It’s finally here.
The Valve Index!
And what a stunner!
I don’t know about you but I really like its glossy front and the overall design.
It reminds me of a cute robot, like Eve in the movie Wall-E.
This video is all about this headset!
We’ll give you our first impressions on everything right away noticeable and we’ll
share some first-hand tips.
The full review will come after using it for at least two weeks, so consider subscribing
if you haven’t yet to see more VR videos like this one.
But first, as usual, here’s an introduction & quick unboxing.
Valve, the
developers of Steam of course and co-developers of the HTC VIVE has now made their own Virtual
Reality headset.
It’s called the Valve Index and was released on June 28th, 2019.
It is a high-fidelity headset with dual LCD displays that each have a resolution of 1440x1600.
What makes the Valve Index different than other headsets in the market right now is
its high frame rate that goes up to 144Hz and its low persistence.
These two thing s could allow for longer and more comfortable play sessions as well as
improve immersion.
Not only that, Valve fine-tuned the lenses to offer more field of view and comes with
audio technology we’ve never seen in a VR headset before.
The Valve Index kit comes with the Index Controllers which we’ve shown multiple times on this
channel.
The biggest difference with these controllers compared with others is that it has more sensors
allowing for finger tracking and squeezing.
Plus it has a strap that goes over your hand allowing you to open your hand without dropping
the controllers.
You can order the controllers separately as well.
The Valve Base Stations also come in the kit, but can also be ordered separately.
The biggest difference with the HTC VIVE base stations is that these have improved range,
field of view, and scalability.
There might be an improvement in tracking too, but it seems like you can use the Valve
Index perfectly with the old sensors so you do not need them.
The Valve Index Kit goes for 749 US dollars or 799 euro.
The headset by itself is 499 US dollars or 539 euro, the controllers are per pair 279
US dollars or 299 euro, and one base station costs 149 US dollars or 159 euro.
Look at this cleaning cloth.
This might be a little silly, but I love how pretty this looks.
And it even has a Valve Index logo here too.
I love it.
Ah, before we move on, you might wonder why we have so many different boxes.
Well, the reason is simple Chary and I wasn’t sure if we wanted to get everything since
it would take a bit of a toll on our budget.
So we ordered things separately in case we wanted to send something back.
Like I already think I want to send back the Valve Base Stations since the Index works
fine with the original HTC VIVE base stations.
But before I do that I will test if there’s any noticeable difference.
But I am so excited to check out everything this headset has to offer so let’s continue
with the first impressions.
So the initial setup was easy.
But that’s because we already have the base stations setup.
So let me explain what we already have here.
We already have the original VIVE base stations mounted in two corners facing each other on
tension poles.
They are high up and facing down.
It has been like this for over 2 years now, and we’ve never had to change it.
I think this is the most effective way to get the best 360 tracking.
At least with these base stations.
I’m going to test out the Valve Index using the original base stations first to see if
it works all right so all the gameplay you’ll see in this video will all be with the base
stations 1.0.
I will test out the VALVE base stations too to see if there is any difference outside
of the new design later.
Having Base Stations setup already made the setup very easy.
If you do not have any base stations set up yet, it will take you at least 30 min longer.
For us, it was just plugging the Index using the provided USB 3.0 and Displayport cables.
What's different here, is that the Index has a power cable attached on the same cable that
you need to plug in an electrical socket.
I like this since you don't need an extra box now for this now.
Then all I did was start Steam & SteamVR.
SteamVR asked for an update for the headset.
I waited for that to finish, paired the controllers and it had display immediately.
I did have an issue with the Index audio, it wasn’t recognized at first.
To solve that, I plugged the USB cable in a different port and restarted the PC.
I still did not see anything until I started SteamVR and then it started working.
I’m guessing this was an USB bandwidth problem on my PC.
To increase the field of view, you have to turn this knob here so that you can move the
lenses closer to your eyes.
This increases the FOV and it is definitely noticeable.
I can still see the black borders, and the FOV is not as wide as the Pimax, but it’s
a good difference with the other headsets.
It might not feel a lot, but if you try switching to a lower-FOV headset, like the Oculus Quest,
then you’ll notice the difference a lot more.
First thing I noticed when I put on the headset was that user interfaces and text are really
sharp.
It’s like the Pimax, except the Pimax has distortions at the edges, but the Index does
not have this at all.
The screen door effect has improved a lot.
It’s still there, but hard to find.
I did notice more glare right away in high contrast scenery and it seemed harder for
me to find the sweet spot.
Could this be because everything looks so sharp in the sweet spot that even a slight
movement makes me see a little blur?
I’m not sure yet.
Right out of the box, the Valve Index uses a refresh rate of 90Hz, just like the other
PC VR headsets out there.
To change that, you have to go into the SteamVR settings by right-clicking SteamVR, then settings,
then Video.
Here you can change the refresh rate to 80, 90, 120 or 144Hz.
I was playing on 144Hz here and it is the first time I’m noticing so much more difference
in refresh rate.
72, 80 or 90Hz didn’t make much of a difference for me.
Only when I really, really looked for it.
But 144Hz is definitely more smooth.
It looks more sharp and beautiful for some reason too.
I just feel more immersed by the extra detail that I now see.
Please keep in mind though that we are using an RTX 2080 TI graphics card.
If you run a lower graphics card, you might not be able to tune it up to 144Hz without
frame drops.
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Now, one thing that has left me very impressed straight away is Valve’s audio solution.
Instead of headphones, the Index comes with floating speakers that is in front of your
ears but does not touch your ears.
It uses some kind of directional sound that enters your ears only.
This is so well made that when you have the sound loud enough for the VR player, nobody
else around you hears the sound.
This is strange but amazing technology!
We noticed that you can only hear something if you turn it really, really loud, but almost
uncomfortable loud.
Because of this ‘off-ear’ solution, the positional sound is actually really good.
The sounds really does appear to come from the environment around you, rather than from
inside your head.
It is loud too.
I put the sound slightly under 50% and it’s enough.
And with this, I can always hear when Chary is calling for me.
So I’m really happy with this solution so far.
The Valve Index comes with two cameras in the front enabling stereo pass-through, much
like the Rift S and the Quest have.
Except, the passthrough looks like the old HTC VIVE passthrough, which was often called
TRON mode.
You can turn on passthrough by going into the SteamVR settings, Camera and by enabling
the Camera.
Then you can also use the System Button to enter passthrough by double-clicking it if
you have this enabled.
Or after enabling it in the settings, you can also enable passthrough in VR by going
to the menu and selecting “Room View”.
This passthrough suffices for what you might need it for and that is a quick scan of where
you are but it is definitely not as fine-tuned as the other aspects of this headset yet.
For example, it is way too slow when you turn it on, it takes like 2 seconds.
Plus the software is still buggy.
And having your hands close to you, kind of makes me motion sick.
I understand from Valve that these cameras are pretty good, but currently, there are
no applications for this yet.
I guess we need to wait a bit until developers start making apps for these cameras.
As for the controllers, Valve has mentioned before that the DV controllers are exactly
the same as these consumer versions of the Index Controllers, except for a strap arm
connector.
From the outside, there is almost no difference to be seen, except that the consumer version
has these little Valve Index logo’s displayed here.
These Valve Index Controllers are actually from a friend and Patron member, Ole, he let
us borrow his for this video so that we can check what the differences are.
So a special thanks goes to him for letting us try it out!
After trying and comparing them with the DV’s I don’t see any noticeable differences in
usage.
We weren’t going to get the Index Controllers since they are the same as the ones we have.
However, I do really like the logos on the controllers, so just so you know, we reserved
our own Index Controllers.
And browsing the internet, we did notice people talking about that there is a manufacturing
error in the thumbsticks of these controllers.
Big shout out to KCB for pointing this out to us.
On the left controller, you can’t press and click when you have it in the upper position.
And on the right controller, you can’t click in the left and right position.
I tried this out to confirm and the community is right.
You can’t feel a click when you do that, while in the other positions you can.
Don’t get me wrong though, since you can press and click, however, you get no feedback
at all from this and that makes it feel awkward.
In games like Contractors, you usually have to click the thumbstick to run instead of
walking and as you can see here, I can run, but it just feels awkward without getting
the feedback that I have done the click.
I don’t really like clicking the thumbstick, so I usually avoid this and this is why I
haven’t noticed this before.
And for now we could map the running on the touchpad for example, but this definitely
feels like something that should be fixed.
As for comfort, the headset actually feels super nice on the head.
I’ve always said it before, comfort is very personal, but I do think this headset’s
strap is going to fit a lot of different heads.
It is just well-balanced and great design in my opinion.
I will need to play for longer play sessions to give you a final say on this.
One last thing we noticed is that this cover is magnetic which is a nice change from the
other headsets as it's so much easier to replace this or clean it if you need.
And you get extra padding for the back of the strap and it is thick, so putting it there
definitely makes the headset more comfortable and I’m guessing people with smaller heads
will be happy with this!
So yes, so far so good.
It’s a good headset, but there is own big downside, it is expensive.
Right now, I am not sure if the upgrades are worth the price over the much cheaper Rift
S, but to give you my final say on this I will have to try out this headset for a way
longer time.
So stay tuned for that final review.
Please let us know in the comment section down below anything you want to know about
this headset for our final review.
Put it down there and we will take it into account!
A special thanks goes to artArmin and a special shout out goes to his Patreon page –
Everyone, thank you all so much for your support by watching.
And as always VR on!