Sony next-gen PlayStation5 VR 120Hz 4K oled hmd (=PSVR2) - can now be used for PCVR too!

Max Mustard has been heavily enhanced for PS5/PSVR2 - the PCVR trailer will look the same, devs said PS5 and PC only differs for the PS5 haptics:

The game was made to lowest-end gpus like the 2.4 tflops Adreno 740 in Quest 3, and this is what the game looks like with a 10 tflops PS5 - and of course PCVR will blow everything out of the water using extreme levels of super-sampling - remember that just an RTX 4070 packs 30 tflops - the power of 3 PS5s or more than 10 Quest 3s. And RTX 4090 is at 80 tflops - the power of 35 Quest 3s running in parallel. 

Kinda depressing getting these low-end Quest ports, even if surfaces are enhanced, the poly levels (geometry) are the same for all versions (confirmed by the devs), effectively giving us a level of polygons normal in PC games 20 years ago.  

The game launches on PS5 Oct 3, later on PCVR - but often PCVR owners do not buy Quest ports, no matter how enhanced, and I'd be surprised if many PCVR owners buy this game on Steam, we'll see. 

A bigger brain is coming November 2024 - we'll see how that may enhance the PSVR2 games - and I'm not buying any PS5 Pro before I see some big positive changes to current PSVR2 games:

One could wonder if Sony considered any push to PSVR2 a dead end before the launch of the Pro... Would make sense to wait for the Pro. Forty-five percent faster gpu could take PSVR2 from 60 fps reprojections to solid 90 fps - but solid 120 fps may still be unattainable in demanding games like Call of the Mountain. 

Specs:

Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/console-gaming/ps5-pro-confirmed-new-playstation-will-cost-dollar69999-on-november-5-with-larger-gpu-and-pssr-upscaling

According to Sony, the 70% more tflops correspond to max 45% more gpu performance in games, probably also due to bandwidth only increased by 28%. Compared to PS5 Pro with 17 tflops, an RTX 4060 has 15 tflops, while the RTX 4060 Ti has 22 tflops - and my RTX 3090 from 2021 has 36 tflops - putting the PS5 Pro closest to an RTX 4060 non-Ti. Thus the PS5 Pro is very slow compared to high-end PC video cards (RTX 4090 being 5 times faster), but PS5 Pro is about 8 times faster than the Quest 3. I normally only upgrade when I can gain at least 100% more performance - in that perspective PS5 Pro may fail. Then again, Sony may have some tricks, and going from 60 fps PSVR2 with reprojections in 120 Hz to solid 90 fps could be a game changer. More about PSVR2 and PS5 Pro here:

https://www.uploadvr.com/ps5-pro-pssr-upscaling-pvsr-2-future-update/

After 1½ years, what is the current status of the best PSVR2 content? Currently we have only 2 exclusive high-quality (AA(A)-ish) games, namely:

Both games fully utilize foveated rendering and eye tracking - and yes, these two games are worth buying the PSVR2 plus a PS5 for - unless you're on a tight budget.

Then there are the semi-exclusives, which are only available in VR if you got the PSVR2, but all can be played in 2D too. These games are all AAA games, but have limited interactions in VR due to being designed for 2D. Still these games are much better than 98% of real (made from the ground-up for) VR games:

These games also use eye tracked foveated rendering, but do not use eye tracking to select objects or to add a new dimension to the gameplay - unlike Call of the Mountain and especially Synapse. 

One major issue with all of the above is the use of 60 fps repeated twice in 120 Hz, which causes so-called reprojections.  I still doubt that the PS5 Pro will be enough to lift all games from 60 to 90 fps, as this may require a 50% lift in performance, and Sony said the PS5 Pro will be max 45% faster (note the word "max" here, so it may be slower in most cases). 

Other reasons to buy PSVR2? You can play this game on a very big screen using the PSVR2:

I tried it, it does look amazing on the giant PSVR2 oled screen - but there's still something that haunts, namely the reprojections. The PS5 is not fast enough to provide 120 fps in Astro Bot, so you get the usual 60 fps with reprojections - and that bothers me. You need 100% more speed to assure 120 fps, and again I doubt the PS5 Pro easily can do that. For these games I greatly prefer my plasma tv - 60 fps in 60 Hz are much more smooth than 60 fps x 2 in 120 Hz. 

I've tested Elden Ring, Dead Space Remake, Horizon, and many other 2D games using the PSVR2 big screen, but the reprojections really bother me, or there's just something off about the controls and gameplay causing me to lose immersion. So far there's only one 2D game I really prefer to play using the PSVR2, and that is:

Returnal works surprisingly well with the PSVR2, I do not notice reprojections, and the game is really dark making me not notice the oled mura. And using the Pulse3D wireless Sony headphones, the sound effects are really great and support immersion. For now, this really is the only PS5 2D game I only play using the PSVR2. 

The PSVR2 has tons of other games, many really low-end 1:1 Quest games, and a lot of PCVR titles that play much better using SteamVR, if you got a fast PC. So I care for none of those games. I care for PSVR2 games I cannot get anywhere else. 

Btw, there are a few more exclusives like Switchback VR, Apollo 13: The Lost Tapes VR, and Firewall Ultra, but these games feel like somewhat cheap cash-cows, and aren't of much interest to me. 

Any upcoming PSVR2 exclusives? Not really any I know about - at first Heroes of Forever was announced only for PSVR2, but now it's on Steam too:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2863590/Heroes_of_Forever/

Other games I thought would be PSVR2 exclusives have also turned up for PCVR or Quest. Apart from the above exclusives there may be few reasons the get the PSVR2 used with a PS5, if you have a fast PC. There are rumors of Sony releasing 1-2 games more for PSVR2, but I'll believe that when such games launch or we see trailers 🙂

And do not believe the hype or the ignorants, the oled mura is very real with the PSVR2, I see it every time I use the PSVR2. And the PSVR2 needs the Globular Cluster CMP2 for the bare minimum of acceptable comfort (https://www.globular-cluster.com/CMP2.html ). PSVR2 advantages are the very big fov (close to Index fov horizontally), and in dark games the oled panels are pitch black - the mura is mostly seen with normal/bright environments. Eye tracking is also amazing, but so far only 2 games really use it to enhance gameplay (because then you may lose compatibility with Quest and PCVR, so it makes sense that only the PSVR2 exclusives Call of the Mountain and Synapse support this feature). 

Maybe I do not always sound too happy about the PSVR2, but I really do like the hmd - and I enjoy using it with the PS5. The primary issue is the competition from PCVR, where I'm constantly getting new and better content. The PSVR2 feels left behind in many cases - but Sony may introduce new games for the PSVR2 later today:

To me only the PSVR2 exclusives count, and I bet we'll get none of those later today, but I'd just love to be wrong 🙂

The new stuff revealed some hours ago:

We already got the best version of Hitman VR for PCVR, which is way ahead of the PSVR2 version and a quantum jump in quality from the extremely bad and low-end Quest version. I could not care less about Hitman for PSVR2. More about Hitman PCVR here:

https://communityforums.atmeta.com/t5/VR-Experiences/The-AAA-game-Hitman-3-Year-2-has-launched-with-native-Oculus/td-p/895372

Then I thought The Midnight Walk could be an awesome exclusive - but no, it's coming for PCVR too:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2863640/The_Midnight_Walk/

- and I bet the PCVR version will be much better than the PSVR2 version as nearly always. The great thing about The Midnight Walk is that there's no Quest version, thus this in not another lowest-end Quest release being pimped up for high-end VR, but was made ground-up for 2D and high-end VR. The Midnight Walk does look awesome:

Metro Awakening VR is coming for PCVR too, and it's hard to judge the quality from a trailer, I need to check out the poly levels (geometry) and textures to see the real quality - I do hope the Quest origin does not shine through too much. 

All in all a very boring State of Play. 

I'll be back in the SubSide waters later this evening - pure high-end and exclusive PCVR, and a joy to experience 🙂

This smells more of PSVR2 exclusive than anything I've smelled in a long time, lol:

https://twitter.com/SonyPicturesVR/status/1838986829208371511

I guess it's been a few days since I saw Rico the last time, but if he's up to it, I'm too 😁

New Metro Awakening gameplay trailer, expect even better quality for PCVR:

Max is out too, does look like very simple graphics to me (low-res textures, bad lighting, low geometry - but this is a Quest port), even if much enhanced for PSVR2 - I'll await the PCVR release:

Rating 8.2/10 is not bad, but also nothing mind-blowing as expected. Having seen the new Astrobot, everything else in the genre surely will disappoint. VR Grid rated the game 9/10 and found it massively improved compared to the Quest verison, but PS5 does have the power of 10 Quest 2s running in parallel:

- my PC has the power of 3-4 PS5s, so the choice of PCVR is obvious for those wanting the premium experience. 

The strange case of Max Mustard - devs now have 200 ratings for the PSVR2 version, but 600 for the Quest version, and just wrote that the game sold much better in just 2 weeks for 2 mill PSVR2 owners than it did for 6 months for 20 mill Quest users:

Now, normally the number of ratings corresponds to the number of sold copies - but devs faced a difficult situation this summer - Max Mustard for the Quests sold very poorly, and the devs made an extremely drastic move to more or less give the game away for free to Quest owners:

This may explain the low earnings in spite of many ratings from Quest users. The game costs $30 for PSVR2, so one copy sold could be close to 10 copies on the Quest. 

This is very positive news about the PSVR2 making ends meet for the devs - and making it worthwhile to enhance the low-end Quest version. Still PCVR users seem to hesitate, currently the game has only 5 ratings on Steam, maybe devs will have to give a 90% cut here too, sadly. 

For some other games like Arizona Sunshine 2 and The 7th Guest VR, PCVR + PSVR2/PS5 got many more ratings than the Quest version, so the above tale carries the point that today devs should be very careful when focusing primarily on the Quest version, the money may lie elsewhere. 

An interesting vid from EuroGamer:

I do think Sony cares a lot - they did facilitate Call of the Mountain, Gran Turismo 7 VR, Resident Evil 4 & 8, Synapse and a few more titles. Not sure Valve ever did more. For Sony it may be about to make ends meet - would a new AstroBot VR make PSVR2 a giant success? That's probably the math Sony is doing, the really hard math.  

Also Sony had to make a choice for the new AstroBot - making it the best it could be for PS5, or making a PSVR2-supported version with reduced graphics. The new AstroBot is so advanced that just getting 60 fps in 1920x1080 can be a challenge - so 120 fps in 1920x1080 does not work, you get 60 fps x 2 in 120 Hz. It would require some severe reductions making AstroBot work with the PSVR2, and I can't blame Sony for not doing that. The new AstroBot is here to push PS5 sales, not PSVR2 sales, and I fully understand Sony's decision here - I'd probably have done the same. 

That said, would be great to have the old AstroBot for PSVR1 ported to PSVR2, but the new AstroBot 2024 in 2D is in a league of its own - it's a work of art and extremely impressive, I wouldn't want it cut down to fit the PSVR2. 2c. 

Some Whitewater just made its launch for the PSVR2/PS5:

This is somewhat special though - unlike Kayak VR: Mirage running at 2 x 60 fps in 120 Hz, this game is pure 90 fps:

"The game runs at a native 90 frames per second without reprojection on PlayStation VR2. It's also using dynamic foveated rendering via eye tracking and haptic feedback in the Sense controllers."

More info here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PSVR/comments/1gb5idv/whitewater_vr_extreme_kayaking_adventure_is_out/