There are two ways of dealing with this:
1. The cheap way: Lower the volume on your G2. Yes, seriously, supposedly it helps. I don't have g2, but heard that from G2 owners
2. Buy a powered usb hub. No mobo swap necessary.
HP Reverb G2 impressions in Elite Dangerous
- Thread starter VR CMDR Novindus
- Start date
1. The cheap way: Lower the volume on your G2. Yes, seriously, supposedly it helps. I don't have g2, but heard that from G2 owners
2. Buy a powered usb hub. No mobo swap necessary.
Khem. Subnautica is the worst offender. Skyrim I believe also has fixed UI elements. That's from top of my head. And as someone who experienced burn-in on OLED TV I can tell you that it's nothing pleasant so I wouldn't risk it
We just need better panels, but from my understanding these panels have to be low-persistence anyway, that's maybe why burn-in isn't such a problem.Received my G2 today. I upgraded from a CV1 I have been using for about 4 years. I was waiting on getting a 3080 before I upgraded but since it has been impossible for me to find one I grabbed a 3090 I found in stock at Microcenter. I played about an hour in ED and Star Wars Squadrons.
Graphics
The clarity is awesome. I pulled up a browser window with small text and all the text was clearly in focus. I can't see any SDE. There are some God Rays but they are very minimal. I love how clear everything is in my ship now and in stations. I am still trying to understand the relationship between the various Steam VR and WMR settings and how to adjust if anyone knows of a good guide please let me know. I did notice the small sweet spot but if I smoosh the headset into my face slightly it greatly expands. I hope to find some sort of face gasket mod or replacement. I didn't notice if the black levels were off but I also wasn't paying attention to it. I was getting some weird judder in Star Wars Squadrons from time to time but no issues in ED. I am still not clear how reprojection/ASW works with this headset or how to set it up.
Tracking/Controllers
I have seen a lot of complaints on this when this was released. I don't know if they have updated it to fix issues but I think it works good. I was purposely trying to break the tracking with the controllers in the WMR portal and didn't really have any issues. I mostly just do flight sims and didn't really care if the tracking sucked on the controllers but I was surprised how well it did work. The controllers do feel cheaper and I miss the capacitive buttons.
Sound
This is where I am having some issues. It just doesn't seem to get very loud when playing games. If I set my volume to 100% it equals about 50% of my CV1. I am hoping this is just some setting I am missing somewhere.
Graphics
The clarity is awesome. I pulled up a browser window with small text and all the text was clearly in focus. I can't see any SDE. There are some God Rays but they are very minimal. I love how clear everything is in my ship now and in stations. I am still trying to understand the relationship between the various Steam VR and WMR settings and how to adjust if anyone knows of a good guide please let me know. I did notice the small sweet spot but if I smoosh the headset into my face slightly it greatly expands. I hope to find some sort of face gasket mod or replacement. I didn't notice if the black levels were off but I also wasn't paying attention to it. I was getting some weird judder in Star Wars Squadrons from time to time but no issues in ED. I am still not clear how reprojection/ASW works with this headset or how to set it up.
Tracking/Controllers
I have seen a lot of complaints on this when this was released. I don't know if they have updated it to fix issues but I think it works good. I was purposely trying to break the tracking with the controllers in the WMR portal and didn't really have any issues. I mostly just do flight sims and didn't really care if the tracking sucked on the controllers but I was surprised how well it did work. The controllers do feel cheaper and I miss the capacitive buttons.
Sound
This is where I am having some issues. It just doesn't seem to get very loud when playing games. If I set my volume to 100% it equals about 50% of my CV1. I am hoping this is just some setting I am missing somewhere.
Here is something i compiled in another thread :
Upgrading, G2 or Valve Index (or something else)?
No you don't need any special software. Unlike Oculus, Pimax etc, plugging in a WMR headset is like plugging in a Microsoft mouse. It will just instantly recognise it and start using it. Its worth to set up in the WMR portal/Windows all settings to max/high and 90Hz to avoid some auto...
OK upon some radical DIY replacing heatsink n fan with a liquid cooler and moving case fans about for incoming outgoing air flow, I solved my heat issues. Seems the g2 demands more from a pc.
Then alot of fiddling about but I quickly discovered the best way to tweek it is via the wmr. Certainly not steam. Least that's how it is for me. Playing high res gorgeous mode and no problems wotsoever tracks perfectly.
I did bring in some extra lights. One each side 2 front looking down at my seated position.
Happy finally. And yes it's alot better looking through than a rift S
Then alot of fiddling about but I quickly discovered the best way to tweek it is via the wmr. Certainly not steam. Least that's how it is for me. Playing high res gorgeous mode and no problems wotsoever tracks perfectly.
I did bring in some extra lights. One each side 2 front looking down at my seated position.
Happy finally. And yes it's alot better looking through than a rift S
But then, even VRgineers went from RGB OLED to LCD when they introduced their new 8K headset, and here price should basically be a non-issue. So maybe we simply can't build (RGB) OLEDs with a high enough pixel density yet?
Last edited:
All that depends on whether the game uses static elements (Subnautica being the main offender here), or you yourself using overlays (eg. to access third party sites etc. which are glued to your field of vision). Think for example about fpsVR pinned to the bottom of the headset.
These screens do differ from those used in TV though, as they're supposedly low persistence, so maybe the time needed for burn-in to occur is too big. IDK. Didn't hear about burned VR headsets, however google search revealed something like this:
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/comments/g7im6h/oled_screen_burn_in/frkhu6x?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Apparently a glitched sleep mode caused the logo to display overnight burning the screen if this person is to be believed.
Alright, I had not considered certain things such as 3rd party overlays or other VR games using static elements. I'd completed Subnautica before getting my first VR headset (which I bought a few months after getting Elite Dangerous), so I don't know what Subnautica does in VR.
I guess I have to withdraw that statement.
I guess I have to withdraw that statement.
I've looked through 2 pages of this post so far, and yet I have not seen anyone who experienced the same issue with G2 that I did.
When I used the G2, my world view in the game would shift or rotate as if the VR headset had misunderstood my real life location in the room I'm in. So I would be flying along sitting in the cockpit and then I would be rotated 30 degrees clockwise. This would happen every 30 seconds or so. To fix it I would look all around and just wait for the headset to figure things out again.
It was so bad I put the G2 back in the box and tried to return it to HP, but they never responded to my email. After a few weeks of no response I gave it to my land lord's 12 year old son, and it's still sitting in their house on a chair to this day. (He's more interested in other games.)
Anyway I'm curious, has anyone at all had this "losing the position" issue that I've described?
PS - I'm back on my old head set but I really liked the G2 view screens. They were a lot better than my current one's view screens.
When I used the G2, my world view in the game would shift or rotate as if the VR headset had misunderstood my real life location in the room I'm in. So I would be flying along sitting in the cockpit and then I would be rotated 30 degrees clockwise. This would happen every 30 seconds or so. To fix it I would look all around and just wait for the headset to figure things out again.
It was so bad I put the G2 back in the box and tried to return it to HP, but they never responded to my email. After a few weeks of no response I gave it to my land lord's 12 year old son, and it's still sitting in their house on a chair to this day. (He's more interested in other games.)
Anyway I'm curious, has anyone at all had this "losing the position" issue that I've described?
PS - I'm back on my old head set but I really liked the G2 view screens. They were a lot better than my current one's view screens.
By this, do you mean the whole world moves around and rotates? That's what happened to me and I never found how to stop it.
So are you saying you lowered the lights in the room you're in?
If I am very close to my 27" display, and the display is bright, could that cause a problem? If that is the cause of my issues, I wonder if I can turn the display completely off while I play the game.
Hello,
How did you initiate the return? I went to their website and clicked the button to start the process and they never emailed me.
![[VR] Merkir](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/141/141091.jpg?1553527154){kind=avatar}
I sent a support ticket from the HP website. Note that I had bought the item directly from HP, so I had all of the original HP order, invoice and tracking numbers.
Their level 1 support was excellent, extremely fast replies and very pro-active, actually chasing me up to get answers to their questions during the technical part of the process. Their level 2 (technical) support was only average, with the troubleshooting part a little amateurish IMO. In the end we agreed I should return the device. They arranged for a courier to pick it up, and I received the refund about 2 weeks later. Note that I'm in Australia. It was all a fairly painless process.
If nothing else, I could easily imagine moving imagery on a screen filling up a significant part of the tracking cameras' field of view, potentially confusing the SLAM algorithm, if it has "short memory", so to speak, especially if that moving imagery is the desktop mirror of your view in the HMD, "doubling" the apparent motion between frames... :7
Yeah I mean I have a typical setup, where I'm facing a desk with HOTAS, keyboard, mouse and screen. I also have 4 big windows in this room and I'm hearing people say sunlight is bad.
I guess it could become a problem were the light so strong, and had the cameras such-and-such limited dynamic range, that they ended up seeing little more than a solid white nothing... (EDIT: Other than that, one might think a healthy amount of light would be a boon.)
I'd better mention that I do not have a Reverb myself, nor any other HMD with pure image based tracking, so I am not speculating from personal experience. :7
Yeah and I also realized that I have some whiteboards on my wall right in front of me. Maybe that's causing a problem, because whiteboards have a sort of reflective surface to them. But I need those for work and I don't want to take them down. I guess if that's the cause I could build some sort of "whiteboard-covering-up-thing" like blankets or window blinds.
Could be...If your room is pretty empty and has plain mono-coloured walls, maybe you could give those whiteboards dark frames -- maybe try drawing some distinct and sharp-edged shapes on the boards, and/or placing a couple of objects in view of the cameras, around you, so that the SLAM algorithm has some good features to lock onto, recognise, and track. Just throwing up random brain-burps, here.
Last edited:
G2 orbit lines are sometimes red and green not yellow. It is like there are two lines that should be on top of each other to make yellow? Any of you seen this with the G2.
Thanks so much for this extensive write up - really appreciate your time.Here's my review of the HP Reverb G2 after 6 weeks of use. Apologies in advance for the length. Below the review I've also included a description of the fault which made me return the device, but this in no way detracts from the device or affects my review. (Anyone can be unlucky and get that 1 in 200 faulty device.)
My specs: RTX 2080 Ti, Intel i9-9900K, 32GB RAM, SSDs
Other VR Headsets: Rift CV1, Pimax 5k+
First impressions
After 1 min in ED, two things were obvious - the resolution was fantastic, but black levels and colours were disappointing. The entire starfield was grey, not near-black. The first thing I did was change Gamma but it didn't help.
Longer impressions I'll break down into subheadings, in order of my initial impressions...
BLACK LEVELS
This was the first thing I noticed, as it wasn't close to black. I'll call it dark grey but tbh that's being kind. It obviously detracted from my ED experience. No settings could improve it. I suspect I'm more unforgiving than most re black levels. The Rift CV1 was quite ok (OLED), suffering more from banding at the black boundaries. The Pimax, while dark grey, was still bearable. But no, the G2 is simply not good enough for me. YMMV. Of course in non-space games it's fine, quite acceptable.
I've since seen that the contrast ratio for the G2 panels is 800:1 (up from 700:1 for the G1), but it seems worse, and for a space game this obviously isn't good enough (again, for me, you might be quite ok with it).
RESOLUTION:
Excellent, as expected from the two 2160x2160 panels. For the first minute or two I sat back and just let the stunning resolution make me happy. But also knowing full well that it was running at extremely low frame rate - the default Steam VR and Win MR settings. So then, as we all do, I spent considerable time - many many hours - adjusting the various SteamVR, Win MR and ED settings. I googled, read countless forum threads, youtube, used others' recommended settings, and optimised myself.
The end result? My best experience was when running at close to native (1:1) resolution (certainly no supersampling) using the global and game-specific resolution multipliers, with ED settings at either VR Medium or High (a few ultra if they had little effect on frame rate). I enabled reprojection and the steamVR overlays to monitor frame timing and reprojection warnings. The result was ED running on average just below the 11ms (90Hz) frame timing, and letting reprojection cut in quite often. The frame rate and visual ED experience was quite OK, but of course it's a trade-off with visual quality. At this point I had lost the full visual experience of the high resolution panels I described above, but it was still a step up on the CV1, and less so over the Pimax.
I saw another poster here say that compared to their Rift CV1, the visual experience was about "50% better". I'd concur with that.
I note other posters here with 3090 cards also struggle with the frame rate / visuals trade-off. Someone else here said that in a way, the G2 is "future proof", because you won't be able to get the full potential of the G2 until graphics cards are considerably more powerful than those we have today. Fair enough, but that means that for the time being, perhaps years, the extra resolution is irrelevant/wasted.
COLOURS
This was a surprise. My honest first impression was that colours are washed out. I thought something in my settings must have been wrong. I had already watched all of Sebastian's youtube videos on his MRTV channel where he raved about the vivid colours of the G2, albeit he mentioned that HP were intending to dial down the colours/brightness in the release version. His vids of Half Life Alyx were stunning. So why does my headset show colours so washed out? I won't say they're bad, but they're not as vivid/bright as the MRTV vids, and perhaps not even the Pimax (or the CV1, but that's OLED).
UPDATE: I actually wonder if the colour problem might also have something to do with the fault that made me return the device. More about that below.
SWEET SPOT
Very happy to say this was the best thing about the headset. Huge sweet spot. The Pimax was practically unusable due to the poor sweet spot (and non-overlapping sweet spots - another story). The G2 was brilliant.
TRACKING
One of the later things I noticed about this headset was the tracking. The inside-out tracking is certainly not as good as the base station/camera tracking of the Pimax/CV1. And this was for the headset itself. The controllers I didn't use much (being on ED, I use HOTAS). Again I had seen all of the YT vids and forum threads on tracking, and I made sure I had no direct sunlight, no external interfering LED lights, good but not bright lighting, etc. The headset movements were still jerky in ED. In game, on my setup, this results in jerky motion especially with head rotation. I had actually ignored this during the hours I spent on settings to adjust frame-rate/visuals. I assumed the jerkiness was simply reprojection jankiness, but after many more hours/weeks, it became obvious it was the head tracking itself, as it happens when the overlays show no reprojection and frame timing well under 11ms. I even changed to 60Hz (16ms frame timing) and tracking was no better.
I note that Sebastian from MRTV has come under considerable fire from users and other YT'ers regarding his glowing feedback on G2 tracking. He even had to make additional videos explaining his stance. Bottom line is, like many other users, you may have to put up with sub-par tracking if you're used to base stations.
SCREEN DOOR
Excellent. Only noticeable when you really look for it. Best headset for screen door I've used by far.
OTHER ISSUES
SOUND: The sound from the two off-ear speakers I think is very good (YMMV), however like many others have found, there's an issue with the sound simply cutting out for about 5 seconds at a time.
SCREEN BLANKING: Like sound, sometimes the panels turn off for about 5 seconds. Quite a surprise the first time it happened.
A quick google showed both of these are known faults, and the solution is to lower the audio volume. This lowers the power usage (go figure). But the issues still occurred for me sometimes, even at 50% volume.
CABLE CLIP: This was obviously an afterthought by HP, as it doesn't fit well and falls off.
CONCLUSIONS
My overall impression is that the G2 is a decent VR headset, but it doesn't really live up to the hype, and it's best for games that don't push graphics cards to the extreme. Current hardware just can't get the most out of these high resolution panels. Subjectively, it would also be better for games that don't have many black backgrounds. There are niggling issues like tracking and audio/panel blackouts that HP should have fixed prior to release.
Having said that, I would have been quite happy to have kept the device for use with non-ED games.
FAULT AND RETURN
Unfortunately my G2 was faulty out of the box. The first minute of ED showed pixels randomly flashing, thousands of pixels per second. The effect was obvious in ED (black background) but couldn't be seen in other games with other backgrounds. That effect became worse after a few hours, when dozens of horizontal lines randomly flashed across both panels. These lines were very obvious in any game and any background.
Of course I suspected the cables/connections so I carefully made sure all were seated correctly, numerous times, but it had no effect. HP Support were VERY responsive and pro-active in their communication. I give their level 1 support 10/10. However their technical expertise (level 2+) was less so. I give their level 2 support 4/10. I won't go into details because I'm getting tired writing this up.
For those that are interested, here's a photo I took with my phone pressed up against the right panel eyepiece. Note the overlay shows I'm running at 60Hz (and also at low ED settings), because HP asked me if the fault was also occurring at 60Hz, which it was. It also gives some idea of the black levels.
In the end, HP couldn't fix it, and I opted for the refund rather than exchange. I'll be going back to the CV1 at 150% supersampling, and probably wait for some form of xLED gen 3 headset.
I'm currently running a CV1 with a 3080 and considering buying the G2 but I'm torn with some of the issues you've described (mainly the black levels and head tracking in swift-combat movements). So I'm struggling to make up my mind and don't really know what to ask, but I'm secretly hoping you just had a bad experience with one unit by chance and my luck is improved.
My biggest gripe with the CV1 is text-readability and resolution-clarity, both of which seem to be overcome with the G2. Would you agree with thate?
I just can't decide if it is worth the trade-off. Knowing what you know now about the current market and potential future HMD (like the Vive Pro 2) - do you have any thoughts to share?
Your biggest gripe was addressed in earlier versions even. Rift S, Vive Pro, Index, Quest 1, Quest 2, Reverb - all have clarity far surpassing the SDE-ridden blurry mess that was CV1 and OG Vive. It will be a night and day difference with either of these headsets.
As for black levels - industry almost unanimously dropped OLED screens. And the blacks are... not great. That said, they're not atrocious either. It's like an LCD display, it will be gray-ish. But it wasn't "inky black" in OG Vive either.
As for HTC, their stuff is usually overpriced and underspecced in my opinion (used OG Vive, now on Valve Index). I'm done buying from them, unless they bring a real revolution to the market. The announced Vive Pro 2 isn't that in my opinion.
Moving onto Reverb G2, the resolution is great, but the controllers are outdated and sub-par. If you're only playing Elite with your VR, go for the G2. If you play different games where motion control matters, you'd be better off with worse image quality and better all-round controllers. Quest 2 seems like a sensible compromise here, relatively cheap and more importantly standalone/portable. Meaning you can play native games like The Walking Dead Saints and Sinners while on a trip, not requiring a pc
It can of course stream games from your PC, so you can play Elite on it, wirelessly(!) if you're a good quality wifi router (5GHz).TL; DR: any current gen headset will blow away Rift CV1 in clarity, readability etc. If you're only playing ED / sims, go for Reverb G2. If you like playing roomscale games with motion controls, go for something else, preferably Quest 2 or Index if you're feeling fancy [but I have a hard time recommending Index over the Quest 2 - the latter is a much more versatile device].