Extended Reality (XR) - Page 53

GDC 2016 - NVIDIA was displaying various VR demos at the Game Developers Conference this year, where we got to step onto the dangerously real Everest VR demo.

In the demo, NVIDIA is using their latest version of GameWorks with PhysX on top - and while it might sound like much, the additional immersion and presence that is provided is well worth it. The use of PhysX in Everest VR sees snowflakes and snow floating around at the top of the mountain, so that when you look up, you can see snow floating around - which for me, created an entire new layer of presence.

As my viewpoint was going up the mountain, I looked to the absolute peak of Everest where I could see the great use of PhysX in Everest VR. I'm not someone who would normally be sitting here bragging up PhysX, but if you ever had doubts of NVIDIA's PhysX, then Everest VR with PhysX will change your mind. It created something that Oculus, HTC and Valve have been saying since introducing VR headsets - a huge layer of presence.

GDC 2016 - After getting rather excited over Valve announcing The Lab recently, we had to stop by and try it out while we were at the Game Developers Conference.

The Lab is a gigantic playground with VR experiences and games that really show off what Valve has been doing behind closed doors with the HTC Vive. There are multiple parts to the demo, with a beautifully rendered scene of the real-world mountain, Vesper Peak - and that's just the start of it.

There's also Longbow, which lets you use the Lighthouse controllers as a bow-and-arrow, fighting off enemies in a tower defense style game. Next up was Slingshot, which lets you fling around spherical robots into huge towers, destroying them for points.

GDC 2016 - If you're a Star Wars fan, I apologize in advance: the Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine is as close as you can get to actually being there, and it was powered by NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 980 Ti and the HTC Vive.

Industrial Light and Magic's ILMxLab created the VR 'experience', which makes perfect use of the HTC Vive headset and included Lighthouse controllers. It starts off with the iconic Star Wars text crawl and then drops you on Tatooine.

From there, you're on the surface of Tatooine and then the Millenium Falcon flies over and lands right next to you, and out pops R2D2. A voice over from Han Solo is provided, saying that you need to help Artoo fix something on the ship, so you use the controller to press some buttons and then TIE fighters fly over and begin attacking. Solo fires back and takes them out, and after you've pressed some more buttons, it takes off and leaves R2D2 behind.

The original PlayStation VR announcement was a bit confusing and slightly disappointing if only for the fact that the actual VR headset purchase price didn't quite include all of the accessories you needed to get started and actually play VR games. It was missing something.

The new $499 bundle fixes that earlier confusion by adding in two move controllers, the PS Camera and a copy of PlayStation VR World's into the bundle. VR World's is one of their top PS VR launch games, they're saying in the blog post, and is a showcase of a number of different top-tier VR projects for the PlayStation 4.

Unlike the Core version of the PlayStation VR, you can pre-order this more complete bundle starting on March 22nd. And if you happen to miss the wave of pre-orders initially, they'll have more on the way this summer to satiate the VR hungry. The core version, for those that already own the camera and move controllers, is still not planned to be available for pre-order.

While VR headsets add a new dimension to the entire spectrum of entertainment, everyone wants to know about the games. Now Oculus has revealed the fill thirty-title lineup that'll release alongside the Oculus Rift when it starts shipping later this month.

The Rift's launch games are pretty varied in price, so you could spend anywhere from $10 to $60 on each game. Smaller games run about $5 whereas the big-hitters like Elite: Dangerous will cost you the full $59.99, which is to be expected. Bear in mind that the Rift comes with two games--EVE: Valkyrie and the platformer Luckey's Tale--with its $599 price tag.

Check below for a full list of launch games including the rather amazing-looking space sim Adrift.

GDC 2016 - With the enormous success of Facebook's $2 billion acquisition of Oculus, everyone expects VR to be a money-making experience. Oculus founder Palmer Luckey pulled people out of a virtual world and back to reality by saying that there will be a lot of failures in VR, too.

During a chat at the Game Developers Conference, Luckey said: "I wish I could come up on this stage and tell you that virtual reality is going to change everything, it's all going to be for the better, nobody is going to fail and you're going to make so much money if you get involved in virtual reality".

He continued: "The actual truth is that we don't know how things are going to play out. We know there are going to be a lot of successes, but the likelihood is that there are also going to be a lot of failures, it's really the same of anyone else in the games industry. There's a lot of optimism, but the rubber hasn't really hit the road yet".

GDC 2016 - Sony is getting serious when it comes to performance and the PlayStation VR, where according to Gamasutra, Sony is aiming for 60FPS or above.

During GDC, SCEA Senior Dev Support Engineer Chris Norden had some interesting things to say about PlayStation VR to developers. He said to developers at GDC that Sony would most likely reject games with variable frame rates, or anything running under 60FPS.

Norden said: "Frame rate is really important; you cannot drop below 60 frames per second, ever. If you submit a game to us and it drops to 55, or 51... we're probably going to reject it. I know I'm going to get flak for this, but there's no excuse for not hitting frame rate. It's really hard, and I'm not going to lie to and say it's extremely easy...it's really difficult. 60hz is the minimum acceptable framerate. Everybody drill that into your heads".

GDC 2016 - Sony has revealed that all existing PS4 games will be playable within the PlayStation VR headset, along with a host of media playback like Netflix and 360-degree photos.

With the PlayStation VR's newly revealed Cinematic Mode, gamers can play PS4 titles in a virtualized space within the headset. The mode essentially transports gamers into a sizable rendered living room environment where the game is broadcast on a huge digital screen that measures up to 225 inches wide.

"With the headset on, users can also go into 'cinematic mode' to see the entire 16:9 PS4 menu and play all of their PS4 games," said Sony President Andrew House.

GDC 2016 - AVADirect entered the VR gaming PC world quite quickly, and in a huge way, with beautiful, and compact VR gaming PCs. Their next step? Giving away the AVA Sixense Ultimate VR Desktop & Sixense STEM System Devkit. Yes, an entire VR gaming PC and the super-awesome STEM controller system from Sixense Motion.

The AVA Sixense VR Desktop can be configured with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980, GTX 980 Ti or Titan X - providing the ability to play virtually any game at 1080p and above at 75FPS+. The STEM system from Sixense is an amazing wireless motion tracking controller setup for desktop and mobile VR, which is something we fell in love with at CES 2014.

But we're all here for the giveaway, which has a total value of $2599 - in this, you get the AVA Sixense VR Desktop packed with an Intel Core i7-6700, GeForce GTX 980 Ti from EVGA, 16GB of DDR4, and the STEM base with two STEM controllers - the best start for a VR system. All you need from here is the Oculus Rift and you're good to go.

GDC 2016 - Yesterday Sony officially revealed the PlayStation VR's $399 price tag, matching the PS4's original MSRP. At first glance the price seems more than fair, but the Japanese console-maker has a hook in that bait that could raise the final price of the PSVR experience to $500 and above.

Sony has made the decision not to bundle key hardware like the PS Camera and PS Move controllers with its PlayStation VR headset. This is surprising given the PlayStation VR cannot function without a PS Camera, transforming a once-optional peripheral into a must-have commodity. The PS Camera is currently priced at $60, but we've seen them rise as high as $100 back when stock was limited--and I'm betting Sony is counting on a giant influx of demand for the camera once the PSVR launches in October.

What's more is that certain PlayStation VR games require the use of $50 PS Move controllers. Some games actually require two PS Move controllers to play. So $399 suddenly turns into anywhere from $500 to $550, not including tax. On top of the hardware costs, PSVR games are expected to be anywhere from $10 to $60, so don't expect console-based VR to be cheap--just cheap-er.

The PlayStation VR finally has an announced price, and at $399, it could be the competitor that the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift didn't quite see coming, though the full price of entry is just about the same anyway. But Sony is intent on having unique and exclusive experiences just the same. A small nugget of information slipped out about making an exclusive Star Wars Battlefront VR experience.

At the end of the GDC Keynote, Andy House said that EA and Lucasfilm would be using the PlayStation VR for a completely new, VR-based Battlefront game. This isn't the same as the Star Wars Cinematic Experience that's going to be available on the HTC Vive, but something completely separate, even though details happen to be a bit sparse at the moment.

House said that: "We at PlayStation are thrilled to be partnering with our friends EA and LucasFilm to create something all new for PlayStation VR. This will be a Star Wars Battlefront gaming experience like nothing else; coming only to PlayStation VR from the talented team at DICE, where players can transport themselves to a galaxy far far way." Not much to go off of at all, but just one more reason to consider the PS4. The natural question is whether this will be a timed-exclusive or a complete platform-exclusive game.

GDC 2016 - AMD came out swinging at its Capsaicin event, rolling out the red carpet and its impressive Radeon Pro Duo, but RTG boss Raja Koduri was on fire that night, teasing an unannounced VR headset, too.

Ars Technica reports that Koduri said: "We are already working with a headset manufacturer, unannounced, with a 4K per eye headset. It exists. It's quite, quite beautiful, and we believe that the roadmap to go into higher resolutions will happen more quickly than is probably expected. Once you've seen a high resolution VR experience, you can see that it's really quite beautiful".

It'll be interesting to see this happen, and what type of GPU we're going to need to power 4K per eye on a VR headset. Polaris can't come quick enough!

GDC 2016 - Sony has announced the pricing of the PlayStation VR after all this time, with PlayStation VR launching in October for $399.

Comparatively, the Oculus Rift costs $599 while the HTC Vive costs $799. Now, with the PS4 priced at only $349 - this means playing VR with Sony hardware will only cost $750. Not too bad at all, Sony. Now, what about the hardware inside of the PlayStation VR?

We're looking at a 5.7-inch OLED display with 960x1080 per eye at 90-120Hz. It has around 100-degree field of view, less than 18ms of latency, and works with the DualShock 4 and PS Move controllers. PlayStation VR has 360-degree head tracking thanks to its nine LEDs, too.

Razer just unveiled their newest iteration of their Hacker Development Kit as part of the Open Source Virtual Reality program. And there are quite a few subtle but great improvements to help kick one of the most complained about problems in VR.

For HDK 1.4 they've put a diffusion film over the existing optics that's supposed to help reduce the screen-door effect considerably. That's the one aspect that a majority of people have complained about. It hurts immersion and just generally looks bad altogether.

Razer has also cooked in native support for CryEngine by partnering with Crytek. That means that the SDK is a part of the latest version of CryEngine, so any VR game made in the game engine can potentially easily support the OSVR HMD. All the tools they'll need to communicate with it are all there. This is a step in the right direction and a similar one to what AMD is doing by partnering with Crytek as well. AMD is also an OSVR supporter as well.

GDC 2016 - AMD has just launched its new dual-GPU known as the Radeon Pro Duo, continuing its push into becoming the leader of VR. AMD has teamed with Crytek to push its momentum of VR, with AMD becoming Crytek's exclusive GPU technology partner for its Crytek VR First initiative.

AMD is also working with over 10 universities across the world in order to push VR into areas outside of the gaming industry, with AMD reiterating that VR will "transform entire industries beyond gaming and entertainment", with industries like education, medicine, and countless other mediums being affected by VR.

The 83% number is interesting, because AMD doesn't have that much discrete GPU market share - with NVIDIA heavily swayed when it comes to dGPU market share. Could AMD be including PlayStation VR as part of their VR dominance, thanks to the PS4 being powered by an APU made by AMD? We'll be asking AMD for clarification on this shortly.

GDC 2016 - AMD has announced that it has made strides in the VR market already, with Yahoo finance reporting that AMD is powering an estimated 83% of the global VR market. AMD only just announced minutes ago that it powered the new Sulon Q headset.

This number includes the PlayStation VR, with the PS4 powered by AMD technology. When it comes to the PC side of things, AMD is partnering with both Oculus and HTC for the Rift and Vive respectively, with the company ensuring the Radeon ecosystem is ready to rock and roll when these headsets launch in the next month.

Later today, AMD will be displaying its Polaris 10 GPU running on Valve's Aperture Science Robot Repair demo, which is powered by the HTC Vive. AMD's Polaris 10 GPU is powered by the exciting new 14nm FinFET process, featuring support for both DX12 and VR - and includes HDR monitor support, and impressive performance-per-watt numbers.

GDC 2016 - AMD's commitment to VR is pretty damn strong, with the company announcing a partnership with Sulon Technologies for a new "spatially aware" head-mounted display. The new Sulon Q is powered by AMD technology, and will blend the world's of VR and AR.

AMD explains the Sulon Q as the "first and only all-in-one, tether-free, 'wear and play' spatially aware headset for VR and AR". The description for the Sulon Q reads: "When you experience augmented reality the Sulon way, your physical world is not replaced, its enhanced. Everywhere you look your full field of view is the physical world you know, seamlessly augmented with new realities. It s the best of both world's, literally".

The Sulon Q is powered by an AMD FX-8800P processor with Radeon R7 graphics that will make use of AMD's GCN architecture. Sulon Technolgoies CEO, Dhan Balachand explains: "The full performance of 4 compute cores and 8 GPU cores are unlocked through a revolutionary Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA), enabling the cores to share memory to work together for dramatic performance and efficiency. The result is a solution that is optimized for modern workloads and media formats, capable of driving the latest graphics APIs including DirectX 12 and Vulkan, and able to render stunning video game console-quality visuals on a beautiful 2560x1440 OLED display".

You might already be potentially experiencing some of the best mobile VR on a Qualcomm chipset. It's inevitable with the kind of market share that they enjoy, but they want to make sure that the 3D enabled apps that you're using have the chance to be the absolute best when paired with the Snapdragon 820 with their new VR SDK.

Virtual and augmented reality are becoming more and more complex works of art, taking advantage of the creativity of their creators, becoming vivid abstractions of our minds eye. Btu all of that requires processing power, and access to the underlying hardware in easy to use, low-overhead ways. To do that we need SDK's that allow for that. That's precisesly what Qualcomm's new VR SDK sets out to do. Allow VR app and content creators to design into their apps the ability to take advantage of the inherent advantages of their processor.

One of the most important aspects is the reduction in latency from what's being rendered and what you see. If there's too much, speaking in the realm of milliseconds here, then it can cause a huge disconnect and contribute to motion sickness. Using the SDK provides a nice and healthy 50% decrease in latency compared to not using it. They've also allowed lower-level access to the DPS and have built-in lens correction functions. Another great feature of the SDK is a native way to generate menus and other overlays in apps so that they can actually be rendered correctly.

Valve will have quite a lot to show off at the Game Developers Conference this week, with the company teasing through email over the weekend that it will be showing off SteamVR Desktop Theater Mode.

In an email, Valve said: "SteamVR Desktop Theater Mode is in early beta, and will be showcased at next week's Game Developer Conference in San Francisco. Desktop Theater Mode enables users to play non-VR games with VR systems such as the upcoming HTC Vive and others".

No screenshots or videos have been released, so we should expect a complete unveil this week during GDC. But what should expect? Being able to play all of your Steam games in VR is going to be a huge win for not just Valve, but HTC - the company making the SteamVR-powered Vive headset.

If you can't make this year's Coachella music festival in Indio, California but have the money for tickets, you can still watch the show: in virtual reality. And if you are going, VR could enhance the experience.

Once you purchase a ticket, you'll receive a unique VR headset (pictured here) that can be used in combination with a Coachella VR app (which can be found in the iOS, Android, and Samsung Gear VR stores), which you can then use to take in photos from previous events, virtual tours, interviews, and of course, performances, among other things. A 5mbps or higher Wi-Fi connection is recommended.

Unfortunately, no reduced cost VR ticket only option is available.