The Index thread (please keep to subject)

RuneSR2 said:

RuneSR2 said:

"Made for Index and released today! Extreme resolution and photorealism, free demo" - yup, I'm defenseless against such pick up lines :blush:  

https://youtu.be/6IJtoFdriF8

https://youtu.be/rqxFbC-95w4

But 22GB for a non-game where I can't shoot stuff or drive or fly or kill someone with a sword :#

Then again...  >:)  

"Hey kids, this summer we'll travel all over the world and it's dirt cheap and there's no Covid-19!!!"  o:) :D

 https://store.steampowered.com/app/1264180/Blueplanet_VR/

The devs weren't kidding, this app truly is awesome. Maybe they could call it Vacation Simulator for adults ;) 
The res is very high - and furthermore I get solid 90 fps with Index res 200%. Landscapes aren't flat photos, but are made with textured polygons. 
You can go places you probably can't in the real world, because you're walking so close to edges and you would not survive a fall. I don't think any guide would be allowed to take turists to such places. But you are safe in VR.
You can only teleport. Graphics are similar to The Lab, when you visit for example the cave in Iceland. 
Of course it's not the same as being at these locations in the real world, but it'll probably be close enough for many. Using Index res 200% I felt like I could see several miles away, the view distance was awesome. This app shines using high-res hmds, I'm sure Reverb may be the winner, but the big fov is great with the Index. 
For the elderly, or persons having difficulties visiting these places in the real world, Blueplanet VR is an awesome option to get out while staying at home :) 9/10 in my book - for now.

Yesterday the devs made a major error causing the app to be completely deleted and you could not reinstall it. 9GB gone. Apparently it's now fixed, but I have to re-download 9GB - which will take me a least 3 hours. Of course errors can and will happen, but this is the first time I've had an entire app deleted by a patch gone wrong.
Kinda shows how great it is that you're not forced to patch games and apps bought in the Oculus Store. If Steam hadn't forced me to patch Blueplanet VR yesterday, I would not have been exposed to this extremely severe error, sigh.   

What an amazing year - especially considering the journey from 2011 to here:



Congratulations to the team at Valve

Yes congrats valve now lower the prices :)

RuneSR2 said:

" [...] seems the article is 90% about Index problems. I've experienced none of those issues. Personally I think Valve made an amazing hmd, there are no mods I need to make, seems like a complete waste of time and effort. But sure, SteamVR res 200% looks awesome in games where you still can get 1:1 fps:Hz. Compared to my CV1, Index colors pop at least as much, I've had no problems with brightness, which I've kept at 100% the last year. My main issue with the Index is the columns, and these aren't even mentioned in the article."

Ah I should have read it more thoroughly. I don't have an Index so I just was skim reading the article after seeing it posted in a positive light over an Facebook.

I think any issues Index owners may have at this stage are fairly minimal, and reasonable. I mean hell, it's only 1 year old! The Rift CV1 had plenty of damn problems during its first 2 years. The first year was problems just with 1 sensor and an XBox controller. The 2nd year was problems with Touch.

That whole clickgate thing was kinda fun tho lol

Agreed, it's funny that after spending so much time making Index the best they could, then some thumbsticks don't click. Although the drifting probably is the worst controller problem - and some users still experience problems (but it does seem like fewer are reporting such problems - Valve has fixed the thumsticks by making them about 1 mm taller). 
Maybe some of us have been lucky with our CV1s, and CV1s had their share of problems too (like glue under the lenses etc.) - but that said, my CV1 has never had any issues - can't say that about my Index. The main issue with the Index may be that when paying 1k people expect a premium product in every way, and that's not the case with the Index kit. 
Maybe what Valve did to strengthen VR the last year wasn't that much the Index - it's probably much more Half-Life: Alyx. In many ways the Index kit is totally married to Alyx - as Bronwen Grimes, Technical Artist at Valve, said the Index controllers were directly made and modified for HL: Alyx:


Right now close to no game uses Index controllers optimally - not even Alyx. I do hope we will see more support for advanced finger movements, including Touch (where you can use the index finger separately), the next year. 
Interesting what the next year will bring - a safe bet may be more games optimized for lcd hmds, but that would mostly be games that have been in development for less than a year, because 1 year ago close to every VR hmd used oled panels. The biggest impact of Rift-S, Index and Reverb may indeed be the change from oled to more high-res lcd panels, and the many changes to illumination and texture res the latter requires to truly shine. 

Btw, for now these would be close to all the games and apps I use with my Index - note that these are (nearly) all bright games:

• Alyx (ultramersion textures, solid 90 fps, res constantly adapts but usually feels much higher than 100%)
• Boneworks (ultramersion textures, solid 90 fps using res 200% even with 2xMSAA and shadows=high)
• Room VR: A Dark Matter (ultramersion textures, solid 90 fps, res 200%, no ambient occlusion)
• Lucky's Tale (no SDE, great fov, solid 90 fps even forcing SteamVR res 200%)
• Trover Saves The Universe (Revive, no SDE makes all the difference in this game, I've got close to solid 90 fps in res 150%, but I'm forcing very high in-game settings, works fine though). 
• Moss (Revive 1.9.2, looks really awesome with no SDE and higher res - solid 90 fps, res 150%)
• Blueplanet VR (close to ultramersion textures here and there, solid 90 fps, res 200%)
• Museum of Other Realities (solid 90 fps, res 200%)
• Talos Principle (solid 90 fps, res 125/150 % (DirectX/Vulkan), Ultra in-game settings). 
• Vanishing Realms (solid 90 fps, res 200%)
• Pistol Whip (Revive, fov really makes a difference it this game, solid 90 fps res 200% - that game often crashes to some fish-eye image distortion using my CV1, but never Reviving with the Index, quite weird)
• Paper Beast (based on the awesome demo, solid 90 fps, res 200%)
• Mini Motor Racing X (Revive, solid 90 fps using res 200% and 4xMSAA - due to the small cars, this game really shines with the Index compared to CV1 ss 2.0)
• Garden of the Sea (down to res 150% but it still looks great - full finger tracking, great colors)
• Synth Riders (solid 90 fps using res 200%)
• Dead Effect 2 VR (don't remember the res I'm using, may not be 200% - this game is demanding and requires some fiddling with the settings, but looks really great with the Index)
• SkyBox VR Video Player (Index shines in movies using this player - none of the other Steam VR movie players impressed me, including BigScreen).
• The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets (Revive, solid 90 fps in res 200%).  
• Angry Birds (Revive, solid 90 fps res 200% - no SDE, great fov).
• Kin (Revive, solid 90 fps res 200% - that game looks incredibly detailed using res 200%) 
• Windlands 2 (Revive, solid 90 fps, res 150 or 200% - can't remember) 
• Fujii (solid 90 fps, res 200%)

The above is a very small part of my VR games and apps collection. I really do not use Index for those other games, even if I could, I use the CV1 due to oled and/or asw 2.0, and sometimes even the CV1 SDE is your friend. Note that close to all of the big exclusive Oculus games aren't on my Index list - because these play and look much better using the CV1 (ss 2.0), and that even includes Saints and Sinners. 

During the past year I've learned to live with having both CV1 and Index connected to my rig. It has worked surprisingly well - currently I might be using Index more than CV1, but not a lot - I'd guess like 60% Index and 40% CV1 (right now CV1 wins due to Covert Ops). Having both hmds really feels like getting the best of both worlds. 

RuneSR2 said:

Maybe some of us have been lucky with our CV1s, and CV1s had their share of problems too (like glue under the lenses etc.) - but that said, my CV1 has never had any issues - can't say that about my Index.

The main issue with the Index may be that when paying 1k people expect a premium product in every way, and that's not the case with the Index kit. 

I second both points. Not only CV1, but my Quests had fewer issues than my index too (one dead green subpixel between two Quests - replaced in 6 business days)

But I am a fanboy of Valve Index. Didn't used to be when I first got it. But I totally am now.

Which is why it is so much more painful seeing these issues. Especially now that my index is away being replaced - I keep fretting I'm gonna get a dud back. Fingers crossed though; I'm starting to feel the withdrawals

some thumbsticks don't click. I read a few posts up.

Hm, having taken apart both xbox controllers and ps4 controllers to see the thumbsticks i have had a hard time with them tbh.

There's a fine hair thin metal sheet used,  its a spring and its ruined when bent, it affects the stick drift. On this theres the push in stick part.that clicks and is the stick press in button. It looks like this on the xbox one and ps4 controllers;



I would think its a industry standard, the index uses a different type, have a look;



Maybe because its a different type than the one the xbox one and ps4 uses the click gets broken sometimes?

hoppingbunny123 said: 

Maybe because its a different type than the one the xbox one and ps4 uses the click gets broken sometimes?

The issue is that the depth of the shaft opening on the plastic part of the thumbstick is too great (or the shaft itself too short), so the bottom of the plastic bottoms out when pressed. There's a few videos on YouTube that show you how to do a DIY fix by lengthening the shaft or inserting a ball from a ball-tip pen into the hole. This provides an extra millimeter of clearance needed for click to work.

I mulled over doing it myself, but decided against it. Clickgate didn't bother me enough to risk voiding warranty, so I kept it. Until a few months later when the drift developed - that's when Valve replaced the controller.

Here's a link to one of the videos: https://youtu.be/jAaIcZhrMhA

^^It's nice that someone found a fix, but these things cost £130 each so they should not be coming with such issues out of the box, so Valve needs to get this sorted as going by the Valve index forums a year on from launch and this seems to still be issues.

OmegaM4N said:

^^It's nice that someone found a fix, but these things cost £130 each so they should not be coming with such issues out of the box, so Valve needs to get this sorted as going by the Valve index forums a year on from launch and this seems to still be issues.

When you consider everything they got right with these controllers, it's damn right weird that they didn't fix such a small thing. What concerns me about all these VR companies is that they just seem to get away with selling things that are defective on release. If  it's not the controllers, it's the tracking that's off and if it's not the tracking then it's the displays blinking on and off.