Varjo Aero

bobzdar said:
Not sure I understand - you can use your desktop with the headset on so no need to take it off? You can hit the button on the side of the headset to get to the desktop at any time to close or launch a game. There is a way to get to steamVR home but I can't remember it - maybe ask in the discord channel? I never use it, I just hit the button on the side of the headset to get to desktop and do what I need.
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High resolution enough that it is trivial to just use desktop mode?
 
I'd be fine with doing that. Now I have to remove the headset to start a game. I guess I have to enable the use of the controllers in Varjo base? When doing that in the Varjo home my index controllers don't work well at all. I'll give that button a try asap! Thanks
 
DocHoliday69 said:
I'd be fine with doing that. Now I have to remove the headset to start a game. I guess I have to enable the use of the controllers in Varjo base? When doing that in the Varjo home my index controllers don't work well at all. I'll give that button a try asap! Thanks
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Ah, I see. I have a keyboard with trackpad I use.
 
Touching base back here again - OpenXR toolkit enables dynamic (eye tracked) foveated rendering for most OpenXR games and all I can say is "wow". With that enabled the resolution gets bumped up even more, so you get even better clarity with increased performance. MSFS looks almost real. It's like getting an upgrade with that enabled, totally amazing. I've had it around 9 months so far and no issues. A lot of games are getting OpenXR support (including my favorite, iRacing) which really lets this headset shine.
 
I see you put a 5800X3D in your rig are you still running DX11 for FS2020 in VR and have you tried DX12 recently? I haven't tried it for quite awhile and haven't heard of any new development regarding DX12 and FS2020. BTW eye tracked foveated render on that headset sounds incredible and likely looks the same. Certainly sounds like a welcome addition to and already very nice HMD.
 
learners permit said:
I see you put a 5800X3D in your rig are you still running DX11 for FS2020 in VR and have you tried DX12 recently? I haven't tried it for quite awhile and haven't heard of any new development regarding DX12 and FS2020. BTW eye tracked foveated render on that headset sounds incredible and likely looks the same. Certainly sounds like a welcome addition to and already very nice HMD.
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I haven't tried dx12 in it in a while, will give it a shot next time I fire it up.

I figured that I'm getting a roughly 30% resolution bump with foveated rendering, I can go from 27ppd to 37ppd with the same performance. At that res it's really exposing the limitations of the game engines, mipmap levels, object detail pop in and low res texture start to show up because everything is so completely clear. It's like getting an upgraded headset and GPU...
 
bobzdar said:
As there's not a thread about this (just the VR-3), I figured I'd start one given I just got mine on Friday. I had preordered the day they opened, got the notice it would be shipping within 2 weeks on the previous Friday, notice it would ship within 5 days on Tuesday and card charged, and then a notice that it had shipped on Wednesday - and it showed up only 2 days later while I was expecting it to take at least a week. So it appears Varjo has their logistics down and hit their promised ship, all good signs.

I immediately downloaded the Varjo base software and plugged it in. The biggest issue I had was getting my base stations and controllers paired from the second hand og vive I had picked up on FB marketplace, which is to say no real issue at all - just googled how to do it (hold down the 2 buttons until they beep). Then it all just worked. I left all of the settings stock, it defaults to high (35ppd) resolution and fired up iRacing. I had to lower some GPU intensive settings like transparency AA from 4x supersampling to multisample, and change an ini setting that was game specific and caused a ton of world warp, set steamVR to 100% (I ran 140 on the Odyssey+) and then it was all set and worked.

So first impressions - clarity is off the charts, shimmering almost completely gone and things are now visible as long as your eyes can pick them up. Things are readable as soon as they're big enough for my eyes to recognize, blurry things in the distance are just no longer a thing at all. It actually highlighted a lot of the graphics engine limitations that weren't noticeable previously, like low res textures in certain places, flickering shadows on cars while following them, things like that that just weren't visible before. The FOV is slightly smaller and there is some difference in how the optics render things vs my old Odyssey+, so there was a slight adjustment period akin to when getting new glasses. After half an hour or so that all went away and was no longer noticeable. I have lasik corrected to 20-20 in one eye and 20-15 in the other, and things were readable from farther than I probably could read them in real life, to give an idea of the clarity and image quality.

So to comfort - I had a choice to make as I was driving in the iRacing 24h of Daytona starting at 7am Saturday morning. I decided to go back to the Odyssey+ for the race start and not run untested hardware. Then I figured after my opening 3 hour stint was done, I'd swap headsets and as long as there were no problem while watching/spotting other drivers, drive my next 3 hour stint with the Aero. That all went without a hitch and I'll say the Aero, despite fully covering my face and the Odyssey not covering it as I removed the facial interface from it completely, induced less sweating and was as comfortable, if not more so. Going immediately from the Odyssey+ to the Aero highlighted the differences - clarity was a monumental improvement, FOV slightly smaller and optics different but overall better due to lack of any God rays and better edge to edge clarity despite what I felt was a little less correct geometry. Sound wise I used the stock headphones on the Odyssey+ and my Bose QC35's on the Aero, so it was better for sure (not really a fair comparison); I didn't try the included ear buds.

Now to performance - iRacing is notoriously single thread cpu limited, but you can, via things like transparency AA and steamvr super sampling, put a hurt on any GPU with it, including my 3090. I had the GPU working virtually to it's max with the Odyssey+ and had to reduce settings for the Aero - like the aforementioned transparency AA and supersampling in steamvr. That said, turning either of those settings down made zero perceptible difference to the image quality and doubled the performance - it's just so high res those tricks aren't necessary. My GPU with pixel density at high/35ppd and supersampling 100% is at about the same load it was with the Odyssey+ and the image quality is night and day better. I could probably disable transparency AA altogether as I see no aliasing on textures at all anyway, and I may try the res on extreme (39ppd) just to see what it looks like, but honestly I don't know what it will add. Maybe it'll get rid of that last very faint shimmering you can see on some things in the extreme distance, but it's rare and only there if you look for it - and honestly less prominent than on my 4k screen in 2d mode - which is amazing to me.

Things I don't like - the eye calibration every time you put the headset on is annoying and means you really don't want to lift up the headset or do anything that could make it lose track of your eyes in a critical moment (or at all while doing something like driving in a race) as it overlays the screen and makes things stutter while it calibrates. If they could do that in the background and make it transparent to the user, or give the option to completely disable it as eye tracking doesn't work yet in most games, it'd be much better. I was afraid to itch my face during the race for fear it'd have to recalibrate and make me crash. The FOV is less, and noticeable at first. I think if I can get my eyes closer it'd be similar to the Odyssey+, which I'm happy with. The lense geometry seems a touch off, which should all be fixable via stereo separation/warping in firmware, so hopefully they continue to work on that, but it's a minor concern. I just think the Odyssey+ was particularly excellently set up in that respect as I get a similar feeling in my Quest 2 and other headsets I've tried. Blacks are not quite as good as the OLED in the Odyssey+ but there is zero ghosting and the contrast/colors are stellar. There's zero mura or screen door, just a perfectly smooth image, unlike any other headset I've tried.

Overall - a huge step up from the Odyssey+. Is it worth $2k (or in my case, $2300 as I had to get a Vive for the base stations)? Sure, if you have a beast system and extra money. I'm going to try MSFS and see if the same graphics engine limitations show up like they do in iRacing. I'm hoping not, but the VR ecosystem may not be ready for this thing to where it makes sense to shell out for it. I may try Alyx on it but I didn't buy this for games like that as they're more fun completely untethered with the Quest 2 in airlink (imo) and I've honestly had enough of that game anyway.
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Hi COULD YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME HOW I CONNECT MINE TO MY PC AS I BOUGHT MINE FROM EBAY AND ARRIVED WITHOUT A POWER ADAPTER.
 
Somewhat older topic but for those with the aero..

Have you noticed a background of "dust particles" banded i think horizontally, very faint, on bright white screens? I dont know if this is mura or not.

I'm debating to swap the headset before my 1 year ends soon, but i have a feeling this is the way it is with everyones?
 
markm75 said:
Somewhat older topic but for those with the aero..

Have you noticed a background of "dust particles" banded i think horizontally, very faint, on bright white screens? I dont know if this is mura or not.

I'm debating to swap the headset before my 1 year ends soon, but i have a feeling this is the way it is with everyones?
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I have not noticed it on mine.
 
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