Not so much impressed by Reverb G2 - blurry image

[Steku 158]

I'm new to VR with brand new Reverb G2. Following CptLucky8 advice on official MFS2020 forums I managed to configure my system based on 3070, to display 25-30 FPS with repojection in OpenXR "preview runtime". The picture is a bit choppy, especially when looking thorugh the side windows, but this is not my biggest issue.

The sweet spot in G2 is dissapointing to me. I find myself constantly correcting the placement of my headset vs. my head/eyes. While the C172 steam gauges cockpit looks decent (I'm RW pilot so flying VFR I glance mostly on the airspeed indicator), the scenery is dissapointing. On my monitor (1920x1080) I can see crisp scenery, buidlings etc. In VR the scenery is more like a blurry mess (even at TAA render scaling 100%), especially outside the small sweetspot.

I will be experimenting with replacing the original headset gasket, to place my eyes closer to the lenses. Or maybe it's just my eyes - I'm 50+ and still avoiding the reading glasses, but as far as I undesrtand, the picture in the headset is focused in the distance like in the real world, so I should not have issues with the outside scenery, which anyway looks decent but only in the small sweet spot. Some reviewers of G2 said that the sweet spot of G2 is actually decent, the high quality of the picture in the sweetspot is even more contrasting in G2 with the blurriness outside the sweetspot.

While the cockpit looks great in 3D, and the head movements are more natural in VR (like observing the runway when judging the turn to final), what is most important to me when flying VFR is the outside view, and with it I'm not so impressed, when comparing it to my triple display setup (even limited by the lack of angled side displays support in MFS2020) with TrackIR - the picture is crisp across 3 displays, FPS much better even with most setting on high or ultra.

Am I doing anything wrong? Or are my expectations set to high?

Edited December 23, 2020 by Steku

[YoYo 374]

Dont campare the 2D monitor quality to VR. It needs 2 generation of HMD and GPU more for this, so 2024 I think ;). Which resolution do you have in settings when you are in VR mode? 

[Steku 158]

100% render scaling. Pretty crisp in the G2 sweet spot, blurry outside it. It's an optical issue I believe: the G2 lenses, my eyes, or maybe my brand new headset is somehow faulty or optically misaligned.

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

35 minutes ago, Steku said:

100% render scaling. Pretty crisp in the G2 sweet spot, blurry outside it. It's an optical issue I believe: the G2 lenses, my eyes, or maybe my brand new headset is somehow faulty or optically misaligned.

Do you find Track IR better than Vr? I’m really still on the fence. I’ll probably pick a G2 up and have a play at some point. (Ps can you wear glasses whilst wearing the VR?) 

[dogmanbird 269]

Listening to the youtube reviewers who got the second lens version of G2 to test, it was sounding like it would have a huge sweet spot as they mentioned it being noticeably larger than Quest 2. Now with all the small sweet spot reports coming out, it almost sounds like HP slipped the left over first gen lenses into the units to send out to the public.

Steku - I think everyone new to VR is a little disappointed in some way with optics on all headsets, I sure was. I think manufacturers should put a disclaimer on the box that says "caution: it won't look like a monitor sitting 50cm away"

 

Are you at %100 scaling in Steam VR (if that's what you're using?) as people mentioned on Reddit that anything much less than that makes the peripherals noticeably fuzzier while centre still being fairly sharp - as if steam starts to reduce res at the outer areas first. This possibly may not happen with the in game scaling option

 

 

 

Edited December 24, 2020 by dogmanbird

[nyfirefly11 55]

I was disappointed too with the G2 and the 3080...the immersion is incredible, but the graphics (especially looking out the window) are mediocre.

Plus there’s the motion sickness 🙃

[dilore 126]

I too am still disapointed about the small Sweet Spot. 

I could increase it a bit though by pushing the back strip down onto my neck, and moving the upper edge of the headset to my eyebrows.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

1. Sweet spots - HMDs vary. My Quest 2 and Rift S have sweet spots large enough that i don’t notice, i just stick it on my head. With my odyssey+, i have to be very aware of just where my hmd is sitting.

Better lenses are one of the big advantages of the oculus gear. They may not have the resolution of the G2, but oculus has been around a lot longer and sells at 10-100 times more headsets than HP does, which gives them a big engineering advantage.

2. Motion sickness. Start off slowly. When you get sick, stop. Tolerance builds with time. When i started with my DK2, i thought VR was a novelty because i could only fly for short periods. Now a flight of several hours is fine. Also, check your frame rates. Some around here say that low frames are fine for vr. No. For “novelty” flying, sure, but for anything serious you need to be able to match your hmds refresh or half-refresh rate (or MAYBE for WMR now, 1/3rd refresh but that’s still going to be worse for motion sickness than 45 or 90 FPS).

[flightsim1818 79]

8 hours ago, Steku said:

Am I doing anything wrong? Or are my expectations set to high?

No and no.

I returned my G2 yesterday for the exact same reasons you mention. It was more or less useless in flightsim. I had to point my headset and nail sweetspot like a sniper in order to get the runway in focus during approach. Also, when looking around it was a constant combination of sharpness and blur at the same time and that messes with your brain. Doesn't feel immersive at all.

I will give it a shot again in 3-4 months. Hopefully the units sold then will be more consistent. Because when it is sharp...holy mother of all that is good and pure!

[Steku 158]

What is strange - when I "fly" over the landscape in GoogleEarth VR I don't notice the scenery blurriness outside the sweet spot which is very apparent in MFS2020. I can actually spend hours "flying" in GoogleEarth VR over the areas I already visited in reality, especially the mountains and ski resorts. I wonder why this blurriness outside sweet spot is so apparent in MFS2020 despite having render scaling in MFS at 100% and also scaling in Open XR developer tools set at 100%.

[YoYo 374]

8 hours ago, Steku said:

100% render scaling. Pretty crisp in the G2 sweet spot, blurry outside it. It's an optical issue I believe: the G2 lenses, my eyes, or maybe my brand new headset is somehow faulty or optically misaligned.

100% in different settings can looks different too, so I asked about resolution in HMD, not %. If you have 100% looks like you use sometihing about 3200 pxt right?

[Lange_666 167]

8 hours ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

(Ps can you wear glasses whilst wearing the VR?) 

Yes, should be no problem, the smaller your glasses are the better. You can also opt for drop ins which are just great. There are a few offerings, this is one of them: https://vroptician.com/#

[nyfirefly11 55]

8 hours ago, OzWhitey said:

1. Sweet spots - HMDs vary. My Quest 2 and Rift S have sweet spots large enough that i don’t notice, i just stick it on my head. With my odyssey+, i have to be very aware of just where my hmd is sitting.

Better lenses are one of the big advantages of the oculus gear. They may not have the resolution of the G2, but oculus has been around a lot longer and sells at 10-100 times more headsets than HP does, which gives them a big engineering advantage.

2. Motion sickness. Start off slowly. When you get sick, stop. Tolerance builds with time. When i started with my DK2, i thought VR was a novelty because i could only fly for short periods. Now a flight of several hours is fine. Also, check your frame rates. Some around here say that low frames are fine for vr. No. For “novelty” flying, sure, but for anything serious you need to be able to match your hmds refresh or half-refresh rate (or MAYBE for WMR now, 1/3rd refresh but that’s still going to be worse for motion sickness than 45 or 90 FPS).

Sound like I need to tweak my graphics settings to get my FPS to 45.

I wonder if Oculus is a better buy...I’d gladly sacrifice some resolution for a larger, clearer FOV.

[threexgreen 3,139]

Is anything known about HP possibly updating lenses on the later G2 units to have the bigger sweet spot? Did they ship units with a different lens design to battle pre-order delays?

[superspud 450]

It's definitely the most noticeable thing about it for me as well. I've never been as conscious of it as I am with this head set. 

I was expecting the G2 to be good enough to not pine for future generations but this flaw is enough to reignite that. 

I need to get my main computer up and running to be able to try the sim in VR. If it struggles then I'll probably get rid of the G2 as that was the main reason for getting it and wait another generation or two.