Rift / Vive / VR General

[Perkel]

well there you go goys.

Fovated rendering. I doubt it is static one since they said that headset actually tracks eyes and can display their position in VR for other players.

For those who don't know dynamic fovated rendering is technique in which you only render in very high resolution place you look at and only small patch as eyes actually have only like 10-20 degree when they can see clearly anything outside of that looses sharpness pretty quickly.

This way with this technique you can render for example place you look at at 500x500 while rest would be rendered at say 1000x1000. It is much more sophisticated than that but this shows you how much extra juice your gpu will have once this technique goes online. No longer you have to render whole scene completely from corner to corner only proper render for places you see and low res for everything outside of that.

with just 500x500 and that 1000x1000 i mentioned above you have quality of higher than 4k in place you look at cost of 1/4 - 1/5 of your gpu power of normal 4k rendering. Which directly translates to TON of FPS improvement unless you meet other bottleneck like CPU, memory etc.

Moreover that technique is not reserved just for VR. VR is just natural best fit since you have something on your head that can track properly your eyes. This WILL go into your monitor in future.

 

[Doktor Best]

Vr goty was a cooking game with 500 reviews. I see vr is booming.

SteamVR shit the bed this year. The Quest2 outsold the new Xbox. It is booming.

 

[Perkel]

What all above means is that soon it is VR headsets that will be boasting best graphics not 2D rigs. The amount of gpu power you save by this trick is ridiculous and there are other tricks that multiply even that.

To understand that you have to just understand that cost of GPU power rises SQUARED with resolution. At 1000x1000 you have just 1000 000 pixels but at 2000 by 2000 which is twice increase in PPD it is not 2 000 000 but 4 000 000.

So for 2D gamer to have nice 4k resolution compared to that playing on 1000x1000 for same FPS you have to have 4 times the power of gpu. But this calculation completely omits additional costs in rendering which rise dramatically with res increased.

The final piece of puzzle here is that you don't need to render every frame with it. You can render every frame place player looks at while rest can be rendered half the time while AI DLSS like tech can reconstruct frames in very poor quality outside of player view. Remember that main problem of this tech is poor quality frames if you want a lot of frames.

There are other things open up as well when you have dynamic fovated rendering in place. Best HDR, proper physical chromatic aberration that is true to RL instead of shitty post processing filter like Bloom was before HDR come to monitors.

 

[Doktor Best]

The thing about foveated rendering that keeps me sceptical is that it would need an enormously fast response time since rapid eye movement is faster than hand or head movement by a magnitude and also more frequent.

 

[Dexter]

SteamVR shit the bed this year. The Quest2 outsold the new Xbox. It is booming.

SteamVR had some of the best VR releases this year from Demeo, Myst, to the Medal of Honor game that was apparently patched a lot, After the Fall that released recently, Into the Radius coming out of Early Access and having various Updates etc. All the other platforms only really had one "bigger" title standing out, Resident Evil 4 on the Quest, Lone Echo II on the Rift and Hitman 3 VR on PSVR (coming to Steam early next year). Although it was a rather shitty year for games in general and some of the stuff that stood out the most were VR Mods for things like Red Dead 2, Mafia, Resident Evil etc. People just get cards for voting in the "Steam Awards", the vast majority of which have never played VR and just went for the Meme Choice.

Here's a list of Top Selling VR Games of 2021, not much movement at the Top aside from Into the Radius moving up, but a bunch of new releases further down: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/BestOf2021?cc=us&tab=5

Spoiler

Also there goes Perkel again spouting off and fantasizing about things he doesn't really understand promising 500% increase in performance before he has even seen it in action or even really knows what it is about. Just fyi Batman Arkham VR for instance already uses "Foveated Rendering", as has the Quest for a while:

https://dcgamessupport.wbgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001086228-PC-Graphics-Options

Multi-Resolution Rendering
Full Resolution
This option renders each eye using a single viewport, which gives it the highest image quality for peripheral regions of the frame. It also makes it the most expensive in terms of GPU fill-rate. This option should only be used with an extremely high-end GPU.

Fixed Foveated
In order to achieve the high resolutions needed for VR, we take advantage of part of the human eye’s physiology, the fovea. This part of the eye is responsible for the sharp central vision we see and so we can focus our pixel density in a fixed central area of the screen, allowing the rest of the screen to be rendered at a lower resolution. The fixed foveated option of multi-resolution rendering does this by dividing the screen into two parts: a central circular high resolution region, and an outer lower resolution region. By doing this, we can achieve 90fps at foveated ‘virtual resolutions’ above the native resolution of the headset’s LCD screen as described in Pixel Density section above.

NVIDIA Multi-Res
This option enables NVIDIA’s Multi-Res Shading, part of the NVIDIA Gameworks platform. Similar to fixed-foveated rendering, it divides the frame into areas of low-resolution and high-resolution. The frame is divided into a 3x3 grid, as shown in the image below. The central cell is rendered at full resolution, whilst the remaining cells are rendered at 30% of the full resolution.

Unlike fixed-foveated rendering, this method only needs to draw geometry once per eye, with the hardware relaying it to each of the Multi-Res viewports. It may offer better performance than fixed-foveated rendering in cases where the title is draw-call bound.

Pixel Density
The percentage value relates to the native resolution of the LCD screen where 100% on Vive and Oculus headsets means a resolution of 2160x1200. Due to the lenses on the headset, a percentage resolution of 140% is required to give a 1:1 pixel resolution at the center of the screen. 140% is a resolution of 3024x1680 ((2160x1200)*1.4). We allow the user to double this 140% resolution to 280% which is a resolution of 6048x3360.

Fovea Ratio
This allows the user to change the size of the central circular region that is rendered at the resolution defined by the ‘Pixel Density’ option. We have three settings: Small, Medium and Large, which relate to the central circular high resolution region’s diameter as a ratio of the screen width.

Outer Pixel Quality
This allows the user to change resolution of the outer regions resolution as a percentage of the value in Pixel Density. This ranges from 30% to 90% (100% is achieved by using the ‘Full Resolution’ option of Multi-Resolution Rendering). If the Pixel Density is set to 100% and the Outer Pixel Quality is set to 90%, then the inner central high resolution area will be rendered at 2160x1200 and the outer resolution will be rendered at 90% of that resolution at 1944x1080 ((2160x1200)*0.9).

Chances are the new generation high-res OLED panel with HDR capability (is that a first for VR?) is what's really going to stand out here.

 

[Perkel]

The thing about foveated rendering that keeps me sceptical is that it would need an enormously fast response time since rapid eye movement is faster than hand or head movement by a magnitude and also more frequent.

That was why it was in R&D mostly. Eye tracking is something we have already. Instant response eye tracking was something they had to figure out or tune tech to it. There were already demos of it so it was just question of time and processing power to do that. The easiest way is just to increase camera FPS and right now we can with relatively small cameras do 1000s of fps

The other part that delayed implementation was that engines have to be modified to such rendering because it is not just about res but also about all other effects that can break in low res.

Just fyi Batman Arkham VR for instance already uses "Foveated Rendering", as has the Quest for a while:

Fovated rendering =/= dynamic fovated rendering.

Fovated rendering is static. It only lower resolution on absolute edges of screen as it looks very bad if you go closer to center. But even with that you are talking about 20-30% perf boost and like you said was implemented already. On quest 2 it is basically system level as almost all games use it but like i said only for about 10% of image on edges.

Dynamic Fovated Rendering is based on eye tracking and it ONLY render at full res in place your eyes are looking for while rest is gradually worse res as it goes away from focus point. Moreover with eye tracking you can go to much lower res than in static fovated rendering.

 

[Perkel]

The other huge thing this will enable will be proper Raytracing. Right now the cost is ludicrous because whole scene has to be rendered in case of DFOV you only need in full res those 500x500 pixels and much lower res around it. Cost of Raytracing goes through the roof with resolution (if you want ot keep quality that is) because you need a lot more photons to light properly scene.

I think with DFOV it will be entirely possible for currrent top rigs to run full raytraced games at AAA quality level.

 

[ADL]

Fingers crossed whatever deal Valve cut with Sony includes PCVR compatibility on the PSVR2. That would be a game changer.

 

[tritosine2k]

Theres no low hanging fruit about foveated rendering in game engines, >video rate sensors, displays.
&
it won't get you HDR because VR optics has 80:1 ansi contrast for a multi element lens 500gramm bulky helmet (that's already unreachable for mass production lol), and less than 20:1 for slimmed down 150g ones they want to sell (& that's nice way to fuck up micro oled native contrast lol).

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Tried the Quest 2. Comfortable and reasonably crispy audio, but often blurry and it have me a headache at all adjustment levels. Gonna take it back.

Not exactly unexpected though, since motion blur in games gives me a headache, let alone this.

I think that models where you can move your body in order to move around should be better. Otherwise motion sickness is probably inevitable for people like me.

 

[Perkel]

Tried the Quest 2. Comfortable and reasonably crispy audio, but often blurry and it have me a headache at all adjustment levels. Gonna take it back.

First time VR ? This is normal you get used to it very quickly.

Right now after few years i can play 15 fps VR games with massive delays between body and camera simulating rollercoaster and it won't move me.

When i started smooth locomotion in RE7 made me quit after just 10 minutes.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

First time VR ? This is normal you get used to it very quickly.

At first, but I tried it several times over the course of a week. Like I said, I've had it with other non-VR games. I must just be sensitive to visual movement without actual movement.

Reasonably severe too. Had I pushed it, I would have vomited. Also, the blurriness caused a bit of eye strain that lasted a few days, but it seemed to easy up when I tried it again.

Not something I'd want to try for more than 30 minutes at a time, and the motion sickness thing pretty much kills all games for me.

 

[Doktor Best]

First time VR ? This is normal you get used to it very quickly.

At first, but I tried it several times over the course of a week. Like I said, I've had it with other non-VR games. I must just be sensitive to visual movement without actual movement.

Reasonably severe too. Had I pushed it, I would have vomited. Also, the blurriness caused a bit of eye strain that lasted a few days, but it seemed to easy up when I tried it again.

Not something I'd want to try for more than 30 minutes at a time, and the motion sickness thing pretty much kills all games for me.

For first timers its best to stick to non-movement or teleport movement games until you get accustomed to VR. What also helps is a ventilator pushing air towards your face.

Regarding eye strain, you can put the lenses between the settings 1,2 and 3 so if you have an ipd of 65 for example you can put it at 2.5 and you should have a better image. What also helps is trying another facial interface since it changes the distance of your eyes to the lenses. I had some eye strain issue with the stock interface but it went away with the vrcover one. You can also try if the glasses spacer helps that comes with the Quest2.

 

[Perkel]

if you already have problem in 2D with motion sickness then VR is definitely not for you. It has the same source but VR strains it even further. Did you try anti-motion sickness meds ? I had friend in school who couldn't travel by car because he would get motion sick and he often ate some pills.

On other hand VR "legs" are definitely a thing. So maybe your motion sickness can be cured by experiencing it a lot. Try if for 2-3 weeks for some minutes daily until you get uncomfortable and see if something improves.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Did you try anti-motion sickness meds ?

Thought about it, but I'd rather not take pills just to play a video game.

Try if for 2-3 weeks for some minutes daily until you get uncomfortable and see if something improves.

I would, but then I couldn't get my money back.

It's fine. My loss is someone buying it used's gain.

 

[Venser]

Best selling digital PSVR games for December 2021. After The Fall debuted at 8th place in NA, been a while since a new game appeared on the list. In EU people enjoyed Dooms with big discounts.

 

[Humanophage]

Can people recommend some more physical games for Quest 2, especially those that involve PvP? I want to gamify cardio.

So far, I sort of liked the following:
- Eleven (table tennis)
- Ironlights (melee combat, though it is pretty artificial, but still the best thing so far and it's easy to find opponents)
- Box VR (like Beat Saber, but boxing, so feels more natural and psychologically encourages you to put force into strikes - but no PvP)

Pistol Whip is also OK but it moves too fast along a corridor, so that's a bit annoying. Superhot is good, but not actiony enough. Pavlov Shack makes me extremely dizzy, but I was impressed with the MP and how popular it is. It saddened me that I couldn't play.

Ideally, I'd want a more natural melee or boxing game where you can fight others. A simple straightforward boxing game with no gimmicks would be great - something like Eleven, but for fighting. It would be especially nice if you need to dodge and duck a fair deal.

First time VR ? This is normal you get used to it very quickly.

At first, but I tried it several times over the course of a week. Like I said, I've had it with other non-VR games. I must just be sensitive to visual movement without actual movement.

Reasonably severe too. Had I pushed it, I would have vomited. Also, the blurriness caused a bit of eye strain that lasted a few days, but it seemed to easy up when I tried it again.

Not something I'd want to try for more than 30 minutes at a time, and the motion sickness thing pretty much kills all games for me.

I reacted quite poorly to anything involving movement within the game, especially if you move with the joystick. It was quite bad, beyond multiple vomiting. But I have no issues so long as the character is stationary and you only move IRL, which is quite a lot of games. It's OK even if the screen is blurry, which it is for me.

 

[Poseidon00]

First time VR ? This is normal you get used to it very quickly.

Right now after few years i can play 15 fps VR games with massive delays between body and camera simulating rollercoaster and it won't move me.

When i started smooth locomotion in RE7 made me quit after just 10 minutes.

Yep. VR's biggest drawback is its barrier to entry. Getting used adjusting the headset so that you never have blur takes longer that it should. Motion sickness is almost a given when you first start using it and it takes up to a month to adjust. You stop getting motion sickness once you get used to the device and you don't get it again. I can put mine down for 6 months at a time and can get right back into it with no issues. Now I use it as often as my actual PC for gaming. The "getting used to it" phase definitely sucks and I see why it turns people off.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

I reacted quite poorly to anything involving movement within the game, especially if you move with the joystick. It was quite bad, beyond multiple vomiting. But I have no issues so long as the character is stationary and you only move IRL, which is quite a lot of games. It's OK even if the screen is blurry, which it is for me.

Yes, this seemed to be the case for me. It's classic motion sickness. It's caused by the appearance of movement without your body physically moving.

I think the blurriness of the Quest 2 made it worse for me. Between the eye strain and the motion sickness, it was very uncomfortable. The eye strain lasted a few days even after I took it off.

If I were to try VR again, I might go for a slightly higher end headset like the HP Reverb G2. The Varjo Aero has an even clearer picture, but I don't really feel like dropping two grand on a headset I don't even know if I'll be able to use.

Can people recommend some more physical games for Quest 2, especially those that involve PvP? I want to gamify cardio.

I played Blade and Sorcery and it was ok. If you have enough space, you can move around a bit.

 

[Poseidon00]

Can people recommend some more physical games for Quest 2, especially those that involve PvP? I want to gamify cardio.

Thrill of the Fight is the best vr boxing sim out there in my opinion.

VR Dungeon Knight I recommend because its an active game but really its just fun. Has multiplayer but no PvP.

Karnage Chronicles tries to be an rpg. I haven't gotten far enough to say whether or not it succeeds but its enjoyable. I just put it down because I was in my "getting used to it" phase and didn't get back into VR till later.

There's Ancient Dungeon which came out more recently but has minecraft-like graphics so that's kinda meh. Havent tried this one.

There's a PvP gladiator ring where you can choose from a variety of ancient weapons. Have to remember the name of this one because I want it.

 

[Dexter]

It's out: https://ioisupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4417185915025


This is apparently releasing next week:



This also got a Steam/SteamVR listing, which is yet another Oculus "Excl000sive" heading to Steam:

 

[Dexter]

Released:



This seems to have had a moderately popular "Early Access" launch, to the point that they made the top of the Top Sellers list in a few countries and had trouble keeping their Login and Game servers up:

 

[Dexter]

 

[Humanophage]

Thrill of the Fight is the best vr boxing sim out there in my opinion.

VR Dungeon Knight I recommend because its an active game but really its just fun. Has multiplayer but no PvP.

Karnage Chronicles tries to be an rpg. I haven't gotten far enough to say whether or not it succeeds but its enjoyable. I just put it down because I was in my "getting used to it" phase and didn't get back into VR till later.

There's Ancient Dungeon which came out more recently but has minecraft-like graphics so that's kinda meh. Havent tried this one.

There's a PvP gladiator ring where you can choose from a variety of ancient weapons. Have to remember the name of this one because I want it.

Thrill of the Fight is indeed good. I would heartily recommend it to anyone, and that's exactly what I wanted from VR. It does have superior no-nonsense gameplay. The only other game of that sort I found is Eleven Tabletop Tennis. The rest all seem gimmicky, sadly, at least as far as the basic ones go. Too bad Thrill of the Fight doesn't have multiplayer, which is a big factor for why I liked Ironlights. Another downside is that it's not on Rookie Sideloader.

Is the Gladiator game Gladius? It seemed okay, but you need space for it. I have a relatively large room and I found myself constantly bumping into a wall, which can get dangerous.

I played Blade and Sorcery and it was ok. If you have enough space, you can move around a bit.

Sadly, it involves a lot of in-game walking with a controller, which makes me dizzy.

 

[Chinese Jetpilot]