HP Reverb G2 impressions in Elite Dangerous

[VR CMDR Novindus]

Got mine today. Loved the picture once I worked out the best way of fitting it, bigger sweet spot than CV1 but a bit smaller than Index. Lost tracking on one controller twice for no apparent reason, very irritating seeing it locked in place and rotating a little no matter where I waved my arm around as the other one worked perfectly fine. Turning that controller off and on restored functionality but I shouldn't have to do that. Granted, I've never used inside-out tracking before and am spoiled. Turned off the vibration because it felt awful. Haven't gotten the 1.6 batteries yet, maybe those will help.

Most of the decent reviews seem about right: this thing needs a WMR tracking update (there's one in beta if you opt in to the insider thing) and a new set of controllers to really sing. The more hysterical posts on reddit are over-egged. I'm not sure if I'll keep the Index in the other room and the G2 with the HOTAS/wheel setup or use the Knuckles controllers with this rig and sell the HMD. It feels kinda decadent having both. But surely 2020 calls for some decadence.

SDE isn't gone despite all the raving, it's hard to detect if motionless, but the second you move your head around you see that fine mesh pretty clearly. Still, a nice advance and a reasonable price point if you have a good CPU/GPU. We're getting there. Next I want a non-Pimax 4k x 4k and 20-30 degrees more FOV! And a real monster of a GPU to drive it, so it should be more than a few years for that. Hopefully we'll have sorted out cheaper varifocal by then, that's a real stumbling block for comfort in these things.

Anyone try the Windows Insider build with the tracking update yet? I'm scared that'll break everything else and I won't be able to do that work stuff that pays for all these toys.

Out of curiosity, what’s your IPD, and how deep-set would you say your eyes are? I personally found the sweet spot in the CV1 bigger and easier to find than on the G2. My IPD is around 72 and my eyes are quite deep-set.

 

[sgurr]

Yes, thanks, sorry I meant pixel density not pixel design. Stupid autocorrect!
Often supersampling or pixel density are expressed as 1.0,1.1,1.2 etc, I'm not sure how that equates to a percentage though. Do you think that the G2 being 2.5 times the pixel count of the Rift S would be the equivalent of supersampling of 1.25?

Sorry, I don't use Oculus so can't help there, you'll have to look that up.

So is reprojection that good? I thought it works well in really slow games like flight sim.

The only place I really notice it is v.close to surfaces flying or flyving fast and looking sideways, otherwise looking straight ahead or in other locations I just don't see it (although I can tell it's on because I have the indicator running)

Not all methods of creating frames work the same way. For example, folk with Oculus talk about warping/smearing, that doesn't happen with WMR.

I've been doing it this way for a while and, as Novindus suggests, have probably grown accomstomed to it. Worth playing around with the setting including reprojection to see what works for you.
My settings are only 55-60 base fps average.

 

[sgurr]

Out of curiosity, what’s your IPD, and how deep-set would you say your eyes are? I personally found the sweet spot in the CV1 bigger and easier to find than on the G2. My IPD is around 72 and my eyes are quite deep-set.

Can I ask about that, does the physical slider on the G2 work for you?
My brother would like VR but has a wide IPD. As long as there is a sweet spot it'd be better than no headset.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

You probably know this, but for those who may not, the playability with reprojection is proportional to your FPS. The closer you can get to 90 frames per second, the less frames have to be generated, and the smoother it feels. The more accustomed to VR you are, the more comfortable you can be with higher reprojection rates.

Currently I’m running Elite with 80% render resolution in SteamVR, and Ultra settings with HMD and SS at 1.0 with Shadows and Occlusion at max (Bloom and Blur off). It’s so far the best balance of image quality and smooth play I’ve arrived at.

No, actually all experience I have is when Elite hit 45 fps while at areas of volumetric effects, that felt pretty bad, so I don't know how reprojection looks like.
I think reprojection as you describe is great as usually I was put on 45 fps when I barely hit 90, so actually my GPU was something like 55-60% loaded. I am now cautiously optimistic about the 1080ti's ability to handle the G2.

 

[milligna]

Out of curiosity, what’s your IPD, and how deep-set would you say your eyes are? I personally found the sweet spot in the CV1 bigger and easier to find than on the G2. My IPD is around 72 and my eyes are quite deep-set.

65 and not deep-set! Man, it's a shame there's such wide variation due to stuff like that. And how it isn't financially worthwhile to make different versions to better accommodate folks, something I'm sure will happen when VR actually becomes mainstream.

Definitely worth messing with the reprojection settings, I think mine were off to begin with. Helped with those sims with woefully brutal performance.

Makes me wonder what kinda results the folks in the Flight Simulator VR beta are getting. Oof!

Had more of those tracking problems, irritating beyond belief. If I set one controller down for a few minutes and pick it up, it glitches out and doesn't work well unless I turn it on and off. Anyone used to Lighthouse will be furious.

Works just fine for Elite, at least. Looking good. Thought I would be super sensitive to the black levels, but fine by me!

 

[[VR] Mad Life Crisis]

Motion smoothing will not do anything it is native to the SteamVR runtime not the SteamVR for Windows Mixed Reality runtime.

You need to enable WMRs own motion vector reprojection.

\Steam\steamapps\common\MixedRealityVRDriver\resources\settings\default.vrsettings

// Motion reprojection doubles framerate through motion vector extrapolation
//     motionvector = force application to always run at half framerate with motion vector reprojection
//     auto         = automatically use motion reprojection when the application can not maintain native framerate
//     disabled     = turn off motion reprojection
//
// Comment out or remove this line to use the SteamVR settings for controlling motion reprojection
        "motionReprojectionMode" : "disabled",

You can, however, comment out or delete the following line from this file;

and then the per application settings in the Steam VR Settings menu will affect the game. I've tried it and it works. This has been available on the no beta version recently as well.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

Can I ask about that, does the physical slider on the G2 work for you?
My brother would like VR but has a wide IPD. As long as there is a sweet spot it'd be better than no headset.

It’s still clear, and the sweet spot is ok. I just feel if it catered more to my IPD the experience would be better.

 

[hapklaar]

It’s still clear, and the sweet spot is ok. I just feel if it catered more to my IPD the experience would be better.

That's interesting. I come from CV1 as well, and perceive the sweet spot of the G2 as significantly smaller in the horizontal plane. Vertical its ok, but when I move my eyes a bit to the left or right, it gets blurry immediately. No amount of IPD slider adjustment fixes this, my IPD is around 68mm.

My impressions on using the G2 in ED on a RTX3090 are thus far not overwhelming. Without changing any Steam or WMR settings, and ED at VR Low and SS at 1.0, I only get around 66fps in space, and a bit lower in station. My GPU is at 99% at that moment, so fully utilized. CPU below 25%. Going to try some of the suggestions I found in this topic to try to increase that to at least 90.

 

[sgurr]

...
My impressions on using the G2 in ED on a RTX3090 are thus far not overwhelming. Without changing any Steam or WMR settings, and ED at VR Low and SS at 1.0, I only get around 66fps in space, and a bit lower in station.
...

That doesn't sound right at all. I get close to that fps with high/ultra settings on a 1080ti, and the few VR benchmarks out there are showing much higher than that for a 3080 never mind 3090.

What's the "Render Resolution" set at in SteamVR? Have you got 6+ physical cpu cores?
I'm no expert, just quick thoughts I'd look at for myself.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

That doesn't sound right at all. I get close to that fps with high/ultra settings on a 1080ti, and the few VR benchmarks out there are showing much higher than that for a 3080 never mind 3090.

What's the "Render Resolution" set at in SteamVR? Have you got 6+ physical cpu cores?
I'm no expert, just quick thoughts I'd look at for myself.

You don't even need 6 physical cores, with the 7700k I had never CPU bottlenecking while playing Elite in VR.

 

[hapklaar]

That doesn't sound right at all. I get close to that fps with high/ultra settings on a 1080ti, and the few VR benchmarks out there are showing much higher than that for a 3080 never mind 3090.

What's the "Render Resolution" set at in SteamVR? Have you got 6+ physical cpu cores?
I'm no expert, just quick thoughts I'd look at for myself.

I have an AMD 3700X which has 8 cores. I have not played much with Steam VR settings, they are at their defaults. Render Resolution is on 'Auto'. The only benchmark I've seen covering ED+G2+3090 also gets 66 fps. Can you point me to any benchmarks you are referring to that show much higher fps on a 3080?

 

[sgurr]

You don't even need 6 physical cores, with the 7700k I had never CPU bottlenecking while playing Elite in VR.

That's fair. I'm going what folk that know more than me have said (on here) for best performace. I was cpu bottlenecked on an i5 with 4 physical cores and no hyperthreading.

I have an AMD 3700X which has 8 cores. I have not played much with Steam VR settings, they are at their defaults. Render Resolution is on 'Auto'. The only benchmark I've seen covering ED+G2+3090 also gets 66 fps. Can you point me to any benchmarks you are referring to that show much higher fps on a 3080?

I've got a 3700x too.

One of the problem with almost all VR reviews I've seen so far is they're not being clear about what render resolution is being used. The review I was referring to isn't with a G2:

VR Wars: The RX 6800 XT vs. the RTX 3080 – 15 VR Games Performance benchmarked

VR Wars: The RX 6800 XT vs. the RTX 3080 – 15 Games Performance benchmarked using the Vive Pro This review presents a fifteen-game VR ... Read more

babeltechreviews.com

My 1080ti cannot do 90fps at the resolution in that review, but is locked at 45fps with Ultra settings with a custom render resolution of 2200x2160. I've tried higher and while it reduced aliasing it didn't improve visuals otherwise and wasn't worth the performance hit. I use AA through the nvidia diver instead.
As I said it just doesn't sound right that a card that delivers anywhere up to double the fps in 2D would be performing so relatively poorly close to mine in VR.

Aside from playing with the render resolution maybe worth starting a thread asking for settings pointers? There are folk on here who really do know what they're talking about.

Edit: and have a look at this thread:

3090 is the new VR KING

It completely unlocks all the visuals of Elite in VR, I don't know what it is about it, it must be all those cuda cores and RAM, but seriously, it's way way better than I expected and much more than just 2x better than the 2080Ti. Here's a review I made. How is the 3080 in comparison?

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Gortron]

I have an AMD 3700X which has 8 cores. I have not played much with Steam VR settings, they are at their defaults. Render Resolution is on 'Auto'. The only benchmark I've seen covering ED+G2+3090 also gets 66 fps. Can you point me to any benchmarks you are referring to that show much higher fps on a 3080?

My G2 comes Tuesday so can’t speak from experience but I’ve read that the render resolution in steam VR defaults to the wrong render resolution for the G2 and is effectively being super sampled to 150%. You need to adjust the slider to as close to 2160 x 2160 as you can get it. On my Rift S on my 3090 I can get 80FPS everywhere with HMDQ set at 1.75x so I’d expect to get 90FPS in space and 45FPS in stations on the G2 looking at the GPU usage.

Skip to around 8 mins:

Source: https://youtu.be/YpKFTqOUY-s

 

[HeavyGroovez]

I’d expect to get 90FPS in space and 45FPS in stations on the G2 looking at the GPU usage.

Yeah at 1.5x HMD Quality in Elite and the SteamVR for WMR set to native thats pretty much what i get on the G1 + 3090.

WMR Reprojection is impressive in stations - even better than ASW which up until now has been the best of the bunch.

 

[Gortron]

Yeah at 1.5x HMD Quality in Elite and the SteamVR for WMR set to native thats pretty much what i get on the G1 + 3090.

WMR Reprojection is impressive in stations - even better than ASW which up until now has been the best of the bunch.

That’s good, I’m surprised it can take 1.5. I’m not looking forward to messing around with WMR reprojection. Apparently it’s not on by default or something and you have to un-comment out a line in the settings or something. I don’t really understand it!

 

[hapklaar]

My G2 comes Tuesday so can’t speak from experience but I’ve read that the render resolution in steam VR defaults to the wrong render resolution for the G2 and is effectively being super sampled to 150%. You need to adjust the slider to as close to 2160 x 2160 as you can get it. On my Rift S on my 3090 I can get 80FPS everywhere with HMDQ set at 1.75x so I’d expect to get 90FPS in space and 45FPS in stations on the G2 looking at the GPU usage.

Skip to around 8 mins:

Source: https://youtu.be/YpKFTqOUY-s

That's interesting. I have to set the Render Resolution to 50% to get near 2160x2160. It will then be at 2236x2188. Will try this later on. Should I do anything with WMR Reprojection as well?

 

[jojon]

...but with Shadow Quality and Ambient Occlusion at their highest settings...

I do not have a Reverb, but feel compelled to mention that AO tends to be problematic in VR, because the camera frustums are usually asymmetrical, with the one for the left eye rendering stuff a bit farther to the left, than the other one, and vice versa, whilst the post-effect AO shaders usually tend to make the assumption that the viewpoint is situated right above the middle of the bitmap.

This results in shading that can differ rather drastically, and uncomfortably, between the left and right eye. The frequently resulting object-in-shadow-in-one-eye-out-in-the-light-in-the-other effect makes things appear strangely "shimmery". The deviation gets stronger the wider the FOV of your headset.

Personally, even before taking that into account, I was of the opinion that AO in Elite Dangerous slurps way too much juice out of the GPU, for what image quality it adds.


On another recent note: A base render resolution that is larger than the physical resolution of the display panels is normal for VR headsets; It is such, to compensate for the way the lenses blows the image up more in the middle, than in the periphery. Reducing it, is to subsample in the centre of the view, where you argueably want the detail the most.

 

[Gortron]

That's interesting. I have to set the Render Resolution to 50% to get near 2160x2160. It will then be at 2236x2188. Will try this later on. Should I do anything with WMR Reprojection as well?

I don’t have a clue about the WMR reprojection settings sorry.

 

[Gortron]

I do not have a Reverb, but feel compelled to mention that AO tends to be problematic in VR, because the camera frustums are usually asymmetrical, with the one for the left eye rendering stuff a bit farther to the left, than the other one, and vice versa, whilst the post-effect AO shaders usually tend to make the assumption that the viewpoint is situated right above the middle of the bitmap.

This results in shading that can differ rather drastically, and uncomfortably, between the left and right eye. The frequently resulting object-in-shadow-in-one-eye-out-in-the-light-in-the-other effect makes things appear strangely "shimmery". The deviation gets stronger the wider the FOV of your headset.

Personally, even before taking that into account, I was of the opinion that AO in Elite Dangerous slurps way too much juice out of the GPU, for what image quality it adds.


On another recent note: A base render resolution that is larger than the physical resolution of the display panels is normal for VR headsets; It is such, to compensate for the way the lenses blows the image up more in the middle, than in the periphery. Reducing it, is to subsample in the centre of the view, where you argueably want the detail the most.

I’ve read the same but the G2 seems way off at 100% it is defaulting to 3024x3024 per eye. The Rift S at 100% is 1648x1776. That said I’m not sure and steam VR has just updated for me and it doesn’t mention a fix for the G2 beyond a prompt to install the WMR for steam.

 

[jojon]

...it is defaulting to 3024x3024 per eye...

That is 1.4 times the panel native 2160, which is the same base factor as you had with the original HTC Vive, and do now with the Valve Index.

Oculus always had smaller factors - not sure what is going on there, but I can imagine their lenses have less magnification difference between the centre and the periphery, as one of the consequences of their smaller FOV.

I am not sure there is anything in SteamVR that "hardcodes" the base resolution, nor that multiplier -- it should be handed down from WMR, I believe.