• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Nvidia unveils "Cascaded Displays" technique for future VR headsets

A

Arulan

Member
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2014/07/28/nvidia-vr-tech/1

https://research.nvidia.com/publica...ral-superresolution-using-offset-pixel-layers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XwaARRMbSA (I'd recommend at least watching this)

bit-tech.net said:
An Nvidia researcher has revealed a manufacturing technique that could quadruple the perceived resolution of future virtual reality headsets, using a technique called 'display cascading.'

Coupled with some clever driver optimisations, Luebke claims a cascaded display offers both improved resolution and a doubling of perceived framerate - achieved by running the two panels out of synchronisation.
Click to expand...
 
Not getting a lot of replies, but this is pretty incredible. We need this, and foveal rendering, stat.
 
Made me think of the Genesis and its ability to fake higher resolutions by overlaying different lower ones. This is like the hardware approach to that software idea.
 
We definitely need some kind of tech wizardry if we want VR to go mainstream any time soon.

Thanks, OP! Very interesting.
 
Just for note, this is a way of creating displays with higher resolution and frequency.

It's not unfortunately a method for rendering higher resolution and frequency for free.

But with this tech in tow and foveated rendering, we'll get to high resolution targets like 4k much faster.
 
Cool stuff.
I know they are generally perceived as the bad guys on gaming forums, but it's hard to deny Nvidia has some amazing engineers.
 
TucoBenedictoPacifico said:
Cool stuff.
I know they are generally perceived as the bad guys on gaming forums, but it's hard to deny Nvidia has some amazing engineers.
Click to expand...

Huh, I've never thought it was more than petty product rivalries and console users lashing out against pro-PC comments.

These certainly are exciting times as we watch VR tech race to find solutions and envision new possibilities for the future of VR experience.
 
This technique was revealed by them a while ago. I mention it only because one of the original researchers moved to Oculus.

Also the temporal properties have some lumanance ringing so I'll stick with my 15" CRT.
 
That's a damn nice trick. NVidia could make a killing licensing the tech to LCD panel makers if it catches on: they can make cheap 4k panels by overlaying two standard 1080p LCD layers.
 
is this supported on current GPU or need new hardware?

watching the video, 5 Hz x2 "low resolution" image creates 10 Hz image with improved IQ. hopefully it can lower the VR GPU requirements

or am I missing something here? :)
 
M3d10n said:
That's a damn nice trick. NVidia could make a killing licensing the tech to LCD panel makers if it catches on: they can make cheap 4k panels by overlaying two standard 1080p LCD layers.
Click to expand...

I don't think a native 4k panel is anywhere close to being twice as expensive as a 1080p panel, even now in early days, never mind going forward.
 
Neat idea. No real way to execute.

This would be cost prohibitive at this point, and derail any sort of consumer rollout and pickup.

In 3-5 years, assuming the technology catches on, but by then there will be better solutions available.
 
epmode said:
I'm only annoyed when they go the proprietary route which hurts adoption of their technology. Otherwise, Nvidia has been impressing me for a while.
Click to expand...

They left what were likely their highest selling SKU's (GTX 460 and 560) broken for almost 2 years and let their engineers waste their time condescending users on their forum. Every driver update thread from the high 200's or early 300's was nothing but 460/560 users complaining about the TDR's and CTD's.
 
M3d10n said:
That's a damn nice trick. NVidia could make a killing licensing the tech to LCD panel makers if it catches on: they can make cheap 4k panels by overlaying two standard 1080p LCD layers.
Click to expand...

I think the main benefits come where we start getting to pixel densities (or refresh rates) that are hitting the physical limits of the technology.

So maybe 4k to 8k VR LCD, or 8K to 16K.


But my gut feeling is that panel tech will progress faster than our ability to drive the panels in the short-medium term future.
 
ils said:
is this supported on current GPU or need new hardware?

watching the video, 5 Hz x2 "low resolution" image creates 10 Hz image with improved IQ. hopefully it can lower the VR GPU requirements

or am I missing something here? :)
Click to expand...

No, that's how I interpreted it as well. Basically a way to cut down on processing power while still being able to render a high res like image. Kind of reminds me of the KZSF MP rendering trickery but with this screen tech on top.
 
astonish said:
Also the temporal properties have some lumanance ringing so I'll stick with my 15" CRT.
Click to expand...

Pretty bad ghosting, too:

cPRbiQj.jpg


It's certainly some clever tech. Not convinced it'll actually be commercially useful, though.
 
vpance said:
No, that's how I interpreted it as well. Basically a way to cut down on processing power while still being able to render a high res like image. Kind of reminds me of the KZSF MP rendering trickery but with this screen tech on top.
Click to expand...
No. Tricks like temporal reprojection or multisampling are about effectively boosting your sampling resolution; this technology deals with the output resolution. It's a clever way to achieve results akin to a high-resolution and/or high-framerate display by overlaying multiple much-lower-quality screens.

It won't cause your 1080p60 game to be a 4K120 game. It's intended to let you make use of all the pixels in your 4K game by displaying them on a display made up of two "layered" 1080p screens, though.
 
I think it's one of those things that doesn't translate well into a Youtube demo on a regular PC, kind of like the VR headset experience itself. I found the 10Hz staggered demo vaguely "off", but I bet I wouldn't notice it at 120Hz equivalent.

Seems like promising technology - basically a way to more-or-less display higher res and framerates when you're hitting the limits of minimum pixel size in your panel tech, which is obviously useful for tiny HMD.

I could understand pretty quickly how the layered offset multiplicative effect could work for higher resolution. The "Staggered Display" mode was a bit harder to get my head around. The motion acceleration reminds me quite a bit of the interlacing technique (1080i60). With two layers which can handle 120 Hz, they alternately update for experiencing the equivalent of 240 Hz, at the cost of some artifacts which I assume are increasingly noticeable as the amount of movement in the scene increases.
 
Reallink said:
They left what were likely their highest selling SKU's (GTX 460 and 560) broken for almost 2 years and let their engineers waste their time condescending users on their forum. Every driver update thread from the high 200's or early 300's was nothing but 460/560 users complaining about the TDR's and CTD's.
Click to expand...

I don't have those cards and I've never heard of that issue. I agree that it's pretty shit though.

On the other hand, Shadowplay and G-Sync are love.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

After 20 years, Nvidia retires the NVIDIA Control Panel
2
77
809
Celcius replied
Big PlayStation Emulation News! VR is Coming for PS1
Retro VR Indie 
15
413
Jinzo Prime replied
Videocardz - G-Assist is ‘real’: NVIDIA unveils NitroGen, open-source AI model that can play 1000+ games for you
11
621
DAHGAMING replied
Forza Horizon 6 VR mod
2
18
willothedog replied
Starfield Future Will Be Unveiled Next Week by Bethesda
Event Game Dev  2
92
1K
IbizaPocholo replied
Top Bottom