Mighty real
Hands on, and eyes in, with the dazzling new wave of virtual reality hardware
Hands on, and eyes in, with the dazzling new wave of VR
The race is on to define the future of virtual reality, and two very different philosophies of what that should entail are in play. On the one hand is Valve, driving for fidelity, believing that for VR to truly succeed it should look and feel as close to actual reality as possible. On the other is Oculus who, no doubt influenced by its parent Facebook, is all about mainstream appeal, keeping costs low and inconveniences to a minimum in a bid to get VR in front of as many people as it can. That both companies should take their biggest steps to date towards their very different goals by releasing new hardware within weeks of each other is surely no coincidence. The next generation of virtual reality has begun.
Valve’s offering, the somewhat prosaically named Index, finally sees it enter the hardware market on its own terms; since launching SteamVR in 2015 it has delegated that side of things to HTC, maker of the Vive line of HMDs. Prior to that, its Steam
Machines range of small-form-factor PCs was similarly manufactured by companies with experience of that sort of thing. Yet nothing about Index suggests the work of a debutant. This is premium stuff – and priced to match, with the full kit priced up at £999. That can be reduced, with cheaper bundles available without the
‘base station’ sensors (it’s compatible with Vive’s) or the Index controllers.
That said, we recommend not skimping: the Index controllers are the most advanced VR input devices on the market, their array of 87 sensors per controller able to track individual finger movements. An ingenious strap running across your knuckles tethers the main body to your hand, meaning you can let go of it entirely. Software support is a little thin at the time of writing – we’re assured that will change in the run-up to launch on June 28 – but Valve provides a fine case study in the witty, playful Aperture Hand Labs.
While we wait, the real star is the headset itself. While the resolution may not sound like a generational leap – 1600x1440 per eye, the same as last year’s Vive Pro – Valve claims the fullRGB panels it uses have more subpixels than an OLED display, while a drive for increased sharpness, both in static and moving images, is just one of several innovations aimed at making it easier to play games in VR for long periods. Others include an increase in framerate from Vive’s 90Hz to 120Hz, with an experimental 144Hz mode also supported; a thunderous off-ear speaker system; and a significantly wider field of vision than Vive (experience varies by user but averages around 20°).
Two very different philosophies of what the future of virtual reality should entail are in play
In concert, the effect is remarkable. The FOV bump feels immediately vital to roomscale VR, strengthening the sense of being in a real place; without the constant, telltale weight of a pair of headphones over your years, audio feels ambient, rather than artificial. The VR music game Beat Saber feels, on other platforms, like you’re standing in a corridor wearing headphones. Through Index it’s like you’re throwing shapes in the middle of the greatest dancefloor on the planet.
Albeit one in which you are tethered by a wire. The cost of all this power is that you are still bound to your rig, and as with Vive, it is Index’s biggest immersion-killer. Sometimes it’s the weight of it, or the brush of it against your body; at others it’s the tangle round your ankle that forces you to turn 270° to the left instead of 90° to the right. Valve is working from the belief that it should get the tech, and comfort, right before it moves on to ease of use. Fair enough. Oculus thinks differently. Not that Quest, released in May starting at just £399, skimps on the tech side of things: its panels are the same resolution per eye as Index, and it’s a more than capable performer. Sure, it’s immediately clear that it can’t match Index for raw grunt, but at less than half the price you wouldn’t expect it to – and in any case, it’s not its USP. The only wire in the box is the one you charge the headset with. This is fully wireless roomscale VR, wherever and whenever you want.
The setup process is a dream, done almost entirely on a smartphone app (you need to briefly don the headset to find a PIN during the pairing process) through which you can also download and install games. A generous suite of demos comes preinstalled, and there’s room for plenty of downloads on the in-built 64GB hard drive (an extra £100 bumps that to 128GB). The use case is immediately clear, and quite irresistible. This is a device to be managed remotely and popped on for a quick session as and when you feel like it – brilliantly, an auto-wakeup feature brings the headset out of standby when you draw near to it.
Both headsets represent a tremendous leap forward for virtual reality, and the fact there is no clear winner means that the real victor is the medium as a whole. Ever since Palmer Luckey taped the first Rift prototype together in his parents’ garage, VR has been about solving problems: of latency and motion sickness, of comfort, price and ease of use. Now the sector’s two biggest players are working at the extremes of the two biggest remaining problems – of making it feel real, and making it mainstream – it is only a matter of time before they meet in the middle, at which point we will really be in business. For now, there is no right or wrong decision, merely a matter of personal circumstance and preference. The biggest mistake you could make right now is not to buy either. VR’s time may finally have come.