News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

[Shifty Geezer]

They can make the head set with a high resolution and still render at 720p which is most likely what Sony will do anyway .

Such a blurry VR experience may well turn people off. Sony have said they won't release VR until they can do it justice. Either the games will be simpler to render at high res (2x 1080p, potentially), or they'll use foveated rendering. But 720p stretched to 90-100 degrees FOV is going to like like frickin' ass, like everyone's left their spectacle at home, and won't do eyes any favours either. I reckon it'd plain bomb.

 

[eastmen]

Such a blurry VR experience may well turn people off. Sony have said they won't release VR until they can do it justice. Either the games will be simpler to render at high res (2x 1080p, potentially), or they'll use foveated rendering. But 720p stretched to 90-100 degrees FOV is going to like like frickin' ass, like everyone's left their spectacle at home, and won't do eyes any favours either. I reckon it'd plain bomb.

I'm sure whatever fixes OR and Sony are able to implement to make a better VR experience MS will also be capable of making.

Sony is going to release Morpheus on the ps4 and while the ps4 has some hardware advantages they are much smaller than what you'd find on the pc side of the fence in 2015.

720p with a 90-100 degree FOV will look bad but I don't think a 1080p res stretched to that FOV will look drasticly different and I don't believe the ps4 has the hardware power to render at twice the resolution of the xbox one. IF the ps4 is doing a game at 1080p in vr then it should run fine at 900p on the xbox one.

MS has a couple of things that will improve the experience on the xbox one that are patented from what I understand. So we will know soon enough what these systems are really capable of.

I've only used the Morpheus for small demos (I was able to do scuba demo) . I've used a crescent bay rift running on cross fire 290x chips playing elite and aliens and that was struggling

 

[Scott_Arm]

I think in the VR world, 960x1080 per eye will look a ton better than 640x720 per eye. The difference will be much much more noticeable than it is on your tv, where it can be seen. Line crawling at 640x800 was a big issue on the first occulus rift prototype. My guess is the consoles will both settle at something like 960x1080 per eye, and they have to render two slightly different views. Graphics will not be as nice as non-VR games.

If you follow the development of Occulus Rift, you'll find a ton of information about the issues they have to deal with, in terms of refresh rates, judder, persistence etc. PC will be far more equipped to deal with them. 60Hz may not even be a great experience.

 

[eastmen]

I think in the VR world, 960x1080 per eye will look a ton better than 640x720 per eye. The difference will be much much more noticeable than it is on your tv, where it can be seen. Line crawling at 640x800 was a big issue on the first occulus rift prototype. My guess is the consoles will both settle at something like 960x1080 per eye, and they have to render two slightly different views. Graphics will not be as nice as non-VR games.

If you follow the development of Occulus Rift, you'll find a ton of information about the issues they have to deal with, in terms of refresh rates, judder, persistence etc. PC will be far more equipped to deal with them. 60Hz may not even be a great experience.

I can agree with this.

I also think the scaler they use will have a large impact on the image quality.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I can agree with this.

I also think the scaler they use will have a large impact on the image quality.

To be honest, I think this is a case where they'll avoid scaling at all. Input lag will be a more significant problem. You want as near to 0 input lag as possible. They'll most likely go with frame-locked at native resolution.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm sure whatever fixes OR and Sony are able to implement to make a better VR experience MS will also be capable of making.

Of course they can. Unless patents prevent it. MS are actually in an advantage there with a known patent on foveated rendering.

720p with a 90-100 degree FOV will look bad but I don't think a 1080p res stretched to that FOV will look drasticly different

It sure will! And 1080p itself is still a little blurry. OVR is going to have a higher resolution, and I reckon Morpheus will too.

and I don't believe the ps4 has the hardware power to render at twice the resolution of the xbox one. IF the ps4 is doing a game at 1080p in vr then it should run fine at 900p on the xbox one.

That's not a discussion for this thread. Regards MS's VR, I very much doubt 720p rendering will be a target because it won't be good enough quality. Everyone publicly working on VR is saying that, so it'd be bonkers for MS to release a blurry VR experience. If they have to use simpler games (same as PS4) to get higher res and stable 60 fps, they will.

 

[Scott_Arm]

...

That's not a discussion for this thread. Regards MS's VR, I very much doubt 720p rendering will be a target because it won't be good enough quality. Everyone publicly working on VR is saying that, so it'd be bonkers for MS to release a blurry VR experience. If they have to use simpler games (same as PS4) to get higher res and stable 60 fps, they will.

Considering the type of games that will be made for VR in its first iteration, my guess is that they'll be simpler but stylized graphics. Look at how nice some of the Nintendo games look. You can easily make a great looking VR experience without having a huge rendering budget per pixel. Plus, the immersive experience (of a good VR product) will go a long way overshadow the lack of cutting-edge rendering.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It makes sense. Something like a glowing Tron universe might look really good. That's a bit OT for this thread and should be discussed further in the VR thread.

 

[eastmen]

http://vrfocus.com/archives/9782/developers-confirm-work-xbox-one-vr-kit/

Several studios have confirmed to VRFocus that they are working with the device, while Techradar has also received similar information that suggests teams have already begun work on software for the kit. No specific information about the device itself or exactly which videogames are in development for it has been revealed just yet. Obviously this will pit Microsoft’s kit directly against the Project Morpheus HMD currently in development for the PlayStation 4, as well as Oculus VR’s own Oculus Rift PC HMD.

including rumours that FOVE, a tech start up that Microsoft is heavily attached to, is looking at an Xbox One HMD with eye-tracking. Various patents have also pointed towards the company’s interest in such a device.

Picking up steam now

 

[dobwal]

My question here is the X1's lack of flops. PS4 will be in bad enough shape in VR imo, X1 just worsens it. Although to be fair, there isn't some magic cutoff point that say 1X flops just cant do VR at all while 1.4X can, as GAF seems to act.

There was some implication in the GAF post about this that sources are implying VR will be a heavy focus of the next gen console.




To me, I think MS has to hedge their bets here and have a VR solution waiting and ready, and observe how the market develops so they can react quickly, but if I was them I wouldn't just willy nilly assume VR is going to light the world on fire. I dont want to see another Kinect situation.

The one good thing about VR focused future consoles is I think as a by product they will need to be very heavy on the horsepower. So assuming there remains a traditional non VR market, that will be nice.

Hard to tell. I do remember running across a paper about a secondary gpu. No! I am not talking misterxmedia like gpu. It was a low level secondary gpu built into the display itself with more primitive and specialized functionality.

I'll look around and see if I can find it.

 

[function]

Good use of VR will be so mindlblowing that slightly reduced lighting complexity and slightly reduced resolution will be forgotten in the joy of being able to play London Boy's "Street Fighter: Grindr" app [featuring Posion].

... but seriously, this is a new and relatively uncharted territory where ideas and implementation will initially rule supreme. Creativity will be the initial battleground for VR. And that's exciting. Far more exciting than the largely play-safe monotony of the current gen.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...ox+one+chatpad&_nkw=xbox+one+chatpad&_sacat=0

Bananas! Thanks! My google-fu must be failing me because I searched for a while before posting my rant!

 

[Jwm]

Hard to tell. I do remember running across a paper about a secondary gpu. No! I am not talking misterxmedia like gpu. It was a low level secondary gpu built into the display itself with more primitive and specialized functionality.

I'll look around and see if I can find it.

I will go conspiracy X for a moment, is this the reason the GPU seems to be split in half? Mono drivers, soon to be Stereo?

/end mode X

I was expecting AR leaks soon, was surprised to see they are VR leaks instead. Surface team does come up with some fine hardware, so looking forward to seeing whatever this. I would expect a PC release down the road at twice the price similar to Kinect. Would be neat if this was on stage for the PC gaming is back Windows talk in Jan.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

I will go conspiracy X for a moment, is this the reason the GPU seems to be split in half? Mono drivers, soon to be Stereo?

/end mode X

I was expecting AR leaks soon, was surprised to see they are VR leaks instead. Surface team does come up with some fine hardware, so looking forward to seeing whatever this. I would expect a PC release down the road at twice the price similar to Kinect. Would be neat if this was on stage for the PC gaming is back Windows talk in Jan.

The GPU isn't split in half. X-rays of the chip are widely available.

 

[AlNom]

He probably means the SRAM being split into two clusters, which is probably just to facilitate connection to the ROPs.

-

Spoiler

The other half is clearly in a non-Einsteinian Slipspace bubble.

 

[shredenvain]

He probably means the SRAM being split into two clusters, which is probably just to facilitate connection to the ROPs.

-

Spoiler

The other half is clearly in a non-Einsteinian Slipspace bubble.

Or he could be referring to dual graphics and compute command processors and the Idea some people have that 6 CU's are for graphics and the other 6 are for compute. I don't really buy into that Idea though just like the whole 14-4 split thing.
I don't think they would hinder themselves by dedicating any segment of the GPU ALU for specific tasks only.

 

[AlNom]

Of course not.

 

[dobwal]

Here the paper I was referring to.

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=103013

I'm not sure how applicable it is to VR but here is the summary.

"A large, tiled display has been enhanced with the addition of simple function composition trees and a simple memory interface. The use of reconfigurable logic gives us great latitude to explore architectural tradeoffs, but the constraints of scalability and operation as an embedded graphics processor have led us to a simple design. Nevertheless, we have found the function composition array processor to be remarkably flexible as well as effective in moving a significant amount of common graphics and image processing to the back end of the display pipeline."

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Or he could be referring to dual graphics and compute command processors and the Idea some people have that 6 CU's are for graphics and the other 6 are for compute. I don't really buy into that Idea though just like the whole 14-4 split thing.
I don't think they would hinder themselves by dedicating any segment of the GPU ALU for specific tasks only.

XB1 wouldn't be putting out visuals comparable to PS4 if it was using 6 CUs versus 14/18! That theory fails at the very first whiff of empirical evidence!

 

[shredenvain]

XB1 wouldn't be putting out visuals comparable to PS4 if it was using 6 CUs versus 14/18! That theory fails at the very first with of empirical evidence!

Exactly.