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Vive Pro announced

Discussion in 'VR Headsets and Sim Gaming - Virtual Reality' started by noorbeast, Jan 9, 2018.

  1. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    The Vive Pro was just announced and has higher resolution, less weight, more comfortable head strap with improved audio and microphone, less visible lens rings, dual forward cameras, and pending wireless: https://www.gamecrate.com/hands-on-vive-pro-and-wireless-adaptor-impressions-ces-2018/17817

    Original Vive Resolution = 2160x1200 = 2,592,000 pixels. Vive Pro Resolution = 2880x1600 = 4,608,000 pixels.

    The Vive Pro will be available as an upgrade in Q1 and wireless later this year, along with V2 base stations supporting 10x10m play spaces.

    There was no mention of knuckle controllers :(

    Price is not yet known.


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    Last edited: Jan 9, 2018
  2. Adrianstealth

    Adrianstealth Active Member

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    nice !

    bet oculus will announce later this month a new headset too
  3. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    Oculus has said it is not releasing a Gen 2 Rift in 2018, so the immediate Vive Pro competitor for the next year in terms of specs and capability is Pimax, who are struggling with some technical issues and are already into production delays.

    I would suggest that at the very earliest it will be Oculus Connect before there is any sort of indicative gen 2 Rift info, with availability well into 2019.

    So it seems to me that HTC sees more value in capitalising on the existing enthusiast base for 2018, as otherwise new consumer uptake would be slow in 2018 with the Rifts competitive price point.

    We know from past experience that HTC has been able to pitch to VR enthusiasts, as opposed to general VR consumers, at a higher price point and move units based on premium functionality the Rift does not have, as was the case with robust roomscale and tracked controllers up until Touch was released and Oculus sorted 3 camera tracking. Even then it took some pretty aggressive Oculus price cuts to really start affecting Vive uptake.

    So to me it seems likely the Rift will gain market share in 2018, because of its price point, but HTC benefits from the upgrade path of existing customers, with a few more newbies thrown in who want and are willing to pay for premium specs.
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  4. Adrianstealth

    Adrianstealth Active Member

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    in this case oculus will fall down in the market, i assume they are smart so wouldn't be surprised if they do a quick U-turn

    they announced that statement prior to new vive rumours which were very recent, oculus need to react very quickly

    i predict the new vive will release with a more than expected price ,
    they have stated that the current model will continue to be available but i don't think for long it will suddenly become unavailable & then a price reduction on the new pro version , if oculus doesn't have a new headset out by this point then they'll loose a lot of sales
  5. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    The Rift price point sits at what was always known to be about the limit for general consumer uptake and they will continue to be the PC VR entry device at that price point, so I am not sure that Oculus will be too worried just yet, as the Vive Pro is only an upgrade path for existing Vive owners in Q1, so will not have an effect on market share.

    I suspect that by the time the Vive pro bundle and wireless is ready late this year, plus Knuckles hopefully being available to consumers, that Oculus will be close to releasing Gen 2 hints/information, so potential new Vive Pro buyers may want to resurvey the competitive landscape then.

    But things are certainly starting to get interesting and the upgrade option for existing Vive owners is nice, notwithstanding that it is also likely to be a significant cost.
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    Last edited: Jan 9, 2018
  6. Zed

    Zed VR Simming w/Reverb Gold Contributor

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    One thing for us cockpit simmers, if you don’t have VR yet, or if you have a Rift, you may still be able to step over into a Pro for the higher resolution at just a bit more than those of us upgrading will pay.

    With cockpit sims you aren’t pushing room scale. All you would need is one Lighthouse. As long as you aren’t interested in room scale and don’t need the wands, you could have a Pro for whatever it ends up costing plus one Lighthouse ($134 on the Vive website). The Pro page at Vive.com says the Pro uses DP and USB-C so it will probably come with its own link box and cables. If not, you need that too.

    Also, many aren’t too enthused about the 80% increase in resolution but it’s at a particularly valuable place for us. The Vive and Rift now have gotten more than their fair share of comments that the resolution is too low to see corners or read text and gauges but we are right at the edge on that. The small(ish) resolution increase fixes a lot of that. These devs report that they love the extra resolution and it made a big difference for their app. They made a more or less eye chart and then saw what they could read in the Vive and in the Vive Pro. The limit for each is annotated on the right side of the lines: https://mobile.twitter.com/dogheadsims/status/950491718444462080

    For those who had the DK2, this is a significantly bigger jump in resolution than from the DK2 to the Vive or Rift: https://i.imgur.com/D5bMmqn.jpg

    The new Samsung displays are also getting high marks for brightness, true colors, etc.

    So with all the improvements, resolution, etc, it’s a really simple choice for me. I just wish they’d hurry up and take my money. :thumbs
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  7. SeatTime

    SeatTime Well-Known Member

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    My PIMAX BE is 2560*1440 and is a noticeably improvement in clarity over the Rift, so with a 110 degree FOV at 2880x1600 for the Vive Pro, it should be a nice upgrade for existing owners.
  8. djboss001

    djboss001 Member

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    It would be interesting to compare this new headet with the Mixed Reality Headset (resolution : 2880 x 1440 on the HP VR1000).
  9. Zed

    Zed VR Simming w/Reverb Gold Contributor

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    The WMR headsets aren’t all using the same display panels and some aren’t the same resolution. I could be wrong but believe the Samsung Odyssey is the only WMR headset using the same display panels as the Vive Pro.
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  10. djboss001

    djboss001 Member

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    Yes, WMR headsets using a LCD panels, but the contrast is good on the HP model. The Vive and Oculus using a AMOLED panels.
    In my opinion, the resolution is the most important point for the simulation because, currently on my Oculus, it is difficult to see the road correctly in the long straight lines.
  11. Adrianstealth

    Adrianstealth Active Member

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    we are all just guessing of course -let us see how things pan out

    I’m an oculus user I may quickly jump over to the Vive Pro. Without hesitation
    I hope they do release as promised Q1

    I'm not interested in the wireless addon coming back later

    Release price will be higher than year end price imo, I am glad these posts are date stamped
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2018
  12. Brett Horton

    Brett Horton Active Member

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    I have both current Gen headsets.
    The problem I have with the Vive and the reason I bought the Rift is that the Vive re-projection does not do nearly as good of a job as ASW in the Rift.
    I would buy the the Vive in a heart beat assuming the stuttering was gone in sim racing.
  13. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    I am not knocking ASW, it and ATW and reprojection can assist to cover up some of the worst aspects of sub par VR visual performance, but none do so without some degradation/artifacts.

    Brute force hardware and careful game + in-game settings selection are currently the best approach to maintaining 90fps in VR and avoiding any of the software related degradation/artifacts, irrespective of what HMD is being used. Of course that is expensive, and some games, particularly ports, will struggle to genuinely maintain 90fps. And this is where ASW, ATW and reprojection shine, giving an illusion of usable performance, even though they can create some of their own issues, when the game and hardware are actually inadequate.
  14. Zed

    Zed VR Simming w/Reverb Gold Contributor

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    I just found this comparison of the current Vive and the Samsung Odyssey, which uses the same displays as in the Vive Pro...

    https://imgur.com/njOx0Gu

    It’s not a huge difference but the dials are easier to read in the right image which is the Odyssey. Add the effect of head and eye tremors which help to increase effective resolution and the effect should be even greater when actually in VR.

    For whatever it’s worth...
  15. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    Unfortunately just going off display specs is problematic, as there are a range of factors involved, for example the Rift and Vive have same sized display panels but because of FOV, lenses, screen capability and software manipulation there is a perceived difference in the screen door effect.
  16. Zed

    Zed VR Simming w/Reverb Gold Contributor

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    Very true. But it does kind of square with the reports from CES.
  17. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    Without a doubt it will be a crisper display, but how much better is hard to say until we get to try it.

    Expectations can be blown out of proportion when reporters say things like "78% more pixels with a 2,880 × 1,600 resolution" when there are some things that will be more noticeable/problematic, like aliasing and mura issues.
  18. Brett Horton

    Brett Horton Active Member

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    Understood, and not accusing you or anyone of anything.
    I do have very good hard ware, I7 6700, 1080, 32 gigs ram etc... And even just sitting in a still car (In VR) I always got some stutter ( No Reprojection happening) with the Vive (But looks perfect in non-racing games) maybe I have not given enough time to tweak the Vive, But I cannot see how anyone could race with the stutter I get.
    But again, if the New Vive is as smooth as the Rift is then 100% I would buy one.
  19. mayoms

    mayoms New Member

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    I've been following the vive pro as well. I currently have a Rift CV1, and was initially very tempted by the Pro. Having lower SDE/higher resolution would be nice- especially when, as @Zed mentioned, if you're primarily in a cockpit, you could get away with just a headset and one lighthouse (which one might be able to find even cheaper on ebay or craigslist if patient).

    There is one big *but* that is holding me back - FOV. This is a much greater hinderance to immersion than either SDE or resolution (though I welcome improvements to both). I barely notice SDE- it's there, but once in the game I can generally forget about it. Resolution improvements are similar. I am able to run SuperSampling at a pretty high with my GPU, though, and this is enough of an improvement to inspire patience.

    Its not *enough* of an upgrade to justify what will likely be a pretty high price point (I can't imagine the headset only going for less than $3-400 USD).

    I am much more curious about the PiMax headset. I'm skeptical about their promises, like many in the community, but if it can pull off a good seated experience, I'd consider buying the headset only & 1 lighthouse for simming only, and use the Rift CV1 for everything else.
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  20. Zed

    Zed VR Simming w/Reverb Gold Contributor

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    May not be accurate but some news website said headset-only will be $350.

    FOV of the Pro is reported to be basically the same as the Vive which is slightly higher than Rift. But Pimax is definitely the winner in FOV. People really like the Pimax FOV.

    There were some discouraging comments about Pimax at CES but the CEO replied explaining the reasons. Time will tell what they ultimately ship though. I’m very interested in Pimax too and really hope they do well.
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