The crystalline quality of GaAs and Ge heteroepitaxial films with microscopic charge imbalance and balance at heterointerfaces, grown on vicinal Si(1 1 0)substrates by molecular-beam epitaxy, has been characterized using X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy. Effects of microscopic charge balance and imbalance on the initial growth process have been investigated by comparing crystalline properties, such as surface roughness, residual strain, spread of the distribution of atomic interplanar spacing and spread due to mosaic structure, of GaAs films with those of Ge films. On a (1 1 0) substrate miscut 6 degrees towards the [0 0 1] direction, the off-angles of GaAs and Ge films decreased by 0.8 degrees towards the [0 0 1] direction, compared with off-angles of the respective substrates. This reflects an initial step-flow-like growth mode. The crystalline quality of GaAs films on Si(1 1 0) tilted towards [0 0 1] was improved by relaxing the microscopic charge imbalance through a well-controlled initial growth process, such as step-flow-like growth. However, increasing the off-angle does not always improve the crystalline quality of Ge films on vicinal Si(1 1 0), in spite of a microscopically balanced charge at the interface. Moreover, in Ge films on vicinal Sill 1 Of, the strong compressive strain is generated near step edges of the substrate, which is not sufficiently relieved by the thermal tensile strain generated during the cooling process after the growth. Good control of the initial growth process, by means of some relaxation process of microscopic charge imbalance and strain, or charge balance at the heterointerface, was found to be important for improving the crystalline quality of heteroepitaxial films on Si substrates.