Facebook Unveils Future 'Near Retina-Quality' VR Headsets (theverge.com) 47
Artem S. Tashkinov writes: Meta's Reality Labs division has revealed new prototypes in its roadmap toward lightweight, hyper-realistic virtual reality graphics. The breakthroughs remain far from consumer-ready, but the designs -- codenamed Butterscotch, Starburst, Holocake 2, and Mirror Lake -- could add up to a slender, brightly lit headset that supports finer detail than its current Quest 2 display.
Yet to be released headsets have features which have been sorely missing previously: near-retina-quality image offering about 2.5 times the resolution of the Quest 2's (sort of) 1832 x 1920 pixels per eye, letting users read the 20/20 vision line on an eye chart, high dynamic range (HDR) lighting with 20,000 nits of brightness and eye tracking. "The goal of all this work is to help us identify which technical paths are going to allow us to make meaningful enough improvements that we can start approaching visual realism." says the Meta CEO.
Yet to be released headsets have features which have been sorely missing previously: near-retina-quality image offering about 2.5 times the resolution of the Quest 2's (sort of) 1832 x 1920 pixels per eye, letting users read the 20/20 vision line on an eye chart, high dynamic range (HDR) lighting with 20,000 nits of brightness and eye tracking. "The goal of all this work is to help us identify which technical paths are going to allow us to make meaningful enough improvements that we can start approaching visual realism." says the Meta CEO.
Catching on (Score:5, Funny)
This VR thing is really catching on with Metastabook execs.
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Mod parent up and sideways, but I want to know how many there are.
Also, I think we need more metastasis jokes whenever Zuck gets referenced. How can I join the campaign to cure corporate cancers?
Whoever invented the holodeck should have been exiled there. (And yes, I know the idea is older than TNG, but I think that's probably become the most famous virtual instantiation of virtual reality.) Once you've gone virtual, you can't go back. Or at least you can't tell if you went back.
No thanks. I have enough tro
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Hmm... I usually look at the moderations to see if it's attempted censorship, but on this occasion, it looks like meta-joke. I'm ready to agree that Facebook deserves the flames? Non an arson threat, since we're obviously talking about virtual flames there. Right?
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Because... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I'm sure that was written in as a joke, but I'm guessing more than few people believe it.
GPU Capabilities? (Score:3, Insightful)
Core issue is that we still haven't even gotten true 4K capable GPUs (for AAA quality titles) down to reasonable consumer prices, and it's been close to a decade since 4k gaming started to hit the high-end PC scene. It may be a very long time until cheap consumer grade hardware can drive two independent 4k displays. Great displays don't get us anywhere if we don't have the processing/rendering capability to drive them.
Re:GPU Capabilities? (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't need to. The whole point of future displays is through a combination of foveated rendering and eye tracking you don't actually need to render the entire resolution in one go. The visual acuity of the eye is absolute garbage outside of exactly what you are looking at.
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https://fove-inc.com/product/ [fove-inc.com]
I was so excited by this company's similar featured product, with eye tracking. They'd talked about doing what you mentioned... lowering resolution outside the fovea to lower rendering demands. Sounded neat, but I wondered about the latency. I already missed my (at the time) new 144hz screen when using the lower speed mainstream headsets of the time (few years ago). Didn't know if it was resolution, fps, or what...but I gave up quickly on my hundreds of dollars hardware.
Look
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Adam Savage's Tested group just posted a review about some of the new VR set prototypes. Some good information about lenses, displays, eye tracking, depth of vision, etc. I found it interesting to watch what's in their R&D pipeline.
Hands-On with Meta's New VR Headset Prototypes! [youtube.com]
Re: GPU Capabilities? (Score:1)
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Have you seen their VR environment? It's cartoonish, low polygon so it runs on cheaper hardware, and the avatars don't have legs because they can't figure out how to animate them.
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Well, I think that's part and parcel with the problem. If you are doing super high resolution and cutting edge tracking, then it's because you want people to have an immersive experience. A low polygon system with legless avatars isn't very immersive. To really make the Metaverse what Meta wants, we need hardware equivalent to a current $4,000 gaming computer in mid-range smartphones. That may be a long ways away, if it ever happens.
But what does Meta really want? (Score:2)
To really make the Metaverse what Meta wants [...]
At this point, do we even know what Zuckerberg wants? On one hand, as AmiMoJo points, they have cartoonish software, and now their hardware guys (or at least those doing the PR) teases the press about Retina-quality displays. This has the makings of a roadmap in a wasteland full of dirt tracks. All the paths you take are off-road.
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Two things:
a) the simplicity of the environment has nothing to do with the fill-rate capability of the GPU. You could render a single white screen and it would still be a monumental effort to do if you do each pixel individually.
b) the issue of rendering legs is one of reality disconnect. You need to know where legs are before you render them or your brain fucks up. The guys who made Boneworks thought this was easy too. Yet it was well a full year after release before the game could be described as function
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Interesting that someone modded this comment "troll". Some Meta/Facebook shills in the house?
Seriously, go look at clips of it on YouTube, it looks like 90s era VRML.
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Core issue is that we still haven't even gotten true 4K capable GPUs (for AAA quality titles) down to reasonable consumer prices, and it's been close to a decade since 4k gaming started to hit the high-end PC scene. It may be a very long time until cheap consumer grade hardware can drive two independent 4k displays. Great displays don't get us anywhere if we don't have the processing/rendering capability to drive them.
Human vision is mostly a mind trick. Don't believe me? Try reading text on the screen a few lines up without at all moving your eyeballs and head position.
HP's G2 HMD runs at 2600 times the bandwidth of the human optic nerve. Cones have a whopping megapixel resolution and rods contribute nothing worth mentioning.
A great display would have a VR specific display ASIC capable of receiving only what needed to be displayed over VR specific bus /w matching pipeline in the GPU capable of rendering with low late
Will it still require a Facebook account to work? (Score:5, Insightful)
If so I'm not interested, however good it may be.
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If so I'm not interested, however good it may be.
(Facebook) "That's nice. Fuck You Very Much, and Have a Nice Day. NEXT!"
Every single day the minority resistance, becomes that much more irrelevant. It's why Corporate Arrogance is the norm now instead of the exception.
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who said anything about resistance? i enjoy seeing the world burn (in vr)!
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Sadly, these will not work for me (Score:1, Insightful)
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no. you just have to check if your particular glasses fit into the headset. if they don't there are many alternatives (other glasses, custom lenses, contact lenses, wider headset, ...). also, progressive/multifocal glasses won't work but adjusting focus to middle range will give you a very good experience.
that said, zuckerberg's toy is still one or two decades of r&d away but if you want to experience vr now, it's a lot of fun and bad eyesight isn't a stopper.
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Due to my age, I require reading glasses to see close up things. Probably renders all these VR headset non-starters.
Focal distance of VR displays is fixed at something like 6 feet. If you can see that distance clearly IRL without glasses VR will work just fine.
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I've wondered about an electronic lens that people would program in a prescription for. Doesn't seem impossible, but I don't think we have the materials yet.
Wonder if an electrostatic force acting on two liquids might work? Then the interface layer would be the surface to adjust. I don't know enough about the physics of lenses honestly.
Even adjusting the eye width setting on previous versions felt annoying, and I don't wear glasses (in part because they hurt my eyes). I never felt sure I'd locked in the
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No thanks (Score:1)
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Also mod parent up +2 + -3i.
Let's say you try virtual reality and decide you don't like it. How can you tell you got out?
Oldfangled reality-based reality shall have to suffice for me.
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Because we're not at the Matrix level, nor even at the NerveGear [fandom.com]-level yet (Sword Art Online).
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If you were in a low-rez virtual reality, but it included lower rez virtual realities... Depends on what you're used to.
Turtles all the way down.
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if you can't tell the difference why should it matter?
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Because the BOFH may start playing head games...
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he does that all the time, we get along with drugs and occasionally tinfoil hats.
So they are behind (Score:2)
Re: So they are behind (Score:2)
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Considering the HTC Vive Pro 2 was released a year ago with a 2448x2448 per eye (3 arc minutes/pixel) they seem to be playing catch-up.
How so? The article makes no mention of resolution. You're assuming they are playing catchup rather than leapfrog. Also resolution is only a small part of the equation. The HTC Vive Pro 2 is like several other displays of it's class, a basic "throw bigger numbers in to solve one problem" style display.
It doesn't do foveated rendering, eye tracking, it is tethered to what needs to be a pretty powerful computer with a GPU that has quite a fast fill rate.
Pretending they would be somehow remarkable for getting near that limit sometime in the near future is just them trying to fake you into thinking they are doing something important.
Yeah a company which has spent over a decade pouring ser
So fucking what (Score:2)
Even if they were giving them away, I wouldn't want any since I never want to have a goddamn Facebook account. Fuck them, and fuck Oculus for selling out to the fucking devil.
All my hopes rely on Valve (Deckard) and/or "Apple iReality", the last one being probably too limited in content and way too expensive - and I say that as a MacBook, iPhone, Apple TV and Apple Watch owner/user.
Finally!! (Score:2)
Myopia for all! (Score:2)
https://opto.ca/eye-health-lib... [opto.ca]
What happens when human eyes are made to focus on extremely-close targets for extended periods of time? Won't we all develop myopia?
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myopia fits nicely with diabetes and compulsion. embrace evolution!
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What happens when human eyes are made to focus on extremely-close targets for extended periods of time?
When wearing a VR headset you eye doesn't focus on anything close at all. It focuses on the natural distance of 1.5m, the same distance you focus at when you sleep, or get tired eyes.
Hint: VR headsets have lenses.
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20000 nits? (Score:1)
I remember near-letter quality (Score:2)
It sucked.