Doesn’t the Index have a larger area which is in focus? Maybe that’s it.
1 Like
Yep, as long as one can keep within the tiny sweet spot volumes in front of the lenses, it is possible to resolve fairly detailed stuff almost all the way out to the edges. That transforms it to more “VR”, and less “viewing device”, so to speak. :7
Although it is not all that exciting a sight; It is like Neal said.
Whilst nor perfectly sharp, more of the FOV tends to be actually useful, instead of just an implied hint of something in the periphery, and you can actually look around pretty comfortably with your eyes, without e.g. needing to repeatedly scan your entire head left to right, to read a panel of text.
The Vive does have all that FOV (well, 100-ish is possible, at least), but those users are apparently very few, who would do what is needed to get their eyeballs close enough to the lenses, to actually see it; to the point many seem to have never even touched the eye-relief knobs on the HMD, much less done something about the thickness of the face cushion, and consequently been getting no more than 80-ish degrees, judging by things that people have been writing ever since it was launched.
4 Likes
Well i have basically put my retina’s on the OG vive lenses and I wasn’t blown away by it as much as even the small view on the pimax.
so I think while you may be correct about a larger useful area on the lenses.
It can’t hold a candle to the pimax.
That being said I’ve heard that on the index the stability of the world is top notch and thus some people feel the world is more “real” feeling.
1 Like
Well, 120 is a fair bit more than 100. 
EDIT: …and yes; More stable-feeling I would agree on. As a function of several things, with the larger area in focus as a major component, as well as other optical properties, good verity to the projection of the game world, and the optional higher frame rate, for those times one have the performance overhead to use it. The pupil swim is low, so nothing warps when one look around, and there is very little focus disparity between the eyes.
It’s a refinement of the all-important fundamentals, but not without a cost: The glare is truly horrible, and the argueable 10° FOV over the Vive (EDIT2: …which is afforded by 2x5° canting), is taken right out of the stereo overlap. :7
1 Like
My understanding is that appears to be due to the high refresh rate (144 Hz) of the Index.
1 Like
Because it offers flexibility. Most things I run on normal FOV, but if something is poorly optimized and/or requires parallel projections I can still run it well on small FOV. One such example is Space Engine which is amazing but to get smooth experience overall (esp. on planet surface) I have to switch to small FOV.
Of course if you have both, then you can just run it on artisan. Great thing about 5k+ is that it is very universal, you only need one device to meet many use-cases (at the cost of fiddling with settings, restarts etc.). Every recent Pimax headset already requires changing parallel projections depending on what you run, changing other options is not that different.
3 Likes
I’m one of those few guys that has got their eyes very close to the OG Vive lenes (I have only a very thin strip of foam at the top and have my wireless battery mounted at the back to act as a counterweight so no pressure goes on my noes - I find it very comfortable). The other benefit you get apart from increased fov (I get about 104 degrees according the the ROV test) is a big increase in the sweet spot as well for some reason. I haven’t tried the index so can’t compare though.
I’ve got the Artisan and Valve OG to compare (with, as you say, basically my retina’s on the OG lenses) and the Artisan gives about 15 degrees more fov but I find approx half of that extra fov quite distorted. At first I was hands down going to go back to my VIVE and sell my Artisan straight away but I’m now giving it a month of Aritsan only to see how I get used to it - and I can already say it’s growing on me. After a month I’m going to put the Valve OG back on and see what I think!!
Edit: I forgot to mention, I’ve now set the Artisan up similarly to my OG vive with just small strip of foam at the top (cut from the spare I had for my vive) but also two small pieces at the bottom as well - I’ve also put a counterweight at the back to stop pressure on my noes and create a better overall balance. I find I can’t get the lenses of my Artisan as close to my eyes as I can with my Vive without loosing focus but they are a lot closer than when using the comfort kit foam. This definitely increases the perceived fov which I find also reduces the problem of the side distortion because it is more on the outskirt of what you are looking at. It also significantly reduces the problem with binocular overlap (and hence makes the headset more enjoyable for me) but interestingly it does not increase the reported fov from the ROV test so not quite sure what’s going on there.
3 Likes
The chart posted is using @risa2000 hmdq tool. The og Vive had more FoV than the Vive Pro. And matches as you see with the Index.
I also run 8k+ with fx-8350 , gtx1070 with potato fov at ss 500%, lol.
Test assetto corsar without AI at normal fov, get fps around 30 , no motion sickness.
potato fov can work fine for some game.
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.