Is it?
I honestly never heard anyone claiming that Valve Motion Smoothing is better than MS reprojection, but I do not have both headsets on hand to compare, may be Ted can do us a favor as he has both.
All I know that it really improved in the last 6 months, they even fixed performance issue associated with Forced mode. Looks good to my eyes too, barely discernable from 90fps, except very active scenes.
I don’t think I can make a fair comparison since I have the G1 and not the G2, but 120FPS is very hard to beat. It makes the physical movements seem more natural and real. One thing the YouTube reviewers cannot capture even with "through the lens" cameras is how it feels for your eyes. And one area people who use VR for sims don't seem to talk about is how it feels to "move around" inside your car. With the Rift S, this was a death sentence for tracking. I have no idea why but if I tried to like, lean to the left or right, or look behind me physically while driving, I almost always had some parts of the car also move with me or I would lose vertical tracking. This threw me off enough to make me wreck.
With the G1 it's a lot better, but there's still a slight element of "world moving" when I move my head around.
It's definitely survivable though.
The Index tracking is a whole other story. The world seems fixed and you're just moving around inside it. The base stations do an amazing job of tracking the headset and orientation.
Regarding controllers:
Ironically, it's good that they're so great for Index, because mouse controls on Index are not consistent at all. I constantly have the "Desktop" Steam App lose the ability to track my mouse and I have to use the controllers to exit out and get things working again.
It's also fortunate that tracking is static and so good because I can't control my desktop from inside VR as well as with the Reverb G1.
But since I do normal VR games, the controllers are a non sacrifice for me. The Index controllers are just better, and all VR controllers in the future should borrow from this technology.
But honestly, if you plan to use Windows desktop from VR, the G1 is just WAY better. The resolution is so sharp you can read text in the browser. And Microsoft did a lot to make the UX very serviceable in VR. Using your mouse is fluid and natural. You never lose your mouse position, and all the navigation in the desktop is natural and makes sense.
Regarding resolution:
Reverb G1 feels like one of those lower cost Vizio 4K TV's from Wal-Mart. It's sharp, and with 4K content it looks way better than the same content on a similar sized 55" TV that's 1080P. It's REALLY hard to ignore how high the resolution is. It feels like driving a car in real life. I even have to squint my eyes at the sun glare on the windshield. But the color and contrast is still not exactly "perfect".
Index is lower resolution, but REALLY high quality display. It feels like if you had a 1080P TV but it was one of those LG OLED's. Sure the resolution is lower, but the quality of the displays are so nice that everything feels smooth and better reproduced. Colors in the G1 seem slightly washed out and dull. On the Index, it feels very well calibrated and expensive lol. It's hard to choose between 120FPS and 4k.
You won't need Valve's motion smoothing because the resolution is low enough that you can drive over 90 FPS with a 2080 Ti or similar. With Reverb, motion smoothing is important because it has such a high resolution that your GPU probably can't drive it at 90 FPS.
Regarding Sound:
If G2 has Index headphones then that's a massive improvement. Index sound is super immersive. That being said, G1 headphones aren't bad, they're definitely serviceable for driving/sims. I suppose for HL Alyx they're not great, but you'll be more distracted by how awful the controllers are to notice the sound lol.
Regarding comfort:
This isn't even a contest. Index is way way more comfortable. A 3D printer and aftermarket face masks can only get you so far. The Index has all these physical adjustments, the face mask is so comfortable and it just "rests" perfectly on your head. And because the cable is very malleable, I leave it hanging off my head and I don't even notice it. The G1 cable, I found a way to rest it so it's not uncomfortable while driving (just let it hang to the left of your face, in front of your shoulder), but for regular VR gaming it's just obnoxious. The Index cable, you can barely notice it's there.
Regarding "Operational Noise":
Like I said before, not a fan of how the base stations sound. I'm going to mount them at opposite corners high in the ceiling, and wrap them with some sound dampening material. Otherwise when I have my room quiet (My gaming room is my office for WFH) which I do for coding (I can't code with music playing), it sounds like a slightly quieter server room...
G2 vs G1:
With the G2, I wanted to "want" it lol, but honestly it's like the HP people working on it looked at the list of things people wanted them to improve from the G1, and they ignored all the ones I wanted lol. So even if it's better than the G1, it's not better in the places that I'm not happy with the G1 like controllers and controller tracking.
Steam Support got back to me that now that I've done the driver fix in Device Manager, I shouldn't have to do this fix again, so I'm going to keep the Index.
It's not an easy decision though. The G1 is
really good. Especially for Star Wars Squadrons. Since I'm in a strong financial position, I might just keep both headsets, do 50 hours of racing with the Index and 50 hours of racing with the G1. But from my limited experience/first impressions with the Index, weird audio driver issue aside, it's just a better all around VR package. And since I do wanna play Beat Saber and HL Alyx, I hope the driver issues are a thing of the past and if they are, Index wins for me.