The Index thread (please keep to subject)

C.E. Looked absolutely beautiful on my Rift cv1 w/2.0ss.  Very trippy, lol!  I’m looking forward to trying this with my Vive Pro, especially since I recently got an Etsy Gear VR Lens mod.  Really looks picture perfect now.

I tried Space Engine and while it looked great it’s just not for me.  I found it to hard to navigate with touch controllers and control itself was not very intuitive.  Ended up getting a Steam refund.

TomCgcmfc said:

C.E. Looked absolutely beautiful on my Rift cv1 w/2.0ss.  Very trippy, lol!  I’m looking forward to trying this with my Vive Pro, especially since I recently got an Etsy Gear VR Lens mod.  Really looks picture perfect now.

Awesome, could you check if you can start the video from Oculus Home without SteamVR starting? I've made a thread about this on Steam, but so far no answers.

Btw, by accident I have tried to launch SteamVR with both CV1 and Index active, and that did not go well. Index will take priority and I can hear the base stations starting, so even wearing the CV1 getting into SteamVR was not possible. Also got some strange visual artifacts in the CV1, even if I quickly deactivated SteamVR, but all was back to normal after rebooting the rig.
In short, having both CV1 and Index connected, CV1 only works through Oculus Home or if a Steam title supports native Oculus drivers. Index works with close to all SteamVR apps and most apps from Oculus can be Revived. But it's probably not a setup I'd recommend to users new to VR, lol.

Ok, I tried CE on both my Cosmos and Vive Pro (both with new Etsy Gear VR lens mods).  Cosmos colour and clarity was a bit nicer than my cv1 but Cosmos lcd blacks were a little grayish (but still pretty dark looking).  In dark areas I felt that the cv1 gave better overall contrast and made features seem to have a bit more 3D texture.  So, win for the cv1 over my Cosmos on this app.

Ok, then came the Vive Pro.  OMG, it's a different world!  Blacks were black and contrast in dark areas makes everything pop out.  The main reason of course is their higher res oled's but I think that the new lens mod has also helped quite a bit.  This mod actually seems to help the Pro more than the Cosmos for reasons I cannot figure out.  I am not getting any distortion and the sweet spot is good almost right the lens edges.  Only disadvantage is that because of the lens slightly smaller diameter you loose ~3-5deg FOV.  For me that's an ok trade off for a nice big sweet spot and to never see a Fresnel circle ever again.  

A couple of YT guys told me that when they got this latest Etsy lens mod for their Pro's they both ended up selling their Index headsets (but kept their Index controllers of course), then went wireless.  I found that pretty hard to believe but maybe not now.  I just wish that Valve would start shipping Index bits down to Australia.  Hard to believe they have not done that yet.  In any case I don't think that Valve's next Index batch is going to be ready till late Feb/2020 anyway.  Maybe I'll be used to the Vive wands by then, lol!

Just my view but I think that both Valve and Vive kinda made a mistake by not going to oled screens for the Index and Cosmos.  Maybe game developers will eventually be able to offer in-game setting options for both lcd and oled headsets.  Who knows?

This is kinda old news with 1.9.2 being out for some weeks, and yes Stormland really works and you can deactivate the super-blurry TAA and use SMAA with the Index (TAA looks perfect and not at all blurry with the CV1 thanks to the SDE), but until I get a 3080 Ti "all base are belong" to CV1, lol:

https://www.roadtovr.com/stormland-revive-index-vive-wmr-windows-vr/



I consider Stormland the one true CV1 game if there ever was one - ok, there're Asgard's Wrath and Lone Echo too ;)

Asgard's Wrath looks mint on the Reverb especially once you lower the AA. In fact, I've actually not used the Index for a while now as it gathers dust. I am not sure why I am keeping it to be honest and it was a big investment for something I do not use or feel the need to use under any circumstances. I am just a sucker for the clarity in VR of which the Index cannot compare. So, I might just sell the headset and keep the controllers for the Pimax 8KX when that eventually releases.

Index is awesome if you don't own a working Reverb.

Shadowmask72 said:

Asgard's Wrath looks mint on the Reverb especially once you lower the AA. In fact, I've actually not used the Index for a while now as it gathers dust. I am not sure why I am keeping it to be honest and it was a big investment for something I do not use or feel the need to use under any circumstances. I am just a sucker for the clarity in VR of which the Index cannot compare. So, I might just sell the headset and keep the controllers for the Pimax 8KX when that eventually releases.

Index is awesome if you don't own a working Reverb.

Have you thoroughly tested the Index fov and 120/144 Hz? Dialing the lenses all in and taking a sightseeing tour in Aircar is one way I love to reduce stress, lol. 
If I had a 2080 Ti I'd probably go for the 120 Hz. But agreed, normally I'd rate ss (image quality) above Hz. 
Just wondering - did you notice any vertical inverted pixel lines in Index or Reverb? (If you see them, they will probably only be present for a few milliseconds each time)

There comes a point rune when one just has to stop the testing/comparisons and enjoy VR for what it is. That is what I have been doing recently and enjoying VR more as a result. How much more could I enjoy Boneworks for example if I was able to play at 120hz? How much visual clarity would I lose as a result though? There are too many variables tied to ones enjoyment factor.

Seeing as you don't have a Reverb for comparison, I think you might actually follow my route if you owned one. You seem to be all about the visual acuity and the Reverb is the current market leader in that regard (especially when paired with a 2080ti so I can run most games at 150% SS in Steam VR). The only impacting negatives you can't ignore are the controllers being vastly inferior. All the other shortcomings you can lose yourself in and they fade away as you become engrossed in the activity. 

Coming from a Pimax headset one has to temper FOV expectations of any other headset right now. The differences between these lower fov headsets isn't massive. I think things might get interesting if the upcoming Pimax 8KX delivers. It seems Pimax has a better footing to launch this product later this year. I believe it will be Reverb quality (or better) but with a wider field of view.

Shadowmask72 said: The only impacting negatives you can't ignore are the controllers being vastly inferior.

Have you found a good, simple cable management solution that reduces the pull that this unflexible behemoth has on the HMD?

I have mine tied around the back so the weight shifts to the rear. This works fine for me as I mostly play seated. I'll try and find the photo where I got the idea from.

Something similar to this.

Shadowmask72 said:

Asgard's Wrath looks mint on the Reverb especially once you lower the AA. In fact, I've actually not used the Index for a while now as it gathers dust. I am not sure why I am keeping it to be honest and it was a big investment for something I do not use or feel the need to use under any circumstances. I am just a sucker for the clarity in VR of which the Index cannot compare. So, I might just sell the headset and keep the controllers for the Pimax 8KX when that eventually releases.

Index is awesome if you don't own a working Reverb.

Shadowmask72 said:

There comes a point rune when one just has to stop the testing/comparisons and enjoy VR for what it is. That is what I have been doing recently and enjoying VR more as a result. How much more could I enjoy Boneworks for example if I was able to play at 120hz? How much visual clarity would I lose as a result though? There are too many variables tied to ones enjoyment factor.

Seeing as you don't have a Reverb for comparison, I think you might actually follow my route if you owned one. You seem to be all about the visual acuity and the Reverb is the current market leader in that regard (especially when paired with a 2080ti so I can run most games at 150% SS in Steam VR). The only impacting negatives you can't ignore are the controllers being vastly inferior. All the other shortcomings you can lose yourself in and they fade away as you become engrossed in the activity. 

Coming from a Pimax headset one has to temper FOV expectations of any other headset right now. The differences between these lower fov headsets isn't massive. I think things might get interesting if the upcoming Pimax 8KX delivers. It seems Pimax has a better footing to launch this product later this year. I believe it will be Reverb quality (or better) but with a wider field of view.

I'm absolutely delighted that you are happy with your LCD Reverb and WMR mate.  Maybe you should sell me your Index headset and controllers for just enough $'s to buy another Reverb?  Just kidding, lol!

While I do not currently have an Index (mainly because they still do not sell them in Australia, or I'd probably have one by now) I have gotten a lot of value from Rune's posts regarding the value of having an oled headset like the Rift cv1 and being able to run it in parallel with other high-end lcd headsets.  Many games/sims run and work soooo well with the good old oled cv1 @ 2.0 SS, esp. Oculus store ones.  Many also seem to work very well with my Vive Pro oled's, esp. with the Gear VR lens mod.  The cv1 touch controllers are still pretty hard to beat though imho.

Besides the Reverb being WMR, with a big heavy cable and WRM controllers, there is no way that I would even consider buying one now even though I can easily afford to do so.  My IPD is 69.0 and the in the past (Dell WMR headset = RIP) the windows 10 software IPD did not seem to make a lot of difference, but it did at least seem to help a little bit.  With the latest Win10 feature updates beyond ~ 1809 this seems to be broken with the Reverb and this has not been fixed so far, at least that I'm aware of anyway.  Also, I do not have a lot of faith in Microsoft's commitment/support of WMR (remember the win10 smartphone?).

I'm getting pretty tired of hearing comments by a few persons that the Reverb is the overall best headset for Flight sims like X-Plane 11.  Even with a rtx2080ti most Reverb users seem to be happy with 30fps.  No way I want less than 45fps with any of my current headsets (cv1, Vive Pro, Cosmos) and with the right settings I can easily see all flight instruments.  

Obviously you can get better fps performance with much less demanding flight sims like AF FS2 or Flyinside sims.  Try some night flying with xp11 and I think you will easily see the difference between lcd and oled headsets imho.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that all currently available VR headsets have +/-'s and we should not so quickly say that one is significantly better than the other unless we compare them on common ground, with best settings.  Whatever works best for you is great though imho.

Sorry if I've gone a bit Index off-topic mates.