HP Reverb Pro: Ask Me Anything!

[Exigeous]

UPDATE: I've started a Reddit AMA about it as HP finally gave me permission to do so. Video review coming very soon
https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsMR/comments/bug03c Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsMR/comments/bug03c/i_have_the_hp_reverb_pro_ask_me_anything/


Ok folks, what are your questions? I just got it this afternoon and have only had about 30 minutes in it so far. I'll be posting a full review video to my channel later tonight (before I head to bed).

First a huge thanks to HP for working this out for me - I too have had one on order with Amazon and waiting for an update from HP on shipping. I'll be able to share more about that in my full review (waiting for permission from HP on a few things). I'll obviously cover the standard VR questions but if there are specifics you want to know I'll be sure to include them. My early thoughts for seated Elite play (as I don't care about non-seated VR).

I should start by detailing the headsets I've owned or tested. I currently use my Rift CV1 as IMHO it's by far the best available, all things considered. I've owned: Oculus Go, Vive, Vive Pro, Samsung Odyssey+, Pimax 4K, Lenovo Explorer, PSVR and of course the Rift CV1. The only major headset I haven't owned yet is the Pimax 5k/8k but given what a total POS the 4K was I have little interest in them (but full disclosure haven't used them).

Image quality: Stunning. A big jump over the Vive Pro and Odyssey+ - there is virtually no screendoor at all. If you look really hard - nope, gone. I wouldn't call it "monitor clarity" but is VERY close

Black levels: Non-issue. I usually run my Rift a few ticks below center for gamma but had to turn this back to middle it's so 'dark' - meaning the blacks are excellent, again non-issue

Controllers: Yeah, they suck - standard Windows MR but I don't care, I'll never even pick them up

Comfort: This is the HUGE part for me - while it's not as comfortable as the Rift CV1 it's awesome. Light and easy, not the huge bulky mess that is the Vive Pro or Odyssey. It's lighter than the Rift, the head straps are a bit tighter (I wear XL helmets and even then sometimes they are too small - yes, I have a big head). I have the Pro model, so the leather face guard and it's very similar to my VR Cover on my Rift. Easy to pull off and clean - and the nose guard is also really comfortable and blocks ALL light. I'm used to peeking under my Rift to see Discord, etc. - not happening unless I remove the nose guard (which you can do)

Audio: I haven't tried the speakers/headphones yet - I removed them straight away. Almost identical design to the Rift CV1.

The negative: Definitely not perfect. The hugely thick cable sucks and is very short - as in just long enough for my seated play given where my PC is. As I don't think it can be extended currently this will be an issue for some. I can get it in a comfortable place for seated play so it's not tugging on my head while moving around. The software also isn't great - you get a few minor glitches in Elite, like when you change ships you get this quick cut out to the Steam VR interface, for like .5 seconds. Not huge but annoying.

My system: 8086k 5.0Ghz, 2080Ti, 32 GB RAM, 512GB NVMe - so not a slouch. The interesting part - I used to run with HMD Image Quality (super sampling) at 1.5 - I'm now down to 1.0 as you just don't need the extra sampling - so my framerate is a bit BETTER actually!

Okay, next to go try some Project Cars 2 and Assetto Corsa. I'll cover a lot more in my video review - so let me know what you want to know so I'll be sure to cover it.

In short if you love the Rift this is absolutely 100% the headset you want.

~Exigeous

 

[HeavyGroovez]

One question really, what FPS are you getting with your setup running the HMD at its native resolution ?

 

[vidslo]

Definitely interested to see your full review. I started with the Lenovo Explorer, then moved to the Odyssey+ and I'm finding myself constantly going back to my 4K monitor...

Not to knock VR, I think it's great for immersion, but with my GTX1080, I just can't get the headset to be satisfying. Comfort and light leakage issues aside, the clarity and resolution still have a long way to go. I'll probably end up selling both headsets as the only game I play, or have interest in playing, with VR is Elite.

 

[Chaparral]

I have zero experience with VR. Are you required to use the controllers, or can you still use your HOTAS and keyboard? I use voice attack and am a decent touch typist.

 

[UWBandman]

I have zero experience with VR. Are you required to use the controllers, or can you still use your HOTAS and keyboard? I use voice attack and am a decent touch typist.

No you do not use the controllers at all for VR Elite. HOTAS/Joystick/Voice attack is the way to go. You don't use a keyboard either, really - you can't see so...the only thing I use the keyboard for is typing system names into the galaxy map. I do have a few rarely-used functions mapped to the easily located keys that I can find by touch, but really I just use Voice Attack for everything not mapped to HOTAS.

 

[Paso]

Can't wait to see your review. I actually bought the rift based on your review of it for ED.
I'm very interested in the fps, as I have a rtx 2080 and also in knowing how big the sweet spot is and the fov. Hopefully it will be available in the UK at some point.

 

[Milner]

In particular sweet spot of the lens, I appreciate its subjective but its one of my biggest issues with the Lenovo.

Performance in elite others have already asked and its interesting you mention you can turn some settings down as the resolution is so good.

 

[razalom]

Cant wait to see the review. Have a Rift S on the way and have had a vive since release. Will happily grab this as well for the sit down sims I play and use the rift s for roomscale stuff.

 

[sgurr]

Hey Exigeous, cheers for that, look forward to the video review. Any issues with the tracking? Also fit is such a personal thing with different head shapes/sizes is there anyone else you can get to try the headset to see if they find it as comfortable as you?

My main headset is an Odyssey+ and was actually painful to wear out of the box. It took some modding to get it to fit right. While I doubt there is a way to accomodate all fits with one headset I think Samsung did a terrible job with it.
In contrast to you though now that I have it fitting well and comfortable I think it's a good step up from the CV1.

Edit: and the following review mentions some mura effects, have you seen anything like that?
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019...headsets-the-400-oculus-rift-s-600-hp-reverb/

Cheers o7

 

[Exigeous]

Let's see if I can answer a few questions while I wait for permission from HP to post my full review.

what FPS are you getting with your setup running the HMD at its native resolution ?

Very similar to what I got in the Rift, 90 most places with it dipping around stations and a bit on planets. Realize though that "native resolution" doesn't work the same as monitor would - it's rendered by the game then upscaled to the headset so it's not the huge hit to performance you think. I'm clarifying with HP how this works exactly and will report back. The great news is I can run with HMD super sampling at 1.0 (ran my Rift at 1.5) so I'm processing less pixels even at full resolution. Minimum card is a 1080 - so my 2080Ti is driving it just fine.

...going back to my 4K monitor... ....Comfort and light leakage issues aside, the clarity and resolution still have a long way to go.

Clarity issues are a thing of the past - I would describe it as looking at a 4k projector - so not as crisp as a 4k monitor but damn close. You see a bit of banding due to the fresnel lenses, but it's rather minor and you have to look for it - and only see it on a pure white background (not much of that in Elite). As for your 1080 driving it - you're not getting full ultra 4k60 either so that comparison isn't relevant - in short it's a HUGE leap above the Odyssey+ - oh and there is ZERO light leakage. ZERO. It's also significantly more comfortable and far less bulky/lighter than the Odyssey+ (which to my head was far and away the least comfortable I've ever worn - it was a total deal breaker for me it was so bad compared to others). Maybe not comparing it to the Rift you just don't know what you're missing - or my head is just very oddly shaped ;-)

I have zero experience with VR.

Then why would you post in this thread? Ugh.

I actually bought the rift based on your review of it for ED.
.....how big the sweet spot is and the fov. Hopefully it will be available in the UK at some point.

Awesome to hear, it really is BY FAR the best overall headset - until the Reverb - and honestly it's still a VERY close contender when you factor in comfort, tracking and build quality (more on that in my full review). As for the sweet spot no issues - it isn't huge but not small either and it's easy to get it in a good place. I'm pretty sure it'll be on sale in the UK when it actually launches.

...sweet spot of the lens, I appreciate its subjective but its one of my biggest issues with the Lenovo.

MUCH better than the Lenovo, which sorry but I thought was one of the worst on the market. This is a HUGE step up over it - HUGE. My IPD is right around 60-61 and I'm having zero issues there.

Have a Rift S on the way and have had a vive since release. Will happily grab this as well for the sit down sims I play and use the rift s for roomscale stuff.

I'm curious what you think of the Rift S as it's a total non-starter for me given the Lenovo halo design. Honestly I think the Rift is BY FAR the best design in terms of lightness and non-bulkiness (that's a word, right)? I really hated the original Vive and the Vive Pro and DAC are far worse to me (just huge and bulky where the Rift CV1 is so elegant). It es me off that Oculus got lazy and had Lenovo make the S for them as they focused on the Quest - which is the great ski-mask design of the CV1. But I don't ever play roomscale so I don't care about that at all - and being clear the Reverb would SUCK for roomescale (many reasons, the controller suck, the cable is way to short, etc)

Any issues with the tracking?

YES - it SUCKS. I've asked HP to see if there's something up or something I can fix but it's just not great. You get little micro-stutters and if you move your head rapidly up/down (like nodding) the world moves with you - where in the Rift it's completely stable. Now you don't do that much when gaming but in rapid combat you do. It isn't a deal breaker - but when I put my Rift back on it was sorta like going from a 60hz display to 144hz - not in terms of the actual display but of the tracking. This will be a problem for some - but realize I'm using a final stage prototype so I've asked for details.

Also fit is such a personal thing with different head shapes/sizes is there anyone else you can get to try the headset to see if they find it as comfortable as you?

Yes I have, and yes they do. No question to me that objectively it's the 2nd most comfortable out there after the Rift. The faceplate is a bit narrow - meaning the surface area of what touches your face compared to my VR Cover on my Rift which is much flatter, distributing the pressure over a wider area. Not a deal breaker but I'll be on the lookout for 3rd party replacements for sure.

....Odyssey+ and was actually painful to wear out of the box.

It's SHOCKINGLY uncomfortable isn't it - as in full on painful to me. I played around with some of the mods to make it better but never got it where I could even stand it for more than 10 minutes. These big bulky halo designs just have to go as the ski-mask style is just so much better.

...mura effects, have you seen anything like that?

Familiar with the review and no, I'm not seeing it at all. What I do see, and wonder if it's what they saw, is you can make out the rings in the fresnel lenses in really bright solid white areas - but we don't see many of those do we? I know there were some issues with some early units - which is why they halted production and are delayed, and while I don't have full confirmation from what I've been told I think this has been corrected. I hope to know all those details soon and hope I can share them soon after.

I've sent a lot of feedback to HP and have asked for details and clarification on a few things. I'm hoping to be able to put up my video review before Monday - or certainly before pretty much any other channels are able to. If you have more questions please keep them coming and I'll try to cover them.

~X

 

[Chaparral]

Then why would you post in this thread? Ugh.

To find about it - but ok I get it cool kids only. GLHF. I guess ask me anything was just for...?

 

[Exigeous]

To find about it - but ok I get it cool kids only. GLHF. I guess ask me anything was just for...?

Uh, sure ask question if you want - but if you have no idea how VR even operates then why would you ask in a detailed technical discussion of a new, unreleased headset compared to other headset. That isn't really an effective use of anyone's time - maybe a new thread where people can help you would be a far better use of your, my and the forum's time.

Now, did you have any questions about the HP Reverb that would be pertinent to this thread or do you wanna waste more time?

 

[Space Dandy]

Simple concept, it's a public thread, ignore anything you feel is irrelevant, no need to be rude and get all uppity.

Likewise understand this thread is about the HP Reverb and thus might not be the best place to ask questions about basic VR functions.

That said it's not a big deal and someone else answered the question so it could have been left at that no snark was required.

Time is only wasted if you choose to waste it, no one can force you to.

In the OP I see you owned the Vive Pro...was that with the lens mod? When you compare is it to the Pro without lens mod?

 

[HeavyGroovez]

Very similar to what I got in the Rift, 90 most places with it dipping around stations and a bit on planets. Realize though that "native resolution" doesn't work the same as monitor would - it's rendered by the game then upscaled to the headset so it's not the huge hit to performance you think.

Appreciate you taking the time to respond. When you say dipping can you quantify that in a bit more detail ?

What i am trying to establish is how the HMD performs at native resolution post warp. That means dual pass stereo rendering at a physical device resolution of 2160 x 2160 per eye. The VR compositor Api (WMR in this case) has to distort the submitted intermediate eye frame buffers, scale them back to native and finally push them to the device.

These buffers - to which the application (in this case Elite) submits its rectlinear textures - require a nominal increase in resolution of 1.4 to effectively perform the barrel distortion required to inverse the pincushion effect at the focal plane of current single element Fresnel lenses. This means a required final render target of 3024 x 3024 per eye.

For the pipeline to render at the Reverbs native panel resolution Elite has to pump out dual 9 megapixel rectlinear textures to the compositor in roughly half the 11.1ms frametime budget it gets at 90hz.

Having benchmarked pretty thoroughly with my Rift/Vive Pro/5k+ on a 2080Ti + 9900k rig i know that Elite can consistently make frametime in all scenarios (Stations, HazRes, Engineer bases) at a final render target of 2016 x 2240 per eye (4.5 megapixel). Anything more than that and the compositor frequently has to interpolate historic frames or extrapolate future frames to hit the v-sync.

Im struggling to reconcile how an increase of roughly 100% in per eye render workload (9 megapixel vs 4.5 megapixel) is possible unless the pipeline is in reprojection the vast majority of the time ?


Again, thanks for taking the time to answer questions, everyone is pretty hyped right now, exciting times for VR !

 

[Exigeous]

In the OP I see you owned the Vive Pro...was that with the lens mod? When you compare is it to the Pro without lens mod?

No, I didn't get to try that but I'm very well aware of it - so I'm not comparing there and would be very confident that the god rays are less in the VP than the Reverb. For me the Vive Pro was just so awful in every regard other than the resolution that there were too many deal breakers for me to even consider it's absurd price. I sold it to a good friend who did the lens mod so I may get him to send it back for a few days so I can check it out.

Appreciate you taking the time to respond. When you say dipping can you quantify that in a bit more detail ?

You're most welcome, if you've seen my channel you know this is basically what I do for a living so I'm happy to help.

What i am trying to establish is how the HMD performs at native resolution post warp...... (some fantastic "techno-babble").....Im struggling to reconcile how an increase of roughly 100% in per eye render workload (9 megapixel vs 4.5 megapixel) is possible unless the pipeline is in reprojection the vast majority of the time ?

While I understand everything you're saying I'm not sure that it's correct that it works this way -- now I'll admit from what you wrote you're either a lot smarter than I am on the subject or your bat crazy! The reason I'm thinking it doesn't work this way is I too would be hard pressed to see how a 2x in workload would be possible, especially when I'm not seeing any dip in performance or increase in load. I haven't used WMR much in the past as every headset I've tested was such I didn't bother learning about the tools - but will now. Do you have any thoughts on benchmarking I could run, other than just the on-screen FPS counter and subjective opinion? I am getting a good bit of reprojection so I'm going to turn that off at my next play session to see what things are like then. My strong assumption is that things are being rendered with a much lower pixel count then being upscaled at the last step or directly by the panels, like feeding a 1080p image to a 4k TV. I'm going to pass your question along to HP and see if I can get an answer as again that's a doozie!

They have confirmed they don't want me to release anything on it for at least a few days (I didn't tell them about this thread as I doubt I should have posted this too). I figure this forum is small enough that we're good (famous last words!)

~X

 

[Space Dandy]

...snip...

They have confirmed they don't want me to release anything on it for at least a few days (I didn't tell them about this thread as I doubt I should have posted this too). I figure this forum is small enough that we're good (famous last words!)

~X

Thanks for the reply!

Now remember guys..traps shut for the next few days till we know it's okay to talk about this elsewhere!

 

[razalom]

Double post sorry!

 

[razalom]

I'm curious what you think of the Rift S as it's a total non-starter for me given the Lenovo halo design. Honestly I think the Rift is BY FAR the best design in terms of lightness and non-bulkiness (that's a word, right)? I really hated the original Vive and the Vive Pro and DAC are far worse to me (just huge and bulky where the Rift CV1 is so elegant). It ****es me off that Oculus got lazy and had Lenovo make the S for them as they focused on the Quest - which is the great ski-mask design of the CV1. But I don't ever play roomscale so I don't care about that at all - and being clear the Reverb would SUCK for roomescale (many reasons, the controller suck, the cable is way to short, etc)

Well after only having the original Vive and the strap on that is pretty bad i think any change is a positive one.

Yeah the WMR controllers are bad which is why the S was ordered. Being in AU the Valve Index was not an option unfortunately.

 

[Exigeous]

Now remember guys..traps shut for the next few days till we know it's okay to talk about this elsewhere!

Yeah, it's not a big deal as I don't expect this to go viral or anything - now as for my upcoming video one can only hope!

Well after only having the original Vive and the strap on that is pretty bad i think any change is a positive one.
Yeah the WMR controllers are bad which is why the S was ordered. Being in AU the Valve Index was not an option unfortunately.

If you're playing standing I can see choosing the Rift controllers over any of the WinMR devices - that said honestly I'd pick the Rift CV1 over the Rift S every time - as there is so much more to the experience than just the displays. Very subjective - but comfort is so huge to me that if it's not there I'm just not going to wear it or enjoy doing so. The best part though is - there is real choice now. Dozens of models - and a shame you can't get the Index as I really think that's the one to have for standing.

 

[HeavyGroovez]

@Exigeous

I was going to suggest using Nvidias FCAT VR but it does not yet support WMR.

A frametime graph from Afterburner would be a good alternative though.

The only theory I can come up with is that the lenses have very little pincushion distortion and therefore require a much closer to native resolution pre warp buffer size which would put it in roughly the same ballpark as the Vive Pro (which has very high distortion lenses hence requiring the whopping 1.4x oversample pre warp) and account for what appears to be solid performance.

If this is the case then HP have pulled off some optical wizardry that has eliminated the need to oversample the pre warp buffer. Technically feasible as the XTAL has demonstrated but to have it in consumer priced hardware (albeit enterprise focused) is truly a game changer.