Valve's first in-house virtual reality hardware should be dropping at your door soon, if you were one of the lucky ones to order it quickly in the first batch. Additionally, Gabe Newell and others held speeches at a little launch party.
You can see the video of the speeches below:
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It's quite hard to hear what co-founder Gabe Newell actually says, as he addresses both Valve employees and visitors, since he decided not to use a microphone. I've listened and done my best to quote him and yes, there was a Half-Life 3 joke included:
The history at Valve, we had a lot of significant milestones. We had Half-Life our first single-player game, we had Source that was our first engine, we had Counter-Strike our first multiplayer game, then we had Steam and Workshop and Mac and Linux support just on and on. Index is another of those critical milestones for our company. Which represents a tremendous amount of hard work and creativity on your parts.
This represents a significant breakthrough in the field, visual fidelity and all that implies in terms of optical design, panel design, industrial design that's a real breakthrough. Knuckles, is hugely important not only for how it's going to help ourselves and our game partners make their games better but how it enables entirely new kinds of games.
Milestones aren't really the end of anything, they're really the beginning. So Half-Life led to Half-Life 2, Source led to Source 2, the experiments we did with Team Fortress 2 were what enabled us to build Dota. Artifact is the reason we're able to do Underlords, so maybe someday the number 2 will lead us to that shiny integer glowing on a mountain someplace, we'll just have to see.
We're gonna all look back at some point and realise the consequences of what we've built with your creativity and your hard work, for us and for all of our customers.
*Gabe Newell then addresses the "Green Tag people" (visitors)*
Shipping a product isn't the end, it's really the beginning. So in the case of the Index there's going to be some obvious next steps. It's simple for us to broaden our distribution from outside US, EU and other countries. There's obvious ways for us to lower the cost, there's obvious ways to the product lighter and improve the ergonomics, but then we get to speculative issues. We are looking at several methods of doing untethered Index, we have a lot of ideas for kind of revolutionary things to do with display optical technology, there's lots of opportunities to continue to improve, the volumes your tracked in, those are going to be pretty fundamental opportunities.
What they're going to enable is the best part of this, when you're going to start seeing new VR games from Valve and from our other partners and that's where you guys come in. See it's very hard for us to develop a product to work at Valve without customers, and we have to guess what's important and what trade offs we should make and will this be valuable to you. We can sort of run a simulation in our head but it's so much better when we actually have real customers we can engage with. We';re really entering the best time as creators, we're reaching a time when you guys are involved, you not only telling us how to deal with Index you're teaching us how to make Index better and that's awesome, such an exciting time for all of us.
If you're looking to buy one now, you're in for a wait as the store page on Steam is currently noting shipping by September 30th for some bundles, with the headset by itself not having a date.
This is going to be a very interesting time for PC gaming, quite exciting really especially if Valve are going to be putting out some VR games. However, I do hope they remember all those who cannot afford the hardware or prefer not to use it. I guess that all depends on how many people pick it up of course but considering it sold out early-on during the pre-orders, it's looking like it will do rather well.
I've emailed Valve again today to see if we're getting a unit, we were initially told we were but additional emails since have gone unanswered—I'm hoping the emails just got buried.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Sil_el_mot Jun 29, 2019
I sure will test some linux-games this weekend. But i am not good at writing reviews. maybe i just sum it up in the comments
2 Likes, Who?
"Not available in your country."
This was also the case with the Steam Link and the Steam Controller, at least for a long while after their initial release. I'm willing to bet that's part of the reason neither of thise ever really took off.
This was also the case with the Steam Link and the Steam Controller, at least for a long while after their initial release. I'm willing to bet that's part of the reason neither of thise ever really took off.
0 Likes
Did you try to remove the noise with audacity? I used it a few times for this purpose with great results.Also, Liam, thank you for taking the time and effort to transcribe Gaben's speech. Transcription, especially of less than stellar audio, is very not-at-all fun under the best of circumstances. Your going the extra mile for we readers is very, very appreciated! :)Thanks for the kind words, turning it up enough to hear it properly was quite painful on the ears with all the banging and background noise. I thought people would appreciate it though :)
0 Likes
If I was smart I might have tried that :PDid you try to remove the noise with audacity? I used it a few times for this purpose with great results.Also, Liam, thank you for taking the time and effort to transcribe Gaben's speech. Transcription, especially of less than stellar audio, is very not-at-all fun under the best of circumstances. Your going the extra mile for we readers is very, very appreciated! :)Thanks for the kind words, turning it up enough to hear it properly was quite painful on the ears with all the banging and background noise. I thought people would appreciate it though :)
2 Likes, Who?
"Not available in your country."Wait, wait . . . you're a hologram. What do you need with VR? You already are VR!
This was also the case with the Steam Link and the Steam Controller, at least for a long while after their initial release. I'm willing to bet that's part of the reason neither of thise ever really took off.
2 Likes, Who?
Sil_el_mot Jun 30, 2019
Ok, so I tested the Valve-Index with several games for hours and my experience especially for Linux (Hardware is tested elsewhere enough) is as follows:
I played some Linux games before on the HTC Vive. Games that worked before and were quiet playable were Beatsaber, Pavlov and Arizona Sunshine, The Lab (most of the areas, and my beloved strong-bow) and of course the native Linux-builds of Croteams games like Serious Sam First Encounter and The Talos Principle.
With the Index however I found it really hard to play on Linux. The Proton/SteamVR-combination works very bad. Most of the tested games were just running smoothly when i downgraded from 90hz to 80hz and set the quality from 100% to 70%. For all games I had to set Reprojection off in SteamVR. This is also mentioned a lot in the issue-tracker of SteamVR for Linux. I am using a Nvidia GTX 1070 Windforce OC which should run the games without problems, but it seems the power gets blown into nowhere.
I tested the same games in windows and they ran in full resolution with 90hz and 100% quality like a charm. So it seems it‘s not the hardware that causes the problem here.
And now for the games. There were some highlights that ran well, but let first come to the ... yeah well... disappointments:
Arizona Sunshine which worked before now doesn't work anymore (i looked up Protondb and some fellow already pointed this out)
The Lab doesn't work anymore (doesn't start, same as Arizona, also already in Protondb)
Pavlov worked well after setting to 80hz and 70% .
Zero Caliber works on 80hz and 70% and very low settings in game (on windows i can play on high without problem) (Worked before on Vive 1 without a problem)
SuperhotVR works great at 80hz and 70% quality and maybe because the original Superhot was optimized for Linux this particular game ran also on 90hz and 100% quality like a charm (but maybe because of the style of game the gpu doesn't have that much to work)
the Unwelcomed which is a Linux native just started the VR-mode with forcing Proton and then it suddenly quit while selecting a level.
Keep talking and nobody explodes also ran on VR after forcing Proton. this worked right well on 100% after setting to 80hz.
Everspace ran after adding "-vr" to the starting options, but quit suddenly right after the start menu and the beginning of a mission. With Proton again it runs, but not well. I had to lower the graphics-quality a lot to have it smooth running.
Rise of the Tomb Raider neither work for Linux-VR. Not as Linux native and not with forced steam play. it just quits without even getting an intro or menu.
Moss started well and fastly but didn't accept any input of neither the index controllers nor the vive wands.
Beatsaber ran really well with 80hz and 100% quality. with 90hz it was a bit laggy when to many boxes came flowing towards you.
I didn't try games like Onward, because in the past the Anticheat-System kicked me out of the Menu right on start. We have to wait till EAC and BattleEye are integrated in Proton.
All in all these tests didn't run to well. A lot of games work, but with a high loss of quality. Some games worked before and now don't anymore. But there is hope that this will be solved with further Proton-developements. Maybe Valve will have a closer look on getting some VR-titles to work after they launched their Index.
Now, to not go out of this saddened:
The games from Croteam, not only optimized for Linux but also for Linux-VR work great without any quality loss.
The Sound in Serious Sam the first encounter was awesome with the Index and in The Talos Principle i got blown away by this gods voice, full and strong in my ears. I was very surprised to see the Vive Index-Controllers be well implemented in Talos. It was fun trying metalfingers and indecent gestures with these Robot-hands. These Games worked on high settings with 90hz and 100% without a hassle.
Last edited by Sil_el_mot on 30 June 2019 at 1:35 pm UTC
I played some Linux games before on the HTC Vive. Games that worked before and were quiet playable were Beatsaber, Pavlov and Arizona Sunshine, The Lab (most of the areas, and my beloved strong-bow) and of course the native Linux-builds of Croteams games like Serious Sam First Encounter and The Talos Principle.
With the Index however I found it really hard to play on Linux. The Proton/SteamVR-combination works very bad. Most of the tested games were just running smoothly when i downgraded from 90hz to 80hz and set the quality from 100% to 70%. For all games I had to set Reprojection off in SteamVR. This is also mentioned a lot in the issue-tracker of SteamVR for Linux. I am using a Nvidia GTX 1070 Windforce OC which should run the games without problems, but it seems the power gets blown into nowhere.
I tested the same games in windows and they ran in full resolution with 90hz and 100% quality like a charm. So it seems it‘s not the hardware that causes the problem here.
And now for the games. There were some highlights that ran well, but let first come to the ... yeah well... disappointments:
Arizona Sunshine which worked before now doesn't work anymore (i looked up Protondb and some fellow already pointed this out)
The Lab doesn't work anymore (doesn't start, same as Arizona, also already in Protondb)
Pavlov worked well after setting to 80hz and 70% .
Zero Caliber works on 80hz and 70% and very low settings in game (on windows i can play on high without problem) (Worked before on Vive 1 without a problem)
SuperhotVR works great at 80hz and 70% quality and maybe because the original Superhot was optimized for Linux this particular game ran also on 90hz and 100% quality like a charm (but maybe because of the style of game the gpu doesn't have that much to work)
the Unwelcomed which is a Linux native just started the VR-mode with forcing Proton and then it suddenly quit while selecting a level.
Keep talking and nobody explodes also ran on VR after forcing Proton. this worked right well on 100% after setting to 80hz.
Everspace ran after adding "-vr" to the starting options, but quit suddenly right after the start menu and the beginning of a mission. With Proton again it runs, but not well. I had to lower the graphics-quality a lot to have it smooth running.
Rise of the Tomb Raider neither work for Linux-VR. Not as Linux native and not with forced steam play. it just quits without even getting an intro or menu.
Moss started well and fastly but didn't accept any input of neither the index controllers nor the vive wands.
Beatsaber ran really well with 80hz and 100% quality. with 90hz it was a bit laggy when to many boxes came flowing towards you.
I didn't try games like Onward, because in the past the Anticheat-System kicked me out of the Menu right on start. We have to wait till EAC and BattleEye are integrated in Proton.
All in all these tests didn't run to well. A lot of games work, but with a high loss of quality. Some games worked before and now don't anymore. But there is hope that this will be solved with further Proton-developements. Maybe Valve will have a closer look on getting some VR-titles to work after they launched their Index.
Now, to not go out of this saddened:
The games from Croteam, not only optimized for Linux but also for Linux-VR work great without any quality loss.
The Sound in Serious Sam the first encounter was awesome with the Index and in The Talos Principle i got blown away by this gods voice, full and strong in my ears. I was very surprised to see the Vive Index-Controllers be well implemented in Talos. It was fun trying metalfingers and indecent gestures with these Robot-hands. These Games worked on high settings with 90hz and 100% without a hassle.
Last edited by Sil_el_mot on 30 June 2019 at 1:35 pm UTC
3 Likes, Who?
Ok, so I tested the Valve-Index with several games for hours and my experience especially for Linux (Hardware is tested elsewhere enough) is as follows:
I played some Linux games before on the HTC Vive. Games that worked before and were quiet playable were Beatsaber, Pavlov and Arizona Sunshine, The Lab (most of the areas, and my beloved strong-bow) and of course the native Linux-builds of Croteams games like Serious Sam First Encounter and The Talos Principle.
With the Index however I found it really hard to play on Linux. The Proton/SteamVR-combination works very bad. Most of the tested games were just running smoothly when i downgraded from 90hz to 80hz and set the quality from 100% to 70%. For all games I had to set Reprojection off in SteamVR. This is also mentioned a lot in the issue-tracker of SteamVR for Linux. I am using a Nvidia GTX 1070 Windforce OC which should run the games without problems, but it seems the power gets blown into nowhere.
I tested the same games in windows and they ran in full resolution with 90hz and 100% quality like a charm. So it seems it‘s not the hardware that causes the problem here.
And now for the games. There were some highlights that ran well, but let first come to the ... yeah well... disappointments:
Arizona Sunshine which worked before now doesn't work anymore (i looked up Protondb and some fellow already pointed this out)
The Lab doesn't work anymore (doesn't start, same as Arizona, also already in Protondb)
Pavlov worked well after setting to 80hz and 70% .
Zero Caliber works on 80hz and 70% and very low settings in game (on windows i can play on high without problem) (Worked before on Vive 1 without a problem)
SuperhotVR works great at 80hz and 70% quality and maybe because the original Superhot was optimized for Linux this particular game ran also on 90hz and 100% quality like a charm (but maybe because of the style of game the gpu doesn't have that much to work)
the Unwelcomed which is a Linux native just started the VR-mode with forcing Proton and then it suddenly quit while selecting a level.
Keep talking and nobody explodes also ran on VR after forcing Proton. this worked right well on 100% after setting to 80hz.
Everspace ran after adding "-vr" to the starting options, but quit suddenly right after the start menu and the beginning of a mission. With Proton again it runs, but not well. I had to lower the graphics-quality a lot to have it smooth running.
Rise of the Tomb Raider neither work for Linux-VR. Not as Linux native and not with forced steam play. it just quits without even getting an intro or menu.
Moss started well and fastly but didn't accept any input of neither the index controllers nor the vive wands.
Beatsaber ran really well with 80hz and 100% quality. with 90hz it was a bit laggy when to many boxes came flowing towards you.
I didn't try games like Onward, because in the past the Anticheat-System kicked me out of the Menu right on start. We have to wait till EAC and BattleEye are integrated in Proton.
All in all these tests didn't run to well. A lot of games work, but with a high loss of quality. Some games worked before and now don't anymore. But there is hope that this will be solved with further Proton-developements. Maybe Valve will have a closer look on getting some VR-titles to work after they launched their Index.
Now, to not go out of this saddened:
The games from Croteam, not only optimized for Linux but also for Linux-VR work great without any quality loss.
The Sound in Serious Sam the first encounter was awesome with the Index and in The Talos Principle i got blown away by this gods voice, full and strong in my ears. I was very surprised to see the Vive Index-Controllers be well implemented in Talos. It was fun trying metalfingers and indecent gestures with these Robot-hands. These Games worked on high settings with 90hz and 100% without a hassle.
This is actually known, the SteamVR bridge inside Proton wasn't updated to also bridge the new Steam Input changes as well.
Now that all these games that updated specifically for Index controllers they no longer work right under Proton.
Valve are aware of the issue and there are at least two issues on GitHub for games suffering from this:
H3VR (the original): https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/2836
Moss: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/2843
I would recommend creating new issues/updating existing ones for the games you have issues with that used to work to increase the signal. It would be best to always at least refer to the H3VR issue as well.
2 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje Jun 30, 2019
Ok, so I tested the Valve-Index with several games for hours and my experience especially for Linux (Hardware is tested elsewhere enough) is as follows:
I played some Linux games before on the HTC Vive. Games that worked before and were quiet playable were Beatsaber, Pavlov and Arizona Sunshine, The Lab (most of the areas, and my beloved strong-bow) and of course the native Linux-builds of Croteams games like Serious Sam First Encounter and The Talos Principle.
With the Index however I found it really hard to play on Linux. The Proton/SteamVR-combination works very bad. Most of the tested games were just running smoothly when i downgraded from 90hz to 80hz and set the quality from 100% to 70%. For all games I had to set Reprojection off in SteamVR. This is also mentioned a lot in the issue-tracker of SteamVR for Linux. I am using a Nvidia GTX 1070 Windforce OC which should run the games without problems, but it seems the power gets blown into nowhere.
I tested the same games in windows and they ran in full resolution with 90hz and 100% quality like a charm. So it seems it‘s not the hardware that causes the problem here.
And now for the games. There were some highlights that ran well, but let first come to the ... yeah well... disappointments:
Arizona Sunshine which worked before now doesn't work anymore (i looked up Protondb and some fellow already pointed this out)
The Lab doesn't work anymore (doesn't start, same as Arizona, also already in Protondb)
Pavlov worked well after setting to 80hz and 70% .
Zero Caliber works on 80hz and 70% and very low settings in game (on windows i can play on high without problem) (Worked before on Vive 1 without a problem)
SuperhotVR works great at 80hz and 70% quality and maybe because the original Superhot was optimized for Linux this particular game ran also on 90hz and 100% quality like a charm (but maybe because of the style of game the gpu doesn't have that much to work)
the Unwelcomed which is a Linux native just started the VR-mode with forcing Proton and then it suddenly quit while selecting a level.
Keep talking and nobody explodes also ran on VR after forcing Proton. this worked right well on 100% after setting to 80hz.
Everspace ran after adding "-vr" to the starting options, but quit suddenly right after the start menu and the beginning of a mission. With Proton again it runs, but not well. I had to lower the graphics-quality a lot to have it smooth running.
Rise of the Tomb Raider neither work for Linux-VR. Not as Linux native and not with forced steam play. it just quits without even getting an intro or menu.
Moss started well and fastly but didn't accept any input of neither the index controllers nor the vive wands.
Beatsaber ran really well with 80hz and 100% quality. with 90hz it was a bit laggy when to many boxes came flowing towards you.
I didn't try games like Onward, because in the past the Anticheat-System kicked me out of the Menu right on start. We have to wait till EAC and BattleEye are integrated in Proton.
All in all these tests didn't run to well. A lot of games work, but with a high loss of quality. Some games worked before and now don't anymore. But there is hope that this will be solved with further Proton-developements. Maybe Valve will have a closer look on getting some VR-titles to work after they launched their Index.
Now, to not go out of this saddened:
The games from Croteam, not only optimized for Linux but also for Linux-VR work great without any quality loss.
The Sound in Serious Sam the first encounter was awesome with the Index and in The Talos Principle i got blown away by this gods voice, full and strong in my ears. I was very surprised to see the Vive Index-Controllers be well implemented in Talos. It was fun trying metalfingers and indecent gestures with these Robot-hands. These Games worked on high settings with 90hz and 100% without a hassle.
To add to this;
Blade and Sorcery Loads, but then there is no input.
Obduction Loads, but then the menu disappears in VR to start the game, but I did notice it on the desktop, so will have to test that out again in a bit.
VR Benchmark Kanojo is pervy but works, and ran at 60fps (I'm guessing it's locked at this?) but didn't seem to be running at 60fps, and was smooth.
Battlezone works FLAWLESSLY and is amazingly fun to boot! Is rather hard though since I was using the Steam controller, and probably should be using something with a centering control stick.
Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs Works flawlessly.
GORN Works almost perfectly. There is a weird distorted line that appears, with a bunch of tiny pixel colors. Once you're fighting things you hardly notice it's there, and in fact it may have disappeared.
The Gallery - Episode 1: Call of the Starseed as GORN, the line of distortion was there as soon as the game started loading, but disappeared once I went to the SteamVR Home. Unity bug? Not sure what engine they're done in.
Elite: Dangerous Works, but I clearly need to change the settings since it is running as if I'd put everything on max (which makes it crawl on Windows too) but oh man does it look amazing on the Index.
Cooling down a bit before I test some more. My fatness makes me heat up and sweat on the pad, but at least it just seems 'cool' rather than drenched like the original Vive pads do. The headset is MUCH more comfortable than the Vive and the Vive Pro, so much easier to put on and get to that sweet spot for sure. The Vive Pro was a bit better than the original one, but it still had a little bit of awkwardness where I'd still have to spend a good amount of time for it to be just right. Same with the PSVR, Valve Index is definitely the best out of the four for comfort, visual clarity and sound. Sound is absolutely amazing.
Last edited by slaapliedje on 2 July 2019 at 3:16 pm UTC
3 Likes, Who?
SlickMcRunFast Jul 3, 2019
+1 Linux VR user tomorrow.
Would be nice if the PC Info section listed VR hardware.
Would be nice if the PC Info section listed VR hardware.
1 Likes, Who?
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