Pulled the trigger on the Varjo Aero ?

[LukeFF]

Or, What Did I Just Do? ?

 

Anyways, having returned to VR with the Reverb G2 and confirming that I like playing IL2 that way, I figured I have some time to get used to flying in VR until the Aero is estimated to ship to me in 3-4 months. A friend of mine is supposed to receive his next month and is an IL2 player, so hopefully I can try it out before mine ships. ??

[itsbillyfrazier]

 

Damn, that looks a real nice headset, congrats!

 

I just saw the price though...

 

 

 

[dburne]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

Or, What Did I Just Do? ?

 

Anyways, having returned to VR with the Reverb G2 and confirming that I like playing IL2 that way, I figured I have some time to get used to flying in VR until the Aero is estimated to ship to me in 3-4 months. A friend of mine is supposed to receive his next month and is an IL2 player, so hopefully I can try it out before mine ships. ??

 

 

Welcome to the club!

Ain't VR grand.

 

Edit: If you have not seen it have a look at this post over on the MSFS forums. Sounding very positive for the Aero.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/new-varjo-aero-consumer-vr-device/464385/98?u=dburne458

If it handles performance as good as WMR with Open XR does with MSFS I will be very happy.

Edited November 24, 2021 by dburne

[LukeFF]

10 minutes ago, dburne said:

 

 

Welcome to the club!

Ain't VR grand.

 

Edit: If you have not seen it have a look at this post over on the MSFS forums. Sounding very positive for the Aero.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/new-varjo-aero-consumer-vr-device/464385/98?u=dburne458

If it handles performance as good as WMR with Open XR does with MSFS I will be very happy.

 

Yes, I saw that. It sounds very encouraging that this is going to be a great headset for flight simming. 

[kissTheSky]

I’m on the perpetual fence if I should order one or not, so I’ll be waiting for you guys’ reviews @LukeFF and @dburne.

[SCG_motoadve]

If it works nicely in IL2 , for sure will order one, will be awaiting your reviews.

[Drum]

8 hours ago, dburne said:

 

 

Welcome to the club!

Ain't VR grand.

 

Edit: If you have not seen it have a look at this post over on the MSFS forums. Sounding very positive for the Aero.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/new-varjo-aero-consumer-vr-device/464385/98?u=dburne458

If it handles performance as good as WMR with Open XR does with MSFS I will be very happy.

Apparently it's a couple of grand now.  ?  I'll be getting one too; I doubt anyone is going to sell a better one anytime soon either.  (famous last words?)

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, Drum said:

I doubt anyone is going to sell a better one anytime soon either.  (famous last words?)

 

Lol yeah, that's the curse of upgrading computer components. 

[Drum]

Ordered one as well tonight, does anyone know if the lighthouses from a Rift (CV-1) will work in SteamVR for this?  I held off ordering some from them thinking (hoping) they might...

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

13 hours ago, Drum said:

Apparently it's a couple of grand now.  ?  I'll be getting one too; I doubt anyone is going to sell a better one anytime soon either.  (famous last words?)

They'll probably announce the Index 2 in March. 

 

An Index with rotatable aspherics, WiFi 6 / BT breakout-box for signal transmission, Eye-Tracking, exchangeable battery-pack clipped to the hip. Yeah I'm probably just dreaming.

 

And then, it would be produced in China again. I'd rather pay twice and buy a locally produced, true quality European product.

 

I guess you guys got me, where is that Website?

[firdimigdi]

So many guinea pigs! Lovely!

[dburne]

7 hours ago, Drum said:

Ordered one as well tonight, does anyone know if the lighthouses from a Rift (CV-1) will work in SteamVR for this?  I held off ordering some from them thinking (hoping) they might...

 

No totally different tracking system. Vive Trackers or Lighthouse trackers.

Edit: Website says just Lighthouse  2.0 base stations.

Edited November 25, 2021 by dburne

[Drum]

2 hours ago, dburne said:

 

No totally different tracking system. Vive Trackers or Lighthouse trackers.

Edit: Website says just Lighthouse  2.0 base stations.

Thanks, Dburne, I'll add a couple to the order then.  ?

 

They say as more powerful GPUs come along the Varjo Aero will grow with one's system as the panels are 8kx8k capable.  It could be a 4+ year headset if we're lucky.

[dburne]

35 minutes ago, Drum said:

Thanks, Dburne, I'll add a couple to the order then.  ?

 

They say as more powerful GPUs come along the Varjo Aero will grow with one's system as the panels are 8kx8k capable.  It could be a 4+ year headset if we're lucky.

 

Yeah with the price I am kind of counting on it holding me over for quite a while. Getting a little tired of buying headsets anyway. HP just released an updated Reverb G2 so doubt they will have a new one anytime in the near future - all they did though was work with the cameras to improve tracking.  Valve operates on Valve time, and that can be pretty slow lol so not sure we will see an updated Index in the very near future. Index is also apparently still doing well on the sales end. Vive just released the Vive Pro 2 in June, so doubt they will do anything anytime soon.

Oculus - not for me any longer, the headsets they do now do not appeal to me for how I use them. I have the original Quest and could never really get into any of that mobile gaming. And for PC-VR I much prefer native rather than through a Link cable and USB port.

 

I hope the Aero does it and I can finally get rid of all these headsets, way too many cables laying around in here lol.

8kx8k? I kind of doubt it, unless they are starting to use Pimax math which I hope they are not. Maybe they are talking though about super sampling.

At this time I am using Index for VR games and Reverb G2 for flight sims. Having too many issues now with my Vive Pro 2.

Edited November 25, 2021 by dburne

[Drum]

I sit corrected, you're right, it was super sampling they mentioned.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Drum

[LukeFF]

4 hours ago, dburne said:

No totally different tracking system. Vive Trackers or Lighthouse trackers.

Edit: Website says just Lighthouse  2.0 base stations.

 

If I'm understanding things right, the 2.0 base stations available on Valve's website will work? Just want to make sure. 

Edited November 26, 2021 by LukeFF

[Drum]

1.0 & 2.0 versions work.

[dburne]

7 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

If I'm understanding things right, the Vive 2.0 base stations available on Amazon will work? Just want to make sure. 

 

Whilst their website only says Steam VR 2.0 base stations I would think they would as that is what they are for the Vive. I think they are based of the same tech as the Valve Lighthouse base stations.

I will tell ya imho I would consider to go with the Lighthouse 2.0 base stations from Valve. I just think they are best in class, and your getting a best in class headset.

I think they might be tough to get though. But yeah you should be ok either way.

[SCG_motoadve]

Seems to be it works in Il2 ts not the Aero, but very likely if this one works the Aero should work too.

 

Edited November 26, 2021 by SCG_motoadve

[WIS-Redcoat]

On 11/24/2021 at 11:33 AM, LukeFF said:

. A friend of mine is supposed to receive his next month and is an IL2 player, so hopefully I can try it out before mine ships. ??

 How does he know he’s getting his next month?  I ordered mine on day one but they didn’t give me any sort of indication of when it was actually coming.

[dburne]

9 hours ago, SCG_motoadve said:

Seems to be it works in Il2 ts not the Aero, but very likely if this one works the Aero should work too.

 

 

Sounds promising!!

[LukeFF]

10 hours ago, WIS-Redcoat said:

 How does he know he’s getting his next month?  I ordered mine on day one but they didn’t give me any sort of indication of when it was actually coming.

 

He doesn't know for sure. It's just a guess on his part. 

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

On 11/26/2021 at 2:57 AM, SCG_motoadve said:

Seems to be it works in Il2 ts not the Aero, but very likely if this one works the Aero should work too.

 

 

I would not say that yet.

 

He has in the past not seen warp and distortions a few times, and had to be made aware of them. e.g. by MRTV. Just like some people on these forums don't see them as well, it doesn't mean that they're not there, it just means there are indifferent people with bad sight or spatial perception. There are some people claiming the VP2 or Q2 (VD) would not have distortions in IL-2. 

 

Generally I would avoid to trust people with glasses making comments on VR lenses and distortion fields. There are some exceptions, as with everything.

 

A good analogy:

Toss the average person a tennis ball from below, and more often than not they stumble and fumble trying to catch it. Someone with good spatial awareness can catch with one hand, only needing two hands depending on the size of the ball.

 

I speak for myself, wore glasses for the first half of my life until I got the eyes lasered. Around a third of the week, the other third covered by contacts, the last covered by sleep. I can tell with absolute certainty that before, my spatial awareness and perception for depth was much less than what it became now. I learnt within just months to feel distance. It was incredible.

 

Before that shift, the thought dominating was just that I was clumsy as hell. Well, that was wrong.

 

So, regarding this hyperbolic YouTuber, I do like him, but I wouldn't trust his perception. Every headset he tested a-new was "amazing" "unbelieveable" "stunning guys!"... Where is the differentiation, the negative scale to set his remarks against?

 

 

I'll wait and see

Edited November 27, 2021 by SCG_Fenris_Wolf

[LukeFF]

Great news for those looking at the Varjo Aero:

 

 

[dburne]

49 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

Great news for those looking at the Varjo Aero:

 

 

Sounding good! 

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

Great news for those looking at the Varjo Aero:

 

 

Okay okay. Sigh.

 

I ordered one. Paying by invoice though. I won't put any money down in advance anymore.

Edited December 1, 2021 by SCG_Fenris_Wolf

[Hoss]

You should never be charged until your merch, is packaged, and on it's way to being shipped.  That's the way trustworthy business run things. 

[dburne]

1 hour ago, 352nd_Hoss said:

You should never be charged until your merch, is packaged, and on it's way to being shipped.  That's the way trustworthy business run things. 

 

Pre-orders were not charged that I am aware of, mine certainly was not.

Edit: Yeah you have to give CC details so they can authorize that it is a valid card and good for the money, but it drops off of the pending category a few days later and never gets charged.

Edited December 1, 2021 by dburne

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

The reseller in Germany charges immediately via CC and keeps it until shipping. I have phoned orders department regarding this.

 

Hence I went this way. It's irrelevant anyway.

 

 

What is relevant would be that Varjo finally *would get any motion smoothing working.

 

I can't see how we can run this headset on MSFS2020 or IL-2 or DCS at 90Hz at its native resolution. They still neither have even basic motion smoothing nor reprojection.

Edited December 2, 2021 by SCG_Fenris_Wolf

[RAAF492SQNOz_Steve]

8 hours ago, LukeFF said:

Great news for those looking at the Varjo Aero:

 

 

Good to see that they acknowledge that FOV, Chromatic Aberration and Distortion do exist with the Aero and that Varjo is working on these issue via software solutions. These issues were not so clear in some of their earlier Youtube video's. I had to rely on other sites/ Youtubers to get this information.

 

Skimming through this chat looks like 5 people in the IL2 community have made a pre-order for the Aero..............................

Better make that 6 as I have just made a pre-order with Storm FX who are the retailer here in Australia.

 

The price here is not cheap and is impacted by the U.S. dollar exchange rate which is falling through the floor at present to my disadvantage. For anyone else in Aust interested, Storm Fx have been really responsive to my emails and Kudos to them for obtaining an allocation to Australia from the first production batch. This is in marked comparison to Valve who have totally ignored the Australian market. 

 

They are expecting their initial delivery Late December or January according to their latest info. My order should be part of that batch.

I also require Base Stations and that is a substantial problem in Australia with the Valve Base stations unavailable here and the HTC version of them on Back Order of many months

 

I may end up in the situation of getting the Headset several months before getting my Base Stations which would be frustrating in the extreme in a worst case scenario. Have placed an order for 2x HTC Base Station 2.0  with a local PC retailer who is claiming a late December delivery. Fingers crossed on that one.

 

Now to confess, my purchasing misdeeds, to the wife. ?‍♂️?

Edited December 2, 2021 by RAAF492SQNOz_Steve
Edit for clarity

[dburne]

I do not have too many concerns with the Varjo company. They obviously have made quite a name for themselves in the professional industry with their devices.

As I understand it even with flight sims they are certified to where hours logged in them can apply to actual flight training hours in some way. But there is a hefty price tag with those devices as well as a substantial subscription fee for the software they use. So software obviously gets a lot of attention with further development and updates.

 

With the new Aero being their first " professional consumer" device with no subscription fees for the software, I just hope it too continues to see further development and improvements with updates after the official release of the device.  That really is my only concern, I have no doubt the headset is just going to be quite incredible. I think we will have great clarity with a great sweet-spot, along with items being viewed at a distance being pretty sharp. I just hope the software side along with support for it is top notch as well going forward after the headsets are out in the wild.

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

19 hours ago, RAAF492SQNOz_Steve said:

Good to see that they acknowledge that FOV, Chromatic Aberration and Distortion do exist with the Aero and that Varjo is working on these issue via software solutions. These issues were not so clear in some of their earlier Youtube video's. I had to rely on other sites/ Youtubers to get this information.

 

Skimming through this chat looks like 5 people in the IL2 community have made a pre-order for the Aero..............................

Better make that 6 as I have just made a pre-order with Storm FX who are the retailer here in Australia.

 

The price here is not cheap and is impacted by the U.S. dollar exchange rate which is falling through the floor at present to my disadvantage. For anyone else in Aust interested, Storm Fx have been really responsive to my emails and Kudos to them for obtaining an allocation to Australia from the first production batch. This is in marked comparison to Valve who have totally ignored the Australian market. 

 

They are expecting their initial delivery Late December or January according to their latest info. My order should be part of that batch.

I also require Base Stations and that is a substantial problem in Australia with the Valve Base stations unavailable here and the HTC version of them on Back Order of many months

 

I may end up in the situation of getting the Headset several months before getting my Base Stations which would be frustrating in the extreme in a worst case scenario. Have placed an order for 2x HTC Base Station 2.0  with a local PC retailer who is claiming a late December delivery. Fingers crossed on that one.

 

Now to confess, my purchasing misdeeds, to the wife. ?‍♂️?

You could ask a trusted clanmate. When I wanted the Samsung Odyssey, which was not getting sold in Europe, I asked an American friend (Riksen), bought it by locally low American prices, had it delivered to him, and then he forwarded it to me across the pond.

[RAAF492SQNOz_Steve]

48 minutes ago, SCG_Fenris_Wolf said:

You could ask a trusted clanmate. When I wanted the Samsung Odyssey, which was not getting sold in Europe, I asked an American friend (Riksen), bought it by locally low American prices, had it delivered to him, and then he forwarded it to me across the pond.

Something to keep in mind if i am still looking for HTC (or Valve) base stations in 3 months time but hopefully my "just before Xmas" local HTC order comes through.

For really expensive items though think it is better to have access to a local supplier if any warranty issues arise but until you test the supplier, with a claim, you never really know.

 

I just did a currency conversion on a Bestware post tax price of 2370 Euro, for the Varjo Aero, and it turns out that when converted to Australia dollars that it was  a bit cheaper here in Oz. Most likely due to our lower GST Tax Rate. 

 

Hopefully Varjo can deliver the Aero promptly to all IL2 Forum participants who have placed a pre-order and that it meets our (increasing) expectations  .

[LukeFF]

21 hours ago, RAAF492SQNOz_Steve said:

Skimming through this chat looks like 5 people in the IL2 community have made a pre-order for the Aero..............................

Better make that 6 as I have just made a pre-order with Storm FX who are the retailer here in Australia.

 

You can add one more person to that list - I have a friend who also has one on preorder and does have IL2 installed on his rig (he doesn't post here).  Dude buys pretty much every headset out there, so the Aero was a natural buy for him. ?

Edited December 2, 2021 by LukeFF

[SCG_motoadve]

8 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

You can add one more person to that list - I have a friend who also has one on preorder and does have IL2 installed on his rig (he doesn't post here).  Dude buys pretty much every headset out there, so the Aero was a natural buy for him. ?

We need this guy to post his opinion in this forums, since he buys every headset, he can tell us how does it compare to other headsets.

[dburne]

 

[LukeFF]

3 hours ago, SCG_motoadve said:

We need this guy to post his opinion in this forums, since he buys every headset, he can tell us how does it compare to other headsets.

 

I'll see what I can do. ??

[Hoots]

Just had to sell my GSXR so have some cash, this headset may help me feel better about selling the bike... Lot of money for a headset though.

[RAAF492SQNOz_Steve]

12 hours ago, Hoots said:

Just had to sell my GSXR so have some cash, this headset may help me feel better about selling the bike... Lot of money for a headset though.

Indeed, it is a lot of money but is actually two upgrades for the price of one for HP Reverb G2 owners................ 

1. Improved visual clarity if existing Youtube reviews are to be believed

2. Improved fps can also be expected as even though the Aero uses higher resolution panels than the G2, the GPU is required to render less pixels with the Aero when running at 100% SS.   In practice you can see the results of this (for MSFS) in the linked video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly95Ab9raFw  The Varjo Aero has a fairly consistent 10 - 15% fps advantage over the G2 as the G2 needs to rendition an extra 20%+ pixels to compensate for barrel distortion issues (at 100 SS).

 

DISCLAIMER:

This Self Justification was prepared without harming any other Self Justification's that I may have used in the past. 

 

P.S. Has anyone else noticed that the Youtube video showing IL2 in the Varjo Aero from a certain enthusiastic Youtuber has disappeared?  Wonder why?  Now, only the one for the VR-3 is available.

[Hoots]

10 hours ago, RAAF492SQNOz_Steve said:

Indeed, it is a lot of money but is actually two upgrades for the price of one for HP Reverb G2 owners................ 

1. Improved visual clarity if existing Youtube reviews are to be believed

2. Improved fps can also be expected as even though the Aero uses higher resolution panels than the G2, the GPU is required to render less pixels with the Aero when running at 100% SS.   In practice you can see the results of this (for MSFS) in the linked video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly95Ab9raFw  The Varjo Aero has a fairly consistent 10 - 15% fps advantage over the G2 as the G2 needs to rendition an extra 20%+ pixels to compensate for barrel distortion issues (at 100 SS).

 

DISCLAIMER:

This Self Justification was prepared without harming any other Self Justification's that I may have used in the past. 

 

P.S. Has anyone else noticed that the Youtube video showing IL2 in the Varjo Aero from a certain enthusiastic Youtuber has disappeared?  Wonder why?  Now, only the one for the VR-3 is available.

Well, in that case it’s even better, I’ll be upgrading from a rift s. This is not looking good for my bank balance.