HTC is slowly releasing Vive Cosmos details ahead of a launch later this year. Today the company confirmed that the headset will have a 1,440 × 1,700 per-eye resolution, an 88% increase in pixel count over the original Vive.

Though the company revealed the headset way back in January, HTC has been keeping Vive Cosmos details under wraps. That’s slowly changing; in the last few weeks we’ve learned that the headset is due to ship in Q3, will include six cameras for inside-out tracking, and will cost less than $900.

Today HTC confirmed another major missing detail, resolution. The Vive Cosmos resolution is 1,440 × 1,700 per-eye (2,880 × 1,700 total), which is an 88% increase in pixel count over the original Vive at 1,080 × 1,200 per-eye. What’s more, Cosmos will use RGB LCD displays which include red, green, and blue sub-pixels for each pixel, offering a boost to sub-pixel resolution and fill-factor compared to the OLED displays of the original Vive. LCD displays, however, typically don’t perform as well with darker scenes than OLED displays.

Image courtesy HTC

HTC has also confirmed that the headset will operate at a 90Hz refresh rate, the same as the original Vive.

The Oculus Rift S—which is likely to be Cosmos’ main competitor—has a resolution of 1,280 × 1,440 per-eye and runs at 80Hz. That leaves Cosmos with 32% more pixels and a 12.5% higher refresh rate. Rift S also lacks a hardware IPD adjustment (the distance between the lenses) while Cosmos has one. Without knowing the price of Cosmos, it’s hard to know how competitive the headsets will ultimately be with one another.

We don’t have confirmation yet if Cosmos is using a single display for both eyes or one display for each eye. The latter is typically an important factor when it comes to a headset’s IPD adjustment mechanism. We’ve reached out to HTC for clarity.

HTC is also saying that the Vive Cosmos has “40% improved lens clarity over the original Vive,” though we’re not sure exactly what they mean by “lens clarity.” Again, we’ve reached out to the company for more info. Photos show that the headset is using Fresnel lenses similar to other Vive headsets.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Kyokushin

    Meh. I knew they will make another low res headset.
    So still waiting for Reverb restock, new Acer (also 2160×2160) or maybe Samsung. In one word – i will swap my O+ only for nextgen WMR.

    • johann jensson

      Same here.

    • Xron

      Rverb still has problems with tracking, maybe you should wait a bit for same spec headset from other companies.

      • Moe Curley

        I’ve been waiting for the reverb also. Said to be great for Sims but I’ve also heard that the Reverb has screen flicker issues. Sabastian at MRTV is one of those with this problem.

        • Immersive_Computing

          Display overheating and causing dimming, and issues with “noise” when moving cable, is also being reported by a wide number of recent buyers

          • Jarilo

            It’s pretty awful with them out there, almost all are broken…but I’m assuming they will eventually fix this, they aren’t going to just keeping dumping them out of the assembly line like that.

      • kakek

        Also, every WMR headset seems to be discontinued, suggesting MS might be about to drop support. Even if they don’t, current support is minimum, with much needed improvement never coming

        • Jarilo

          That’s all speculation, they could just be moving stock. What’s the point of still producing those 1440p WMR 1.0 headsets when the new ones are coming ?

        • Steve Gentile

          Where do you get that information from ? Reverb using WMR and is brand new

          • kakek

            https://www.roadtovr.com/windows-vr-headsets-vanish-microsoft-store-limited-stock-discontinued/ for oher WMR headset being discontinued.
            As for the support being minimal, my own experience as a WMR user. ( No evolution, no news of features that were supposed to come, devs suddenly being much less present on steam forum, reprojection STILL a beta feature for WMR and no sign of the feature being improved).
            Add to that Microsoft officially stating a few month ago that WMR sales were disapointing. (Sorry, can’t find source for this one. )

            As for the reverb, I think MS simply didn’t tell their partner they intended to kill WMR before the reverb was much to advanced to be simply canned.

      • Moe Curley

        My major gripe with the Reverb is that yes, they improved PPI but in a smaller FOV, because of the smaller panels. But hey kudos for moving us forward in Res when no one else would at the price point. Keep the pressure up on the competition HP!

    • Schadows

      If you’re aiming for high resolution headset, better wait for one with eye-tracking.

      Because unless you have a monster PC capable of running games at native rez (even 2080Ti isn’t enough for most real games at such high rez … as opposed to “quick experiences”) , all you will get is a better SDE which is already attainable with headset equipped with RGB matrix panels.

      • Jonathan Mayer

        lol… Stop talking…

      • Kyokushin

        GPU is not an issue. I will buy 3080ti when will be avaiable.
        I want to have best possible resolution as i possible.

      • Charles

        I have a Reverb and a 2080Ti. I can run most games/apps at greater than 2160p vertical resolution. Many can run with fully-maxed out supersampling – 500%.

        • Schadows

          -500% ?

          • Charles

            Yep. 500% SteamVR supersampling setting. Not saying AAA / poorly optimized games can do that, but moderate games like Bigscreen and Windlands. Obduction is horribly optimized and I can’t get it to run smoothly maxed out with decent supersampling. And I doubt Fallout 4 can do close to 500%. Skyrim, I was able to do like 300% I think. And you really can’t see a difference in quality after around 250-300% on the Reverb. Full resolution is around 150% or 180% if I remember correctly.

    • JasonG

      The reverb sucks. So disappointed. Film over internal lens, flickering, terrible contrast. Controllers are incredibly pathetically bad.

  • Xron

    It will be interesting to see new perf. req. for this headset.
    Oculus opted to get lower Hz to keep same requirements, even if resolution was made higher, and Vive seems to go same way as Valve index (except 120/144hz option)… so ~gtx1070/1660ti might be minimum entry point for this device on pc.

    • TJ Studio

      That’s where I’m planning to get a CyberpowerPC VR ready desktop that has a GTX 1660 Ti GPU.

      • Bob

        Doing a bit of research, saving up and building your own PC is far more rewarding than paying a company an additional premium for a pre-built PC.

        • Immersive_Computing

          Build your own no doubt, it also teaches you how to maintain and upgrade parts.

          For my PC VR rig, I wanted brute power but also running cool and quiet (so it doesn’t become unwanted background noise in VR).

          I’ve built many PC’s over years but there’s lots of information available for people getting into it. Tip – always get a good quality motherboard and power supply unit.

        • Xron

          Prebuilt pc’s usually use cheapest parts, that won’t make you happy..

      • MrWraith68

        What everyone else said, don’t buy prebuilt.

        • TJ Studio

          Nah. I’m gonna be lazy and buy a pre-built PC.

        • TJ Studio

          Nah. I’m gonna be lazy and buy a pre-built PC, and you’re not gonna stop me! :D

    • dk

      rift s could have had 90hz and u can still run it as far as what your video card can do ….they went with the lowest refresh rate and lowest resolution of any new desktop headset because it’s cheap to make

  • Oliver Cook

    If this works with the wireless adaptor (and I have heard it does) I might consider this, but looks like the FOV is still the same as the Vive/Rift s ?

    • FireAndTheVoid

      If they are going to throw out a headset with mediocre specs like this, then making it compatible with the existing wireless adapters is the least they could do. As it is, it is the king of nothing – it doesn’t have the highest resolution, it doesn’t have color accurate OLED panels, it doesn’t have the highest refresh rate, it is guaranteed not to be the cheapest, it likely won’t have the largest FOV, its inside-out tracking solution is probably subpar when compared to Oculus, it isn’t compatible with the new knuckles controllers, and it isn’t natively wireless.

      • Jarilo

        They aren’t mediocre specs, they are better than Rift S and the same res as all the high end headsets like the Index. Only the Reverb has higher res…when it freaking works for about 2 weeks. lol

      • Bob

        Those specs are certainly not mediocre.

        If you push the resolution any further you’d need a very powerful GPU to maintain 90FPS for high fidelity games (not the simple looking ones for example). That would not be good for business especially for a company like HTC who are already in the red for year-on-year profits.

        • FireAndTheVoid

          The Vive Pro was released around a year and a half ago with a resolution of 1440×1600 per eye and with OLED panels. The Samsung Odyssey+ routinely goes on sale for $300 with the exact same 1440×1600 OLED panels. Yes, the Cosmos panels are RGB-stripe with greater subpixel fill, but at the expense of color reproduction. Besides the ease-of-use improvements with inside-out tracking, there are no significant advancements from the Vive Pro’s year-and-a-half old tech.

          As for GPU requirements, I routinely supersample on my Vive Pro with a last-gen 1080 Ti (a GPU launched more than 2 years ago). I’m already rendering at resolutions much higher than 1440×1700 per eye.

          • Bob

            Generally speaking the specifications are not mediocre. When you make comparisons to the older devices then yes it is somewhat disappointing that the resolution isn’t higher, but as I said in general, the specifications are at the level where it’s “good enough” for a great visual experience especially given the fact that HTC have gone with the LCD route in order for increased pixel density.

            Bear in mind that the Valve Index is running at a lower native resolution than the HTC Cosmos at a increased horizontal FOV. This means the overall pixel density of the Cosmos will certainly be higher than the Index as it appears that the device uses exactly the same lenses as the Vive and Vive Pro products.

            So when you take all of this into account, and given the fact that the majority of PC users simply do not have a very powerful GPU such as the 1080Ti to drive a 2K by 2K resolution (HP Reverb), the HTC Cosmos, with the company’s established history in the VR market and it’s high production values in comparison to the Windows Mixed Reality devices, will be the sharpest PC VR HMD system in 2019 within the consumer market.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Vive confirmed it will work with the wireless adaptor..

    • Bob

      It most likely uses the same lenses as the Vive and Vive Pro so FOV will be exactly the same.

      The Rift S does not have the same FOV as the Vive products and in fact it’s actually less than the Oculus Go itself. In the majority of users the Rift S FOV sits around 95 degrees horizontal.

      • Oliver Cook

        Do you have a rift s? I have it and the FOV is NOT 95 degrees, its about the same as the CV1.

        • Bob

          Yes that’s why I made the comment :)

          Have you tried the Oculus Go? It has roughly the same FOV as CV1 but not the same as the Rift S which is actually appears to be less on the horizontal plane.

          • Oliver Cook

            Ah OK I see, not tried the Go but I have heard its good in terms of FOV. I think FOV can be hard to gauge objectively as everyone face is different, the Rift S FOV is fine for me but does feel very slightly smaller, but clarity is so much better. My PSVR on the other hand has a a much larger FOV, even larger than the Vive, especially vertically. Again this is all due to my face shape possibly and might be different on someone else.

  • Trenix

    Looking like a better option than the Oculus Rift S already.

  • Mike549

    I hope it’s priced competitively, but I seriously doubt it. I want HTC to remain relevant but I bet it’s priced at $799 at least.

  • mfx

    meh
    Better be cheap then.

    • Bob

      “Better be cheap then.”

      That’s subjective. How cheap?

      • kakek

        It’s pretty much competing with the Rift S, so it can’t really afford to be priced much higher.
        I mean, it’s very slightly better spec wise, but doesn’t have access to the oculus store (and, let’s face it, Oculus have some nice stuff, and revive doesn’t handle all of it perfectly. )

  • dk

    I see some holes in the headband ….speakers? …but it doesn’t quite look like it

  • Ratm

    Lcd.. ofc the crappy staff goes to common consumer market, and i dont gif 2 fks for that rgb subpixels… and also i don’t think this 100 pixels go to a better resolution for the eye, its probably 110 fov for real this time.

  • That resolution is disappointing. Hopefully acer will hurry up, there is a huge market awaiting for them

    • Schadows

      Huge market of what ? people playing VR with 2080Ti (which is already not that “huge” yet still having to choose between undersampling (defying the interest of high-res panels) or lowering game visuals ?

      With the absence of eye-tracking, high res panels are kind of useless for now as long as GPUs don’t follow.

      • “With the absence of eye-tracking, high res panels are kind of useless” u so need to stop u r just showing u don’t know what u r talking about. eye tracking doesn’t help lower performance. That would be foveated rendering. it’s the combo of eyes and foveated rendering that u r thinking of. there two companies so far that has foveated rendering pipeline oculus (which they currently use for the go and the quest) and nvidia to which they have partnered with htc with the vive pro+. please stop just throwing out terms

        • Schadows

          You’re the one playing with words.

          Without eye-tracking hardware you don’t have any hope of having any support for fovated rendering (not talking about that trash fixed fovated rendering).
          On the contrary, with eye-tracking, you only lack of software support, which can be added easily afterward.

          Another headset have shown it’s possible to add it (at least for nvidia cards … which are basically THE GPUs to have if you want serious VR), but only lack the direction of the sight to make it dynamic.

          • “with eye-tracking, you only lack of software support, which can be added easily afterward.” really u think the software is the easy part? if it was so easy why doesn’t htc have foveated rendering as part of their sdk like oculus does for the quest and the go.

            “(not talking about that trash fixed fovated rendering which is fovated only by name).” this right here makes no sense the tech of foveated rendering doesn’t change whether it is following your head movement or your eyes the rendering is done the same way. the only change is what being tracked in applying the rendering, I.E. your head as in the case of the go and the quest or your eyes in the case of the vive pro+ (with a nvidia gpu)

            “what most VR enthusiasts already knows.” i’m not worried about what enthusiasts knows i’m thinking about the newcomers who don’t know that and just thinks eye tracking will give them better performance. we on the site want vr to grow. right now someone could be thinking about buying a hmd but from reading the comment would feel like vr isn’t ready for prime time cause they can’t find a 4k X 4k hand tracking, eyes tracking hmd on the market cause that what an unknowing newbie would think reading the things most say. I feel it’s up to us to help edu those not in the know

        • kakek

          I think he knew exactly what he was talking about. But since he is not a pretentious prick, he just assumed other people knew as well, and he didn’t need to pedantly explain what most VR enthusiasts already knows.

      • Jarilo

        I’m on a 1080 ti and on the Vive Pro 3k and wireless. I’m super sampling everything and so still have room for 4k .

        • Schadows

          At what framerate ? For which game ? With what poor settings ?

          Sure playing The Lab or some wave shooter should be possible while keeping decent values, but as soon a you play more ambitious games, i’m not sure you have that much room for improvements without using reprojection or lowering the visuals drastically.

          • Jarilo

            No, not the Lab. I’m playing Project Cars 2, Skyrim VR, Robo Recall, anything really I want. Only thing that runs like ass is Fallout 4 VR but Fallout 4 VR runs like ass because Fallout 4 VR.

          • Schadows

            I’m sorry but, playing PC2 myself, and having a 2080 (close enough to 1080 Ti), it’s impossible to keep 90fps in any situation unless you decide to pass on some “heavy” tracks, some weather conditions, limit the number of opponents drastically, some visuals, etc.

            And even more so since I switched to a 5K (granting the headset may have performance issue but still).

            Sure, some combination are perfectly playable, but you still have to make compromise to enjoy the game in the entirety.

          • Jarilo

            I’m not sure what you are talking about, I’m at 1.2 SS in Steam VR, Wireless non-the-less Vive Pro and medium to high settings keep 90 fps with only on a full grid of cars at night time some dips having Async options to have to save me. I think it’s the 5k Pimax, sounds like it’s a hog for the extra FOV.

      • t3kboy

        Yeah, my liquid cooled 2080 ti is waiting, actually bought an O+ but its going back to amazon with a dead speaker ;( Will buy the cosmos unless there is something higher res and hopefully OLED lunched around the same time.

        • kakek

          Cool for you, but it’s gonna be waiting for a looong time.
          I mean, VR as a whole is a pretty small market, you expect many games to come out for a small portion of a small market ?

  • gothicvillas

    based on specs if its more than $499 then its DOA

    • Jarilo

      I still think it’s worth a 200 premium over a RIFT-S with what it offers but anything past 599.99 is going to be a hard sell.

      • Christopher John

        HTC have to make profit so their margins have to be higher where Facebook/Oculus can sell it at cost. So expect some sticker shock.

  • brubble

    Yet another big ol “Not even remotely interested” from me.

  • Yoann Heurtel

    Praise the Lord, the savior is coming ! I really hope this will be the Rift S killer. The lack of IPD adjustment, the poor built-in audio, the restricted FOV and fog on the lenses make me feel like it’s a cheap temporary headset.

  • M0rph3u5

    So what exactly makes this a better headset than Valve Index?

    • Rudl Za Vedno

      All in one package is price is right. I’d buy it for $500. If it costs north of 500 I’d go with Reverb or wait to see what Samsung and Acer have to offer this year.

    • Jarilo

      Nothing, The Index is not the competition. If you can afford the Index, that’s the headset one should get.

      • Johnny D.

        By “nothing” you mean better resolution/ppd and hopefully fully functional controllers not broken like Index controllers, right? :D

        • Jarilo

          Bit of a stretch for 100 vertical res but okay.

    • Bob

      I think that would be convenience.

      No need to setup external sensors is probably about the only thing this device has over the Valve Index. Screen density will most likely be improved due to less FOV.

    • Sci

      The fact that people outside of the US will actually be able to buy it

    • kakek

      It’s priced lower. We only know that it’s under 900$, but since the index with controler and trackers is over a 1000$ …

    • mepy

      It doesn’t need base stations and you can use the Vive wireless adapter with it.

  • 144Hz

    If it has hardware ipd adjustment, I’ll pay $600. If it has a single display, I’ll pay $500.

  • Jarilo

    The fate of this HMD kit rests on the $Price$ . It’s not really better at anything than the Index, it has the resolution of the Samsung/Vive Pro that many enthusiasts are already running and lost the OLED/Superior light house tracking but gained RGB (which seems to be the trend now). It’s a Rift S competitor in other-words and better than the Rift S thanks to a resolution bump over it plus the option of wireless, so it can succeed if it’s priced around no more than 100 over the Rift S. In other words, anything over 499.99 in my opinion will make this a hard sell. Good luck HTC,

  • Jack Liddon

    Looks like a Rift S with all the stuff the Rift S is missing. 90hz refresh, headphones, IPD adjustment, and higher resolution. If the tracking is good, this will be a decent headset.

  • Cybis Z

    When you use an acronym as a word, your grammar has to be adjusted accordingly. You can’t use the same grammar as you would had the acronym been expanded out. For example, would you say “an LCD screen” or “a LCD screen”? By your logic it should be “a LCD screen” since it means “a liquid crystal display screen” – but don’t you see the problem what that?

    When talking about computer file formats, you run into the same issue. I can talk about the “jpg format” or the “bmp format” or the “png format”, but by your logic I cannot use the term “gif format”. I don’t accept that.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    “We don’t have confirmation yet if Cosmos is using a single display for both eyes or one display for each eye.”
    If you’ve watched the video or look a tthe left side of the headset (from the front), you’ll see the same knob as the current vive has.. So it’s very clear, also they say ‘combined’ resolution.

  • Jarilo

    Well, it’s better than a Rift-S….but for what price? That is the missing piece of the puzzle that will form the fate of this HMD kit.

    • flamaest

      Vive is always overpriced, for ‘slightly’ better hardware. It’s like their marketing dept doesn’t research their competition.

      • Jarilo

        It’s more than just slightly better hardware, so the price will be the judge. We don’t know if it’s over-priced.

  • ra51

    So how does this stack up against Vive Pro? Aside from actual working audio?

    • Jarilo

      Same res pretty much, loses the OLED and Light House compatibility (No Index controller and external tracking) but gains RGB. Better Audio most likely and for what most likely will be an all in one inside-out tracked kit for one lower price than the Vive Pro. If you have a Vive Pro kit, it’s probably not worth changing over to this, if you were looking at getting a Vive Pro you could wait for this unless you really want to use Valve Knuckles.

      • Charles

        Get an Odyssey Plus and use Vive controllers. Or get a Vive Pro. But Odyssey Plus is better. Better contrast and black levels, much less SDE.

        • Yoann Heurtel

          Black smearing, blurriness and tracking are terrible on Odyssey+. But fov, contrast and comfort are great… I bought a Rift S with Mantis speakers and sold the O+ and I’m really enjoying my deal !

        • Jarilo

          I wasn’t looking for advice, was answering his question. I’m on a wireless Vive pro with soon knuckles. I prefer the Vive Pro comfort and screens over the Odyssey and I don’t have to put up with windows mixed reality, as well as the huge plus of the wireless adapter. But thanks.

          • Charles

            Oh. Yeah, the lack of a wireless option is a major drawback to the Odyssey+.

  • Jarilo

    Someone has OCD Disorder ?

    • VR4EVER

      LCD display disorder…?

      • Zero Kurapika

        That got me triggered too

  • Charles

    “It should be LCD”
    Wrong. It should be OLED. But it’s not. HTC fail.

    • Dave

      I like it but you are both wrong, it should be MicroLED LOL!

      • Mike

        Should be, but MicroLED is years away from being a possibility.

  • ShaneMcGrath

    Give me FOV past the usual 110 then I am interested.
    Sick of looking through a scuba diving mask!

  • dk

    LC displays :P

  • dk
  • Yoann Heurtel

    Exact same lenses as Vive/Vive pro ? Really ? That sucks ! It would be a deal breaker for me.

  • mfx

    Also, I am tired that Headset vendors don’t provide clear FOV infos. Horizontal/vertical/diagonal FOV should be mandatory.
    Would you buy a camera lens if Zeiss mentioned ‘about the same as our previous model’ ? This is so ridiculous.

  • Ted Joseph

    I would get this headset if it was able to use the index controllers. Does anyone know if this headset will support index?

    • Dave

      As far as I can tell the tracking systems are entirely different. It’s highly unlikely this will be the case. This is why I’m still rooting for Oculus to sort there shit out. I still love playing with the Rift, I’m happy to wait.

  • Moe Curley

    “40% improved lens clarity” What? Non-sensical marketing speak. This headset looks great. Why promise pie in the sky and underdeliver? Take care with customer trust HTC.

    • Dave

      Is 40% lens clarity that big a deal, you make it sound like the holy grail… They have to sell the thing after all.

      • Moe Curley

        40% increase is a huge claim. To a feature that is pretty much unquantifiable.

  • Olly

    Do you say SMS, when you send one?

    • Dave

      I’m not sure you get it, no one ever says sms anyway. besides short message service message is factually correct unlike liquid-crystal display display which is dumb.

  • black cat

    It’s like when people say NIC card.