Extended Reality (XR) - Page 69

The VRAM controversy over NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 970 continues, where class action lawsuits have now been filed late last week. You might remember this only happened a few weeks ago, with NVIDIA quick to jump and admit it falsely advertised the GTX 970 and quickly refreshed the official specifications of the Maxwell-powered GPU.

There are two lawsuits at the moment, one for NVIDIA and the other targeting GIGABYTE. The plaintiff is suing NVIDIA and GIGABYTE on behalf of all GeForce GTX 970 owners, making this a class action lawsuit. This means that any GeForce GTX 970 owner can jump into this class action lawsuit. There are four major complaints for which the plaintiff is asking for damages over, including:

It seems GIGABYTE is being sucked into this lawsuit by Andrew Ostrowski, the plaintiff, as he purchased two of GIGABYTE's GeForce GTX 970 video cards. We will eventually see most of NVIDIA's other add-in-board (AIB) partners enter the class action lawsuit, as more and more people jump on board.

With Sony pulling out of most of its markets and concentrating on mostly camera sensors and its PlayStation console, it should come as no surprise that the company is set to focus on its PS4-based VR headset, Project Morpheus, at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2015.

Sony will be giving hands-on demos of its system, as well as more details on its plans for its VR headset. We don't know what Sony will be showing off exactly, as the company could surprise the world with an updated version of Project Morpheus, which is what I want to see. Almost like the DK2 to the DK1 from Oculus VR, as Oculus has even passed that with the latest Crescent Bay prototype.

We will be reporting about all things GDC 2015 as the event kicks off early next month in San Francisco.

Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic Games and the brain behind the Unreal Engine, has said that there are some insane things going on with VR right now, but a lot of them aren't being shown to the public.

Sweeney was interviewed recently, where he said that he expects VR hardware and headsets to double in quality every few years for the next decade. He added that it will reach a point in around 10 years from now, that it will be hard to tell the difference between the VR world, and the real-world that surrounds you right now.

Oculus VR is expected to launch its first consumer-ready version of the Oculus Rift sometime this year, which I'm sure we're going to hear more about at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) which kicks off in just a couple of weeks time.

The United States Patent & Trademark Office has granted Apple a patent that the iDevice maker filed all the way back in 2008 for a headset design that would see you use your iPhone as a VR headset.

The design resembles the Galaxy Note 4-powered Gear VR, where you slot your iPhone into a device that sits on your face, where you use an external controller that helps you navigate through menus and more when motion tracking doesn't cut it. This is just a patent that Apple has filed, so we don't know if it'll turn into something just yet.

But judging by the amazing things Oculus VR has been able to do, all without a consumer VR product on the market, we don't think it'll be long before Apple unveils its own VR or AR headset.

It looks like Crytek is ready to push into the world of VR gaming, as the studio will be showing off a new VR experience on the Oculus Rift at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2015 next month.

VRFocus is reporting that Crytek has confirmed with the site that it will be showing off a "a brand new experience" for VR, especially when compared to what it was showing off at last year's GDC. Last year, Crytek was showing off a VR technology demo running in CryEngine on the Oculus Rift DK2 at 100FPS.

Crytek will be showing off its CryEngine running on Android, too. GDC takes place between March 2-6 in San Francisco, California. You can be sure we'll be reporting about any and all things from the event.

The last couple of weeks have been filled with, well I guess you'd call it "controversy" over the VRAM on the GeForce GTX 970. If you haven't read up on it just yet, you can play catch up here.

But how are the return rates on them? Well, according to analyst firm Jon Peddie Research, not many. Jon Peddie from JPR has said: "I have heard as many as 5 per cent of the buyers are demanding a refund from the AIB suppliers". Retailers are reporting just 1-2%, with two of the UK's biggest retailers offering refunds for the GPU, where they have until the end of this month to box up their GTX 970 and return it.

So why are people up in arms over this? Well, the GTX 970 technically features 4GB of VRAM, with the final 512MB part of this running at a far slower rate than the first 3.5GB. So when a game fills up the first 3.5GB and spills into the remaining 0.5GB, it can cause slowdowns and stuttering in games. But it's not just the VRAM, as the ROPs (Raster Operating Pipelines) have been cut from the previous official specification of 64 ROPs, to 56, as well as the L2 cache being dropped from 2048KB to 1792KB.

Sure, your flashy new GeForce GTX 980 has 4GB of VRAM, and so does the one next to it in SLI. But while you have a total of 8GB of VRAM between two cards, only one set of VRAM is being used, it's not being combined. That is, for now. Things could change according to a recent tweet from AMD's Robert Hallock.

Hallock teased that with the upcoming APIs in Mantle and DirectX 12, two GPUs in SLI or Crossfire could possibly act as 'one big' GPU. Hallock said: "Mantle is the first graphics API to transcend this behavior and allow that much-needed explicit control. For example, you could do split-frame rendering with each GPU ad its respective framebuffer handling 1/2 of the screen. In this way, the GPUs have extremely minimal information, allowing both GPUs to effectively behave as a single large/faster GPU with a correspondingly large pool of memory".

"Ultimately the point is that gamers believe that two 4GB cards can't possibly give you the 8GB of useful memory", he continued. He added: "That may have been true for the last 25 years of PC gaming, but thats not true with Mantle and its not true with the low overhead APIs that follow in Mantle's footsteps". This isn't confirmation that memory stacking is going to happen, but it's a much better direction to be heading in, that's for sure. Especially with 4K and beyond gaming, VRAM is more important than ever and wasting 4-8GB of VRAM on SLI/Crossfire setups is just silly.

By now I'm sure you've read about the VRAM issues surrounding the GeForce GTX 970, and AMD taking a stab at NVIDIA because of it, but now the former is offering gamers special discounts if they return their GTX 970s and pick up a Radeon card.

AMD's Roy Taylor has taken to Twitter, offering GTX 970 owners who return their cards special discounts if they swap them out for Radeon cards, including the R9 290 and R9 290X. Taylor tweeted "Anyone returning their GTX970 and wanting a great deal on a Radeon with a full 4GB please let us know" and even tagged the @NVIDIAGeForce Twitter account at the time.

Are you a GeForce GTX 970 owner? Will you be trading in your GTX 970 for the Radeon R9 290X?

Count Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as a fan of the HoloLens technology Microsoft recently showed off, though said it will take a few years of development. Speaking during a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" chat, this marked the first public statement Gates had regarding the emerging technology.

"The HoloLens is pretty amazing," Gates recently said. "Microsoft has put a lot into the chips and the software. It is the start of virtual reality. Making the device so you don't get dizzy or nauseous is really hard - the speed of the alignment has to be super, super fast. It will take a few years of software applications being built to realize the full promise of this."

Both augmented reality and virtual reality have seen numerous breakthroughs in recent years, but there are a number of challenges both technologies face. Microsoft says there is nothing like HoloLens currently available, and the headset won't directly compete with Oculus Rift, Project Morpheus or other VR headsets being developed.

Microsoft clearly is excited about the potential for its HoloLens platform to succeed in gaming, with Xbox boss Phil Spencer and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella both promoting how augmented reality can boost the gaming experience. Microsoft hasn't disclosed gaming projects for its HoloLens platform, but gaming is expected to be a major effort to help push AR mainstream.

"It's also getting clearer how the games people love today will evolve to mind-blowing experiences in the future when designed for the mixed reality that Windows 10 and HoloLens create," Nadella said during a Microsoft financial call. "Just imagine what is possible with Minecraft. Gaming truly is a valuable part of millions of people's lives and Microsoft will excel and increase our lead."

The HoloLens headset and Windows Holographic platform can be paired with video games to provide a unique environment - while Microsoft and Mojang have already created two HoloLens demonstrations that they look forward to launching.

The Oculus VR Story Studio, an in-house laboratory, will be focused on creating movies and other content designed specifically for VR. Facebook opened up the checkbook to acquire Oculus, and while VR continues to impress many consumers, the company understands there must be an incentive for users to adopt the Oculus Rift.

"Oculus is getting focused on films," said Edward Saatchi, producer for Story Studio, in a statement to the Wall Street Journal. "Story Studio is designed to inspire and educate - inspire by making awesome movies and educate by sharing our information with the community."

Story Studio consists of about 10 people, and includes Pixar Animation Studios and Lucasfilm veterans, to help streamline film production.

Microsoft's recent unveiling of its HoloLens has generated a lot of interest from consumers, but developers understand it will be up to them to create appealing apps for the new platform. Microsoft is promoting HoloLens as something different than Oculus Rift or Sony Morpheus, and will likely try to build its success piggybacked on Windows OS and Xbox One integration in the future.

"I think [HoloLens], for me, more exciting than even VR but it shares a similar problem as VR does and that is: what is the application going to be?" said Peter Molyneux, creator of Fable, in an interview with Gamesindustry.biz. "This is the problem with VR - the applications that we think are going to be great on it quite often are exhausting or very challenging. My hope is that their concept video doesn't over promise what the technology can deliver."

Molyneux is basing his opinion on a HoloLens prototype that was tested more than two years ago, however.

NVIDIA only took the wraps off its its GM206-powered GeForce GTX 960 video cards last week, but now we're already being teased with the hint of 4GB models to be coming soon, as in just a few weeks away in March.

Computerbase is behind the rumor, posting a shot of Inno3D's latest offerings under their iChill range. As you can see, it says "4GB available in March - watch this space!", so unless Inno3D had this go out accidentally, or its a new form of guerrilla marketing, we know to expect GeForce GTX 960 cards to start shipping with 4GB of VRAM in March.

But even when, or if it happens, it will put the GTX 960 in a weird position. Unless AIBs can price them at under $250 (the GTX 960 with 2GB of VRAM sells for $199-$209) then it will be too close to the price of the GTX 970, which also has 4GB of RAM. I guess we'll see, with GTC 2015 kicking off in March, it could be the month for NVIDIA announcements, along with the rumored GeForce GTX Titan X.

Augmented reality has recently shown great promise for consumer and commercial use, but there is an overlooked industry that could help spur additional interest: medical research. Software and hardware designers hope that offering custom solutions to certain verticals will help accelerate the familiarity of augmented reality as something more than a niche consumer offering.

Technologies such as the Eyes-On Glass gives nurses and doctors the unique view of a vascular anatomy, leading to more comfortable medical care for patients. However, there are a number of other options presenting great potential solutions that can be used in the near future:

"In two to five years, the definition of augmented reality is going to extend," said Helen Papagiannis, augmented reality specialist, in a statement to Daily Dot. "We're not going to be calling it augmented reality anymore, it really will just be reality. It will be a combination of artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, all coming together."

During its Windows 10 event yesterday, Microsoft went right out in another direction actually exciting the technology community by announcing HoloLens. HoloLens, if you haven't already read up on it, is a wireless holographic viewing unit, which takes an interesting turn on the world's of VR and AR devices.

HoloLens features spatial sound, which means that you'll hear sounds behind you when wearing the headset, on top of the copious amounts of sensors that constantly pull information into the headset from the real-world around you. The headset features its own CPU and GPU, as well as a third processor, something Microsoft calls a holographic processing unit. Something HoloLens does right straight away is that it is wireless, compared to every Oculus Rift that we've seen so far.

Another tick for Microsoft is that the company has unveiled a release timeframe: with the launch of Windows 10, later this year. Microsoft will be pushing Windows Holographic, which will feature many different applications and pieces of software that will work in the HoloLens headset, such as Skype, Minecraft and hopefully, much more. NASA even had a Mars walking application to demo with Windows 10 and HoloLens, which is simply a tease of what is possible with Microsoft's wearable. The company is also rolling out a service called Holo Studios, which allows HoloLens users to create 3D objects, as well as move and manipulate projected images in space. These creates go a step or ten further, by allowing them to be printed, something that the DIY space is going to expand on, rapidly.

We've been reporting on pretty much every GPU rumor we can, as they're all exciting, but the next-gen TITAN X is shaping up into something more real with each passing day. Now we have some unconfirmed news that the GeForce GTX TITAN X will have an MSRP of $1350.

The stock card will be arriving with 6GB of VRAM, with 12GB of VRAM to arrive at a later date, or through various AIBs if they choose to splash the GPU with a titanic amount of VRAM. The TITAN X will be powered by the GM200 chip, which is the full chip that we've all been waiting for. The GM204 powers the GeForce GTX 980 and GTX 970 cards while the GM206 reportedly powers the GTX 960 which is said to be imminent.

NVIDIA could slightly cut down the die to start with, but the fully unleashed GM200 core should arrive on a 384-bit memory bus, feature 12GB of VRAM and a huge 3072 CUDA cores. A cut down version of this could feature between 2560 and 2816 CUDA cores, but it would still perform like a champion. The price however, is what has people talking, and with the current GTX TITAN Black Edition still commanding a price of around $1000 on Amazon, the $1350 price isn't too bad. "Isn't too bad" is something worth talking about, because for around $350 more we should see a nice 30-50% performance increase given the specs. The 12GB of RAM is going to come in handy for future titles and super massive multi-monitor setups, which is something I will be getting into in March with these cards if they do materialize.

Developers are finding a wide variety of different uses for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, and Toyota has demonstrated its TeenDrive365 distracted driving simulator. Participants sit down in a stationary car wearing an Oculus Rift headset, taking them through a simulation that involves multiple distracted driving scenarios.

Scenarios include other vehicles on the road, in-vehicle passengers, radio, and text messages - with drivers suffering the "consequences of distracted driving within the virtual setting," providing a more realistic view of everyday distractions that drivers face.

"Oculus Rift provides a virtual reality driving experience that mirrors real life behind the wheel, giving us a powerful, one-of-a-kind way to show parents and teens how everyday distractions can affect their ability to drive safely," said Marjorie Schussel, corporate marketing manager of Toyota, in a statement to the media.

Virtual reality products were on full display at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last week, and while VR continues to go mainstream, there are a lot of questions that still must be answered.

VR adoption should increase in 2015, as companies tweak their hardware and software offerings, though should remain most common in the gaming sector. However, VR will still be a niche technology, until several major roadblocks are accurately addressed.

"It will stay relatively niche because it still has several technological hurdles to overcome," said Piers Harding-Rolls, HIS analyst, in a statement to BBC. "A lot of people that have tested the current headsets, a good proportion of them have not enjoyed the experience. It can make them feel woozy and sick, and the manufacturers really have to overcome that."

The virtual reality market is growing, and seems to have drawn the most attention by the gaming community, but still isn't ready for mainstream adoption. However, it's possible that the movie industry has the most to gain from virtual reality, with consumers interested in embracing the unique viewing experience.

"We've said from the beginning we're big gamers, and we started Oculus to deliver consumer VR and revolutionize games," said Nate Mitchell, VP for product at Oculus, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. "But it may well end up being that VR is more about film than games - [but] it's possible. We don't know what the killer app is."

Oculus is working with developers in the video game and movie industries, and it's possible Oculus VR headsets could also find their way into military simulation trainings. There is a tremendous amount of opportunities for virtual reality in the future, but consumers appear more interested in what can be done sooner rather than later.

CES 2015 - Oculus VR had a gigantic setup at CES 2015 this year, but they were hosting private meetings for people to go in and check things out, so we set one up quite sometime ago to ensure we could get our hands, and eyes on the latest Rift prototype.

We stopped in and had a chat with Oculus VR's VP of Product, Nate Mitchell, who is one of the best guys in the industry. He walked us over the new Rift prototype known as "Crescent Bay", something that was shown off at Oculus Connect a few months ago. This is the first time the new Rift headset has been open to the public to test out, which is why we wanted to get down there and check things out.

The current DK2 unit has a 1920x1080 resolution, thanks to the Galaxy Note 3 panel it features inside of it. Oculus isn't stating what resolution the new Crescent Bay prototype is running at, but from my short time with it, I suspect we're seeing a 1440p panel, with some form of resolution scaling. Similar to NVIDIA's Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR) technology, where it renders a larger picture, and then scales it down to the resolution of the monitor, or in this case, the VR headset.