Bought an HTC Vive Pro 2

Hello all,

Biggest question I have: In VR: Worth it to try to play Odyssey? Or stick with classic/Legacy. Or even the Horizons Legacy? And just solo (I read something that Legacy is kind of developed into a late-state-game-something (I don't know how to say it proper), I don't know if solo makes a difference than (solo truly a standalone game or is it fed info from servers as well?)?


Last time I played Elite it was before Horizons or Odyssey. I picked it up a week or so ago, playing the standard live Odyssey I believe (the newest). And somewhat in a whim I bought a VR set. It had a good price, from a reputable store, though it's a b-stock product. Upon arriving it did look as new, unused. Though the box was somewhat damaged. It's a HTC Vive Pro 2, kit.

It is my first ever VR. Though have had a few occasions where I was shown polygon James Bond style, and whatnot, games, on a Meta Quest 2. But so now I have a Vive. I like my stuff wired, and not linked to facebook too. :) Being the kind of guy that I am, always being around computers and tech, I should've had a VR set long ago. Though honestly, I wasn't to impressed. Thought of it more of a vomit maker. Though I do have to say that I wasn't too aware of Elite being thé game for VR all this time. Or past time it seems already, sadly.

Elite is the first game I tried now at home. And all in all I'm still not too impressed. So far. Though I should up front as well say, that I also mumbled "this is so brutally cool" quite some times, in different matter of enthusiasm. So there is that too. First thing I did was doing what I read here on the forum (sorry cmdr, can't recall your name), but was going out of my chair ("so cool!" "I do have tiny legs (in-game")), of my APX explorer, and walking to the hatch behind the chair, to peak inside. I haven't reached it yet! There was a desk in the way.. But it really was so cool!

But anyhow. Besides the cool moments I'm sadly not so impressed by the game, as well as the VR I have purchased in general. Though up front I do still have to get my real IPM (inter pupil measurement something, if I'm not mistaking). Did stand in front of a mirror with a caliper to try and make a measurement, but that is not really recommended. But I thought of going by a optician to ask.

I did have to curb my expectations. As said I bought it somewhat on a whim, and could've read up better first. So than I would've know about the obvious (I think now anyway, maybe I'm wrong) "you have to look in front of you. And look around with your head, while looking ahead with your eyes. The moment your eye starts wander around to see, it is logical that things get blurry. At least when fixing on one point and than (back) to another.". So that makes sense. And now I have somewhat of a muscle pain, because of never looking around like that, with a helmet on. But even though true, I mean that jokey, and I think it will gets used too soon enough.
Also I learned to position it right on your face. It really does make all the difference.

But still, the first shock of how blurry everything looks, is still kind of there. I have it installed as recommended by the quick-start guide. That means install the Vive-console, which walks you trough plugging in the VR etc. And at the end of its setup, goes forth into the SteamVR setup, which is where I had to setup my room. Mind you, I have played around with it two times now (don't laugh).
Also, I do have to say that I did - real short - look around the VR part of the forum, before buying. Though at the price (650 euro for a new kit), I wouldn't have looked around, or maybe found, another. But I did read beforehand that the Steam Index would have a little better to read display. Where the Vive Pro 2 had a nice colored oled screen, but text is somewhat inherent to oled I guess, less readable.

I do think that, upon reading around a little more, that this blurriness to the peripheral is somewhat inherent as well, but not so much of an issue (for you VR users); you get used to it I guess. Though when looking at the HUD it emphasizes this - I did just now find a real cool comment in a YouTube video, about a Cmdr* explain how to use the HUD while not looking at it per se. Haven't done it yet, and probably old news for most here, but anyway :)
*about the 30th comment or so: CMDR Davidchandler5432.


What bothers me is just the general blurriness in stars as well. That makes me think that I still don't have it right. OR that this is exactly where everyone is talking about when expressing their sadness for the state of VR at this moment.

So first time flying I did the walk around, flied out and in of a star-port. Flied around a star port. And just awesome, as well as just not right, sadly. Flying around the spaceship gives all kinds of aliasing things away, that I still have to figure out. Though not as much as inside a star-port, inside is worse. But not as worse as the main menu. Here it makes me want to stop trying actually.

So not even having a kind of nice stars, but as looking trough dirty, greasy glasses. That is bummer so far. (I do not normally wear glasses btw)

First time flying, around star-port, chasing space police for a moment, was really cool. And flying around seems to be relatively flawless. So that is seemingly ok.
Though besides the star-port being cool to fly around this VR way, is really cool. Was my very first time. But with this blurriness / aliasing problems, I do need to fix that before enjoying it truly the rest of the times.

I did stop after getting somewhat of a headache, but I think that the IPC pupil distance something, should make up for that.
Though what does annoy me a little, is that you can adjust this IPC/IPM pupil distance while wearing the VR Vive 2. It has a button on the right to do so. It than gives an (annoyingly short) pop-up screen, which has 3 vertical and 3 horizontal lines in green, as a cross. And it states, adjust the depth of your VR (distance from the eye) (with the button on the left), so push in/out the VR from your face, to sharpen the horizontal lines, and than adjust the pupil distance to sharpen the vertical lines (could be vice versa but anyway). But for one the screen pops away after a few seconds. And 2, the sharpness I get with this method is meh. .. But that I should be able to rule out as soon as I go to the optician.
I can imagine that it takes some adapting all in all on it's own. Even with the best blurriless gear and so.

What was a little disappointment this evening was that I installed Legacy. But for some reason (buffering not right or so, i dunno), when looking around, I get the image a few times (as if your Windows desktop mouse had a shadow-tail, if you remember those. Also I got artifacts, or what they're called, somewhat random frames in between. That stayed after I closed Elite Legacy, in SteamVR. And where only gone after rebooting.
Before that I played around with the thread of DrKai. I haven't installed his software yet. I thought I read something about something not working and maybe May he would pick it up. Though I also noticed that it is a few years old already. His software. But anyway. I tried to follow some tips and tricks, buffering wise and so. PsyX via CPU.. It seems, old-tech guy I state to be, I have quite something to read up into still.

It gets a little ridiculous, but I also was disappointed with SteamVR already. The first time. All because of the blurriness. For example when in SteamVR, you stand in a room. With a big, sort of chalkboard in front of you. With your friends-list as well as your games. Or game, because for some reason only Elite is shown, and Steam itself. The icon of Elite, is barely readable.
But still. Now having played around a second time, and playing around / adjusting the VR a little better on my head / in front of my eyes, it did do something. But..

Though after that luckily a little nicer experience I did had was also in SteamVR: you can walk around Half-Life city, and a (super cool) Lab. I did so, and that was a way better VR experience so far.

I hope it gets a little better. I do have to admit my interest is awoken, kind of eying the Index now, since in this case I already got half.. Sadly a little late but we'll see. I just wanted to share my experience as a newb. And my question: is it worth to try out VR in Odyssey. Or should I better go Legacy. So far, both are problematic for me, so.. :)

Unrelated side note (as if this post wasn't long enough). Upon browsing here, I noticed you have the coolest joysticks. I want them all! VKB, WinWing, some other brand above that I forgat the name of, because I saw the prices were in the $700's or so... But kind of as a note to myself: I would have never thought those were as cool as they are - a xbox controller is awesome already as well, just for example (though I don't know about that in Elite btw) - but I never thought those joysticks were as cool, if I hadn't already have my Thrustmaster T16000m FCS joystick. I have it for some years, used periodically but they're still going strong. I had the luck to buy it relatively cheap. I don't remember exact, but something of €120 or so. So while they work, ... :)) Sorry, should have put this last bit in my personal log I guess.

I forgat my system: AMD Ryzen 5950x, 32GB DDR4 (not much but enough, and fast (fabric clock=2000Mhz). So a little OC, but nothing spectacular. Nvidia 2080ti. Seasonic 1000W psu. Enough SSD and HDD. Just a mediocre but powerful and silent desktop. Windows 11.

Just two side questions, just while I'm still here: 1. What is the future of VR? Is there a Index 2, Vive 3? I read Pico something quite some times. Meta Quest has a good name techwise. Though that's not a brand for me. But just curious if you know what and when is next.
2. My forehead got warm while gaming! This stuff gets hotter than I thought. Why isn't VR build into a (motorcycle)helmet?! <- Million dollar idea right here! You can position everything, got a good balance. Room between your face and shell. You have all the room in the world to build in vents and whatnot.
For now I was thinking of strapping in between a piece of plastic card or so between my forehead and the VR, just to duct the hot air a little from my forehead. The Vive has a small vent on top. When you feel with hands not even that warm. But don't you guys have that? I kind of imagine you VR guys gaming for easily an hour or two.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Sorry for the long post!


Take care,
dr00p
 
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Hello,

Maybe a bit fast. But to follow up on my own post some initial tips that made it all somewhat better.

First off: Yes, Horizons Legacy really does look so much better. I don't know why yesterday Elite Legacy didn't function directly, but by the time I tried Horizons, it did work proper. And so, yes.

I do want to look back and forth a bit. But tonight I stayed stuck playing in Horizons. So that is a good thing, towards Horizons in VR than, at least. And besides the dropping out from jumping to a star just looks nicer? It seemingly just runs more proper. I did go back and forth beforehand, getting stuck playing Horizons. And I do have to make sure: but having anti-aliasing off in both Horizons as well as Odyssey, still Horizons was a better experience.

The Python is such a nice ship! I could stand up, to look over the nose! Went mining, never done much before. Somehow sort of A-bombed an asteroid to pieces! Was an eye-watering experience. Really really cool.
I do have to take it slow flying around. And fix my eyes in front of me. But so far, it went well. You really have to sort of "actively think" about where you go, when you go. To not get motion sick I mean. A bit like skating, but not quite. And didn't stay slow all the time! :)

Second. some options I changed: In the Vive console there is (loosely translated) "display options". This was set to automatic. I set it to "balanced (3264x1632, 90Hz).
Then of course in the SteamVR, Options, Video tab, you set the Render resolution to manual, 100%.
Actually I found these tips also on Reddit post: "a small guide for setting up Elite in VR". He gives the tip to turn on a performance graph, in the options of SteamVR, under developer-options. This way you get a small graph in your headset, and you'll try to get the ms below 11ms.

My settings in Elite were set on Ultra and never looked twice (before VR). I found that dropping the settings to medium, and working back up a bit, turning things higher or not, made a lot of difference in ms. And turning off anti-aliasing made a lot of difference in the how "noisy" it looks. Even in the normal" Elite Odyssey. Still, somehow Odyssey looks noisier?. Though still I want to go back and forth, Odyssey and Legacy Horizons.

But playing with those settings anyway already made a lot of difference.
However while I enjoyed playing this evening, it still has the blurriness.

Playing now a third day, I did get adjusted a little more. I read a comment somewhere talking about the old VR is kind of looking trough a keyhole. I didn't really ever tried VR before, for and by myself. Besides getting demoed. I must admit that I had bigger expectations I guess. Thinking of the Meta Quest 2, even though only demoed to me, it has a easier going screen. Though I also guess that Elite has a bit of a disadvantage against it, blurriwise, because of the text/name of the planets, systems, star-ports targets, you'll cruising to.

Also in Horizons, the blurriness persists. It's like looking trough greased windows. Or glasses when you don't need them. And than indeed quite a small spot for your eyes to see sharp in. But for example the left bottom screen, where the planets or targets are written, I can't see that whole square completely in focus. You have to move your head up and down a bit, to get it in focus. And than it is rather nice in focus, I do have to admit.

I found the my ship is more in focus, more sharp. Than background stars. I looked a bit better at Elite without VR, and noticed there is a blurry edge there, on the backgroundstars, as well. So that helped in my expectations. I really do like the look of the windows on my ship! For some reason blurriness is less of a problem.?

I guess that this all is the trade-off. I do have to say that I somewhat cannot entirely imagine that a lot of you have played this way, and way worse than, for years already. I do keep thinking I got mishandled or broken stuff. And/or not the right" headset. Though I also think again, this is the trade-off.

I do feel like I have been squinting, and looking a bit cross-eyed, while looking trough the headset. Constantly. And pretty constantly / often re-set the headset so they are at the exact right spot in front of my eyes.

So yeah, another long post. But to whoever finds it helpful.

The Vive Pro 2 does not have an oled screen btw, but an lcd. The first Vive had an oled.

This guy on reddit taped a fan to his headset to deal with the heat: click here. I have to say that I tried to get used to it as well. As well that I turned off the Vive 2 a few times (I think 3), to let it cool down, while I got myself a drink etc. I do not find it entirely pleasurable, the heat. But I do happen to have some fans lying around, so maybe I go try some.

I do think that the problems I experience are a lot inherent to the Vive Pro 2's Fresnel lenses, in combination with the Elite game. The straight lines and text in-game, give an accent to the lenses I guess. So it seems anyway looking trough, but next to that I wouldn't know either.
Thought there is a limit to how sharp I can see things in the SteamVR room or the Lab demo as well. So,..

To conclude and answer my own previous question: I did find Valve is working on a next VR headset: the Deckard. Probably released end of 2025, so it says.
Other brands I noticed are BigScreen Beyond 2. The Pimax Crystal Super. And the out of price range Varjo.

Personally my interest is exclusively in PCVR. I don't think buying an Index would add something for me. I also don't think I will return the Vive Pro 2.. I have used it now 3 times. Even though not quite what I tought it would be. Besides the vision the heat as well. And the headset being somewhat tight and the fairly constant re-adjusting. And controller randomly not powering up, only after plugging them onto power, even tough full battery. ..

Anyway, thanks for reading again.
Take care,
dr00p
 
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