Been really enjoying my Rift since summer but the low resolution finally got to me. Thus I broke down and went to the local Microsoft store at the mall and picked up a shiny new Samsung Odyssey. Now before Zenbane shits a brick, it turned out to be a bit fail. I have no idea how Samsung managed to pull this off, but despite having vastly superior lenses (no more death by lens flare) and roughly 30% better resolution with the same FoV, it's harder to read instruments in DCS and I swear it's lower resolution overall. I honestly wasn't expecting that at all, the whole point was to get better image quality, not worse!
On the flip side, loading up Robo Recall and From Other Suns with it was far less of a hassle than I was expecting. Plan to return it tomorrow though. I just can't figure out how lower image quality with better lenses and screens is possible. It does have much better contrast and colors though, I will give it that. Really stunning looking if it weren't for the impossibly low resolution. Not a super sampling issue either, tried the same settings (steamVR vs steamVR and in game vs in game, I know OTT uses a different measurement). I even went full retard with the Odyssey and crushed my 1080 TI with super sampling, the Rift still appeared higher resolution with only modest super sampling (1.7 PD for Odyssey vs 1.3 PD for Rift in DCS).
Perhaps the lenses have softer focus? @BeastyBaiter, are you able to make out individual pixels with your eyes as we can on the Rift (at least in the center of the image)?
@BeastyBaiter - Dang.. your impression of the visual quality goes against everything else I've read about this device. Very odd!
I was told by a friend who has a Samsung headset the same thing and thought his eyes must need testing. I said about this in another thread because the Vive pro is going to get the same resolution. I managed to to see the Samsung headset for myself when I called at my friends house. For me I could see the text a bit more clearer (I wasn't playing DCS) on the Samsung, but overall it doesn't look much different from a CV1 visually. People are going to pay all that money for a Vive Pro and if it's anything like the Samsung headset then I expect they'll be disappointed. I'm going to wait for nothing short of a 2k headset after seeing this for myself.
@RedRizla - Thanks for the report. I guess I'm gonna have to try it out for myself before ordering anything with this resolution bump.
In contrast here's what UploadVR thought:
"To put it simply, to my eyes the Odyssey’s visuals improve upon Rift and Vive in every way. At CES we also tried the Vive Pro, which uses the same resolution Samsung display. It wasn’t a lot of time with the Vive Pro and we didn’t try them side by side, so it is hard to comment more about the optical differences between the two. But we are left with the overall impression that Odyssey’s clarity — from resolution to lenses — currently leads the industry. In a CES demo provided by NextVR using the Odyssey, the company showed how crisp a captured scene can look in the Odyssey. It is hard to go back to the decreased resolution after experiencing the improvement."
@Wildt - It's a funny one because unless you have them side by side it's hard to tell the differences. Obviously there must be differences, but I'm not sure they are good enough to warrant upgrading to a Samsung headset. The colours on the Samsung do seem better, but I think I was expecting a lot more, much more. Maybe that's what killed it for me that my expectation was to high. If CV2 came out looking like the Samsung though, I'm not sure if I'd just stick with my CV1 for what it's worth.
There's one thing I hate about CV1 and that's the GodRays which I think prevent me from enjoying watching movies in a darken setting. But I see why Oculus used these lenses now because without them things might have looked a lot worse.
