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Playstation VR comes with a powerful processing i.e. the break out box

Danlord

Member

Completely fake. They even list the PSVR as "Real Eyes" and the Move controller removes 2 face buttons, it's just a better put together fake we always get in the run up to every E3. Sony has patented new Move related stuff, and Sony has to reintroduce Move to the market for VR so they may bring a slightly revised model but functionally it will be the same, with perhaps added button for the Share button.
 
If this thing connects to the PS4 via USB, I think we can safely assume it's doing jack-shit in terms of adding additional graphics processing... There is no where near the bus needed for anything intense like that.
 

tuxfool

Banned
If this thing connects to the PS4 via USB, I think we can safely assume it's doing jack-shit in terms of adding additional graphics processing... There is no where near the bus needed for anything intense like that.

Let people keep their dreams.
 

I Wanna Be The Guy

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
I don't understand how they can possibly price this reasonably. But hopefully they can surprise me. I feel that this thing is gonna need some killer software at launch to sell.
 
So does the Headset directly plug into the Ps4? Or is a "console" (like Sega 32x) that plugs into the ps4 that i would plug the headset into?
 
If this thing connects to the PS4 via USB, I think we can safely assume it's doing jack-shit in terms of adding additional graphics processing... There is no where near the bus needed for anything intense like that.

Not necessarily. What if PS4 is used mainly as a disc drive?
 

Deadstar

Member
That's awesome. Probably not awesome for the price though...

The price really doesn't matter. I would much rather pay more money for an incredible experience than pay less for something worse. This is a smart idea and it makes sense to have a dedicated box that is juicing the ps4. It's the ps4 super power pack. Hopefully it works on other games to improve the framerate to a solid 60 fps at all times.
 

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
The price really doesn't matter. I would much rather pay more money for an incredible experience than pay less for something worse. This is a smart idea and it makes sense to have a dedicated box that is juicing the ps4. It's the ps4 super power pack. Hopefully it works on other games to improve the framerate to a solid 60 fps at all times.
Doesn't exist. Is not what is promised.

Buy a PC.
 
Given that the box does both screen warping for tv and sound processing, is it feasible they'll have a mode which gives you a giant virtual screen to play regular ps4 games/ui through instead of vr games?
Edit: guess that would depend on camera tracking being possible during a normal game.
 

DavidDesu

Member
I'm not sure why people assume this extra box of tricks is going to contain some super demanding chipset that will cost a fortune. It offloads some audio processing and some visual processing, but only in terms of sending an un-warped image back to a 2D display and HDMI splitting to send one image to the TV and one to the headset. It's not going to contain any kind of GPU or anything that powerful. To me it's akin to the digital TV tuners made for PS3 and Xbox One. A little dongle that does a few extra things not built in to the PS4 to begin with, but it's not going to be anything extraordinarily powerful or expensive as many people are flying off the handle and just assuming it is.

Seriously half the folk here need to read at least a few pages of the thread before commenting, it's getting tedious correcting people all over the shop. That's what every VR thread turns into, people who know nothing assuming they know everything and telling us how X won't be capable of this or X will cost this much and so on..
 

DavidDesu

Member
Given that the box does both screen warping for tv and sound processing, is it feasible they'll have a mode which gives you a giant virtual screen to play regular ps4 games/ui through instead of vr games?
Edit: guess that would depend on camera tracking being possible during a normal game.

I strongly suspect and truly hope that is exactly what will happen. Some may say why would you want to play in lesser resolution on a virtual screen rather than on your own TV, but I don't see any problem in being given that option. I for one cannot wait to watch Gravity in 3D again on a virtual IMAX screen. Plus applications like this could be rendered in native 120fps, which inherently can help to reduce resolution issues, it's a benefit of going extremely fast framerate as all the minor head movements made negate seeing pixels as clearly.

I think for general gaming and navigating the OS screen Sony will have to make a VR optimised output for all that stuff, hopefully we could have a sort of carousel around you, able to simply point with a DS4 or Move, swipe it around very naturally and interact much more quickly, and launch normal games straight into a virtual cinema setup. I believe there's enough left over processing and memory reserved for the OS to be able to render a basic virtual environment for this purpose, even just a screen hanging in a void would do for me.

That's how I see it working however. I can;t imagine Sony will bring PSVR and then make it a clunky setup, having to switch to a VR mode and then don the headset, and switch it back manually when you have to take it off. I imagine they'll need to and want to make it far more seamless than that. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do.
 
Given that the box does both screen warping for tv and sound processing, is it feasible they'll have a mode which gives you a giant virtual screen to play regular ps4 games/ui through instead of vr games?
Edit: guess that would depend on camera tracking being possible during a normal game.
I bet there will be a theater mode for regular games. Headtracking would work like you looking around a theater but the screen is always in front of you.
 
You can bet your arse this will cost £350-400 day one, prob $399 in the States, as we always get done over in the UK. Cutting edge tech is never cheap, think we all know that.
 

tuxfool

Banned
I'm not sure why people assume this extra box of tricks is going to contain some super demanding chipset that will cost a fortune.

It's OP's fault, that title is highly misleading. Also people don't read the thread nor the original post, only titles.
 

bj00rn_

Banned
I think it would be cool if i could just use the VR headset for any game instead of a TV, even if it doesnt use any of the 3D/Motion stuff.

This is fun to fool around with for a short while, but it's not something you would want to use as a replacement due to the image quality degradation (because the pixels are stretched around a high FOV). It's not unlikely that you'll have to wait a decade or so until we have the technology to make up for it.
 

Piggus

Member
I don't understand how they can possibly price this reasonably. But hopefully they can surprise me. I feel that this thing is gonna need some killer software at launch to sell.

People were saying the same thing about the Vita and PS4. Gaf doesn't have a great track record when it comes to predicting the price of new systems. :p

VR isn't really that complicated. All it needs is a decent screen and good motion censors. There are no high end processors, storage, memory, etc to worry about.
 

hesido

Member
It may get announced/launched at the same time as VR. No real need for it to come early. That said, I am still holding onto mine for now to see what happens.

You still hold onto that, just because it works mighty fine for Dreams, with or without PSVR :)

Seriously half the folk here need to read at least a few pages of the thread before commenting, it's getting tedious correcting people all over the shop.

I'm going out on a limb here promoting this, but these would happen less if people used my mighty fine Chrome extension, that spots high impact posts in a thread:
359QAtE.png
This way they could have easily spotted Danhese007's informational post and the posts backing him.
 

spwolf

Member
I'm not sure why people assume this extra box of tricks is going to contain some super demanding chipset that will cost a fortune. It offloads some audio processing and some visual processing, but only in terms of sending an un-warped image back to a 2D display and HDMI splitting to send one image to the TV and one to the headset. It's not going to contain any kind of GPU or anything that powerful. To me it's akin to the digital TV tuners made for PS3 and Xbox One. A little dongle that does a few extra things not built in to the PS4 to begin with, but it's not going to be anything extraordinarily powerful or expensive as many people are flying off the handle and just assuming it is.

Seriously half the folk here need to read at least a few pages of the thread before commenting, it's getting tedious correcting people all over the shop. That's what every VR thread turns into, people who know nothing assuming they know everything and telling us how X won't be capable of this or X will cost this much and so on..

its another thing on BoM... it all leads to PSVR ending up being $399 or more. Anything below that isnt realistic... plus people thinking they will bundle both at lower price are not being realistic either. They might not want to make usual 3x BoM price in consumer electronic industry but they certainly wont be doing loss either.
 

I Wanna Be The Guy

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
People were saying the same thing about the Vita and PS4. Gaf doesn't have a great track record when it comes to predicting the price of new systems. :p

VR isn't really that complicated. All it needs is a decent screen and good motion censors. There are no high end processors, storage, memory, etc to worry about.
For the record, I predicted the Vita price correctly. But I will admit that I'm far from the most informed person when it comes to VR so perhaps you're right.
 

Key2001

Member
Mobile VR has its own issues though, like overheating and short battery life. I can't remember if the new Gear VR has a fan built in, or not.

I agree, I was just answering his question about the cables. I think the majority of software will be designed to play from your chair/couch. Even without cables most probably wouldn't have the ideal room setup to run around with a VR headset on anyways.

I also don't think the experience offered with mobile VR will be comparable to experience you get from VR headsets like Oculus and PSVR (although this is coming someone who hasn't had the chance to experience either yet).
 

Copper

Member
At this point I can't really see much reason to have VR on consoles. I highly doubt this "break out box" will be up-gradable. So what will happen when the extra power isn't enough? I'd be spending an extra $300-400 on something that could easily end up obsolete with waves of new technology coming out by the competitors.

I just can't see VR working out very well on consoles.

What I think would be interesting is if they did something similar to Alienware Graphics Amplifier. Where you could just pop in a more powerfull gpu and be on your way.

alienw13wamp.jpg
 

IdeaMan

My source is my ass!
i was really impressed by Playstation VR at Paris Games Week, especially RIGS. 1 step beyond what i've played thus far on Oculus.

but objectively, HTC Vive is like 2x better than PVR, so 3x Oculus :p
 

Danlord

Member
At this point I can't really see much reason to have VR on consoles. I highly doubt this "break out box" will be up-gradable. So what will happen when the extra power isn't enough? I'd be spending an extra $300-400 on something that could easily end up obsolete with waves of new technology coming out by the competitors.

I just can't see VR working out very well on consoles.

What I think would be interesting is if they did something similar to Alienware Graphics Amplifier. Where you could just pop in a more powerfull gpu and be on your way.

alienw13wamp.jpg

Please read through the thread, there has been enough explanation that this Processing Unit for PlayStation VR will not provide additional computational power for the PlayStation 4.

This post sums it up.
All the box does is
1. take the reprojected render from PS4 and sends it to VR unit
2. 3D spatial audio processing
3. Sensor data processing
4. Video optical correction for TV

It is being described as powerful because it is doing all that in real time with very little latency. It is getting improved because it is a Sony designed PU (processing Unit) that is constantly being tweaked for better performance.

The slides do not say otherwise
 

Copper

Member
Please read through the thread, there has been enough explanation that this Processing Unit for PlayStation VR will not provide additional computational power for the PlayStation 4.

This post sums it up.

So essentially it is doing what the ps4 alone would not be able to do. The unit is required if you want to use VR. What I'm getting at is; what happens when the competitors decide to release a new head set that goes beyond what PS VR is capable of? Will Sony start releasing new hardware annually? Also given the lack of power the PS4 is able to provide, wouldn't it make more sense for developers to skip PS VR all together? VR is still a very new technology that is being improved all the time. It just seems too risky to be putting it on such a dedicated platform.
 

Danlord

Member
So essentially it is doing what the ps4 alone would not be able to do. The unit is required if you want to use VR. What I'm getting at is; what happens when the competitors decide to release a new head set that goes beyond what PS VR is capable of? Will Sony start releasing new hardware annually? Also given the lack of power the PS4 is able to provide, wouldn't it make more sense for developers to skip PS VR all together? VR is still a very new technology that is being improved all the time. It just seems too risky to be putting it on such a dedicated platform.

The same way how they compete alongside a PC market, by providing a premium option that is built to last for a few years with continuous improvements to the software and development side. SDK's improve, engine's improve and get further optimised, new rendering techniques are developed and improved as time goes on throughout the console generation.

Even looking at the logic of Sony spending a lot of money on R&D, marketing, development costs, manufacturing, and everything else all for VR on PS4 to not work is a silly notion to imply. The PS4 is capable of delivering games to VR, from 60fps(using asynchronous time-warp to upres to 120fps), 90fps and up to 120fps natively. There are rendering techniques that can be used to improve performance such as the asynchronous time-warp or multi-resolution shading and perhaps more that we don't know of.
With VR applications, the development pipeline has to accommodate a minimum of 60FPS from the beginning and is the highest priority in development, whereas your regular games for TV's are less demanding in adhering to that frame-rate target, to a certain degree. Games will be designed with the 60FPS in mind the whole time and developers will make the appropriate optimisatons and sacrifices sufficient to ensure a stable >=60FPS frame-rate, and use the asnchronous time-warping to upscale the FPS to 120fps.

Links;

Asynchronous Time-warp : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvtEXMlQQtI
Fake Foveated Rendering(multi-res shading) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YWJyhA7-es
 
i was really impressed by Playstation VR at Paris Games Week, especially RIGS. 1 step beyond what i've played thus far on Oculus.

but objectively, HTC Vive is like 2x better than PVR, so 3x Oculus :p

Can you explain why? I'm going to have 1 vr headset for pc beside PSVR, and HTC Vive seems to have better impressions than Oculus.
 

AmyS

Member
They need some sort of breakout box for the convenience alone. You'd be re-connecting the HDMI everytime if they hadn't provided it, even if they provided some kind of simple repeater in some SKU's for those that don't want the TV views, it would be again an added type of SKU which will probably be even more complicated (Those with camera, those without, those with move contollers(?), those without, and now with the breakout box, without the breakout box).

Making it optional would also mean further splitting a what is going to be small user base at least definitely in the first years of the products life, and would be detrimental for devs who want to make use of the "social" aspect of the product, and sharing feed of the game that's viewable by everyone in the room is one of product's defining features so far.

So I don't even consider this a possibility, to not have that box.

Edit: Dammit guys, it's not a secret sauce box, forgot what this thread was. The box needs to have some processing power as it needs to format the fish eye view into the TV view, and do this flexibly (different settings for different games), and it has to relay a second view if the dev chooses to do so (entirely different view from the 3d view sent to the headset), and do this without adding a hell lot of latency. So it's not a dumb box, but not secret sauce GPU.

Great post hesido, thanks.
 

IdeaMan

My source is my ass!
Can you explain why? I'm going to have 1 vr headset for pc beside PSVR, and HTC Vive seems to have better impressions than Oculus.

better image quality, better immersion, possibility to move, more suited controllers (waiting for the new Oculus ones), overall far more believable experience.
 

Linkup

Member
i was really impressed by Playstation VR at Paris Games Week, especially RIGS. 1 step beyond what i've played thus far on Oculus.

but objectively, HTC Vive is like 2x better than PVR, so 3x Oculus :p

Oculus what? DK2? CB? near final consumer version of the Rift?
 
All the box does is
1. take the reprojected render from PS4 and sends it to VR unit
2. 3D spatial audio processing
3. Sensor data processing
4. Video optical correction for TV

It is being described as powerful because it is doing all that in real time with very little latency. It is getting improved because it is a Sony designed PU (processing Unit) that is constantly being tweaked for better performance.

The slides do not say otherwise

One additional thing the box does is decode the second screen feed for games with asymmetric multiplayer: the PS4 encodes the video using the Share hardware and then pipes the resulting stream out via USB (hopefully using the AUX socket) into the breakout box which decodes it and sends it to the TV via HDMI.
 

DieH@rd

Banned
One additional thing the box does is decode the second screen feed for games with asymmetric multiplayer: the PS4 encodes the video using the Share hardware and then pipes the resulting stream out via USB (hopefully using the AUX socket) into the breakout box which decodes it and sends it to the TV via HDMI.

You are thinking too hard. There is no need to involve GameDVR. :) Dr Richard Marks already described how it is done:
https://youtu.be/vBugMeeZE2Q?t=162

HDMI can be reprogrammed to be used as a data channel in any configuration that Sony requires. HDMI 1.4b that PS4 has can support a bit over 10Gbps of data throughput. 1080p120 accounts for only ~6Gbps, so there is a lot of space left for other data pipelines [separate video stream, hundreds of raw audio files for PU processing, sensor data if needed, etc].
 
So essentially it is doing what the ps4 alone would not be able to do. The unit is required if you want to use VR. What I'm getting at is; what happens when the competitors decide to release a new head set that goes beyond what PS VR is capable of? Will Sony start releasing new hardware annually? Also given the lack of power the PS4 is able to provide, wouldn't it make more sense for developers to skip PS VR all together? VR is still a very new technology that is being improved all the time. It just seems too risky to be putting it on such a dedicated platform.
Some people have no vision beyond their PCs it seems.
 
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