The HTC Vive Pro improves on the already wonderful Vive VR headset. But does it offer enough of a bump in performance to warrant its substantial increase in price?
In our weeks of testing the HTC Vive Pro, the new VR headset from HTC that offers a marginal upgrade in terms of visual fidelity to the original HTC Vive, we couldn’t help but draw some parallels to Microsoft’s Xbox One X.
If you think about it long enough — and you can put your ‘PC gaming is better than console gaming’ biases aside for a moment — the similarities become all-too-apparent.
These are both new-and-improved experiences that offer, among other things, an enhanced visual performance, nearly doubling (or in the Xbox One X’s case, quadrupling) the number of pixels the hardware can push natively. But, despite offering some upscaled visuals, they don’t have completely new or separate libraries of games or use new peripherals — which is a boon for those of us who have heavily invested in our game libraries.
They both offer the most powerful hardware in their respective categories. And, also, they are both significantly more expensive than the basic versions of those platforms.
For the HTC Vive Pro, you’re talking about $800, £800 or around AU$1,045. And that’s just for the headset itself. No base station sensors or controllers. If you don’t own them already, you’ll have to buy them as part of a SteamVR 1.0 tracking bundle for $299 (around £200/AU$400). Tack on the price of the recommended GPUs — either the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070/Quadro P500 or AMD Radeon Vega 56 graphics cards — and you could easily be looking at two grand to have the latest and greatest in VR.
But, don’t get us wrong, the HTC Vive Pro is indeed the latest and greatest. When it’s firing on all cylinders on high-end PC hardware, the HTC Vive Pro offers the most beautiful, visually rich games we’ve yet to see in virtual reality. If you’re lucky enough to have both the HTC Vive and HTC Vive Pro in the same room like we were while writing this review, it can be difficult to go back to the lower-resolution display once you’ve had a taste of what the Pro can do.
And yet, despite being a better headset — objectively so — than the original HTC Vive (which, mind you, has been the best VR headset in our opinion for the last two years), that sticker price keeps popping up as a sore spot for us: Sure, the HTC Vive Pro is good, but does it warrant its astronomically high price tag? Unless you’re a diehard, financially well-off VR enthusiast or an owner of a burgeoning VR arcade, the answer is probably no. It doesn’t.
But it’s still one of the best damn VR headsets we’ve ever tested.
Release date and price
The HTC Vive Pro will be available by itself – without Lighthouse sensors and controllers – starting on April 5,2018. A complete package will be available later this year, with pricing to be announced at a later date.
If April 5 rings a bell, that’s because the original HTC Vive launched on April 5,2016.
The HTC Vive Pro will cost $799, £799 or around AU$1,045 — and that’s just for the headset itself. Design
While HTC and other VR evangelists will likely focus their attention on the Pro’s uptick in visual fidelity — a native resolution of 2880 x 1600 (615 dpi) versus 2160 x 1200 on the original Vive — the Vive Pro has a number of design changes that are just as valuable as the Dual AMOLED display.
First off, the HTC Vive Pro now comes with built-in headphones that sit directly on top of your ears. They’re adjustable in height, and include volume controls which means you’ll no longer have to take off the headset to re-adjust the volume between game sessions.
There’s also the new harness that holds the headset more firmly than the velcro straps did on the original HTC Vive. The harness keeps the headset from moving during particularly intense moments in games like DOOM VFR or Arizona Sunshine, and wards off the infamous head strain that could occur after wearing the original HTC Vive for an extended period of time.
Spin the headset around to the back and you’ll find the new turn knob — a carry-over from the Vive Deluxe Audio Strap that HTC released last year. Use it to tighten up the headset for a better fit, or loosen it to take the headset off without undoing the top strap.
There’s also the new and improved cable that slims the triple-wire cord on the original Vive to a manageable single wire. Sure, no wires would be better than one, but we’re moving in the right direction. If you’re serious about wireless VR, though, don’t forget that HTC is currently working on the Wireless Adapter for the Vive that will be out in mid-2018.
In the headset itself, you’ll find new rubber nose guards that prevent light from filtering in the crack between your nose and the headset, while a more durable, plushy foam pad cushions your face for more comfortable extended play sessions.
On the front of the headset you’ll now find a second front-facing camera which will offer improved tracking for developers looking to make AR experiences.
If there’s any downside to the HTC Vive Pro’s design it’s that the headset uses the same peripherals as the original HTC Vive — that means no new controllers or base stations.
In some ways, this is a potential cost-savings strategy for HTC and a boon for those of us who’ve already invested in the original Vive, as we can just carryover the hardware from the original headset. But, by the same token, using the HTC Vive Pro with the same old trackers and controllers can make the headset seem like a half-step upgrade rather than a fully-featured step-up from the original Vive. It’s a minor issue, obviously, and one that HTC will likely remedy sooner rather than later. Setup
If you’re upgrading from the HTC Vive or looking at the HTC Vive Pro as your first foray into virtual reality, the most important aspect to make a note of is the recommended specs listed on the Vive Pro’s product page on HTC’s website.
According to HTC’s recommended specs list, you should try to run an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070/Quadro P500 or AMD Radeon Vega 56 graphics card or higher, alongside an Intel Core i5-4590 or AMD FX 8350 equivalent or better CPU.
Those specs can seem a bit daunting if you haven’t upgraded your PC in the last two years, and might be out of reach for you if you’re on a budget. If that’s the case, you could always step down to the standard HTC Vive or consider switching to the Oculus Rift, which only needs an Nvidia GTX 970 or AMD 290 GPU. (Trust us, running the Pro on an underpowered machine is possible, but it’s not the most pleasant experience.)
Once you have your parts in place, the real challenge begins: Downloading and installing the drivers necessary to get the Vive Pro up and running. Depending on your experience with the HTC Vive this can take a matter of minutes or, if you’re one of the unlucky few, a few hours to get it up-and-running.
The problem here is that all the Vive firmware needs to be as up-to-date as possible — the controllers each need the latest firmware, as do the lighthouses, as does the headset itself. There might also be a new version of Steam VR for you to download. Oh, and make sure your graphics drivers are up to date — as that can randomly cause the compositor (the software that combines all of the visual data the Vive is getting from the game and your environment) to fail.
Even when you’ve crossed every ‘t’ and dotted every ‘i’ and all the firmware is up to date and you’re running the latest version of the software, things can still go awry, stopping your gameplay session before it even begins. And that can be the nail in the coffin for you — especially if you’re the type of person who’s easily deterred from a new technology.
It’s with that in mind that the Vive Pro is probably best suited for VR enthusiasts and VR arcade owners — because the setup process is not owned end-to-end by HTC, troubleshooting becomes a fairly standard part of owning and operating the HTC Vive. Performance
So, let’s say you clear the trials and tribulations of setting up the HTC Vive Pro. What, exactly, can you expect in terms of performance?
Well, there’s not a clear cut answer here — like the HTC Vive, your miles will vary. Use a high-powered PC with Supersampling turned on, and you’ll immediately fall in love with the new headset. Use something that barely scratches the surface of what VR is capable of and, well, you may not notice a huge difference between the HTC Vive and the HTC Vive Pro.
Regardless of how well-specc’d your PC is, however, the display is exactly the same. Namely, that’s the HTC Vive Pro’s 3.5-inch, 2880 x 1600 (615 dpi) Dual AMOLED screen that sits inside the headset itself. It packs a 90Hz refresh rate and a 110-degree field of view, both of which are unchanged from the original HTC Vive.
For some, these numbers will tell the whole story. For others, however, words might paint a better picture. If you’re part of the latter group, know that images on the HTC Vive Pro looked incredibly crisp. We noticed significantly fewer jagged edges than before, and even at a distance, objects looked sharper if not 100% crystal clear.
The two areas you’ll probably notice a big difference if you’ve used a VR headset before, are in text resolution and in the game’s environment. Said simply, more pixels on the screen help art assets like high-resolution objects and crisp texture packs to look more real and lifelike.
This is particularly noticeable when you square up with an object in VR. Looking directly at an object — say an in-game menu or a map — the graininess that you might’ve noticed on the original Vive will almost completely disappear. You’ll still notice a fair amount of blurring for objects located on the periphery of your vision, but it’s almost unnoticeable unless you spend time actually looking for it.
Amazingly, all of this extra visual data doesn’t slow down the Vive Pro in any way — it’s just as responsive as before.
