sourceAt Oculus Connect today, CEO Brendan Iribe announced a new, lower minimum hardware spec for using Oculus Rift. The new spec is thanks to a technology called Asynchronous Spacewarp, allowing systems to deliver a stable 45 frames per second, while the ASW technology effectively doubles that and fills in the gaps. That means smooth VR running on cheaper hardware. Here it is:
- Nvidia 960 or greater (down from Nvidia GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater)
- Intel i3-6100 / AMD FX4350 or greater (down from Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater)
- 8GB+ RAM (same)
- Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output (same)
- 1x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0 (change from 2x USB 3.0 ports)
- Windows 8 or newer (change from Windows 7 SP1 or newer)
I agree, VR is not good enough yet. Both the games and the hardware are lacking. I will have no interest in v2 or v3 if the goal is cheaper hardware, it needs to be significantly better even if it is more expensive. I am sick of the grainy image, you can see every sub-pixel, along with the blurry and streaky lenses. The sharp in focus field of view on these headsets is much smaller than the total field of view. I would get a new VR headset even if it only had much better lenses, even if it was $2000+. At least 1920x2160 per eye would be great too but it is the lenses that bother me the most.
Same reason people crap on consoles. They stifle development.Originally Posted by firagabird
Why are so many of you guys crapping on this new development? It's lowering the all-in cost of owning a PC VR rig by a huge amount: $500 lower than before. Many more people will be able to own a VR system, thereby increasing the total addressable market (TAM), thereby encouraging more developers to create more content for the ecosystem; that is precisely the problem that needs to be solved right now.
It does attempt to, it comes in after the frame was rendered and warps it with current head tracking data to attempt to move it into the right place. It uses the 2D frame data but does take GPU resources so you have to stop rendering the frame early enough that you have time to warp it with the GPU before V-sync.
It is definitely not an ideal solution.
Talking about why it's worse than running the game at a higher framerate is 100% fairWhy are so many of you guys crapping on this new development?
PS VR is terrible if you have seen the reviews.Originally Posted by Shatun-Bear
Oculus are desperate. They're getting their backside kicked by the Vive (look at September's Steam Survey) and Palmer is a toxic character associated with the brand.
PS VR will show Oculus how to sell a VR experience soon with millions of sales.
No, it's certainly not. That said, not everyone can afford ideal, and this is a great compromise for a non-sickening VR experience on a budget.Originally Posted by Asmodian
It is definitely not an ideal solution.
22.2ms between each frame at 45 fps and a new v-sync every 11.1 ms at 90 fps.
V-sync 0, Time 0 ms, frame 0:
Frame 1 gets game data based on current head position, starts rendering
V-sync 1, Time 11.1 ms, frame 1:
Nothing to display yet.
V-sync 2, Time 22.2 ms, frame 1w:
Frame 1 is warped with current head data. Frame 2 started based on current head position.
V-sync 3, Time 33.3 ms, frame 1w2:
Frame 1 warped again with new head data, Frame 2 still rendering
V-sync 4, Time 44.4 ms, frame 2w:
Frame 2 displayed but it started rendering 22.2 ms ago and we warped frame 1 with tracking data from only 11.1 ms ago so we already have to warp frame 2 for the current head position. Frame 3 started
V-sync 5, Time 55.5 ms, frame 2w2
Frame 2 warped again with current head tracking data. Frame 3 still rendering.
Using Asynchronous Spacewarp to double 45 to 90 fps means warping every single frame twice or having unacceptable latency in the head tracking. You never see an unwarped frame so you better hope the warp is really good in all situations.
The head movement latency would be fine because of the timewarp. What also would work very well with high input latency are devices like joysticks, including the ones on controllers.Originally Posted by Cyro999
Talking about why it's worse than running the game at a higher framerate is 100% fair
45fps render warped to 90fps adds ~22.22ms of latency on the frame render (1000/45)
a 120fps render would add 8.33ms (1000/120) so ~14ms less
14ms is a huge amount for a head mounted display with motion tracking and latency is really high up on the list of reasons that you want triple digit framerates for VR
I haven't heard that at all.