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DOT DASH DOT · Mar 13, 2016

mrklaw said:
Yes on both

I was under the impression the advanced optics on these high end VR solutions improves the IQ massively, compared to Gear VR.

mrklaw said:
Interesting comment about moving the VR around to different rooms. If likely only do that for the vive, and was expecting to lug the PC back and forth.

What kind of length can you get with an active USB 2 cable? I've done long runs with HDMI so I'm less concerned with that.

Does the breakout box also feed HDMI back out to a Tv so people can spectate?

In regards to the box it just feeds the headset from DP or HDMI from PC, you have to connect another TV or monitor directly from another port on your graphics card.

mrklaw · Mar 13, 2016

Sorry, I meant the lenses can be adjusted on both vive and OR - have edited my post to make that clearer

mrklaw · Mar 13, 2016

DOT DASH DOT said:
In regards to the box it just feeds the headset from DP or HDMI from PC, you have to connect another TV or monitor directly from another port on your graphics card.

Oh that's a shame. I'd then need another cable run to my living room TV. Does that mean the host PC needs to create an unwarped view for the main monitor for spectators? Is that standard on both PC systems?

Man · Mar 13, 2016

The standardized 'breakout-box' social-screen feature on PSVR is definitely a strength.

Durante · Mar 13, 2016

mrklaw said:
Oh that's a shame. I'd then need another cable run to my living room TV. Does that mean the host PC needs to create an unwarped view for the main monitor for spectators? Is that standard on both PC systems?

Nothing needs to "create" an unwarped view -- that's the one which is actually being rendered, on all HMDs!

"Unwarping" an existing warped image (if that is in fact what the PSVR box does) would be more of a workaround for not having multiple output ports than anything else.

mrklaw · Mar 13, 2016

Durante said:
Nothing needs to "create" an unwarped view -- that's the one which is actually being rendered, on all HMDs!

"Unwarping" an existing warped image (if that is in fact what the PSVR box does) would be more of a workaround for not having multiple output ports than anything else.

Oh so the PC isn't rendering directly into a warped view - it's rendering standard flat side by side images and then warping to the needs of the headsets?

jmga · Mar 13, 2016

Man said:
The standardized 'breakout-box' social-screen feature on PSVR is definitely a strength.

Don't all PC VR systems do the same by default?

Durante · Mar 13, 2016

mrklaw said:
Oh so the PC isn't rendering directly into a warped view - it's rendering standard flat side by side images and then warping to the needs of the headsets?

Not just the PC, everything works that way. No GPU is set up for rendering directly to a warped view being even remotely as efficient as rendering a normal view and then warping it.

Man · Mar 13, 2016

Durante said:
"Unwarping" an existing warped image (if that is in fact what the PSVR box does) would be more of a workaround for not having multiple output ports than anything else.

There being 1x HDMI between the breakout box and PS4 doesn't mean they are limited to only the VR-view images passing-through (proof: Some games showing totally different content on the Social Screen).

So in theory they could send (for games that doesn't have unique content for Social Screen):
Post-render-warped left & right images to PSVR headset.
Rendered right image to Social screen.

jmga · Mar 13, 2016

Man said:
There being 1x HDMI between the breakout box and PSVR doesn't mean they are limited to only the VR-view images passing-through (proof: Some games showing totally different content on the Social Screen).

So in theory they could send (for games that doesn't have unique content for Social Screen):
Post-render-warped left & right images to PSVR headset.
Rendered right image to Social screen.

Source?

Man · Mar 13, 2016

jmga said:
Don't all PC VR systems do the same by default?

I was just reading a Digital Foundry article right now and here's their take on that:

Games like Job Simulator are VR titles that work best in social environments - Sony's early adoption of the social screen output is a stroke of genius.

Many of the SteamVR titles we saw (of which most are also coming to PlayStation VR) work best when the experience is shared with nearby friends. Job Simulator is a great case in point - a game that invites friends to laugh at your mistakes as you create chaos in the kitchen. Crucially, the player's viewpoint is mirrored to a HDTV thanks to PlayStation VR's external processor, but the availability of this option on Oculus and Vive isn't entirely clear. We've seen debug screens running on secondary monitors, but no system-wide standard has been shown so far.

Man · Mar 13, 2016

jmga said:
Source?

Sony's PlayRoom VR for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-nS6oO7sKU

Durante · Mar 13, 2016

jmga said:
Don't all PC VR systems do the same by default?

Most anything I've played recently does output mirroring, and it has been a thing since the DK1 days.

Of course, there's no fancy marketing term like "social screen" for it

Man said:
There being 1x HDMI between the breakout box and PS4 doesn't mean they are limited to only the VR-view images passing-through (proof: Some games showing totally different content on the Social Screen).

That's why I said "if that is in fact what the PSVR box does" - it seemed very counter intuitive.

I think I even read somewhere that the "social screen" image is very limited in terms of resolution and framerate due to bandwidth limits, something like 720p30?

jmga · Mar 13, 2016

Man said:
Sony's PlayRoom VR for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-nS6oO7sKU

That looks like a networked multiplayer game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYws7IdHsd8

Man · Mar 13, 2016

jmga said:
That looks like a networked multiplayer game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYws7IdHsd8

It's not (though I guess why you would think so seeing the second video). Sony have been demoing PlayRoom VR and its social-screen feature (all on a single PS4) for over a year now.

Durante said:
I think I even read somewhere that the "social screen" image is very limited in terms of resolution and framerate due to bandwidth limits, something like 720p30?

I would not be surprised. HDMI cable bandwidth and processing power limits. If it doesn't have a unique image I would expect a 960x1080 image (from the rendered right-eye camera).

jmga · Mar 13, 2016

That is very interesting, coordinating the rendering of three different images at the same time with different frame rate and resolution does not sound easy.

DOT DASH DOT · Mar 13, 2016

http://youtu.be/gKG-Nm2wYJg

He just uses a HDMI output from the PC to TV, looks good.

cyberheater · Mar 13, 2016

Man said:
There being 1x HDMI between the breakout box and PS4 doesn't mean they are limited to only the VR-view images passing-through (proof: Some games showing totally different content on the Social Screen).

So in theory they could send (for games that doesn't have unique content for Social Screen):
Post-render-warped left & right images to PSVR headset.
Rendered right image to Social screen.

I don't know how that is possible with only 1 HDMI cable. It's puzzling.

forknknife · Mar 13, 2016

Awesome thread, was about time!

Volotaire · Mar 13, 2016

Fantastic thread, it answers many questions I had. Thanks!

Durante · Mar 13, 2016

Man said:
I would not be surprised. HDMI cable bandwidth and processing power limits. If it doesn't have a unique image I would expect a 960x1080 image (from the rendered right-eye camera).

I found the source for the 720p/30FPS thing. Of course, it was a GAF thread.

cyberheater said:
I don't know how that is possible with only 1 HDMI cable. It's puzzling.

720p30 is just ~80MB/s. If you control both the output and input I'm sure you can squeeze that in somewhere.

Paganmoon · Mar 13, 2016

cyberheater said:
I don't know how that is possible with only 1 HDMI cable. It's puzzling.

Think 3D Blu-Rays, where 2 distinct 1080p images are transmitted at the same time to the TV/Projector, and the TV/Projector unpacks it, and either displays them sequentially for active shutter glasses, or displays them at the same time for progressive glasses.

Think one of those images for the HMD, and the other image gets split to the TV (for social screen games). So bandwidth is not an issue for just 1 HDMI cable.

Also, I think the picture to the HMD is not touched at all in the breakoutbox, but you can see a very distinct lag on the TV when it's displaying (one eye of) the HMD video, as it has to first process that image.

Bert · Mar 13, 2016

Just watching that PS VR PlayRoom video. Can you have multiplayer asymmetrical gameplay with the social screen? Like 3/4 players on pads on the TV with a different view to the VR player?

That could be amazing.

dumbo · Mar 13, 2016

Vive Headset - 2160 x 1200 resolution (1080 x 1200 per eye), low persistence, global illumination, pentile?? AMOLED 90 Hz display, 110 degree FOV.

Oculus Rift Headset - 2160 x 1200 resolution (1080 x 1200 per eye), low persistence OLED 90 Hz display, 110 degree FOV

AFAIK the rift has a smaller FOV than the Vive, whereas the vive has more SDE (I assume partly due to stretching the pixels over a larger virtual screen). Is there any official source for the Vive having a 110 degree FoV?

Personally, I seem to change my mind each day about which headset to keep:
- the Rift doesn't ship with controllers, we have no idea on the final price of the controllers (+shipping), and due to their size the battery life is an interesting question.
- the Vive does ship with controllers, but they look clumsy for a seated experience. However, it does seem that someone could ship Rift-style controllers for the Vive (which should/might work easily in steamVR/games as they already have support for Rift-style controllers?).
- the Vive supports room-scale experiences, but I don't really have a lot of space for that. (I'm really not convinced that room-scale is a great *gaming* experience anyway).
- the Rift may eventually support room experiences, but the functionality is not guaranteed. There is no obvious way for the Rift to be upgraded to support lighthouse technology, so it would need to be done with multiple cameras which wouldn't work for me.

There's also the problem that most "gaming" games are "Oculus exclusives" which is both a plus for the Rift and a negative (as they appear to be rather a bunch of [censored]).

Raist · Mar 13, 2016

Bert said:
Just watching that PS VR PlayRoom video. Can you have multiplayer asymmetrical gameplay with the social screen? Like 3/4 players on pads on the TV with a different view to the VR player?

That could be amazing.

Huh, that's exactly what that Playroom video shows.

Man · Mar 13, 2016

Bert said:
Just watching that PS VR PlayRoom video. Can you have multiplayer asymmetrical gameplay with the social screen? Like 3/4 players on pads on the TV with a different view to the VR player?

That could be amazing.

That's exactly what they are demonstrating. 4 players on TV : 1 in PSVR.

Durante · Mar 13, 2016

dumbo said:
AFAIK the rift has a smaller FOV than the Vive, whereas the vive has more SDE (I assume partly due to stretching the pixels over a larger virtual screen). Is there any official source for the Vive having a 110 degree FoV?

Personally, I seem to change my mind each day about which headset to keep:
- the Rift doesn't ship with controllers, we have no idea on the final price of the controllers (+shipping), and due to their size the battery life is an interesting question.
- the Vive does ship with controllers, but they look clumsy for a seated experience. However, it does seem that someone could ship Rift-style controllers for the Vive (which should/might work easily in steamVR/games as they already have support for Rift-style controllers?).
- the Vive supports room-scale experiences, but I don't really have a lot of space for that. (I'm really not convinced that room-scale is a great *gaming* experience anyway).
- the Rift may eventually support room experiences, but the functionality is not guaranteed. There is no obvious way for the Rift to be upgraded to support lighthouse technology, so it would need to be done with multiple cameras which wouldn't work for me.

There's also the problem that most "gaming" games are "Oculus exclusives" which is both a plus for the Rift and a negative (as they appear to be rather a bunch of [censored]).

One thing I wouldn't count on is Oculus exclusives remaining exclusive to the Rift for long.

cyberheater · Mar 13, 2016

Paganmoon said:
Think 3D Blu-Rays, where 2 distinct 1080p images are transmitted at the same time to the TV/Projector, and the TV/Projector unpacks it, and either displays them sequentially for active shutter glasses, or displays them at the same time for progressive glasses.

Yes but that is frame packed 24hz. The PS4 is sending possibly a 1080p at 120hz and somehow squeezing in another image.

Nightengale · Mar 13, 2016

Durante said:
One thing I wouldn't count on is Oculus exclusives remaining exclusive to the Rift for long.

Any reason for that, particularly for those that are effectively first-party Oculus titles?

jmga · Mar 13, 2016

Nightengale said:
Any reason for that, particularly for those that are effectively first-party Oculus titles?

A wrapper using OpenVR should be pretty easy.

Someone already did one with Cardboard.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1196129

DOT DASH DOT · Mar 13, 2016

Durante said:
One thing I wouldn't count on is Oculus exclusives remaining exclusive to the Rift for long.

I do hope not, that would make the Vive the defacto VR experience.

Man · Mar 13, 2016

Durante said:
One thing I wouldn't count on is Oculus exclusives remaining exclusive to the Rift for long.

Agreed. Oculus has been able to snatch up a decent amount of exclusives within the PC space for the first year with having been in the public eye for three years but I think this will drop off dramatically for year 2 on PC with Vive / SteamVR hitting the spotlight in a big way.

Durante · Mar 13, 2016

Nightengale said:
Any reason for that, particularly for those that are effectively first-party Oculus titles?

It's a PC. The interface of games to the oculus runtime system is a standard dll. The data provided from and to the headsets is functionally equivalent.

Man said:
Agreed. Oculus has been able to snatch up a decent amount of exclusives within the PC space for the first year with having been in the public eye for three years but I think this will drop off dramatically for year 2 on PC with Vive / SteamVR hitting the spotlight in a big way.

That too, but that's not really what I meant. What I meant was more immediate and complete

Chairmanchuck · Mar 13, 2016

Anyone has any clarification on the "Oculus exclusive" titles?

I mean Palmer said they arent headdset exclusive, but shop exclusive (like a lot of Steamtitles) and if HTC/Valve would want to access the shop, they can get access if they ask.
I just wonder whether we will see something on GDC about it, because right now its not really clear.

DOT DASH DOT · Mar 13, 2016

Chairmanchuck said:
Anyone has any clarification on the "Oculus exclusive" titles?

I mean Palmer said they arent headdset exclusive, but shop exclusive (like a lot of Steamtitles) and if HTC/Valve would want to access the shop, they can get access if they ask.
I just wonder whether we will see something on GDC about it, because right now its not really clear.

From what I remember, Palmer said that he has no problem with their exclusive games being modded or whatever to other headsets. Saying it's not something that they were actively trying to do by making them unplayable on their competitors hardware.

Durante · Mar 13, 2016

DOT DASH DOT said:
From what I remember, Palmer said that he has no problem with their exclusive games being modded or whatever to other headsets. Saying it's not something that they were actively trying to do by making them unplayable on their competitors hardware.

And that makes sense. The fight is about the ultimately profitable part, which is software, not hardware.

I happen to think that Facebook already lost that fight, in games, on PC, against Valve, but they seem to disagree.

Chairmanchuck · Mar 13, 2016

DOT DASH DOT said:
From what I remember, Palmer said that he has no problem with their exclusive games being modded or whatever to other headsets. Saying it's not something that they were actively trying to do by making them unplayable on their competitors hardware.

Do they even need to be modded, when Oculus would allow the Vive on their shop?

Palmer said they just need the approval of HTC/Valve (he said of different HMD manufacturers IIRC) to use the shop.

mrklaw · Mar 13, 2016

UnemployedVillain said:
I was actually thinking something similar. What constitutes "high end"? What's the bar?

I would say low persistence display, supporting timewarp/reprojection, high sampling rate for rotation sensors, solid positional tracking system for headset, minimum 90Hz refresh rate.

PSVR hits all of those elements and provides a good baseline VR experience. Of course faster PCs will look better on a higher resolution (and likely more expensive) OR or Vive. Thats just the same as PC/Console generally. It doesn't prevent the PSVR being a high quality VR experience.

Nzyme32 · Mar 13, 2016

mrklaw said:
I would say low persistence display, supporting timewarp/reprojection, high sampling rate for rotation sensors, solid positional tracking system for headset, minimum 90Hz refresh rate.

PSVR hits all of those elements and provides a good baseline VR experience. Of course faster PCs will look better on a higher resolution (and likely more expensive) OR or Vive. Thats just the same as PC/Console generally. It doesn't prevent the PSVR being a high quality VR experience.

Vive doesn't support timewarp or reprojection, so it doesn't really fit into such a qualification.

mrklaw · Mar 13, 2016

cyberheater said:
Yes but that is frame packed 24hz. The PS4 is sending possibly a 1080p at 120hz and somehow squeezing in another image.

I thought for the asymmetric games, the second image was being sent over USB? Thought I read that somewhere. Again probably limited to 720p/30

I'm curious how easily the PSVR will integrate into a day to day usage setup. Most of the time I won't be using it - I'll be playing standard PS4 games on a TV. But I don't want to be connecting and disconnecting a bunch of cables every time.

Can the breakout box remain connected permanently and the HDMI will passthrough normal games?

Nzyme32 said:
Vive doesn't support timewarp or reprojection, so it doesn't really fit into such a qualification.

Are you sure? I thought it was standard VR practice? So Steam VR games running on Vive won't compensate for latency by updating the screen at the last moment? Is that an oculus SDK exclusive at the moment? Even if it is, surely Valve would be putting it in soon?

DOT DASH DOT · Mar 13, 2016

Chairmanchuck said:
Do they even need to be modded, when Oculus would allow the Vive on their shop?

Palmer said they just need the approval of HTC/Valve (he said of different HMD manufacturers IIRC) to use the shop.

I don't know what issues or how difficult it is to get games that use the Oculus SDK running on Vive (Open VR) but I guess as it's been managed on Google Cardboard, it shouldn't be hard at all. But I don't know enough about it.

Real_Madrid · Mar 13, 2016

Durante said:
And that makes sense. The fight is about the ultimately profitable part, which is software, not hardware.

I happen to think that Facebook already lost that fight, in games, on PC, against Valve, but they seem to disagree.

I don't think anyone at Oculus thinks their store is going to compete with Steam.

Offtopic, but Gear VR is imo more important for Facebook than the Oculus, that device is making VR mainstream very fast and I just went to the Oculus website and the first thing I saw was the Gear VR, not the Rift.
Makes you wonder what exactly they want to achieve with the Rift, nobody is going to buy software on their store if it's available on Steam and making profit of the hardware is going to be difficult in a competing market where Gear VR and almost every mobile company is making VR stuff for a fraction of the price, let alone competition in the high end games market with PSVR that's going to be cheaper and HTC Vive.

I honestly cancelled my Oculus order, not that I think HTC or PSVR is better, but I have many questions about their long term vision and I want to know the price of the Touch controllers first.

DOT DASH DOT · Mar 13, 2016

So where are these VR modded Half Life games on steam then? They arnt in the Steam VR section.

Real_Madrid · Mar 13, 2016

jimbobsmells said:
It's quite sad to see comments like that. All three can be considered 'high-end', insinuating PSVR is closer to Google Cardboard than Oculus / Vive is just shit posting IMO.

Welcome to the platform wars, even in this early stages you see all the Oculus, PSVR and Steam/Vive fanboys. It's quite sad, I hoped VR would be an exception on that front.

Aceofspades · Mar 13, 2016

Raist said:
So what makes it "not high-end" exactly?

Nothing really, Oculus and Vive earlier versions were considered high end and PSVR outclass those earlier versions. Yes it has lower res screen and lacks room scale. but also it has better refresh rate and some sub pixel technique that reduce or eliminate screen door effect, also PSVR build quality is superb and arguably the most comfortable.

Hopefully the price is good and reasonable.

Fafalada · Mar 13, 2016

Durante said:
Of course, there's no fancy marketing term like "social screen" for it

Marketting term was attached to the first time this was a platform wide/SDK solution instead of app-responsibility. Not unlike how the term "Timewarp" came about.

It's a PC. The interface of games to the oculus runtime system is a standard dll. The data provided from and to the headsets is functionally equivalent.

Ah ok - you're talking about hw wrappers. I used to think that about NVidia's hw-exclusives too, and that never got any traction outside of NVidia chipsets. If it were just about redirecting inputs, I'd agree it will happen before long, but it's a fair bit more involved than that in latest SDKs.

mrklaw · Mar 13, 2016

Durante said:
And that makes sense. The fight is about the ultimately profitable part, which is software, not hardware.

I happen to think that Facebook already lost that fight, in games, on PC, against Valve, but they seem to disagree.

Oculus are probably happy enough with people buying some games in the Oculus store if that is more convenient to access/launch them. Creaming something off the top vs steam. I doubt they expect to actually replace steam completely for VR purchases.

Facebook probably don't care who wins. They'll just want their experiences on any platform that'll take them. If Vive takes off and becomes a defacto standard but facebook is a big social platform on it, they'll be happy.

Would Vive have even happened without facebook buying Oculus? Maybe if something good comes out of it, its that Vive exists.

cyberheater · Mar 13, 2016

mrklaw said:
I thought for the asymmetric games, the second image was being sent over USB? Thought I read that somewhere. Again probably limited to 720p/30

Interesting. That makes a lot more sense.

artsi · Mar 13, 2016

Real_Madrid said:
I don't think anyone at Oculus thinks their store is going to compete with Steam.

I think chasing the "PC gamer" demographic would be too small for Facebook anyway. Steam is something 125 - 150M users?

Facebook has 1.5 - 2 billion counting Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

I would think the end game is to reach that population with their social VR platforms, and maybe try to make Oculus the "App Store" for VR.
They might still cater to PC gamers with a high end Oculus HMD, but it's not what the whole business is about.

So IMO they're not really trying to compete with Valve / Steam, but are trying to take the pole position in the race against Amazon, Google and Apple who have the same "mainstream" goals and huge userbases like Facebook.

Qassim · Mar 13, 2016

Whilst there may be a reasonable gap between the PSVR and the Rift / Vive, I think from a fair few perspectives we'll see a lot of overlap in the experiences you have especially with the PSVR and Rift (before Touch). I think it's fine to classify it as 'high end VR'.

Man said:
The standardized 'breakout-box' social-screen feature on PSVR is definitely a strength.

jmga said:
Don't all PC VR systems do the same by default?

The Vive at least has a standardised way of mirroring the game to the main monitor:

'Hide mirror'

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