with the superior image quality = I can sprint and jump over cliff faces to grab ledges with out the insta puke)

The difference is night and day between the 2 headset's. While the Oled in the rift may have better contrast levels and blacker blacks it is disgusting to look at compared to the superior resolution of the G2. I do not see any texture shimmering or blur at all.

Keeping solid 90 fps, and maxing out all in-game graphics settings, what's the highest res you can use with the G2?

[BoterBoon]

Originally posted by Rune:

My suspicion was confirmed as I changed OpenXR from Index and Steam to my old Rift CV1 and Oculus/Meta.

Now the game started in the Rift CV1. Ss 2.5 was too much, but got solid 90 fps or close with ss 2.0 (note that Rift CV1 ss 2.0 is 17 mill pixels res or the same as Index res 200%, which is 18 mill pixels per frame when combining both eyes). That's using an oc'ed RTX 3090 and maxed in-game settings. Note that temporal antialiasing (TAA) is extremely blurry using lcd hmds, but totally sharp with Rift CV1, maybe due to the SDE fooling the brain (like scanlines).

Suddenly, gone was the blur, all looked as sharp as can be with the CV1.
Some lcd users have complained that ambient occlusion was wrong causing shimmering textures and incorrect depth perspective. And I get that too with the Index, so issues are more profound than just TAA blur. And some places are too dark for lcd, can't see a thing.

But using Rift CV1 (=oled panels) all is perfect, no blur, no shimmering textures and ambient occlusion is perfect - and inside dark caves I can see everything. Even controllers work better.

I think Hubris has been in development for 4 or 5 years, and that it originally was never designed for lcd.

It feels like an Oculus game, devs even followed Oculus advice of only supporting OpenXR. Feels like a true Rift CV1 game.

But could also just be a game made for oled - so might work wonders for Vive (Pro) too.

I'll be using CV1 going forward, even with lower res and the SDE, image quality is night and day better than blurry Index with some shimmering textures and lack of proper blacks.

It looks fine on my Rift 2. It looks fine on my Quest 2. I'm not getting any blurriness at all in neither headsets.