PlayStation Experience 2015

Zhokel

Zhokel

Zhokel

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This weekend is PlayStation Experience in San Francisco following on from the event last year and now going to be a yearly thing. As with most events there is a conference that will be livestreamed.

The conference/keynote is today (the 5th) at 6pm.

Twitch
YouTube
PlayStation

Guide: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2015/12/03/playstation-experience-2015-everything-you-need-to-know/

Converted times to UK:

10pm | PlayStation VR and The Future of Play
11pm | Uncharted 4: Stories from the Performance Capture Set
12am | Call of Duty Black Ops 3: Unlocking the Potential of A.I.
1am | PS I Love You XOXO
2am | The Future of Storytelling
3am | Fighting Games: The Next Generation
 
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Raymond Lin said:
Why does all VR games looks like they are running on the PS2?
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Because the PS4 isn't powerful enough to run high-end graphics in a game at the frame rate required for "good" VR over two images. It can barely manage 1080p at 60FPS for most things. VR framerate needs to be ~75FPS as an absolute minimum unless you want to be puking after 5 minutes. 90FPS+ is the goal.

PSVR games will always look worse than a big TV counterpart, unless they are heavily stylised such as cartoon graphics. Attempting anything "realistic" is probably going to be a no-no. Most stuff will be fairly simple, or quick party-game type affairs.

Why do you think the entry requirements for Oculus Rift or Steam VR are so high?
 
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Nismo said:
VR framerate needs to be ~75FPS as an absolute minimum unless you want to be puking after 5 minutes.
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Not quite.

GearVR is only 60fps and is entirely passable for most people.

But either way, there's a lot more to it than that. Rendering something in VR is not the same as rendering it on a flat screen. If a game hits 1080p/60fps outputting to your TV that doesn't mean it can do 1080p/60fps to a VR headset. There's a couple major things you have to do in VR that creates pretty big overhead:

- Stereoscopic rendering - basically each eye needs to be individually rendered. There's ways to reduce the impact of this(instanced draw calls), but there's always going to be a pretty notable hit on performance demands for this.

- Barrel distortion - in VR, you cant just output a flat image to a display with optics involved. It needs to be warped, usually into a 'barrel' shape. But to do this without losing image space and to keep clarity in the periphery, you have to use a larger resolution than the display output. Basically, you need to supersample the image. Needless to say, this is demanding.

- Then of course you do need the framerate to be high and *solid*. So it isn't like Gran Turismo 60fps, which isn't actually 60fps at all. It needs to be Forza Motorsport 60fps - rock solid. This requires more sacrifices. And of course 60fps is the minimum for PSVR. Sony recommends targeting 90fps(like the Rift and Vive) and 120fps is best-case scenario.

So yea, all in all, you're very right that more 'realistic' style graphics are a much less attractive proposition to do in VR as things inevitably would be pared back drastically. Which is why many VR games go for a more stylized look, as this can still result in visuals that are appealing, with some of the more demanding aspects kept to things like nice lighting and shaders, which can give the titles a more modern look to them still.

That said, we're gonna see some more realistic-style games come out for PSVR. Driveclub, Gran Turismo, Robinson and Ace Combat will presumably all chase a more AAA-like presentation, but of course this means there will drastic cuts made. I worry about how much they have to reduce anti-aliasing because aliasing is a bigger problem in VR than it is on a flat screen.

We'll see. I think it'll be ok and most people will still be able to enjoy it a lot. But I do try and warn people about the reduced fidelity as much as possible(especially the lower resolution) just so people dont go in and have their dreams shattered on their first try with the tech.
 
Seanspeed said:
Not quite.

GearVR is only 60fps and is entirely passable for most people.
Click to expand...

Agreed, but GearVR is meant to be worn for shorter periods of time, plus the experiences that I have seen don't involve a lot of movement in terms of direct user input. If you're moving, it's generally on rails, but most of the stuff I have experienced has been more media consumption/viewing than something you interact with.

I don't get sick with my iPhone 6 in a Google Cardboard, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to play anything remotely fast-paced on it.
 
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