Sony announce PSVR for PS4. Project Morpheus

[Asura]

Isn't that what vr is in essence? A screen for each eye so you see in 3d and head tracking. So yes, moving your head replaces the right stick in a first person game, everything is 3d and you can't escape the environment you are in by looking away from the screen. That's vr. Outside of that normal game rules apply don't they?

I get what you mean Brad, but what MartyG is referring to is stuff that really runs with that.

For example, you can play Gunblade or Virtua Cop with a mouse without too much difficulty, aiming a crosshair - but the games are really designed around wielding a gun.

The Classroom Aquatic is the best example. You could probably play it on a screen via other means, but it's the type of game that only really exists because VR is emerging. No-one would've made that game for a standard pad-and-TV control scheme.

[fishbowlhead]

I'm not convinced the PS4 can run half of that list at a solid enough frame rate over a standard display, how on earth is it going to handle two screens at a much higher refresh rate?

I'm not interested in the risk. I'd rather spend this year building a decent enough PC and then opt for v2 of Oculus in 2017 depending on how the initial sales and support turns out. I'm quite interested in VR and I want my first experience with it to be "WOW@!1", not "hmm, okay...".

I asked this in the driveclub thread. As in that game, the devs will probably strip assets out to keep the frame rate up, like in drive clup there are less cars. Which is pretty rubbish.

[QualityChimp]

To tie in with the movie "The Walk", you can walk a virtual tightrope between the Twin Towers!

[EvilBoris]

I asked this in the driveclub thread. As in that game, the devs will probably strip assets out to keep the frame rate up, like in drive clip there are less cars. Which is pretty rubbish.

I don't think you'll see masses of normal games with support, more likely games with VR experiences included which have been designed to make use of a VR control scheme or a design that facilitates a higher framerate.

[fishbowlhead]

I don't think you'll see masses of normal games with support, more likely games with VR experiences included which have been designed to make use of a VR control scheme or a design that facilitates a higher framerate.

Year your probably right. "Experiences" rather than games will probably be a fitting description for what itle end up as. i don't see why the ps4 isn't capable of more given the grunt it has.

Guess if you want the real meaty vr experiences you'll have to upgrade that graphics card and get a rift.

Also looking at that vid, even trying these games or experiences once looks like a headache, cable for the vr headset, controller (assuming it has charge, if not another lead) plus headphones. It's only a matter of time until TVs are broken or worse someone trips over it all and their head finds a nice sharp corner.

[Cornflakes]

IIRC both oculus rift and psvr won't have room tracking at release. Vive on the other hand is banking on it, hence the inclusion of the front camera.
But that video above..., I don't think any of the systems come with a cable guy/girl.
I read that one company is trying to solve the problem with wireless and latency issues, but who knows when it will be on the market, and it would probably be too late for the 1st gen vr systems.

[Asura]

i don't see why the ps4 isn't capable of more given the grunt it has.

"Grunt" is the wrong word. The PS4 is comparatively weak for VR.

VR needs several things:

1) Very high resolution rendering, because the screens are so close to your eyes. Otherwise it's very ugly and you get what's called the "screen door effect", where it's like looking at everything through a screen door, spatterguard or a pair of tights. This needs to be higher than what we consider full-HD now, and many PS4 games don't even do that.

2) Render two viewports at the same time - one for each eye. Although each is half of the resolution, this also creates some performance issues that you have to resolve.

3) Rock-solid high framerate, ideally higher than 60fps. The key thing is that the framerate must never dip. If it does, the way that interferes with the head tracking can cause immense motion sickness extremely quickly in many users. That means the games can only display stuff well below the best level of quality a game can display, because even when at choke points (the sun is in the player's eyes, 9 cars are onscreen, all 9 are kicking up water whilst the windscreen wiper VFX is playing) MUST work at max fps with room to spare.

4) This isn't a PS4 thing, but VR games have to "throttle back" some of the accepted leaps of logic we make in videogames. Sometimes this is to avoid motion sickness, or a kind of pervasive VR sickness (similar to travel sickness) that develops over a longer period of time, which disorients people. For example, this isn't the actual value, but the Scout in Team Fortress 2 runs at something daft like 50mph. We've all grown comfortable with this on TV, but it's very strange when you try it in VR. It's worse in realistic looking games. You become very conscious that you're "running everywhere".

There are quite a few problems to solve.

[wakka]

Good summary Asura. It's going to be interesting to see how VR software develops over the next few years - like the jump from 2D to 3D, I think in many ways it will require a fundamental rethink of how games are designed.

Not to say that it will replace traditional game styles - but I think the market is now big enough to support VR as an additional style of game.

Realistically it will be indie devs who push this type of game forward I think - no one's going to sink ?80m on a VR only game. Walking sims will be the first genre to really benefit I think, which are all made by Indies pretty much. Adrift in the list above just looks absolutely incredible to me.

[fishbowlhead]

"Grunt" is the wrong word. The PS4 is comparatively weak for VR.

VR needs several things:

1) Very high resolution rendering, because the screens are so close to your eyes. Otherwise it's very ugly and you get what's called the "screen door effect", where it's like looking at everything through a screen door, spatterguard or a pair of tights. This needs to be higher than what we consider full-HD now, and many PS4 games don't even do that.

2) Render two viewports at the same time - one for each eye. Although each is half of the resolution, this also creates some performance issues that you have to resolve.

3) Rock-solid high framerate, ideally higher than 60fps. The key thing is that the framerate must never dip. If it does, the way that interferes with the head tracking can cause immense motion sickness extremely quickly in many users. That means the games can only display stuff well below the best level of quality a game can display, because even when at choke points (the sun is in the player's eyes, 9 cars are onscreen, all 9 are kicking up water whilst the windscreen wiper VFX is playing) MUST work at max fps with room to spare.

4) This isn't a PS4 thing, but VR games have to "throttle back" some of the accepted leaps of logic we make in videogames. Sometimes this is to avoid motion sickness, or a kind of pervasive VR sickness (similar to travel sickness) that develops over a longer period of time, which disorients people. For example, this isn't the actual value, but the Scout in Team Fortress 2 runs at something daft like 50mph. We've all grown comfortable with this on TV, but it's very strange when you try it in VR. It's worse in realistic looking games. You become very conscious that you're "running everywhere".

There are quite a few problems to solve.

All fair points. As you said, there's certainly a lot to do before machines can output games at a consistent level for vr.

How are these things powered? Usb cable?

[Asura]

All fair points. As you said, there's certainly a lot to do before machines can output games at a consistent level for vr.

How are these things powered? Usb cable?

One of the ones I used had two USB power cables, though I've seen a few approaches.

Personally, I feel a big watershed for it will come with the headsets are competely wireless. It is do-able.

[CMcK]

All fair points. As you said, there's certainly a lot to do before machines can output games at a consistent level for vr.

To be fair to Sony the VR breakout box includes dedicated hardware for reprojection. That will mean the PS4 does 60fps locked and that additional hardware will calculate the intermediate frames to send to the eye piece. Kind of similar to how the 360 and PS3 used Trioviz software reprojection in games for 3D glasses.

[EvilBoris]

"Grunt" is the wrong word. The PS4 is comparatively weak for VR.

VR needs several things:

1) Very high resolution rendering, because the screens are so close to your eyes. Otherwise it's very ugly and you get what's called the "screen door effect", where it's like looking at everything through a screen door, spatterguard or a pair of tights. This needs to be higher than what we consider full-HD now, and many PS4 games don't even do that.

That's not specifically a resolution thing, rather that current panels still have small black gaps between the pixels. A higher resolution screen will be denser, but still have said gaps

[JU!]

"Grunt" is the wrong word. The PS4 is comparatively weak for VR.

VR needs several things:

1) Very high resolution rendering, because the screens are so close to your eyes. Otherwise it's very ugly and you get what's called the "screen door effect", where it's like looking at everything through a screen door, spatterguard or a pair of tights. This needs to be higher than what we consider full-HD now, and many PS4 games don't even do that.

2) Render two viewports at the same time - one for each eye. Although each is half of the resolution, this also creates some performance issues that you have to resolve.

3) Rock-solid high framerate, ideally higher than 60fps. The key thing is that the framerate must never dip. If it does, the way that interferes with the head tracking can cause immense motion sickness extremely quickly in many users. That means the games can only display stuff well below the best level of quality a game can display, because even when at choke points (the sun is in the player's eyes, 9 cars are onscreen, all 9 are kicking up water whilst the windscreen wiper VFX is playing) MUST work at max fps with room to spare.

4) This isn't a PS4 thing, but VR games have to "throttle back" some of the accepted leaps of logic we make in videogames. Sometimes this is to avoid motion sickness, or a kind of pervasive VR sickness (similar to travel sickness) that develops over a longer period of time, which disorients people. For example, this isn't the actual value, but the Scout in Team Fortress 2 runs at something daft like 50mph. We've all grown comfortable with this on TV, but it's very strange when you try it in VR. It's worse in realistic looking games. You become very conscious that you're "running everywhere".

There are quite a few problems to solve.

Cheers for all the info was interesting to read did not know some of that. I will 80% be buying PSVR as am very interested, a bit worried about the motion sickness, only ever had this once though on the first Half Life of all things. I really hope Sony put in Some movie watching stuff like Oculus has but not sure if they plan tol. I think Alien: Iso must be a great VR experience and hope PSVR can run it. Will be I interesting to see what games Sony, Oculus and Valve have lined up. The point you made about racing games above makes me wonders if supposed PSVR Gran Turismo: Sport is even possible on PSVR.

[Asura]

Cheers for all the info was interesting to read did not know some of that. I will 80% be buying PSVR as am very interested, a bit worried about the motion sickness, only ever had this once though on the first Half Life of all things. I really hope Sony put in Some movie watching stuff like Oculus has but not sure if they plan tol. I think Alien: Iso must be a great VR experience and hope PSVR can run it. Will be I interesting to see what games Sony, Oculus and Valve have lined up. The point you made about racing games above makes me wonders if supposed PSVR Gran Turismo: Sport is even possible on PSVR.

I'm still very excited about VR in all its forms, so don't let this stuff put you off. It will all get resolved, eventually.

As for the motion sickness thing, I was totally OK for my first few sessions, then my mate put me on TF2 as the Soldier. He had me do a specific set of movements, which I think was...

Rocket jump, then in the air...
Hold "w" to move forward
Hold "a" to strafe right
Sweep the mouse to the left to turn left
Turn my head right, to look right

It was bizarre. The collection of movements in all axes gave me a sudden feeling of nausea I'd never known - and I never get travel sick, I ride roller-coasters, I've abseiled, been kayaking. Normally my constitution is totally rigid, but I had to take the goggles off.

[EvilBoris]

I'm still very excited about VR in all its forms, so don't let this stuff put you off. It will all get resolved, eventually.

As for the motion sickness thing, I was totally OK for my first few sessions, then my mate put me on TF2 as the Soldier. He had me do a specific set of movements, which I think was...

Rocket jump, then in the air...
Hold "w" to move forward
Hold "a" to strafe right
Sweep the mouse to the left to turn left
Turn my head right, to look right

It was bizarre. The collection of movements in all axes gave me a sudden feeling of nausea I'd never known - and I never get travel sick, I ride roller-coasters, I've abseiled, been kayaking. Normally my constitution is totally rigid, but I had to take the goggles off.

Partially what you've described there is what many developers have said is the biggest challenge with VR, games will have be be designed around it, you can't just retrofit it into an existing game in many cases.
So in an FPS for example, as soon as you take aiming control off the head movement and placed it onto the mouse/controller, you introduce problems because suddenly you don't have control of your own "body".
This is the same for cutscenes or moments where the game would normally focus the camera on a particular object in game to draw your attention to it.