First Project Morpheus Impressions: Quite Similar To Oculus Rift

"We gathered the very first impressions on Project Morpheus from those lucky people who were able to try it at GDC. Apparently, it's quite similar in most regards to the Oculus Rift, but it was able to impress anyway."

[Festano]

I'm curious to try it. I do not understand why Oculus Rift can not work on the next Gen consoles.

[diehardmetallicafan]

i agree and also wonder why oculus 'wont' work on consoles?

[kingduqc]

Cause console can't handle high res and high framerate and are not flexible.

[Robochobo]

Hardware limitations. Oculus needs games to run at a minimum of 90 FPS, while displaying 3D image on a 1080p plane, and rendering that twice for each eye. You still have to factor in that OR is looking for a 90Hz+ refresh rate at a FOV of 110 and you can see why it won't work with either the PS4 or XBO.

It's not so much that OR can't work with next gen consoles, as much that next gen consoles can't work with OR.

[SteamPowered]

Very well put Robochobo.

[boskoz]

well said

[Scatpants]

The screen is cut in half so it really needs to render half 1080p twice.

[justSumDood]

90 FPS minimum?
I'm not sure where you get your information, but I've yet to use ANY software with the Rift running at 90 FPS.

[dcj0524]

PS4&Xbox One are too weak.

[karamsoul]

I'm just glad to see that Sony's getting in on the virtual reality bandwagon as well. More competition can only mean better innovation as this new industry grows.

[AgentSmithPS4]

So far it's all good news to me.

It looks good near to far, 3D audio, comfortable, etc.
You could obviously spend more to get more elsewhere but I'd buy it as it is right now and could care less if the graphics have to be reduced a bit in some games for it to be smooth, it's the combination of all the parts that make the experience great.

[Imp0ssibl3]

Glad to hear people are impressed with it, although I don't know how many games will be able to run at 60FPS with this on the PS4.

Virtual reality doesn't sound too appealing at 30 FPS.

[ABizzel1]

It's more likely that games running at 30fps will use VR as a second screen of sorts.

Example. Batman Arkham Knight might be 1080p @ 30fps on the new consoles (although 60 fps could be possible depending on how much more demanding it is than Arkham City which could do 1080p @ 60fps Ultra FXAA on PS4).

There are two ways I see this working:

1. The Oculus way, which would mean 30fps games won't have full VR support. In a game like Batman it would probably be used for added features and effects for immersion. For example when going into detective mode, it enters first person and you can look around the environment and the VR visor displays the game world how detective mode looks. Another example would be allowing the visor to see things that aren't normally in the game world, say you can't find your way out of a room, you put the VR visor on and there's a vent highlighted which helps you escape. These are smart and creative ways to add to the immersion and the experience, even if full head-tracking isn't supported.

2. The other way I see this work is in the same way as Vita Remote play. The image is streamed from the PS4 to the VR visor and like the Vita everything is automatically running at 30fps. It's an easy, cheap, and simple way to get the image to the visor and all that's left is adding head tracking controls. This is probably best for first person games, and the main problem is the potential of latency from streaming the image.

[starchild]

One of the most important requirements for VR is low latency (below 20ms). Streaming would never work as it has a tremendous amount of latency. Even local streaming such as seen in Vita Remote Play or Nvidia Shield still produce a total latency on the order of 100 to 200ms. And that is at resolutions much lower than the 1080p minimum needed for good VR.

Games will have to be specifically made to work in VR. 30fps games will have to have special VR modes where the graphics are stripped down in order to hit a solid 60fps. Otherwise VR-only games will have to be built from the ground up in order to hit those performance levels.

@justSumDood below

That is simply not true. Framerate has a dramatic effect on the VR experience. As someone who has used the Rift and experimented with capping the framerate at 30fps all I can say is that such a low framerate is horrible for VR. Oculus is complete correct when they say 60fps is the minimum framerate necessary for VR.

First of all, in order to achieve a believable sense of presence in a virtual space latency must be extremely low. Oculus is shooting for latency below 20ms.

Now, at 60fps each frame is produced in 16.7ms. So at 60fps we already have a minimum of 16.7ms of latency and that only leaves 3.3ms for all of the other latency in the pipeline. Achieving this is extremely difficult.

30fps produces 33.3ms of latency right off the bat. This latency is way too much and already destroys much of the immersion right off the bat.

But on top of the latency (the time from when you turn your head to when you see your perspective change in the virtual space) 30fps is also simply too blurry and stuttery. 30fps doesn't result in enough temporal resolution to trick the brain into believing that what you are seeing is real.

30fps might seem ok when you are staring at a HDTV several feet out in front of you, but when it is your "vision" itself that seems to be blurring and juddering it is a completely different thing. It destroys the immersion and the sense of really being in another place.

[justSumDood]

30 FPS doesn't change the VR experience whatsoever.

[rpvenom]

good news is that both oculus and sony are in dev kit stages and improvements will be happening to perfect the final build. i'm excited to see what the final product will be like and i'm definitely buying it for sure. question now is which one.. i really do hope they provide the possibilty to use the oculus on consoles if it is the better product. too bad sony didn't just buy oculus out then it would definitely be top notch with sony's money and oculus already seemingly perfected vr headset.

[XiSasukeUchiha]

Good job Sony and Oculus for bring VR to the home with 60fps games on the way!

[SteamPowered]

Sony gets the Gold Star. Glad to hear its comfortable.

[boskoz]

yep!

[Pillsbury1]

I really want to try that 3D audio because its one of the senses that really puts you in the game. I loved playing TLoU with headphones in the dark, it really put you in that world.

[kingduqc]

Anyone interested in VR Should look at the rift and not bother with sony's one imo. Much lesser experience. Specially in 2-3 years where we see the second or third iteration (when it start getting great)
Sony's vr will be stuck in time due to hardware limitation.

engaget's impression clearly state those flaws already.

[justSumDood]

I'm going to ignore your bad advice and get both.

[TheUltimateGamer]

Looking forward to seeing where this project goes.. I hope the Oculus doesn't get buried by it though.

[GamingTruth]

the funniest thing is pc nerds talking 'hardware limitations' on a hardware created BY SONY for SONYS product thats the funny thing all powerful pcs still cant run ps3 and 4 exclusives makes me question all this 'not powerful enough to weak for oculus rift talk'

[citizenzeus]

The PS4 is a PC in a way, and its not that the PC can't play ps4 games because its not powerful enough, is because its not programmed to. This is comparable to windows vs apple specific programs.

[GamingTruth]

it can play ps4 games but they will look like Mario for nes

[odderz]

I think most people would be more than happy to play a game that only looks *slightly* better than current gen, as long as it's 1080p60FPS VR.

There's no point in aiming for 30FPS VR, that a one-way ticket to either eye strain or headaches.

Curious about the difference between 720p and 1080p on VR though. On my big telly the difference between the two is fairly clear, but is the difference that pronounced on a headset screen?

If anyone can answer that please do.