Vive Pro 2 Specs: 5K 120Hz LCD, New 120° Lenses, SteamVR Tracking ($799 headset only, $1399 full kit)

[Voyager]

@dburne Is there a clean way to tell if a set may be defective?

 

Got mine and got it setup mostly according to spec (won't let me select Ultra, but everything else works.) However, I'm seeing Fresnel reflections that run right to the center of the image. Is this just a positioning problem, or there something wonky with the optics in mine?

Edited June 19, 2021 by Voyager

[dburne]

Just now, Voyager said:

@dburne Is there a clean way to tell if a set may be defective?

 

Got mine and got it setup mostly according to spec (won't let me select Ultra, but everything else works.) However, I'm seeing Fresnel reflections that run right to the center of the image. Is this just a positioning problem, or there something wonky with the optics in mine?

 

Hmm the only things I have noticed:

What I would call God Rays - mainly with like a white on a black background causing this haze in the lens. Not too bad only in certain situations that I usually don't see in the games I play.

Occasionally depending on the background can see some like concentric lines out toward the edge which is probably due to the Fresnel lens design.

Again not enough to bother me or be much noticeable.

 

Why is it not letting you select Ultra? GPU? Number of Monitors?

[Voyager]

1 minute ago, dburne said:

 

Hmm the only things I have noticed:

What I would call God Rays - mainly with like a white on a black background causing this haze in the lens. Not too bad only in certain situations that I usually don't see in the games I play.

Occasionally depending on the background can see some like concentric lines out toward the edge which is probably due to the Fresnel lens design.

Again not enough to bother me or be much noticeable.

 

Why is it not letting you select Ultra? GPU? Number of Monitors?

 

Yeah, this is a cone of concentric rings starting from the center and covering about a 120 degree arc to the brightest light source.

 

Apparently it doesn't like a 1080 Ti. It may be that the other display is a 5120x1440p too. I'll try changing the desktop and see what that does. I'm not sure that's related to the ring thing though.

[dburne]

1 hour ago, Voyager said:

 

Yeah, this is a cone of concentric rings starting from the center and covering about a 120 degree arc to the brightest light source.

 

Apparently it doesn't like a 1080 Ti. It may be that the other display is a 5120x1440p too. I'll try changing the desktop and see what that does. I'm not sure that's related to the ring thing though.

 

Yeah you likely won't be able to choose Ultra or Extreme settings with a 1080 GPU. Don't think you get any of their "lossless" compression with it either.

I do not see those rings anywhere near the center of my headset, only occasionally depending on the lighting at far outer edge.

[Voyager]

6 hours ago, dburne said:

[...]

I do not see those rings anywhere near the center of my headset, only occasionally depending on the lighting at far outer edge.

 

I'm thinking there's a defect in the optics. While trying to take a "through the lense" picture of what I'm seeing I found if the camera is nearly touching the surface of the lense, the pattern resolves into a clear image. 

 

And if I pull the padding off and press the lense as close as possible to my eye, it does improve, however I'm thinking, to replicate the camera image, I'd need to have my eyeball about a mm or two from the lense surface. My head's in the way there... 

[chiliwili69]

2 hours ago, Voyager said:

And if I pull the padding off and press the lense as close as possible to my eye, it does improve, however I'm thinking, to replicate the camera image, I'd need to have my eyeball about a mm or two from the lense surface. My head's in the way there...

 

In my case, I had to play a lot with the foam pads (put less in the front, and more in laterals) and put the lens as close as possible to my eye, so you have less glare/god rays.

But there will be always there for high contrast images like IL-2 menus or black-white gauges.

 

Also, cameras are not like human eye. And every human eye is different.

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

10 hours ago, Voyager said:

 

I'm thinking there's a defect in the optics. While trying to take a "through the lense" picture of what I'm seeing I found if the camera is nearly touching the surface of the lense, the pattern resolves into a clear image. 

 

And if I pull the padding off and press the lense as close as possible to my eye, it does improve, however I'm thinking, to replicate the camera image, I'd need to have my eyeball about a mm or two from the lense surface. My head's in the way there... 

Are you testing it in SteamVR Home?

 

Do not test it there. Go into Half Life Alyx or a game of your choice. SteamVR Home has black surfaces with white text, and the huge range of the LCD panel - which at the same time dynamically reduces backlight behind blacks - lead to stronger glare in the menu / SteamVR Home. Play it in games.

 

The resolution you can't select higher because your GPU is not capable of it. The 3080ti to the 1080ti is what, 200% the speed? Now add a maximum fillrate of the 1080ti - which means it literally breaks at these 6-8K resolutions with the refresh rate involved - and it means the new generation pulls away 1000% or more, numerically speaking. Because they don't break and keep going, so the base of the 1080ti which sets 100% will be very low in absolute numbers. 

 

As you know, cards behave differently at different resolutions, and it's not linear. Cards experience a fall-off in performance going past a certain number of megapixels, and HTC knows this. This and the lack of being able to use Displayport Stream Compression, a new Nvidia Tech for which the Pro 2 has an inbuilt receiver, is why there is a hard-cap for your card - which cannot get fixed. 

 

What people also don't or don't want to understand is: We have seen again and again quotes of "3080 is just 10% slower than 3090 so it wouldn't be worth it". At 1440p some 4K applications, which is the most tested resolution, that is correct. Not at 6K-8K though.

Edited June 20, 2021 by SCG_Fenris_Wolf

[Voyager]

@chiliwili69@SCG_Fenris_Wolf I'm testing in the Syn_Vander benchmark, looking out the left wing. (My hotas rig in cattycorner to the desk, so it's centered to the right.

 

The current state is pretty much what I'm seeing through the headset with glasses on. If I take the padding and glasses off, and press my temples into the lenses, I can get very close to the potential .jpg of the same scene. But we're talking, my eyebrows are in physical contact with the lens surfaces, and its still not close enough to quite resolve the ring effect. that why I'm thinking there's a defect in the lens curvature or in some part of the optical chain that pulling the focal point to close in.

 

I also noticed those rings of distortion when trying it in Star Wars Squadrons, though they are likely less pronounced due to the lower contrast.

 

Let me go take a look at my Reverb's optics. I don't recall if that is a Fresnel lens or not.

The one on the left is the current state. The one on the right is what I can get clsoe to, but can't manage with my eyes.

Edited June 20, 2021 by Voyager

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

Your Reverb G1 is also Fresnel lens @Voyager

 

I would advise against glasses and recommend contacts. If you try without padding you will be too close, especially if the eye-brows touch the lenses. Also, kind of spikey. I checked it without padding as well and I also get the same kind of rings then, as I'm totally out of the sweetspot then. If I take the standard cushion that comes along with the headset, I'm also getting the kind of rings. 

 

So what you're doing is being way too close or way too far. I'd try to avoid going for extremes here. You also need to look through the center of the lenses - that camera shot on the left was not taken at the center of the lens through the sweetspot, as you can see the rings only show on the upper left side.

 

So, to put it together:

1) Avoid glasses, use contacts (or you'll be looking through several optical layers = very likely distortion appears depending on lenses)

2) Don't go extremely close without cushion or extremely far with default cushion, find a middle ground for the sweetspot in Z-Axis.

3) Find the sweetspot of the lens, look straight through it. Sweetspot is in 3-dimensional space, X Y and Z. It is more difficult to find on the Pro 2 than on G2.

4) Once found and properly set up that it doesn't swerve around when you rotate quickly, profit.

 

 

Here is the picture of my padding, which is a 6mm PU leather cushion on top of cut-out sides of a 10mm cushion for the temples. I found the sweetspot while keeping the lenses close like this.

 

 

 

//Accidently damaged the outer 6mm cushion by pulling off the self-adhesive velcro, bugger

 

 

[Voyager]

5 hours ago, SCG_Fenris_Wolf said:

[...]

So what you're doing is being way too close or way too far. I'd try to avoid going for extremes here. You also need to look through the center of the lenses - that camera shot on the left was not taken at the center of the lens through the sweetspot, as you can see the rings only show on the upper left side.

[...]

 

I can see the rings decay as I go from the initial paddled position, as I get closer to the headset, and, with a camera I'm able to reach a point where they resolve. And I can see that with my own eyes, but am unable to reach a distance where they fully resolve. 

 

I'm also noticing that the sweet spot seems to be center in the lower third of the lens. 

 

That's why I'm suspecting there's an issue with the optics. Small changes in the alignment and curvature tend to multiply, and tend to multiply more the faster the optics are. 

 

Another weirdness that seems to be cropping up is my frame rate tanks of both light houses are in view. I'll have to do some more testing there tonight. Basically my headset's mount is only in view of one of the light houses, and fps is pretty good, until I put it on my head and things drop hard. 

 

Going to have to disconnect that second lighthouse and see if the issue persists, then see if I can find a configuration where all three can see each other in both spots. 

 

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

That's absolutely not normal. You may need to go through professional support with that, it may be the headset or the LH or your system.

 

Can you return it, or RMA it? Hard to believe you got a broken unit, but it may happen from time to time. E.g. my first Index was such a Monday unit and I only found out later with my second.

 

What HMD did you have before? Do you have another LH headset to check with if the LH stations are damaged? Are they synced, can they see eachother? What headset did you have before, have you cleansed your system properly as by my guide (sticky thread)?

 

Can you try with a freshly formated system? (Use a clean hard drive, remove your usual hard drives and only use this single one with a fresh Windows installation), that would rule out a clutter issue. In my experience with helping guys to fix their VR rigs, 9 out of 10 times it was software issue.

Edited June 21, 2021 by SCG_Fenris_Wolf

[Voyager]

14 hours ago, SCG_Fenris_Wolf said:

That's absolutely not normal. You may need to go through professional support with that, it may be the headset or the LH or your system.

 

Can you return it, or RMA it? Hard to believe you got a broken unit, but it may happen from time to time. E.g. my first Index was such a Monday unit and I only found out later with my second.

 

What HMD did you have before? Do you have another LH headset to check with if the LH stations are damaged? Are they synced, can they see eachother? What headset did you have before, have you cleansed your system properly as by my guide (sticky thread)?

 

Can you try with a freshly formated system? (Use a clean hard drive, remove your usual hard drives and only use this single one with a fresh Windows installation), that would rule out a clutter issue. In my experience with helping guys to fix their VR rigs, 9 out of 10 times it was software issue.

 

 

Talking with tech support on the rings currently, We'll see what they say. 

 

I did follow the full clean install process. My prior headset was a Reverb G1, and before that a Rift CV1 (system has had a complete rebuilt/reformat since the Rift CV1). What seems to be happening here is I've been benchmarking it with the headset on it holder, and apparently the difference seems to be when the system goes in and out of suspend mode. What's bothering me is the performance for a given pixel density setting seems to be about 1/3 below what I was getting on the Reverb. For example, the VR Test 1 with a SS of 100% (2205x2165*2: 9.5mp) (with 4k textures by accident) I was getting around 77 fps on the Reverb, while running the same test on the VP2 gets

 

Performance: 46,  61, 58.067

Balanced: 37,  89, 48.567

High: 39,  66, 45.067

 

Comparing them to the HP Reverb VR test on the same system:

VR1: 57.6, 91, 77.4

VR2: 45, 74.7, 60.2

 

One thing that I'm noticing watching the frame times is that there are sections of major frame hits that seem to correspond to heavy wifi activity. Unfortunately I overwrote the big on, but I'm wondering if some part of the setup is trying to talk a lot over wifi and stopping frames?

 

I feel like there's some setting in here that I'm missing. I'd left the Steam Super Sampling at Manual 150%, as it did not seem to do anything in earlier tests, but maybe I should revisit that.

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

Yeah, there is definitely something weird going on with your PC itself. That's not the headset.

 

If you compare framerate, make sure you keep the same resolution, not percentages. 9.5MP on G1's 100% isn't the 24MP on Pro2's 150%. Please remember to manually disable the automatic resolution scaling in default.vrsettings file too, as mentioned in my sticky thread.

 

If properly tested, you'll see that the Pro2 performs slightly better than G1/G2 per pixel, as a) no WMR bloatware b) no-pre-allocation c) not as large of a framebuffer needed for its tracking is tighter.

[Voyager]

I do have the automatic resolution scaling disabled in the default.vrsetttings I should turn it back on and test it with both settings to see if it has any impact.

 

Currently Steam Super Sampling also has no effect. I get the same numbers with 100%, 150% and 300% 

 

Another oddity is that my GPU is only showing around 50% utilization when running on VR. I should do the testing on flat panel mode to see if that matches, or if I'm seeing closer to 100% usage. 

 

@SCG_Fenris_Wolf Could you post your default.vrsettings? Looking through mine, I'm noticing things like Performance mode is set to false. I'm wondering if the HTC software changes some settings on first run that I may have blocked by editing it before first launch. Let me attach mine for comparison. 

default.vrsettings.txt

Edited June 22, 2021 by Voyager

[chiliwili69]

On 6/21/2021 at 4:22 PM, Voyager said:

I can see the rings decay as I go from the initial paddled position,

 

I think there are two independent things here:

1. Find the sweetpot place (chaing X-Y-Z and rotate it as well) to get a focused image (but still with some god ray rings)

2. Minimize god rays rings effect.

 

First you need to go the first one. Once you get it, try to put the right foam in the laterals and put the right pressure in your back wheel.

Then for the second thing you need to avoid any external light entering the headset (try to put the room in dark). You will also see that some bright with contrast scenes will reflect light of your pupils over the lenses, and then you have some godrays rings.

On 6/21/2021 at 4:22 PM, Voyager said:

Basically my headset's mount is only in view of one of the light houses, and fps is pretty good, until I put it on my head and things drop hard.

 

Try to play with just one basestations, it works perfectly for me for a seated position. Try to interchange the basestations.

Perhaps, the second lighthouse is reflecting in other shinny surfaces in your room. Be careful about that.

9 hours ago, Voyager said:

same test on the VP2 gets

 

Performance: 46,  61, 58.067

Balanced: 37,  89, 48.567

High: 39,  66, 45.067

 

It is for 9.5 million pixels? If so,  it is weird.

What mode did you used in the VP2 console? What was the SteamVR pixel count when trying VP2?

 

Well, in fact, We have not current tests with the VivePro2 with the SYN_VANDER tests. I didn´t measured that before returning. I will update instructions so people with VP2 can share their results.

[Voyager]

28 minutes ago, chiliwili69 said:

[...]

 

It is for 9.5 million pixels? If so,  it is weird.

What mode did you used in the VP2 console? What was the SteamVR pixel count when trying VP2?

 

Well, in fact, We have not current tests with the VivePro2 with the SYN_VANDER tests. I didn´t measured that before returning. I will update instructions so people with VP2 can share their results.

 

Yeah, slowly dialing in on a good sweetspot for the headset. The base station issue appears to have been that my headset's stand was simply not in view of that base-station. Tilting down further it seems to have helped.

 

The Steam Super sampling controls don't yet seem to be working on the VIve Pro 2.

For example: setting the Display settings to Performance mode says it sets the headset at 2448*1224, Balanced is 3264*1632, High is 3672*1836, and Ultra and Extreme are the full 4896*2448

 

For the Following Steam Render Resolutions I get the following performance:

100% 1608*1608: 56,  61, 59.617

150% 1968*1968: 47,  61, 59.350

300% 2784*2784: 38,  58, 45.733***

 

Ok, I was going to say putting it at 300% had no effect but then this happened:

  

 

That's not normal... 

 

Also, looking in the default.vrsetting, it looks like it set the DisplayResolutionAuto back to true... I'm going to set it back to false, and set PerformanceMode to True and see what happens.

 

Apparently not much: 1536*1536: 55,  61, 59.600

 

 

[SCG_motoadve]

Even manually setting DisplayResolutionAuto false .

Its not possible to change resolution in Steam VR.2400x24000 looks the same as 3900x3900 and its kind of blurry.

Changing Steam VR % does nothing.

[dburne]

5 hours ago, SCG_motoadve said:

Even manually setting DisplayResolutionAuto false .

Its not possible to change resolution in Steam VR.2400x24000 looks the same as 3900x3900 and its kind of blurry.

Changing Steam VR % does nothing.

 

Interesting - seems changing it in Global setting is doing something for me, changing in the per application setting maybe not so much. At least in DCS the per application setting certainly does not appear to be working for me.

Edited June 22, 2021 by dburne

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

Gotta check this out, I also only used the global slider (and 90Hz, not 120Hz).

[SCG_motoadve]

Found the problem, Vive console was reverting to performance and giving me performance visuals instead of ultra, I deleted the app, and re installed and it is good now.

[dburne]

3 minutes ago, SCG_motoadve said:

Found the problem, Vive console was reverting to performance and giving me performance visuals instead of ultra, I deleted the app, and re installed and it is good now.

 

?

[Voyager]

1 hour ago, SCG_motoadve said:

Found the problem, Vive console was reverting to performance and giving me performance visuals instead of ultra, I deleted the app, and re installed and it is good now.

What sort of frame rates were you getting in Performance mode vs Ultra? Similar, better or worse? I'm wondering if my frame rate issue smart be tied to the VP2's internal render resolution scaling. 

[SCG_motoadve]

1 hour ago, Voyager said:

What sort of frame rates were you getting in Performance mode vs Ultra? Similar, better or worse? I'm wondering if my frame rate issue smart be tied to the VP2's internal render resolution scaling. 

Performance did not feel butter smooth or nothing like that, just low resolution, and about same performance as ultra.

I have motion smoothing ON

[dburne]

Well I gotta say now after about a week and a half and many hours spent in VR with the new Vive Pro 2, I am quite happy with it.

I have used it so far in IL-2, DCS, Medal of Honor Above and Beyond, and Half Life Alyx. Several hours in each.

The resolution is great, the no SDE is great, colors are great, better horizontal fov is great,  and tracking is superb. Yes there are some god rays, but they are really not that bad - it is not often I see them, mainly in dark loading screen with bright text.

It really ticks most all the boxes for me and I can finally get back to using just one headset now for all my VR needs.

 

I will emphasize here - going from Reverb G2 to Vive Pro 2 just for flight sims is not that much difference. If one only did flight simming and already has a Reverb G2 probably not going to be worth spending the money. However if one does other made for VR games also that use the controllers, and especially if they already have the Lighthouse tracking system like Index owners, it is a very nice headset for that. I was in the latter case - was using my Reverb G2 for flight sims, and Index for all my other VR games with controllers.

 

It is definitely a keeper for me. It ticks all the boxes for what I want in a headset for the type of gaming I do.

I definitely replaced the covers with the Kiwi covers right off the bat - currently using the 10mm for the faceplate.

And I use extended earbuds with my Creative sound so I took the headphones off as I would not need them. Just a personal preference there.

[Voyager]

@dburne @chiliwili69 @SCG_Fenris_Wolf Found the issue. Windows Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling was causing a lot of display errors ony 1080 Ti. Turning it off fixed my frame rate problems. My GPU usage has gone from the. Mid 40's to 80-90% in game and the majority of the display faults have stopped. 

 

Now I'm able to run it at 2900*2900 and get around 45fps most of the time ony desired settings. 

 

This may be worth checking to see if it's an issue on other GPUs as well. And I need to go re-run my non-VR benchmarks to see if this has an impact. 

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

Good to know you found the solution! 

 

Never had this enabled to begin with. But if we check for all Windows settings mistaken, where do we end? A clean, well setup system is a requirement for any VR enthusiast, but people have to many possibilities. Another example is, some people enable "game mode" or keep using programs like MSI afterburner (mictostutters), or use Nvidia's "ultra-low latency mode" while playing VR. Terrible. There is such a wide range to kill your own performance with, as if you put a perfectly tuned engine into the hands of a weekend mechanic, and he can pull every notch and had full software access.

 

A lot can go wrong. 

[Voyager]

True. This one I found in Thud's VR4DCS walkthrough. Was actually looking for a way to force Dx11, since that had been a problem on the WMR headset, but couldn't find it for SteamVR, so decided to go through his Windows set up before moving on.