TechLife Australia – September 2019

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Valve Index

VALVEHASTHEBESTHARDWARE,BUTSTEAMISHOLDINGITBACK.

BUT THE FUTURE of VR is inevitably

expensive and before we hail Valve’s hardware

as our VR savior, it’s worth pointing out that

it’s not without issues (see: a lack of compelling

VR games on Steam and SteamVR’s

problematic troubleshooting process).

But are any of those issues deal-breakers for

Valve’s VR headset? Not at all.

DESIGN

It’s easy to write off the Valve Index as another

nondescript VR headset in the same vein as

any Oculus Rift or HTC Vive headset – but the

devil’s all in the detail here: on the front,

there’s a glossy plastic faceplate above two

front-facing cameras that can be used for

passthrough video and, potentially, AR

applications. Go to put the headset on and

you’ll feel the stone-gray pads that line the

inside; it’s a similar Halo design to what

Oculus is doing on the Rift S, and it feels both

comfortable and snug.

To keep it that way, there are two dials you’ll

need to use – one on the left side that changes

the physical distance from the lens to your

eyes, and the one on that back that makes the

headband tighter or looser. While the second

is definitely important, it’s something we’ve

seen before. It’s the first dial that’s actually

groundbreaking, as that’s what allows the

Index to achieve its industry-leading field of

view spec.

In terms of hard numbers, the Valve Index

uses a dual LCD display with a 1440 x 1600

resolution per eye. Unlike Oculus, which has

actually dropped the refresh rate of its displays

for the Oculus Rift S, the Valve Index has a

120Hz display, with the option to bump this

up to 144Hz. For comparison, the more-

expensive Vive Pro has a lower refresh rate and

smaller field of view, so this actually feels like a

big upgrade.

Inside the box you’ll find the headset itself,

the new Valve Index Controllers (colloquially

referred to as ‘knuckle’ controllers), and the

Version 2.0 Base Stations, which need to be set

up around your room. Now, if you have a Vive

or Vive Pro headset already, the first-gen base

stations are compatible with the Valve Index,

but you’ll probably want to start with the

second-gen stations if you don’t have a

pair already.

Its reliance on external trackers puts the

Index behind the Oculus Rift S, which does

room-scale VR without any external tracking

sensors that need to sit on a shelf. It’s a

trade-off you’ll make by choosing the Valve

Index over the Oculus Rift S, but it’s a

worthwhile one.

PERFORMANCE

Amazingly, while all these features would

seem to require extra horsepower under the

hood of your PC, they actually worked fine

with our much older Nvidia GTX 980 GPU.

That’s a boon for folks who don’t have the

money to upgrade their GPU after buying a

$1,000 VR headset, and it could allow for more

people to get into VR.

That last bit is important, because as more

people adopt VR, more developers will see a

business case for making VR games – right

now, Steam’s VR selection is a bit bare

compared to the ever-expanding main store,

and even the top titles selected by Valve to

show off the new hardware are really just a lot

of old titles that play better with the Knuckle

controllers (see: Space Pirate Trainer, Fruit

Ninja, Beat Saber and Arizona Sunshine).

That said, when we played some newer titles,

like Valve’s Moondust demo, we couldn’t help

but smile. Not only do the games look great on

the high-resolution screen, and play without

any hitches even on our less-than-ideal

IT’S EASY TO WRITE OFF THE

VALVE INDEX AS ANOTHER

NONDESCRIPT VR HEADSET

IN THE SAME VEIN AS ANY

OCULUS RIFT OR HTC VIVE

HEADSET – BUT THE DEVIL’S

ALL IN THE DETAIL HERE: ON

THE FRONT, THERE’S A GLOSSY

PLASTIC FACEPLATE ABOVE

TWO FRONT-FACING CAMER

AS THAT CAN BE USED FOR

PA SST H R OUGH V I DEO

AND, POTENTIALLY,

AR APPLICATIONS.

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