My Valve Index came and I played a bunch of different games for a few hours. I had a DK1, DK2, CV1 and a Quest to compare to.
1. The tracking. Lighthouse tracking is just amazing. Much better than the 3 sensor or even the four sensor Oculus tracking on the CV1. I bought an extra lighthouse but I don't even think i'm going to set it up. With the two lighthouses I have better tracking than I have ever had.
2. The audio. Really good. Much better than the Rift S or the Qwest. Has some bass but its debatable if it is better than the CV1 audio which is also really good. If I hold the speakers just a little closer to my ear then they sound much better and I'd say better than CV1. I assume they had to make them a little further out than they really wanted to so that people with big dumbo like ears would not touch them. =) Kinda wish I had the option to adjust them closer to my ears but still not touching. The sound goes up plenty loud that is for sure. I'm playing at about 65-70% volume. ***EDIT*** The speakers do move up, down and clockwise and counter clockwise but don't move closer or further from your ears. Once adjusting the speakers so they are centered on the ear canal they do really sound great.
3. The FOV. It is bigger but not really by all that much. Expect larger but don't expect a huge difference here. I"m sure everyone would agree that the more FOV the better!
4. The resolution. This is the hardest to judge for me. It is much better than CV1 that is for sure but depending on what you play it is less noticeable than others. For example, a game like beatsaber it does not make a WOW difference (well except maybe for the walls you have to avoid and duck under etc). But in other games like Project cars 2 you can really notice how much more resolution there is and can see much further down the track.
5. VPX VR...... This one was really surprising to me. Honestly this really shows the resolution increase more than any game I had tried so far (although i have only tried 5 games so far) . The tables look so much better than CV1. The backglases really look much cleaner and the details are much better.
6 . The index controllers. They feel good but different so there is some getting used to them. At first the finger tracking was really bad but the longer I use them the better they seem to get. Now that they are tracking each finger correctly I'm almost afraid that if I have my wife try then they are going to take awhile to adapt to me again. Maybe it will work just fine but have not had anyone else try it yet. I wonder if it saves some profiles for people without telling you...
7. The blacks - Well they are not as deep of blacks as CV1 that is for sure. Unless you have had another headset with deep blacks to compare to in the past you would probably not notice. I'm sure after some time i'll not notice anymore. For me it is a non issue but maybe if you played a game that was very dark it would bother some people.
8. Comfort - I found the CV1 pretty comfortable but the Oculus Quest was not comfortable for me. I ended up doing the Vive audio strap mod on the Quest and that made it much better for me. I recommend that mod to anyone that wants better sound and better comfort on the Quest. The index is very comfortable for me and probably more than the Rift CV1.
9. Heat - Well after playing for a couple hours straight, the Index is warm in the front. Warmer than i remember the Rift getting but it's not like it is super hot or an issue. Maybe I just have not played the Rift non stop for hours in a long time though
10. Quality - everything on the headset and controllers feels like it is made with quality in mind.
Overall. Just for Project cars and Pinball alone I'm glad I bought it. It is much better than CV1.
Oh one last thing, I'm running a 1080TI and I tried VPXVR with 120Hz and my computer could not handle it. Maybe if i were to disable some reflections or shadows or lower SS settings it would be ok but for now I'm using 90Hz. I will try to fine tune things later after trying some more games. .
Well back to VR....
Edited by gear323, 30 June 2019 - 04:14 AM.