HP Reverb G2

Picked up Skyrim VR today. Didn't think I'd ever play Skyrim again lol, but man it's entirely different when it feels like you're there. Grabbed a bunch of mods to go with it. So satisfying putting arrows in faces, or knees :)

Randall Stephens said:
I don’t have a g2, but my rift audio broke so now I use headphones. When the rift goes on windows switches to the rift by default. I simply click on the sound icon and change the audio output to my Realtek headphones.
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I kinda figured it out. If WMR has control, get no sound to my airpods. If I do the WIN+Y to give desktop control with the headset on, then I get sound through my airpods. Can then launch games from the desktop. Seems to cause intermittent crashes of Steam VR and/or WMR that I don't experience using the headset audio. Whole audio issue doesn't happen if it's set to my tv speakers either. And the airpods work fine in flatscreen games. So maybe some issue with bluetooth + WMR? I give up for now...
 
ptr1959w said:
Hi there, I was wondering if my system would be able to handle the HP Reverb G2...My specs are i7-1075H CPU @2.60-5qhz 16GB ram Geforce RTX 2060 Samsung 970 EVO PLus 512GB M.2 SSD. I would use it mainly for MSFS 2020.
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Flight Sim 2020 is pretty brutal. If you are running it on a laptop with 2060 mobile, I assume you'd have to turn down a few things.
 
Mine came yesterday. I'm still getting used to the floating headphones, and it's an incredibly tight fit over my glasses. I'm also wondering how the loss of some of the controls will affect titles that expect them. Roblox VR, which was already broken enough with WMR, is now pretty much toast as I think it expects the touch-dpad to be there, so there's virtually no movement.. I may have to see about if there's any way to do control mapping. Had some fun throwing my daughter around in VR Hands.

The resolution is super sexy, it looks great. Surprisingly fast with my paltry GTX1080 too in the simple titles I tried it with. Unlike my old HP WMR headset, the "sweet spot" is pretty big, every time I put it on it seems to land right in a good spot.
 
Ripskin said:
I'm running it just fine on a 5820K and 1080 Ti 32 GB of RAM.

Flight Sim screwed VR Up in the patch a few weeks ago so while it was running pretty good that patch made it hot garbage. Other games play perfectly Fine. Zero Caliber I set to medium / medium high and see a few mini stutters but overall its fine.
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I have the same exact specs and DCS, Il2 and Elite Dangerous run smooth at high settings. I thought I’d need to upgrade but that’s on the back burner.
 
dywanos said:
Should I sell my Index for this?
With new GPUs coming, I'd like to try higher res on my headset. I don't really need 120/144hz. I didn't notice any difference between my old original Rift and Index when it comes to refresh rate.
But I play sports a lot, like tennis. Is tracking on G2 going to be a problem?
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Tracking is by far the weakest aspect of the G2. Coming from a CV1 its definitely worse. You can actually use the knuckles/lighthouses with the G2 with some setup, people say its really good. Theres a good video of it on the MRTV youtube channel.
 
workshop35 said:
Tracking is by far the weakest aspect of the G2. Coming from a CV1 its definitely worse. You can actually use the knuckles/lighthouses with the G2 with some setup, people say its really good. Theres a good video of it on the MRTV youtube channel.
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The tracking is one of the compromises of an inside-out setup that relies on in-helmet cameras. While I've noticed vs. an older 2-camera WMR headset the G2's 4-camera setup is definitely better at times, particularly with actions on the sides parallel to the helmet, it still can't figure out when arms are just resting. In VR Chat my character's arms go all goofy when I set them to my sides.

WMR headsets are designed to be easier to set up and don't require any sort of real prep work in a space beyond having the space. Doing the boundary setup takes 30 seconds and off ya go, no lighthouses or other components to deal with. The G2 even takes the Bluetooth out of it by having the controllers automatically paired to the helmet. Now if they could just figure out how to track the controllers without those annoying cameras..
 
I'm ready to pull the trigger on G2 along with the Valve index controllers and lighthouse base stations. Want the high resolution but with the Valve Index tracking. Still debating if it's worth it. Only game I really want to play on VR is Half Life Alyx.
 
Kerby1280 said:
I'm ready to pull the trigger on G2 along with the Valve index controllers and lighthouse base stations. Want the high resolution but with the Valve Index tracking. Still debating if it's worth it. Only game I really want to play on VR is Half Life Alyx.
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Hefty investment for just the one game.
 
Just ordered the official VRCover for Reverb G2 since it's stocked at Amazon now and don't have to wait for international shipping from the manufacturer: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08R729SLC/

Foam pads in two different thicknesses, a different face interface that they attach to (potentially thinner for a wider final FOV?), and removable nose guard that cuts down or eliminates light leak. Will be interesting to test this. The VRCover I had for a Odyssey+ was great and made a difference.

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Kerby1280 said:
I'm ready to pull the trigger on G2 along with the Valve index controllers and lighthouse base stations. Want the high resolution but with the Valve Index tracking. Still debating if it's worth it. Only game I really want to play on VR is Half Life Alyx.
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My advice would be start playing Alyx with just the Reverb G2 and controllers and then after an hour or so ask yourself if you still care about Index controllers, or just want to keep playing. Hint: it'll be the latter.

Index controllers are great, and I've done the Reverb headset + Index controllers mashup-thing believing it *must* be the best of both worlds, but it's splitting hairs at the penalty of a huge amount of fiddling around in software settings each time you start SteamVR, because its two major pieces of VR software (SteamVR and WMR) held together with chewing gum with a freeware shim called OVR Advanced Settings. If you already had both the Index controllers and a Reverb G2, and you have the patience to potentially have to screw around with recalibration or digging into settings every time you start SteamVR, great. But after a while it gets old when all you want to do is load up and play.
 
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DPI said:
Just ordered the official VRCover for Reverb G2 since it's stocked at Amazon now and don't have to wait for international shipping from the manufacturer: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08R729SLC/

Foam pads in two different thicknesses, a different face interface that they attach to, and removable nose guard that cuts down or eliminates light leak. Will be interesting to test this. The VRCover I had for a Odyssey+ was great and made a difference.
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Oo, been waiting for something like that to come out. Thanks, ordered as well.
 
DPI said:
My advice would be start playing Alyx with just the Reverb G2 and controllers and then after an hour or so ask yourself if you still care about Index controllers, or just want to keep playing. Hint: it'll be the latter.

Index controllers are great, and I've done the Reverb headset + Index controllers mashup-thing believing it *must* be the best of both worlds, but it's splitting hairs at the penalty of a huge amount of fiddling around in software settings each time you start SteamVR, because its two major pieces of VR software (SteamVR and WMR) held together with chewing gum by a freeware shim called OVR Advanced Settings. If you already had both the Index controllers and a Reverb G2, and you have the patience to potentially have to screw around with recalibration or digging into settings every time you start SteamVR, great. But after a while it gets old when all you want to do is load up and play.
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Just pulled the trigger on a G2 from HP. Schedule for delivery on Thursday. I'll try Alyx with just the G2 and see how I like the tracking before spending more money on the Index and base stations. I'm excited it will be my first experience with VR.
 
Kerby1280 said:
Just pulled the trigger on a G2 from HP. Schedule for delivery on Thursday. I'll try Alyx with just the G2 and see how I like the tracking before spending more money on the Index and base stations. I'm excited it will be my first experience with VR.
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It should be fine. Just remember that it uses visible light for tracking, so nice ambient mood lighting is recommended. Not too bright nor too dark, and preferably details on the walls where the headset can latch on to and track when you move.
 
Kerby1280 said:
Just pulled the trigger on a G2 from HP. Schedule for delivery on Thursday. I'll try Alyx with just the G2 and see how I like the tracking before spending more money on the Index and base stations. I'm excited it will be my first experience with VR.
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You have no idea what a mind blower you're in for. My non-techie g/f once dismissed VR as "weird goggles for nerds to watch porn" (she wasn't wrong though). But then I let her play a round of Beat Saber- and, "holy shit!" - and that led to about 60 rounds of Beat Saber. After that I couldn't shut her up about VR.

BTW, Half Life: Alyx is discounted for the first time ever - $35.99 instead of $60 - , so grab it now if you haven't already
 
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Perfect timing with Half-Life Alyx on sale for $35.99. The G2 is coming in a day earlier- I should be getting it this afternoon instead of Thursday.
 
Don't forget Superhot VR is also 40% off, now $15. I haven't tried it yet myself. I've spent a few hours in Valve's "The Lab" (free), which I feel was really well done. A couple hours in Google Earth VR (free), which I had experienced once before. The remaining ~100 hours in DCS: World.
 
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Kerby1280 said:
I'm ready to pull the trigger on G2 along with the Valve index controllers and lighthouse base stations. Want the high resolution but with the Valve Index tracking. Still debating if it's worth it. Only game I really want to play on VR is Half Life Alyx.
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Try it with just the headset. I think you will be happily surprised.
 
Kerby1280 said:
Just pulled the trigger on a G2 from HP. Schedule for delivery on Thursday. I'll try Alyx with just the G2 and see how I like the tracking before spending more money on the Index and base stations. I'm excited it will be my first experience with VR.
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As long as you have decent enough GPU firepower to run it at full resolution without lots of frame drops or reprojection, you are in for a serious treat.
 
All I can say is WOW my mind was blown. I couldn't believe the graphics, then level of immersion, the sense of scale. Gotta give props to the Valve developers for Half Life Alyx. It's a no brainer at $35 if you have a VR headset. I was willing to pay full price for it.

I spent must of the time picking up items and looking at walls and textures. I just got to the point where I receive my pistol but I am amaze at this game. The last game I played that left me speechless and in awe was Red Dead Redemption 2.

Currently running it on a 9900K at 5ghz with an EVGA 3080 FTW3 at Ultra settings.
 
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I picked up Alyx at that price, will be worth it I'm sure. Now to find time to actually play VR.
 
I'm really liking the G2. I had a few issues with the tracking- during HF Alyx when reaching back to grab a fresh mag to reload my pistol a couple times it didn't register and I had no new clip. On the second try it worked but it was some tense moments when you've got a zombie in front of you with an empty clip. No biggie something I can live with. BTW the audio speakers are as good as the visuals.

What's a good carry/storage case for the G2? I couldn't find any specifically for the G2 but didn't know if any generic would fit the G2.

Thanks.
 
Kerby1280 said:
I'm really liking the G2. I had a few issues with the tracking- during HF Alyx when reaching back to grab a fresh mag to reload my pistol a couple times it didn't register and I had no new clip. On the second try it worked but it was some tense moments when you've got a zombie in front of you with an empty clip. No biggie something I can live with. BTW the audio speakers are as good as the visuals.

What's a good carry/storage case for the G2? I couldn't find any specifically for the G2 but didn't know if any generic would fit the G2.

Thanks.
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I get that sometimes on the Quest 2 too. Having to reach outside the camera area to reload is not a good design for inside-out tracking, it was clearly designed for lighthouse tracking. I found when I slowly grab/deposit items into the backpack it works a lot better.
I'm guessing they just didn't test with any inside-out headsets and it's not some sort of conspiracy to try to sell more of their own.
 
Kerby1280 said:
What's a good carry/storage case for the G2? I couldn't find any specifically for the G2 but didn't know if any generic would fit the G2.
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I think a lot of people use those Pelican cases with the foam that you can carve out to the shape you want.
 
been secretly reading this thread for awhile and after my company’s last quarter sales, I -think- I may be able to justify getting a reverb

I see a lot of 3080s mentioned in this thread, does anyone have a 3070 to speak to regarding quality settings? Its all I could score after literally months of the shuffle... Ive got an original Oculus Rift but its resolution cant compare
 
windianrecords said:
been secretly reading this thread for awhile and after my company’s last quarter sales, I -think- I may be able to justify getting a reverb

I see a lot of 3080s mentioned in this thread, does anyone have a 3070 to speak to regarding quality settings? Its all I could score after literally months of the shuffle... Ive got an original Oculus Rift but its resolution cant compare
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3070 is plenty. Depends what you want to play of course, but most stuff will be fine. And it'll certainly get you through HL: Alyx flawlessly, but then that software was overengineered for any GPU.

No GPU currently available can run a G2 natively, and a future RTX 4080 or 4090 wont either. So we're all compromising with a softened image, even a 3090. The supersampling (SS% in SteamVR settings) ratchets up and down accordingly, and you can further optimize manually per title, bringing it right to the edge of staying just above 90FPS at all times.

On the bright side, the perceptible difference inside the HMD between say a 3070 and 3080 is going to be slim to none, especially once you're immersed in a game.
 
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DPI said:
3070 is plenty. Depends what you want to play of course, but most stuff will be fine. And it'll certainly get you through HL: Alyx flawlessly, but then that software was overengineered for any GPU.

No GPU currently available can run a G2 natively, and a future RTX 4080 or 4090 wont either. So we're all compromising with a softened image, even a 3090. The supersampling (SS% in SteamVR settings) ratchets up and down accordingly, and you can further optimize manually per title, bringing it right to the edge of staying just above 90FPS at all times.

On the bright side, the perceptible difference inside the HMD between say a 3070 and 3080 is going to be slim to none, especially once you're immersed in a game.
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Awesome, thanks for the response. There used to be a ton more “hows this card do in VR” blogs back when the 10xx and 20xx series came out (and the second wave of headsets), I tried and couldn’t find any publication saying “heres a 3070 and heres the G2” ... my main concern is that the Oculus I have is pretty solid for most games, but I want to move up as my son and I play a LOT of VR and its sort of a bonding thing, I’d kick myself if the 3070 couldn’t handle it and I had to send back, etc.
 
windianrecords said:
Awesome, thanks for the response. There used to be a ton more “hows this card do in VR” blogs back when the 10xx and 20xx series came out (and the second wave of headsets), I tried and couldn’t find any publication saying “heres a 3070 and heres the G2” ... my main concern is that the Oculus I have is pretty solid for most games, but I want to move up as my son and I play a LOT of VR and its sort of a bonding thing, I’d kick myself if the 3070 couldn’t handle it and I had to send back, etc.
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Everything that has been said about 2080 Ti in VR applies to 3070, they are basically the same card in performance. 8gb VRAM might make you seem worried but so far VR games do not use super high resolution textures. I do not have G2 but I do have Quest 2 and performance requirements are similar. Might even be worse actually because Quest 2 has to waste resources for compression and streaming video on fly through USB cable. My 3070 is playing just fine with slight supersampling on top. Only game that does not work well is No Mans Sky VR but that is because its VR implementation is sadly unoptimized ass, not because GPU lacks power.
 
Seems HP has made an improved G2:

https://www.roadtovr.com/hp-reverb-g2-update-us-commonly-requested-improvements/

First I'd heard of it. My controllers did an update last night automatically, was hoping the improvements to tracking would apply to current versions. I was playing a driving sim, so no idea if it did anything.

Looks like some improvements to WMR at last too, finally go directly to SteamVR.

Ah crap, those updates are only for Win11, wtf.
 
Wow! Interesting. It states a NEW G2 is released. This is not a download but a version of the headset.
Sounds like they have done a "tweak" of the cameras/controllers.
A new face-pad will increase FOV it states. I think they could send that improvement to al G2's? :ROFLMAO:
 
SmartSelect_20211022-001508_Chrome.jpg

Hallelujah. WMR cliffhouse has always been kind of a useless appendage/shim that MS either never had interest in fleshing out further, or just abandoned the idea and let it coast in support/bugfix mode.

In fact MS whole VR strategy has never been clear. I guess they believed Hololens and AR would turn out to be a bigger deal. But they seem to want to gatekeep the WMR hardware and driver layer, but are happy to let Valve do all the actual heavy lifting on APIs, content, and both consumer and developer engagement.
 
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Hmm, as soon as the Mixed reality console picked up my headset and controllers I would launch steam VR from steam and not bother going to the cliff house thing. Weird. Never noticed if it loaded in the background or something.
 
Ripskin said:
Hmm, as soon as the Mixed reality console picked up my headset and controllers I would launch steam VR from steam and not bother going to the cliff house thing. Weird. Never noticed if it loaded in the background or something.
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Yes the WMR shim is still in the background while in SteamVR, still doing redundant screen mirroring. Can't be avoided or bypassed in Windows 10.

The issue is optimization. Unlike a first person shooter on a 2D monitor, where losing a few frames and GPU cycles to an OSD/FPS counter doesn't really matter, in VR every GPU cycle counts. A VR HMD like the G2 that already demands more GPU horsepower than any current GPU can provide (and will take an RTX 5090 to finally drive it 1:1 natively), when the GPU has to do also render unnecessary shit on the desktop, there's a performance impact to VR frametimes and FPS.

The most ideal setup from a VR performance standpoint is the HMD plugged into the GPU by itself, and a separate GPU (or IGP) serving the desktop.
 
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DPI said:
Yes the WMR shim is still in the background while in SteamVR, still doing redundant screen mirroring. Can't be avoided or bypassed in Windows 10.

The issue is optimization. Unlike a first person shooter on a 2D monitor, where losing a few frames and GPU cycles to an OSD/FPS counter doesn't really matter, in VR every GPU cycle counts. A VR HMD like the G2 that already demands more GPU horsepower than any current GPU can provide (and will take an RTX 5090 to finally drive it 1:1 natively), when the GPU has to do also render unnecessary shit on the desktop, there's a performance impact to VR frametimes and FPS.

The most ideal setup from a VR performance standpoint is the HMD plugged into the GPU by itself, and a separate GPU (or IGP) serving the desktop.
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Isn't the picture on screen just a mirrored image from the headset? The rendering power it takes should be almost zero. 🤔
 
MaZa said:
Isn't the picture on screen just a mirrored image from the headset? The rendering power it takes should be almost zero. 🤔
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Sometimes, it depends on the game and the way they have implemented VR in that game. Subnautica is an example of a game that renders on the headset and the desktop.
 
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