Now if only every other tech reviewer would stick to this gold standard, eh? I've been looking into VR stuff now I have a little spare currency to consider getting into it, and VROasis has been a real godsend.
I would mention one more thing on placement of the PCIe card. If you are running an enthusiast class system x79 / x99 / x299 you should choose a slot that maps directly the proc if possible and not to the chipset (PCH). This seemed to work better for me.
Bought the wireless adaptor a couple months ago after a couple of years on a wire. Used the wireless for a couple months and went back to the wire. My experience was a poor picture and sound quality that made me almost give up on VR. It looks like they are only sending every other pixel to the head set and the rest stay white. The freedom of the wireless is not enough to give up the quality of the visual.
You can play most VR games by sitting, not standing anyway. If you want some VR fitness games, just buy a cheap Quest 2 with some cheap VR fitness games. You seriously don't mind the cheap images of those games when you are exercising anyway. LOL
Oh, you crazy future-people with your fancy wireless headsets ;). We here in the technological backwater of Australia can only dream of the presumably distant date when HTC will be bothered to offer it here for purchase. Good review though ;). I would definitely get one if it comes out some time before everyone’s moved on to releasing their second generation of headsets.
In order to play longer attach a power bank to the HTC battery as you are playing, it's basically charging as you play so it can last more than 12hrs in my test run 😝👍🤘
I've been using the wireless adapter on my HTC Vive for a couple of weeks now, and I'd like to share my thoughts on it. First, the problems. The first problem I encountered was that the pass-through camera causes the wireless connection to drop after 1-5 minutes with an error message that states "Headset not detected" from the VIVE Wireless app. Disabling the camera is the only fix. I tried 30hz, 60hz, and in between refresh rates for the camera. Second problem is the heat. The wireless adapter gets HOT. Log files indicate over 90 degrees C! This heat transfers down through the deluxe audio strap and into my head, leaving a red mark on my scalp. I have ordered gold foil heat reflected tape that will hopefully reduce this heat. VIVE Pro users won't notice this as much due to the thick pad. Third problem is that super sampling causes pixelation in complex scenes. The wireless adapter just doesn't have the processing power to compress and then decompress the added detail in a super sampled scene. And before you tell me that the resolution the adapter is working with is the same - I know. Super sampling still adds additional data, even though the resolution is the same. It just can't handle it. If you want to learn more about how the wireless display works, visit DisplayLink's website. Fourth problem is the pathetic battery that HTC includes. The battery should cost $30 at most for what it is - A basic 10,000mAh QC 3.0 battery bank. You can use any QC 3.0 battery bank to power the wireless adapter, including 20,000mAh and larger QC 3.0 banks from Anker, that will last you 5+ hours for the 20,000mAh model. Fifth problem is the power input for the wireless adapter - It is located at the read, making it impossible to lay down on the ground without straining or damaging the power input! VIVE Pro users risk damaging their display cable as well, as the Pro uses the port on the rear of the wireless adapter. I have purchased a downward right angle USB adapter that reduces the risk of damaging the power input port/cable. I do have some good things to say, however. Going wireless adds huge levels of immersion to games that can take advantage of wireless. I myself play VRChat with full body tracking, and being wireless adds so much that I never want to go back to being tethered. There is no noticeable input lag or delay, and unless signal quality is reduced or the scene is too complex, image quality is unaffected. For now, I am suffering from the issues above and I am taking measures to reduce the impact of the ones that I have control over. Head over to VIVE's support forums to read all the issues people are having with the wireless adapter before purchasing.
Augownage Just a second opinion: Heat doesn’t seem to be a problem for me - I’ve never noticed it being an issue even after playing for four hours. Also I never see pixelation - apparently this only happens when you have a lower spec CPU. I can verify that an i5 6500 is NOT enough, but an i7 7700k is. This is with super sampling at 200% - no issues. But with the 6500 and no SS, there were periodic dropped frames and compression artifacts. So don’t trust the minimum requirements. Also camera was on the entire time. Finally, note that as of SteamVR version 1.1.13 (released about a week ago), Valve fixed a TON of performance issues that plagued people.
@@BlownMacTruck I'm running an i7-8700k overclocked to 5GHz on all cores, and 16GB of 3200MHz RAM along with an overclocked GTX-1080. CPU usage when I am encountering severe pixelation with supersampling enabled is not unusually high. The bottleneck in this case is not the CPU, but rather the PCI-E card's internal processor that compresses the data stream before transmitting it through the antenna, I suspect. Either that, or the processor in the wireless adapter itself cannot decompress the data stream. Do note that the pixelation only happens in certain scenes with high levels of detail, such as complex repeating patterns or high resolution textures.
@@Augownage That should be far more than enough to handle the wireless adapter, so I suspect you have issues somewhere else. I suggest you use fpsVR to locate the bottleneck.
@@Augownage Seems a little weird when the WiGig adapter doesn't do anything but push bits, and plenty of people are hitting 200% SS with it on numerous games. The only thing different with wireless is that the very large GPU output is compressed (which is why it has high CPU requirements) and shoved out the adapter. If your CPU and GPU aren't bottle-necked and you're getting < 10ms CPU and GPU frametimes, and your reprojections and dropped frames are showing as 0%, you shouldn't be getting any pixelization or compression errors at all. If you are, something is very, very wrong.
Personally my experience with the Vive Wireless Adapter has been extremely positive. I have the Vive Pro so I have not had any problem with the heat given off by the device, that some have mentioned. Apparently some have experienced this, likely with the original vive that doesn’t have the insulating pad. However, you can always customize your rig to insulate against this. Speaking of customization, I did a bit of my own: I did not like having a wire coming off the back of the headset going down to a battery clipped to my belt. I occasionally got my hand tangled in this wire and when I playing a seated game, it got in the way more often. If I put it in front of my my hands would catch it, and if I put it behind me, sometimes it would catch and restrict my head movement. So, I took the shorter USB cable that came with the wireless adapter (the one that would have been used to connect the original Vive to the headset, but I didn’t need it since I have the Pro) and I used it to connect the battery to the wireless adapter. It’s just a regular USB cable with a standard USB connector on both ends, as opposed to a micro USB on one end. I clipped the battery to the headset strap instead, instead of to my belt (so it is against my upper forehead). Honestly I don’t find the extra weight a problem at all, and it is great having a completely self-contained rig that I can just take off and set down, without having to also unhook the battery pack from my belt. Occasionally I get interrupted during VR and it’s nice to be able to have only one item to set down and I can walk away. When I first connected the wireless adapter, I did notice a *slight* softening of the image but it is so minimal that it doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, I’m not even sure it really exists - it could be my imagination, because it’s so hard to tell. Since disconnecting the cable and connecting the wireless adapter is quite an ordeal. It’s not possible to just switch back to a wired connection quickly and easily. That’s why I can’t be sure about this image softening - I haven’t switched back to the wired connection to compare. But, even if the image is being softened, it is so minimal that it doesn’t bother me. And believe me - I am very picky when it comes to image quality. That’s why I upgraded from the Vive to the Vive Pro in the first place. What I have found is that CPU performance is critical to good image quality. I have an i7-7700, Quad-core 3.6 GHz CPU (and a 1080ti graphics card). With the wireless adapter, I was initially having a lot of picture quality degradation, quite frequently. This would come and go. At first I thought it was the placement of the signal transmitter, but I have found that this matters very little - especially since my VR area has walls around it, so the signal can bounce around the room and always reaches the receiver, no matter where I am. I have found that the way to fix the problem is to make sure that nothing unnecessary is running on my PC. I stop as many processes as possible that I don’t need. There are still rare occasions where the image quality degrades slightly for a few seconds, probably because something else is happening on my PC - but it is extremely rare now. I suspect that those who have been complaining about poor image quality likely have CPU issues - because I have seen what it is like when conditions are ideal and the best image quality is possible. The published “minimum system requirements” for the Vive Wireless Adapter is probably what is required for it to work at bare minimum quality. When I can afford it, I might upgrade my CPU so that I won’t have to worry about scraping the bottom of the barrel by shutting down all extraneous processes every time before using VR. Honestly the image quality for me is perfect 95% of the time anyway, but I want 100%!
Thanks for sharing your battery solution. I had a TPcast for my OG Vive and I hated that I still had a wire hanging off my head. Plus, I'm often wearing gym shorts when playing which isn't conducive to wearing battery packs. Glad to hear that attaching the battery to the headset isn't too cumbersome. Thanks! :-)
Never buy the official htc battery. It is more than double the price it should be for its capacity. Its 10,000mah. At £60 but anker do a battery pack that's 15,000mah for £30 and a 20,000mah for £47. Another htc rip off. Its not hard to see why they are on the brink of bankruptcy.
Until i've seen or read a review of a battery pack that i can upgrade for this adapter i'm about to get guess i'm gonna have to settle for what comes in the box but yes i do want at least 3-4 hours of battery life, i'll research some anker ones though, thanks 😊
@@AndreSmith not much point "upgrading" the battery. You can use any battery pack with quickcharge 3.0. So keep the one it comes with an get two more. If you want to be able to keep playing without ever stopping youll probably need three batteries. So you can use one while the others charge up.
@@AndreSmith Amazon sells a few batteries that are identical to the HTC battery for less than $20. I've been using Chuwi 10050 mAh batteries I bought for $16.99 and they last every bit as long as the stock HTC battery. The only difference is they recharge with a Micro USB while the stock HTC battery uses a USB-C port. This does mean it takes a little longer to recharge, but if you use a QC 3.0 compatible wall charger, the recharge time is about 4-4.5 hours.
Thanks Mike, nice review, i'm def getting the adapter based on your review as well, i hope for a battery with twice the amount of playtime down the line though, great work and can't wait to ditch this cable
Ok just finished my first session with the new adapter on my Vive Pro. Worked flawlessly! Really fantastic. After the nightmare with the TPCast this is a breath of fresh air. I noticed zero image degradation and no lag. My controllers and headset even needed firmware updates and those worked flawlessly (headset wirelessly of course). For my setup I bought the following from Amazon: LANZON Hydration Pack 2L. This has two front pockets that work perfect to hold the battery. Could also be placed in the back pocket as well. Anker [Quick Charge] PowerCore+ 26800 Premium Portable Charger with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0. Worked with no issues. Loving this thing so far!
Hey, just a quick question because i don't seem to find the answer anywhere, But with the wireless VR do you still need to have the base stations on, or does the wireless link box do that. Thanks.
@@themostoppressedgamer7146 Sorry for the late reply. I was running a 6700k with a 1080. I did just upgrade to an 8700k with the same 1080. The CPU/platform upgrade has helped make the wireless adapter 100% consistent (zero pixelization, etc) where on the 6700 I did have some periods of pixelization. I saw those issues after I posted my original comment.
I’ve been having a heck of a time figuring out how to install the Wireless Adapter to my Vive Pro 2. I found HTC’s online instructions confusing. Your video did the trick. Thank you!!!
Anyone know why I might be seeing massive frame drops using wireless? Possibly where I'm setting up the wireless link box? Beat Saber is not playable for me with wireless :( EDIT: my CPU wasn't good enough, you need a BEAST to be able to run this smoothly, otherwise forget it. I have an i9, and that solved a lot of issues and changed performance significantly. Changing the setting in the Wireless App to "Mode 2" or "Mode 3" clears up some issues. HOWEVER, the unit still overheats - check the logs. M_temp reaches 90degC and the unit shuts off. You need to look up 'vive wireless cooling mod' and strap a fan to the top. Otherwise, you'll get ~10-15 mins of playtime until it overheats, unless you're playing in winter. Incredible the product does not come with a fan, and is accurate with the CPU required. Use program "fpsVR" to figure out your CPU and GPU usage.
HTC Vive headset is just soo bad. Don't buy it they are not there yet. 110 degrees diagonally FOV? Are you kidding me and charging like $800 for this crap.
Thank you Mike for review of the HTC wireless adapter for the HTC vive Pro. This does help me make a decision on whether I should go wired or wireless this point in time.
Looks like these wireless solutions need some work. Though I can't say I'm not a little jealous, I wish my wmr headset was wireless. Though, then again, I paid $200 for my wmr headset while all this cost roughly $1400, or $800 for standard vive.
so am i able to go out of the zone where the base stations are pointing and just set up the wireless link box in another room or do i have to stay in the field of view of the base stations
I wouldn’t recommend trying this. The signal is very fragile and even your hand can stop ir reflect it. It not a problem in the same room but having your box one room away does not sound like it would work well if at all and that would be assuming that there’s absolutely zero walls between your room and the other room or anything that could possibly block the signal. The frequency is very high and it physically cant pass through most objects
There's a story going around right now that says the wireless adapter with the standard Vive is getting hot enough to leave marks on your head if you're bald.
It’s so cool how just because being a famous RU-vid that does stuff about VR, HTC just sends you something that most of us have to go and spend 300 dollars on, but that’s how it works, best part of it is that you can keep it. I really want that, I always play and I move a bit or accidentally step on one of the wires and the headset just goes off because the cables are not working well or something :(
So I don't have to run a cable to my headset, but I have to run a cable to my playspace? My playspace is in the room next to my computer room and I wanted to get rid of that tripping hazard T_T
@@evolicious the £65 for a plastic mount and a cable is the rip off. Absolutely nothing to do with whether the wireless adapter works. The price of that isnt a rip off because they cant get away with making it a ripoff price because there is direct competition with the tpcast. Do you feel the piece of plastic was so well made it was worth an extra 22% on the price of the wireless adapter? Because it looks like about 10p worth of plastic and some velcro. I also said the price of the pro is a rip off. But my comment in no way said the wireless kit was a ripoff
I don't think you have it right. The pro and the wireless pro are products not intended for consumers. Did you notice the word pro? They are intended for businesses and professionals. These people make a lot of money from these products and hence they help support their future development. They are not paying for the cable, they're paying for the continued development of the Vive. If you think the costs of development are too high, you are welcome to throw the glove and develop a competing product. So it's not a "rip off", it's a premium intended to fund continued R&D on future products in a niche market. A rip off would mean you aren't getting a return on your investment and you are.
Do these things come with a supply of Mike Pillows to stop yourself bumping into walls? Haha, and I was about to say 'm waiting on your Vive Wireless to Rift converter video! :)
$300 is just too much money. Cannot justify it. The $65 dollars for the pad, clip, and cable for the vive pro is such a rip off when the main part itself is$ 300. If it was $100-$125 I would consider it.
Brandon Bourg just to add some perspective: a WiGig adapter is at least $120 by itself. So while it’s still quite expensive, its not as ridiculous as it sounds (especially when it’s the only good option on the market).
@@BlownMacTruck You have to consider the R&D and the user experience and the money that is needed for the continued development of these products. When you pay for one, you are literally contributing essential money for the future of VR. You could say that a Samsung 970 Evo plus NVME m.2 is a "rip off". It is just a premium product for a specific market and not for everyone. Also, the price helps funds continued progress and research, not simply the manufacturing process.
Hope it works well for those that take the plunge. For me I'm content to wait for the second generation headsets to streamline wireless PC VR. It's great the Vive has more options, but it just seems like a death by a thousand cuts with little upgrades. More power to those are more dedicated to it and/or can afford it.
2 years on an I jumped at the chance to get one. Updated PC (i9) and card (3070) thinking this would work great. Latency bad enough to make Beat Saber very hard to use and the occasional grey screen for a second or two regularly. Tried Mode 1, 2 and 3 with the same results. Just pounds the CPU when running. Only thing I haven't tried is putting the Intel PCI card into a different slot. Very disappointed so far.
i have a (mother board ASUS prime b360m-k and a RTX 2080 super tho i can't equipe the wireless because the 2080 is way to large ( i have a Medium PC ) so RIP i can't plays with the wireless and having a small room is a REAL problem but i can't change that
I sent mine back. It just is not worth it, $360 (Pro add on) and it would only last a little over two hours! Several signal issues every time I played!! I would love a wireless solution, but this just teases you on how good it can get.... Just not worth it
marklola12 Rift 2 cant happen soon enough for me, I love the touch controllers and the oculus exclusives, I just couldn’t take the SDE, that’s why I went with the pro. I am very disappointed with the quest, I fear Oculus May sell out for main steam low tech vr. Carmack even said they are competing with the switch :(
@@BlownMacTruck actually I picked up the odyssey + on black Fridayfor $299. it blows away the vive pro in every way. I now have my vive pro on Craig's list. So although not Wireles I have no regrets. I mean think about it $1200 for the vive pro kit plus $360 to go wireless and you can have a arguably better experience for $500 ($300 on black Friday) No regrets 😎
Hmm I have a DeWalt usb charger that runs off my 18v tool batteries, would probably be ideal in a vest top for this... Specially with 4ah 90 min charging...
Your wireless connector was sitting IN the playarea at the edge right? In my last house this was not possible because the PC was in another room, at least I could get the wire there with longer third party cables for the link box…
I just bought this charging the batteries now and I DO have a Ryzen 9 I asume after this many years that the AMD issue has hopefully been worked out so we shall see
Anyone with the adapter know if you can use this as a regular USB 3.0 hub for any device? Like is there any reason why I cant use this with any vr headset such as the Oculus Quest
Nothing stops you putting three or four bat-backs on your belt or vest and making a 4-way parallel Y cable for the power. This means all batteries are seeing 1/4 of the drain and the pack is delivering the same voltage but now with 4x the endurance. Be aware that 4 packs in parallel can provide 4x the current. Under normal circumstances the current is limited to what the headset actually draws, but if your headset were to develop a problem then there is a potential for the drain to jump to the max the pack can provide. It's unlikely, but it should be mentioned. If worried, you can put an inline quickblow fuse in the pack for current limiting. I've heard others suggest wiring the packs in sequence so they recharge each other as the power is drawn. This is a VERY bad idea... it's going to generate heat, limit the life of the battery and is ridiculously inefficient. I doubt the second battery could even keep up with the discharge rate so it's all a bit pointless. So, a parallel cable is the way to go. Another mod for the parallel multipack cable is to get a small LCD voltmeter module that has a high-low piezo alarm (or an alarm output) and place this in series in your Y-Cable. The voltage will stay stable till the packs start to struggle, then it will slowly begin to dip - long before the headset dies. By setting the low voltage threshold on the module you can get an early indication that the batteries are starting to drop before the game actually dies on you... and just knowing this in advance makes all the difference, especially if you multiplayer. Then you can take an AFK at a suitable moment, swap the batteries out if you have spares, and come back firing. Obviously, doing this would 'technically' void your warranty (if they knew) but as long as you use official packs you should be good as all you're doing is dividing the power drain equally across the batteries. The headset is getting exactly what it wants and the batteries are getting far lighter use. There is no reason at all that this would cause any problems. Just my 2c *EDIT :* Just to add to the above. It would probably be very wise to make the first USB cable power+data but make all the others power only (2-wire) ... this is because the battery may be a smart asset. You don't want them all answering at the same time if queried by the headset. By making only the first battery a 4-wire cable, you ensure that this is the ONLY battery the headset sees. This prevents the headset registering any anomaly that might look like an aftermarket power supply was used. You never know, this might set a flag on the headset for any technicians or result in garbled power management instructions and general confusion during use. So... ensure only one battery gets a 4-wire connection and let the others have 2-wire - this way you're golden. Hope that helps.
you talk too much about the fit other stuff the most important thing is the gameplay. wish you went into further detail and really did more testing to give a good idea of what it performs like
LOL Did you notice that wifi works wherever you are in the house? You should consider wearing a tin foil suit to protect yourself from bathing in wifi radiation all day.
Question here, if you run out of juice, can you use a QC3.0 usb block to run the wireless adapter?(i know its not wireless anymore, just curious because i haven't received mine
Hello people of the comment section, i require your knowledge. Recently I bought a htc vive pro aswell as the wireless adapter kit. Everything went well with the setup but when i launched steamVR i was met with heavy pulsing quality that gave me a headache after only a couple of minutes. no noticable latency issues or anything else, just the quality problem. I searched for the problem and found many others were having the same issue but i found no way to fix it. Just hoping one of you intellectual individuals know how to. specs: i7 3770 GTX 1080 gaming x regular 1tb hdd @7200 rpm Windows 10 thanks in advance
So, this works with the original Vive? Are we 100% on that? I do want to upgrade for the 88% higher resolution - but, to be honest, I'm still really enjoying the headset I've got - so I think getting the wireless kit first is probably the best bang for buck if it truly supports the older Vive. I can get the most benefit now, and hopefully a better price when I finally upgrade the headset too.
just a Update the ryzen problems have been fixed and I am running on a 2700x with no problems, Know this is a older video but just picked up a vive pro and have a wireless.
7:32 This is NOT a fair comparison! Sure, TPCast can't use the built-in headset mic by default, but the Vive's built-in mic is SOOOOO BAD that any "advantage" it has that it works wirelessly right out of the box is actually COMPLETELY WORTHLESS!!!
It's funny, because you still have cables. Except instead of a cable to your PC, you are running a cable to your belt or pocket. But not having that cable go to your PC is really the key.
I ordered the deluxe audio strap and they sent me this on accident lol idiots. But really doesn't seem to grab my attention if the battery life just turns off and where I do recordings not sure how i'd like that.
wow I was going to buy this and you talked me out of it because the 2 hour battery life and 6 hour charge time and screw buying a 2nd battery ill just deal with the wiles cuz I am a mad gamer and charging batteries is going to cut in to that
If you are a pro user, you are not paying for materials, you're paying for continued R&D. If you want to start your own company and develop a competing cheaper alternative you can go for it and then charge 3$ for it. Good luck!
hi i have the original vive the one with no fancy screw straps the regular one i think its the first one but anyway i was wondering if this worked for all vive headsets
I'm in so much turmoil mentally now. I have the adapter coming, and I was about to build a new machine, and as I do a lot of multi tasking and stuff I was totally going for the Ryzen 2700x... but... I'm not sure if that's a good idea anymore 😅 My current PC is a miniITX one so cannot fit the card in it 🙄
Yep i had to rebuild my mini itx and move up to an atx but my motherboard wasn't expensive just $120 and a very nice case was just $40, I REALLY HATE MY CABLE LOL 😂
2:43 it will even work in an x16 slot. In some cases that may divert PCIe lanes from your graphics card (check the mobo manual) but that shouldn't appreciably affect performance with anything short of an RTX 2080 Ti.
