Is VR dead?

[Terry Rock]

Good discussion...

My opinion is that it will never go mainstream.. ever... but will always have it's niche.. Like Vinyl records!

I bought an Oculus a year or so ago.. loved it.. couldn't race without it.. then I started to tire of it... bought a Samsung 49" widescreen.. and now never use the Rift.. I've tried a few times to go back to capture the magic but the cons outweigh the pros for me now and confirmation bias has faded away!!

I find the way Oculus runs their business model (as it relates to 'updating') to be extremely frustrating.
They seem to break more than they fix, while offering no real official support.
As an end-user who spent money to purchase a product, I don't want to have to search forums to get answers to issues they introduce.
It is sad because the product itself is not bad.
I plan on putting mine up for sale in the next few days.
I prefer my Lenovo Explorer anyway.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Looking at the articles about VR it appears there has been an inflection point.

As of August 2018 there were a bunch of doom and gloom "Is VR dying?" articles, but by the end of 2018 the reports were much rosier and pointed to solid growth.

• The market for virtual reality and augmented reality eyewear and helmets grew by 8.2% in the third quarter of 2018, mainly thanks to Sony's contribution with its PlayStation VR, and the sales of Oculus GO and Rift models. After four quarters of decline, finally, the figures are hopeful.

• After floundering in 2017, virtual reality hardware actually outperformed optimistic sales expectations last year, SuperData Research said today, with annual VR revenues reaching $3.6 billion — higher than the Nielsen-owned firm’s late 2018 forecast of $3.3 billion. That’s a 30 percent year-over-year increase in revenues, particularly noteworthy given holiday price drops for some of the leading VR devices.

The projection for Oculus in 2019 appears to be nearly a doubling vs the incremental growth from the others. I can only assume most of that volume is for Oculus Go's and Quests. One report suggests that Oculus is expected to sell 1.5M Quests. If they also release the Rift S, they may break 2M total.

The overall growth from 3.5 to 4.5M to 6M devices suggests exponential growth vs. linear and that 2020 could be ~8M devices.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Wondering where all that growth comes from? Big studios turned down VR a while back, there wasn't any noteworthy VR titles for a while, except from some one man Indie studios and tech demos.
Performance did not improve, high end PC requirements didn't change, there wasn't any significant development in HMD tech.
Did XXX content boost its presence in VR space?

 

[RCHeliguy]

Wondering where all that growth comes from? Big studios turned down VR a while back, there wasn't any noteworthy VR titles for a while, except from some one man Indie studios and tech demos.
Performance did not improve, high end PC requirements didn't change, there wasn't any significant development in HMD tech.
Did XXX content boost its presence in VR space?

The issues you've listed are sales for people who have already taken the plunge who want more.

There is constantly more content being added, but I believe the BIG adoption issue is just getting more potential customers to experience VR and decide they like it. That is word of mouth and VR users letting their friends try things out. If the installed base is twice what it was 18 months ago. That means a lot more people are trying VR out at a friends house.

For example, my daughter who is a big gamer just tried out Beat Saber at someone's house and told me that now she wants VR. My favorite In Death was pre-released last Spring and officially released last Fall. Beat Saber has been a break out hit and it came late last Spring. She also really liked Moss when she came to visit me. That was also a release last year for both PC and PSVR.

So there are new titles and content for 2018. And even though titles like Project Cars 2 came out in 2017. You could argue that it didn't get good until 2018.

And... as much as it pains me. Porn frequently leads the way in technology. They drove HD camera sales in the beginning and helped bring costs down before HD camera sales took off. I don't "think" that is the case with VR, but I couldn't say for sure.

FYI, of the people who have tried out VR at my house, I know of 2 who now have VR systems and 3 more who say they plan on getting VR. Most had written VR off before trying it out. My son the resolution/framerate junkie assumed it was crap and was completely surprised by how good it was. Now he's got a VR headset.

 

[Bjarne Hansen]

Wondering where all that growth comes from? Big studios turned down VR a while back, there wasn't any noteworthy VR titles for a while, except from some one man Indie studios and tech demos.
Performance did not improve, high end PC requirements didn't change, there wasn't any significant development in HMD tech.
Did XXX content boost its presence in VR space?

https://www.superdataresearch.com/xr-training

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Sounds like Microsoft throwing in the towel.
https://uploadvr.com/windows-vr-expectations/

Zune, Windows Phone, what else they were too late to the market to become competitive.

Too bad as Odyssey+ is the best HMD on the market at the moment.
Well, hopefully new and better will come, it's all first gen throw away stuff anyway.

EDIT: Pay attention to disclaimer at the end of the article.

Update: This story has been updated to better reflect Sullivan’s comments, which are generalized towards the wider VR industry rather than focused on Windows VR headsets in particular.

 

[RCHeliguy]

The Hololens 2 actually looks pretty good, but it is not consumer priced. AR is where the huge consumer market eventually will be. This is pretty well acknowledged in tech circles. VR came first and will remain, but it will be eclipsed by AR.

Agreed about our first gen stuff, but we need much more powerful graphics cards and better software drivers and SDK's before we can go much further.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

The Hololens 2 actually looks pretty good, but it is not consumer priced. AR is where the huge consumer market eventually will be. This is pretty well acknowledged in tech circles. VR came first and will remain, but it will be eclipsed by AR.

Agreed about our first gen stuff, but we need much more powerful graphics cards and better software drivers and SDK's before we can go much further.

As well as CPUs, but perhaps the most critical of all - industry standard. The situation when Oculus retaining user base by garden walled exclusives and game developers need to rewrite the code to work with different HMD protocols is just unacceptable for any future growth.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Standards are good and eventually will happen, but until they exist it's a lot easier to jump in with the big dog. There is no best at everything, but personally I'd rather stick with a product that has the best software support out there until this eventual standard emerges.

I'm not trying to throw stones.
StarVR had the best optics and FOV but have no product,
Pimax has the 2nd best FOV and they are shipping their 5K and 8K options, but current PC hardware really can't push them well, they don't have hand controllers yet and they are tied to base stations.

The Rift S which will have the most resolution current hardware can realistically drive, better optics and better inside out tracking will likely be the best headset out that is usable until CPU and GPU hardware is released in 2020.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

When you said the most resolution current hardware can realistically drive.
What defines current hardware?
I have what I think not the most current hardware, still using Pascal GPU and my default SS in SteamVR is 200%, with native Odyssey resolution of 1440 x 1600 per eye, sounds like we can easily double that and still stay at 90 fps by just dropping SS to 100%. All that with current technologies, i.e. no foveat rendering, or other fancy stuff.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I have what I think not the most current hardware, still using Pascal GPU and my default SS in SteamVR is 200%, with native Odyssey resolution of 1440 x 1600 per eye, sounds like we can easily double that and still stay at 90 fps by just dropping SS to 100%. All that with current technologies, i.e. no foveat rendering, or other fancy stuff.

You are running near the top end of current hardware that represents very few people in the gaming community even among VR users. I was reading Anthony's write up on his Pimax 5K+ and he had to get rid of his wider field of view along with the resolution that represents to get reasonable performance out of his system with a 1080Ti. So sorry there is not enough market out there to double the resolution you have right now. If a 1080Ti can't handle it than the number of users with systems that could handle it is too small to be enough of a market.

We are still realistically waiting for the next generation of computer equipment so that enough of a user base can afford the computers necessary to run next gen headsets.

Let's say everyone needed a 9 series i9 CPU and an RTX Titan to do it as an extreme example. With a market size of almost zero any headset that required that would be dead in the water. I suspect that was the issue with the StarVR system. Keep in mind it was only a 5K total system and yet they were utilizing foveated rendering AND they were working with NVidia to support dual 2080Ti cards.

That should be a GREAT BIG warning sign right there!

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Most systems cannot fully handle resolution of the CV1 without resorting to ASW or compromising image quality.
Does that mean there is no room for growth and VR industry should wait until mid range systems catch up?
My guess not, it is the same as screen resolution, you can buy 4K monitor, but can run games at 1440p or even 1080p, but if your system has grunt, use it to full extent.
Look at Steam HW survey results
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam
This is your typical mid range system.
8GB RAM, 2GB 1060, 3.3GHz CPU and 1080p monitor.
Should VR use that as a standard, good luck getting anything decent out of even old gen HMDs on that.

You are saying that by 2020 CPU and GPU catch up. So what, they caught up already, does not mean everyone will jump replacing their systems.

On a separate note.
HTC rep mentioned modular aspect of Cosmos,
https://uploadvr.com/modular-vive-cosmos-scale/
Does that mean possibility of unloading some processing onto HMD itself?

 

[RCHeliguy]

Unloading processing is a double edged sword. If they can do it effectively, than individual manufacturers could differentiate themselves but it could end up splintering standards furtther. It could also make a headset obsolete sooner, add weight and heat.

Not saying it won't happen, just that it would likely complicate things.

 

[Bjarne Hansen]

Sounds like Microsoft throwing in the towel.
https://uploadvr.com/windows-vr-expectations/

I do not really see this as MS trowing in the towel.
They developed the specs/ drivers and tools for WMR but not really sure they are needed anyway for generation 2? At least not if Gen 2 is just higher Res. Lighter and more comfortable.
But very poor of MS not to port it's Forza titles to VR

The Rift S which will have the most resolution current hardware can realistically drive, better optics and better inside out tracking will likely be the best headset out that is usable until CPU and GPU hardware is released in 2020.

Didn't know the specs for Rift-S was released?
What I read is it is a WMR kind of headset that is cheaper to produce than current Rifts headsets.

On a separate note.
HTC rep mentioned modular aspect of Cosmos,
https://uploadvr.com/modular-vive-cosmos-scale/
Does that mean possibility of unloading some processing onto HMD itself?

Now that could very well be the future a headset that can be connected to a PC, Work as a standalone headset and be expandable.
While for me a WMR headset is already pretty perfect for flight and race sims. We do need better controllers for VR with better tracking of controllers and lighter wireless headsets. for others users/ games.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Simple thing like upscaling can be easily done on HMD. All TVs and bd players do it today, Pimax 8k does it too as they can't accept native resolution HMD support. But result is not super stunning perhaps due to the quality of upscaler.
But it just show it can be done. Also good for lower spec system as they can only feed resolution they can support leaving upscaling to HMD.

 

[RCHeliguy]

You just hit the nail on the head. It can be done, but obviously it isn't easy or Pimax would have done it already. It takes processing power. My OPPO BD players do a great job uprezing DVD's and BD's to UHD, but OPPO hasn't had to worry about power consumption or heat dissipation and they haven't been cheap. Unfortunately with the world going to streaming they've ceased production.

If it was easy graphics cards would have already handled this. Have you looked at the silicone that NVidia dedicated to their AI upscaling post processing section of the RTX chips?

All I'm saying is that maybe the headset is the wrong place for this logic. You want to lower the power needed and heat dissipated and weight in the headset.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

But Pimax did that. Already.
And if we have standalone headsets that do much more without dimming city lights or burning your scalp, how hard it would be to just upscale. Pimax perhaps threw in the cheapest they could find to keep cost down, thus blurry upscaled image.
Sony releasing UBP X800 mk2 with Dolby Vision support, same as x700 but premium package, so there is still market for UHD BD players if you are shopping.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I've got 3 OPPO's right now and my 105D is also the DAC / preamp for my 500W amplifier. One gets almost zero use and the other two are very periodic. One plays DVD's and BD's in the media room and the other is mostly used for audio purposes. No one else had anything that could touch them, but they were expensive to build and the market has gone WAY downscale. Most people just stream these days.

Pimax didn't have a choice because.... ahem current hardware isn't adequate yet! But I still think it is the absolute wrong place for this processing. Once again, the only reason they resorted to this is that they had no choice.

BTW I still think UHD is pretty much BS and not worth it. I've got an UHD Samsung TV, but you can not resolve the detail unless you are too close for comfort. The only thing UHD actually buys you is increased dynamic range for the color gamut. The resolution is a waste. The only reason it looks better streamed is that they send more information. If they streamed a less compressed HD signal no one would notice the difference.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

UHD and HDR are not the same thing.
For UHD as for any resolution it's all about pixel density, i.e. resolution + size of monitor + viewing distance.
For PC I use 42" UHD, it's pretty much desk setup ~30" from eyes, I think it's a sweet spot as far as gaming goes, racing and FPS.
Same for 65" Samsung, although yes, from the sofa, I can't resolve as much details as on my desk setup.
TV gaming on UHD is still better than on 1080p, you just can't beat advantage of higher resolution, esp. when playing split screen. 4K native material looks better too, can't argue that.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

And wrong conclusion on why Pimax did that, has nothing to do with "current hardware isn't adequate", Display Port 1.4 can only transmit 4k, thus they needed onboard upscaler to stretch it out to native resolution. 8KX has two DP inputs and can support 8K natively.