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Virtual reality

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I had a PS VR for about a month after it went on sale on Black Friday. I liked it but could never get over the screen door effect. I couldn't justify keeping it because I would use it less and less as time went on. I ended up selling it on Craigslist for $40 less than I got it for.

I think once they can clean up the screen door effect with increasing pixel density, I will jump back in.

I'd like to see them fix the screen door effect too, but when I'm actually playing, I don't even think about it. It'd be different if I were watching movies on it.
 
I'd like to see them fix the screen door effect too, but when I'm actually playing, I don't even think about it. It'd be different if I were watching movies on it.
Because it is so close to your face you need a really high resolution. We just don't have the hardware to run things smoothly at a high enough resolution.
 
Because it is so close to your face you need a really high resolution. We just don't have the hardware to run things smoothly at a high enough resolution.

The issue isn't processing power, it's panel pixel density. 8K VR is already functional in VR headsets being developed; and can be powered by a single 1080. The reason this is possible (and not comparable to rendering for a single 8k display) is because rendering two near-field 4k images allows for much of the rendering process to be re-used.

The future without any pixels being visible is likely at dual 8K resolution per-eye, which is on the horizon.
 
The issue isn't processing power, it's panel pixel density. 8K VR is already functional in VR headsets being developed; and can be powered by a single 1080. The reason this is possible (and not comparable to rendering for a single 8k display) is because rendering two near-field 4k images allows for much of the rendering process to be re-used.

The future without any pixels being visible is likely at dual 8K resolution per-eye, which is on the horizon.
The games can't be that graphically demanding if a 1080 is rendering them at 90 frames per second. The ps4 has no chance in hell.
 
The issue isn't processing power, it's panel pixel density. 8K VR is already functional in VR headsets being developed; and can be powered by a single 1080. The reason this is possible (and not comparable to rendering for a single 8k display) is because rendering two near-field 4k images allows for much of the rendering process to be re-used.

The future without any pixels being visible is likely at dual 8K resolution per-eye, which is on the horizon.

How much of the screen door is from the display, and how much is from the lens?
 
The games can't be that graphically demanding if a 1080 is rendering them at 90 frames per second. The ps4 has no chance in hell.

Depends; and again, it's quite subjective.... a lot of it has to do with qualitative judgements about the end product and that largely depends on the medium it's being viewed on.

That is to say, you'll find different approaches to improving overall visual quality, qualitatively, between games that are VR-based and those that are generally ports/ Most game designers would probably choose not to use many of the more intensive shaders or textures in a VR game if there was not the same degree of qualitative improvement experienced by the end-user, instead choosing to spend processing resources on different improvements.

Many gamers have to choose for themselves what settings to enable, which to turn off, or what optimized profiles work best for them. By default for example, IIRC the Rift will try to use interpolation to get to 90 FPS (not requiring the game engine to do it through the standard render pipeline); so this means the intermediate frames are interpolated. So instead of needing to render at 90 FPS, the system can do 45 FPS and get by. For most users, this is okay; however, for many this might cause motion sickness.

For users who aren't satisfied or comfortable with interpolated frames again, subjectively, would prefer to run settings turned down a bit to achieve a native 90 FPS; which, a 1080 can do. Most often things like anti-aliasing and SSAO; for example, a 1080 can run GTA V @ 4k or near-4k at an average of 90 FPS on relatively high (not fully maxed) settings; whereas, if the settings were fully maxed out, you'd be looking at below-60 FPS performance... The question then becomes, are "max" settings visually different enough to warrant using them if near-max settings gets you 90 FPS?

So it's not entirely straight-forward, and one can't really extrapolate from either the experience they get on their monitor, or from benchmarks of graphics cards on "Ultra" settings since the qualitative experience in VR is vastly different.
 
^ also pretty likely that we are a few years away from completely screen door free VR, and that by the time the headsets can do that for a reasonable cost, there will be a more powerful playstation.

Also, screen door is noticeable when you aren't playing games, but I never even think about it when I'm playing them. I'm too busy trying to win the game.
 
How much of the screen door is from the display, and how much is from the lens?

It's almost entirely the display. There's a VR-headset coming out this year from Pimax that proves this:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pimax8kvr/pimax-the-worlds-first-8k-vr-headset

Now, some reviewers who have used it have suggested you can still make out the pixel structure, but it's almost invisible and not noticeable if you're not really looking for it; others have suggested they couldn't for the life of them detect any pixels at all, no matter how much they strained to find them.

More importantly is the 200-degree horizontal field of view, at least again, qualitatively for the user experience -- at least, according to reviewers.

And it should be noted that these "8k" headsets are not actually "8k," but 2x4k rendered stereoscopically; which is actually half the resolution of a single 8k display.
 
It's almost entirely the display. There's a VR-headset coming out this year from Pimax that proves this:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pimax8kvr/pimax-the-worlds-first-8k-vr-headset

Now, some reviewers who have used it have suggested you can still make out the pixel structure, but it's almost invisible and not noticeable if you're not really looking for it; others have suggested they couldn't for the life of them detect any pixels at all, no matter how much they strained to find them.

More importantly is the 200-degree horizontal field of view, at least again, qualitatively for the user experience -- at least, according to reviewers.

And it should be noted that these "8k" headsets are not actually "8k," but 2x4k rendered stereoscopically; which is actually half the resolution of a single 8k display.

So half of the resolution gets used for wider FOV, the other half gets used for reducing screen door? It sounds like they can replace the Vive headset and be used with the Vive hardware in all of the same games. Did you fund the kickstarted to get one?
 
Also, screen door is noticeable when you aren't playing games, but I never even think about it when I'm playing them. I'm too busy trying to win the game.
The ps4 has no chance in hell.

I would agree with this though @TyGuy, you're not going to get this kind of performance from the PS4. But it remains to be seen what direction Sony will go in for a future console.

I find it highly unlikely that Sony would abandon the x86/AMD architecture that both it and Microsoft have built their consoles on; so my guess is that any PS5 development would just mean an iterative update with something nearly as capable as the 1080 (or 1070) by the time it releases.
 
So half of the resolution gets used for wider FOV, the other half gets used for reducing screen door? It sounds like they can replace the Vive headset and be used with the Vive hardware in the same games. Did you fund the kickstarted to get one?

I didn't fund the kickstarter but I do know someone who did... I'm really curious to see how these "8k" VR displays work out because once released, if they work as advertised, I'll be first in line... I'd even pay a premium.
 
I didn't fund the kickstarter but I do know someone who did... I'm really curious to see how these "8k" VR displays work out because once released, if they work as advertised, I'll be first in line... I'd even pay a premium.

I'll be right there with you. Plus have to get a new computer. I've been checking every few days for Vive Pro release info.
 
I'll be right there with you. Plus have to get a new computer. I've been checking every few days for Vive Pro release info.

Have you heard anything about how well the Vive Wireless Adapter works?
 
Have you heard anything about how well the Vive Wireless Adapter works?

Not a whole lot, I did just realize that it requires a slot so won't work with the tiny computer I ended up going with (which has 1070 and not the 1080ti the Pixmax 8k wants either)
 
Not a whole lot, I did just realize that it requires a slot so won't work with the tiny computer I ended up going with (which has 1070 and not the 1080ti the Pixmax 8k wants either)

If you're just using a 1070, you can bifurcate the PCIe slot using a riser card and split it into 2 x8 slots. You can then run a PCIe extension cable from one of the slots mount the card directly on the chasis server-style, so long as it's insulated.

I've done this kind of setup in very small mini-ITX builds several times. Yes, your graphics card will fall back to PCIe 3.1 x8, but that actually shouldn't result in more than a 2-3% drop in frame rates, at the most (in most workloads)
 

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