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

Not really sure PSVR2 is that cheap - I'm currently at about $2250 for the console (bundled with Ragnarok and an extra controller), PSVR2 (bundled with Call of the Mountain), Sony Pulse 3D headphones - and I just bought this 4TB drive, because you only have 650GB free space with the PS5, which is a joke with games easily taking up about 100GB. So this will come in handy - and costs about the same as a PS5 console, lol:

Sony recommends NVMe drives with speeds of at least 5500MB/s - that's why you need the most expensive NVMe drives, I could have gotten one for half the price if I went for slower models. This one is certified for PS5 and has the recommended heatsink:

If I don't like the PSVR2, I can use the drive to expand my rig from 8TB to 12TB, lol. In short, I'm not that sure PSVR2 is much less expensive than PCVR. Even removing the 4TB drive, my expenses are at about $1500, and I think I can get a rig with a RTX 3060 Ti and a HP Reverb G2 for a similar price. 

Btw, there are now close to 100 PSVR2 games announced:

Also found an interesting vid about the eye tracking:

Note that the dude also is using the Sony Pulse 3D headphones. Just got them too 🙂

Hmmm, I wonder if this is close to the price of gold 🤔 The package is 34 grams:

- but down to 21 grams for the heatsink, plastic and the 4TB NVMe:

I bet the NVMe is like 5 - 10 grams... It was pretty well stuck in the plastic, so I'll leave it there until I'm ready to install it. 

According to Google, one gram of gold is worth $60 today - I paid $550 for the drive - gotta be close to the price of pure gold, lol. 

EDIT: Dell says their 4TB drive is just 7 grams, so that's more expensive than gold - not sure if I should laugh or cry 😉

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/visiontek-4tb-qlc-m2-nvme-ssd/apd/ab250086/storage-drives-media

Then again, didn't some dude once say? 😂

Just installed the 4TB NVMe drive in the Playstation 5 - it's quite easy:

After the installation, the PS5 checks the speed of the drive - Sony recommends at least 5500 MB/s - I got 6329 MB/s (text in Danish):

- and it registers at 4.1 TB, usually the registered size is less than the advertised size (due to 1GB measured as 1024MB), but not here:

So all seems fine. Was considering buying Returnal just to have something new to install, but it's $50 for a game I probably will play for an hour and then lose interest.

I guess I'm fully ready for the PSVR2 launch now - with a total of 4.4 TB free space 🤓 

Btw, Carmack just tweeted that the PSVR2 may be able to get incredibly low motion to photons latencies - and did worry about the $600 price, but that's not even 50% of the Quest Pro, lol:

"I don’t expect PSVR2 to be very successful at $600, but technically, with a directly connected OLED display and decent ray tracing performance, it is an opportunity to implement just-in-time ray tracing for couple-millisecond 6DOF motion-to-photons latency, which I would really like to see! That would be a VR compositor replacement, and the sensor / display / GPU timings would be really tight, so a third party developer could not do it, but it would be a worthy task for Sony."

https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1618686934741815303

Low motion to photons latency is believed to increase immersion and reduce motion sickness.

This is an advantage of using a tethered connection and having direct access to all hardware and software/driver components.

Hmm, I don't really expect much from PSVR2, but maybe I should...

https://youtu.be/fpnvFGObiKQ

Seems the first reviewers all love Gran Turismo 7 with the PSVR2:

https://mixed-news.com/en/psvr-2-first-gran-turismo-7-vr-testers-are-thrilled/

Also it seems that Gran Turismo 7 is not just ported to PSVR2, but was built for PSVR2 since day 1:

www.gtplanet.net/gt7-built-for-psvr2-from-day1-20230205/

This would qualify as very close to a native PSVR2 title...

Devs behind Pavlov found that PSVR2 achieved about 10% better performance than using a RTX 3090 Ti and PCVR:

https://twitter.com/Flat2VR/status/1622617596376883203

This is expected, or close, as PSVR2 with eye tracking and foveated rendering has been shown to achieve up to 3.6 better performance:

https://uploadvr.com/psvr-2-eye-tracking-foveated-rendering-gdc/

- but nice with some confirmation, even if we do not know exactly how Pavlov devs made the comparison.

Also there's simply no way you can achieve the graphics shown in Call of the Mountain with the power of a RTX 2070, which is similar to normal PS5 gpu performance (about 10 tflops). But with a RTX 3090 it all fits - so PS5 + PSVR2 may be a true monster when considering performance. No standalone gpu, and especially not the planned ultra-slow Quest 3 standalone gpu (even 100% better than Quest 2 is just 2.4 tflops - a RTX 3090 Ti has 40 tflops), will be able to even remotely approach the performance of the PSVR2. 2c.

New trailer:

Latest stuff:

Quite annoying to see a small fan in the PSVR2:

- small fans that usually become very noisy with time are red flags to me - and therefore Quest Pro really is a no-go for me with its two much larger fans:

I really do hate fans inside hmds - I don't just dislike them. CV1 and Index have no fans at all. Still the PSVR2 in-ear or Pulse 3D headphones may help PSVR2 users here - in case of a noisy fan after the warranty has run out..,. 

Btw, for those wondering if PSVR2 works with glasses - take a look all the above videos together, lol:

Tobii (Sony uses Tobii eye tracking) has stated that their eye tracking works with glasses:

https://help.tobii.com/hc/en-us/articles/210249865-Glasses-lenses-and-eye-surgery

https://corporate.tobii.com/newsroom/press-releases/2022/7/tobii-selected-by-sony-interactive-entertainment-to-be-the-eye-tracking-technology-provider-for-playstation-vr2

So it should work, still great to see that all 3 Sony presenters are wearing normal glasses. I bet Sony has considered that users of normal glasses should be able to use the PSVR2 🙂

Also more info here from Sony's FAQ:

"Can I wear my glasses inside of the headset?

Yes, PS VR2 was designed to accommodate players who wear glasses. However, some very wide or unusually shaped glasses may not fit. "

https://blog.playstation.com/2023/02/06/playstation-vr2-the-ultimate-faq/#headset-with-glasses

- and here:

"The headset is sleek and lightweight, with comfortable padding around the face that easily accommodated my glasses."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/09/14/psvr2-ps5-horizon/

https://www.videogamer.com/tech/vr/can-you-wear-glasses-with-psvr-2/

As a small bonus - Lady D is back, can't wait to meet here in person, even if I'll have to accept a small hmd fan for that...  🙂 

Resident Evil Village looks amazing in that trailer, but I can't quite justify the purchase of a PSVR2 just yet... If the game catalogue keeps growing then might interest might keep growing.