Ars Technica: Valve’s long-rumored VR headset is finally real: the Valve Index, coming in June

dsk1210 · Apr 8, 2019

I have been waiting on the knuckles for so long now and was planning to just pick them up, but if it's £600 for the whole set up, I will be extremely tempted.

Would be able to recoup some money by selling the old Vive system.

Plumpman · Apr 8, 2019

Whompa said:
I just tried VR out for the first time yesterday and I am now a true believer. Holy shit I never expected to have so much fun.

Played Super Hot, Beat Saber, a racing game, a zombie coop shooter, and Tilt Brush.

I finally saw the light. I can't wait to see what Valve does with this.

Its crazy how much VR as a medium requires you to actually play it to "get" it.
Everyone always thinks you're crazy for telling them that, but its true most of the time!

Whompa · Apr 8, 2019

Plumpman said:
Its crazy how much VR as a medium requires you to actually play it to "get" it.
Everyone always thinks you're crazy for telling them that, but its true most of the time!

That's all it took, man! I can't wait to play VR stuff again. I was completely sold.

Pheace said:
Sigh, on the one hand I'd love to be into VR but I'm so not into action-y style games. I wonder how well TBS/RTS/RPG will transfer to VR longterm.

Guess we'll have to see. I hope more genres get involved because it really felt like the future to me. RTS games could be interesting with a grab and drop mechanic for units and buildings. I dunno. Something about VR just felt so fresh to me.

I KILL PXLS · Apr 8, 2019

Pheace said:
Sigh, on the one hand I'd love to be into VR but I'm so not into action-y style games. I wonder how well TBS/RTS/RPG will transfer to VR longterm.

PLENTY of non twitchy action games in VR right now. Lots of RTS games, tower defense, adventure, puzzle, escape room, etc.

Randomly Generated · Apr 8, 2019

I've always figured one of Valve's games (probably the "Kerbal devs" one) is some sort of RTS type thing due to that Newell comment about how watching small things running around is really compelling in VR.

seabass · Apr 8, 2019

Solar Puffin said:
The best thing valve can do for adoption, is make the headset inexpensive, not too difficult to set up, and have some VR exclusive games at the ready, like a brand new Portal, Half life, Left4dead, those kind of games.

As long as PCVR requires a decent gaming PC to use, I can't see it ever rising above niche.

Valve seems more interested in being on the cutting edge rather than worrying about adoption.

Gabe Newell said:
If you took the existing [PC-driven] VR systems and made them 80 percent cheaper, there's still not a huge market. There's still not a really incredibly compelling reason for people to spend 20 hours a day in VR

...

We actually think that if anything, most of the interesting stuff is going to be happening on the high end. That we're actually resolution-constrained, we're CPU-constrained, we're GPU-constrained. That's where the interesting stuff is gonna happen, not on the low end of the market. Once you've got it, once you've got something and you can say okay, this is the thing that causes millions of people to be excited about it, then you start worrying about cost-reducing.

EVIL · Apr 8, 2019

That is the point where oculus (facebook) and Valve split. Valve is interested in the high end, while facebook just wants cheaper mass adoption so they push things like Quest and the Rift S. The things with VR, you can have fun with the low.mid end, but Its always more interesting to push the highend. See it as consoles VS PC where on the high end you can really push this medium

the-pi-guy · Apr 8, 2019

Pheace said:
Sigh, on the one hand I'd love to be into VR but I'm so not into action-y style games. I wonder how well TBS/RTS/RPG will transfer to VR longterm.

Brass Tactics is a pretty simple RTS game for VR, but it's a lot of fun. One of the most played games at my house.

Dreamwriter · Apr 8, 2019

saci said:
Can you "pinch" with the Knuckles/Index?

No, the controller doesn't track your fingers, it's similar to Oculus Touch in that it only knows if they are resting on certain parts of the controller or not. So it knows if you are gripping the controller or not, it knows if you are pointing or giving a thumbs up, but it can't detect fingers touching each other or making gestures.

I KILL PXLS · Apr 8, 2019

Solar Puffin said:
I see so many VR fanboys going wild over this thing, and we still barely know anything.
I strongly doubt it will be the Generation 2 that everyone wants so badly, nor do I believe that there will be anything special about the headset that will make it fly off the shelves any faster than the other headsets. Finger tracking is neat in theory, but I don't believe it will have any real practical use, and the knuckles won't be that special thing that makes the mass market pick it up (Having the controllers attach to the hand so you can let go is smart though).
Valves name isn't gonna make hardware fly off the shelves either, the steam controller can attest to that, Gaben is not some kind of god who can do no wrong.
The best thing valve can do for adoption, is make the headset inexpensive, not too difficult to set up, and have some VR exclusive games at the ready, like a brand new Portal, Half life, Left4dead, those kind of games.

As long as PCVR requires a decent gaming PC to use, I can't see it ever rising above niche.

There are plenty of players in the space right now that are better equipped to deliver VR to the mainstream (Oculus, WMR, Google). Competing for that market would be a losing battle for Valve and what really would get the mainstream on board (a cheap all in one Quest style headset) would be playing completely against their strength and position of power which is being the defacto store for PC games.

dsk1210 · Apr 8, 2019

I have been waiting on the knuckles for so long now and was planning to just pick them up, but if it's £600 for the whole set up, I will be extremely tempted.

Would be able to recoup some money by selling the old Vive system.

Civilstrife · Apr 8, 2019

Dreamwriter said:
No, the controller doesn't track your fingers, it's similar to Oculus Touch in that it only knows if they are resting on certain parts of the controller or not. So it knows if you are gripping the controller or not, it knows if you are pointing or giving a thumbs up, but it can't detect fingers touching each other or making gestures.

Not true. Do you mean that pinching is not pressure sensitive? Because the pinch gesture itself is definitely supported as seen at the beginning of this:

The underlying technology is similar to Oculus, but the application is totally different. A far larger surface area is touch sensitive, tracking the resting place of every finger, instead of just the buttons. The curl/uncurl of each finger is tracked individually, and functions on a gradient, as opposed to Oculus' binary "touching or not" sensitive buttons. And because the controller is strapped to your hand, you can also let go of the controller entirely.

Not sure what you mean about gestures. Which hand gesture do you think this is not capable of performing?

I KILL PXLS · Apr 8, 2019

Civilstrife said:
Not true. You can "pinch" something by simply lifting all your fingers off the controller except the thumb and fore finger. Do you mean that pinching is not pressure sensitive? Because the pinch gesture itself is definitely supported.

The underlying technology is similar to Oculus, but the application is totally different. A far larger surface area is touch sensitive, tracking the resting place of every finger, instead of just the buttons. The curl/uncurl of each finger is tracked individually, and because the controller is strapped to your hand, you can also let go of the controller entirely.

Not sure what you mean about gestures. Which hand gesture do you think this is not capable of performing?

I assume Dreamwriter is talking about like the spread of your fingers. Like you couldn't do a peace sign really. Or are the sensors sensitive enough to detect the side by side rotation?

Civilstrife · Apr 8, 2019

I KILL PXLS said:
I assume Dreamwriter is talking about like the spread of your fingers. Like you couldn't do a peace sign really. Or are the sensors sensitive enough to detect the side by side rotation?

I believe each each finger is tracked by a particular zone on the controller, so you're probably right that finger spread is not tracked. Although, I wonder what accommodations are made for different sized hands.

Randomly Generated · Apr 10, 2019

This is going to be a long month.

dsk1210 · Apr 10, 2019

Randomly Generated said:
This is going to be a long month.

Damn man!

Thought there had been a leak or something.

Randomly Generated · Apr 10, 2019

dsk1210 said:
Damn man!

Thought there had been a leak or something.

Shiit, sorry. I was just thinking out loud.

IMACOMPUTA · Apr 10, 2019

I'm straight up fiendin' for info on this thing.

I've accepted the fact that I'm buying the Index controllers no matter how expensive they are. Don't hurt me, Valve!

Considering selling my Vive to get the Index headset depending on specs and price.

Deleted member 2840 · Apr 10, 2019

dsk1210 said:
Damn man!

Thought there had been a leak or something.

To be fair Tyler(from VNN) has been going bananas in the last few hours on Twitter, apparently he got more info in the headset and the games.

Still, it IS VNN so take everything with a pool of salt.

atom519 · Apr 10, 2019

IMACOMPUTA said:
I'm straight up fiendin' for info on this thing.

I've accepted the fact that I'm buying the Index controllers no matter how expensive they are. Don't hurt me, Valve!

Considering selling my Vive to get the Index headset depending on specs and price.

Same and same. My only concern is preorders go up when I'm not around a computer, or Steam crashes, or they sell out instantly - thus leaving me shit out of luck with no VR headset :(

1-D_FE · Apr 10, 2019

saci said:
To be fair Tyler(from VNN) has been going bananas in the last few hours on Twitter, apparently he got more info in the headset and the games.

Still, it IS VNN so take everything with a pool of salt.

His reputation is terrible, but Valve seems to actually think a lot of him. So I suspect he does get fed some inside info from some current/former employees. Curious to see what he's got.

dsk1210 · Apr 10, 2019

Randomly Generated said:
Shiit, sorry. I was just thinking out loud.

Haha, it's cool.

Was going to post earlier about the controllers, I am most excited for them. I am really hoping you can use them as controllers in pancake games, gyro for mouse and stuff, would be no drift at all with the base stations.

grendelrt · Apr 10, 2019

Randomly Generated said:
Shiit, sorry. I was just thinking out loud.

I am right there with you, been waiting on this so long. Almost wish they hadn't said anything, the month wait suuuuucks hahah

Durante · Apr 10, 2019

My Pimax 8k is working again, and the recent beta software update is pretty good. So now I'm back to more likely only getting the Index controllers.

In news of some general VR relevancy, I've confirmed that Pimax "Fixed Foveated Rendering" option actually hacks Nvidia variable rate shading into games.
What's interesting about this (and the fact that it works, at least to some extent) is that this confirms my suspicion that if someone is crazy enough to challenge a complete engineering and support nightmare, there's nothing preventing them from releasing a HMD with eye tracking and supporting foveated rendering in many (existing) PC VR games.

(Note: I don't think the Index HMD has any eye tracking)

Flandy · Apr 10, 2019

Durante said:
My Pimax 8k is working again, and the recent beta software update is pretty good. So now I'm back to more likely only getting the Index controllers.

In news of some general VR relevancy, I've confirmed that Pimax "Fixed Foveated Rendering" option actually hacks Nvidia variable rate shading into games.
What's interesting about this (and the fact that it works, at least to some extent) is that this confirms my suspicion that if someone is crazy enough to challenge a complete engineering and support nightmare, there's nothing preventing them from releasing a HMD with eye tracking and supporting foveated rendering in many (existing) PC VR games.

(Note: I don't think the Index HMD has any eye tracking)

Any idea how eye tracking will be handled in software? By this I mean do you know if it'll have to be supported on a game by game basis or if it something that will be handled by SteamVR. Just been wondering lately if eye tracking would be backwards compatible and work on games like Fallout 4 VR

Durante · Apr 10, 2019

Flandy said:
Any idea how eye tracking will be handled in software? By this I mean do you know if it'll have to be supported on a game by game basis or if it something that will be handled by SteamVR. Just been wondering lately if eye tracking would be backwards compatible and work on games like Fallout 4 VR

That depends on who writes the software.

By far the most likely option is that it will require handling by developers on a game by game basis. But in principle, at least with GPUs with VRS, it could be implemented by a third part (like Pimax does -- extending their approach to use eye tracking data instead of a fixed mask is trivial once you actually have the tracking data).

finalflame · Apr 10, 2019

Cool to see it out in the wild. There's more to this project coming :)

1-D_FE · Apr 10, 2019

Durante said:
My Pimax 8k is working again, and the recent beta software update is pretty good. So now I'm back to more likely only getting the Index controllers.

In news of some general VR relevancy, I've confirmed that Pimax "Fixed Foveated Rendering" option actually hacks Nvidia variable rate shading into games.
What's interesting about this (and the fact that it works, at least to some extent) is that this confirms my suspicion that if someone is crazy enough to challenge a complete engineering and support nightmare, there's nothing preventing them from releasing a HMD with eye tracking and supporting foveated rendering in many (existing) PC VR games.

(Note: I don't think the Index HMD has any eye tracking)

I checked and didn't see anything at the Pimax reddit. Have any of you guys run benchmarks with it on/off? I'm not getting the impression it's much, but I'm curious what kind of percentage we're talking about. Single digit gains?

finalflame said:
Cool to see it out in the wild. There's more to this project coming :)

Tease:)

Deleted member 2840 · Apr 10, 2019

finalflame said:
Cool to see it out in the wild. There's more to this project coming :)

Did you work on the hardware , the VR games or it's just something you saw from the other teams while there?

Randomly Generated · Apr 10, 2019

finalflame said:
Cool to see it out in the wild. There's more to this project coming :)

Whaaaaaat

Durante · Apr 10, 2019

1-D_FE said:
I checked and didn't see anything at the Pimax reddit. Have any of you guys run benchmarks with it on/off? I'm not getting the impression it's much, but I'm curious what kind of percentage we're talking about. Single digit gains?

I don't know if anyone ran benchmarks.
I did some basic measurements, and got ~19.5 ms frametimes at high quality settings in FO4VR with FFR off, ~18 ms with FFR "balanced", and ~16.5 ms with FFR "aggressive".
Note that the latter is easily visible if you don't look at the center of the sweet spot.

So that's ~8% for the setting which isn't really noticeable in terms of quality (and in a very GPU-limited, so close to best case, scenario).

Edit: I also just noticed that the full-render-res png screenshots I took for comparison while looking at this are ~48 MB each :P

finalflame · Apr 10, 2019

1-D_FE said:
Tease:)

saci said:
Did you work on the hardware , the VR games or it's just something you saw from the other teams while there?

Randomly Generated said:
Whaaaaaat

I worked on projects attached to VR that I think will make people pretty happy, but there's stuff I didn't get to work on that I still think are super cool and we'll likely get to see this year if Valve is showing off the headset (it didn't have a name yet when I was there) already.

wafflebrain · Apr 10, 2019

Yeah this month feels like a slog between waiting for Index pre orders and for me the Quest launch. At least the latter will likely come out end of month at F8 announcement vs Index release in June :/

But hey at least we've got good VR now to tide us over. The wait will never be as bad as the dk1 when there wasn't anything consumer available before those shipped. Jesus those 6 months were brutal especially with the delay. So yeah a month and change for Index doesn't seem so bad in comparison.

Randomly Generated · Apr 10, 2019

finalflame said:
I worked on projects attached to VR that I think will make people pretty happy, but there's stuff I didn't get to work on that I still think are super cool and we'll likely get to see this year if Valve is showing off the headset (it didn't have a name yet when I was there) already.

Damn... This month just got longer...

Thanks for the tease. Pretty exciting to find out what they've been up to.

1-D_FE · Apr 10, 2019

Durante said:
I don't know if anyone ran benchmarks.
I did some basic measurements, and got ~19.5 ms frametimes at high quality settings in FO4VR with FFR off, ~18 ms with FFR "balanced", and ~16.5 ms with FFR "aggressive".
Note that the latter is easily visible if you don't look at the center of the sweet spot.

So that's ~8% for the setting which isn't really noticeable in terms of quality (and in a very GPU-limited, so close to best case, scenario).

Edit: I also just noticed that the full-render-res png screenshots I took for comparison while looking at this are ~48 MB each :P

That's actually kind of impressive (considering the whole nature of what's being done here). I would assume you wouldn't be able to notice aggressive with actual eye tracking (although I definitely agree with your suspicion that Index won't have eye-tracking.)

Nzyme32 · Apr 10, 2019

Randomly Generated said:
Damn... This month just got longer...

Thanks for the tease. Pretty exciting to find out what they've been up to.

Nah, next month waiting for release will probably be harder - assuming no more additional ValveTime!

Durante · Apr 10, 2019

Nzyme32 said:
Nah, next month waiting for release will probably be harder!

Worse: it's "just" a month from this teaser to the (presumably) full spec release on May 1st, but at least 6 weeks from that to shipping!

Randomly Generated · Apr 10, 2019

Nzyme32 said:
Nah, next month waiting for release will probably be harder - assuming no more additional ValveTime!

Durante said:
Worse: it's "just" a month from this teaser to the (presumably) full spec release on May 1st, but at least 6 weeks from that to shipping!

Laid out like this, there's a 90% chance it gets Valve Timed by a month.

Green · Apr 10, 2019

Is there ANY chance that Valve release a new game alongside this or at least some sort of port of Portal or something? Portal in VR would be a trip. Their little showroom thingy is super cool, they must have something...

copelandmaster · Apr 10, 2019

Durante said:
I don't know if anyone ran benchmarks.
I did some basic measurements, and got ~19.5 ms frametimes at high quality settings in FO4VR with FFR off, ~18 ms with FFR "balanced", and ~16.5 ms with FFR "aggressive".
Note that the latter is easily visible if you don't look at the center of the sweet spot.

So that's ~8% for the setting which isn't really noticeable in terms of quality (and in a very GPU-limited, so close to best case, scenario).

Edit: I also just noticed that the full-render-res png screenshots I took for comparison while looking at this are ~48 MB each :P

Does this VRS hack for Pimax work on 10 series cards, or 20 series only?

Randomly Generated · Apr 10, 2019

Green said:
Is there ANY chance that Valve release a new game alongside this or at least some sort of port of Portal or something? Portal in VR would be a trip. Their little showroom thingy is super cool, they must have something...

Based on what was said a few posts up, sounds like decent odds they'll release something.

Shinobido Heart · Apr 10, 2019

Whompa said:
I just tried VR out for the first time yesterday and I am now a true believer. Holy shit I never expected to have so much fun.

Played Super Hot, Beat Saber, a racing game, a zombie coop shooter, and Tilt Brush.

I finally saw the light. I can't wait to see what Valve does with this.

Hey good on you! Now join us in telling people how awesome VR is, but having no one believe you. :(

Shinobido Heart · Apr 10, 2019

Pheace said:
Sigh, on the one hand I'd love to be into VR but I'm so not into action-y style games. I wonder how well TBS/RTS/RPG will transfer to VR longterm.

I believe Brass Tactics is an RTS game, and there are plenty of RPG games on PC VR. Skyrim VR, The Wizards, VR Dungeon Knight, Karnage Chronicles, Vanishing Realms to name a few.

Keep your eyes peeled to the upcoming Nostos VR by the way. https://nostos.163.com/

(Yes, that's Emi Evans who sings in the Nier/Nier: Automata ost) :)

Bookoo · Apr 10, 2019

Green said:
Is there ANY chance that Valve release a new game alongside this or at least some sort of port of Portal or something? Portal in VR would be a trip. Their little showroom thingy is super cool, they must have something...

Yes, I don't think it would make sense to release the headset until they had content to go with it.

I listened to some on VNN stuff and the rumor is that HLVR prequel game (possibly with a coop mode), an Aperature puzzle game where you get a device that messes with player scale. No idea about the 3rd one.

Looking at his twitter though he said he has locked down 2 of the 3 games Valve was talking about.

He also said that Campos Santos peoeple are helping with some of the VR games and that In the Valey of the Gods is sort of on hold.

collige · Apr 10, 2019

Green said:
Is there ANY chance that Valve release a new game alongside this or at least some sort of port of Portal or something? Portal in VR would be a trip. Their little showroom thingy is super cool, they must have something...

I would be shocked if they didn't release any new software.

Randomly Generated · Apr 10, 2019

Bookoo said:
Yes, I don't think it would make sense to release the headset until they had content to go with it.

I listened to some on VNN stuff and the rumor is that HLVR prequel game (possibly with a coop mode), an Aperature puzzle game where you get a device that messes with player scale. No idea about the 3rd one.

Looking at his twitter though he said he has locked down 2 of the 3 games Valve was talking about.

He also said that Campos Santos peoeple are helping with some of the VR games and that In the Valey of the Gods is sort of on hold.

I'd take anything he says with a pretty big grain of salt tbh

GravaGravity · Apr 10, 2019

How accessible is VR nowadays?

I'm stuck in a wheelchair so every time i tried it i got screwed by all the times you need to stand up, crouch low or turn 180; have devs started putting stuff in their games to mitigate these issues?

collige · Apr 10, 2019

GravaGravity said:
How accessible is VR nowadays?

I'm stuck in a wheelchair so every time i tried it i got screwed by all the times you need to stand up, crouch low or turn 180; have devs started putting stuff in their games to mitigate these issues?

Depends on the game really. This link should filter Steam to only show games that support seated gameplay. Turning 180 is a thing a lot of games don't require anyway since PSVR hardware doesn't support it.

GravaGravity · Apr 10, 2019

collige said:
Depends on the game really. This link should filter Steam to only show games that support seated gameplay. Turning 180 is a thing a lot of games don't require anyway since PSVR hardware doesn't support it.

Oh shit there's a tag? Thanks dude!

Bookoo · Apr 10, 2019

Randomly Generated said:
I'd take anything he says with a pretty big grain of salt tbh

Well of course, but has he been wildly off before?

Ars Technica: Valve’s long-rumored VR headset is finally real: the Valve Index, coming in June

Senior Concept Artist

User requested account closure

Dark Souls Man

Community Resettler

Dark Souls Man

Product Management

User requested account closure

Dark Souls Man

Product Management

Dark Souls Man