HP Reverb G2

Atmos

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With all the excitement surrounding the launch of HL: AlyxI I realised I’d completely glossed over the other big news which was the announcement of the Reverb G2.

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A collaboration between Valve, Microsoft and HP who look to bring the Reverb G2 to market - soon.

With the tag line ‘No Compromise’ it’s hard not to speculate on the possible G2 spec sheet.

For me a no compromise design would be:-

Twin OLED screens for deep blacks.
4k per eye retina quality display.
A FOV of 200 degrees with no blurr at the edge.
Built in eye tracking.
Built in off ear headphones.
Built in wireless transmitter.
Rounded off with Knuckle style controllers and perfect tracking at any distance.

A tall order for any headset but Pimax with its 8KX is already aiming for such lofty specifications albeit without OLEDs and less than perfect optics.

From the pictures released of the G2 so far it’s hard not to see some limitations on the design. How can it live up to a list of no compromise given the size of the lenses for starters? They don’t look any bigger than the Indexes which is limited to 115 degrees in my tests. It’s a stretch of the imagination to expect the G2 to jump to 200 degrees without going for an ultra wide chassis.

Anyone else excited for the Reverb G2?
 
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Nope. Not excited by any unproven vr companies any more. It never pans out.
 
I would say interested rather than excited. I am convinced your wish of 200 degrees fov is fanciful. I am not even convinced it is needed at this point. 150 degrees to me would be outstanding and I would consider 130 dregrees acceptable for a new high end Device.
But perhaps i am easily pleased.

It's inside out tracking is going to need to be significantly improved over existing Windows MR devices imo otherwise it may as well just drop it and just have lighthouse unless it wants to be just aimed at simmers.

Due to my 69 ipd I am also looking for 2 screens so for now the only 2 devices offering that that remotely interest me are quest and index
... And quest is just a bit too compromised.
If I could add reverb G2 to that list I would be happy.
I would have been way more interested if they were partnered with oculus and not microsoft as right now oculus have the only inside out tracking which is (just about) good enough for full uncompromised VR.....

Of course G2 may support lighthouse too perhaps but that will add hugely to the cost.
 
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What would be the point of releasing a 4K headset right now? Without eye tracking and foveated rendering hardly anyone would have a PC capable of running the thing.

And 200 degrees FOV? Unlikely to happen too.

More likely to be a 2.5K headset with 130 degrees I think.

The only thing they need to add to their last headset is better tracking.
 
Usually these things end in disappointment, but let's wait and see what materialises.
 
I think G2 will stick to inside out tracking and leave Index as a high end lighthouse option.

I think you’ll be right Mike when it comes to FOV. 140 would be my guess but that would fly in the face of HPs no compromise announcement.

Price would also need to be around the £500-600 mark to keep it competitive.

I would also say as I think I’ve said before this headset (WMR2) would be Microsoft's answer to PSVR as it could well be XBOX compatible. That would be a major boost for MS to have Knuckles on their console.
 
What would be the point of releasing a 4K headset right now? Without eye tracking and foveated rendering hardly anyone would have a PC capable of running the thing.

And 200 degrees FOV? Unlikely to happen too.

More likely to be a 2.5K headset with 130 degrees I think.

The only thing they need to add to their last headset is better tracking.

Because it wound have a built in upscaler regardless of input resolution you get the benefit of retina displays with zero SDE.
 
Why are Microsoft involved? They have pretty much walked away from PC VR from what I can tell.
 
Why are Microsoft involved? They have pretty much walked away from PC VR from what I can tell.

WMR is Microsolfts IP.
 
And they still don’t seem to promote it much, it’s like the Zune all over again.

Imagine G2, Knuckles and Alyx on Xbox launch day. It wouldn't need promoting.
 
Imagine G2, Knuckles and Alyx on Xbox launch day. It wouldn't need promoting.
Would cost a fortune though. But it would certainly sell.
 
It could even be labelled the first OpenXR HMD heralding a new standard for VR hardware.
 
After doing some googling I came across this G2.

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It HPs VR backpack. Imagine if they released an OpenXR version.
 
Usually these things end in disappointment, but let's wait and see what materialises.

Yup. Especially when Microsoft are involved.

However this has the potential to be huge if it's compatible with the NextBox. A Microsoft console having a VR headset will be the missing piece of the puzzle for mainstream gamer adoption of VR. It'll see big third party publishers bringing VR games to consoles and the PC.
 
Looking at the HMD in the image above, there doesn't seem to be any extra cameras you'd expect for a next gen inside out tracked headset. Just two dimples that seem to face inwards as if pointing to your hands. I wonder if this headset will be Lighthouse tracked after all and just two front cameras for hand tracking??? It would make sense if the G2 is using Knuckles. Valve could drastically reduce the cost of the lighthouses if the market opens up to millions of consol users. And who's to say Valve haven't perfected an even smaller LH3.0 unit??? Maybe that's what they mean by no compromise? They could be differentiating themselves from PSVR and Oculus.


The Samsung HMD had questionable tracking positions too. Maybe they're all in this.

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Imagine this -

Samsung brings the OLEDS
Valve brings the tracking, Knuckles and Alyx
Microsoft brings the Xbox Halo/Forza
HP and Samsung manufacture the headset

We're 7 months away from the launch of the XBOX, announcing this next month sounds about right for a November launch.
 
As a current HP Reverb owner I do not think we need 4k screens right now because you need the Hardware to drive those two 4k screens at at least 90hz which is asking a lot, keeping the same Display Panels that are in the current Reverb and just improving FOV and possibly adding in manual IPD adjustment would be nice, but I have the feeling that the Reverb G2 will be a Hybrid of the Index and the Reverb, photos of the new headset show it with the Index Ear Phones so thats a good indication, the controllers are good on the Reverb much better than you would think, obviously if you move your hands out of view of the headset tracking you will lose sync but in use this only happens now and then but an improvement here would also be welcome, Valve do not seem able to meet with the demand for the Index so it may be a good move for them to join with HP and Microsoft to deliver this Next-gen headset and have the manufacturing base to meet demand?
 
I hope Microsoft have learn't WMR was a msitake and OpenXR is the way forward where HMDs are format agnostic like wheels and other third party devices.

I've never tried a Reverb although I'd like too.
 
I hope Microsoft have learn't WMR was a msitake and OpenXR is the way forward where HMDs are format agnostic like wheels and other third party devices.

I've never tried a Reverb although I'd like too.
WMR is actually really nice to use, the interface has lots of potential, the way it works is pretty amazing really being able to set up your own living space in VR and having multiple massive task windows to manipulate within that environment is pretty slick, the Steam VR for WMR is also pretty seamless and can be quickly and easily launched from a Desktop screen mirror opened up in the wmr environment, I hope with Microsoft being involved in the development of the G2 that they do not give up on WMR.
 
Where did you find that second picture? Looks completely different to the one on the HP website.

No sign of any light sensors on the headset, so we MIGHT see it using Inside Out tracking for the headset and having its own controllers also using Inside Out tracking out of the box but with an option of using Knuckles controllers and Lighthouse tracking for the controllers only. Would have thought that would make things a lot more complicated than they would be if you have either fully Inside Out tracking or fully Lighthouse tracking for both headset and controllers without adding in complications.

I think it's highly likely that we'll see BOE fast-switch LCDs in this thing, same as the Rift S and Index.

And I don't think we'll see 4K displays either.
 
Where did you find that second picture? Looks completely different to the one on the HP website.

No sign of any light sensors on the headset, so we MIGHT see it using Inside Out tracking for the headset and having its own controllers also using Inside Out tracking out of the box but with an option of using Knuckles controllers and Lighthouse tracking for the controllers only. Would have thought that would make things a lot more complicated than they would be if you have either fully Inside Out tracking or fully Lighthouse tracking for both headset and controllers without adding in complications.

I think it's highly likely that we'll see BOE fast-switch LCDs in this thing, same as the Rift S and Index.

And I don't think we'll see 4K displays either.
The display panels in the Reverb are very nice at 2160 x 2160 and most medium to High end GPUs can handle this resolution at 90hz, a wider fov will I am sure be part of the final spec of the Reverb G2, having the Index fov together with the Reverb panels but hopefully without the Index problem with display glare will be a nice upgrade for current Index and Reverb owners, Inside out tracking will keep overall cost down, inside out tracking will improve for every new release of the technology, so we will have to wait to see what "No Compromise" actually means?
 
Where did you find that second picture? Looks completely different to the one on the HP website.

That's the picture of the Samsung concept for comparison, devoid of inside out cameras.
 
That's the picture of the Samsung concept for comparison, devoid of inside out cameras.

So a completely different headset then. Makes sense.

Samsung don't have any connection to this headset, do they? They've only mentioned Microsoft and Valve so far I think?
 
So a completely different headset then. Makes sense.

Samsung don't have any connection to this headset, do they? They've only mentioned Microsoft and Valve so far I think?

No connection so far. I was just pointing out the similarities between the two designs. The lack of inside out cameras on both.
 
So the Reverb G2 now has it’s own Steam page.

Is this going to be an Index killer?

 

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