HTC Vive Pre

HTC is best known for making phones, so the Vive Pre is a fleck of a surprise. Instead of following in Samsung's footsteps of a mobile-focused virtual reality platform with the Google Paper-thin-similar Gear VR, HTC's big VR project is a high-stop, PC-tethered headset and command system closer to the consumer model of the Oculus Rift. The HTC Vive Pre, the commencement big official example of a VR organization uniform with Valve's SteamVR platform, is a technically impressive combination of headset, motion controls, and remote sensors that tin can produce what Valve and HTC describe equally whole-room VR.

Since the Vive Pre is a development kit, we will not be giving it an official score. When HTC releases the Vive as a consumer product later this year we will test and rate information technology. The Vive Pre appears to be very similar to the $799 consumer edition of the Vive, only y'all can't actually buy it; it's primarily for developers who want to get a head start on programming for SteamVR.

In the Box

The Vive Pre comes in a comprehensive package that includes everything except the PC needed to run it. Within the box you'll find the VR headset, 2 movement controllers, two base of operations stations for setting upwards the VR area, a link box that connects the necessary hardware to your PC, and a diversity of cables and power supplies to get everything up and running.

It's a complicated packet, especially when compared with the Samsung Gear VR or the Oculus Rift Evolution Kit and DK2. Samsung'southward VR product is but a plastic vanquish with some useful controls and sensors; everything is handled past a smartphone you slide into the headset itself. And the Oculus Rift evolution kits both lack their own dedicated motility controllers; the DK1 uses internal sensors for headset motion tracking, while the DK2 employs a unmarried camera.

HTC Vive Pre

HTC and Valve recommend a PC with at least an Intel Cadre i5-4590 or equivalent CPU, a GeForce GTX 970 video card, and 4GB of RAM, plus a free HDMI 1.4 or DisplayPort 1.2 video output. Basically, you'll need a mid-to-high-end gaming PC or notebook to use the Vive Pre. Nosotros tested information technology with the Asus ROG (G752VT-DH72) gaming notebook, which proved to have enough ability to smoothly run the VR system.

Headset

The headset itself is a big black visor with iii straps that wrap around the sides and the top of your head to hold it over your eyes securely. The straps connect to the headset with fairly elastic hook-and-loop fasteners, so you can easily adjust them for a comfy fit. A bundle of cables run over the peak strap and downwardly behind your caput from the display, trailing in a very long (at least ten feet) wire that terminates in HDMI, USB, and power connectors. A fourth connector, a three.5mm port for headphones, ends merely behind the back of your head instead of following the cable.

The face mask part of the headset is ringed with a foam band, which helps block out ambience light and prevents the mask from irritating your confront. Information technology can be easily removed and replaced with a spare foam ring included with the package. This is very welcome, equally I noticed the foam gets quite sweaty after prolonged use. The headset weighs approximately 1.ii pounds, not including the cablevision, and its weight is distributed evenly with the straps; I didn't feel whatever neck strain or other discomfort from using it.

The front end of the headset is covered with 32 individual movement sensors, along with a front-facing video photographic camera for detecting obstacles. The organization uses a 2,160-by-1,200 LCD with a 90Hz refresh rate to produce a high-definition picture for each eye. A multi-purpose button sits on the left side of the headset, and is primarily used for setup rather than controlling your virtual feel. An indicator LED sits next to the button, and glows white when the Vive Pre is working correctly and displaying VR content.

The triple-cable on the headset connects to the link box. It'southward a small, black rectangle with curved sides, almost identical in size and shape to the Sony PlayStation Tv set. Ane side of the box plugs into the headset and is denoted by orange-ringed ports. The other side of the box connects to your computer and the included power adapter with black ports. You need an open up USB port and either an HDMI or DisplayPort output on your calculator to connect.

Move Controllers

The Vive Pre includes ii movement controllers, designed to offer precision and flexibility of control like to human hands. Each controller is a black wand that measures about 8.v inches long and weighs seven ounces, covered with 24 movement sensors and diverse buttons. The controllers wirelessly connect to the Vive Pre, and charge through micro USB connectors (USB wall adapters and charging cables are included).

Each motion controller ends in a large, angled ring that holds the motion sensors. This part extends past where you would naturally grip the controller, and is not intended for straight interaction; it's only used to assist the system rails each controller'south location and orientation.

The physical controls sit lower on the grip of each controller, and are dominated by a big, round touchpad on the meridian side of the handle and a big trigger on the underside of the handle. The touchpad and trigger naturally residue nether the thumb and index finger, respectively. Two menu buttons sit above and beneath the touchpad, and two multi-function buttons sit on the left and right sides of the grip.

HTC Vive Pre

Setting Up the Room

Valve and HTC promote the Vive Pre every bit whole-room virtual reality, which means that in theory yous tin walk around a designated infinite as a virtual earth, rather than being bars to a unmarried sitting or standing position. HTC recommends an open area of at least 5-by-half-dozen.v feet and upwards to approximately 10-by-xi feet. This virtual infinite is divers with the two included base of operations stations, which are black cubes filled with sensors and emitters to runway the position of both the headset and the motility controllers. Each base station must be mounted around 6.5 feet or higher, tilted slightly downward, and facing each other across contrary corners. They use their ain power adapters and sync wirelessly, but an extremely long 3.5mm sync cable is included if you have problem getting them set.

After a few small hiccups installing the drivers on our test computer, setting up the Vive Pre was fairly painless. Getting everything registered and working correctly required a fleck of patience and attention to make sure the right connections were made in the correct order (HDMI to PC, USB to PC, power to link box, HDMI to headset, USB to headset, power to headset), and a few firmware and driver updates had to be run through the SteamVR software to get everything working together, merely I got the system running properly in most one-half an hour. HTC volition probable brand the setup process smoother and faster for the consumer release.

The Virtual Reality Experience

As the main SteamVR device, most content on the Vive Pre can be accessed through the SteamVR software, available for free on Steam. The software shows a condition bar on your estimator'southward main display to indicate that the headset, motion controllers, and base of operations stations are all functioning properly, and generates a blank virtual space from which you can access SteamVR games and programs. The Vive Pre comes with a code that unlocks xviii SteamVR games, demos, and apps.

SteamVR's blank virtual infinite is a white, filigree-like area that displays the locations of the synced base of operations stations in relation to your position, forth with any active move controllers. This is handy, because it lets you lot go a sense for your total play space, and the move controllers' locations are tracked accurately enough that y'all can reach out toward where they're floating in virtual reality to physically choice them upward. Unfortunately, there's no way to track the long cable abaft from the headset to the link box, so you'll need to stay mindful of how you're tethered and so you don't trip or get tangled upwardly.

Virtual reality ideally looks as realistic as bodily reality, but that isn't the case for most of the current SteamVR software. The Vive Pre's brandish and move sensors produce a very immersive sense of space, but graphical quality is dependent on the time and coin put into the software just every bit much equally the hardware. The SteamVR titles I tried with the Vive Pre are striking because of the VR experience, merely visually they aren't nearly every bit detailed or realistic equally big-upkeep game releases. As more developers piece of work on larger-scale projects intended for VR this volition modify, and we might somewhen run across some actually lifelike virtual reality in the future. For now, the immersiveness is much more than due to how the Vive Pre shows you content rather than the visual composure of the content itself.

HTC Vive Pre

Gone Golfing

I played well-nigh a full xviii holes of miniature golf in the game Cloudlands. The Vive Pre put me in the center of a graphically simple fantasy minigolf form, turning i of the motility controllers into a golf club. It'due south a remarkably effective experience, with the virtual club hitting the virtual ball with relatively realistic physics, curving and rolling depending on the bending of my head and the steadiness of my swing. The trigger on the motility controller centered me straight over my brawl, which was vital because the amount of infinite a total virtual minigolf course tin accept upward.

Angling my shots required turning in various directions, which by and large felt natural aside for the very long cable trailing behind me from the headset. The game put me back in the SteamVR virtual space for a few seconds betwixt every hole, which let me orient myself based on the location of the base stations. However, I eventually turned myself around enough times and got caught on the cablevision, tripping and disconnecting the headset from the link box. It reconnected easily, and the game recovered without result, just it'due south a notable take a chance when dealing with a wired gaming headset.

I found that I had ready the headset a chip as well tight at this bespeak, as well. When I removed the Vive Pre, the foam around the face mask was soaked with sweat, and my eyes were a bit irritated. This is partly considering of the headset pressed too hard against my face, and partly because of some dust kicked up while setting upward the organization (from the exam area, not the Vive Pre itself).

Shooting and Slashing

Ninja Trainer Vive is basically a VR version of Fruit Ninja, merely much simpler. There is but a bones assail manner where the game throws fruit and bombs at yous, and y'all have to slash at them with your sword, which is the motion controller. The game followed my motions perfectly in testing, merely actually slashing at fruit was uneven. This felt more like a physics issue in the game than a problem with the controller or the headset; the fruit often only bounced off of my blade because it wasn't registering my movements every bit total slashes.

HTC Vive Pre

I tried two similar shooting games, Space Pirate Trainer VR and Jeeboman. In both games I stood in the center of an set on by floating aliens and robots, armed with my motion controller gun. I could switch between different weapons by holding downwardly on the touchpad and selecting an item from a pop-up menu, and I fired by pointing the motion controller at an enemy and pulling the trigger. I was attacked from all sides, then I had to plow and spin to notice all my targets before they shot me.

Jeeboman is the more complicated of the ii, with a unique Warp Gun that teleports you to different fixed locations around the rooftops of a city. Space Pirate Trainer VR has a much more minimal design of an open pseudo-space arena, and fewer weapon selections. They both play very similarly, and are entertaining shooting galleries.

Painting

The most enjoyably surreal, and potentially useful, software available on SteamVR at the time of testing is a program I previously tried at CES. Google'south Tilt Brush is a virtual painting and sculpting plan that puts you lot in an empty space with a choice of brushes to paint with in three dimensions. The motility controller in my right hand was my castor, a free-floating wand that drew with my selected tool in the air. The motion controller in my left hand was my palette, displaying different materials, tools, and a color wheel on various sides of a cube I could spin by swiping on the touchpad.

I freely drew in the virtual infinite, waving my right paw to paint in the air. I could streak colorful paint in front of me, or burn, or glowing plasma, and modify the hue and saturation of them all with ease. The most visually striking tool is Hypercolor, a ribbon of pond colors that flows downward the brush strokes in the air. The ribbons remind me of Rainbow Road from the Mario Kart games, flowing tracks of bright color looping around in space.

HTC Vive Pre

The other SteamVR software available during my testing included four VR demo presentations from a company called 8i, a physics-based start-person construction puzzle game called Fantastic Contraption, and the Chore Simulator and Aperture Robot Repair demos I tried at CES. Resources for developers are available through Steam and HTC; the programming tools are all software-based, with the Vive Pre system itself serving every bit the hardware with which to test and build.

Vive Pre-Consumer
The Vive Pre experience is much more immersive and powerful than that of the Samsung Gear VR, which is the most cohesive consumer-available VR setup we've tested. Of course, the consumer-ready Vive costs more than both the Gear VR and a Samsung Galaxy smartphone with which to run it combined. That said, the Vive's much higher resolution, dedicated display, and more than advanced motion tracking and controls put it on some other level, i that we doubt whatsoever mobile-based VR organisation can lucifer.

The best comparing with the Vive Pre is the upcoming consumer release of the Oculus Rift, which I also used at CES and institute impressive. The Rift is less expensive at $600, simply it doesn't include the Oculus Touch motility controllers, which will be released subsequently the headset. It ultimately looks similar it will deliver a like expereince to the Vive Pre on paper, merely nosotros'll run into which headset is superior when we get consumer-ready models of both in for testing.

The HTC Vive Pre is all the same pre-release hardware, and HTC will likely tweak aspects of information technology before launching the consumer edition. But even as shipped, the Vive Pre stands as the most characteristic-consummate and comprehensive PC-based VR experience we've tested, and is genuinely impressive both in the immersiveness of the headset and the accuracy of the motion controllers. Since it's evolution hardware we won't give the Vive Pre a formal score, but it's certainly a sight to behold. Whether the consumer edition volition be worth the $800 investment or not depends on the dedication and pocket depth of the early adopter in question, also every bit the software available at the time of release.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.