HTC Vive quality extremely poor, screen tearing?

[Ųŋĸńōŵņ]

Hi,

just bought a HTC vive... all games and even the "vive tutorial" look horrible through the vive. They look great on my pc but in the HTC its like playing on 640x480 AND text is almost unreadable... i dont know what it is called... i guess screen tearing?

Does anyone know how to fix this? or where I can set options like vsync or other stuff? I know this aint 4k but I should at least get the quality as I have on my 1920x1080 monitor right?

Best way I can describe it is, all the edges of all objects, people, letters, et cetera is "twitching / moving"

[shponglefan]

The perceived resolution in the Vive is going to be lower than even 1080p on a regular monitor. This is due to using small screens with only 1080x1200 resolution across a much larger FOV than a standard monitor.

As for screen tearing, you shouldn't be getting any. The Vive runs at 90 Hz consistently with reprojection for when it hits lower fps. The latter can cause motion blur, but not tearing.

To improve visual quality, you can try super sampling, which will improve overall sharpness in most applications. But you need a sufficiently powerful GPU (980Ti or better) to really take advantage of it.

[VRManiac]

Originally posted by GroundZero:

I should at least get the quality as I have on my 1920x1080 monitor right?

Resolution on the Vive is 2160x1200 (1080x1200 per eye) overall, with a lot of crossover in the middle. The big difference between your monitor and an HMD is pixels per degree in your field of vision. Where your monitor makes up about 25° of your FoV, the Vive with roughly the same resolution spreads over 110° of your FoV so the resolution will appear much lower.

If you have a powerful GPU you can sharpen the visuals significantly using a technique called supersampling. You'll need to read up on it a bit as it's not a simple on/off thing and is managed differently depending on game/engine.

Some programs like Virtual Desktop have supersampling baked into the code, making text much more readable. It's so good, I can use my Vive or Oculus as a giant monitor for day-to-day work if I want to, even writing/editing code right in the HMD. You'd never realistically be able to do that without supersampling.

Once you've read up a bit on supersampling, there's a new program that integrates with SteamVR very nicely to help manage it. Check it out here: https://github.com/matzman666/OpenVR-AdvancedSettings/releases

EDIT: Lol - you're too quick for me Shpong ;)

[Ųŋĸńōŵņ]

I have a MSI GTX 980 TI Lightning :) Image quality is oke, its just that all edges are "moving" or "flickering" or something, not sure how to describe it. Only see it when looking through my Vive, not when I look at the small screen on my regular window.

[mrorange]

You get used to the resolution. For sure it is not perfect at the moment. But better at the moment for this price not available.

[Ųŋĸńōŵņ]

as said, I can live with the resolution no problem but all edges in the game are "moving" and nothing like the small window I get on my desktop :/

[shponglefan]

Originally posted by VRManiac:

EDIT: Lol - you're too quick for me Shpong ;)

S'okay, your answers are typically more detailed. ;)

[shponglefan]

Originally posted by GroundZero:

as said, I can live with the resolution no problem but all edges in the game are "moving" and nothing like the small window I get on my desktop :/

It sounds like aliasing. It's more noticeable in VR due to lower perceived resolution. Super sampling and MSAA can help reduce it.

[Ųŋĸńōŵņ]

Ah thank for your answer shponglefan :) how can I turn this higher? i dont see it in the settings of HTC Vive :(

[VRManiac]

Originally posted by GroundZero:

how can I turn this higher?

The easiest way is to use the OpenVR Advanced Settings program I linked above. You can also manually edit a config file, which is messy and error prone.

[Ųŋĸńōŵņ]

Yeah tried installed that, followed the steps but nothing happened unfortunately, no program starting or now configuration available :(

I do have a checkbox "advanced settings" that I checked in the "applications" tab... thats the one u mean? I still see no available settings for super sampling and -or MSAA.

See the image i made, not exactly what I see through the Vive but... u get the point... ALL edges are moving and kinda "blinking" or "flashing" what ever u want to call it :)

left one is what Vive shows, right one is what my desktop shows in a small window. Right is perfectly fine, left is a ♥♥♥♥♥ if this happens to all edges.

[Super Bambaspis]

What you are seeing are objects in the game world moving. As they move relative to your position, or you to theirs, they activate different, new or more pixels on the screen, and those pixels jump to whatever color the object may be.

In VR, the camera is alllways moving a little, because your head isn't perfectly still - so what you get is pixels changing, to often contrasting, colors rapidly - and you get your shimmering edge look.

The shimmering is also very noticable as every object displayed is built out of less, bigger pixels compared to traditional 1080 gaming.

So VR is terrible forr that shimmering effect - The low reoslution would be enough to cause it, but the constantly shifting camera compounds the problem.


MSAA is going to take the edge off the worst of the contrast difference between the leading and trailing edges of the 3D geometry in games - it will make it less distracting. But, even with MSAA, you are still going to see that flickering. Is it going to be worth the performance hit for you?

You do get used to the flickering of VR... if you let yourself.

[Wirenut48]

After you install advanced settings it is accessible through the dashboard.
You'll have a compensator slider for the dashboard and an App slider for content.

[Ųŋĸńōŵņ]

thanks for the reply guys... I understand, to bad nothing is known yet about the Vive 2 i.e. release date (HTC Oasis) haha, if it would launch in a couple of months I would rather wait for that but then again... if the rumors are real i.e. 120mhz at 4k I am sure most people would need to buy a new beast of a computer and thus you end up spending 3,5 just to play VR haha.

I guess ill just take this little bit off "loss" and have fun with it. I guess it also comes to the game i.e. Dangerous Elite, Dota 2, et cetera... quality differs a LOT in those games especially DE is very bad with VR at the moment for example but that is mostly the game it self I recon.

Thanks for all your answers guys, really helpful!

[HPD...imo [v1nce]]

My complaint is the majority of the games look like graphics from 1995! I don't notice the crappy resolution becasue the games are so poor.

[Super Bambaspis]

Originally posted by HPD...imo v1nce:

My complaint is the majority of the games look like graphics from 1995! I don't notice the crappy resolution becasue the games are so poor.

Lol, well, that's a bit of an exageration :) Games in 1995 were lucky if they were made out of polygons at all.

You probably know this below, but this is for others who dont:

There are two main reasons the games look bad compared to current non-vr games:

1) At the moment it's mainly small studio's making them because there aren't the potential customers to launch a big high budget project. Without the higher sales, you don't get the better graphics.

2) A normal min spec for a non-vr game allows for at least 30-60fps, In VR all games need to hit 90fps minimum... minimum! That means the graphics MUST be behind the current non vr game standard.

When there are more headsets on heads, and big studios are making games, VR games will still not have the same technical good looks as current non-vr games, they just can't - not when they have to hit that 90fps min. Things will get better, when bigger studios can afford to make polished games - but it will always be behind.

Still though, the VR makes up for it.