HTC’s Vive Pro will add more pixels to an otherwise familiar-looking VR system | Hacker News Reader

HTC’s Vive Pro will add more pixels to an otherwise familiar-looking VR system

arstechnica.com

130 pointsT-A76 comments

(The Vive Pro will also support a tracking-area boost of up to 10 square meters [https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/10/valve-announces-the-f...], which requires four 2.0 base stations.)

I read this and thought "Hmm, 10 sq meters sounds small. That about 3.1m x 3.1m (10 ft x 10 ft), which is about the same maximum as the current Vive". Not impossible, but an odd boast to make about make about the new Pro unit, and funny that it requires more base stations to be able to match the old one.

Then I read the link:

The new base station protocol will only support two tracking boxes at first (just like the HTC Vive), but Valve promises that they'll receive an update in "early 2018" to support two more tracking boxes to grow the total tracking range to 10 meters squared, or 32.8 feet squared (1,075 square feet). That's quite the jump from SteamVR's current max of 11.5 feet squared

Oh, I see now what's happening! Instead of 10 square meters, they mean that you that the new version will support a 10m x 10m room (30 ft x 30 ft), which indeed is much greater than the current 3.5m x 3.5m (11.5 ft x 11.5 ft) max. But their own earlier writeup was so confusing and innumerate that they couldn't figure out what it meant!

Maybe "innumerate" is too harsh, but how does a technical site like Ars muck things like this up? Am I being too optimistic when I still hope that both the author and editor should have caught this? Hurried author and no editor? Or is someone teaching that "X units squared" is a valid way of specifying a square room of X units per side?

> Or is someone teaching that "X units squared" is a valid way of specifying a square room of X units per side?

I've been taught that this is standard usage, and I've seen it elsewhere. Personally, I've gone out of my way not to write this way because, as you experienced, a good fraction of people will not be familiar with it.

I'm looking forward to the larger tracking area. My play area is actually a bit larger than the supported tracking area. It still works, but tracking isn't quite as precise.

Higher resolution screens are great, but I find that the screens are often not the limiting factor for image quality in my current setup. The optics blur everything outside the central region and introduce light smearing artifacts. The head mount makes it difficult to keep my eyes in the sweet spot of the lenses. My GPU isn't powerful enough to drive the supersampling required to reduce aliasing to an acceptable level in many games, because devs aren't paying enough attention to aliasing.

I'll be interested to see people's impressions of the new optics and head mount, but I probably won't be buying one until the next generation of GPUs is out, along with the new lighthouses and controllers and wireless support. Maybe a year from now or so.

I don’t have a source rn, but my expectation is that the Vive Pro will have somewhat improved optics too, courtesy of Valve’s new lenses.

You are right; the announce video stated improved optics explicitly. But in the video they still appear to be fresnel lenses, so I expect the light bleeding artifacts will remain. I am interested to see peoples' hands-on impressions.

That's too bad. The light bleeding makes playing games like Elite Dangerous really cumbersome. You can even dial down the cockpit LED brightness but that doesn't help with the bleeding. Because then the LEDs are too dull to read everything allright. Since the game plays mostly in space and the only light sources are the cockpit LEDs makes this problem really stand out.

Also, the general blurryness of everything outside of the center of the lenses make racing games way less fun than they are supposed to be. Everyone who drives in teh real world knows you keep your head mostly in one position and then peek down by moving your pupils to take a short glance at your instruments or the mirrors. All you see with the Vive is a blurry mess unless you move your entire head down until the intruments are dead center of your field of view. Not really the realism one would expect from a VR racing game, imho.

All this is just too bad. Because I think while roomscale is pretty neat it is still very much work to set up. I mean by clearing your room, moving furiture etc. And then you still don't get to act freely because you will always know that you can't go very far because you would run into something. Kinda immersion breaking if you ask me. But where VR could really shine is with cockpit simulation games. No furniture moving needed. Just sit down, put the VR goggles on and of you go. Too bad that the light bleeding and the off center blurryness hinders this at the moment. Heres hoping this will be changed in the future.

It's not just too much work to set up. It's too much work to play. Standing up and moving around is never going to be as comfortable as lounging on the couch moving only your thumbs.

I think roomscale VR has a real problem as an entertainment medium. People expect it to slot into the same place in their lives as TV and video games, but it doesn't work like that. It's better to think of it as an indoor sport like table tennis (of course, it can literally be table tennis). It can actually work really well as a form of lightweight exercise. But roomscale VR is not what you want for vegging out at the end of the day like TV, and better hardware won't change that.

What really convinced me of this was playing puzzle games in VR. I wanted VR Myst to be awesome, but it's unfortunately quite uncomfortable to stand in place for ten minutes at a time while you ponder some contraption. Wearing a pound on your head doesn't help, but even if the headset weighed nothing it still wouldn't be comfortable just because of the standing. You can't rest, except by sitting on the floor. You can't lean on anything. You can't even put a hand out to steady yourself. It's exhausting.

Some favourable impressions of the new lenses here: https://www.gamecrate.com/hands-on-vive-pro-and-wireless-ada...

OTOH someone else is now stating that the lenses are unchanged from the Vive: https://www.roadtovr.com/ces-2018-vive-pro-hands-on-much-mor...

Glad to see HTC continuing development even in hard times, I think they really got the tracking system right.

I owned a first generation Vive and I think the resolution and wireless (not included with Pro but official solution coming) would be massive steps forward to make it what I would consider 'usable' for the average person and ready for adoption outside of niche games. Still a tremendous cost for all the hardware and a PC that can push 90+ fps to it though.

Wasn't it Valve that got the tracking system right?

Yeah I guess so. But it is such a slick and effective solution compared to the CV thing that the Rift uses. It really wasn't doing it for me and the tracking/occlusion was not great, especially for moving/turning around more. That being said, the optics and controllers on the Rift are superior hands down.

Yes, almost all of the technology in Vive is originally Valve research. The lighthouses, headset prototype, and controllers were all being demoed (in 3D printed/hacked hardware) at their Bellevue offices in ~2015, or maybe earlier, I forget. HTC partnered with Valve as a manufacturing partner then. I don't know of any meaningful VR research that has happened at HTC independently.

I'm super excited for the Pimax 8K headset [0], supposedly shipping early this year. This resolution upgrade shows that HTC is still in the game though, contrary to the rumors that they are giving up.

[0]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pimax8kvr/pimax-the-wor...

I wouldn't be, hardware is one thing (that's hard to get right), but as the FOVE that's been collecting dust in my living room for the past year or so can attest, without proper software support it doesn't matter how cool your hardware is.

What worries me most about the Pimax 8k is that you will need at least two 1080 Ti in SLI to drive it at full resolution, and even that may not be enough. I'd definitely wait for the next GPU generation to roll out (should be soonish now) before committing.

Foveal vision only sees a few degrees of the visual field. Last year's GPU is plenty powerful enough to render the foveal portion in high-res and peripheral at decreasing res. Better headsets with eye tracking are needed.

Just like Vive, PiMax is a SteamVR headset.

A word of warning: there are rumors of it having the same black bleed/smear issue that that DK2 had. The Vive supposedly solves this by only allowing a few shades above true black, so maybe Primax can solve this before launch.

I wonder how this addresses the screen door aspect of VR? I notice it particularly in Fallout 4 VR, and really would like a resolution upgrade. It runs smoothly enough already on a 1080

Would a resolution upgrade fix that? With my current Vive that effect strikes me as coming from the lenses.

The screendoor effect is the grid you can see between pixels. It's really due to the screen. The Fresnel lenses add their own artifacts, by "smudging" the image, as if they were dirty. I agree that those artifacts are the ones which tend to bother me more, but both are noticeable and can be significant in the right (wrong?) lighting conditions.

Metamaterial lenses will solve that problem

Yes, it should have an effect. Hard to say how noticeable it will be.

https://www.vrheads.com/what-screen-door-effect-and-why-does...

"As screen technology for both VR headsets and smartphone screens continue to advance towards 4K resolution (and beyond), the impact of the screen-door effect will be further mitigated."

FO4VR is a pretty bad example of how good a VR game can look today. It's very badly optimized and with bad defaults.

Lone Echo is much better, and with controls perfectly tailored for VR. It's an Oculus exclusive but I played with ReVive.

Agreed. However, I hope they will work on their adaptor for VR to increase quality and release Skyrim for PC soon. It's some of the most fun I've had in VR so far honestly.

In terms of pure visuals, Gnomes and Goblins has been my favorite. It's immensely short, but absolutely beautiful.

To me it looks like a good choice for someone who hasn't bought a VR headset yet. But if you already own one you probably wouldn't upgrade?

Imo, Vive can't compare to Oculus because the Touch controllers are just that good. The ergonomics are just too perfect.

Yeah, I haven't bought any headset yet. I'm waiting for the new Valve Knuckles controllers to be released to decide which one I want.

An HTC rep strongly implied that Knuckles is a very long way off and that Valve is really experimenting with it as opposed to building up to a possible release.

If you're interested in a headset I'd take advantage of one of several sales that have put the Rift as low as 300$

I have and use both sets on a daily basis and I find the tracking quality of the Vive outclasses the Oculus night/day. More than enough to cover any shortcomings in the controllers. I cannot use an Oculus for more than ~45 minutes without getting nauseous, even sitting down. I've spent 3+ straight hours in the Vive without any noticeable discomfort.

Same story as you. I use both extensively and the tracking on the Vive is just in a completely different league to me in day to day use.

I had both for some time (got rid of my Vive before a recent move since I'm not as interested in dev use as I used to be) and found the Oculus tracking being good enough. In fact, since I moved I haven't ordered a new mount for my 3rd sensor but 2 sensor hasn't felt much different unless I'm holding my hands together in a dead spot I had to dig for.

My comment is oversimplifying why I consider the Oculus the better headset. For the "layperson" looking at VR I feel we've reached the point where either choice works, but the Rift is 200$ cheaper.

The Rift home is much more beginner friendly and imo offers a better UX. The Rift has integrated headphones. I also think that while the type of people who frequent HN (including me) might prefer the Vive's more open environment, laypeople will benefit more from value coming from Facebook backed Oculus. I mean they already do right off the bat, there's no way the Rift would be 400$ (Often even on sale for 350$ these days) without Facebook backing, and there's some high production value content that's probably funded by them (and no Revive fiddling to get it).

That's not to say the Vive doesn't have strengths. Vive roomscale is much cleaner to setup for example (Rift can do fairly solid roomscale with just 2 sensors but it's not advertised by Oculus during setup because roomscale with Rift does end up taking routing wires around your room). But the Rift being cheaper is enough to smooth over a lot of complaints.

The way I'd put it is, if you need to ask someone which headset to buy, buy a Rift because they're both neck in neck for most people, but the Rift is cheaper.

I see no issues with tracking on the Rift when playing in the sitting position, I guess this is down to individual sensitivities.

How many sensors did you have?

That’s highly unusual, unless you have USB issues or an odd camera setup. It’s generally accepted that Vive and Rift tracking quality are very much comparable given a proper setup.

It's a shame. You either get good controllers, or good roomscale tracking. I couldn't forego the latter, so I'm just hoping the Vive Knuckles are released soon.

Tbf, you "mend the gap" Rift roomscale tracking today by either getting a 3rd sensor or getting mounts and tuning your space for 2 sensor 360 degree tracking. It won't be pretty (extension cables everywhere), but it is pretty smooth.

But you can't get the better controller today, and Vive has made it clear that Knuckles isn't their product, and that it's Valve's undertaking and from their point of view it's still closer to an experiment than a product.

I have both but I prefer the Vive optics and tracking to the point that I never bring the Rift out. The only thing about the Touch controllers that I miss is the grip button; I think the Vive controllers are fine otherwise.

The Vive controller isn't bad, but the Touch controller's intuitiveness is something else.

Every time I've given someone their first VR experience with the Rift there's been this magical moment where their hand just magically slips into the Touch controller and I say "These are your hands" and it just clicks for them. Instantly. It's amazing to watch it happen over and over.

There's no explaining, it's just, "these are your hands". And it's like there's almost no way for them hold it wrong or suboptimally, it literally "slips" into their hands like water and they instinctively move their fingers and they see them move and it's always the second "wow" moment after the first one when you explain moving the headset to focus and look at their first clear look content.

When you're using both long term you adjust to either, but it's just that magical experience for users from the get go that I think a lot of first time users would prefer.

I think it's an issue of gamers vs non-gamers.

As a gamer, I've used several different controllers over the years, so picking up a Vive controller didn't feel different or unnatural at all. But many non-gamers will hold it near the bottom of the wand and then be unable to even find the trigger button.

I haven't used a Touch controller, but looking closer at it, it looks like overall the controller is smaller and more ergonomic. There's only one way to hold it, and it's obvious. It definitely looks more friendly to smaller hands.

I have both. The Oculus can't compare to the Vive because room scale is game changing, if you have the space.

Oculus has roomscale with 3 sensors. Even 2 sensors is "good enough" (comparable with 3 sensors if you use mounts)

I can't use Oculus Touch for more than 15 minutes without severe cramping in my hands. Vive Wands and Windows MR controllers do not do the same to me, I can use (and have used) both for hours.

I have a Vive and I doubt I'll upgrade. That is, unless there's a highly generous upgrade path. For instance giving me near purchase price for my working headset and I only pay a hundred bucks or something.

Although the wireless accessory is interesting but no price so far that I've seen. The cord isn't that annoying so I would have a price limit on that.

For me it really comes down to price and what the reviews will say. If it's just a few hundred bucks (I wouldn't bet on it) and the reviewers go "OMG I can really read text on my in-world desktop now!" I might upgrade.

The wireless adapter is a more likely candidate. The cable does limit my movements due to the way the PC is placed (beyond one corner of the play area, rather than along one long side, as would be optimal; I need it under my desk) and I was already tempted by TPCast, but holding off due to not-so-enthusiastic reviews and reports that HTC was working on a better solution with Intel.

I'll probably be skipping this one, but will definitely be purchasing the knuckle controllers and the wireless adapter. The screen-door-effect and lense artifacts aren't as much of a bother as the cable, and the knuckle controllers genuinely seem like Gen2 rather than a mere resolution bump.

So the resolution is actually only about 10% higher than the Windows MR devices, which have a combined 2880x1440 resolution. And the Wireless Adapter isn't included in the Pro model, that's separate. The Windows MR headsets are all significantly cheaper than the Vive as well, and I find my HP headset to be quite a bit more comfortable than my Vive. Finally, the Windows MR headsets are compatible with Steam VR with an official plugin from Microsoft.

I mean, I will still probably buy it, but if you're looking for a decent headset now, it's already available.

Aside: I wonder what the Wireless Adapter entails, because both the Vive and the Windows MR headsets run on standard HDMI and USB 3.

Why is the resolution still so low?

Why not even 4K combined?

Because GPUs are struggling with many titles even at current resolutions.

A lower resolution image would still look better upscaled on a higher resolution display because it would reduce the screen-door effect. Plus, it would help future-proof the device a little bit. But that might be the problem, they don't have to have too large of jumps between iterations so they have more launch events and sell more devices.

Then just simplify the game's 3D scenes?

Also, this seems an inaccurate claim: e.g. a single $449 GTX 1070 Ti can do at least 50fps at 4K maximum quality in all tested games in https://www.anandtech.com/show/11987/the-nvidia-geforce-gtx-...

This means that for 1000$ a dual 1070 Ti workstation should be able to do 4K 120hz just fine in all games, perhaps slightly lowering presets on GTA V.

Of course this being cutting edge graphics a quad GPU setup is more reasonable which would allow 4K per eye at 120hz max quality, possibly even more with tweaked settings.

> 1070 Ti can do at least 50fps at 4K maximum quality in all tested games [1]

Looking at the data in the link you provided, this does not seem to be the case.

    26.3 @ Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
    34.3 @ Grand Theft Auto V
    36.8 @ Ghost Recon Wildlands
    42.5 @ Dawn of War III
    44.0 @ Total War: Warhammer
    53.3 @ Battlefield 1
    56.0 @ F1 2016
    56.9 @ Ashes of the Singularity
    63.9 @ DOOM

The tested 9 games result in a median of 44.0 fps, average of 46.0 fps. Certainly well below at least 50fps.

> a dual 1070 Ti workstation should be able to do 4K 120hz just fine

As someone with experience running tri-crossfire in the past, a 2.4x improvement claim from SLI seems suspect. Let's look at some data of what actually happens with 1070 Ti SLI. [2]

    1.39x @ Middle-Earth: Shadow of War
    1.66x @ Ghost Recon Wildlands
    1.67x @ Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
    1.73x @ Battlefield 1
    1.86x @ Destiny 2
    1.90x @ Grand Theft Auto V
    1.91x @ Rise Of The Tomb Raider
    1.95x @ Sniper Elite 4

The tested 8 games result in a median of 1.80x fps, average of 1.76x fps. Definitely less than 2.4x.

> a quad GPU setup is more reasonable

Unfortunately the scaling factor plummets fast after the 2nd card. Three or four cards usually means you're well in the realm of diminishing returns.

What's more, SLI/CrossFire have frame pacing issues. The resulting microstutter is annoying on a regular screen, but even more harmful in VR.

Then there's also the problem that some rendering techniques are not compatible with SLI/CrossFire, and thus some games are not. GPU driver support actually adding SLI/CrossFire support comes several months after the release of the game as standard practice.

To make matters worse, everything GPU related is just the beginning of one's problems when it comes to really high frame rates. Computing animations, physics, game rule logic at 120Hz+ also demands real good CPU and RAM. A good widely deployed example of this is the Xbox One X. Although it has a powerful GPU it still delivers frame rates as low as 10 in CPU-heavy games like PUBG. Most games have to target 30, and 60 is available only to a select few.

[1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/11987/the-nvidia-geforce-gtx-...

[2] http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_1070_ti_2_w...

> Then just simplify the game's 3D scenes?

I'm sure everyone will be happy with that compromise. After all graphical fidelity is very low on the average gamer's list of priorities /s

Also - 50fps is not regarded as acceptable for VR. Oculus sets 90fps as the lowest framerate to avoid VR sickness.

You need a lot of GPU to produce two different images at 90 FPS. If 60 FPS look OK to you on a normal monitor, multiply by 2 for the stereoscopic vision and by 1.5 for the higher frame rate, for a total factor 3. That's how much more powerful your GPU needs to be in order to handle the same scene in VR, at the same load level. At this time, very few people have (or would be willing to buy) systems that powerful.

There are ways around that like up-scaling a lower resolution or if you add eye-tracking you can do foveated rendering (only render what you focus on with high resolution).

I would be wary of buying any HTC products after having gone through a warranty repair with them. They took 10.5 weeks to repair my phone, never sent me any updates about it. They only returned it after I spent about a week arguing with them over the phone for about an our each day. Lots more horror stories on /r/HTC

Different unit I believe but perhaps same customer service dept. Either way, isn't their mobile division now owned by Google? https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/21/16343342/google-htc-deal-...

I wanted to play with the Rift and develop some apps for it, but the Mac isn't supported. So I got an external GPU to power it. Using Windows, because they abandoned Mac driver development. That's EUR 449 for the Rift and EUR 699 for the eGPU incl. the respective GPU. EUR 1198.

I eventually returned the Rift because I couldn't find a reasonable way to get it working with my Mac. I was checking out the Vive because everyone seems to be using it for development. It's EUR 699. WOW. That's when I thought: "screw it."

I would love to build something with it. It seems to have so much potential. But I really think that the current prices for the headsets are simply outrageous.

For me, it's far too expensive for a hobby. Maybe when it's more affordable. I don't want to know how much the "Pro" will cost.

You can build a computer that has no problem running VR for like $700, less if you're willing to buy second hand. + $600 for the headset you're looking at $1300 for a whole dev setup, I think that's probably less than what your laptop cost.

I own both headsets and personally believe they are far from "toys for rich kids." I never thought a VR headset would provide so many new experiences and opportunities. Attending OC4 was a great experience and I made professional connects that provide me an avenue into the game industry should I wish to apply my skills there. Lots of new friends as well, the price point keeps the CoD crowd largely out of the mix; on that front it's like the friends you make on irc but you can talk to them face to face. Overall it has been very much a positive experience for me. Just my 2c.

I've mostly used mine for Elite:Dangerous. Can you recommend some other uses that you've appreciated?

Try Rec Room

Echo Arena. Best VR game out there hands down.

> "almost no current laptops have the GPU performance for the recommended spec, though upcoming mobile GPUs may be able to support this level of performance."

This WAS true in 2015 but is NOT TRUE today. All the Nvidia Pascal-generation desktop GPUs (2016) run extremely well on laptops. Since 2016, there is no more "mobile class" Nvidia GPU designation.

The "VR Ready" laptops are popular, and they have a 1050, 1060, 1070, and even an Nvidia 1080 GPU. These are very powerful gaming laptops, and some are still in slim form factors like the Razor Blade, and relatively affordable for a laptop ($1400-2000)

Yep, my VR machine is an ASUS laptop with a 1070 in it because my desktop runs older cards in SLI, which isn't supported. I'm sure it cost less than their MacBook.

It's funny to see a Mac user complain about toys for rich kids.

> Toys for rich kids, really

Alternatively, potentially valuable business tools, that return their investment in a short period of time. The most interesting uses of VR that I've seen have all been business related, rather than games or entertainment.

Architecture is one obvious case (I almost took a job working for a company that did VR for architecture, until I found out I wouldn't be working with the VR part), it gives you an unprecedented sense of scale that's otherwise not possible in regular imaging.

The business opportunities for VR are much more interesting than the entertainment ones, in my opinion.

We developed a product for editing architecture models in VR (VRsketch.eu). I wonder what company did you try to work with? The potential is enormous, a bit unclear how to sell those though, architecture is a tricky market :)

The company I interviewed at was Phoria. They're more of a VR digital agency than a company that specifically deals with architecture.

I think that VR is one of those things where the best way to sell it is to do live demos. Most people have never tried VR, and it's an entirely new paradigm, people can't even conceptualise it before they try it.

I never seriously considered buying a VR headset until I tried an HTC Vive for the first time. I didn't end up buying one, for financial reasons, but I considered it.

Anecdote:

We're doing a sizable home remodel and our architect gave us a SketchUp model to take a look at. I threw it into VR and my wife and I started walking around the house giving them feedback.

They asked to try it out and found it completely transformative. They're going into VR multiple times a day now for all of their work.

They said the same for Second Life, though.

If the Pro is marked up, it's going to fail hard. I can maybe imagine them introducing it at the Vive's original price point, leaving them free to continue selling the current Vive at a bargain price?

The big question for me is, the Vive Pro will be sold headset-only for upgrading folks. What's that gonna cost, because that will answer a lot of questions about how expensive this hobby is to maintain over time.

Your biggest issue was not just abandoning the Mac completely, to be honest.

And no, it's not far too expensive for a hobby. People spend more than that on lots and lots of hobbies.

I went through similar turmoil pricing out dodgy eGPU builds to do CUDA on my Mac. Eventually I realised it wasn't worth it and I may as well just build a PC with the ability to add more GPUs down the line.

It was definitely the right decision, sucks they I had to move that part of my work away from MacOS but if Apple isn't interested in seriously supporting this work then why bother (This was long before the iMac pro was even announced and my current build outperforms it for less than half the price).

The message from Apple is clear, this is not the platform if you are interested in working on the cutting edge.

> I was checking out the Vive because everyone seems to be using it for development

Not everyone, and the Rift is at a bargain price now. I was blown away with the Rift experience and quality of the product, definitely worth the asking price.

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