Valve Reveals Specifications For Their Index VR Headset, Controllers & Base Stations

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Valve Reveals Specifications For Their Index VR Headset, Controllers & Base Stations

Valve has published the complete specifications and details on their much anticipated VR Index headset with new controllers and base stations...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...Index-VR-Specs

[tildearrow]

I wish the screens were OLED... (better black reproduction) But at least the 144Hz rate seems greats.

[Britoid]

I wish the screens were OLED... (better black reproduction) But at least the 144Hz rate seems greats.

OLEDs don't really do great with fast moving items on black, as there's a delay with the pixels having to be turned on.

[Xaero_Vincent]

Heh at $1000, this thing will probably be a niche of a niche. The HTC Vive is half the price and still too much for many to justify.

[moilami]

Still waiting for at least one great VR game.

[DoMiNeLa10]

Heh at $1000, this thing will probably be a niche of a niche. The HTC Vive is half the price and still too much for many to justify.

I don't think any manufacturer is trying to make VR into a cheap and mainstream thing. Even if the headset was cheap, you still need a powerful rig to be able to play a game, especially considering that framerate drops could lead to nausea. VR is years from being marketable to the average consumer, game designers are still figuring out how to make games that don't make (unexperienced) people want to vomit after 10 minutes of play, as a product that makes people feel sick and requires plenty of exercise to be bearable is a tough sell.

[skeevy420]

Still waiting for at least one great VR game.

Chicken & Egg.

No one makes great VR games because there aren't a lot of people buying VR gear due to high priced hardware with a lack of content.

No one buys VR gear because there aren't any good games being made & the hardware is frickin expensive.

And you also need a worth-a-shit GPU. Those aren't cheap either. It says GTX 970/RX 480+, but I'm just gonna assume that something better than my RX 580 will be needed if I want to use better-than-low-to-medium graphics settings; ditto with a Nvidia GTX 1060.

[xorbe]

The off-ear audio seems nice for some uses. When people try my Vive Pro, as soon as the headphones go on, bam they are disconnected from external conversation, and they are some place else.

[Teggs]

...the VR infrastructure there is now on Linux but just not a lot of interesting content.

It occurs to me that Valve used to be a game developer. Half Life 3 VR?

[coder]

I'm disappointed (but not surprised) that this isn't wireless. For me, that would make the price tag much easier to swallow. And I'm not interested in aftermarket wireless solutions, which can only add latency. If wireless is done right, then the ATW would happen in the HMD, in order to help compensate for the transmission time.