Okay, the G2 arrived today, and I've finished the setup and first round of tinkering with it. Here are my first impressions.
After completing the setup (and getting the headset properly on my melon and getting the sweet spot somewhat right) I launched ED without changing any settings, so this was with SteamVR SS at 100% and Elite's SS also at 100% and HMD Quality still at 1.25. After loading into the ship I was literally stunned for a minute.
The clarity, readability and sharpness was really astonishing. The display of the G2 is great. REALLY great. It was really baffling. Of course my PC was only pushing 25 to 35 frames per second, and that was in open space. To be expected, the 2080S is nowhere near being able to push 7k by 3.5k at 90 Hz.
I've played around a bit with the resolution and reprojection settings. First thing I noticed was that frame drops and the headset switching from full framerate to reprojection was nowhere near as jarring as on the Rift S. On the Oculus it always felt like a jolt going through my eyes, with the Reverb I notice it mostly through the artefacts that the reprojection produces.
If I set the SteamVR SS to 30% I'm in Rift S territory, regarding both performance and visuals. I get similar jagged edge shimmering as with the Rift S, text is a bit sharper and better readable. At 30% my system comfortably pushes 90 frames in most situations. I'm guessing in busy systems and RES sites it would drop more often into reprojection, I have not tested it yet. So far my GPU sat between 60 and 92 percent.
70% SS with reprojection is a nice middle ground. I get slight shimmering and jagged edges with stable 45 fps and around 70 to 80% GPU load. Exept when entering a station, there I got a few drops to 40. In stations it felt similar to my experience with the Rift S. The downside are the artifacts occuring mostly in vertical lines like in the HUD or vertical edges in the cockpit - sharp vertical edges tend to wobble, which could be really annoying long term.
I was really surprised about the total absence of the SDE. If I wouldn't know it from the Rift S I would not have known what to look for. And even with that knowledge I couldn't see it. I tried to find the pixel edges, but I couldn't. But then again I'm old and blind anyway
.
Speaking of blind: There is no chance in hell I will wear glasses with the Reverb. The face gasket sits pretty tight on my face, and while I can get the glasses inside, the pressure on the frame gets very uncomfortable very fast.
I did not like the velcro straps for adjusting the headband size. In fact I hate them. Hopefully, after the face cushion settles down a bit, I won't have to touch them any more.
Sound is very good. I like the spacial arrangement of the speakers, I had a similar setup for my Rift with the Koss Porta Pros I mounted to it. The Reverb sounds aven better, as the Koss were a little harsh in the mids.
Last thing I noticed: The scale of the world feels different. I'm not sure if it really is, although I finally feel like my hands have the right size and my feet are the right distance from my butt. Everything feels a bit bigger. Adjusting the IPD has zero influence on that, neither with the Reverb's hardeware adjustment nor the Rift's software solution. With the Rift I always thought: Damn, people are small in Elite
. With the Reverb, it feels... right.
So far I'm pretty pleased. I will have to decide if I want Rift S-visuals (but without SDE and better readability) and mostly great performance (30%) or a good sharp image with repro artefacts (70%). Running ED at 100% is out of the question, but I didn't really expect that anyway. I guess I'll have to play around with the settings a bit more. For now it's time to call it a night.
