Extended Reality (XR) - Page 68

GDC 2015 - During the development of its VR headset, Sony has said that "price has not been driving our development process" for Project Morpheus. The words come directly from President of Sony's Worldwide Studios for Sony Computer Entertainment, Shuhei Yoshida.

Yoshida continued: "The first time people try VR is the most dangerous time. People get used to it after a while, but the first is the most susceptible to motion sickness. So we want to get the hardware right". He added: "Now we feel that we have the system, we have passed the threshold that we set out. Then, how cheap we can deliver to the consumer? That's the second question we're going to tackle. The number of people who will buy day one hardware will be some kind of reverse function of price, that we understand, but we really need to do it right from day one".

Sony isn't talking about the price of Project Morpheus at all, but Yoshida did say that when it's out, the price of its VR headset will fall with time, just like the PS4. But the entire focus of Project Morpheus isn't the price, but the hardware and the experience. This could mean that Sony might have a more expensive headset on its hands, but just how expensive? How much is too much for you?

GDC 2015 - We know that Valve is working on VR now that HTC announced it had partnered up with the company on its but we don't know what the right thing is [yet]. Our most precious resource is time, and we don't have enough time for people to do everything. Would we like to make all of our franchises in VR? Absolutely. But we don't have enough time or people. So we have to figure out what's the best fit, what plays to the strengths of VR' recently revealed Vive VR headset, but now Valve has admitted that it is playing around with Half-Life in VR.

Kotaku spoke with Valve at GDC during the week, asking Valve programmer Jeep Barnett about Half-Life in the virtual world of VR. Barnett said: "We've said, 'Let's take some existing art and see how it fits. So yeah, we'll grab some headcrabs, we'll grab the machine guns from Half-Life, the rocket launcher - all those different fun things - and see how they play in VR. But right now, it's a tool for exploring the different kind of game designs we want to do".

When pressed about the possibilities of Valve making Half-Life compatible with VR headsets, Barnett replied with "We're not saying, 'no,' but we don't know what the right thing is [yet]. Our most precious resource is time, and we don't have enough time for people to do everything. Would we like to make all of our franchises in VR? Absolutely. But we don't have enough time or people. So we have to figure out what's the best fit, what plays to the strengths of VR".

GDC 2015 - The Razer-powered Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) headset has reached version 1.1, with the HDK 1.1 now featuring a low-latency 1080p OLED panel, as well as much more.

The new 1080p OLED panel provides "high-contrast, low-latency imagery within minimal motion blur" reports RoadtoVR. But the new headset is also capable of mirroring what the VR headset is rendering to another monitor, something that you can do with the Oculus Rift DK2 headset - but it doesn't always work perfectly with the DK2.

The new HDK 1.1 is also now capable of converting standard video to side-by-side format, so that you can watch it in VR, as well as doing so on-the-fly and streaming low-latency video signals, too. OSVR will be providing downloadable schematics on their website, something that can be printed and furnished with the right electronics.

GDC 2015 - Valve has been showing off its VR headset to various members of the press and industry, but ex Epic Games God and now boss of Boss Key Productions, Cliffy "CliffyB" Bleszinski, has used it and taken to Twitter with his impressions.

CliffyB had nothing but good things to say, where he tweeted: "Valve's VR demo is a religious experiecne. I was nearly in tears at one point. Pure magic. Next level stuff. Mind blown. Also, funny too". I don't think there's anything else to know at this point - but VR is going to really change things. For it to be referred to as a "religious experience" and that it's "pure magic" and "next level stuff" and that he had his "mind blown" we are beginning to turn the dial up on our excitement meter.

GDC 2015 - With all of the news of VR headsets and games, one can get lost in the reality of it all when it comes to purchasing a new PC that is ready for all things VR. This is where AVADirect's new Omni VR desktop comes into play.

AVADirect has announced the new Omni VR desktop, which is built from the ground up for the full virtual reality gaming experience. For those in the know, the Virtuix Omni is a VR treadmill that has you more in the game than ever before, with an AVA Omni VR Desktop Series PC powering it all. Thanks to AVADirect's "standard testing analyses" you can ensure that this system will meet any requirements you have for the virtual, and real worlds.

The new AVA Omni VR Desktop has been "engineered and designed specifically for the Virtuix Omni Gaming Platform", but that doesn't mean it's not one of the best systems you can buy for VR gaming. AVADirect has specifically chosen parts in the system that ensures you can play games at 1080p at a minimum of 75FPS thanks to the inclusion of an EVGA GeForce GTX 960 SuperSC ACX2.0+ video card.

GDC 2015 - Sony has detailed its PS4 headset during GDC 2015, which is much better than the one that they've shown off a few times now. Project Morpheus will ship in the first half of 2016, but we don't have any pricing just now.

The latest version of Project Morpheus features an OLED-based 1920x1080 display with options for the framerate between 60FPS and 120FPS. Inside of the PS4 exclusive VR headset it a 5.7-inch panel with 360-degree tracking, with Sony teasing that it has super-low latency, which is under half of what the previous prototypes of Project Morpheus has had until now.

Sony has said that you'll be able to wear glasses underneath Project Morpheus, which is designed to have a single band that goes over your head. Sony will be detailing Project Morpheus in more detail at E3 2015 in June.

GDC 2015 - AMD has just jumped into the VR game with the announcement of Liquid VR, a new software development kit that wants to see the presence in VR improved.

One of the biggest problems with the future of VR gaming is the latency - the time in which moving your head, and seeing that movement happen in the virtual world, is measured. This needs to be as small as possible, with the hope of removing it completely. In order to achieve this, the software and GPU need to be tweaked to the max.

AMD has teased that multi-GPU, hardware-accelerated time warp, and direct-to-display technologies within its Liquid VR. Starting with hardware-accelerated time warp, which uses updated information to the user wearing the VR headset, and the position of their head after a frame has been rendered, and then it warps the image to reflect the new viewpoint as soon as it sends it to the headset.

HTC's chairwoman, Cher Wang, has the Internet in a frenzy right now by teasing that the company is working with Valve on something to do in the Half-Life franchise.

Wang said that HTC was "cooperating with Half-Life" but didn't elaborate on whether this was Half-Life 3, or another Half-Life game set in the VR world for its just-announced Vive headset that it partnered up with Valve on. Valve's own employees were reportedly "surprised by Ms Wang's comments as they were not working on a Half-Life game for the new helmet at the moment" reports the BBC.

I've said in various OpEd's that for VR to go mainstream the software is the most important part, and that a "killer app" is required. I've even said that Half-Life 3 would be that killer app, but are we really on the Eve of the announcement of Half-Life 3? Someone pinch me.

MWC 2015 - The Game Developers Conference is beginning to kick off, where we should find out much more about HTC's Vive, Steam VR and everything Valve + VR related. But, one of the more exciting tidbits to come out from the show is that VP of Content at Jaunt, Scott Broock, has played around with Steam VR at MWC 2015 in Barcelona, Spain.

Broock posted to Twitter after he had used HTC and Valve's VR solution at GDC 2015, where he tweeted: "Just experienced HTC and Valve's VR solution at #MWC15. Utterly phenomenal. The controller solution is intuitive and precise". While we've been briefly introduced to the VR headset, we don't know much, if anything at all about the controller.

GDC 2015 kicks off this week in San Francisco, where you can be sure we'll be delivering you the hottest content around.

MWC 2015 - HTC has surprised the world, giving me goosebumps in the meantime, by announcing at Mobile World Congress that they've partnered up with Valve on a VR headset.

HTC's new Vive headset will feature a room-scale experience, features 70 sensors, full 360-degree tracking where you can walk around your environment, 90Hz refresh rate, and it will come with two wireless controllers. HTC's Vive headset will be compatible with Valve's SteamVR service, too.

We don't know the resolution of the display yet, but I could guarantee we're looking at a minimum of 1920x1080 (or 1080p). Now, HTC has three letters in its name - 3 letters - Half-Life 3 confirmed?!?!

Virtual reality still has numerous problems to overcome before it goes fully mainstream among gamers, but already has greatly influenced the video game market. At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next week, game studios, developers and influencers are expected to discuss VR-focused hardware and software.

At GDC, Oculus will show off Rift, Razer is expected to promote its OSVR headset, while Steam is going to unveil the SteamVR headset.

"Nobody buys a piece of gaming hardware because they think it looks cool," said Lewis Ward, analyst at IDC, in a statement published by CNET. "Until there's a great experience to go along with it, the hardware simply opens the door."

Augmented and virtual reality devices will drastically increase in popularity, rising from 3 million units in 2015 up to 55 million in 2020, according to ABI Research. Head-mounted displays (HMDs) will lead the way, but mobile-reliant devices will see early success, with tethered solutions needing a bit more time to mature.

"There is a lot of excitement and hype focused on getting consumers to try out virtual reality, including the LG G3 shipping with an HMD in some markets, and Mattel's View-Master AR toy," said Michael Inouye, senior analyst at ABI Research. "These early experiences will be like any new toy-novel for a while and then fall off in use, with new content potentially driving periodic re-engagement."

It's unknown if gaming and movies will help drive VR, even though hardware developments are being made. Meanwhile with AR, which is increasingly popular in the enterprise, consumers find a lack of apps difficult to help embrace the technology - and ABI Research thinks it may be a matter of time:

Oculus has just announced the new Mobile VR Jam 2015 event, where the Facebook-owned VR giant wants to see the best new games, apps, and experiences for the Gear VR Innovator Edition.

Strangely, you might have noticed this isn't for its own VR headset, the Rift. This is a mobile event, so the Oculus-powered Gear VR headset is at the center of this event. Oculus is putting up a huge $1 million prize pool that will be split in two: one for VR games, and the other for VR experiences and apps. Oculus says: "The Mobile VR Jam is an opportunity to build groundbreaking new experiences in collaboration with other passionate VR pioneers, and win cash prizes for innovative uses of VR-specific interactions and pushing the medium forward".

The Mobile VR Jam 2015 takes place between April 13 and May 11 with the winners announced on June 4. Interesting timing, as it is just ahead of E3 2015, where I expect we can see some very big things for the world of VR, that is, after GDC 2015 comes and goes which is going to be big for VR as it is.

NVIDIA's CEO and founder Jen-Hsun Huang has written on the company's official blog addressing the issue of the GeForce GTX 970 and its 4GB of VRAM. Huang says early on in the blog post: "We invented a new memory architecture in Maxwell. This new capability was created so that reduced-configurations of Maxwell can have a larger framebuffer - i.e., so that GTX 970 is not limited to 3GB, and can have an additional 1GB".

He adds that the GTX 970 is a 4GB card, and that the upper 512MB of its 4GB of frame buffer is "segmented and has reduced bandwidth". Huang elaborates, saying "This is a good design because we were able to add an additional 1GB for GTX 970 and our software engineers can keep less frequently used data in the 512MB segment". But, he acknowledges that this wasn't all good news, as the company "failed to communicate this internally to our marketing team, and externally to reviewers at launch".

"Instead of being excited that we invented a way to increase memory of the GTX 970 from 3GB to 4GB, some were disappointed that we didn't better describe the segmented nature of the architecture for that last 1GB of memory", explaining the 4GB of VRAM issue on the GTX 970 in more detail, "This is understandable. But, let me be clear: Our only intention was to create the best GPU for you. We wanted GTX 970 to have 4GB of memory, as games are using more memory than ever". Huang added: "The 4GB of memory on GTX 970 is used and useful to achieve the performance you are enjoying. And as ever, our engineers will continue to enhance game performance that you can regularly download using GeForce Experience".

It wasn't even 24 hours ago that we were writing about Valve showing off its SteamVR headset at GDC 2015 next week, but VRFocus has heard "from a reliable source close to the project" that the HMD itself will be made by a third-party company.

Valve has reportedly secured a "prominent hardware manufacturer" to make the headset, but now the speculation will begin as to who this hardware manufacturer is. In order to fight against the likes of Oculus VR, Sony and other VR headset makers, Valve can't do this on the cheap. Maybe Valve is working with NVIDIA on the SteamVR headset? Now that should start an exciting discussion.

With the release of AMD's Radeon 300 series right around the corner, and the tease of its upcoming Fiji-based Radeon R9 390X flagship video card, it's time to start speculating on what we can expect in regards to VRAM on the new GPUs.

We have heard that AMD will be using High Bandwidth Memory, or HBM, on the flagship R9 390X. A report over at Fudzilla points out that AMD is using something called 2.5D-IC silicon interposer, which will see "two separate chips on the same silicon interposer and package substrate". AMD is baking this onto a PCB on the 28nm process, but there will be two products on offer. One without HBM, and the other with HBM.

HBM 1.0 is currently limited to 1GB per stack configured as 4 x 2Gb layers for a total of 4GB of VRAM, which should raise some very serious questions. Throwing to the side memory bandwidth and the node AMD chooses to use (with all signs pointing to 28nm), a limit of 4GB of VRAM could hurt the company with the first new GPU it has released in over 18 months. Considering the issues NVIDIA has been going through with its GTX 970 and "4GB" of VRAM argument, AMD have the opportunity to really drive home the VRAM argument.

NVIDIA has teased its 'Made to Game' special event on March 3 during the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2015, but according to some fresh rumors, the company could be unveiling its own VR headset. Chris Burns from Slashgear thinks that NVIDIA could unveil its own VR headset, and so do I.

The conclusion can be drawn from various technologies NVIDIA has been releasing over the last year, and still have close to their chest. With NVIDIA's Shield and Shield Tablet devices, its range of Tegra processors, G-SYNC, VR Direct, GRID, and so much more. Then we've heard from game developers like Tim Sweeney teasing that VR will look as good as real life within 10 years.

But where the pieces fit into the puzzle more is that G-SYNC and VR Direct technologies would go hand in hand with each other, which is something I asked the company back when they revealed their Maxwell architecture. At the time, my question was answered to the large number of other various press members, but wasn't elaborated on. I did ask if we would see VR Direct, VR SLI and G-SYNC work with the Oculus Rift, but maybe I should've asked if NVIDIA were working on its own VR headset, instead? With NVIDIA's CEO and founder Jen-Hsun Huang saying things like "More than five years in the making, what I want to share with you will redefine the future of gaming" when referring to the March 3 event, we can't help but get excited.

Facebook, the No. 1 social networking website, wants to integrate virtual reality into user news feeds, and is creating demo versions to show off the new feature. To take things a step further, Facebook users also have the ability to share their virtual experiences with other members.

In the live VR demos, Facebook members can visit Mongolia, or sit in an F/A-18 Hornet cockpit.

"Not a lot of people are going to get to Mongolia in their life... I've never been," said Chris Cox, head of product at Facebook, while speaking at the Code/Media conference. "You can look around. It's beautiful. And you immediately understand it's like one of these things... the first time you're in it, you realize you're looking at the future."

We reported yesterday that Valve would be talking about VR, physics engines and more but now the company has confirmed exactly what it will be teasing at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2015, and it has us very excited.

Valve will be showing off the final Steam Controller for its upcoming Steam Machine platform at GDC 2015, as well as its "previously-unannounced SteamVR hardware system". Valve also has plans to show "new living room devices" at GDC, which will most likely arrive as a slew of new Steam Machines. What has us excited however, is the idea of a full unveiling of its SteamVR platform.

GDC 2015 takes place between March 2-6 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.

Valve, one of the most infamous developers in the world, will be having not one but four presentations at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2015. The company said it wouldn't be hosting its Steam Dev Days conference for 2015, but instead it would have a "larger than usual presence at GDC".

The company won't be talking about specific games, but we can expect that out of the four presentations, the companyu will use its own upcoming games as examples in presentations. This means that we could see a massive tease of Valve's upcoming games, and while there might not be any actual announcements, we might see into the world's of these games. Think Left 4 Dead 2, Half-Life 3 and others and you might just feel the hairs stand up on your arms.

Valve will be hosting a panel on the future of OpenGL technology, which is something the company is invested into with its SteamOS being Linux-based, and Linux and OpenGL going hand-in-hand. Over the past couple of years Valve has been pushing for the adaption and improvement of OpenGL. We reported on this all the way back in 2012, where Valve squeezed more performance out of the OpenGL version of Left 4 Dead 2 than it did in Windows. Valve will also be talking about VR at GDC 2015, which is equally as exciting. We will learn about the creation of VR world's, which will end up moving into advanced topics like the challenges of creating high quality graphics, and having them pumped into users' eyes at high speeds.