Oculus Quest 2 v HP Reverb G2?

[Zeeflyboy]

Doesn’t change the fact that as sold we very much do know which has the best in built audio solution... Aftermarket mods (not even an official deluxe audio strap which seems like an obvious oversight) are available to all headsets and there is literally no benefit in comparing at that point. It’s like saying it doesn’t matter what the infotainment system is like in Car X because you can just stick a Halfords job in there... it’s technically true, but it also doesn’t mean when comparing the cars that car Y doesn’t have the better system.

edit - to spin it around, it would be like arguing that the G2 controllers lacking capacitive touch doesn’t mean they are worse than the quest controllers because you can just use vive wands or index knuckles instead.

See my comments regarding visuals in that post too, I would be interested in where you believe the gains necessary for quest to overcome those limitations are to be had.

 

[Unseul]

I think when one is twice the price of the other, it's not unreasonable to offer accessories and 3rd party solutions that still keep the price under/equal to the competitor headset.

 

[chorse]

Sorry newb question, but i would guess most use airpods or similar? Is there no bluetooth audio?

 

[Zeeflyboy]

@Unseul Not unreasonable I agree, but also doesn’t change that the statement to which I was originally replying “we really don't know which will have the best visuals or audio.” is demonstrably false.

Can the audio short comings be reduced at reasonable cost/effort? Yes. Why does it need improving? Because it’s worse in the first place. Hence proving the invalidity of the statement by the very existence of the need to ameliorate it at all.

 

[andybird123]

I think when one is twice the price of the other, it's not unreasonable to offer accessories and 3rd party solutions that still keep the price under/equal to the competitor headset.

But in this case, using separate headphones adds another downside in that it's an extra thing to sort out when putting the headset on and off - the whole point of the quest 2 is that it's supposed to reduce friction, headphones built in to headsets reduce friction, separate headphones increase friction, so it becomes quite a big trade off that if you want to match the audio of the G2 you have to faff about with headphones.

The quest 2 is cheaper, but that comes with trade offs.

Someone is suggesting "we don't know" how bad the audio is on the quest 2, but we do, so it needs to go in the "cons" column. We also know there's downsides to the quest 2's visuals when used as a PC headset, with some vague promises that it could be improved, but it's never going to match a direct cable connection to the PC's graphics card. Whether you want to accept the degradation is a different point, but arguing it doesn't exist sounds like someone is just looking for confirmation bias.

 

[Zeeflyboy]

@andybird123 - there are already mods to add speakers to the deluxe head strap In a similar way to the CV1 or index etc, or indeed one could fit a vive deluxe audio strap like with the frankenquest so it’s not necessarily true that is has to increase friction.

I still think the overall argument makes little sense though as mentioned above.

 

[Unseul]

But in this case, using separate headphones adds another downside in that it's an extra thing to sort out when putting the headset on and off - the whole point of the quest 2 is that it's supposed to reduce friction, headphones built in to headsets reduce friction, separate headphones increase friction, so it becomes quite a big trade off that if you want to match the audio of the G2 you have to faff about with headphones.

The quest 2 is cheaper, but that comes with trade offs.

Someone is suggesting "we don't know" how bad the audio is on the quest 2, but we do.

Except we can expect 3rd party accessories to handle that, they may not have been released yet, but I strongly suspect they will be. The headsets are extremely easy to attach, adapting to include speakers seems like an easy mod for a company to make. We obviously know right now that it's not as good, but I'd bet a headstrap with in-built speakers, that there'll be a headstrap with in-built speakers, coming fairly soon.

If I'm happy to pay $600 for something, I'm just as happy to pay $300 + $250 in extras to improve it.

As was pointed out, the non-capacitive touch controllers, how much is a pair of those going to cost?

Personally, I think in the end, it depends on your usage. If you don't care about the cable, then you want the best visuals your budget can afford, since virtually every other aspect can be improved by other means, whether it's audio, comfort or capacitive touch etc. Right now the G2 is looking likely to have the better visuals.

I will point out, that it's been mentioned that they're hoping to allow the quest 2 screen to get a higher refresh rate for some games, they were talking about hoping to get 120hz for the likes of beat sabre.

 

[andybird123]

Except we can expect 3rd party accessories to handle that, they may not have been released yet, but I strongly suspect they will be. The headsets are extremely easy to attach, adapting to include speakers seems like an easy mod for a company to make. We obviously know right now that it's not as good, but I'd bet a headstrap with in-built speakers, that there'll be a headstrap with in-built speakers, coming fairly soon.

If I'm happy to pay $600 for something, I'm just as happy to pay $300 + $250 in extras to improve it.

As was pointed out, the non-capacitive touch controllers, how much is a pair of those going to cost?

Personally, I think in the end, it depends on your usage. If you don't care about the cable, then you want the best visuals your budget can afford, since virtually every other aspect can be improved by other means, whether it's audio, comfort or capacitive touch etc. Right now the G2 is looking likely to have the better visuals.

I will point out, that it's been mentioned that they're hoping to allow the quest 2 screen to get a higher refresh rate for some games, they were talking about hoping to get 120hz for the likes of beat sabre.

If we were to get a quest 2 we would almost exclusively use it as a PC headset - if they get wireless working ok then definitely, but not instead of a G2. But I already have beat saber on Steam, so the chances of me buying it again on Facebook's store is non existent, so it really does hinge on how bad the compression is over wifi6.

I get why someone would get a Q2 instead of a G2, but "better visuals and audio" is definitely not in there. "Cheaper and willing to put up with..." is a more apt description.

 

[tangey]

Sorry newb question, but i would guess most use airpods or similar? Is there no bluetooth audio?

Wireless audio would be an ideal solution, unfortunately bluetooth results in a delay between the video action and the audio associated with it. Software for playing back films etc can be smart enough to delay the video so as it matches the audio. But that isn't useful in scenarios where the video outcome is dependent on input, i.e. gameplay. You don't want the video lagging behind player input just so as the audio is in sync.

 

[Ravenger]

Wireless audio would be an ideal solution, unfortunately bluetooth results in a delay between the video action and the audio associated with it. Software for playing back films etc can be smart enough to delay the video so as it matches the audio. But that isn't useful in scenarios where the video outcome is dependent on input, i.e. gameplay. You don't want the video lagging behind player input just so as the audio is in sync.

The XR2 chip in Quest does support low-latency bluetooth audio, but it may not be enabled yet. Hopefully it'll be possible to enable it as that would be the best solution by far.

 

[andybird123]

If you have found a link comparing the visuals (and not just the resolution specifications), I’d be very interested.

Tyriel Wood has posted up TTL video of Q1 Vs Q2, he uses the same setup for all of his TTL videos so you can get his G2 video up as well and flick between the two. The G2 is very obviously better than the Q2.

Whether it's £100-200 better will be debatable, bit it is noticeably better even in native mode before you contend with compression artefacts.

 

[Unseul]

He also says he expects to see further improvements once the quest 2 it's actually released, since very little has actually been updated for it yet.

 

[andybird123]

He also says he expects to see further improvements once the quest 2 it's actually released, since very little has actually been updated for it yet.

Game updates can't fix SDE and mura.

 

[danoliver1]

Game updates can't fix SDE and mura.

Which headset has sde and mura?

 

[Unseul]

So as he says in the video, in the image below, the Q2 is still not operating at it's native resolution (as was the case in a lot of the images he shows), the one where he stands in front of the "mirror" is native, and you can see the text vastly improve between q1 and 2 there.

So below is a comparison between g2 and q2, g2 at native resolution, q2 not yet (but still looking better than q1 due to far less sde). I've tried to edit it from when the video had the letters at basically equal size, rather than whatever the zoom settings he was using. Straight printscreen, cut and paste job, no resizing of letters etc. I've got a 1440p monitor so I had the video running at 1440p. IBut as the zoom should have already gone below that resolution, only the reference image may be effected by that.



I've also marked out just how small these letters are, to try and at least give some idea of the amount of zoom, watch the video to get a better idea.

I would want to see this again when q2 is using proper resolution though, so there's still room for improvement from the q2. The black vertical lines we see on the Q2, do not seem to appear closer to the centre of the image, so I'm wondering if these are foveated rendering in the q2, once again related to the fact that it's not operating on it's proper power/resolution ability. It also may not appear to the same degree when linked, we'd need a video showing linked vs not linked, and again, we need to wait until the link is upgrade for the q2 before that's worth doing.

I think we need to wait until the q2 and software is properly updated and running correctly before this becomes a fair comparison myself.

 

[danlightbulb]

There was a huge difference between Q1 and Q2 in the through the lens video even without the underlying resolution/textures being updated. As for comparisons with the G2, the G2 still has 30% more pixels than the Q2 so one would expect it to be sharper and its being driven direct from PC too so its really not comparable at this time.

But on raw pixel counts:
Quest 1 - 4.6 million pixels, 9.2 million sub pixels
Quest 2 - 7.0 million pixels, 21.1 million sub pixels
G2 - 9.3 million pixels, 28 million sub pixels

Plus the G2 has separate screens per eye. Its a better headset most definitely, and that's fine, but doesn't change the Q2 seemingly being a vast improvement over Q1 we've just got to hope that the Link connection or Virtual Desktop can take advantage of it.

For reference:
Rift S - 3.7 million pixels, 11 million sub pixels
Index - 4.6 million pixels, 13.8 million sub pixels (but these pixels are stretched over a wider FOV than the other headsets)

 

[andybird123]

So as he says in the video, in the image below, the Q2 is still not operating at it's native resolution (as was the case in a lot of the images he shows), the one where he stands in front of the "mirror" is native, and you can see the text vastly improve between q1 and 2 there.

So below is a comparison between g2 and q2, g2 at native resolution, q2 not yet (but still looking better than q1 due to far less sde). I've tried to edit it from when the video had the letters at basically equal size, rather than whatever the zoom settings he was using. Straight printscreen, cut and paste job, no resizing of letters etc. I've got a 1440p monitor so I had the video running at 1440p. IBut as the zoom should have already gone below that resolution, only the reference image may be effected by that.

Thanks, I was going to do this as people weren't getting it - in the image of the Q2 you can see the SDE is markedly worse than the G2 images, software updates can't fix that. The images are softer on the Q2 due to some not operating at native resolution yes and that can be fixed with a game update, but there is more "wrong" with the Q2 image compared to the G2 that can't. And then compression is only going to make that worse, not better. The quest2 image is inconsistent, so its either SDE or Mura (which literally means inconsistency).

The Q2 is cheap, very cheap depending on whether you want to put up with the cloth strap, but there is no argument that its going to be better than the G2, or even on par.

 

[Unseul]

Thanks, I was going to do this as people weren't getting it - in the image of the Q2 you can see the SDE is markedly worse than the G2 images, software updates can't fix that. The images are softer on the Q2 due to some not operating at native resolution yes and that can be fixed with a game update, but there is more "wrong" with the Q2 image compared to the G2 that can't. And then compression is only going to make that worse, not better.

The Q2 is cheap, very cheap depending on whether you want to put up with the cloth strap, but there is no argument that its going to be better than the G2, or even on par.

It's not screen door effect.

Here's another part of the same zoomed in image. Same degree of zoom.



Those vertical lines only appear away from the centre. Screen door would appear on every part of the image. It's clearly a software influenced effect, and as repeatedly stated, the q2 is not running to it's full capabilities on this comparison.

 

[danlightbulb]

It doesn't really matter too much what you see at mega zoom levels its what you see in normal use. In Quest 1 there was visible SDE but it didn't detract from the experience really, but in Quest 2 I don't think it will be noticeable at all and all being well the sharpness that we'll see in middle and far distance should greatly improve.

 

[Bazippy]

I think he said there will be a side by side link video today. So that should be interesting. I'm trying to compare a quest 2 to a original HTC vive as I enjoyed it but the screen door was awful. Basically it's so much better so I can't wait for mine to arrive.