AMD working on Virtual Reality too

Gregster · 25 Feb 2015 at 15:24

Cooperation, not VR headsets

We became aware of a few VR-related things back in mid-2014, and one of them was that both AMD and Nvidia were investing a lot of resources in Virtual Reality.

Nvidia officially mentioned VR Direct back in September 2014 and we saw an Unreal Engine demo powered by Nvidia VR, on the Oculus DK2 VR headset. There are some indications that Nvidia might talk about VR at its Shield event next week.

They are not alone, as some big guys including Oculus by Facebook are working hard on Virtual Reality solutions. Online game distribution pioneer Valve is about to presentt its take on the VR problem, Samsung is using Oculus technology for its Note 4 VR device.

This is not all, as both Sony and Microsoft have their own version of hologlasses, which are going after the Augmented Reality (AR) side of things.

AMD is also working on Virtual Reality, but from what we know AMD is working with Oculus and doesn’t want to make its own devices. This is interesting, since the Crescent by Oculus demo was demoed on Nvidia-powered machines.

We are sure that AMD will talk Virtual Reality at the Games Developers Conference, at least behind closed doors, but as we said before we expect GPU companies will be all over the Virtual Reality space.

Some technologies such as 3D stereoscopic gaming never became mainstream, and we believe that VR will have to go through quite a struggle before it does.

We are certain about one thing - you will need a lot of GPU power to run and render a nice virtual reality environment in high resolution, and 100W – 200W TDP GPUs are going to be way better choice than graphics inside of mobiles or tablet SoC, there is simply no doubt about that.

http://fudzilla.com/news/graphics/37105-amd-works-on-virtual-reality-too

So, with nVidia and AMD (albeit working with Oculus and not making their own devices), who here is interested in VR? This is something that I want and quite surprised I never grabbed a OR dev kit to try out, as I am a big proponent of 3D.

New news in.

Liquid VR' is AMD's push into virtual reality with software

The latest Silicon Valley company to hop on the virtual reality bandwagon is AMD, this morning unveiling what it's calling "Liquid VR": a software development kit aimed at making VR easier for everyone. The announcement comes from a presentation at GDC 2015 in San Francisco, where virtual reality is dominating the news. What does Liquid VR do for developers and users? It essentially makes everything much easier. As one AMD rep put it during this morning's presentation, "You can plug an Oculus Rift into a computer and start 3D rendering directly to the headset, even without Oculus' SDK." In so many words, Liquid VR is yet another solution for making various VR headsets work easily on various devices; it also optimizes the use of that headset for that particular computer (no doubt powered by AMD's chips).

Liquid VR is AMD's first public step toward VR support, company reps said, with partnerships and more planned for the future. Oculus VR director of engineering Anuj Gosalia says his company is "very excited" about the things AMD is doing in VR, and that Oculus is working on leveraging AMD's work in its own work. For instance, the ability to simply plug in a Rift headset and have it recognized as a VR headset rather than a new monitor.

There are many more, far more complicated ways that the companies are working together, but this is the kind of stuff that will be invisible to most of us -- the kind of stuff that makes VR seamless. The first version of the SDK is available to "select" developers starting today; AMD is looking at this as the Alpha.

When asked about whether or not AMD is also working with HTC and Valve on the HTC Vive headset, AMD reps hilariously clammed up and asked whether or not they could talk about that yet. Sounds like the answer is yes!

Liquid VR' is AMD's push into virtual reality with software

Gregster · 25 Feb 2015 at 15:31

Ayahuasca said:
VR without doubt will become one of those things everyone has/wants but for the moment I'm waiting till it's at a really, really good level before buying into it.

I picture games like BF4 and ED (crap in 3D in fairness) being proper Bo in VR. I am biased mind as I love 3D.

Gregster · 25 Feb 2015 at 16:11

tommybhoy said:
Yes, much like Nvidia using partner ip for their VR too.

Do tell more? The site I read an hour ago stated that nVidia are working on their own headset but no details, so if you know more, please share it with us. I am very interested.

Gregster · 25 Feb 2015 at 16:43

The info I read (how true it is I don't know) said that it was the same guys who made the Shield Tablet.

http://vrfocus.com/archives/11915/nvidia-reveal-new-vr-hmd-gdc-2015/

Today our friendly neighbors at VRFocus reported that “multiple sources” had confirmed that Nvidia would be revealing their own VR headset, which may be named ‘Titan VR’. Further, the blog says “The product is being created by the team behind Nvidia’s SHIELD tablet,”

All speculation at prsent but that doesn't sound like they are working alongside an IP.

Gregster · 25 Feb 2015 at 17:45

tommybhoy said:
As an example, AMD True Audio is licensed ip with AMD branding, implementing it is different from making it from the ground up.

To make it abundantly clear to avoid any future confusion, I'm NOT stating Nvidia aren't making their own VR headset from scratch, I'm speculating too.

Why the bold? You are welcome to your opinion, of which I don't agree or disagree. When we hear more, we can chat more

Bookmarked this thread though

Gregster · 25 Feb 2015 at 18:01

tommybhoy said:
Yes, much like Nvidia using partner ip for their VR too.

tommybhoy said:
You know why.

No idea what you mean

Gregster · 2 Mar 2015 at 13:37

I have no intention of running around my room with a headset on

Gregster · 3 Mar 2015 at 18:15

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18657524

Thread already

Gregster · 3 Mar 2015 at 18:24

shankly1985 said:
Nope! This is labelled up correctly thank you very much.

So is it AMD working with Oculus?

Gregster · 3 Mar 2015 at 18:28

Updated OP

Gregster · 3 Mar 2015 at 18:31

shankly1985 said:
Maybe yes maybe no

This thread is about the sdk liquid VR.. It's AMDs software for VR..

We can continue to discuss all information around this software.. I'll add more that I find once home.

So basically it should have gone in the thread I already created. I have added the info to it (thanks) and a good read and sounds promising

Gregster · 3 Mar 2015 at 18:36

tommybhoy said:
Does it really matter?

Yer, as the info gets spread across to many threads and info gets missed. Why call people kids as well? How very rude.

Gregster · 3 Mar 2015 at 18:40

tommybhoy said:
I removed it, in case someone other than your humour creates offence.

Sensible.

Gregster · 3 Mar 2015 at 18:46

shankly1985 said:
No it shouldn't, like I said I created this thread to talk about this software nothing else..

#growup

Funnily enough, I created the "AMD working with Oculus" thread to talk about the software and nothing else. Hashtags don't work on this forum and are more suited to twitter really.

We will let the mods decide

Gregster · 3 Mar 2015 at 19:33

DirtyJester said:
Now merged.

Thread is boring...Please close

Gregster · 3 Mar 2015 at 19:37

elmuzzy66. said:
Two questions really;
1: Is amd really working on VR?
2: When will they give up and hand it to a 3rd party?

I understand that their R&D isn't great but I would urge them to seriously look into this. Even from a selfish POV, the more who jump on VR/AR, the more progression.

Gregster · 3 Mar 2015 at 23:58

Mei said:
seems to be going the same way as a lot of other stuff
amd trying to go open standard and nvidia locking it down to their hardware?
just a guess tho

so much VR talk!

I hope none of them are proprietary like Mantle/G-Sync and all cross vendor like the Odious Rift. Deffo a tech that has my interest peaked and hopefully a full release of all of them is on the horizon. Not sure how much longer my 20/20 can hold out

Gregster · 4 Mar 2015 at 00:33

tommybhoy said:
Mantle isn't proprietary...

You know as well as me that is doesn't work on anything other than GCN, which is AMD only. That pretty much sums up proprietary in my book.

Gregster · 4 Mar 2015 at 00:58

tommybhoy said:
Personally don't see the point of spreading egregious misinformation in order to justify one companies shoe horning against another companies willingness to drive the industry forward, there's a name for that.

That is exactly what you are doing. Mantle is locked to GCN and that's that.

Anyways, there is a Mantle thread if you want to discuss it further and I will keep this thread for VR talk.

Gregster · 4 Mar 2015 at 01:17

tommybhoy said:
I didn't impose a comparison classification, simply correcting egregious misinformation.

Does Mantle work on Nvidia or Intel? Was it ever offered to Nvidia or Intel? Is the API only available to select developers of AMD's choosing?

Not sure why you insist I am giving misinformation when it is quite clear that Mantle in its current form is proprietary.