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Man · Mar 7, 2015

Good detailed article:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-project-morpheus-tech-interview

The sheer wealth of experience across disciplines may well be the key advantage Sony holds over the competition - a vast range of staff across the world experienced in producing great games and quality hardware. At his talk at GDC this week, John Carmack admitted that Oculus hadn't fully got to grips with the thorny issue of what kind of controller should be used for VR. Valve and HTC have developed their own twin wand set-up, which in many ways feels very similar to Sony's PS Move controllers - celebrating their fifth birthday this year.

"Yeah, it was ahead of its time," smiles Marks. "A bit. Maybe."

Sony had created a controller with full 3D positional tracking, but Move's enviable capabilities were left mostly untapped. It was a 3D controller in a 2D world - until now.

The London Heist demo is the closest thing Sony displayed to an actual game. A masterpiece in immersion, its only real limitation is that you're effectively standing on the spot for the duration. Traversal through the VR world is a major challenge that nobody seems to have cracked yet.

But how demanding on system resources is the reprojection technology itself? Does the need to drive 120Hz impact on system resources?

"It's very short. It's done in the system software we have, a version that just does it for you. It runs right at the very end, just before the frame is going to be displayed. It interrupts the GPU and does this little bit of work. I don't know the exact timing of it, but it's very small. The impact of adding that in is not something that our people are worried about."

"The programmer who did the Japan Studio game said that this system doesn't take much power away from the game. He said it's easy," says Yoshida. "By the way, you've been counting frames for many years. Did you notice the difference between the native 120 demo and the others?"

I reply that 60Hz content has a very slight ghosting effect to it that I didn't see on the 120Hz demo. I explain it's a trade I'm happy to make if it means we get VR titles as visually rich as the London Heist.

Even before we discuss the challenges facing the future of gameplay in the VR world, the biggest obstacle will be in getting consumers to try the headsets and instantly get the intended effect, whether they're wearing glasses or not, and preferably without feeling ill. On a basic ergonomic level, Sony seems well ahead of the competition: the original Morpheus prototype was good, and the second-gen headset is easily the closest thing to a viable, consumer-friendly piece of kit we've seen at GDC this year.

Sinfamy · Mar 7, 2015

I'm hoping I can use it to play any games, not just ones that support VR.
I want to play laying on my back.

bj00rn_ · Mar 7, 2015

I bet reprojection is going to be misused by a lot of devs... Timewarp-like methods should be used for transition smoothing not as interpolation.

Rainer70 · Mar 7, 2015

Sinfamy said:
I'm hoping I can use it to play any games, not just ones that support VR.
I want to play laying on my back.

Same here. I'd also like to be able to listen to music with a VR visualizer.

illmatic22 · Mar 7, 2015

Kinda surprised that Morpheus has received such rave reviews. But I can't help but think it will be a waste of time like Move.

sn00zer · Mar 7, 2015

illmatic22 said:
Kinda surprised that Morpheus has received such rave reviews. But I can't help but think it will be a waste of time like Move.

It'll be big if they PC enable it, which I think they might considering how friendly theyve been recently with DS4 on PC.

Hoo-doo · Mar 7, 2015

illmatic22 said:
Kinda surprised that Morpheus has received such rave reviews. But I can't help but think it will be a waste of time like Move.

This is not a me-too afterthought like Move. Can't wait to play No Man's Sky with this thing.

Dictator93 · Mar 7, 2015

bj00rn_ said:
I bet reprojection is going to be misused by a lot of devs... Timewarp-like methods should be used for transition smoothing not as interpolation.

Indeed.

Angel_DvA · Mar 7, 2015

I'm not into the VR thing and I don't think it's viable for the market but the Project looks interesting, hope Sony won't lose too much money because of it.

jmga · Mar 7, 2015

Hoo-doo said:
This is not a me-too afterthought like Move. Can't wait to play No Man's Sky with this thing.

Don't think that will happen on PS4.

Man · Mar 7, 2015

bj00rn_ said:
I bet reprojection is going to be misused by a lot of devs... Timewarp-like methods should be used for transition smoothing not as interpolation.

Basing it on a predictable and steady 60fps source and time-warping every second frame shouldn't be bad at all (which seems reflected in impressions).

Tenebrous · Mar 7, 2015

illmatic22 said:
Kinda surprised that Morpheus has received such rave reviews. But I can't help but think it will be a waste of time like Move.

I'll defend the Move until the end. I played MAG, Sports Champions, and The Fight (which got panned, but I enjoyed thoroughly), and I thought the tech was pretty damn awesome at the time. Definitely a HUGE improvement over the vanilla Wii Mote I was rockin'.

Purest 78 · Mar 7, 2015

illmatic22 said:
Kinda surprised that Morpheus has received such rave reviews. But I can't help but think it will be a waste of time like Move.

Morpheus and the Move are apples and oranges. I don't understand why people compare them. The Move was essentially a glorified Wiimote. People where already tired of motion controls when it released. VR with the tech we have is completely a new territory.

demosthenes · Mar 7, 2015

I really want VR and just a sitting experience. Can we have both Sony?

Man · Mar 7, 2015

Hoo-doo said:
This is not a me-too afterthought like Move. Can't wait to play No Man's Sky with this thing.

The Move was the worlds first fully positional tracked consumer 3D controller w/sub-millimeter precision that didn't suffer from drift. It was ahead of its time.
There has literary been no real improvement on this until five years later, this very week, when Valve unveiled their Lighthouse system which prevents occlusion problems.

Hoo-doo · Mar 7, 2015

jmga said:
Don't think that will happen on PS4.

What, me playing NMS on it? Because i'm almost convinced it'll be a Morpheus-supported game. I mean, there couldn't be a more convincing kind of game for VR than a huge openworld space-sim.

lukeskymac · Mar 7, 2015

jmga said:
Don't think that will happen on PS4.

Hello Games is figuratively winking at us regarding NMS and Morpheus. I'd be shocked if it didn't happen.

jmga · Mar 7, 2015

Hoo-doo said:
What, me playing NMS on it? Because i'm almost convinced it'll be a Morpheus-supported game. I mean, there couldn't be a more convincing kind of game for VR than a huge openworld space-sim.

I know. But a demo is one thing, a big game like NMS is other deal.

GribbleGrunger · Mar 7, 2015

All Sony need to do to make Morpheus even more successful is offer a 'static' screen option so that people can use it to play any game.

Fisty · Mar 7, 2015

Soon my precious... soon...

JAYSIMPLE · Mar 7, 2015

Hoo-doo said:
This is not a me-too afterthought like Move. Can't wait to play No Man's Sky with this thing.

I would actually buy it JUST for no man's sky. I treated kinect as the instrument for dance central. Like rock band instruments. I would treat morpheus the same if it's priced right. Anything else will be a bonus

LoveCake · Mar 7, 2015

Has there been any mention of the projected cost of a headset yet?

michaelius · Mar 7, 2015

GribbleGrunger said:
All Sony need to do to make Morpheus even more successful is offer a 'static' screen option so that people can use it to play any game.

And PC drivers - I'd be more interested in using it as 120 Hz oled screen than any VR usage

gofreak · Mar 7, 2015

bj00rn_ said:
I bet reprojection is going to be misused by a lot of devs... Timewarp-like methods should be used for transition smoothing not as interpolation.

You have to hit 60hz in the first place to use it in a viable way so i don't think it can be abused too much in terms of compensating for just out rightly poor frame rate. Your image quality would detriotate in a much more noticeable way.

By the way, there were hard numbers for the cost of this at the end of the frame, from the tech presentation - 0.5ms. So you're render time on the game side is 16.1ms.

cyberheater · Mar 7, 2015

Is this re-projecting process like the one that Crysis 2 used on PC where it takes the depth information and re-projects 2D pixels for stereoscopic 3D rendering?

gofreak · Mar 7, 2015

cyberheater said:
Is this re-projecting process like the one that Crysis 2 used on PC where it takes the depth information and re-projects 2D pixels for stereoscopic 3D rendering?

Not sure what that was doing exactly. But more directly, if one wants to read more about it, it's basically like the asynchronous time warping Oculus uses also, or is trying to eventually use.

Coulomb_Barrier · Mar 7, 2015

demosthenes said:
I really want VR and just a sitting experience. Can we have both Sony?

We might have to strap a couple wands to our feet if we want to enjoy sitting down.

GribbleGrunger · Mar 7, 2015

michaelius said:
And PC drivers - I'd be more interested in using it as 120 Hz oled screen than any VR usage

They won't do that. They'll want it to push the PS brand. maybe many many years in future? Who knows.

lukeskymac · Mar 7, 2015

GribbleGrunger said:
All Sony need to do to make Morpheus even more successful is offer a 'static' screen option so that people can use it to play any game.

I thought of that, but you have to consider that the actual rendered area is smaller than 1080p, and that because of the, uh, "partial redundancy" between each eye, the actual image you're percieving likely looks like a sub-720p image... stretched all over your field of view. So I doubt the image quality sacrifice will be worth it when the game isn't fully featured for VR.

If someone better informed about VR is reading this and would like to offer a clarification, I'd be much obliged.

border · Mar 7, 2015

Yeah sorry, but screw Morpheus if their solution is going to have ghosting.

VR has enough image quality issues as it is, without Sony taking shortcuts that introduce new ones.

newjeruse · Mar 7, 2015

What are the chances MS partners with Valve or Facebook to bring VR to their system? I can't see them staying on the sidelines of the VR wars.

cyberheater · Mar 7, 2015

gofreak said:
Not sure what that was doing exactly. But more directly, if one wants to read more about it, it's basically like the asynchronous time warping Oculus uses also, or is trying to eventually use.

I've read a couple of articles on it now. Sounds great. Makes me wonder why they don't use the same technology on 2D screens for a constant perfect 60fps on all games.

AAK · Mar 7, 2015

The London Heist demo is the closest thing Sony displayed to an actual game. A masterpiece in immersion, its only real limitation is that you're effectively standing on the spot for the duration. Traversal through the VR world is a major challenge that nobody seems to have cracked yet.

Doesn't the HTC/Steam VR sensor for the room take care of this?

luffeN · Mar 7, 2015

AAK said:
Doesn't the HTC/Steam VR sensor for the room take care of this?

As far as I know the sensors only tell you when you are about to hit a wall etc. by fading the outside world in. Walking around in a confined space is being worked on (redirected walking).

Lionheart · Mar 7, 2015

AAK said:
Doesn't the HTC/Steam VR sensor for the room take care of this?

Not unless the entire game takes place in a small room with the same shape / objects as your own I guess?

If you have to walk for a mile to get somewhere for example, walking through a beautiful VR world, the HTC / Steam VR thing won't help you with that.

cyberheater · Mar 7, 2015

Lionheart said:
Not unless the entire game takes place in a small room with the same shape / objects as your own I guess?

If you have to walk for a mile to get somewhere for example, walking through a beautiful VR world, the HTC / Steam VR thing won't help you with that.

No. The HTC with the laser boxes knows exactly where you are in 3D space to the sub millimetre. It's a game changer.

You can walk around your room and it knows exactly where you are.

Seanspeed · Mar 7, 2015

AAK said:
Doesn't the HTC/Steam VR sensor for the room take care of this?

It enables it in terms of tracking. It doesn't solve all the other issues that come along with it, though.

cyberheater said:
No. The HTC with the laser boxes knows exactly where you are in 3D space to the sub millimetre. It's a game changer.

Great for tracking, but on the developer side, there's still way too many problems in terms of designing a good and worthwhile experience based on standing up and walking around in a home situation.

Cthulhu_Steev · Mar 7, 2015

JAYSIMPLE said:
I would actually buy it JUST for no man's sky. I treated kinect as the instrument for dance central. Like rock band instruments. I would treat morpheus the same if it's priced right. Anything else will be a bonus

Yep, that's exactly what I see it as; a supplement to everything else I can play. If it has limited support I'll be disappointed, but Move paid its way with Sports Champions table tennis, Tumble, Child of Eden and Start the Party pretty much for me - the FPS support was a small bonus, but not that compelling for me (it did get me to play through RE5 again though).

cyberheater said:
Is this re-projecting process like the one that Crysis 2 used on PC where it takes the depth information and re-projects 2D pixels for stereoscopic 3D rendering?

cyberheater said:
I've read a couple of articles on it now. Sounds great. Makes me wonder why they don't use the same technology on 2D screens for a constant perfect 60fps on all games.

It's main use seems to be in updating the headset view at the last μs before output to avoid perceived vomit-lag, rather than frame interpolation to fake a smoother framerate. Whether that could be tied into the movement/camera controls on a pad (and whether it would be effective) instead of the headset is an interesting question, but I can't see it working myself.

LogicStep · Mar 7, 2015

If it's a good headset and I can use it for both PS4 and PC then I will seriously consider buying this over OR or Vive. You hear that Sony?!

RadarScope1 · Mar 7, 2015

AAK said:
Doesn't the HTC/Steam VR sensor for the room take care of this?

No, not really. They're talking about the incongruity between being in a small space and the games themselves. Even if you could freely walk around your room (still an issue) think about the size of your room compared to the size of, say, Skyrim. Traversal will need to be done via some kind of controller input.

gofreak · Mar 7, 2015

border said:
Yeah sorry, but screw Morpheus if their solution is going to have ghosting.

VR has enough image quality issues as it is, without Sony taking shortcuts that introduce new ones.

I'm not sure about Vive/Valve, but this isn't distinct to Morpheus. Oculus provides time warping as part of its toolkit for devs too. Even when you can hit a HMD's native refresh rate you may want to warp each frame, to reduce latency further. I'd be surprised if it wasn't a similar story with Vive too.

The smaller the gap between each rendered frame the better it will work. That's partially why Sony went with a 120hz panel - because for intermediate 'padding' of frames this will allow them to warp from 60fps. That's better than the same technique with a 90hz panel, where you'd have to use 45fps, and a longer gap between rendered frame = more artifacts. This makes it a bit more viable, and a bit less of a shortcut on Sony's panel, in fact.

Danlord · Mar 7, 2015

jmga said:
Don't think that will happen on PS4.

JAYSIMPLE said:
I would actually buy it JUST for no man's sky. I treated kinect as the instrument for dance central. Like rock band instruments. I would treat morpheus the same if it's priced right. Anything else will be a bonus

In regards to No Man's Sky and Morpheus, I just want to re-quote myself from a previous thread rather;

Danlord said:
Almost guaranteed.

Hello Games was going to do a GDC talk with No Man's Sky in VR but cancelled it, and they have a Morpheus prototype/devkit in house.

Here's an article with some Vine's of them messing around with it: http://vrfocus.com/archives/1906/hello-games-teases-oculus-rift-support-mans-sky/

Image of their desk at Hello Games which includes a Morpheus Devit, source here

Sean Murray tweet about cancelling GDC talk about VR with No Man's Sky.
https://twitter.com/NoMansSky/status/446408671795609600

Like I say, I think it's almost guaranteed and as many people mention it's a great fit for VR. I personally see Sony using No Man's Sky as one of the titles that they show VR off to the mainstream public when it's out, it seems like one of the best fit. Things can change of course, but No Man's Sky was 60fps when they were showing it off as the HD gamersyde videos demonstrate here (although they could be using frame interpolation but VR requires a minimum of 60 and it just adds up)

JAYSIMPLE · Mar 7, 2015

lukeskymac said:
I thought of that, but you have to consider that the actual rendered area is smaller than 1080p, and that because of the, uh, "partial redundancy" between each eye, the actual image you're percieving likely looks like a sub-720p image... stretched all over your field of view. So I doubt the image quality sacrifice will be worth it when the game isn't fully featured for VR.

If someone better informed about VR is reading this and would like to offer a clarification, I'd be much obliged.

Is this correct? The image will look lower than 720p? There is no way the majority of ps4 owners on here would accept this. Well nearly all the ps4 owners

EL CUCO · Mar 7, 2015

I just want to know when I can pre order the thing

Seanspeed · Mar 7, 2015

gofreak said:
I'm not sure about Vive/Valve, but this isn't distinct to Morpheus. Oculus provides time warping as part of its toolkit for devs too. Even when you can hit a HMD's native refresh rate you may want to warp each frame, to reduce latency further. I'd be surprised if it wasn't a similar story with Vive too.

The smaller the gap between each rendered frame the better it will work. That's partially why Sony went with a 120hz panel - because for intermediate 'padding' of frames this will allow them to warp from 60fps. That's better than the same technique with a 90hz panel, where you'd have to use 45fps, and a longer gap between rendered frame = more artifacts. This makes it a bit more viable, and a bit less of a shortcut on Sony's panel, in fact.

90hz headsets will be running at 90fps, though. There will be no cheating, running content at 45fps and then doing any sort of reprojecting to 90fps.

JAYSIMPLE said:
Is this correct? The image will look lower than 720p? There is no way the majority of ps4 owners on here would accept this. Well nearly all the ps4 owners

Yes, it will look a fair bit lower than 720p, in fact.

Danlord · Mar 7, 2015

JAYSIMPLE said:
Is this correct? The image will look lower than 720p? There is no way the majority of ps4 owners on here would accept this. Well nearly all the ps4 owners

1,036,800 pixels (960*1080) versus 921,600 (1280*720). There's definitely more pixels than 720p, but there's a lot more going to make good image quality in VR. Resolution is a factor definitely, but don't take it as the only factor that affects it, look at the difference between RGB vs Pentile displays as another example.

RGB on Left, Pentile on the Right.

Edit: Alternative image used from prior thread as a better example.

Man · Mar 7, 2015

Seanspeed said:
90hz headsets will be running at 90fps, though. There will be no cheating, running content at 45fps and then doing any sort of reprojecting to 90fps.

They have no choice (to timewarp every second frame) by choosing to go with 90 really. Abrash (Oculus) said that 90hz was the fastest displays they could get their hands on.
Sony, being a large screen manufacturer, obviously has the right hooks here and is going for 120hz.

gofreak · Mar 7, 2015

Seanspeed said:
90hz headsets will be running at 90fps, though. There will be no cheating, running content at 45fps and then doing any sort of reprojecting to 90fps.

Indeed, because 45fps is probably too low a threshold to use it like this.It's either 45fps or 90fps, and one is probably a bit too low. On a 120hz panel, it's 120fps or a drop-down to 60fps, the latter of which is probably a more viable option from a quality/IQ perspective than the same option on a slower panel.

I think it would be good if Oculus or others could go with faster panels and more reliable/consistent async time warp performance on PC to bring 60fps in as a feasible option there too. From impressions it seems to be a good tradeoff option. And for native FPS games that higher framerate would be even better quality too. Win win.

Pop · Mar 7, 2015

I wanna explore the universe in VR. Pure joy

Seanspeed · Mar 7, 2015

Danlord said:
1,036,800 pixels (960*1080) versus 921,600 (1280*720). There's definitely more pixels than 720p

Its not about the number of pixels(in the way you're thinking). People seem to have this like 'locked' idea of what 720p or 1080p means, only thinking of it in terms of their living room TV or whatever.

VR has the resolution spread ALL around your vision. Its a huge FoV. So each pixel is much, much larger in your vision than it is looking at your TV from your couch.

1080p in VR with a 100degree FoV will be more like 480p or so in terms of an equivalent living room TV resolution. Maybe even slightly less.

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