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This week, Valve hosted the SteamVR Developer Showcase in Seattle, with 12 separate games demonstrated running on the latest Vive Pre hardware. We were invited along, the event consisting of a full afternoon of demos running in sequence - 15 mins on a particular demo, followed by 15 minutes to gather thoughts and write notes. Suffice to say that putting together an article with so much source content is going to take some time, but we can kick off with some observations on the latest revision of the hardware itself - said to be very, very close to final production product.The last time we at Digital Foundry had access to Vive was at GDC 2015, where a prototype device was set up in the Valve booth, combined with early controllers, which were wired at the time. The sense of being 'strapped in' to the experience was quite overwhelming, but once the headset was moved into place, what became clear was that this was the premier VR experience - absolute consistency in the frame-rate, class-leading image quality and of course, mobility: Vive gave you the ability to explore VR in a way that its competitors didn't.
Almost one year on and much has changed. One of our crucial issues with the hardware has been addressed: back at GDC 2015, I was unable to use the headset while wearing glasses, a difficulty I also experienced with Oculus' Crescent Bay prototype (PlayStation VR was fine). It can be a tight fit at times, but the Vive Pre works just fine in this regard. On top of that, the panel in the headset also appears to have improved - I couldn't quite put my finger on what made it better, but speaking to developers, I understand that the panel is brighter and has fewer motion blur issues. What was already a rock-solid experience now looks even better.
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