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Sony Clarifies what Play Station VR’s Mystery External Box Does

K

Khalifa Jayy

Banned
“That little box? It’s not like doing all the graphics rendering for VR,” he explained. “That’s not what it does. It’s just a little breakout box. But, because we want the best possible image to be in the headset, all that pre-computation of making everything in the right warped way for the optics of the headset is all done on the PlayStation and that’s shipped over to the headset. So the PlayStation does all that heavy work, gets it all ready for the headset.

“Now, if you just wanted to show that on the TV, first of all the TV wouldn’t even accept that signal, and second of all it would be in this warped looking way and that’s not what we really want people to have to look at. So that little box is just kind of undoing some of the stuff that’s already been done just so you can put it on a television set. That’s what it’s there for.”

The breakout box also apparently processes 3D audio, which is important for VR. “And since that box is already there it has enough horsepower to do the 3D audio part that I mentioned. So there is where the little bit of 3D audio processing is. It’s not little but it’s a lot less than a PS4’s worth of processing power,” Marks concluded.
Click to expand...

http://www.mritricks.com/sony-clarifies-what-play-station-vrs-mystery-external-box-does/

Fight me in a VR setting if old.
 
B

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
Thread title should be adjusted: Sony clarifies for the 734th time in every interview what the Processing Unit does.
 
Schrade

Schrade

Member
Khalifa Jayy continuing the late to the party post reputation :)

Seriously though.. why are people so confused/puzzled by the box? Sony has explained what it is so many times.. why doesn't it stick?
 
C

CarbonFire

Member
Schrade said:
Khalifa Jayy continuing the late to the party post reputation :)

Seriously though.. why are people so confused/puzzled by the box? Sony has explained what it is so many times.. why doesn't it stick?
Click to expand...

Some people assume the PS4 isn't powerful enough for VR since the requirements for PC VR are so much higher. Then you throw in a required breakout box and again, people assume that must be there to help the PS4 cope with the high VR resolution and framerates, and if it's helping the PS4, it must have some pretty powerful hardware of its own, meaning PSVR+Box will be expensive.

Or something like that ;)

And yes, it is still helping the PS4 reach those target framerates by offloading audio and second screen tasks, but you don't need powerful hardware to do that.
 
R

RiverKwai

Member
Yeah, this is like the fifth time it's been "clarified". Some people don't seem to care though, and continue to just assume that the box is secret sauce.
 
A

[Agent]ZeroNine

Member
How many Sony employees over the past year have had to explain this?

When will the next thread about a Sony employee explaining what it does happen?

Either way, I'm looking forward to both it and the headset's teardown.
 
C

Creaking

He touched the black heart of a mod
Whats-in-the-box.jpg
 
T

Thewonandonly

Junior Member
Wait talking about the 3D sound part of the box does the psvr come with a built in headset??? Sorry if this was already announced and I look dumb but I'm not sure honestly??

Also the poster above if you bad mouth seven one more time!!!!! ;)
 
Schrade

Schrade

Member
Thewonandonly said:
Wait talking about the 3D sound part of the box does the psvr come with a built in headset??? Sorry if this was already announced and I look dumb but I'm not sure honestly??
Click to expand...

Sony's PS VR allows you to use your own headphones. It's unknown at the time whether or not they will ship it with headphones included.

Also the poster above if you bad mouth seven one more time!!!!! ;)
Click to expand...
Hey, I didn't badmouth it :p
 
O

outunderthestars

Banned
Nerfgun said:
where did you guys read the "news" that it was anything but this? it's how it was revealed.

TBF I thought the box was doing the distortion on the image but i had it backwards, it un warps the image for the TV.
Click to expand...

I had never even seen the breakout box until a few months ago, and that was the last I had heard anything about it.
 
D

DieH@rd

Banned
benny_a said:
Thread title should be adjusted: Sony clarifies for the 734th time in every interview what the Processing Unit does.
Click to expand...

This. :)

The_Dama said:
When VR is on, nothing will be on the TV?
Click to expand...

Processing Unit will unwrap video feed from one eye, so that other people in the room can see cropped version of what headset user is seeing. Either that, or completley separate gameplay feed that people in the room can interact with DS4s (async copp/async MP).
 
T

Thewonandonly

Junior Member
Schrade said:
Sony's PS VR allows you to use your own headphones. It's unknown at the time whether or not they will ship it with headphones included.


Hey, I didn't badmouth it :p
Click to expand...
Haha allright all let you slide this time ;)
Hopefully it comes with a head set in it so I'm not looking like a wire man with 3000 wires hanging off my head haha
 
mckmas8808

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
RiverKwai said:
Yeah, this is like the fifth time it's been "clarified". Some people don't seem to care though, and continue to just assume that the box is secret sauce.
Click to expand...

It is secret sauce if you don't understand what it's doing. What that box is doing is awesome for Playstation's VR solution.
 
Q

queequegs__coffin

Banned
What I wanna know, what I realllllly wanna know is if the PSVR can play something like Bloodborne and project the image so it looks like an IMAX screen and process the audio so it's 3d audio.

What is 3d audio? Is that like remixing to 7.1 or something? Like a pretty good DAC or preamp?
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
queequegs__coffin said:
What I wanna know, what I realllllly wanna know is if the PSVR can play something like Bloodborne and project the image so it looks like an IMAX screen and process the audio so it's 3d audio.

What is 3d audio? Is that like remixing to 7.1 or something? Like a pretty good DAC or preamp?
Click to expand...

no it can't.

In theory it could take a non-VR game and split the image to two eyes (not 3D), warp it to fit the HMD lenses, and add it onto a theater screen as a texture. Oculus Rift already has apps that'll do that for eg emulators.

That would still require work by developers though - so it'd be like remote play on PS3. You might see a few games that don't fully max out the PS4 being reworked, but I doubt it.

the 3D audio is taking your sound effects, assigning a location to them in 3D space, and then the breakout box processes those sounds and sends them down your headphones using binaural audio. The idea being that the sounds will actually sound like they're coming from the correct place in 3D space. Simplest example being if you hold a VR phone up to your left ear, the sound will only come through the left ear in your headphones.
 
B

Bowler

Member
If it doesn't have a screen mode then I'm out as I just don't feel there is a goto vr only game yet, which is why I think it needs a h1z1 type workaround to use it as a second screen
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Bowler said:
If it doesn't have a screen mode then I'm out as I just don't feel there is a goto vr only game yet, which is why I think it needs a h1z1 type workaround to use it as a second screen
Click to expand...

it'll do that for movies etc I'm sure. Just probably not for PS4 games. You'd need enough spare performance to render the room etc.
 
mckmas8808

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
mrklaw said:
no it can't.

In theory it could take a non-VR game and split the image to two eyes (not 3D), warp it to fit the HMD lenses, and add it onto a theater screen as a texture. Oculus Rift already has apps that'll do that for eg emulators.

That would still require work by developers though - so it'd be like remote play on PS3. You might see a few games that don't fully max out the PS4 being reworked, but I doubt it.

the 3D audio is taking your sound effects, assigning a location to them in 3D space, and then the breakout box processes those sounds and sends them down your headphones using binaural audio. The idea being that the sounds will actually sound like they're coming from the correct place in 3D space. Simplest example being if you hold a VR phone up to your left ear, the sound will only come through the left ear in your headphones.
Click to expand...

So will the PS Gold Wireless headsets work with PSVR?
 
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