Been really enjoying my Rift since summer but the low resolution finally got to me. Thus I broke down and went to the local Microsoft store at the mall and picked up a shiny new Samsung Odyssey. Now before Zenbane shits a brick, it turned out to be a bit fail. I have no idea how Samsung managed to pull this off, but despite having vastly superior lenses (no more death by lens flare) and roughly 30% better resolution with the same FoV, it's harder to read instruments in DCS and I swear it's lower resolution overall. I honestly wasn't expecting that at all, the whole point was to get better image quality, not worse!On the flip side, loading up Robo Recall and From Other Suns with it was far less of a hassle than I was expecting. Plan to return it tomorrow though. I just can't figure out how lower image quality with better lenses and screens is possible. It does have much better contrast and colors though, I will give it that. Really stunning looking if it weren't for the impossibly low resolution. Not a super sampling issue either, tried the same settings (steamVR vs steamVR and in game vs in game, I know OTT uses a different measurement). I even went full retard with the Odyssey and crushed my 1080 TI with super sampling, the Rift still appeared higher resolution with only modest super sampling (1.7 PD for Odyssey vs 1.3 PD for Rift in DCS).

To answer some questions, no, I couldn't see individual pixels but after about 12 hours of tinkering, I think I know what the issue is. It seems to use the cheater resolution technique the current Vive uses. What seems to be going on is while the Rift uses 3 subpixels per pixel (1 red, 1 green, 1 blue for each pixel), the Odyssey does not. It uses 1 subpixel and then shares the other 2 subpixels with its neighbors. This is just a guess on my part, but it explains shimmering I would see around object edges in some games and why text was harder to read. If I'm right, the Odyssey is actually running at about 2/3rds the resolution it claims due to the subpixel setup. That would make it lower resolution than the Rift.Unfortunately this isn't reflected in GPU usage. In DCS, the Rift eats 5.5 GB of VRAM in a test mission I have, the Odyssey eats 8.5GB at the exact same settings in that mission. The Rift also maintained 90 fps (just barely) while the Odyssey mostly hung out in the 60-70 fps range.As for why reviewers would say the Odyssey looks better. That's because it does at first glance. The displays are far more vibrant. I was truly blown away the first time I put it on and loaded up the Microsoft Home. It just looks incredible compared to the Rift. Even in DCS where reading text was harder, the initial impression was excellent.In high contrast scenes, the Odyssey also lacks the massive godrays the Rift has. It does have a little bit of bright blur in extreme cases, but it is far less distracting. Additionally, the SDE is noticeably lower. By SDE I mean the gaps between pixels. I really can't see them in the Odyssey. But as said, the actual resolution seems to be lower despite having more "pixels" and less of a gap between them.edit:As a side note, the controllers for it are certainly usable. They don't detect if your finger is touching the trigger or if your thumb is touching the touchpad/stick or not, so pointing is out but they otherwise work well. They aren't as ergonomic as the Rift's, but are are still good. Tracking was spot on too for the most part, though I had to be careful about reaching down to my hips to grab guns. I found it best to look down a little when doing so. Not having to deal with sensor LoS was an improvement too, but I have a dodgy Rift setup at home due to limited space and a pet rabbit that likes the taste of electricity.I gave FO4 VR a try while I was at it, the controls suck just as hard with touchpads imho. Actually I think they sucked more despite the game being designed exclusively for them instead of our Rift stick hacks. I just couldn't feel where the center was so I kept switching pages in the inventory when I meant to scroll down instead.

This is what gets me whenever some new headset comes along with high numbers on their spec sheet. There's so much more to having a good VR experience than just how many pixels you have. The Rift is a fantastic piece of design work that brings together everything (both hardware and software) to provide a top-notch experience. I think we forget how good we have it when we see some of these upstart 4-8-whatever-K headsets and declare "This will be the best VR HMD on the market!!"Even relying on SteamVR to do some of the heavy lifting, if Samsung can't pull it off, how are some of these other guys going to provide a better HMD than the big boys?

Us glasses wearers have got an advantage where god rays are concerned I think, because at night we see them all the time so we're used to them.

Now we know what @Zenbane looks like !

Wildt said: @BeastyBaiter - Dang.. your impression of the visual quality goes against everything else I've read about this device. Very odd!I was told by a friend who has a Samsung headset the same thing and thought his eyes must need testing. I said about this in another thread because the Vive pro is going to get the same resolution. I managed to to see the Samsung headset for myself when I called at my friends house. For me I could see the text a bit more clearer (I wasn't playing DCS) on the Samsung, but overall it doesn't look much different from a CV1 visually. People are going to pay all that money for a Vive Pro and if it's anything like the Samsung headset then I expect they'll be disappointed. I'm going to wait for nothing short of a 2k headset after seeing this for myself.

Welp, that was a fail | Meta Community Forums

28 Replies

Zenbane
MVP
8 years ago

BeastyBaiter said:

Now before Zenbane shits a brick
Wildt
Consultant
8 years ago
@BeastyBaiter - Dang.. your impression of the visual quality goes against everything else I've read about this device. Very odd!
KlodsBrik
Expert Trustee
8 years ago
Now we know what @Zenbane looks like !
Anonymous
8 years ago
Perhaps the lenses have softer focus? @BeastyBaiter, are you able to make out individual pixels with your eyes as we can on the Rift (at least in the center of the image)?
Anonymous
8 years ago

KlodsBrik said:

Now we know what @Zenbane looks like !

Pfft

Zenbanes a Texan, here he was a little earlier today
KlodsBrik
Expert Trustee
8 years ago

vannagirl said:

KlodsBrik said:

Now we know what @Zenbane looks like !

Pfft

Zenbanes a Texan, here he was a little earlier today

Yeah, that´s much more like I had pictured him.
Though, with twice as big a belly and touch controllers....
Evolution be my guess.
Fazz
Honored Visionary
8 years ago

Wildt said:

@BeastyBaiter - Dang.. your impression of the visual quality goes against everything else I've read about this device. Very odd!

I was told by a friend who has a Samsung headset the same thing and thought his eyes must need testing. I said about this in another thread because the Vive pro is going to get the same resolution. I managed to to see the Samsung headset for myself when I called at my friends house. For me I could see the text a bit more clearer (I wasn't playing DCS) on the Samsung, but overall it doesn't look much different from a CV1 visually. People are going to pay all that money for a Vive Pro and if it's anything like the Samsung headset then I expect they'll be disappointed. I'm going to wait for nothing short of a 2k headset after seeing this for myself.
Wildt
Consultant
8 years ago
@RedRizla - Thanks for the report. I guess I'm gonna have to try it out for myself before ordering anything with this resolution bump.

In contrast here's what UploadVR thought:

"To put it simply, to my eyes the Odyssey’s visuals improve upon Rift and Vive in every way. At CES we also tried the Vive Pro, which uses the same resolution Samsung display. It wasn’t a lot of time with the Vive Pro and we didn’t try them side by side, so it is hard to comment more about the optical differences between the two. But we are left with the overall impression that Odyssey’s clarity — from resolution to lenses — currently leads the industry. In a CES demo provided by NextVR using the Odyssey, the company showed how crisp a captured scene can look in the Odyssey. It is hard to go back to the decreased resolution after experiencing the improvement."
Fazz
Honored Visionary
8 years ago
@Wildt - It's a funny one because unless you have them side by side it's hard to tell the differences. Obviously there must be differences, but I'm not sure they are good enough to warrant upgrading to a Samsung headset. The colours on the Samsung do seem better, but I think I was expecting a lot more, much more. Maybe that's what killed it for me that my expectation was to high. If CV2 came out looking like the Samsung though, I'm not sure if I'd just stick with my CV1 for what it's worth.

There's one thing I hate about CV1 and that's the GodRays which I think prevent me from enjoying watching movies in a darken setting. But I see why Oculus used these lenses now because without them things might have looked a lot worse.
Morgrum
Expert Trustee
8 years ago
I wont lie i almost wasted 200$ on the Star Wars headet last Sunday whenI saw it at Best Buy.

For now im completely good with my rift.