Question HP Reverb G2 version2 (WMR) and SteamVR and weird hand tracking mismatch issue

[nolie]

I've been having a weird issue with my HP Reverb G2. When I open my Mixed Reality Portal and launch VaM (OpenVR).bat, SteamVR overlay starts up as well and everything is good. My controller bindings are fine, usually no problem.

What is weird is that sometimes but not all the time, if my controller turns off due to timing out while loading a large scene and I turn it back on, the calibration is skewed. Tracking still works but it puts my hands in 3d space a good distance away (5-10 feet) and it makes navigating very difficult. It applies to my hands and not the headset itself and tracking is still great, it's just skewed away as if it thinks my body is a few feet away.

Mixed Reality Portal tracks fine and knows my hand position. If I press the controller button for Mixed Reality overlay, it knows where my headset and hands are just fine. On the other hand, SteamVR matches the weird tracking issue. If I click the SteamVR overlay, it thinks my hands are 5-10 feet away. This seems to be a SteamVR overlay issue.

Sometimes, it auto corrects and 'snaps' my headset back to my heads in SteamVR and I can continue.

Sometimes, on rare cases, it behaves this way even on starting VaM. My controller doesn't need to timeout.

Sometimes, if I turn off my controller and not allow it to time out on its own and then I turn it back on, this seems to reduce the occurrences but maybe I'm wrong and this is just coincidence.

Any ideas on this weird issue between Mixed Reality Portal, SteamVR, and VaM?

 

[atani]

Best course of action is to not let it be idle for so long that it turns off the controller. I leave mine at 5 min and that should be more than enough for you to load any scene.

 

[nolie]

Best course of action is to not let it be idle for so long that it turns off the controller. I leave mine at 5 min and that should be more than enough for you to load any scene.

Thanks Atani. Good recommendation although it does happen sometimes even without the controller timeout.

Your work is awesome!! Glad to have you and others making VaM so good.

 

[keycode]

"it does happen sometimes even without the controller timeout" never had that issue, but since my sad experience with steam VR that I was ( my fault!) leaving activated as background task with oculus runtime (was playing vam with oculus rift cv1, rift-s till I discovered that I could get rid of steam fucking crapware), my very personal (?) opinion about the superfucking steamm ... crapware is still the same. So I consider my actual (relatively) positive experience with reverb g2, that unfortunately needs steam crapware, as a lucky coincidence or as a my neptune god miracle.

 

[atani]

Having owned a G2 until a few days ago I almost never had a problem like that. Had some other problems more often, maybe they disguised that one
Try reseting or install/uninstall steamVR, who knows...

@keycode
You can use ALVR with a G2, it works, but you need to compensate with some keybindings to certain SteamVR buttons like centering or volume adjustment. These keybindings I never did, just mentioning what another user said.

 

[keycode]

Having owned a G2 until a few days ago I almost never had a problem like that. Had some other problems more often, maybe they disguised that one
[...]
did you get pico 4 or the expensive quest-toy pro??? and is it really better graphic quality than reverb g2 ???

 

[atani]

I got a Pico 4. While I'm envious of the people chatting in Discord about getting a Quest Pro or XR Elite, there's no way I'm paying 1000 € for a headset.
Well... what I say now and what I do later can be very different , but at least I won't be tempted as I have this new one and won't be doing any more purchases for a couple of years at least.

Comparing Pico 4 with G2:

• The pancake lenses are very nice with a wide focused area. I think there's some advantages over the fresnel lenses of the G2 when you want to glance around a bit, which is something you definitely do in VaM. It's not a big difference and depends on the person, but I find it easier to immerse in a scene.
• One thing the G2 does better is colour, the Pico was more muted in comparison. This is something that popped to me instantly, I wasn't trying to do a comparison, the colours looked better in the G2.
• Sound is as expected also better in the G2, no comparison HW wise.
• Comfort is probably the G2 again, I find it really good and have used it for long sessions. Pico is comfortable too for as long as the battery lasts. I haven't yet used it more than the battery can take you.
• The Pico has a fan that prevents fogging of the lenses, this is a nice addition. With the G2 I would have to remove it several times until it warmed up and clean the lenses, which is annoying. Not a issue in Summer where I live, but the rest of the year it is. It feels a little weird on my eyes when it starts, but still better than taking the headset to wipe the lenses.
• The light areas of the Pico controllers are curved along the hand, no more accidental clash of a controller on each other or a wall. Nice
• What in the G2 is the useless Windows button, in the Pico you use it to recenter the headset, a million points there

The two reasons I was planning to get the Pico are Passthrough and Wireless use.
With the G2, even if speedy and straightforward, connecting the cables and setting up a area to keep the cables safe and away was a bit of a chore. This limited my use, sometimes I just wanted to try something for 10 minutes and having to go through all that put me off a bit. With the Pico this is not a problem, ready to go in a minute. Of course, if the sessions are meant to be long I would need to connect to a cable or a battery pack, but it's more common the short sessions than the long ones for me, so one of the reasons I wanted something wireless and fast to start.
Passthrough on the G2 is practically non-existent, and I wanted to play with that new option in VR. It's not good, but it's fun, and while there's no depth correction and the single camera is weak, at least it's in colour and there's nothing below 1000€ that I could get that would be better. That's where I'm envious of the Q Pro or XR owners, their passthrough is way better probably, but not worth the money just for that for me at least.

 

[keycode]

thanks

I got a Pico 4. While I'm envious of the people chatting in Discord about getting a Quest Pro or XR Elite, there's no way I'm paying 1000 € for a headset.
Well... what I say now and what I do later can be very different , but at least I won't be tempted as I have this new one and won't be doing any more purchases for a couple of years at least.

Comparing Pico 4 with G2:

• The pancake lenses are very nice with a wide focused area. I think there's some advantages over the fresnel lenses of the G2 when you want to glance around a bit, which is something you definitely do in VaM. It's not a big difference and depends on the person, but I find it easier to immerse in a scene.
• One thing the G2 does better is colour, the Pico was more muted in comparison. This is something that popped to me instantly, I wasn't trying to do a comparison, the colours looked better in the G2.
• Sound is as expected also better in the G2, no comparison HW wise.
• Comfort is probably the G2 again, I find it really good and have used it for long sessions. Pico is comfortable too for as long as the battery lasts. I haven't yet used it more than the battery can take you.
• The Pico has a fan that prevents fogging of the lenses, this is a nice addition. With the G2 I would have to remove it several times until it warmed up and clean the lenses, which is annoying. Not a issue in Summer where I live, but the rest of the year it is. It feels a little weird on my eyes when it starts, but still better than taking the headset to wipe the lenses.
• The light areas of the Pico controllers are curved along the hand, no more accidental clash of a controller on each other or a wall. Nice
• What in the G2 is the useless Windows button, in the Pico you use it to recenter the headset, a million points there

The two reasons I was planning to get the Pico are Passthrough and Wireless use.
With the G2, even if speedy and straightforward, connecting the cables and setting up a area to keep the cables safe and away was a bit of a chore. This limited my use, sometimes I just wanted to try something for 10 minutes and having to go through all that put me off a bit. With the Pico this is not a problem, ready to go in a minute. Of course, if the sessions are meant to be long I would need to connect to a cable or a battery pack, but it's more common the short sessions than the long ones for me, so one of the reasons I wanted something wireless and fast to start.
Passthrough on the G2 is practically non-existent, and I wanted to play with that new option in VR. It's not good, but it's fun, and while there's no depth correction and the single camera is weak, at least it's in colour and there's nothing below 1000€ that I could get that would be better. That's where I'm envious of the Q Pro or XR owners, their passthrough is way better probably, but not worth the money just for that for me at least.

thanks for your very kind answering ... just in case I decide too (for pico of course) I hope my last upgrade of my home router-modem will be fitting for a wireless streaming even if I am not a fan of this kind of connection, besides for television networks.

 

[atani]

The G2 is a great piece of equipment, but if you are looking to buy a wifi headset in the future, here are some network tips.

I bought a wifi 5 router to serve the Pico and my other PCs. It's stationed at 3 meters the most from where I use the Pico, no barriers between them, and the signal is very stable and strong.
You don't need a wifi 6 router, wifi 6's purpose is for high density user congestion and won't give you more speed in a simple setup like your room. Mine was about 70€, already a quality router (D-Link DIR-878), great value I think.

To get the best results, you want to connect the router by cable wherever you can. Cable to your ISP router/modem, to your PC, leave only the wifi to the headset. Having the wifi dedicated to your headset will make sure it's not busy talking with other devices and give you the best performance.
The closer to the headset it is, the better, with as little physical blocks or other interfering objects around. Make sure you are on the 5 GHz frequency and in a unused channel band.

Don't consider replacing the house's router, there will be competition for the house's devices and your performance will suck. A dedicated router for the headset - wifi-wise, even an affordable one like mine, is better than a relying on a expensive house router that has to handle other wifi devices in the house. And the second router you can place anywhere you want to use the headset, walls eat wifi.

 

[wondR]

i set my angle with -15 (ends up at 30 instead of 45)

 

[keycode]

The G2 is a great piece of equipment, but if you are looking to buy a wifi headset in the future, here are some network tips.

I bought a wifi 5 router to serve the Pico and my other PCs. It's stationed at 3 meters the most from where I use the Pico, no barriers between them, and the signal is very stable and strong.
You don't need a wifi 6 router, wifi 6's purpose is for high density user congestion and won't give you more speed in a simple setup like your room. Mine was about 70€, already a quality router (D-Link DIR-878), great value I think.

To get the best results, you want to connect the router by cable wherever you can. Cable to your ISP router/modem, to your PC, leave only the wifi to the headset. Having the wifi dedicated to your headset will make sure it's not busy talking with other devices and give you the best performance.
The closer to the headset it is, the better, with as little physical blocks or other interfering objects around. Make sure you are on the 5 GHz frequency and in a unused channel band.

Don't consider replacing the house's router, there will be competition for the house's devices and your performance will suck. A dedicated router for the headset - wifi-wise, even an affordable one like mine, is better than a relying on a expensive house router that has to handle other wifi devices in the house. And the second router you can place anywhere you want to use the headset, walls suck for wifi.

I changed my old modem-router in november 2022 (with a good amazon wifi 5 model) because it was not anymore compatible with my provider optical connection. I have now a much better speed and a lot less latency problems (lot less skype issues too ). My desktop it is since years on ethernet but thanks the same for the tips ... and of course, thanks a lot for your very honest pico 4 review !