First impressions from someone that has tried Morpheus ar GDC - He says the resolution "isn't an issue"
I'm going to guess they've made better use of the available screen area - in the oculus there's a lot of unused pixels, as each image is a curved partial 'fisheye' view corrected by the lenses, but much more of the screen area (ie more pixels) could be used if the lenses were (more expensively) designed to 'correct' a more conventionally anamorphic pair of images.
They've a lot of experience in lenses for the previous HMD range - I guess we'll find out when someone gives us the first native display and 'through-the-lens' shots!
The major problem I can see with this is we're going to need 2 wires trailing across the floor (usb/HDMI) could end up being a pain in the ass.
It's nice to see it's going to use the camera, wonder if this is why Sony were so encouraging for us to buy the thing.
Sony have said they are hoping to make the consumer version wireless. That could have an impact on cost though. Perhaps we will see a wired version at first with a wireless revision later?
Yeah, the camera, the always-on light bar - you can see Sony's plans slowly coming together.
Yes, but I was referring to the Sony, according to their specs it's LCD rather than OLED (in the Oculus). This could be a good thing if it lowers the price, and the downside of a greater 'screen door effect' could be mitigated if they have managed to utilise more of the available screen area.
Sony have said they are hoping to make the consumer version wireless. That could have an impact on cost though. Perhaps we will see a wired version at first with a wireless revision later?
Wonder what kind of issue power drain would be with wireless? 1080p Full HD and 3D surround sound - any specs on how much power that uses? Any onboard battery may need to be a compromise between being able to take a lasting charge (and quickly) and yet not be too heavy (for obvious reasons! ).
If it was wireless, the power consumption of the screen is only that of a mobile phone, the heaviest draw would probably be the wireless facility! It'd probably be best if sold as wired, with an optional wireless pack (belt/shoulder/backpack thing) so as to keep initial costs low. Wireless would be great though, less risk of accidentally yanking all your gear onto the floor or off your head.
Some great hands-on reports from GDC - very positive reception. It's finally happening! -
I doubt this would go for less than £200 unless Sony heavily subsidize it..
The Occulus Rift dev kit is $350. The Sony one can be a bit cheaper as the camera is bought separately. It'll be interesting to see if the PS4 is powerful enough. The OR guys say it isn't, but Sony evidently designed it and its camera with VR in mind.
The Occulus Rift dev kit is $350. The Sony one can be a bit cheaper as the camera is bought separately. It'll be interesting to see if the PS4 is powerful enough. The OR guys say it isn't, but Sony evidently designed it and its camera with VR in mind.
I can see why he said that, doing 1080p60 in 3D is quite a difficult task although i'm sure Sony are aware of this lol
t'll be interesting to see if the PS4 is powerful enough. The OR guys say it isn't
This is actually something that's been taken out of context - what the Oculus people said about consoles (when initially asked about PS4) was that they had no particular interest themselves in developing for a platform with a fixed, contemporary, specification. They are looking to PCs specifically because their performance would evolve alongside their technology to deliver ever closer to optimal performance for Holy Grail levels of VR, graphics cards makers will be lining up to produce cards offering performance tailored for the job - but the PS4 is in no way underpowered for the task at a more modest level, the catch is simply that fluidity absolutely rules above all other considerations. You cannot permit choppy framerates, tearing or other glitches that are acceptable on a static display. Developers can comfortably hit these performance levels through less ambitious visuals - lower res textures, lighting effects etc.
For example, if you had Tron level graphics, even a PS3 or 360 could cope! The demos above were running on PS4 devkits, there's a good chance they're fairly representative of what a PS4 could do. Then we can all upgrade to Oculus when they've got an 8k version with smellovision module!
I don't have any concerns about PS4 not being powerful enough to deliver a solid VR experience. It's already proved it can display beautiful stereoscopic 3D graphics and using GPGPU techniques would mean the modest CPU isn't taxed too much when it comes to head and body tracking.
The black box that connects the headset to the PS4 takes the processing load for 3 tasks -
The unit contains three separate processors: a Digital Sound Processor (DSP), a Frame Rate Conversion (FRC) unit and a third chip to correct lens distortion.
Frame rate conversion? Wasn't the assumption that it was 60fps..? Yes, but looky here -
The FRC unit effectively doubles the frame rate by creating an interpolation frame between each frame. Basically it analyzes the correlation between the past frame and the present frame of the rendering and creates the appropriate frame between them, converting 60 frames per second into 120. It’s crucial in reducing the afterimage effect of the LCD panel.
(...)
Yoshida-san also mentioned that the LCD used with Project Morpheus is an especially made panel that isn’t the common vertical scan type, but a horizontal scan type that is much faster at updating horizontally adjacent pixels with a side scrolling image, and can dramatically reduce the afterimage effect of the picture.
The possibility to use an OLED screen is being examined, but a final decision between the two options for the retail version hasn’t been taken yet.
Custom panel with 120hz updating, LCD now... maybe OLED later (& the LCD was already well received!).
The only cautionary note is -
The third processor is dedicated to correct the distortion caused by passing the image through a magnifying optical system built into the headset. Both this and the FRC unit are not final, and it’s undecided if they’ll make it to the retail unit, as it’s possible to offload their tasks to the GPU of the PS4.
With the black box, these tasks take no system resources - if (probably to keep prices down) they opt to make the PS4 do these tasks as well, there will be a slight hit on the visuals. Maybe it'll be offset by a superior display....
He raises a valid point about the stereo 3D visuals. Trine 2 is beautiful on a 3DTV and is rendered internally as 2x1080p/60 - it is only reduced to 720p for TV output because that's all that HDMI 1.X will allow.
Just watched it, sounds impressive, i'm looking forward to it.
I did like the comment about its as if the PS4 camera was made for the VR headset in mind I would say with 1 kHz tracking that was definitely the case!
Comments
http://instagram.com/p/lvAmnRCd3o/
I'm going to guess they've made better use of the available screen area - in the oculus there's a lot of unused pixels, as each image is a curved partial 'fisheye' view corrected by the lenses, but much more of the screen area (ie more pixels) could be used if the lenses were (more expensively) designed to 'correct' a more conventionally anamorphic pair of images.
They've a lot of experience in lenses for the previous HMD range - I guess we'll find out when someone gives us the first native display and 'through-the-lens' shots!
The first dev kit was but the second dev kit based on crystal cove is OLED http://www.oculusvr.com/dk2/
It's nice to see it's going to use the camera, wonder if this is why Sony were so encouraging for us to buy the thing.
Sony have said they are hoping to make the consumer version wireless. That could have an impact on cost though. Perhaps we will see a wired version at first with a wireless revision later?
Yeah, the camera, the always-on light bar - you can see Sony's plans slowly coming together.
Yes, but I was referring to the Sony, according to their specs it's LCD rather than OLED (in the Oculus). This could be a good thing if it lowers the price, and the downside of a greater 'screen door effect' could be mitigated if they have managed to utilise more of the available screen area.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKYr9MaZw3I
Nice! If it works that well at a distance, it could be spectacular when it's just centimeters from your eyes!
Article:
http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/20/5527274/could-throwing-fireballs-with-your-eyes-be-the-future-of-playstation
Wonder what kind of issue power drain would be with wireless? 1080p Full HD and 3D surround sound - any specs on how much power that uses? Any onboard battery may need to be a compromise between being able to take a lasting charge (and quickly) and yet not be too heavy (for obvious reasons! ).
Some great hands-on reports from GDC - very positive reception. It's finally happening! -
http://www.wcnc.com/entertainment/251285391.html
http://www.destructoid.com/sony-s-project-morpheus-an-impressive-first-showing-272262.phtml
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/454787/features/project-morpheus-hands-on-does-sony-deliver-on-its-vr-promise/
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-03-20-how-does-morpheus-shape-up-to-oculus
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-03-20-hands-on-with-sonys-morpheus-headset
http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/19/project-morpheus-hands-on/
http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/19/5526730/sony-morpheus-vr-headset-compares-well-to-oculus-rift
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2014/03/project-morpheus-impressions/
http://vrfocus.com/archives/1406/hands-project-morpheus/
http://kotaku.com/we-just-tried-sonys-ps4-virtual-reality-headset-we-l-1547417858
http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/19/5526966/project-morpheus-sonys-playstation-4-virtual-reality-helmet-is-much
http://www.slashgear.com/project-morpheus-first-impressions-ps4-vr-headset-in-motion-19321318/
Via -
http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=787487
EVE Valkyrie -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AImxzr-1p0
The Deep (with the now famous Great White Shark!) -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANgyuzTPOFc
General stuff, including a brief glimpse of the lenses -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMGuCHRLkuQ
It looks great. If the price (and software) is right, this could actually bring VR to the masses. Massive potential.
I can see why he said that, doing 1080p60 in 3D is quite a difficult task although i'm sure Sony are aware of this lol
This is actually something that's been taken out of context - what the Oculus people said about consoles (when initially asked about PS4) was that they had no particular interest themselves in developing for a platform with a fixed, contemporary, specification. They are looking to PCs specifically because their performance would evolve alongside their technology to deliver ever closer to optimal performance for Holy Grail levels of VR, graphics cards makers will be lining up to produce cards offering performance tailored for the job - but the PS4 is in no way underpowered for the task at a more modest level, the catch is simply that fluidity absolutely rules above all other considerations. You cannot permit choppy framerates, tearing or other glitches that are acceptable on a static display. Developers can comfortably hit these performance levels through less ambitious visuals - lower res textures, lighting effects etc.
For example, if you had Tron level graphics, even a PS3 or 360 could cope! The demos above were running on PS4 devkits, there's a good chance they're fairly representative of what a PS4 could do. Then we can all upgrade to Oculus when they've got an 8k version with smellovision module!
I have high hopes.
http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/03/21/sonys-morpheus-vr-headset-for-ps4-has-three-different-processors-could-still-get-an-oled-screen/
The black box that connects the headset to the PS4 takes the processing load for 3 tasks -
Frame rate conversion? Wasn't the assumption that it was 60fps..? Yes, but looky here -
Custom panel with 120hz updating, LCD now... maybe OLED later (& the LCD was already well received!).
The only cautionary note is -
With the black box, these tasks take no system resources - if (probably to keep prices down) they opt to make the PS4 do these tasks as well, there will be a slight hit on the visuals. Maybe it'll be offset by a superior display....
http://gamingbolt.com/sony-rd-dev-explains-why-its-feasbile-to-run-games-at-60-fps-on-ps4s-vr-headset
Full interview -
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-03-21-talking-project-morpheus-with-anton-mikhailov
He raises a valid point about the stereo 3D visuals. Trine 2 is beautiful on a 3DTV and is rendered internally as 2x1080p/60 - it is only reduced to 720p for TV output because that's all that HDMI 1.X will allow.
They've released a clip of the Occulus Rift's VR head tracking at work in the game, giving an idea of how the game should look.
http://youtu.be/zKMLfhanTuY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pWMp_o03qH4
Just watched it, sounds impressive, i'm looking forward to it.
I did like the comment about its as if the PS4 camera was made for the VR headset in mind I would say with 1 kHz tracking that was definitely the case!
At EGX Rezzed.