Razer announces its second OSVR headset and it's a big upgrade

[Jos]

Razer and Sensic's open source virtual reality initiative hasn’t garnered a lot attention compared to the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, but OSVR has been quietly making progress and today is getting a major upgrade. The second generation Hacker Development Kit, or HDK 2 for short, is moving from a single 1080p screen to a pair of 2160 x 1200 resolution OLED panels with a 90 Hz refresh rate.

Those specs are on par with what the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive offer. It also comes with a 100 Hz IR camera for positional tracking, individual eye focusing with the dual-lens system, and an image quality enhancer that promises to reduce the VR screen door effect. It doesn’t ship with controllers but it can work with a standard game pad and OSVR hopes to support things such as hand tracking through compatible accesories.

Razer claims it is also working on supporting room-scale VR but at least with the current hardware that doesn't seem possible.

The new headset will go on sale in July for $399, significantly less than the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. In terms of software, the whole point of OSVR is that it's hardware agnostic, so the HDK 2 will support games and software from the Steam library. “We are on a mission to democratize VR by offering open, affordable, high-performance software and hardware solutions with nearly-universal device and game engine compatibility,” OSVR cofounder Yuval Boger says.

Aside from the hardware update, OSVR is also announcing a $5 million fund to promote content that can help bring VR to the mainstream. Developers can apply for the fund and if they're approved Razer will purchase game codes in bulk from them

	HDK 2	Oculus Rift	HTC Vive
Display	OLED	OLED	OLED
Resolution	2160x1200	2160x1200	2160x1200
Refresh Rate	90hz	90hz	90hz
Platform	OSVR	Oculus Home	SteamVR
Field of view	110 degrees	110 degrees	110 degrees
Tracking area	8 x 9 feet	5 x 11 feet	15 x 15 feet
Built in audio	No	Yes	No
Built in mic	No	Yes	No
Controller	Any OSVR compatible VR hardware, Any PC compatible gamepad.	Oculus Touch, Xbox One Controller or any PC compatible gamepad.	Lighthouse controllers, any PC compatible gamepad.
Sensors	Accelerometer, Gyroscope, magnetometer, 360-degree positional tracking.	Accelerometer, Gyroscope, magnetometer, 360-degree positional tracking.	Accelerometer, Gyroscope, laser sensor, front-facing camera.
Connections	HDMI, USB 2.0, USB 3.0	HDMI, USB 2.0, USB 3.0	HDMI, USB 2.0, USB 3.0
Requirements	Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 /Radeon R9 280 equivalent or greater Intel Core i5-4590 equivalent or greater 8GB+ of RAM Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output 2 x USB 2.0 port	Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater 8GB+ RAMCompatible HDMI 1.3 video output 2x USB 3.0 ports Windows 7 SP1 or newer	Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 /Radeon R9 280 equivalent or greater Intel Core i5-4590 equivalent or greater 4GB+ of RAM Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output 1x USB 2.0 port
Price	$400	$600	$800

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/65192-razer-announces-second-osvr-headset-big-upgrade.html

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

So its the same resolution display(s) as Oculus and Vive? How is it better then? Individual eye focusing will be nice but that will just allow us to see the screendoor effect even better!

And I wish everyone would stop combining the horizontal resolution for both eyes. 1080 width per eye does not equal 2160 total when both eyes are seeing mostly the same scene. Grrr. I hate false and misleading advertising.

The price though sounds a lot better... $400 instead of $600.

 

[Panda218]

It's not a huge deal, but the Vive does have a built in microphone. Not sure why its wrong on all of these posts I've been reading today about the OSVR headset.

 

[Axle Greese]

So its the same resolution display(s) as Oculus and Vive? How is it better then? Individual eye focusing will be nice but that will just allow us to see the screendoor effect even better!

And I wish everyone would stop combining the horizontal resolution for both eyes. 1080 width per eye does not equal 2160 total when both eyes are seeing mostly the same scene. Grrr. I hate false and misleading advertising.

The price though sounds a lot better... $400 instead of $600.

Quite right. All three are 1080 x 1200p headsets.

 

[Uncle Al]

Price getting closer .... drops another $100 and I'll start taking notice!

 

[Puiu]

So its the same resolution display(s) as Oculus and Vive? How is it better then? Individual eye focusing will be nice but that will just allow us to see the screendoor effect even better!

And I wish everyone would stop combining the horizontal resolution for both eyes. 1080 width per eye does not equal 2160 total when both eyes are seeing mostly the same scene. Grrr. I hate false and misleading advertising.

The price though sounds a lot better... $400 instead of $600.

they are talking about a big upgrade compared to the previous dev kit not compared to the vive and rift
those specs at $400, it's really nice. add the new $200 RX 480 and you'll have a decent VR system for a fairly low price.