HTC Vive Pro 2 packs 5k 120Hz display and supports the Vive Wireless

HTC just upped the ante for VR headset makers. The newly announced Vive Pro 2 cranks up the resolution, refresh rate and field of view. And this one supports SteamVR tracking and the Vive Wireless Adapter.

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HTC today announced the next addition to its Vive Pro high-end VR headset lineup. The company currently offers the Vive Pro, Vive Pro Eye, and Vive Pro Secure headsets for business and arcade use, and by the end of the month, the Vive Pro 2 will join the line for use cases that demand the highest visual fidelity.

The Vive Pro 2 features the same overall design as the original Vive Pro, retaining the visor shape, head strap design, and SteamVR tracking compatibility. The big changes lie under the hood, with 120Hz 2448x2448 pixel fast-switching RGB LCDs, one for each eye, giving it a total resolution of 4896x2448. For comparison, HP's Reverb G2 sports a pair of 90Hz 2160x2160 displays.

"Today's launch marks a major milestone in our strategy to create the very best immersive experiences. We have listened to our customers, from well-known global companies to smaller firms and professional users, and have designed these premium headsets from the ground up to meet the challenges they face, adding a professional range of software, platform and services to make implementation as smooth and effective as possible," said Cher Wang, HTC Chairwoman and CEO. "In line with our mission, we've combined the very latest technology with the needs and aspirations of our customers, enabling them to unleash their imagination to improve people's lives and solve problems for business and society."

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The resolution and refresh rate of the Vive Pro 2 would generally exceed the bandwidth limitations of the DisplayPort 1.2 protocol and the DisplayLink wireless protocol in HTC's Vive Wireless Adapter. To solve that problem, HTC worked with NVIDIA and AMD to implement Display Stream Compression, a lossless video compression protocol used in ultra-high-resolution TVs. The compression solution enables the Vive Pro 2 to work with older DP1.2 graphics cards and the Vive Wireless Adapter.

The Vive Pro 2 upgrade kit, which includes the headset alone, is available for pre-order today for $799. The complete kit, which includes base station 2.0 and two Vive controllers, goes on sale June 4 for $1399.