The Index thread (please keep to subject)

Honored Contributor

Maybe time to try the Zelda SteamVR Home - and check out The Shire at the end, looks awesome:

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

Honored Contributor

Interesting that the Hinge devs don't just quit and give up - I think these devs are from Russia, and maybe their salaries are so low that they don't need much income to make ends meet. They just updated the game again:

Hello there!

This is the biggest Hinge update since the release. This update includes 3 new endings and more.
We have reworked the game in detail and made it more understandable for you. We listened carefully to your feedback. You no longer have to record music with a phonograph several times - now only 1 time is enough. Now the protagonist writes hints in his notebook as if it is his own thoughts.

Added 3 new endings
Added notebook with objectives & hints
Added few more objectives
Added nausea reduction in the game menu
Now tuning fork detects monsters
Phonograph records music that is not erased after death
Added a wristwatch to determine the cycle time of the main character
Locations in the maze are cut off after visiting them
Added a hint that explains how the cycle works
Motion blur is disabled by default
Added a sound volume setting to the menu
Added lighting for gameplay objects, which works when volumetric light is off

Note that I do not recommend this game, but it is real VR with great volumetric lighting - and maybe the devs are right that this level of lighting has not been done before in VR.

Also recommended specs are sky high:

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 10
Processor: Intel Core i7-7700K / AMD Ryzen 7 1700X
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: nVidia GeForce RTX 2080 / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 10 GB available space

Thus no low-end mobile gpus below a 3080 here, lol.

My GTX 1080 was in trouble even with CV1 and ASW 2.0.

Now I'm thinking that with the - for now - close to unlimited powers of the RTX 3090 - maybe I can get this elephant to fly using Index 90 Hz - or at least CV1 with ASW, lol.

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5v_X1k02U0

Honored Contributor

RuneSR2 wrote:
Note that I do not recommend this game, but it is real VR with great volumetric lighting - and maybe the devs are right that this level of lighting has not been done before in VR.

Rinse and repeat. If the game is not worth recommending (which I agree with), it is because the "experience" is not good; and VR is defined by an experience, not by pretty colors (including volumetric lighting).

Volumetric lighting is incredibly easy to achieve, and should in no way be associated with "real VR."

How to create volumetric lighting in Unity and Unreal Engine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Iow3t7zZPE

Honored Contributor

RTX 3090 is a total game changer with the Index.

The Forest performed very badly with my GTX 1080 and really needed res 150%, but often I could not even get 45 fps. Now it's solid 90 fps using res 200%, feels like an entirely new game.

Other badly optimized games like Wolfenstein Cyberpilot now also perform in solid 90 fps res 200%. This game needs res 200% maybe even more to fight the very blurry image quality.

1976 Back to Midway also was res 100% with the GTX 1080, because you need solid 90 fps in that game. Now I can do at least res 200% with solid 90 fps - probably also 120+ fps.

Surely many Index games played fine using a GTX 1080, but now the extremely demanding ones are performing like a dream come true. Maybe even 120 fps, but was just trying to compare directly with the old GTX 1080 performance, and I mostly used 90 Hz with that gpu.

With the Silent Bios, the Asus Strix OC 3090 gets gpu temps from 67 to 76 degrees Celcius, so similar to the GTX 1080.

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

Honored Contributor

RuneSR2 wrote:
RTX 3090 is a total game changer with the Index.

The Forest performed very badly with my GTX 1080 and really needed res 150%, but often I could not even get 45 fps. Now it's solid 90 fps using res 200%, feels like an entirely new game.

Unfortunately that's not how becoming a game changer works (nor changing the game). The Forest is quite old, and getting a new GPU in order to make an old badly optimized game work properly only speaks to that specific title and configuration, not "the game" itself. Which in this case, the game is simply: VR Gaming.

To that end, VR Gaming remains exactly the same as it was prior to the 3090 release. Granted, there's more eye candy for the graphic enthusiast, which is fine. But that's a personal preference that doesn't extend to VR Gaming as a whole.

Not to mention that The Forest itself is, unfortunately, just another "survival" clone coming out of the Minecraft craze. Granted this one is scary and known for its Nekid Cannibals (lol?), but not much of a challenge overall.

This Steam review pretty sums up the experience for the non-survival enthusiasts:

Honored Contributor

Seems the devs can't stop themselves constantly making new game vids, lol - but this does look great. Should be not problem with the RTX 3090 in 120 fps res 200 %, I'll test it tomorrow.

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

Up and Coming

RuneSR2 wrote:
Seems the devs can't stop themselves constantly making new game vids, lol - but this does look great. Should be not problem with the RTX 3090 in 120 fps res 200 %, I'll test it tomorrow.

Yea that does look great. I bought the game when it was fresh out because it reminds me of one of my favorite game series... Mount & Blade and I wanted to support it. I've put new VR games on hold until I get my Vive. Will try it soon though. I went through the updates log and like what they've done.

Up and Coming

I think that review is selling The Forest a bit short. The game has more than 241k steam reviews, with an overall positive rating of 94%. I'd say the majority beg to differ with that negative review actually.

I found it to be a lot of fun with a friend personally. We got attacked almost nonstop after a couple weeks in the game. All manner of freaky mutant cannibals showed up to harrass us and destroy our base. We actually had to retreat into the caves to find supplies because we ran out of everything. I think where you build/end up has something to do with how often you get attacked. I didn't find the AI particularly great but I mean, it's better than a lot of other games I've played. All in all I got about 30 hours of enjoyment out of it.

Honored Contributor

Fully agreed. The Forest really looks awesome. My main issue with the game is the horror - I'm not that fond of VR horror, lol.

The Forest with all the extreme vegetation never truly was designed for VR, explaining why the game requires a true beast of a rig to run well. Chugging along with 22.5 - 30 - 45 fps is greatly reducing immersion, and aliasing is very easy to see with Index below res 150%.

Thus getting res 200% and solid 90 fps in The Forest easily jump my rating of the game from 5/10 to at least 8/10, maybe even 9/10. The Forest has something few VR games have - namely a great story where you have to rescue your son Timmy - and tons of content. Guess you could describe the game as an open-world hellish nightmare, but right now I'm more morivated for finding Timmy than ever 🙂

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

Up and Coming

I'm not a fan of horror either lol. I didn't have a problem in VR until the caves....having it be so dark with certain things lurking..... If I didn't have my friend with me and was playing alone I probably wouldn't have made it. 😆

Up and Coming

On one hand I agree with what you're saying with regard to it being a shift in VR as it's clearly not in the overall scheme of things. For one the 3090 will never sell in numbers big enough to impact enough.

That said I believe Rune was just saying it was a game changer in regard to gaming on his Index. I would imagine going from a 1080 to a 3090 would definitely make a lot of games much more enjoyable on the Index...and Rift or Quest 2 as well.

I will say with regard to the The Forest, I played it on my Odyssey with my 1080 and I wish I had a 3090 back then as it got pretty choppy. I would have considered the upgrade game changing for my personal experience but it would stop there.

Anyways, I just had to stick up for The Forest as a game because I thought it was a solid game and that review was completely trashing it. Games like that are definitely better multiplayer if for nothing else than to split the workload of gathering and building. That can be quite dull alone.

I do enjoy survival games but I never got into minecraft. I can't stand looking at it. I don't know if it's classified as a Survival game but I was first pulled into those hunting/gathering type games in the mid 80's with a little game called The Oregon Trail. I have enjoyed several of them since. Most recently Ark, 7 days to die, Subnautica, Rust, Valheim, etc.

Honored Contributor

Exactly - RTX 3090 changes many games with the Index, because Index easily eats up all the rendering power you have. Getting into res 200% - which clearly provides the best Index image quality - and 144 fps in some games easily require an even faster gpu than the 3090. Surely the 3090 is a massive game changer for G2 too - or close to the minimum requirement, lol 😉

Using a GTX 1080 (again my oc'ed model corresponded to a non-oc'ed desktop model of the RTX 2070 Super) wasn't bad, but I constantly had to use 90 Hz and often lower res to about 100% (simpler games worked just fine in res 200% though).

Surely for pancake gaming in 1920x1080 in 60 Hz the RTX 3090 may be a complete waste - as I usually can play in solid 60 fps using Ultra settings in all my pancake games, like Doom Eternal. And Rage 2.

Only reason for RTX 3090 in pancakes would be for those few games that enable raytracing. Or if you need to feed a 4K (120Hz) display.

But for Index, as said, getting nearly 3 times the performance of my old rig is totally a game changer.

Going from my GTX 680 to 1080 was mind-blowingly awesome - and it's close to exactly the same jump in performance I'm getting going from 1080 to 3090.

One can imagine many things without having any experience, but starting up The Forest last night I was really blown away by seeing such a massive performance gain. What was close to unplayable before was now smooth as silk. Like being there - for the first time.

This is basically why you need that 3090 for Forest VR (ok 3080/6800 and similar are great too, lol) - and a relatively high-res hmd like the Index with big fov for the scenic views 😎

About the image of a lake - there're a lot of fish in these, quite fascinating to observe. You can start a "no enemies" game - now you can just walk around and enjoy (simulated) nature 🙂

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

Honored Contributor

RuneSR2 wrote:
What was close to unplayable before was now smooth as silk. Like being there - for the first time.

Again - and at the risk of splitting hairs - what is being described here is not a "game changer," what is being described here is fixing a problem. The Forest was clearly made to be played smoothly. So the only thing that has happened here is that a problem was fixed. Fixing problems to make something "work as intended" isn't game changing.

Or more specifically:
Working as intended <> Changing the Game

https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/comments/nbh1k4/valve_sent_me_a_new_cable_even_though_i_am_months/

Honored Contributor

First confirmation that Valve will ship free cables even to users out of warranty - quite awesome 👌👍

Another dude also got a cable, but he still had warranty, so that didn't really count.

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

O

OmegaM4N

Honored Contributor

Nice, possibly with the pandemic on its last legs hopefully, they are now getting stuff manufactured.

CV1/Vive-knuckles)/Dell Vr Visor/Go/Quest II/ PSVR/PSVR 2.

Up and Coming

I wonder if Valve is even making a profit on Index at $999 with all of the replacement parts they have to send out.

Honored Contributor

I guess it's only fair if Valve doesn't make money on the Index - they take 30% of each software sale on Steam if I remember correctly, time to give something back to consumers 😉

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

https://www.vrfocus.com/2021/05/a-rogue-escape-surfaces-in-june-for-pc-vr/

Honored Contributor

New escape room coming up - devs have confirmed full support for Knuckles - although I'm not that fond of escape room games, but this one is real VR - nice (ok-ish) poly levels and textures:

Arrives in 1 month - more info here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1476100/A_Rogue_Escape/

https://armorgamesstudios.com/games/rogue-escape/

Still does look like an Index 144 fps res 300 % game, lol

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

Honored Contributor

RuneSR2 wrote:
this one is real VR - nice (ok-ish) poly levels and textures:

Again, visuals don't define VR (or "real VR"). Until this game is actually released, nobody will know if it is "real VR" as that depends on whether the game is fully immersive or not. It is the immersive experience that defines "real VR," not poly levels and textures.