The Index thread (please keep to subject)

The following is opinion. Don't let it offend you:

I've been using a Rift since launch day. Index is a substantial and enjoyable improvement in resolution, sound, and finger tracking. Build quality is better as well. I felt 'presence' tonight for the first time in years.

For me, tracking on my 3 sensor setup Rift is better than the 2, 2.0 lighthouse Index. I get hand drift intermittently and a slight hand tremor in the Index I never got with the rift. Neither system is perfect, but in my environment (glossy marble floors), the rift works better.

The index is noticeably heavier. Each headset is comfortable in different ways but at this point, I feel better in the rift because of the weight of the Index.

I'm running at 144hz. It is nice, but not enough to be a flagship feature of this device. Additionally, I agree with others; the black levels are atrocious and the colors are faded.

Interactions are often broken with the knuckles controllers. At this point, my SteamVR library plays better on my rift than on my index because of it, much of it having to do with default button mapping.

End to end, anything involving UI and UI interactions is leaps and bounds better on the Rift. Everything feels clunkier on the Index.

I often have parties with work friends and friends from college that end up devolving into VR parties. Every single time, I could put a person in VR and trust they would figure out what to do with the oculus touch controllers quickly. At this point, I feel the Index wouldn't work for novices/parties. I believe they would get confused by the non-optimized control schemes, the jarring loading screens that pull you into a different room, the pauses/stutters/weird scrolling behaviors in SteamVR, among other issues. Also, I believe the unreliable finger tracking of the knuckles would likely pull them right out of the experience.

Overall, I miss my rift often while playing with the index. Probably partly because I thought I was going to be thrilled to get rid of the rift. The Index is better in all the ways a hardware nerd such as myself wants, but I think the larger experience is better on the Rift (and yes, I mean the original rift). I'm a little bit disappointed but I have zero faith in oculus because of the Rift S design and will be sticking with the Index.

TL;DR: the spec bumps of the Index made me feel 'presence' for the first time in years. Some moments in VR in the Index are far better than anything I've experienced before. Unfortunately, every other moment ends up being below what you would experience on a rift. In my non-emotional opinion, the VR is better in the Index but the overall experience is better with the Rift.

If you have a rift, you would love the index... but you don't need to get it right away.

Hardware specs: i7 6700k @5ghz, 32gb of ddr4, RTX 2080ti FE, OS on NVMe drive, games stored on mix of a second NVMe drive and SSD.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/comments/c6vddp/impressions_of_an_oculus_rift_cv1_owner_with_a/ 

Seems to reconfirm the idea of keeping CV1 for my kids, while I can use the Index. 

Set-up- super easy, much easier than my old cv1. I just installed a sensor into opposite corners of the room and aimed down toward the center. I then plugged them in, plugged in the hmd, and fired up steamvr. I hit next a few times, walked around the room to set the boundary, and I was ready to go. Not having to align sensors like with the cv1 was quite nice.

Display resolution/colors- awesome. Resolution is great, I can read all text in games. There is no SDE that I noticed. Colors look great. I don't notice a difference between the index and a CV1 in elite dangerous. I'm not sure how anyone can claim the black levels are bad. Perhaps if you yank off a vive pro and then immediately try the index you might see a difference, but in real world usage, I don't see black levels being problem.

Display refresh rate- Refresh rate is absolutely noticably better, but I wouldn't say I was blown away here. I will say that after 3 hours of non stop play, when I took of the headset, i did not have any goofy vision and I didn't feel off in any way, and I'm thinking the increased refresh has a lot to do with it. I did have post VR fuzziness with the cv1 and other headsets in the past.

Lenses- Just great. Positional sweet spot seems as good or slightly better than the CV1. Clarity is much better and wider. In elite dangerous I can just move my eyes and text is clear and ledgable. FOV is not mind blowing but noticably improved from the CV1. God rays are MUCH improved over the CV1. They are still there a tiny bit but they don't burn your irises like the CV1 god rays do.

Sound- Blew me away. Audio is loud and clear, absolutely unrivaled, and the off ear headphones/speakers are wonderful touch. The cv1 headphones would irritate my ears after long sessions, no more with the index headphones.

Comfort and build- as many others have mentioned, it's the most comfortable HMD, it's not even close. Build quality is awesome, everything just oozes quality and you absolutely get your dollars worth. All other VR kits feel like baby toys in comparison.

Controllers- They are exactly what I expected, solid, and a joy to use. There is a bit of relearning to do for sure. I found myself gripping the controllers instead of letting them hang freely for the first hour or two. At the end of the second hour, they felt very natural and I almost forgot they were there in certain games.

Tracking- Coming from a CV1 with three sensors, I found two index base stations to be superior. I had absolutely zero tracking issues.

To summarize, it seems Valve took the very best features of every VR kit, and then improved on them. I'd absolutely recommend the Index kit to anyone with an HMD less than a vive pro, and I'd certainly recommend the index controllers for those with a Vive Pro.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/comments/c6s5fe/another_review_impressions_post_quite_positive/

It seems the subjective experience differs greatly between users - some love the Index, others don't, some see SDE, some don't - some like the sound, some don't etc. It's very hard getting info that I think might represent my preferences. 

I never thought I would say this… I know I know… some people have not received they packages yet, which sucks. BUT THE NEGATIVE THINGS YOU’VE HEARD ABOUT IT ARE TRUE… Yes, I know I can’t believe it myself, I really really wanted to like the index.

Resolution:

Headset resolution is higher and you can tell, as a matter of fact, if you lower the resolution to 60% (rendering) you can barely tell the difference, I was kinda surprised about this, maybe because of the pixel arrangement and such, I’m not an expert.

Screen Door effect:

As state in many of the posts the SDE is much diminished, it’s hard to notice, especially when you get engaged in the game. This is the only thing that I really really liked about the Index, unfortunately.

God Rays:

God rays are not present as we are used to, BUT there are artifacts around the edges that are VERY distracting, like WTF?!?! I cannot explain it very well, it’s almost as if it’s more all around instead of being the “regular god ray”. THIS. IS. DISTRACTING. SHIMERING is the word I’m looking for, someone said something about it.

Black levels:

The blacks DO LOOK GREY… it’s completely unacceptable, almost game breaking if you ask me, if you are used to playing something like PAVLOV you are DONE… It will literally look like crap; it’s incredible, especially in something like OFFICE. The darks are so light it’s not even funny. THE. INDEX. LOOKS. GREY. IN. DARK. SCENES. PERIOD.

FOV

YES and NO… PLEASE READ. There IS more FOV top to bottom, BUT NOT side to side, what this means is that if you push the headset close to your face (almost touching eye lashes) to get the full effect, THEN you’ll see the TWO BLACK SIDE BARS VERY CLEARLY… and GUESS WHAT… what do you think happens when you have a GREY SCREEN next to a BLACK EDGE… it’s incredible noticeable and distracting, GAME GREAKING. So… what’s the solution? to make it look like the ORIGINAL VIVE and pull it backwards WHICH THEN will get rid of all the extra FOV you already had to begin with… WTF?!?!

Colors

I was a “Valve Index Fan Boy” before I even had the Index, but let me tell you something. THE. COLORS. ARE. WASHED. OUT. BEYOND. BELIEVE. I was like WTF when I started using it, when I was just standing around the room area (lobby?) it’s not good man, I wish it was, but it’s not good.

Ear Speakers

They sound great for atmosphere games, BUT if you are used to using headphones it’s not going to do it for you, not in the slightest. I like the idea of not having headphones that will eventually get your ears tired. They are NOT as bassy as people described, so if you like bass, it ain’t going to happen.

Knuckles

They were great, I kinda like the concept, BUT I kept hiding my thumb under the side something of that nature BECAUSE obviously if you touch the top sliding pad it will affect games or whatever you are doing, so I was hyper aware not to touch the pads in certain games. I really liked the joysticks; I like the idea of physically having something to move around. As someone mentioned, if you have to press down and click while moving the joysticks it’s pretty hard, not like a 360 controller or a Play Station. The finger tracking is very inconsistent as some people have mentioned, it feels “alpha”, I tried every single position, but nothing, last 3 fingers are a hit and miss.

90hz or 120hz or 144hz

First, I have a good rig. It’s latest processor (don’t remember) with 32 gigs of RAM, SSD, and a GTX 1080ti FTW 3. HEAR ME OUT, when I first fired the Index up, I played beat saber, I immediately noticed the black issue (discussed earlier), it was cool at 120hz I can actually score higher than usual, then I went to the scaling in the menu and I noticed that the resolution scale had DROPPED TO 66%, and I was like WTF. I could barely tell the difference in terms of resolution (I talked about that earlier), ONCE I tried to do 100% (basically standard) the game was unplayable. Then I was like “let me try Pavlov”, that was even better, I think the game is NOT optimized to run at 120hz. HEAR ME OUT, the I set it to 90hz it WORKS NORMALLY at a 100% scaling, but when you do 120hz AT 20% SCALING THE GAME DOESN’T RUN… AT… 20%... SCALING, WTF?!?!? Unless there is something damn wrong with my computer this makes no sense. I used to be able to crank the Original Vive all the way, no problem.

Comfort

The headset is comfortable, way more comfortable than the Vive for sure, I like the knob to increase or decrease tightness. I love how you can move the whole screen back and forth (REVEALING THE ISSUES WITH FOV), but that’s about it man, that’s it.