Valve are making the Index VR kit available in more countries

Quoting: sub

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: F.UltraWell that is what being outside the EU gets you (combined with being a small country)

Sounds unlikely. We're member of EEA, and have access to the inner market of EU. And absolutely everything else of hardware - including Vive who it looks like Index is based on (same base stations) - is here. But The Valve hardware specifically is not. I know of no other products in the same situation. Never heard of.

My guess is, Gabe traveled there once and also had food that poisoned him, so no Valve products for Norway!

Don't you have that delicious fermented fish?

That's us their friendly eastern neighbour of Sweden that have the famous fish (surströmming) that you can find in every "let's puke" video on the Internet :)

Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: F.UltraWell that is what being outside the EU gets you (combined with being a small country)

Sounds unlikely. We're member of EEA, and have access to the inner market of EU. And absolutely everything else of hardware - including Vive who it looks like Index is based on (same base stations) - is here. But The Valve hardware specifically is not. I know of no other products in the same situation. Never heard of.

I know that you are part of EEA, I was just thinking about weather or not that agreement also covers the certification of electrical appliances, those you have to apply for for each and every iteration of a product so it does not matter if the Index is based on Vive or not since the Index would require their own certification. Part of the inner market agreement is that products are certified once for the entire EU.

Anyway it's very strange and a major oversight by Valve. If you happen to live near Oslo then consider that I live in Göteborg (and have an office next to Gothia Towers / Liseberg) so if you ever plan to make a trip to the east I could give you assistance (if you now would trust random dude on the Internet of course).

Quoting: sub

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: F.UltraWell that is what being outside the EU gets you (combined with being a small country)

Sounds unlikely. We're member of EEA, and have access to the inner market of EU. And absolutely everything else of hardware - including Vive who it looks like Index is based on (same base stations) - is here. But The Valve hardware specifically is not. I know of no other products in the same situation. Never heard of.

My guess is, Gabe traveled there once and also had food that poisoned him, so no Valve products for Norway!

Don't you have that delicious fermented fish?

Back on topic.
You said you basically own all new VR headsets, right?

Is the higher price of the Index vs. the Vive / Oculus justified?
Or in other words, for someone only going for ONE VR kit,
would you say going for the Index is worth the price?

Thanks for your input! :)

I own the Original Vive, Vive Pro and Index. Each has it's pros/cons. Vive is nice because you can use a lesser GPU to get nice FPS. Vive Pro got a lot clearer, but I was running into issues with screen tearing. Turns out it was an issue with having G-Sync monitors, which I believe they have since fixed (I don't know, because I ended up getting the Index which didn't have the problem.)
Now here's where it gets a little muddled. The Index and the Vive Pro both have the same resolution. But there are some advantages to the Index in comfort, one they ditched the velcro method of holding the facemask on and instead have a cool magnetic one. The downside of course is that you have to currently buy those from Valve, but I do like it better than the sweat soaker that the HTC comes with, and you can buy third party fake leather ones that are pretty nice, though if you sweat a lot, you might want to use the sponge, since then it should prevent sweat from dripping into it.

Please also note that the Index uses LCD vs OLED, so while the screen door effect (which I never noticed until watching a movie, now I can't unnotice it...) is a lot less on the Index, the black levels are off, so everything kind of looks like the contrast is up too high. This isn't all that noticeable in video games, but in the virtual theater, it kind of is. Any games where you need to read, I'd suggest either the Vive Pro or Index. It was pretty much too fuzzy for me on the original Vive. It's clearest on the Index, but definitely a huge improvement over the original Vive with the Pro.

Onto the controllers. Index vs Vive wands. Now, almost all games out there support the vive wands. Not as many support the Index controllers, which is a shame. You can program them of course, much like the Steam controllers. But as far as future proofing goes, I'd get the Index ones even if you're getting a Vive setup. Also, I believe the 2.0 lighthouses are supposed to be more future proof as well.

Overall, price of them, I'd say get the Index. You're getting better resolution, better controllers, and the 2.0 hardware for a bit more than the original Vive, but far less than a full Vive Pro setup, which I think is still 1400? Plus you get the Half Life game for free :)

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: sub

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: F.UltraWell that is what being outside the EU gets you (combined with being a small country)

Sounds unlikely. We're member of EEA, and have access to the inner market of EU. And absolutely everything else of hardware - including Vive who it looks like Index is based on (same base stations) - is here. But The Valve hardware specifically is not. I know of no other products in the same situation. Never heard of.

My guess is, Gabe traveled there once and also had food that poisoned him, so no Valve products for Norway!

Don't you have that delicious fermented fish?

Back on topic.
You said you basically own all new VR headsets, right?

Is the higher price of the Index vs. the Vive / Oculus justified?
Or in other words, for someone only going for ONE VR kit,
would you say going for the Index is worth the price?

Thanks for your input! :)

I own the Original Vive, Vive Pro and Index. Each has it's pros/cons. Vive is nice because you can use a lesser GPU to get nice FPS. Vive Pro got a lot clearer, but I was running into issues with screen tearing. Turns out it was an issue with having G-Sync monitors, which I believe they have since fixed (I don't know, because I ended up getting the Index which didn't have the problem.)
Now here's where it gets a little muddled. The Index and the Vive Pro both have the same resolution. But there are some advantages to the Index in comfort, one they ditched the velcro method of holding the facemask on and instead have a cool magnetic one. The downside of course is that you have to currently buy those from Valve, but I do like it better than the sweat soaker that the HTC comes with, and you can buy third party fake leather ones that are pretty nice, though if you sweat a lot, you might want to use the sponge, since then it should prevent sweat from dripping into it.

Please also note that the Index uses LCD vs OLED, so while the screen door effect (which I never noticed until watching a movie, now I can't unnotice it...) is a lot less on the Index, the black levels are off, so everything kind of looks like the contrast is up too high. This isn't all that noticeable in video games, but in the virtual theater, it kind of is. Any games where you need to read, I'd suggest either the Vive Pro or Index. It was pretty much too fuzzy for me on the original Vive. It's clearest on the Index, but definitely a huge improvement over the original Vive with the Pro.

Onto the controllers. Index vs Vive wands. Now, almost all games out there support the vive wands. Not as many support the Index controllers, which is a shame. You can program them of course, much like the Steam controllers. But as far as future proofing goes, I'd get the Index ones even if you're getting a Vive setup. Also, I believe the 2.0 lighthouses are supposed to be more future proof as well.

Overall, price of them, I'd say get the Index. You're getting better resolution, better controllers, and the 2.0 hardware for a bit more than the original Vive, but far less than a full Vive Pro setup, which I think is still 1400? Plus you get the Half Life game for free :)

Thank you very much for that helpful and detailed insight. :)

I still have a DK2 that I can't use since years.
My desktop has a Phenom II that's not supported (anymore) by the Occulus RTE.
My notebook is also not supported anymore, as it is an (awful) Optimus system.
Yet, both configuration were indeed supported when the DK2 shipped.
And it worked fine. :)

Actually, I didn't want to buy a new VR system (which, in my case, also means a new PC).
But that HL:Alyx thing changed everything.
HL1+2 both meant truly outstanding gaming experiences to me.
And that trailer blew my mind.
I simply don't want to miss that one. :/

Not sure they'll have a good deal on the next Steam sale,
but I seriously consider to get the Index now...

Quoting: sub

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: sub

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: F.UltraWell that is what being outside the EU gets you (combined with being a small country)

Sounds unlikely. We're member of EEA, and have access to the inner market of EU. And absolutely everything else of hardware - including Vive who it looks like Index is based on (same base stations) - is here. But The Valve hardware specifically is not. I know of no other products in the same situation. Never heard of.

My guess is, Gabe traveled there once and also had food that poisoned him, so no Valve products for Norway!

Don't you have that delicious fermented fish?

Back on topic.
You said you basically own all new VR headsets, right?

Is the higher price of the Index vs. the Vive / Oculus justified?
Or in other words, for someone only going for ONE VR kit,
would you say going for the Index is worth the price?

Thanks for your input! :)

I own the Original Vive, Vive Pro and Index. Each has it's pros/cons. Vive is nice because you can use a lesser GPU to get nice FPS. Vive Pro got a lot clearer, but I was running into issues with screen tearing. Turns out it was an issue with having G-Sync monitors, which I believe they have since fixed (I don't know, because I ended up getting the Index which didn't have the problem.)
Now here's where it gets a little muddled. The Index and the Vive Pro both have the same resolution. But there are some advantages to the Index in comfort, one they ditched the velcro method of holding the facemask on and instead have a cool magnetic one. The downside of course is that you have to currently buy those from Valve, but I do like it better than the sweat soaker that the HTC comes with, and you can buy third party fake leather ones that are pretty nice, though if you sweat a lot, you might want to use the sponge, since then it should prevent sweat from dripping into it.

Please also note that the Index uses LCD vs OLED, so while the screen door effect (which I never noticed until watching a movie, now I can't unnotice it...) is a lot less on the Index, the black levels are off, so everything kind of looks like the contrast is up too high. This isn't all that noticeable in video games, but in the virtual theater, it kind of is. Any games where you need to read, I'd suggest either the Vive Pro or Index. It was pretty much too fuzzy for me on the original Vive. It's clearest on the Index, but definitely a huge improvement over the original Vive with the Pro.

Onto the controllers. Index vs Vive wands. Now, almost all games out there support the vive wands. Not as many support the Index controllers, which is a shame. You can program them of course, much like the Steam controllers. But as far as future proofing goes, I'd get the Index ones even if you're getting a Vive setup. Also, I believe the 2.0 lighthouses are supposed to be more future proof as well.

Overall, price of them, I'd say get the Index. You're getting better resolution, better controllers, and the 2.0 hardware for a bit more than the original Vive, but far less than a full Vive Pro setup, which I think is still 1400? Plus you get the Half Life game for free :)

Thank you very much for that helpful and detailed insight. :)

I still have a DK2 that I can't use since years.
My desktop has a Phenom II that's not supported (anymore) by the Occulus RTE.
My notebook is also not supported anymore, as it is an (awful) Optimus system.
Yet, both configuration were indeed supported when the DK2 shipped.
And it worked fine. :)

Actually, I didn't want to buy a new VR system (which, in my case, also means a new PC).
But that HL:Alyx thing changed everything.
HL1+2 both meant truly outstanding gaming experiences to me.
And that trailer blew my mind.
I simply don't want to miss that one. :/

Not sure they'll have a good deal on the next Steam sale,
but I seriously consider to get the Index now...

Yeah, at least the game is included with people who own the Index. I've read some people (who outwardly seem bitter) not believing that a new Half-Life game would be a platform / peripheral seller.

But then, who has gone out and bought a new monitor/graphics card/CPU upgrade just to play a game? I know for many of my upgrades, it was to get something working in Mame that wouldn't work on my previous CPU. Took YEARS for a capable CPU to play the Gauntlet arcade games that use a 3dfx chip, since it uses only raw CPU power for the emulation. These days my upgrades are "Can I play Elite: Dangerous in the best way possible!"

Oh, another side note on the Vive/Vive Pro/Index. The Pro and Index both require a Display Port. So if you're like me and have high resolution / refresh rate monitors that also require display ports, get a card with three of them. That's basically why I jumped from the 1080 to the 2080 :P

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: sub

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: F.UltraWell that is what being outside the EU gets you (combined with being a small country)

Sounds unlikely. We're member of EEA, and have access to the inner market of EU. And absolutely everything else of hardware - including Vive who it looks like Index is based on (same base stations) - is here. But The Valve hardware specifically is not. I know of no other products in the same situation. Never heard of.

My guess is, Gabe traveled there once and also had food that poisoned him, so no Valve products for Norway!

Don't you have that delicious fermented fish?

That's us their friendly eastern neighbour of Sweden that have the famous fish (surströmming) that you can find in every "let's puke" video on the Internet :)

Doesn't Iceland also have a couple of weaponizable fish delicacies?

There's airlines refusing to transport Swedish "Surströmming". :D
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4867024.stm

Quoting: slaapliedjeSo if you're like me and have high resolution / refresh rate monitors that also require display ports, get a card with three of them.

Or buy monitors that support MST / DisplayPort 1.2 daisy chaining. You could also get a DP hub, which is much cheaper than a new GPU. :)

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: slaapliedjeSo if you're like me and have high resolution / refresh rate monitors that also require display ports, get a card with three of them.

Or buy monitors that support MST / DisplayPort 1.2 daisy chaining. You could also get a DP hub, which is much cheaper than a new GPU. :)

Ha, I tried two different DP hubs, neither fully supported the headset+two 144hz monitors.