Ostensibly the first batch of Vive Pro, HTC’s upcoming prosumer VR headset, is now landing on the doorsteps of developers. Owlchemy Labs, the studio behind Job Simulator (2016) and Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality (2017), tweeted out that they’ve recently received what they call “the newest member of [their] VR HMD family.”

While the headset’s main claim to fame is the 78% bump in resolution over the consumer Vive, boasting a 2880 × 1600 (1440 × 1600 pixels per display) AMOLED display over the original’s 2160 × 1200 resolution display, Vive Pro includes one substantial feature its predecessor doesn’t: dual front-facing VGA cameras, something Engadget reports can be used for basic hand-tracking and an enhancement to SteamVR’s chaperone system.

It’ll be interesting to see what developers make of the new prosumer-focused headset, and whether any new game design conventions come from it.

No release info or pricing is available on Vive Pro yet, although we know it will be priced higher than the consumer Vive.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.

  • Are these devs under a NDA? Can they talk about the HMD to us?

    • Well, they’ve just shown a photo of it. And below that there is the comment of one of the PRs of HTC… so I guess that everything is fine

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      • Guygasm

        That means it’s fine to post a photo but doesn’t say anything about sharing other info, no?

  • I’ve already seen the tweet and I’ve already told them that I’m envious…

    • Bryan Ischo

      I would love to have increased resolution on my Vive too but … at this point, it’s clear that my GTX 1060 is not going to cut if even for existing high end VR games, and has no hope of driving 78% more pixels in the Vive Pro. And given the inflated prices of video cards at the moment, this means, no Vive Pro for me!

      I’m just praying that the ‘next generation’ of VR corresponds to a return of video card prices to normalcy … if so, I’ll upgrade then.

      • Smokey_the_Bear

        Unless for some unseen reason cryptocurrency miners, stop mining, those prices aren’t coming down any time soon. sadly.

        • Jistuce

          We just need another good crash. Those are never too far away.

          • Zomby2D

            Or for someone to come out with some ASIC that’s more efficient than the video cards for those currencies.

        • Steven Wilson

          We just need Nvidia to offer a significant upgrade. Then there will be thousands of the 1080’s on the market, used, for very cheap.

          • Peter Hansen

            Hopefully, the mining trend is stable for the next years. Then NVidia and AMD have reasons for upping their production and offering specialized mining GPUs with focus of memory performance rather than GPU frequency. That way we’ll get back cheaper graphics devices.

  • gothicvillas

    While its good to have increased resolution, im surprised we have no news on Knuckle controller. My Vive wands been opened over 10 times each.. yes that bloody trackpad click..

    • Marco Dena

      I report trackpad clicking issue here as well of course the assistance was useless and had to pay to get it fixed, to be broken again few months later. Shameful to say the least.

      • Peter Hansen

        It is a flat cable getting caught between track pad and housing. Opening the wand is pretty hard, but the fix itself is easy.

        • gothicvillas

          yes every time i open it, i think to myself – if it breaks, I’ll get Oculus instead of new wands.

          • Guygasm

            They are about the same price.

          • Marco Dena

            Like me you think but don’t do.. for some good reasons ;)

    • The problem I think is that HTC do not own the Knuckle controllers as that is Valve’s product and for some very annoying reason Valve have not launched them even though they have been in devs hands since August last year.

  • Brad

    They still using those same terrible controllers?

    • Bryan Ischo

      That’s a loaded question, and I expect you asked it simply for the pleasure you derive from whining about the Vive’s controllers.

      To answer your question, yes they are still using the same controllers.

      To answer the sentiment of your post, the controllers are not ‘terrible’. They are very good for certain uses, not as good for others.

      • Brad

        They are passable for certain uses. They are very bulky, not very ergonomic, and dont have enough buttons. They felt dated when they were brand new, and almost 2 years later, especially compared to Touch and Knuckles, they are a weak point in Vive’s system.

        But you are right, the only pleasure left to me in life is complaining on the internet about the vive controllers.

      • Jean-Sebastien Perron

        The vive controller are very good at pleasuring my ass.

      • Gregory Martin

        Don’t defend their garbage. The controllers were an after thought iterated in a compressed timeline years ago to get a full tracking setup to market before Oculus did. They have had plenty of time and great examples to improve their own offering and they haven’t. Full stop.

        • Bryan Ischo

          If you’ve ever used them, you’ll know that they function fine for their intended purpose. They are not the best, for sure; but there are some actions (like simulating holding a gun, or a sword) for which they are quite good.

          Hyperbole does you no favors.

          • Gregory Martin

            No Bryan. You are wrong.

            “For a first-gen product, the controllers offer an elegant solution. But they weren’t always so dainty. The initial prototype was a bunch of circuitry attached to a pair of spring clamps, which served as a test-bed for the laser-tracking system. It swiftly evolved into the controller first shown to the public, now referred to as the “sombrero” because of its solid tracking disc.”

            “Working off early sketches, they used 3D printing to determine where the sensors should be positioned, which then informed the rapidly evolving design. All through this process, prototypes were flying between Valve HQ, HTC’s San Francisco office and its Taiwan-based engineering team.”

            https://www.engadget.com/2016/03/18/htc-vive-an-oral-history/

            The design of that controller has its roots in 2012~2014. It was rapidly prototyped between two design teams and it has not changed to accommodate the rapid advances in egonomics and fine motor tracking that have since come down the pike. Sorry to disappoint you; this isn’t hyperbole.

          • Bryan Ischo

            Your description of the history of the controllers is not hyperbole, but saying that the controllers are “garbage” is. It doesn’t matter what path HTC took to creating them, they are fine for many uses, and quite good for some uses, which hardly qualifies as “garbage”.

          • Gregory Martin

            Yeah, but Bryan, you have to see that you are just being as subjective here as I am. Surely I can agree they are “fine” when it comes to many uses on a 2~3 year old Vive. But, my point still stands that for the new “Prosumer” product that will like be in the $700 price range, retreading a 4 year old design in a quickly developing industry with many examples of objectively better performing controllers can at least subjectively qualify as “garbage” without being hyperbolic.

            I get where you are coming from, but do you see where I am coming from with this?

          • Bryan Ischo

            Yes, I see your point. I agree with you that not having new controlllers for the Vive Pro is a huge missed opportunity and very disappointing.

            I guess that what’s “garbage” here is HTC’s lack of effort on improving their controllers in the 3 years since Vive launch.

            I do get the feeling that HTC has almost no capital to devote to product development. They probably are just spending money where it’s cheapest for them to improve their product. They already had the infrastructure to work on ergonomic design of the headset, as evidenced by the deluxe audio strap, and probably just re-used those people to do the Vive Pro strap system redesign. And adding new displays in was probably very easy, given that they’re pretty much just drop-in replacements.

            It seems that all of the stuff that Valve gave them at the outset is not going to be changed because HTC probably doesn’t have the people to even work on it. Things like lenses, controllers, etc. They don’t even have resources apparently to iterate on Valve’s knuckles prototypes, they’re just waiting for Valve to finish them.

          • Gregory Martin

            Yeah I agree. Its too bad because it seems like (at least from my outsider’s perspective) that they are leaving money on the table, so to speak, when it comes to capitalizing on improvements.

            Also, I apologize for being testy about all this. I think I am just frustrated with the progress of things, like you outlined in your previous comment. I am still holding out hope that a new offering will come into the consumer space–like LG’s fabled HMD–and create some more competition here.

          • Bryan Ischo

            You were no more testy than I was, so no need to apologize!

  • theonlyrealconan

    Not sure why they kept the same lenses. Is it really that expensive to have upgraded them?

  • Andrew Jakobs

    How do you arrive at 78% bump in resolution? It’s just about 53% in pixel count. With about 1/3 increase in horizontal and vertica resolution. Still ofcourse better than the original, but 78% it’s not.

    • JMB

      2880×1600=4.608.000
      2160×1200=2.592.000

      4.608.000/2.592.000=1.777…8

    • Timotheus

      Just divide the new resolution by the old resolution and you’ll get the factor 1,7777….
      Rounded up, that’s 1,78 or 178%. So in order for the old resolution to reach the new resolution it has to increase it’s pixel count by 78%.
      The amount of pixels on the old display is 56,25% of the new one. (I don’t get how you got to 53%)
      You can also divide 1 / 0,5625 and you’ll also reach 1,7777….
      So the bump correctly is 78% of the old resolution, while the old resolution is 56,25% of the new resolution.

  • So now they can bump up resolution for their games so whomever even bothered to pay up the ass for this can have better experience.

  • Marco Dena

    The only relevant feature of the thing to me is the upgraded resolution, which is necessary to this point. I really hope you pull out a cheaper version of this thing to be mounted on old Deluxe Audio Strap in 2018-2019. This would be more ethical toward your customer and early supporters.

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    • Ron McCombs

      The sad thing is even with that resolution bump up its still nowhere good enough. I have the Samsung odyssey with the same resolution as the vive pro is advertising and I got to tell you its barley better than whats out there already. Save your money folks because vr is still not up to par yet!

      • Gregory Martin

        Good to note Ron. I was contemplating whether or not I should go for the Odyssey. But I haven’t seen a ton of review material out there on it vs. Vive/Rift/alternative MR HMDs. I suppose I will hold on to my money and wait for something better.

        • brandon9271

          It’s very subjective really. I have a Samsung Odyssey and a Rift and when i got the Odyssey i thought “meh, I can still see pixel” Then after a week of using it I decided to plug in the Rift. Wow, big difference. Rift definitely feels like a downgrade. Not sure it’s worth it if you’re already happy with Vive/Rift and the controller tracking on WMR isn’t near as good

      • NooYawker

        First gen issues. Only the dedicated should shell out for first gen equipment. Gen 2 will arrive and after that we should see things speed up.

      • kuhpunkt

        Barely better? Pretty much every review from CES said that it’s a huge improvement over the old Vive.

        • Ron McCombs

          I am just giving my honest oppinion of the samsung odyssey resolution..Like i said it has the same resolution as the vive pro and imo its not a big diffrence from oculus or regular vive…Its still a blurry jagged image thats a minimal improvement imo

        • sinan

          Unfortunately i have to agree with Ron McCombs. I have Vive and just recently one of my friend came over with a Samsung Odyssey. After a side by side comparison, I decided to skip both Odyssey and Vive-pro. There is a slight difference in resolution but it does not worth the upgrade to my opinion. I will have wait for a better resolution product and let me tell you this, as an enthusiast, I would gladly pay over 1500 bucks for a worthy upgrade.

          • The optics on the Vive Pro might be better than the Odyssey which is equally as important. But not much has been mentioned if they are the same lenses used in the Vive 1 or if HTC have upgraded them too.

  • Peter Hansen

    I find it extremely stupid to talk about +78% resolution. There is no evidence at all that the areal pixel count bears any significant relation to the perceptual qualities of a display, be it in 2D or 3D – in contrast to the isolated horizontal or vertical dimension.

    Having just tested a WMR headset with its 2880×1440 pixels does substantiate this assertion. The new Vive Pro will have 133% of the original resolution. This is ONE THIRD or – in easily understandable terms: A LITTLE MORE.

    Have we learned nothing? Did the VR hype help the medium? It did not. It was overloaded with empty marketing promises and has put off many potential users.

    Stop picking up and playing back this bs.

    • daveinpublic

      It all comes down to price and convenience. Oculus threw millions at the high end, it didn’t work. Hundreds of millions of people won’t invest in a high end PC, setup base stations, upgrade a graphics card, download Steam or Oculus Home, and sit in a predefined space just to play game for an hour or two a week. So they’re next 2 products are focused on mobility. They could have refreshed Oculus Rift with higher res by now, instead the Oculus Go will get the higher resolution screen. VR is coming, but it won’t be the ‘high end’ VR we have now.

      • Peter Hansen

        My comment was strictly about the way we talk about VR device feature upgrades: the increase of perceived visual quality will be 33%, not 78%.

        • It’s not even that. Quality (perceived or not) has nothing to do with resolution, hence why we have many displays with the same resolution but vastly different levels of quality. :)

          • Peter Hansen

            Ok, the wording was definitely too focused on the current matter. ” The visual quality limitations inferred by the screen door effect…” is what I mean by quality improvement.

      • Paul Schuyler

        I disagree with this mostly. It’s not about price and content. All my life there were those people with the expensive stereos and TV’s. My take is that it’s about content and technology. As in, this form of the HMD doesn’t cut it even if you triple the resolution. Stereoscopy: cheap plastic lenses and nice screens are not what we need. We need a visual system that works fundamentally differently like a retina display. Something that solves vergence and accomodation. Something that vastly improves the awkward and uncomfortable optical experience.

        • Gregory Martin

          Wow Paul. You’re depressing me here. The technological progress you are stating is still many years away from a consumer market.

      • MasterElwood

        Don’t invent shit. Oculus goal for CV1 wasn’t “hundreds of millions” – it was exactly ONE million. And they are right on track to hit that!

        So get your facts straight.

        • daveinpublic

          Their goal is a billion. They said that at the last developer conference. They didn’t say which device they would use, and I know that high end gaming devices are important in some ways. I think of it like Gameboy/PSP vs iPhone. The PSP was a better ‘gaming’ device at the time, but the iPhone was good enough so they didn’t need to buy an extra device and spend the money for gaming. Convenience and price means a heck of a lot in the consumer market.

          • MasterElwood

            The 1 BILLION goal is norhing new. Carmack mentions it for a few years now. And he explicitly states that this is only possible with MOBILE VR – and is a longterm goal.

            But this doesn’t change the fact that the liftimel goal for the CV1 is ONE MILLION

    • faaaaq

      …you think a 1/3rd increase is “a little more?” Remember that any time you are offered a 30% pay raise, or a 30% increase in the taxes you have to pay, or if science finds a way to increase your lifespan 30%.

      • Peter Hansen

        I will not even try to ask what this has to do with VR displays.

        Think about the 2x 4k everybody is dreaming of. This will be factor 2 horizontally, in comparison to the factor 1/3 increase of the Vive pro. Vertically, the increase is even higher, it is factor 3.2. Hopefully, that will be landscape with a FOV of 150° or something.

        In terms of areal pixel increase from the current Vive to the 4k version this will be 540%! This puts the “78%” of the Vive pro into perspective. The difference to the 4k upgrade is nearly 500%.

        We have to stop this hype sh*t. Seriously.

        • cbutters

          Wow, mentioning a true fact “78% more pixels” means that someone is on a hype train? That is a literal fact. 4.6 million pixels / current vive’s 2.59 million pixels. Yes I would bet almost everyone here knows that pixels aren’t the only factor in the quality and clarity of a headset, it is how the pixels are arranged and how those pixels end up hitting your eye through the optics of the headset. We get this. I have the Samsung Odyssey which has the same samsung displays as will be in the Vive Pro (Speculation). I will definitely be excited to have vive tracking with the clarity that I am witnessing on the samsung odyssey. I can give you more details on what my perceived comparison is between the two. But guess what, nothing would be able to power a dual 4k display for rendering at this point, yeah videos would be fine; but it makes no sense to complicate things before the market could even handle the workload. Yes I would love to see retina quality displays in VR. Its the friggin dream right; but I feel like the bump to 2880×1600 is a calculated move that makes sense; and I’m excited for it!

          • Peter Hansen

            The 78% more pixels are a fact, and I never denied it. Read above.

            The interesting question is, which measure better corresponds to the increase in perceptual clarity: the areal pixel count (78% increase), or the count along one of the two dimensions (33% increase). 178% is nearly 9/5 which is near to twice the amount of pixels. But having tested WMR I can clearly state that the visual clarity there is far from twice, or the blurriness far from half of the original Vive. That is what I am saying.

            What do you think is the reason why in the TV sector ads don’t address areal measures, but always pixel counts along just one dimension? 720p, 1080p, 2160p. Because it corresponds to the perceptual change in quality.

          • cbutters

            I think the TV sector measures it in those terms for simplicity and due to the history of televisions with an evolving aspect ratio and legacy scanline formats.

            Surely you can’t be arguing that it is only improvement in the x dimension that will increase clarity… Following that logic to its extreme would tell us that a 1px wide by 2160px tall would be superior to a 2880px wide by 1600px tall display and that is ludicrous.

            I can’t see any reason why you would insist that improvement in clarity should be evaluated by only 1 part of the equation; but I am open to your explanation.

          • Peter Hansen

            I am arguing that the improvement of visual clarity in this case _corresponds best to_ (in the sense of a predictor or a measure) the density of pixels as measured along one of the two display dimensions – as far as the increase of density is equal in the vertical and horizontal direction. In case the increase would differ between vertical and horizontal, the average increase would give an idea of the general visual improvement, I guess.

            An example:

            The visual clarity e.g. comes into play if you try to recognize very small objects or distances. Imagine vertical lines getting closer together. I wouldn’t go too far out on a limb, I guess, saying that the minimum distance still discernible would increase by about 33% with the Vive Pro. Now imagine horizontal lines instead: same situation, as you could just rotate the whole test setup by 90°. So for both the isolated vertical and horizontal dimension we agree that we can “see better” by about 33%.

            Now imagine we are not talking about parallel lines, but little square objects. Suddenly I am able to see about 78% better? I don’t think so.

          • cbutters

            I see your method a little more clearly now. But I’m not convinced that comparing an obscure method using one axis to demonstrate an ambiguous definition of “general visual improvement”.

            I tend to think about it in terms of visual information.

            Lets go ahead and talk about your little square objects example:

            If you assume the exact same optical lens and panel size comparing the Vive and the Vive Pro (and also ignore the dynamics of pentile screens); Then lets say that we have an open 3D box with square boxes inside. Assume this box being rendered is taking up the center 20% of the display from both the x and the y axis… the “Sweet Spot” to turn a phrase. How many objects could we place in that box and be able to discern them from one another (assume using one eye)?

            On the Vive, take the 1080×1200 per eye, apply the fact that the box is only taking up 20% field of the field of view and we get a box that is 216×240. That means that we could discern 51,840 little boxes (or points of visual information) inside the box.

            On the Vive Pro, take the 1400×1600 per eye, apply the fact that the box is only taking up 20% of the field of view and we get a box that is 288×320. That means we could discern 92,160 little boxes (or points of visual information) inside the box.

            I don’t care what your arbitrary metrics are for determining “general visual improvements”. The fact of the matter is that we are now able to discern 78% more boxes than before, we are able to convey 78% more information that before.

            Also… why WOULDN’T you talk about the size of a square (or more accurately a rectangle) based on area? It is a freaking square… you know… a 2 dimensional geometric object. BY DEFINITION it has two axis that constitute what it is. Please explain why you AREN’T talking about squares / pixels in terms of area? That is literally what PPI (the most common term of clarity is doing)

          • Peter Hansen

            I used a very simple, easily understandable, example for my argument. Nothing obscure about it, to the contrary. I tried to illustrate which properties of a display usally correspond to the perceived visual clarity, and which other properties can be used for marketing purposes to overstate this.

            You, in contrast, reintroduce more complexity in the argument by taking into account more complex objects. This increases the likelihood of misunderstandings and could be seen as obscuring the actual facts.

            Anyways, without citing actual literature from perception research, or conducting actual experiments, both our views remain just that: views, or claims. And from my experience (as a user as well as vision researcher) I will continue to claim that the number of squares separable in a given area is a certain measure of performance, of course. But it does not correspond well to the reported perceived ‘clarity’ of an HMD by a hypothetic sample of VR users.

          • cbutters

            Obviously we are going to have to agree to disagree on this. You think representing improvement on one axis is an accurate measure of the degree of improvement in a visual system. I think that is a limited view and that consideration of both axes is necessary to determine the improvement as you see in most industry standard definitions such as PPI (pixels per square inch). Does your methodology of only considering one axis have any basis or a set terminology that is accepted as a principle in the technical visual or imaging industry?

            You’ve mentioned several times in this comment thread that you are a vision researcher, Can you point to any published literature that you have authored or contributed to that you could provide a link to? It would definitely help your claim of authority and would be interesting to read if it is relevant to our current discussion.

          • Peter Hansen

            No, I do not talk about “representing improvement on one axis”. Are you even trying to understand what I am writing endlessly about? I am saying that future users of the Vive Pro will not have the impression of 78% improvement of visual clarity. Period.

            People who buy the Vive Pro based on their hope of nearly twice the visual clarity will be disappointed. And that is not helping VR as a new medium.

            This discussion is fruitless, as you are either not trying to understand my arguments, or are willingly shifting around my words. Therefore I and it now.

            PS: PPI does not mean “pixels per square inch” and is NOT defined as an areal measure, but a linear one along one of the dimensions of a screen. Please do all of us a big favor and read it for yourself:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_density

            “A 100×100 pixel image printed in a 1 inch square has a resolution of 100 pixels per inch.”

            See also the text below the first figure to the right (“Dividing 200 by the measured width or height gives the monitor’s horizontal or vertical ppi…).

          • cbutters

            You got me on the PPI thing, I fundamentally misunderstood that principle. And I think it relates to what you are saying about the number of line improvement 1200 pixels high vs 1600 pixels high… You aren’t talking about a single y dimension, you are talking about the dimensions which represent square pixels which will grow in the x axis as they grow in the y axis. right?

            That said, I don’t think it is dishonest on HTC’s part to advertise 78% more resolution, because the product has exactly that. Would you fault Sony for advertising that a new 10.1 megapixel camera has 40% more resolution than the previous 7.2 megapixel model? Why would a marketing department choose any other metric than the one that looks the best on paper? If you were heading up the marketing department How would you represent in marketing speak the metric you are proposing?

            Because I own both panels and have used them in person for extended periods, I don’t for a minute think; wow this doesn’t LOOK like 78% more resolution. I see the improvement there, and understand the resolution metric. I also understand that there is still much more improvement that needs to happen before we hit retina class clarity.

            In general with the Odyssey, I literally am very happy with the resolution, while I still prefer to use the Vive because the WMR tracking is entirely too flawed. I can’t wait to have the best of both worlds in the Vive Pro.
            My Impressions of the two I gave a few days ago:

            “I have a Vive and also a Samsung Odyssey. The bump in resolution on the SO is actually quite a big step up, but definitely still not perfect. It becomes much easier to see the desktop icons when using a virtual desktop application, and in normal usage it is much easier to “let go” and be in the world without noticing graphical imperfections. Text is much easier to see at a distance. You can still try to notice the pixels (and will succeed at doing so) but it is just a little bit harder to notice them. I would never consider watching a movie in VR on the Vive, just too blurry and blocky; but with the SO, it is a real possibility to sit and watch a movie on a large virtual screen in reasonable detail that you could potentially call ~720P quality. In that sense it is game changing.

            One negative thing I did notice on the Samsung Odyssey is that there seems to be more black/white ghosting (when turning your head quickly with black objects in front of a white background) than I have ever noticed on the Vive. Hopefully they tweak the hardware or use higher binned panels in the Vive pro models to avoid this issue. It isn’t grave, but it definitely seemed worse than on the original Vive.

            Aside from the visual comparison; I really wish someone could figure out a way to use the odyssey headgear with vive controllers. That would make me happy as in my opinion the controllers are horrible for tracking on the odyssey, but the headset visual quality is great. Most of all, I can’t wait for Vive Pro. I am keeping my eyes peeled because I would hate for it to launch and preorders sell out before I even notice that it went live.”

        • >> The difference to the 4K upgrade is nearly 500%
          What 4K upgrade? Or is this “the dream”?

          GPU’s to date are not capable of native 4K VR at respectable framerates outside specialist setups so any manufacture moving in that direction for consumers is in for a bumpy profitless ride. When the time is right yes but that is not in 2018. 3K VR is optimum with what we have to drive it for high end VR today.

          If you were in charge of HTC, what would you have done for a Vive 2?

          • Peter Hansen

            “Think about the 2x 4k everybody is dreaming of.”

            Those were my words.

    • Marco Dena

      Man you are totally right over the res subject, it took a bit to me to understand cuz i’m hard with math but now i am actually happier not having to bother about this new HMD. One thing that comes through my mind and maybe we should consider is that i thnk you already get a perceived 33% definition improvement once you set the VivePro resolution on the standard Vive by supersampling from 1.0 to 1.8x. Therefore the final perceived result on VivePro could be a bit better than that, don’t you think? I know this is very generic but Vive and Oculus are already sharp once you set up SS to 1.8 or even better 2.0. So i think this new screen may be not that bad as well. For sure, it will be overpriced. I am more interested on the wireless adapter but i don’t share the negative vision on VR as whole as the thing did provide a lot of fun to many, and still does, while we all agree we were just scratching the surface. I really think the best has yet to come. Time will tell.

      • Peter Hansen

        I totally agree, super sampling already does a lot. That is probably why this one Vive manager said that there will be no increased hardware requirements for the Vive Pro.

        • Marco Dena

          I think i will be happy with the new screen resolution also when downscaled. But i really don’t wanna buy a full new system which i don’t need atm, neither failing in a upgrade spiral of overpriced graphic cards, then CPU, then 4K HDR Projector, then what? That’s unwise. All my hopes goes for a Vive1 upgraded display for the next year, it just doesn’t make sense otherwise and will be waiting for some more significative upgrade.

          • Peter Hansen

            I think the Vive Pro is exactly that. Higher resolution, and you can use it with your old tracking boxes and controllers.

          • Marco Dena

            U still have to buy the strap, the audio system, the second built in camera, heavy packages and other hidden stuff. It’s said to be a prosumer product which means overpriced and this is the main issue. While all i would need is second gen display and the wirless adapter for the cheapest price point so that i can keep on supporting high end VR with no regrets. If HTC doesn’t i hope other third party companies do in the future.

          • Peter Hansen

            I doubt they will be offering a simple display-only upgrade. Would be nice, but with VR still being a niche it just wouldn’t pay off. I hope the Vive Pro will be somewhere around 450 bucks soon.

          • Gregory Martin

            Amen Marco. I feel exactly the same way.

    • Tiberius Gracchus

      You need to seriously take a step back and cool your jets. Change comes in increments so instead of slamming every advancement that come your way, show a little appreciation for the technology that you have no grasp of understanding. I assume you are not an engineer working on the cutting edge of VR. I appreciate you can multiply big numbers but I have a calculator too so show a little appreciation for the technology that you have no understanding of. No one is forcing you to spend your week’s pay on anything.
      P.S. The word is area not areal

      • Mr. New Vegas

        Thats some slave/communist mentality.

        We dont need to be thankful for ANYTHING, even for possible cancer/aids medicine, we dont need to than for that either, because after all NO ONE that works for commercial enterprises does it for free or “for the people”.
        Its all about the money, they will create anything if there is market for it, NO one does us a favor by selling us products.

        The reason all big VR companies doing low resolution screens with incremental upgrades is for maximizing PROFITS, because thats what available right now for extremely low prices and in any amount.

        • Gregory Martin

          Agreed Mr. New Vegas. It is frustrating when one of these new head sets ends up being in a price range that only hobbyists/enthusiasts will be willing to pay for. I have been trying like hell to get my friends to buy in even with the lowest cost to entry and no one seems interested with the price point. It’s a bit tiresome to get slowly incremented to death with enthusiasts priced gear.

      • Peter Hansen

        I am not saying that change is bad or that I don’t appreciate the increase in display resolution – wherever you take that from. I am just saying DON’T LIE TO POTENTIAL NEW CUSTOMERS. Because it will back-fire. Get it now?

        I am actually an engineer working in a cutting-edge research facility. I deal with VR every day, professionally as well as for fun. I also have a degree in psychology and did research on perception. That is my home turf.

        And btw., the word actually is ‘areal’ as in ‘areal density’ or… ‘areal pixel count’ – as opposed to the pixel count on just one (horizontal or vertical) dimension.

        I try hard not to write any insulting stuff like ‘moron’ or anything. Whoopsies, that might count.

  • Jean-Sebastien Perron

    Everytime I see these stupid stick controllers withou any analog sticks, I laugh? Vive is moving backward, even the old 90’s VR look better.

  • josh

    careful sponge bob

  • daveinpublic

    It’s basically 1.3 megapixels vs 2.3 megapixels.

    78% increase is good.

    Per Eye:
    Vive 1 1080*1200 = 1296000pixels
    Vive 2 1440*1600 = 2304000pixels

  • Nate Bot

    So I just bought a laptop with 1080 GTX, I’m certain the laptop only has dp 1.2 – unlike desktops have dp 1.4 – can anyone confirm dp1.2 is sufficient for Pro?

    • Christian Rehbock

      VIVE PRO SPECS from vive.com: “Connections:
      USB-C 3.0, DP 1.2, Bluetooth”

  • Castanho

    Sorry my english!

    About the increased resolution, there is two importants things that people forgot to mention:
    1 . This Vive Pro use new lenses. This should be important to increase the image quality.
    2. Last, but not least!, these new Vive Pro uses AMOLED screens (the original HTC Vive uses Pentile OLED screens). And AMOLED screens has better image quality for the same resolution (https://www.oled-info.com/pentile).
    I think that these two points are also very important and one of the reasons why people who was lucky to test the new HTC Vive, in CES 2018, said that these new model is a great improvement over the previous model (wich I have one).
    I remenber the time I played Quake in a 13″ monitor at 640×480, with a Voodoo graphics card. One day I played the same game at 800×600, with a Voodoo 2. It’s just a 56% incremention in the resolution, but it maked a real difference in the image quality.

  • Wade Gruber

    I want one of these developers to take the device, weigh it, and post the weight compared to the original Vive — with and without the headgear attached. Too long with no concrete information.