Sony VR Headset/Project Morpheus/PlayStation VR

Spent the better part of last evening with the VR goggles strapped to my face playing Wipeout. It's fucking amazing. Especially once you've turned off all the VR safety measures. I won 2 A+ speed 10 lap races in 2048 and went up to zone 60 as well, so my worries about playability were entirely unfounded.
The team did a fantastic job here. They even updated all the menus for VR. On the track, the game looks stunning. Seems like there's not much missing from 2d version. The barely animated crowds are now completely static, but that's about it. Even the image quality is great. This is on a regular PS4, btw.
 
True, but then there's the extra border rendered beyond what's visible. So there's definitely more needed to be drawn.

Absolutely. I should imagine it's especially more demanding on the CPU, and it's already got quite a poor draw distance, so the base PS4 will struggle and see significant visual downgrades.

That being said, it's always had a strong art direction and low quality assets, so I think they'll do fine.

But what kind of cut backs can they make? Less populated caverns; large, single instances of resources rather than lots of little ones grouped together; smaller groups of animals are easy methods that spring to mind.
 
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A couple of days ago I landed on a planet with a freakishly dense animal population, and whenever I turned the camera towards larger groups, the framerate absolutely tanked. Tanked as in roughly 10fps. Granted, this was the first and only time that happened, but still.
 
I saw plenty of people (not necessarily here) saying Skyrim was impossible to port to PSVR before it was announced and law and behold it works quite well.
Bethesda games have always been notoriously poorly optimised, plus there's plenty of scope to downgrade Skyrim without losing its base identity or appeal. Less grass here and there etc. Skyrim is about villages and NPCs and encounters. NMS is about exploration and vistas and scenery, so reducing those reduces the games core principle.

Granted that NMS is procedurally generated but I can't see why it would make a difference for it to be VR or not?
That being said, it's always had a strong art direction and low quality assets, so I think they'll do fine.
That's where I feel my concerns are coming. The game is already graphics light because it's procedurally generating everything, and creating low-poly content. Hello games would have to procedurally create the same content only in less detail? Or have appalling pop-in?

But what kind of cut backs can they make? Less populated caverns; large, single instances of resources rather than lots of little ones grouped together; smaller groups of animals are easy methods that spring to mind.
Changing the amount of materials changes the playability. You can't have rarer resources without impacting play. And as I just said, NMS is about exploration and the scenery. How much can be pared back from a forest planet without losing its identity and pushing it towards a more lifeless rock? If you visit the same plant in VR, do you get less stuff, and swapping out VR makes it a different planet?

EDIT - I never read about it, but since this is an online game, I wonder if the procedural generation is actually made on the Cloud?
All content is created in game, on the fly, on the console, based on a random seed.
 
All content is created in game, on the fly, on the console, based on a random seed.

But at some point it stops generating no? I read that players can visit each other's planets, so it would not make sense to continually generate geography and vegetation for the exact same location, for example?
 
How could you store the entire universe to send that info to players? Instead, you record deltas, things that users have changed or named, and only synchronise that data. When you visit a planet someone else has visited, all the content is created procedurally. You are sent the random seed for that planet and the construction algorithms create it exactly the same as the previous player. You then get updates from the server for what names were given to creatures etc.

All textures and models and terrain are created on your local console using the arcane power of Maths.

To prove the point, NMS can be played offline, certainly on PC. You need a connection to share data with the rest of the player-base and get Units for uploading info.
 
How could you store the entire universe to send that info to players? Instead, you record deltas, things that users have changed or named, and only synchronise that data. When you visit a planet someone else has visited, all the content is created procedurally. You are sent the random seed for that planet and the construction algorithms create it exactly the same as the previous player. You then get updates from the server for what names were given to creatures etc.

All textures and models and terrain are created on your local console using the arcane power of Maths.

To prove the point, NMS can be played offline, certainly on PC. You need a connection to share data with the rest of the player-base and get Units for uploading info.

Ok, I misunderstood procedurally generated as in the Diablo games, where each time you play the levels, they are always different. I thought that was the appeal of NMS, go where no one literally had ever been before.. until I read it had an online component, which got me confused.
 
'Procedural content' is a broad term. At it's most basic, it's piecing together prefabs to make new arrangements. NMS is a pioneering step into a wholly created world, although the foundation has existed in the demo scene for a long time. Heck, we even had a realtime PS2 terrain demo posted in the EE question thread! ;)
 
NMS with VR whilst being like my dream game is also going to be near impossible without compromises, generating the world on the fly is extremely cpu/gpu intensive and now you want this to happen @ 60/90fps without missing a beat, its doable but they're gonna have to make compromises
 
NMS with VR whilst being like my dream game is also going to be near impossible without compromises, generating the world on the fly is extremely cpu/gpu intensive and now you want this to happen @ 60/90fps without missing a beat, its doable but they're gonna have to make compromises

Maybe it'll be a special "VR instance" like what Square-Enix did with FFXV. Just a small little cordoned off VR only section of NMS. :p

Or maybe they've completely overhauled the system and will stream in all world/planet data from the cloud instead of generating it on the console from a seed.

Or maybe it's all just a rumor based off of wishful thinking?

Regards,
SB
 
Spent the better part of last evening with the VR goggles strapped to my face playing Wipeout. It's fucking amazing. Especially once you've turned off all the VR safety measures. I won 2 A+ speed 10 lap races in 2048 and went up to zone 60 as well, so my worries about playability were entirely unfounded.
The team did a fantastic job here. They even updated all the menus for VR. On the track, the game looks stunning. Seems like there's not much missing from 2d version. The barely animated crowds are now completely static, but that's about it. Even the image quality is great. This is on a regular PS4, btw.

I was similarly blown away. Gave me a similar feeling to when I first played the original Wipeout ... My son (9) is playing now, he’s also loving it. Good timing too, he learnt to race quite well recently thanks to GTA Online, and he’s immediately kicking ass.

Haven’t toyed with the settings yet. Only hint of dizziness I got was when dropping down to the lower part of the track near the finish of the first race / track, or when I am not driving myself after the finish.

Really cool stuff this. It is an absolutely fantastic environment to see in 3D, huge buildings, draw distance and depth, with the transparent tracks too, and then the loops and drops and so on, just amazing experience.

Playing on Pro btw.
 
it's good to have some free time to play awesome games !

Wipeout VR IQ is really the best I've seen, with Bound.




here you can notice the pilot's hand reflected in the car's door, nice little touch even if it's low res.
 
I played GT Sport again after quite a while, taking a 911 to the Ring, and noticed that with this high speed street car I made quite a few mistakes estimating distances. Then I did a lap in time trial in VR mode and the difference was huge - not a perfect lap, but I never went off track. It is really a rather big difference.

Wipeout wins easily in terms of graphics and comfort for me though. At least right past the finish line, then quickly I need to exit to the menu or I get queasy.

Wipeout really gives you that h*ly f€ck when you first try it though!
 
Sony is warming up PSVR for E3 with some titles shown to the press and trailers:

https://uploadvr.com/astro-bot-preview-psvr-platformer-robot-rescue/

https://uploadvr.com/preview-blood-and-truth-shallow/

https://uploadvr.com/preview-firewall-zero-hour-tactical-vr-shooter-waiting/

Impressions are generally positive, although the demo they had available this time for Blood and Truth was basically a wave shooter. Sony says there will be a new extended demo available at E3.

Also:
And: https://blog.eu.playstation.com/201...o-ps-vr-with-exclusive-young-rocky-character/

But YUP, VR is doomed!!!
 
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