possibility of "oculus rift"-tech PS4 exclusivity?

[Laa-Yosh]

The high res requirement is because the screen should ideally cover your entire field of vision. You'd need to sit very very close to a 50" TV to do that. At normal view distances it covers only a fraction so 1920*1080 is quite good.

Our local IMAX theater has 2K projectors. Even that screen isn't covering the entire FOV and yet I can see pixels quite clearly on it. Moderately aliased realtime graphics would probably have lots of very obvious jaggies and all.

You can also turn your eyes around while wearing a head mounted display, so the entire FOV is even bigger than that of the eye (about 120 degrees or so?). However you only focus on a small set of what you see and that's in the middle of the eye's field. Everything else will never require 100% detail, it could theoretically go down to like 20 or 10% or even less. But because of eye rotation you do need the ppi for the entire screen.

Eye tracking could however tell the graphics system where you're looking on that given screen and only use full detail at the center of that. It could make utilization several times better - you'd still render the entire 4K or so image, but the cost could perhaps be even as small as rendering a regular 2K frame. And even without eye tracking you could probably scale the detail around the edges of the screen anyway.

I guess this is one of the reasons Carmack is so interested and enthusiastic. He's been thinking about a lot of this tech before and now the perfect platform to utilize them is finally in sight.

 

[pcchen]

And playing so very close for hours couldn't potentially develop "lazy eye" in one of your eyes?

I think that'd be ok because the optics are designed such that your eyes are focused on a far away plane (otherwise it'd be very stressful to the eyes).

 

[Cyan]

The high res requirement is because the screen should ideally cover your entire field of vision. You'd need to sit very very close to a 50" TV to do that. At normal view distances it covers only a fraction so 1920*1080 is quite good.

Our local IMAX theater has 2K projectors. Even that screen isn't covering the entire FOV and yet I can see pixels quite clearly on it. Moderately aliased realtime graphics would probably have lots of very obvious jaggies and all.

You can also turn your eyes around while wearing a head mounted display, so the entire FOV is even bigger than that of the eye (about 120 degrees or so?). However you only focus on a small set of what you see and that's in the middle of the eye's field. Everything else will never require 100% detail, it could theoretically go down to like 20 or 10% or even less. But because of eye rotation you do need the ppi for the entire screen.

Eye tracking could however tell the graphics system where you're looking on that given screen and only use full detail at the center of that. It could make utilization several times better - you'd still render the entire 4K or so image, but the cost could perhaps be even as small as rendering a regular 2K frame. And even without eye tracking you could probably scale the detail around the edges of the screen anyway.

I guess this is one of the reasons Carmack is so interested and enthusiastic. He's been thinking about a lot of this tech before and now the perfect platform to utilize them is finally in sight.

I drool imagining how focusing the detail only where you are looking at, rendering the game at 2x720p 60fps and the utilisation of Kinect's X1 for head tracking and voice commands and gestures could achieve in conjunction with the Occulus Rift.

 

[Cyan]

I think that'd be ok because the optics are designed such that your eyes are focused on a far away plane (otherwise it'd be very stressful to the eyes).

Ah okay, thanks for explaining that to me. I have never tried the Rift myself and I always wondered that, because trust me that having a screen close to your eyes for hours can easily develop lazy eye in the long run, and by long I mean a year or two.

 

[patsu]

You can try HMZ-T1 in SonyStores in the mean time.

EDIT:
Wait... it's HMZ-T3 now.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The high res requirement is because the screen should ideally cover your entire field of vision. You'd need to sit very very close to a 50" TV to do that. At normal view distances it covers only a fraction so 1920*1080 is quite good...

Yes, I think it'd be possible to keep the rendering requirements down to something sane and doable on reasonable hardware without needing 4k*2 rendering power. However, the screen is going to be the limiting factor. We're just nowhere near that sort of display technology yet. 4k at 4" screens doesn't even make sense in other devices so why's anyone going to develop that sort of screen? It's only value is visors and VR, which means specialist products at specialist prices, unless there's some breakthrough tech.

 

[Arwin]

I still hope we'd get a PS4 HMD version with twice the power and better video output or whatever so that the 3D version doesn't have to be a compromise vs the original PS4 games.

If that is not happening then I'm guessing it will be more likely that a PC will be used to power Oculus Rift games.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Oh sure, 4K per eye would be something for a future product, well after VR has become mainstream. There's no guarantee that it'd happen. Not to mention that current consoles and even PCs would have trouble even with framebuffer memory requirements, not to mention rendering that many pixels.

For a final Rift product, two times 1080p is a much more realistic goal, and even that would stress a PS4/X1 system. So it'd make sense to start research and development on reducing the actual pixel computing requirements even with this product.

Then there's the whole eye tracking stuff and so on which is also something for a later generation of VR hardware. I'm not even sure if it could be done inside a head mounted display's case.

 

[idsn6]

Yes, I think it'd be possible to keep the rendering requirements down to something sane and doable on reasonable hardware without needing 4k*2 rendering power. However, the screen is going to be the limiting factor. We're just nowhere near that sort of display technology yet. 4k at 4" screens doesn't even make sense in other devices so why's anyone going to develop that sort of screen? It's only value is visors and VR, which means specialist products at specialist prices, unless there's some breakthrough tech.

2560x1440 smartphones have been announced, and 4K phone screens are targeted for 2015. Whether it makes sense is irrelevant in the face of a "bigger numbers" spec race, which is good news for VR.

 

[ERP]

To be fair, I believe the rift uses the same trick as the old Leep VR equipment, using optics and distorting the output so that pixel density is higher in the middle of the screen.
Pixels are still going to be quite noticeable even with the higher resolution screen, but to me at least the the wider FOV and stereo are enough to offset that in a gaming experience. I'm sure there will be plenty of people for whom that will not be the case.

 

[V3]

Can Sony upgrade the technology that's in the current HMZ line to have wider FOV, without using the Rift optics distortion method ? Like using wider OLED screens micro display ?

 

[ERP]

Can Sony upgrade the technology that's in the current HMZ line to have wider FOV, without using the Rift optics distortion method ? Like using wider OLED screens micro display ?

you really need a large screen to get a decently sized exit pupil with conventional optics.
The optical distortion is intentional, resolution is far more important in the center of the screen with a wide FOV than at the edges, which is why they have the distortion. The basic idea is to invert the distortion when rendering (or as a post process) so the image doesn't appear distorted to the wearer, but they get the advantage of the increased resolution in the center of the display.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

Hasn't MS been toying with eye tracking rendering on traditional displays? Should be even easier inside a rift like setup.

 

[pcchen]

Hasn't MS been toying with eye tracking rendering on traditional displays? Should be even easier inside a rift like setup.

Making something like a "moving display" which moves around your eye with the highest resolution part right before the center of your eye is difficult. The display also has to be carefully aligned with what you render on it to make sure it doesn't "wobble." I don't know but maybe this is more expensive than just put a high resolution display. Rendering, of course, can be optimized to be with the best quality near the center of your eyes (e.g. only the part in front of the center of your eyes are rendered with full resolution).

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Hasn't MS been toying with eye tracking rendering on traditional displays? Should be even easier inside a rift like setup.

It's possible, but that requires a method of tracking the user's pupils. Which means added complexity, weight, cost, and power consumption on a device that you want to be as light as possible.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's possible, but that requires a method of tracking the user's pupils. Which means added complexity, weight, cost, and power consumption on a device that you want to be as light as possible.

It'd require just a couple of tiny cameras inside, I think. Complexity, cost, and weight shouldn't be hugely affected.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

If the galaxy s4 can do basic eye tracking, it seems at least feasible though the headgear would probably require a bit of built in processing.

But I could have sworn it was here on B3D that eye tracking to render center vision at higher quality on a traditional display was mentioned. And I thought that was in reference to MS. Will have to search for it later.

 

[idsn6]

You are thinking of this (video here).

Eye-tracked foveated rendering makes sense, the only question is when.

 

[V3]

HMZ-T1 has an optical module to make the screen appear further away. What sort of optics module does the Rift use ?

AFAIK the Rift uses fish eye lenses for its optics module. That's why they have to distort the image.

Have you guys heard of Avegant? This start up apparently managed to get virtual retinal display working for HMD. This sort of display will remove screen door effect altogether. And it can update at 240Hz. However they're aiming for consumer media device like other HMDs, so the fov is your standard 40-45 degrees. But they say it is possible to increase the fov.

I wonder if you can marry the Rift optics module with Avegant virtual retina display, to make a good VR experiment.

 

[Daozang]

So the consoles are not the best hardware for a 4k rift because they have to render at a native resolution?
Why not render at 1080 and upscale?
Wouldn't that solve the problem and keep the frames at a steady 60?