HTC Vive and Oculus' resolution is not as bad as some make it sound (and not as bad as the resolution numbers indicate)

[Aelemar]

HTC Vive and Oculus' resolution is not as bad as some make it sound (and not as bad as the resolution numbers indicate)

I have had my Vive for about a month now, and I simply can't stop playing it. It's one of those experiences that you cannot understand unless you put it on yourself.

A lot of people seem to want higher resolution on the Vive, and many state that they will "wait" until the "2K or 4K" versions are available.

Here's what I have to tell you: It will be at least a couple of years before we have 2K or 4K on either headset. It's brand new technology, and as such it will take a good while before the 2nd or 3rd gen iterations are even feasible. Think about it. If these ones cost $600-$800, how much do you think a 2K or 4K will cost? The first step in advancing the technology is making these affordable so that more people adopt them. The more people that adopt these, the cheaper they will be to produce, and the cheaper future generations will cost, and so on.

IF you really want to see those 2K and 4K versions, and you are able to afford it, don't hold back. Buy one or the other right now. Asides from the fact that I guarantee you will not regret it (as will all others that own it, you will NOT regret it and you WILL be blown away), you will be supporting the industry.
No matter how good the technology is, no matter how innovative it is, in the end its up to us consumers to either drive it forward, or let it die. If enough of us don't adopt this new technology, the companies that make it will deem it not worth the investment and kill it.

Now, is the resolution on these really that bad? Since I have the HTC Vive, let's take a look at the Tutorial and The Lab.

First, the tutorial. The tutorial for the Vive is a simple program that teaches you everything you need to know about using the Vive. The visuals on the tutorial are outstanding. Those with the Vive would know what I am talking about. The details on the robot, the balloons, and everything else is simply brilliant. As far as I can tell, there is no aliasing to be seen either.

Now, let's look at The Lab. Even the cartoony minigames have good visuals (subjectively) and aliasing is kept to a minimum if at all. For example, Robot Repair puts you in the shoes of a robot repair engineer. When the robot comes apart, the attention to detail is pretty impressive. Again, there is no, or very little aliasing.

To make this short: The resolution on the Vive and Oculus is actually very good for the size of the screens. In the end, it's about how good the developers are at making the games for it. As developers get better at making new rendering techniques, games will also get much better and crisper for our VR Headsets.

Valve's The Lab is a very, very good demonstration of the potential of the HTC Vive and the kind of quality you can achieve if games are made correctly.

Lastly, let's not forget the term "DPI" (dots per inch). Smaller screens with lower resolution can sometimes look better than bigger screens with higher resolution due to the distance between the pixels. On smaller screens, dots, or pixels are closer together, which helps the screen look sharper.

For example, compare a 1920x1080 5" phone screen with a 1920x1080 65" TV (like the one in my living room). The difference is obvious.

Thoughts?

 

[Cliché]

I hope you're right, but I'm still waiting about another 6 months to go VR - not years.

 

[xondk]

A lot of people seem to want higher resolution on the Vive, and many state that they will "wait" until the "2K or 4K" versions are available.

Considering latest phones use 2560 x 1440 this year and last, I really do not see how it is going to be a problem with using those panels in VR, and considering Samsung's Gear VR which works quite well, only problem is rendering power, heck a lot of people are getting it to work with wireless streaming methods, wired would naturally be preferred but clearly the panels themselves are quite ready at least for QuadHD resolutions, which is more then "2K", so I really don't think it will be that bad, or too long.

 

[dutchy2000]

Because you need to drive them at 90+ fps, and the power is not there yet to do it. I am perfectly happy with a DK2 right now until my CV1 arrives. I can't wait, it can only get better from here.

 

[xondk]

Because you need to drive them at 90+ fps, and the power is not there yet to do it. I am perfectly happy with a DK2 right now until my CV1 arrives. I can't wait, it can only get better from here.

Yeah, that's a power issue, display power, not the panels themselves though, mobiles don't have the power to do advanced graphics pc level graphics that fast, but with new graphics cards and such for pc's it won't be much of an issue, and the display panels seem to already be available?

 

[Aelemar]

Because you need to drive them at 90+ fps, and the power is not there yet to do it. I am perfectly happy with a DK2 right now until my CV1 arrives. I can't wait, it can only get better from here.

Exactly, the limitation here is not the panels. The limitation here is the processing power required to run those panels. Keep in mind that while the individual resolution is 1080x1200, combined resolution is 2160x2400. Even if we were to slightly bump the resolution up to 2K per eye, that would make it 4K when combined... Yes, there are some of us who could easily run 4K resolution, but let's be real: we are among the few that can afford the rigs necessary to run those extreme settings. Mass adoption is necessary for these kinds of products to move forward, and making them so that a few privileged people can run them is not the best way to get them adopted.

Current hardware struggles to properly render 4K resolution (unless you have some extreme setup like some of us do), so it will be a good while before we can see a 2K or 4K VR Headset.

Additionally, like dutchy mentioned: we need 90FPS to avoid certain issues in VR. Also, while the panels themselves are not new tech, a few things in these headsets are (for example, the Oculus uses a somewhat cheaper, and arguably inferior tracking technology than the Vive. And the Vive uses laser tracking, both of these tracking solutions aren't exactly cheap.)

Those of you with the Vive, have you noticed how the system can tell if you rotate the Vive controller even a quarter of an inch? You could slightly, barely move the controller and it will be tracked. This kind of accuracy does not come cheap.

Lastly, VR games use different rendering techniques than normal games. You cannot use typical 2D rendering for a VR game, since they have to be built from the ground up for VR. Additionally, VR requires a lot more processing power than 2D games, so they require better CPU, as well as GPUs.

In the end, the whole point I was trying to make is: in my opinion, the resolution on these is actually fine, if the games are made correctly. Elite is a bad way to gauge these headsets, since despite all the claims by Frontier of Elite being "VR ready" and whatnot, we all know there is a lot of work they need to do.

 

[Captain N]

Again, the difficulty is in describing the experience to people who have not tried it for themselves. It's impossible.

The tech isn't perfect, but it doesn't have to be. The overall experience far outweighs the limitations.

But you simply won't know in what exact way, until you put it on yourself.

 

[CMDR Heisenberg B. Damned]

Again, the difficulty is in describing the experience to people who have not tried it for themselves. It's impossible.

The tech isn't perfect, but it doesn't have to be. The overall experience far outweighs the limitations.

But you simply won't know in what exact way, until you put it on yourself.

This is so true, got a CV1 on order and just got a Vive but it's totally different from playing on a monitor. The resolution is significantly lower on VR as it has to render twice the images but tech is catching up. The 1080 GTX is billed as being able to massively increase VR resolution.

But as Captain N say's the benefits outweigh the down side. You really will not understand how vast the stars/planets/stations/other ships/the SRV and on are until you try VR.

 

[Dar|{cyde]

Exactly, the limitation here is not the panels. The limitation here is the processing power required to run those panels. Keep in mind that while the individual resolution is 1080x1200, combined resolution is 2160x2400. Even if we were to slightly bump the resolution up to 2K per eye, that would make it 4K when combined...

Technically, its 2160x1200 combined. Also, 2K per eye is not 4K. But your points are all valid and I agree.

 

[cherbert]

People aren't complaining about the resolution. They are complaining that Elite Dangerous's implementation is a backward step from the DK2.

 

[Darkfyre99]

It's not so much the hardware, but the fact that the software (Elite: Dangerous) isn't optimized to give the best VR experience the hardware is capable of... yet.

As numerous people have pointed out, if you have a Vive and load one of the Elite themed 360 backgrounds from the Workshop, there is considerably less anti-aliasing artifacts, god rays, and other issues, compared to what you get while you're playing the game. In point of fact, I was apparently one of the few people actually getting that quality of VR experience in the game in Beta 4, under very specific circumstances I was trying to replicate, before Beta 5 greatly improved the experiences of others, at the expense of removing those very specific circumstances I got to enjoy.

So there is most definitely still room for improvement. As it is, even with the slightly downgraded experience, I'm not going back to a monitor. The pros far outweigh the cons as far as I'm concerned, especially since the cons are minor annoyances at worst. I'm planning on taking out the free Imperial Fighter I have tonight to do a little combat in the Beta, now that I've retrieved it from where it's been sitting all this time. I don't do combat very often, so it'll be interesting to see how much having much greater situational awareness helps.

 

[xondk]

It's not so much the hardware, but the fact that the software (Elite: Dangerous) isn't optimized to give the best VR experience the hardware is capable of... yet.

Rendering wise it is just pure hardware, Elite itself just gets info for various feedback, headtrack e.t.c., but what would you say is missing?

 

[jojon]

I would just like to point out that even if you stuck with rendering at the current resolution, you would still benefit from a denser screen, because your barrel distortion would have that extra precision to work with.

(It may also be more useful to speak of dots per degree, than dot per inch, since that takes use case into account.)

 

[Aelemar]

Again, the difficulty is in describing the experience to people who have not tried it for themselves. It's impossible.

The tech isn't perfect, but it doesn't have to be. The overall experience far outweighs the limitations.

But you simply won't know in what exact way, until you put it on yourself.

Totally agree. I am 30 years old, and I got to really play video games when I came to the US when I was 15 (video games, or anything related is not something everyone has available in my country of origin, in fact... Consoles and the like are for the privileged.) I got to try a couple Atari games and once I saw one of those privileged children play Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64, and I was like "Holy sh*t!!!" back then.

So I got to play video games in the Super Nintendo times, I fondly remember games like Legend of Zelda: Link to the past (Zelda is one of, if not, my favorite game), Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, and all those incredible RPGs the SNES had.

Eventually, I got into PC gaming, and my interest in consoles disappeared slowly... Even in those times, there were already movies, stories, and all kinds of things talking about this "Virtual Reality" and "being inside the game" and all those. Back then it was just a pipe dream, it was nothing more than science fiction, it was nothing more than something we might never see.

I remember, I was talking to my friends once, and I said "As a gamer, I hope I get to live long enough to see Virtual Reality in my lifetime".

Well, ladies and gentlemen, Virtual Reality is here. And a lot sooner than I expected. It is here, and while it is not perfect, god, is it good. It's much more than I ever imagined it could be.

I believe it is safe to assume that those of you who are even older than me, that started your gaming days on the systems of old (Commodore, Atari, etc) are even more excited about the fact that you get to experience it today.

Despite its many flaws, despite all the issues around it. It is a fact that VR is here today, and it is almost everything we gamers hoped it would be. Hell, I bet some of us had no idea the treat we were in for when we put our headsets on for the first time, no matter how good our imagination.

To those of you wanting to wait, or those of you still on the fence. Let me tell you this. Youtube videos, what we say here, everything you see and hear about VR does not convey what the real experience is. Not even 10% of it. If you are waiting for monetary reasons, that's fine. It is expensive to get into right now. But if you are able to afford it. DO IT. I cannot tell you just how blown away you will be. This is the future of gaming. Be a part of it!

 

[Captain N]

Today, I'm playing Duck Hunt in VR.

It's just a demo hacked together by some student. It uses authentic 8-bit NES graphics, with the giant pixels and all. The dev himself admits the game is "boring". It isn't even stable and keeps crashing all the time.

I'm having the time of my life.

I'm most taken by how natural it is to locate the ducks by hearing them in 3D and turning around. They're just cartoon ducks rendered in 8-bit pixels but it doesn't matter. They're real.

Holding and aiming the gun feels just like the original light gun for the NES - the closest thing to VR we had back then. Only now it's just a ghost that doesn't exist in physical reality, besides the handle of the Vive controller emulating the grip. The brain just accepts it as real. I was holding a Vive controller a moment ago. Now it's a NES light gun.

I keep seeing rave reviews of the new DOOM but I don't even care. It's just some mickey mouse flat screen video game. I used to like that kinda stuff, you know. Very nostalgic.

The tech is only going to get better and more affordable. Jumping in right now is like having one of the earliest home computers in the 80's. Those machines look laughably primitive now, but almost no one who had one back in the day regrets it now.

 

[Harmoniser]

I have had my Vive for about a month now, and I simply can't stop playing it. It's one of those experiences that you cannot understand unless you put it on yourself.

A lot of people seem to want higher resolution on the Vive, and many state that they will "wait" until the "2K or 4K" versions are available.

Here's what I have to tell you: It will be at least a couple of years before we have 2K or 4K on either headset. It's brand new technology, and as such it will take a good while before the 2nd or 3rd gen iterations are even feasible. Think about it. If these ones cost $600-$800, how much do you think a 2K or 4K will cost? The first step in advancing the technology is making these affordable so that more people adopt them. The more people that adopt these, the cheaper they will be to produce, and the cheaper future generations will cost, and so on.

IF you really want to see those 2K and 4K versions, and you are able to afford it, don't hold back. Buy one or the other right now. Asides from the fact that I guarantee you will not regret it (as will all others that own it, you will NOT regret it and you WILL be blown away), you will be supporting the industry.
No matter how good the technology is, no matter how innovative it is, in the end its up to us consumers to either drive it forward, or let it die. If enough of us don't adopt this new technology, the companies that make it will deem it not worth the investment and kill it.

Now, is the resolution on these really that bad? Since I have the HTC Vive, let's take a look at the Tutorial and The Lab.

First, the tutorial. The tutorial for the Vive is a simple program that teaches you everything you need to know about using the Vive. The visuals on the tutorial are outstanding. Those with the Vive would know what I am talking about. The details on the robot, the balloons, and everything else is simply brilliant. As far as I can tell, there is no aliasing to be seen either.

Now, let's look at The Lab. Even the cartoony minigames have good visuals (subjectively) and aliasing is kept to a minimum if at all. For example, Robot Repair puts you in the shoes of a robot repair engineer. When the robot comes apart, the attention to detail is pretty impressive. Again, there is no, or very little aliasing.

To make this short: The resolution on the Vive and Oculus is actually very good for the size of the screens. In the end, it's about how good the developers are at making the games for it. As developers get better at making new rendering techniques, games will also get much better and crisper for our VR Headsets.

Valve's The Lab is a very, very good demonstration of the potential of the HTC Vive and the kind of quality you can achieve if games are made correctly.

Lastly, let's not forget the term "DPI" (dots per inch). Smaller screens with lower resolution can sometimes look better than bigger screens with higher resolution due to the distance between the pixels. On smaller screens, dots, or pixels are closer together, which helps the screen look sharper.

For example, compare a 1920x1080 5" phone screen with a 1920x1080 65" TV (like the one in my living room). The difference is obvious.

Thoughts?

Resolution isn't really a problem in the games you mention becuase the gfx are simple, and right now that's were VR works well. Also so I suspect they are highly optimised. They are built from the ground up for VR. So hopefully even with the current generation it will get better. I think ED, post beta patch 6, it isn't really a problem with the exception of the stations as the gfx in the distance aren't that complex. Although for me they need to move the some of the hud closer.

However if we take project cars as an example were you are fully focusesd down the road everything looks like a pixel mess. The problem is the 3D needs a higher resolution to stop the screen door effect. This was one of the reasons was why 3D games on consoles looked so bad as they were mostly at 720p. Now some of this can be fixed by pumping up anti aliasing or DSR but even with my Titan X is just not viable in terms of FPS. So I'm really interested to see if it is with a gtx 1080.

I have to say that I think they way they (project cars) demonstrate VR using the desktop mirror view is a bit naughty, it's now actually how the game looks in VR.

I think right now games that are meant to be visually stunning you are better off with 3 screens. Don't get me wrong VR is great but the lower resolution takes away the immersion. It was one of my biggest concerns, but I hate aliasing so it might be a very subject view point.

I do agree we do need to support it, becuase in future headsets, with better resolution and more powerful GPUs, VR is the future.

My fear is PLayStation's VR solution, which has a lower resolution, might not deliver on the hype and create a backlash. Hopefully they stick to simple purpose built games and not try to retro fit it to old games.

 

[nightsmoke]

Those of you with the Vive, have you noticed how the system can tell if you rotate the Vive controller even a quarter of an inch? You could slightly, barely move the controller and it will be tracked. This kind of accuracy does not come cheap.

A fun exercise in the vive is to position one of the controllers and pull the headset out so you can see part of the controller in VR and part of it in the real world. Then rotate it from side to side. No discernible latency between the two! It's one to one tracking almost like moving a mouse pointer. Amazing. Or that you can toss the controller up and catch it in VR (not recommended ) because the tracking is so real time.

I'm wondering just what they'll be able to accomplish with the current resolution when devs are able to crank up the AA to immense values. SLI 1080s? What kinds of visuals can we expect? Of course that would be an extremely tiny % of customers that would do that- but someone will! They're going to have to start putting quality settings in VR apps once the second gen of compatible GPUs ship.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Rendering wise it is just pure hardware, Elite itself just gets info for various feedback, headtrack e.t.c., but what would you say is missing?

Visually in the Vive, Elite: Dangerous is not as good it can be. There are more aliasing artifacts than there should be (compare the Elite themes in the Vive to what you see in game), frenzel lens rays are excessive at times, people are complaining about how space seems "too close," and some people are still experiencing sensations of gigantism.

For most people, these issues were rather severe in Beta 4 and before. If you have read the Vive resolution thread, you'll see I was one of the happy few who weren't having them at all. Beta 5 fixed many of the issues people were having, but degraded my VR experience slightly. Before Beta 5, I'd say my VR experience was 10/10 (where 10 is "The Lab" quality.) After Beta 5, I'd say it is 9/10. It was 8/10, but I found a settings under graphics (Blur) that fixed the text blurriness problem I'd been having.

Given my hardware hasn't changed at all, and my video drivers are the same ones I had in Beta 4, I think it's safe to conclude it is Elite: Dangerous that is causing these issues.

 

[Mike Kangaroo]

You want Higher resolution VR? it's already being done, this one uses 2 quad HD 5.5 inch panels. for a 210 degree field of view. However I'd love to see a single graphics card on the market push out some of the games as well as we do on the vive or rift.

http://www.starvr.com/

 

[CMDR Pausanias]

Using BETA ENGINEERS has reduced quality of text in VR, if I switch the the current game the text is fine in VR. Anyone any ideas about this? The graphics are great it's just the text is a bit blurry in Engineers. I use a GREEN HUD by the way.