HP Reverb G2 - User Experiences & Owner Impressions

[Mr Latte]

Reports are it may be launching in September 2020 which is earlier than some expected.
I'm seriously considering one of these having had a CV1 in the past and enjoyed VR

Finally, though with this device, now we have image quality that is very good for simulations. Also offering easy setup, superb audio, and nice controllers but all at a good price.

Steam HP Reverb G2
UK Pre-Orders
Manual
Datasheet/Specs

 

[ThugUK]

Don't blame the product for the way it runs. It does nothing but display an image at the frame rate designated. Everything else comes down to the PC. So there's something not right there.

I don't believe that 2060 story either. That's 3200x3200 approximately PER EYE, at 90hz, on what is not even a 1080Ti. I had a 1080Ti. There's no way that I could run what is effectively 200% in the G1 at 90hz on any sim EXCEPT for maybe AC, offline, with no mods.

Anyway I'm over here loving my G1 so I'll go do some laps in it and leave everyone else to bash the G2.

Never bashed the G2 yet.
Runs perfectly with my set up in ACC and all the other sims i have tried.
Cant beat the clarity it offers.


* note, my setup is different than whats in my signature. I now have an i9 10990k, 32gb ram and a 3080.

 

[Jason Mullin]

Don't blame the product for the way it runs. It does nothing but display an image at the frame rate designated. Everything else comes down to the PC. So there's something not right there.

I don't believe that 2060 story either. That's 3200x3200 approximately PER EYE, at 90hz, on what is not even a 1080Ti. I had a 1080Ti. There's no way that I could run what is effectively 200% in the G1 at 90hz on any sim EXCEPT for maybe AC, offline, with no mods.

Anyway I'm over here loving my G1 so I'll go do some laps in it and leave everyone else to bash the G2.

I don't know what to tell you, the pictures don't tell stories it's running very well at 100% across the board. I'm quite surprised it looks so good and clear with gutted settings using a 2060 super, I do overclock.
Here's my settings. The in lens capture was taken during an AC career race ahead of the pack while pulled over on the side of the track.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

That Use Legacy Reprojection mode. I've tried it myself but it looks like resolution drops as if SS is lower.
Can you please try both, may be it was just something else but at the time of testing I was pretty sure it was just Legacy mode change.

 

[Jason Mullin]

That Use Legacy Reprojection mode. I've tried it myself but it looks like resolution drops as if SS is lower.
Can you please try both, may be it was just something else but at the time of testing I was pretty sure it was just Legacy mode change.

Okay I will try both.

Edit: Tried legacy reproduction mode on and off, both look exactly the same with no performance impact either way.
However, with it off my gpu runs 3 degrees cooler.

Also, another (obvious) clarity increase with Mip LOD bias increased to -2.
Had it on -1 before, -3 is too much becomes grainy.

 

[anton_Chez]

I'm also surprised you haven't run out of VRAM with that card, only using 75% for that really big SS resolution. Whatever you've set there, don't change a single option! Seems to be running perfect for you. Still blown away that it's possible on that card. Post processing being off will be giving back around 30% performance with CSP/SOL installed, at least it did for me when I was testing so if you turned that on you'd probably struggle. Doesn't even seem that the GPU is pushing in that fpsVR screen cap.

Another reason why it's hard to believe that a 2080Ti is unable to deliver an acceptable performance no matter the options changed or tried. Neither of these instances make any sense to me, but it's not really the fault of the G2 either way. It's simply there, while the GPU and rest of your system tries to power it.

You don't blame your monitor for poor FPS, after all. Do we?

 

[Jason Mullin]

I'm also surprised you haven't run out of VRAM with that card, only using 75% for that really big SS resolution. Whatever you've set there, don't change a single option! Seems to be running perfect for you. Still blown away that it's possible on that card. Post processing being off will be giving back around 30% performance with CSP/SOL installed, at least it did for me when I was testing so if you turned that on you'd probably struggle. Doesn't even seem that the GPU is pushing in that fpsVR screen cap.

Another reason why it's hard to believe that a 2080Ti is unable to deliver an acceptable performance no matter the options changed or tried. Neither of these instances make any sense to me, but it's not really the fault of the G2 either way. It's simply there, while the GPU and rest of your system tries to power it.

You don't blame your monitor for poor FPS, after all. Do we?

Agreed from everything I’ve read I must have won the silicon lottery. I do take extreme care with optimizing the PC for nothing but sim racing and only overclock in bios.
My objective is clarity and PP of any kind destroys performance at 100% SS for me, most of my tweaking is done within NCP.
I have money set aside for a 3080 but for now pretty happy.

 

[Wmacky]

Ok, Need some input here. I was finally able to test the new G2 yesterday, and the good news is that it seems to be working fine. The bad news is that it seems no better than, or slightly worse than my G1.

Don't get me wrong. They are both great HMD's but I'm not really seeing the better views? Colors and contrast seem very similar, Sweet spot about the same, clarity equal. So, not much of a upgrade? The G2 even seems to have a little Mura, though it is slight, and less than the G1. The bad new is God rays! My G1 has none at all, but this new G2 has them. They are less than my CV1 but they are there around all white text. They are short stubby little God rays that don't project very far out. Just a few times the text height.

This is confusing. I'm reading quite a few complaints about G2 having worse god rays than G1, but many on the Reddit claim there are no God Ray at all on the G2? What the Hell? either you see them or not. It pretty obvious?

Can anyone here conform godrays? I'm strongly considering RMAing the G 2 and sticking with my G1 until next gen. I don't have long to decide.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I honestly never seen godrays on G2, plenty on Odyseey and Odyssey Plus though.

 

[Wmacky]

I honestly never seen godrays on G2, plenty on Odyseey and Odyssey Plus though.

So strange. I see them in both eyes, so I have to believe it's not a individual defect,

Anyway, I just did another comparison round, and dam if I can tell them apart other than the god rays. The headphones are another issue. I can't get them in position over my ears. They are to high and forward. They do sound good when I force them into position, but them they spring back.

! Did did want 2 HMD's since I need prescription inserts, and wanted one just for guests ( The G2 was to be for me only). But all things considered I may just RMA it. They G2 would still probally be my top pick over all the others except for the fact that I have a G1 that seems slightly better! I still just don't understand this. MRTV had me convinced the G2 was a big improvement over G1. I feel I shouldn't have to be straining to see this difference?

 

[anton_Chez]

Your observations are almost identical to mine as a G1 owner. So you are definitely not alone. I sold my G2 and kept the G1. I am more than happy with it. The ONLY thing that I want from the G2 is the headphones. I loved the Index headphones and I have to use earbuds with the G1. It's OK, just not ideal when I take it on and off. I have to re-plug and mess around with the wire.

But god rays are the first thing I noticed other than the blur from moving side to side. I was super pumped to get the G2 when it came out but as a G1 lover/owner, I stuck with that and is still currently my headset of choice.

 

[ltnordb]

Argh, I'm going insane with the random freezes, crashes, audio issues with this headset.

Ryzen 5600x on a msi b550 motherboard.

Is there any combination of bios versions or usb drivers that is confirmed to work with the g2?

Quoting myself here. Ordered the recommended startech board from amazon, and have been testing it for a week now. Everything seems stable finally. An expensive fix, but recommended if you have usb issues with amd motherboards.

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Express-SuperSpeed-Dedicated-Channels/dp/B00HJZEA2S

 

[Wmacky]

Your observations are almost identical to mine as a G1 owner. So you are definitely not alone. I sold my G2 and kept the G1. I am more than happy with it. The ONLY thing that I want from the G2 is the headphones. I loved the Index headphones and I have to use earbuds with the G1. It's OK, just not ideal when I take it on and off. I have to re-plug and mess around with the wire.

But god rays are the first thing I noticed other than the blur from moving side to side. I was super pumped to get the G2 when it came out but as a G1 lover/owner, I stuck with that and is still currently my headset of choice.

Maybe I'm not crazy? Again some see the Godrays as clear as day, and others see nothing? I wonder if this could be due to brightness differences between units? It can't be a lens defect as I see identical GR's from both sides / eyes.

Yeah the speakers did sound better, but they are are about a inch out of position, with no further adjustment available.

 

[Slapped]

I've been playing with the G2 for about a week and the end result is that I've gone back to my G1.

The reason is, is that the sweet spot is so much larger on the G1, as is the FOV. Not to mention the chromatic aberration is significantly worse on the G2 compared to the G1. The manual IPD looks good on paper but in practice I found that when it was set to be good for one eye the other eye was out and vice versa. Also the G1 feels lighter than the G2 meaning quick looks feel better with the G1.

So the G2 is back in it's box and being kept around as a spare in case either my G1 or Rift S fails.

 

[Alvaro de la Orden]

I've been playing with the G2 for about a week and the end result is that I've gone back to my G1.

The reason is, is that the sweet spot is so much larger on the G1, as is the FOV. Not to mention the chromatic aberration is significantly worse on the G2 compared to the G1. The manual IPD looks good on paper but in practice I found that when it was set to be good for one eye the other eye was out and vice versa. Also the G1 feels lighter than the G2 meaning quick looks feel better with the G1.

So the G2 is back in it's box and being kept around as a spare in case either my G1 or Rift S fails.

some are printing a new face gasket for G2 and reporting better FOV and increased sweet spot, it might be worth a try.

 

[Slapped]

some are printing a new face gasket for G2 and reporting better FOV and increased sweet spot, it might be worth a try.

It's exactly what I suspected - with the current face gasket the eyes are too far away from the lenses. I'll have a look into this - I've got a mate who'll do a print for me.

 

[blekenbleu]

MRTV had me convinced the G2 was a big improvement over G1

MRTV presumably has an early G1, many of which were problematic.
HP addressed quality issues (e.g. mura) in G1's shipped late 2019 - early 2020.
G2 has physical IPD adjustment, different lenses that require more pincushion correction,
different headphones and more power to LCD panels.
MRTV confirmed sweet spot consistency among multiple examples of G2, but not god rays.
I suspect that Windows' mixed reality code increased G1 contrast at some point..

 

[Wmacky]

It's exactly what I suspected - with the current face gasket the eyes are too far away from the lenses. I'll have a look into this - I've got a mate who'll do a print for me.

Are you seeing any flaring of white text on dark backgrounds. I'm getting short little Godrays about 3X the text size. In comparison my G1 has almost zero flaring.

 

[Slapped]

Are you seeing any flaring of white text on dark backgrounds. I'm getting short little Godrays about 3X the text size. In comparison my G1 has almost zero flaring.

I saw some flaring, but not to the extent of 3 times the size of text, but then it would depend on how small the text was.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

different lenses that require more pincushion correction

Never heard of that.
Or it's just because internal 1.4x SteamVR multiplier WMR headsets didn't use before.
@Slapped, if you are planning to stick with G2, there is some info on 3D printed gasket.

 

[Slapped]

Never heard of that.
Or it's just because internal 1.4x SteamVR multiplier WMR headsets didn't use before.
@Slapped, if you are planning to stick with G2, there is some info on 3D printed gasket.

Hey, thanks for that - I've just mailed the link to my mate who hopefully should be able to print this out.

Honestly I hope that HP comes out with some official gaskets to address the issues some people are experiencing with the G2.