Beyond 1080p screens - Path to 4K uncertain for Oculus?

"cerebral" wrote:
i think we are talking here about 5 -10 years in the future when this tech will be applied.

Yep, and its reassuring to R&D is currently under way moving in that direction.

isn't it obvious they'll be 4k then 8k then 16k screens etc?

Maybe a little higher than 12k would be necessary. I say around 16k would be acceptable.

"havoc51413" wrote:
Maybe a little higher than 12k would be necessary. I say around 16k would be acceptable.

yeah i think 16k might be the maximum.
We need a 1080p res 5% for our center vision called fovea which covers 5% of our retina.
1080p at a distance at 2 or 3 meters is already a limit of perception.
So we need that resolution for every part of the screen where we might be looking at with our fovea center.
1080p is a approximation. But sth between 2 and 3 megapixels. 3MP x 20(becuse 5%) = 60MP x2 for SBS = 120MP
Not that far away IMO.
Its just that until today their was no application that would require such insane density.

A 16k screen would only be maximum if the optics were the limiting factor. I would agree though that 16k would be acceptable with advanced rendering techniques and downsampling for most things in VR for now.

20/20 vision is conservatively estimated to be 60 pixels per degree. That's for low contrast vision. For high contrast the ppd goes up.

60 ppd x 90 FOV = 5400 pixels horizontal per eye. That's for low contrast though.

For high contrast, even 85 ppd isn't enough. 85 x 90 = 7650 pixels horizontal per eye.

According to a Sony 4k PDF I read, NHK said some people can even see over 100 ppd.

Without the lenses, current pre-warp correction, and considering the pixel layout, a person with normal vision would still see aliasing even with 8k x 8k per eye with 90 degree FOV. Rendering at higher resolutions and downsampling will blur and get rid of aliasing, but also limit maximum visual acuity.

Increasing FOV will increase the need for an even higher resolution panel in a Rift type HMD.

"Inscothen" wrote:
A 16k screen would only be maximum if the optics were the limiting factor. I would agree though that 16k would be acceptable with advanced rendering techniques and downsampling for most things in VR for now.

20/20 vision is conservatively estimated to be 60 pixels per degree. That's for low contrast vision. For high contrast the ppd goes up.

60 ppd x 90 FOV = 5400 pixels horizontal per eye. That's for low contrast though.

For high contrast, even 85 ppd isn't enough. 85 x 90 = 7650 pixels horizontal per eye.

According to a Sony 4k PDF I read, NHK said some people can even see over 100 ppd.

Without the lenses, current pre-warp correction, and considering the pixel layout, a person with normal vision would still see aliasing even with 8k x 8k per eye with 90 degree FOV. Rendering at higher resolutions and downsampling will blur and get rid of aliasing, but also limit maximum visual acuity.

Increasing FOV will increase the need for an even higher resolution panel in a Rift type HMD.

There are people, such as myself, that have better than 20/20 vision. If i can recall, I think i had 20/15 ? Maybe 20/10 max.

And agreed on the FOV.
Our brain activity is divided into 20% of what we are actually focusing on, and the other 80% is actually for peripheral view.

Uhh, you guys are missing the GPU scaling issue.

Even if you can increase display density to 4K in 5 years, GPUs of 5 years from now will not run modern games (of those future times) at 4K @ 60FPS. It will probably struggle at 2K. So you've eliminated the screen door, yes, but the resolution will still be blocky.

It makes no sense to jump to a technology even if it exists if your application won't fully utilize it. Let's drive cost down on 1080 or 1440 displays and make the overall device cheaper (higher attachment rate) rather than maintain or increase cost to appeal to a narrower market.

The Wii wasn't made for hardcore gamers, which is also why the Wii outsold hardcore game consoles. The iPhone wasn't made for hardcore smartphone users, which is why it outsold all other smartphones at the time (the original iPhone.) The same marketing should apply here, to a new technology, shoot for your broadest market, keep cost low so your entry point is low, and try not to exceed consumer technical ability. A 1440p screen is pushing that, my girlfriend's computer needs medium settings to run at 1080p for modern games.

"MrAdun" wrote:
Uhh, you guys are missing the GPU scaling issue.

Even if you can increase display density to 4K in 5 years, GPUs of 5 years from now will not run modern games (of those future times) at 4K @ 60FPS. It will probably struggle at 2K. So you've eliminated the screen door, yes, but the resolution will still be blocky.

It makes no sense to jump to a technology even if it exists if your application won't fully utilize it. Let's drive cost down on 1080 or 1440 displays and make the overall device cheaper (higher attachment rate) rather than maintain or increase cost to appeal to a narrower market.

The Wii wasn't made for hardcore gamers, which is also why the Wii outsold hardcore game consoles. The iPhone wasn't made for hardcore smartphone users, which is why it outsold all other smartphones at the time (the original iPhone.) The same marketing should apply here, to a new technology, shoot for your broadest market, keep cost low so your entry point is low, and try not to exceed consumer technical ability. A 1440p screen is pushing that, my girlfriend's computer needs medium settings to run at 1080p for modern games.

If eye tracking will be enabled and i think Oculus VR is aiming for that developers could apply called foveated rendering(up to 100 times increase in rendering power the higher resolution)
Assuming that the eye tracking rate would be high enough of course because they eye moves really fast.
I think Oculus thinks of eye tracking first as a gameplay element for making eye contact, but if rate is high enough it could have an astonishing side effect paving the way to super high res rendered games

But also you are forgetting that GPU power is increasing exponentially also. two generations means 4 times more horsepower.
As PS3 launched games were 720p. 5 years later(2011) GPUs could render 2k....4 times the res...

...of games from 2013.

My computer can run HL2 at all settings on high in 4K, easy. Or spread across 3 displays, easy. But that game is 9 years old. Sure, GPU power increases exponentially, but so do game engines to take advantage of all that power--advanced shaders, light calculation, AI offloading, physics calculations, etc.

And you can't really compare PS3 hardware. It never changes, which means developers can learn how to take advantage of it over time. The PC market is constantly changing and you have thousands of different potential configurations. That level of optimization is unrealistic.

I'm pretty sure the Oculus VR team knows about foveated imaging, but eye tracking isn't exactly easy, especially in a set of darkened eye goggles! :P I agree with you 100%, that's probably the next step to hit the 100+ FPS mark to eliminate flickering in low-persistence displays. Cramming eye tracking into that mask is going to be a challenge though!

Actually the eye moves really slow. What to you appear as an instantanous eye twitch, appear as a smoothed out slow movement to an external observer. This is due to cassadic masking. So provided optical tracking can do at least 30 fps scanning, that wouldn't be an issue.