After partnering with HTC to produce the Vive in 2016, Valve has gone solo with its ambitious new premium VR headset, the Index. There’s absolutely no getting around the fact that a full, zero-to-Index setup will cost you $1,000, which is two and a half times as much as the recently released Oculus Rift S (but somehow significantly cheaper than the absurd $1,330 HTC still asks for a similar Vive Pro setup). But if you have the budget and space to accommodate it, the Index is very arguably worth every penny thanks to its excellent display, wide field of view, best-available controllers, and reliable tracking.

Valve Index – Setup

Valve Index – The Headset

“ Comfort is one of the big things we’re paying for, and the Index delivers in that department

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“ The LCD display produces the best VR image I’ve ever seen

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Valve Index – Controllers

“ The downside is that the Index Controllers are noticeably heavier than the Oculus Touch controllers

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Valve Index – Lighthouse 2.0 Base Stations

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Purchasing Guide

Valve Index On Steam See It

Having used Oculus’ incredibly convenient inside-out tracking system on the Rift S and Quest , it was genuinely a drag to go back to setting up external sensors. However, the Lighthouse 2.0 base stations were extremely easy to plop on perches in opposite corners of the room and plug into power. Everything automatically connected and worked flawlessly on the first attempt, so it would be unseemly to complain – especially when the benefit is tracking that’s significantly more reliable than inside-out and loses track of hands much less frequently. gaming GPU s have multiple DisplayPort ports but only a single HDMI port. Overall, I was up and running in less than 10 minutes. Also, there’s a safety breakaway near the end, and Valve plans to let you detach it there and buy a $40 VirtualLink USB-C adapter that combines all three into one small plug in July.Notably, the Index’s minimum system requirements mirror the Vive’s, though that would give you “minimum” levels of performance as well and not take advantage of the Index’s superior screen capabilities.Comfort is one of the big things we’re paying for, and the Index delivers in that department as well as in generally high build quality. The headstrap is similar to the Vive Pro’s, with rigid side pieces that are tightened and loosened by a ratcheting knob on the back and a velcro strap to hold it on the top of your head. As far as weight distribution goes it’s still not quite up to the comfort level of the crown-style headgear of the PlayStation VR , but certainly a big step up from the original Vive and Oculus Rift, and significantly more comfortable than the Rift S, even on my abnormally large head. Valve also includes a rubber insert for people with small heads – I was even able to fit it on my four-year-old son (only for a few minutes, naturally). headset I’d used up to this point. Then I turned the knob on the right temple, which physically moved the lenses closer to my eyes. Suddenly the SCUBA-google effect almost completely disappeared which, especially when combined with the impressive 1440x1600 per-eye resolution (which is equal to the Vive Pro and greater than the Rift S’s 1280x1440), immediately became the Index’s biggest advantage over every other headset.Having even a little more peripheral vision makes an enormous difference in feeling surrounded by a virtual environment. (Note that if you’re wearing glasses you won’t be able to take full advantage of this.) There’s also a physical IPD slider to adjust the separation between the lenses to suit your eyes, which is notable mostly because the Rift S doesn’t have this otherwise-standard feature. Two forward-facing cameras on the front of the headset allow for binocular passthrough video. LCD display produces the best VR image I’ve ever seen. It’s not an OLED so the contrast isn’t quite as high as it could have been, and I'm still not entirely free of God rays and halos when looking at bright lights or white text in dark environments, but it still looks fantastic and the screen-door effect is minimal. But it’s not just the picture quality that sets the Index apart: in the settings, you can enable either 120hz or an “experimental” 144hz refresh rate, the latter of which can sometimes result in some distracting jutter. While even 120hz is a significant upgrade over the usual 90hz you find in tethered VR headsets (and double the Oculus Quest’s 72hz) I found the benefit to be subtle rather than dramatic. Mostly, it’s a bit easier on the eyes after a long session, which is nothing to scoff at.Fast games like Beat Saber and Space Pirate Trainer benefit most from the added smoothness, but everything looks good on this display. Whether you’re playing highly detailed games like Arizona Sunshine, stylized ones like Trover Saves the Universe, trying other experiences like leaping around in Google Earth VR, or just using Virtual Desktop or watching Netflix this is a big step up compared to the first-generation headsets and a noticeable one relative to the Rift S, especially due to the increased field of view.The built-in headphones are the most comfortable possible design, in that they don’t actually touch your ears at all. Given that physical separation, there’s surprisingly little sound bleed - next to the Oculus Quest’s built-in speakers, for example, it’s extremely well contained. I found it hard to hear any audio coming out of the speakers when standing next to it, and could only make out audio from a few feet away with it really cranked up. From the inside, the sound quality and positional 3D audio is excellent.The part of the headset that actually touches your face – the “gasket” – is attached magnetically, making it extremely easy to pop off (but hard to do so accidentally). Only one gasket is included, but for another $40 Valve will sell you two more so that you can swap it out if someone gets it all sweaty and gross playing Beat Saber at a party. The textured fabric that makes contact with your face is comfortable enough to wear for extended sessions, and Valve states that it’s made with an antimicrobial material that in theory will prevent the growth of, say, flesh-eating bacteria.A gasket can’t be thrown in the dishwasher or washing machine for a quick cleaning (that’ll always be the dream), but Valve says you can swab it with alcohol wipes to sanitize it. However, the padding on the back of the headset is not removable, so if you’re expecting to sweat a lot you might want to wear a headband or something between you and the Index.An expansion slot on the front of the headset is a place for developers to plug in their prototypes, or potential add-ons Valve or third parties might sell in the future. I wouldn’t buy the Index based on its hypothetical expandability, but who knows – that gamble could pay off in interesting ways. The expansion port is covered by a removable glossy black plastic piece that makes the Index look a bit like it’s made out of Darth Vader’s helmet. I’m not saying you’re going to look cool wearing a VR headset, but maybe slightly less un-cool.The Index Controllers are the most forward-looking part of the package, and they represent a huge upgrade over the clunky Vive Wands in functionality and comfort. The big deal is their ability to sense whether each of your fingers is individually extended or closed, which it does with a fair – but far from 100% – degree of accuracy, and it can tell if you’re just closing your hand versus squeezing with some force. And, because they’re strapped to your hands, you can completely let go of the controller and see your in-game hands fully open.That takes some getting used to if this isn’t your first VR rodeo because until now I’ve trained my brain to maintain a death grip on controllers at all costs to keep from throwing them across the room, but here that risky behavior is the entire point. Actions like throwing virtual objects are much more intuitive than with the Oculus Touch or Vive Wands.The Index Controllers are comfortable enough, though it took some fiddling and adjusting of the strap, which is tightened by pulling a cord at the bottom and loosened with a release button, to figure out a balance where the strap felt secure on my hand but not too tight. Each controller has four buttons, including the trigger, two console-style buttons, a small and difficult-to-accidentally-push power/home/options button, plus a thumbstick and a narrow track pad in the center. Valve loves track pads (as we saw with the Steam Controller) but here it’s been willing to compromise and include traditional physical controls as well.Physically, the Index Controllers are considerably larger than any other VR controller I’ve used because of the partial ring around the outside, and that led to not-infrequent, scary-sounding collisions with the headset when playing Beat Saber that’ve knocked the shiny plastic cover off the front – something I’ve never really done with any other controller. But it’s a testament to the build quality of both the headset and the controllers that those collisions haven’t left any marks on either.I can imagine lots of uses for all of the sensors and finger-tracking tech in these controllers: a Spider-Man game where you close your middle and ring fingers to shoot webs, a wizard battle with hand gestures for casting spells, a tactical shooter where you give hand signals to control AI teammates, or even a tea party simulator where you must keep your pinky finger extended at all times. (Or a Dr. Evil game?) But none of that exists yet, and outside of Valve’s hilarious but brief Aperture Hand Lab, in which you engage in activities like shaking hands and rock, paper, scissors, or the Moondust tech demos, early adopters aren’t going to have much to do with it until developers get a chance to implement it.Even the handful of games (pardon the pun) like Shadow Legends VR that have enabled finger-tracking support only do so in a cosmetic way on your in-game hand models; there’s nothing you can do here that you couldn’t with another controller. It’s a shame Valve didn’t launch a full finger-tracking VR game to make the Index Controllers feel more immediately important out of the box.That makes it very much an early-adopter controller, because until this level of precision becomes the standard we’re not going to see many games go all-in on it and build gameplay around fingers other than the thumb, index finger, and ring finger that are also effectively tracked by the Oculus Touch.The base stations are functionally very similar to the originals, with the main new feature being that you can connect to up to four of them to cover a huge 10x10-meter playable area to go well beyond room scale, in case you happen to have access to an empty warehouse. Given that the Index’s cord is only so long though, this feature feels like future-proofing for a potential wireless adapter, but the ability to add a third base station (sold separately for $150) to cover an area of your space that the other two can’t is a potentially useful scenario.The 2.0 base stations are also slightly sleeker and have a curved front face, giving them a wider field of view than their predecessors. That said, if your space is already sufficiently covered by 1.0 base stations (which is generally easy to do) their tracking quality doesn’t seem noticeably different from the previous generation, so there’s no need to throw the old ones away. You’re likely better off saving yourself the $250 and buying the headset and controllers separately (which Valve thankfully allows you to do), since they’re fully compatible with the old base stations.You can reserve your own Valve Index directly on the Steam store right now for $999.