Vive Pro 2

[Lange_666]

@Headwarp & peachmonkey:  get a room

[Headwarp]

3 minutes ago, Lange_666 said:

@Headwarp & peachmonkey:  get a room

 

Hopefully that's the last of us derailing the thread.  My apologies to the rest of you for it.  I got sidetracked.  I think I've improved my situation with the Pro 2.   Which I'll detail with screenshots.   But.. there may be hope yet.  

Edited June 7, 2021 by Headwarp

[Habu_69]

Working with HTC support regarding their website PW reset, they advised that my Vive Pro2 would be shipped this week. Ordered about May 20.

[javelina1]

I just want to know if Don got his ship notice!  (we're pulling for you Don, plus we want your user report). 

[dburne]

1 hour ago, javelina1 said:

I just want to know if Don got his ship notice!  (we're pulling for you Don, plus we want your user report). 

 

Nope still just says " your order has been released for fulfillment". That is all.

Really frustrating. And to really hack me off I went to post on the Vive forums, and seems my two posts from earlier today is the max I can post in a day. Two freakin posts!!

 

My first experience with Vive - I am not much impressed so far. But they dang sure got all my money on the day I pre-ordered, there was no waiting there!

 

[Headwarp]

So.. somehow I think I managed to install more than what Vive Setup requires for the Pro 2 on my first go around.   I don't have any specific recollection of clicking anything cosmos related, other than, I kept getting prompts asking if I wanted to set my OpenXR runtime to Vive Cosmos.   Even though I clicked yes, when I checked earlier today it said OpenXR was associated with WMR.  Which kept causing popups about OpenXR not being set to SteamVR.    So in the SteamVR developer settings I set that to SteamVR and moved on. 

 

Also.. Vive software installed some SRanipalService.exe on my system which was running as a service and failed to uninstall when I uninstalled all Vive software from my system.  I had to reinstall all vive software, stop the service and it went away this time when I uninstalled all HTC software. it left behind shortcuts I've since deleted.     I also removed mixed reality software and went through and cleared all HTC and Vive folders from my AppData folder.   At this point I think this got me to where most of you will be running Vive Setup to install your pro 2 the first time.   I got no prompt about OpenXR when I installed this time. 

 

Anyway.. as it turns out.. it seems motion compensation does in fact work at 120hz.  I'm still not overly sold on it though.. my last experience with WMR's reprojection caused some weirdness but not quite the blurred double vision I'm getting tracking aircraft in my other favorite combat flight sim.    It does at least appear to be functioning properly.  The weird thing about it however, is if I'm running at 120hz at a resolution I can handle 60fps with my settings, it fluctuates between 57-60fps.     Furthermore, if I change the refresh rate to 90hz, it starts fluctuating between 43-45.   In my other sim, it'll sit at 59 fps at 120hz and do 44fps @90hz and while it's not as bad as I was experiencing in my post earlier this morning, I briefly tested WMR's motion reprojection a week ago and it wasn't distorting the image quite as badly as the Pro 2 can.   Where my experience at 60fps @ 60hz in the odyssey provided less clarity on say specifically the F-16's MFD's in DCS.. I could read most of the gauges and had a clear image of aircrafts, and had a much easier time identifying what I was looking at while tumbling through the air.  

 

Frankly guys, for the last 3-4 years of owning a VR headset that's really the only number I use for performance measurements.   "Can I maintain 90FPS? If no-  Can I maintain 60 FPS? - If no Can I maintain 45 fps?" and as long as I can meet one of those three conditions,  I'm as smooth as I'm likely to get for my situation.. now I can aim for 120fps in less intensive titles. 

 

If I'm to believe dburne's  claim that motion smoothing provides a better experience than WMR's motion reprojection, then I still question HTC's decision to not utilize Valve's current async method.  No offense to dburne.   lol.  It's less a thought about you and more about my lack of experience with valve HMD's on the SteamVR platform. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by Headwarp

[Baldrick33]

I am pretty sure motion compensation and reprojection are two different things. I just got mine and tried at 120Hz with motion compensation off and it was running at 60 fps. Earlier I tried at 90Hz with motion compensation on and I was getting 45 but some odd fluid like effects as the motion compensation kicked in.

[Supmua]

12 minutes ago, Headwarp said:

So.. somehow I think I managed to install more than what Vive Setup requires for the Pro 2 on my first go around.   I don't have any specific recollection of clicking anything cosmos related, other than, I kept getting prompts asking if I wanted to set my OpenXR runtime to Vive Cosmos.   Even though I clicked yes, when I checked earlier today it said OpenXR was associated with WMR.  Which kept causing popups about OpenXR not being set to SteamVR.    So in the SteamVR developer settings I set that to SteamVR and moved on. 

 

Also.. Vive software installed some SRanipalService.exe on my system which was running as a service and failed to uninstall when I uninstalled all Vive software from my system.  I had to reinstall all vive software, stop the service and it went away this time when I uninstalled all HTC software. it left behind shortcuts I've since deleted.     I also removed mixed reality software and went through and cleared all HTC and Vive folders from my AppData folder.   At this point I think this got me to where most of you will be running Vive Setup to install your pro 2 the first time.   I got no prompt about OpenXR when I installed this time. 

 

Anyway.. as it turns out.. it seems motion compensation does in fact work at 120hz.  I'm still not overly sold on it though.. my last experience with WMR's reprojection caused some weirdness but not quite the blurred double vision I'm getting tracking aircraft in my other favorite combat flight sim.    It does at least appear to be functioning properly.  The weird thing about it however, is if I'm running at 120hz at a resolution I can handle 60fps with my settings, it fluctuates between 57-60fps.     Furthermore, if I change the refresh rate to 90hz, it starts fluctuating between 43-45.   In my other sim, it'll sit at 59 fps at 120hz and do 44fps @90hz and while it's not as bad as I was experiencing in my post earlier this morning, I briefly tested WMR's motion reprojection a week ago and it wasn't distorting the image quite as badly as the Pro 2 can.   Where my experience at 60fps @ 60hz in the odyssey provided less clarity on say specifically the F-16's MFD's in DCS.. I could read most of the gauges and had a clear image of aircrafts, and had a much easier time identifying what I was looking at while tumbling through the air.  

 

Frankly guys, for the last 3-4 years of owning a VR headset that's really the only number I use for performance measurements.   "Can I maintain 90FPS? If no-  Can I maintain 60 FPS? - If no Can I maintain 45 fps?" and as long as I can meet one of those three conditions,  I'm as smooth as I'm likely to get for my situation.. now I can aim for 120fps in less intensive titles. 

 

If I'm to believe dburne's  claim that motion smoothing provides a better experience than WMR's motion reprojection, then I still question HTC's decision to not utilize Valve's current async method.  No offense to dburne.   lol.  It's less a thought about you and more about my lack of experience with valve HMD's on the SteamVR platform. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hmm, your Steam SS 100% is quite different from mine.  At 100% mine is 3128x3128.  My current general SS is 108% which is roughly 1.4x native panel resolution (taking geometric distortion correction into account).

 

[Headwarp]

13 minutes ago, Supmua said:

 

Hmm, your Steam SS 100% is quite different from mine.  At 100% mine is 3128x3128.  My current general SS is 108% which is roughly 1.4x native panel resolution (taking geometric distortion correction into account).

 

 

Double check your display settings in Vive Console didn't get reverted to automatic somehow.    Steam was reporting varying resolutions @100% for me after I reinstalled until I realized I overlooked that setting.  Now it shows the resolution in my screenshot every time.  

20 minutes ago, Baldrick33 said:

I am pretty sure motion compensation and reprojection are two different things. I just got mine and tried at 120Hz with motion compensation off and it was running at 60 fps. Earlier I tried at 90Hz with motion compensation on and I was getting 45 but some odd fluid like effects as the motion compensation kicked in.

 

Motion Reprojection is WMR's version of asyncrhonus reprojection.  LIke Occulus uses "ASW" and steamVR was using "Asynchronus reprojection" which you can still turn on in SteamVR settings, but supposedly improved their method and labeled it "Motion smoothing."   

 

Motion Compensation is HTC's version.. which to me just doesn't make since given the headset by default is wired, uses the lighthouse tracking system, and requires SteamVR to function.   The Vive Pro, like the Valve Index utilizes Motion smoothing.. where the Pro 2 uses HTC's method.   Frankly I am kind of wishing HTC would just keep making capable hardware and let the software moguls make use of it but idk *shrug* 

 

They are different approaches to compensation for an inability to maintain a framerate equal to your refresh rate.  

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by Headwarp

[Supmua]

7 minutes ago, Baldrick33 said:

I am pretty sure motion compensation and reprojection are two different things. I just got mine and tried at 120Hz with motion compensation off and it was running at 60 fps. Earlier I tried at 90Hz with motion compensation on and I was getting 45 but some odd fluid like effects as the motion compensation kicked in.

 

Yes, they are different.  Full explanation here.

VR Timewarp, Spacewarp, Reprojection, And Motion Smoothing Explained (uploadvr.com)

[Supmua]

OK this is interesting.  I switch my setting in Vive console to Extreme (120 Hz), now SteamVR at 100% is 2828x2828.  So it probably has something to do with bandwidth limitation causing it to downgrade the rendering resolution.  This sort of goes along with my suspicion that Ultra mode is the one to go with if you want to get full image quality.

Edited June 7, 2021 by Supmua

[Headwarp]

1 minute ago, Supmua said:

OK this is interesting.  I switch my setting in Vive console to Extreme (120 Hz), now SteamVR at 100% is 2828x2828.  So it probably has something to do with bandwidth limitation causing it to downgrade the rendering resolution.

 

That or something's janky.   It is a new release after all.   How about when you restart and open SteamVR does it stay the same or change?   

 

If it changes despite not being set on automatic. .. I was having those kind of issues before I completely wiped and reinstalled all my Vive, WMR and SteamVR.

software.   

 

I'm not convinced SteamVR is reporting the correct resolutions.  

Edited June 7, 2021 by Headwarp

[dburne]

Also if not already suggest to run the beta of Steam VR to insure you have the latest updates.

[Headwarp]

@Supmua when you ran Vive setup.. at any point did it prompt you about the setting the OpenXR runtime to Vive Cosmos?  Or is that also set to SteamVR for you?  

 

Honestly I'm experiencing what @Baldrick33 mentioned.  Like Motion compensation stays on whether I turn it on or off.  

Edited June 7, 2021 by Headwarp

[Supmua]

I think the percentage varies by your CPU and GPU, the main thing is to set the pixel numbers to fixed whatever you want.  For optimal image quality with distortion correction it's typically 1.4x of panel res, and remember VP2 panel res is 2448x2448.  So if you set it for less, then expect some degradation in image quality.

1 minute ago, Headwarp said:

@Supmua when you ran Vive setup.. at any point did it prompt you about the setting the OpenXR runtime to Vive Cosmos?  Or is that also set to SteamVR for you?  

 

I don't remember seeing anything about Vive Cosmos.

[Headwarp]

8 minutes ago, Supmua said:

I think the percentage varies by your CPU and GPU, the main thing is to set the pixel numbers to fixed whatever you want.  For optimal image quality with distortion correction it's typically 1.4x of panel res, and remember VP2 panel res is 2448x2448.  So if you set it for less, then expect some degradation in image quality.

 

I don't remember seeing anything about Vive Cosmos.

 

So your OpenXR runtime in the SteamVR developer settings is set to "SteamVR?"  Okay.   

 

As for the percentage variation by CPU or GPU that only makes sense when the SteamVR render resolution is set to auto, which brings up again the point of "WHY HTC?!?!'.    There's two different places to set automatic resolution settings now along with preferred settings which I'm sure is going to be reoccurring question for new pro 2 users.  

 

I could be mistaken, but I don't think choice of CPU or GPU has any effect on custom SteamVR SS% settings.     Only Auto settings, and then just the SS slider. 

 

I think it might be a bug. 

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by Headwarp

[dburne]

I would not think it would matter what you have set for your Open XR runtime, unless you are running a game that uses it?

 

[Headwarp]

1 hour ago, dburne said:

I would not think it would matter what you have set for your Open XR runtime, unless you are running a game that uses it?

 

 

I wouldn't think it either.. just ruling that out.. and also confirming that the fact that I was getting that prompt was in error.   LIke I said wiping all VR related anything other than my games from my system seems to have gotten me more consistent results.. 

 

Only I think the software is ignoring my request to disable motion compensation as I'm still finding myself capped.  

 

.. This is new to me too..and also might be where our difference lies @Supmua.

 

My Per application resolutions seem to be dependent on the default resolution set on the Video tab.   check it out.   Note the Video tab resolution set to 150%, and the DCS one set to 100%, but matching resolutions.    I could be remembering incorrectly but.. I don't remember it working like that with WMR.  I've been under the impression that these settings were independent from one another. 

 

Here's another question.. did your headset have a firmware update in the SteamVR device list?   only asking to compare your experiences with my own.  Then again that could've been just for the display link box, which makes more sense.   Still.. I'm not ruling out having corrupted my install somehow. 

 

 

 

(this was with the vive console set to the lowest display setting @120hz. 

Edited June 8, 2021 by Headwarp

[Headwarp]

I'm absolutely convinced there are software issues that aren't worked out.   I just recorded a 10 minute video of my desktop.  Sorry I wanted to keep it much shorter but.. I think you'll see why it took me so long and will be a good illustration of why Vive Console is a step I don't understand the reasoning for, especially when it has this many issues out of the gate.   I'll edit this post with a link to the video after it's done processing.   

 

I'm back to showing a different resolution in SteamVR everytime I restart despite being set to custom setting, also.. when I change resolution in Vive Console to say the lowest setting which should be 1224x1224 per eye SteamVR is reporting resoltion of 2108x2108.   I mean.. steamvr SS setting has never matched exactly with the screen's resolution of any headset.. but 2108x2108 is a pretty giant leap from 1224x1224.   

 

I'm going to try steamvr beta again and see if anything changes.. 

 

If it's not at a high enough definition - check back later.. Sorry I wasn't about to put the effort of a script and video editing into this, so forgive me for tripping over my words a little bit. 

 

 

 

*Edit* No difference in steamVR beta.   Different resolution every time I start SteamVR despite no change to my settings in Vive console.   I'm not sure anything is actually being rendered at the resolution SteamVR states.. but if by chance it is actually changing all the time like that, people are going to have a hard time getting consistent performance between vr sessions unless this is isolated to just me.  

 

I'm going to present this in the HTC forums.  

Edited June 8, 2021 by Headwarp

[A2597]

My headset shipped! Supposed to be here wednesday!

[Baldrick33]

I get a different resolution in SteamVR too, with a custom set in Vive Console.

 

Also I see reprojection (half hz fps) independently of motion compensation which I can visibly see the difference if I turn it on (liquid buildings etc.)

[mhe]

So it is well established at this point that the 100% res in steam depends on your graphics card. And even then it still is a bit inconsistent since Steam seems to do a super short benchmark every now and then and the results fluctuate slightly (which is for example why Pimax did their Pimax Experience software which overrides this altogether).

These are the resolutions that it seems to generate for what card: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hF1wKRRREZUKr9aH-d5nJTseZHHr024ug5V8CurwcrI/edit#gid=0

 

What I can really recommend is for the people who had a WMR setup going before, to delete or rename their steamvr.vrsettings file in steam/config. This solved a lot of weird hiccups on my system once I got the VP2 since there were quite a bit of special settings left over from WMR in there. HTC motion smoothing sucks, I wish they'd let us use the native SteamVR one. 

 

So far pretty happy with the thing, it does have its downsides like glare and the mic, but it is worlds better than having to go back and forth between and Index and a G2 for gaming and simming respectively. 

Edited June 8, 2021 by mhe

[dburne]

2 hours ago, mhe said:

 

 

So far pretty happy with the thing, it does have its downsides like glare and the mic, but it is worlds better than having to go back and forth between and Index and a G2 for gaming and simming respectively. 

 

 

That is exactly what I am hoping for as well.

 

 

3 hours ago, A2597 said:

My headset shipped! Supposed to be here wednesday!

 

Just checked mine, seems it is shipping via Fed Ex and scheduled delivery for tomorrow!

Edited June 8, 2021 by dburne

[Headwarp]

5 hours ago, mhe said:

So it is well established at this point that the 100% res in steam depends on your graphics card. And even then it still is a bit inconsistent since Steam seems to do a super short benchmark every now and then and the results fluctuate slightly (which is for example why Pimax did their Pimax Experience software which overrides this altogether).

These are the resolutions that it seems to generate for what card: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hF1wKRRREZUKr9aH-d5nJTseZHHr024ug5V8CurwcrI/edit#gid=0

 

What I can really recommend is for the people who had a WMR setup going before, to delete or rename their steamvr.vrsettings file in steam/config. This solved a lot of weird hiccups on my system once I got the VP2 since there were quite a bit of special settings left over from WMR in there. HTC motion smoothing sucks, I wish they'd let us use the native SteamVR one. 

 

So far pretty happy with the thing, it does have its downsides like glare and the mic, but it is worlds better than having to go back and forth between and Index and a G2 for gaming and simming respectively. 

 

 

How is it well established?   My resolution has stayed the same at 100% in WMR for 4 years now.  In fact.. if it were to constanly change like the Vive Pro 2 does how would one ever get reliable performance measurements?     You're mistaken on that one.  I think you might be confused with having read something about the 'Auto" setting in SteamVR, which will change the SS% slider depending on your hardware.  This is disabled when you set it to custom. 

 

Just FYI i also cleared everything VR related from my PC multiple times.  Either HTC's software or SteamVR is currently bugged with Vive Pro 2..which it is a brand new headset and we ARE talking about HTC here.   They aren't known for their software.    Hardware yes...software no.   They build phones for the already existing android enviroment.  Their headsets use the SteamVR environment.   And again..this is why Vive Console is silly.   They aren't a software company like say.. Valve or Microsoft.  

Edited June 8, 2021 by Headwarp

[Habu_69]

If I use my Vive Pro2 only for DCS, do I REALLY need a Vive controller?