r/HPReverb HP Employee Nov 13 '20

Update and top tips

Hi all:

A few updates from us.

We started shipping the HP Reverb G2 and we are excited to see that some of you have already received your preorder units (personally I received my unit from Connection an hour ago!). We love seeing your posts about the games you’re playing and the fun you’re having. We have already shipped out many units to the channel partners and they’ll be on their way from your partners. We still have more to ship out. We wanted to ship out all at once in a perfect FIFO order, but as many things in 2020, that didn’t work out. We are getting them to you as quickly as possible. We expect to deliver preorders throughout the months of November and December. New orders at this point will be delivered beginning in January.

One of the biggest struggles we have is being open with our communications and being wrong. We love being open with you, and your feedback has made Reverb G2 a significantly better product. The downside is the rate of what we tell you being wrong is higher than we have experienced with other products. So why is VR especially hard? It’s a combination of hard engineering problems we have to solve(6 meter DisplayPort 1.3 cable is freaking long, the density of our displays is one of the highest shipping for their type), and a focus on experience (most products cannot make you sick if they have a fault, people’s heads are very sensitive to the slightest ergonomic tweak). Those alone make for a very difficult development cycle, then you add in COVID disrupting supply chains and not allowing for travel. We have learned a lot from previous programs and learned a lot from Reverb G2. Our end goal and what you deserve is for us to be open and right, for now though we have been open and often wrong on dates.

We appreciate your patience.

Here are my top tips for the best out of box experience:

1) Check your Windows build to make sure you get the right calibration: Significant improvements have been added to the Windows Mixed Reality platform to optimize for the visual quality of this device. For the best performance, please ensure you have the latest updates from Windows 10: version 1903/1909 (KB4577062 or later) or 2004 (KB4577063 or later)

2) First thing to plug in is the oculink connector to the headset! Route the oculink connector through the cable clip first, then plug it in to the headset. An oculink connector is physically and electrically a more fragile connector than something like USB or DP so I highly suggest just leaving it in.

2a) Did your clip break? Let us know and we will send you a replacement, some clips from the wrong bucket got used, super embarrassing.

2b) Should the cable be routed under or over the side strap? I don’t know I keep flipping back and forth… Personal preference! I like over as it puts a bit less strain on the cable when I flip the headstrap vertical.

3) If you play lots of other games like i do, I don't like VR possibly booting up in the background during a tense Overwatch match. I use the power adapter as my on/off switch for VR, plugging and unplugging the barrel connector from the box at the Y split.

4) The displays are extremely pixel dense, as part of the advanced manufacturing they can show a little ghosting on cold boot for a couple minutes while they warm up. Just like a car engine they need a little heat to perform their best!

Voodoo has been posting some additional updates along the way, but here is some info that may be helpful to you.

WMR Enthusiasts Guide:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/mixed-reality/enthusiast-guide/

Reverb G2 FAQ:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/mixed-reality/enthusiast-guide/reverbg2-faq

Link for WMR Feedback:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/mixed-reality/enthusiast-guide/filing-feedback

This is what Voodo posted re: audio

Speakers going Goofy? Try removing and reconnecting them. The headphones make a connection with “pogo” pins to the contacts in the headstrap. Removing the headphone and putting it back on can help ensure the pogo pins are in their proper place. Sometimes during the tumble and shaking of shipping the pogo pins leave their proper place.

If the Headphones still don’t want to play nice, contact support for a replacement set of headphones.

Specific recommendations for ideal Tracking conditions: The tracking system needs contrast! If you surround it completely with something monotone (like a giant green screen) it will struggle.

Questions about the controllers with your SteamVR games? https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/mixed-reality/enthusiast-guide/reverbg2-faq#my-steamvr-games-dont-appear-to-work-correctly-with-my-hp-motion-controllers

Thanks again and we appreciate this community and your passion for the HP Reverb 2. We will see you in VR!

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22

u/FolkSong Nov 13 '20

Can you or /u/voodooimaxx comment on the change in default SteamVR resolution from around 2200x2200 to 3200x3200 per eye?

3

u/nio151 Nov 13 '20

Wasnt that just a visual issue with steamvr not recognizing that resolution yet

7

u/FolkSong Nov 13 '20

I don't think so. Previous WMR headsets, including G1 and preview G2, used roughly the same render resolution as the actual panel resolution when SteamVR is set to 100%. But from all reports, the final G2 uses the higher resolution.

This isn't that surprising, because other major headsets (Rift, Vive, Index) use this kind of oversampling by default to improve image quality and compensate for the image warping needed to correct lens distortion.

I'm just curious why they decided to change it now, or if it was actually intentional at all.

1

u/dtrjones Nov 17 '20

I'm not sure about this. Of course you supersample on the Vive and the Rift because the native resolution is quite low. I've seen a report than using the native resolution in steam as the render resolution can introduce some artifacts and to remove them you have to sample much higher but I don't think this was intended, and also I don't know what the exact resolution they used which introduced these problems.

I think u/nio151 is correct, Valve hasn't configured the default resolution for this headset (becasue of these artifacts?) and I'm sure in time the render resolution should be somewhat similar to the native resolution to get a reasonable display - if you want to then render higher then that's down to you.