The Index thread (please keep to subject)

SkScotchegg said:

RuneSR2 said:

No, it's not mine - it's from the first user on Reddit (Valve Index) who has just received his Index. Mine should arrive August 31. 

Oh I see, I thought you got yours.

Oh well it's a shame he didn't talk more about the quality of what he sees and also the FOV.

I got 31st same as you. Have you received the email yet to pay for it?

Hi @SkScotchegg

My original reservation availability estimate was July 31, and I got the email today. While processing the order and payment the estimated delivery time was now listed as 4-8 days. Hope the August 31 estimates might also get pulled ahead with a better than expected ramp up in production.

I wasn't going to post again tonight but I ran into something that changed one of my opinions so figured I'd follow up. 

I did the FoV test and it came out to about 114 degrees ish for me with the lenses in a comfortable spot. Significant increase over my CV1 and a 9 degree marginal increase over the O+. I don't have a test for Vertical but it's significantly bigger. 

I then did the glare test and was stunned at how much glare there is. I didn't really notice it before because I was busy looking at SDE and running colorful stuff to test colors etc etc. Trover looked great so I'm quite pleased with the colors it can produce. It's great...for an LCD. The Glare test is the good old black background with a white logo. The glare/godrays tend to stay around the outer edges of the lens but when it's at it's worst it's in the ballpark of the original CV1 and is just illuminating all around the outer edges of the lens and becomes quite distracting. Now I did notice it wasn't as bad if I moved the eye relief back a bit but It's disappointing to have a 2019 headset with this issue still. Because of this, I'd consider the visuals on par with the O+ at this point with tradeoffs between the two. 

It's not a dealbreaker for me but I could see it being a legit dealbreaker for some considering the price of this headset so I wanted to post about it. Hopefully someone can capture some images of it. 

Despite that real and annoying problem....the more I use this thing the more I like it. I was in 2MD football and the tracking never worked perfectly for my Rift or my O+. I used to have to damn near throw my shoulder out to get the ball past 40 yards. I jumped in there with the Index and I'm Brett Favre or someone....throwing 80 yard td's on a Rope lol. I also did several other games with a lot of blacks in them and I feel like the majority of people will be content with them. They really aren't bad. 

Also, setup was a breeze. I threw my two base stations in opposite corners, pointed them at each other with my eye ball. Plugged them in, and that was it. Done. Turned it on setup my playspace and started playing. 

@pyroth309 - I was just about to ask you about glare having just read The Road to VR review, but you've also cleared that up now. The only one other thing I find strange in The Road To VR review. He says it's on a par with HP Reverb for clarity? How is that possible given the resolution of the HP Reverb?

RedRizla said:

@pyroth309 - I was just about to ask you about glare having just read The Road to VR review, but you've also cleared that up now. The only one other thing I find strange in The Road To VR review. He says it's on a par with HP Reverb for clarity? How is that possible given the resolution of the HP Reverb?

I'd have to read his review to know what he's talking about. But my guess is that the Mura and red smear is bringing the quality of the Reverb down to the Index. With the inconsistency of HP's Q&A process, who knows what his headset looked like that he's using to compare to the Index.

The Index picture is pretty sharp and it looks good.... once you get get it situated. It took a combination of me tightening the headstrap just right, bringing the band down enough (which also increased the volume of the speakers and they're great now), and then bringing the eye relief up to get a really good result with mine. That's pretty much why I'm liking it the more I use it. The god rays suck but I can live with them for now. We'll see where I'm at at the end of my return window. 

Big question I am going to ask you @pyroth309 is it worth the large sum ? If on par with the odyssey plus visuals wise, that is a big price difference controllers aside.

Techy111 said:

Big question I am going to ask you @pyroth309 is it worth the large sum ? If on par with the odyssey plus visuals wise, that is a big price difference controllers aside.

No it's not worth the large sum. But I said that before I bought it. I'm still trying to work out just how good it is. In some games it's incredible in other games not so much. Some games I run into God rays that bother me some games I don't.

It's overpriced unless there's some feature I'm not seeing but it's probably the best overall HMD package on the market as the only alternative to it is a Vive Pro which is priced even higher. While I think it's on par with the O+ visually (right now this could change), it is a sharper image than the O+ for sure. The O+ has better blacks and better colors, but it also requires some heavy supersampling not to have a soft image so ehh maybe it's not quite on par. It also has worse sweet spot and the visible concentric rings which the Index doesn't that I've seen. I will say the difference isn't huge at the least. 

As far as the Index, I'm going through random games and just seeing how it goes. I am going to get into some simulations which I haven't done yet, i also want to find some games that do useful tasks with Knuckles etc etc. 

Thanks your impressions so far. Sad to hear that you're also experiencing finger tracking issues - I've seen quite a few mention this. 

Wildt said:

Thanks your impressions so far. Sad to hear that you're also experiencing finger tracking issues - I've seen quite a few mention this. 

Yea, mine is pretty minor but it's a real thing for sure. I can't just set my middle finger down like I want, I have to stretch it down for it to pull in my middle finger but I haven't tried to troubleshoot it yet. I'm still focused on the Visuals. 

I am going to try and run some Simulations later this evening as I haven't done that yet and see if the glare bothers in those. 

I am trying to get my head around how the clarity can be better or on par with the HP Reverb as mentioned by Road2VR and Upload VR reviews? If this is the case then 2160x2160 screens aren't necessary.  I am finding this hard to believe and comments more anecdotal rather than an exact science. If this is the case, then that's pretty poor for a pro review.

Shadowmask72 said:

I am trying to get my head around how the clarity can be better or on par with the HP Reverb as mentioned by Road2VR and Upload VR reviews?

No mura or pupil swim.