Sony: Project Morpheus has ‘A Bit More Blur’ Than Desired

VRFocus - Sony Computer Entertainment’s (SCE) Project Morpheus virtual reality (VR) headset for PlayStation 4 is currently in its prototype stages, and has a long way to go before it reaches a consumer level. That said, the model the company revealed earlier this year is still an impressive piece of kit with its positional tracking and 1080p display. So how does SCE hope to improve the headset for its next iteration?

[Bennibop]

Needs to have OLED screen

[Dolf045]

Would be great if they could, keeping the price point down might make it hard though

[PeaSFor]

"currently in its prototype stages"

thats the important part.

[jnemesh]

Nah, the difference in price would probably be negligible for Sony...especially as these screens are being mass produced for cell phone use. In quantity, I would guess somewhere around $10 more expensive than an LCD screen.

[Dolf045]

@jnemesh

Really? Don't have a clue myself on the cost other than OLED is a more expensive proposition. I was making the assumption due to the downgrade of the Vita screen to reduce build cost and I'm nearly sure there was discussion about OLED for Morpheus at GDC due to Occulus having less blur at that stage too. It was a while ago though so couldn't for the life of me remember where I was reading it, could be mistaken

[Giul_Xainx]

The original ps vita came with an oled screen. And usually the screen doesn't cost that much.... however considering this is going to be less than 2 feet away from your eyes..... I hope it doesn't cause any eye sight problems in the future like the r zone, or virtual boy did all those years ago.

[zeee]

I hope they take their time with this. I'd rather Sony work out all the kinks before they launch it. I'm really excited for vr so long it doesn't give me headache, motion sickness and the price of course

[Dolf045]

@zeee

Completely agree man, if their going to do it, do it right. If they don't it'll just end up another peripheral!

[snookiegamer]

@Bennibop

'Needs to have OLED screen'

Two classic PS Vita's, some duct tape and a pair of headphones and I'm good!

Jokes :)

[Perjoss]

You say 'jokes' but that's exactly how these 2 billion dollar projects get started. Apparently a bit of chewing gum and duct tape can go a long way :)

[ravinash]

...and 2 billion dollars gets you a lot of duct tape.

[WMANUW]

Even with these oled! For now OLED is not suitable for video games, oled suffer from burn-in. That's why Sony has also changed the screen psvita.

[HollowedSoul14]

no they changed it for production yields.(hence the price drop bundled with the lcd psp that was incredibly oversaturated and washed out ) there's ways around burn in. the morpheus has to be oled. it cant give the OR that kind of edge early on. i dont know about you but id rather not have to put up with the pc elitiest bragginng about the fact the OR has less blur and how lcd sucks for VR

[WMANUW]

@Hollowedsoul14
But you know what you're talking about? Do you know which technology is the OLED ? You know that technology is LCD? You know the pros and cons of the two technologies?You know what is the best for gameing? You just put the vote in disagreement but no one argued. The burn-in is the fatal flaw for gamers (who have plasma knows what im talking ), and OLED (for now) suffers greatly from this problem, lcd no! Almost never. The blur can be addressed by many methods as you did on TV and who owns a Sony TV know what I mean, for example:Led motion. The burn-in is inevitable ... Sony has taken it mainly because it was not the real savings in the cost of the OLED, but even because people were burning before the display is changed in the Sony warranty. Now with lcd problem solved ... Who is a true fan of tv and screens know what I mean, lcd for gameing are irreplaceable, ask.

[LamerTamer]

The thing is that pixel lag in LCDs is not suitable for VR. I have it on my Sony Bravia TV. When you turn quickly in a FPS the whole screen will blur out a bit. No good for VR, it will make you puke. There are tricks to reduce blur on LCD, but still it isn't eliminated. LED strobing has other downsides like dark picture.

Also the inability of LCD to do pure black is an issue. In VR where everything is dark, you will see the LC backlight bleed-through. It will appear as if you are always walking in a fog. No good either.

As far as burn in that can be vastly reduced if done right. As of now the color that is a problem with longevity is blue. The other colors are pretty much OK. The solution is simple, don't have static HUDs always on screen. If you do need to have them use colors that have no blue in them. Since this will not be on for 8 hours a day like a TV you will get a long use out of it before you see any color shift.

The reason they won't end up with OLED boils down to cost. OLED is still very expensive. Sony sells an HMD now for 3D movies. It uses OLED screens but is $1000.00!

[HollowedSoul14]

@WMANUW umm how about you play any game on the panisonic ZT60 than tell me gaming on plasma isnt good you're full of crap and you're stuck living in the plasma dark ages. playing infamous second son on the ZT60 was incredible. use the vita with the oled screen than the lcd lol lcd is rubbish in comparison....if OR picked OLED for gaming it means its the best sony just picked lcd because it was cheaper. lcds arent as good as you make them out to be...OLED tvs are the future and lcd are dated cheap technology that couldnt display a true black if its life depended on it. Panasonic ax902 isnt going to beat the zt60 for colors. LCDS have their reason for being common right now but the best quality is not one of them its the best price. I repeat overall OLED/plasma is superior than lcd/led....facts are facts ever seen the lg 55inch OLED tv tell me a plasma or lcd/led tv looks better. at visions the lg oled tv went onsale for $4500.00 savings of $5500.00 so thats proof prices will go down.....you're oled/plasma burn in fear propaganda is severly dated. if you take care of the tv its fine. and even with minor burn in still looks better than any lcd/led.....you've just been ZT60'd.....that is all.

[XiSasukeUchiha]

Oled would equal perfection my friend.

[hkgamer]

I've read somewhere that OLED isn't that great for gaming, though it is really good for smaller screens.
So not 100% sure what is actually good.

OLED is a little expensive and it seems like Sony has stopped producing OLED screens. Using Samsung AMOLED screens is also a bad idea since the price is high and the colour saturation sucks.

[S2Killinit]

I've heard the same thing somewhere. but also heard oculus uses it and that its better. not sure what is the benefits and disadvantages of both.

[WMANUW]

OLED has slightly better video quality but suffers from some flaws that render it unfit for gameing burn-in and durability. then also the OLED suffer from a slight blur, the LCD can improve this problem with the electronics in recent years has improved a lot. Forget what they say in the forums, read reviews from professionals and see what they say. Unfortunately, for now, OLED is not good for game, maybe in the future. Good visual quality but still too many problems.

OLEDs have good visual quality, better blacks, good colors (not always have some oversaturi)
But suffer burnin and short durability.
The LCD has a worse overall quality but it not suffer from those flaws so annoying for gamers. Suffer from other problems, however, are much more tolerable for video games.

Now .Better for game ? Lcd .better for cinema? Plasma . Future ? Oled and other.

[LamerTamer]

The color saturation of OLED is best. LCDs look washed out in comparison. If OLED looks too saturated it is because they aren't calibrated right. The OLEDs in phones are not calibrated correctly for games and movies, they are set to "pop" but not for realism. That can all be adjusted in software for Morpheus.

Burn in wouldn't be an issue if they don't display static images or overdrive the brightness.

[jivah]

I wonder whats the issue thats stopping companies from making a true successor to crt monitors. Its still unmatched in many ways

[WickedLester]

What it needs is to be smaller. A lot of people didn't want to embrace 3D because they didn't want to wear glasses while watching TV. How do you think they're going to react to having to wear something like this?? Honestly, until VR head gear can be reduced down to something like a pair of sunglasses, it will never be a mass market item.

[Sano64]

@ Bennibop

I wonder if they still make any. It was a big letdown when they switched back to LCD for the Vita.

[snookiegamer]

'A bit more Blur than desired'?

...Damon Albarn will be disappointed ;(

[Jdoki]

Throw in a bit of Pulp as well and I'm good to go.

[snookiegamer]

Lool...and there was me thinking not many people would 'get it' :)

Edit

I see the Grinchers are down voting again. No sense of humour. Actually...No Sense ;/

@Kevco33

Hey, I'm American! ...but I'm currently in London, England in the University Library wasting time on N4G, like right now, this minute ;)

[kevco33]

@snookiegamer The US aren't awake right now. Brits rule this comments section!

[hay]

@kevco33: Be careful to not rule those disagrees too hard :D

[mogwaii]

They want more oasis and less blur

[Darkstares]

It definitely needs more cowbell.

[Sloth-Eater]

Definitely Maybe.

[Kurylo3d]

occulous solved its motion blur problem with its latest version... Oh wait the article already mentioned that.

[pornflakes]

This peace of hardware will bring Sony another losses and falling shares, mark my words.

The idea is great but the world is not ready for this but according to N4G members everybody of them will buy it :D

[amiga-man]

What a naive narrow view you have, do you really think facebook would have spent 2 billion buying out occulus if they couldn't see a future in VR?

Gaming is just one aspect to VR and it's still early days, VR will take off not saying it will be Morpheus or occulus or even to do with gaming but it has a future and Sony's experience will be invaluable to them in understanding it's potential and future developments

[Ulf]

Oculus is a PC device. The Sony VR headset may be proprietary.

PC gamers have a lot more money to throw around than console gamers -- that's kinda the point of a console. If this headset is PS4-specific, Sony will indeed have trouble selling it if the pricetag is near that of the PS4 itself. Ironically, if they make it DirectX compatible via some MS standard, it will likely also be usable on the XB1, which lessens its impact as a Sony "thing".

[Destiny1080]

are we talking xbox one level of blur because that would be a total flop

[DJustinUNCHAIND]

Kinda like your comment.

[Bzone24]

A swing and a miss.

[BABY-JEDI]

Well it's good that they have acknowledged that it's is an issue. Hopefully later iterations are above par.
Ps. Blur are better than Oasis
; P

[LightofDarkness]

Didn't they say recent;y that the hardware is now complete? As in there will be no further revisions. I hope not, because this does not bode well. Occulus identified motion blur as one of the larger immersion breaking problems with VR displays. I do recall reading comments from someone who has long worked with Morpheus that there has been an internal struggle between those who want to market the best VR device they can, i.e. the developers and engineers, and the investors/shareholders who want to see a return on investment and an affordable product on shelves now. I believe he said the price difference between both options is around $100, but the extra money went a long way in improving the device.

Obviously, a $299 device seems more attractive than a $399 one, but it would not be a "good enough" product in the eyes of the developers, and some might see it as a missed opportunity to release the cheaper one. By the sounds of this, it looks like the shareholders won this one.

Link:
http://n4g.com/news/1531210...

[D-riders]

Well adding old screens shouldn't raise the price that much

[ninjahunter]

Well, blur isn't the worst thing to ever happen, on one hand it can reduce aliasing, while on the other hand details will be lacking.

From what ive heard the Oculus is having the exact opposite problem of the overly defined display being so close that it causes things that "Cannot be unseen once you notice".

Of course its all a matter of preference, some people like being able to see the pores in a characters face while others like things like lighting and tone which are all affected differently.

[johny5]

Maybe be this will finally be the push they need to make games with a higher resolution then 1080p like 1600p or 2160p, even if they look like previous gen games the VR experience would be much more immersive.

Also Sony should do what Nvidia did to enable 4k at 60fps so they can finally release some arcade games on the PS4 to test the waters, that's how 1080p started anyways...

[XtraTrstrL]

I thought they already said the hardware was finalized now, I'd be happy to know it isn't though, and that it's still adjusting and upgrading - like Oculus is. You don't wanna rush something like this, they wanna just get it perfect since they have to basically build it once and run with that hardware for the lifespan of the console.

[Ulf]

So.. VR really needs 60 Hz, and these babies are 1080p? VR requires rendering the geometry of a scene twice, from two different camera viewpoints, as well -- that eats extra GPU horses.

If you can't achieve 60 Hz in the usual manner, you can achieve 60 Hz by dropping rez(!), or by adding latency and interpolating frames... both of which result in blur, and latency, of course, is extra bad for VR. Gonna be rough for VR devs to make anything too spectacular on current console hardware. People need to cut back their expectations for VR on anything but PC.

That said, I hope Sony is smart enough to make their headset PC compatible, and not try to force people into using it on Sony hardware only. I don't think many people will bite, at the inevitable $300+ pricetag, if they can't use it on PC as well as PS4.

[jnemesh]

The screens are 960x1080 (half of the horizontal resolution of a TV screen), so rendering both isn't going to be an issue for the PS4.

Sony has told developers to target "PS3 level" graphics, then tweak up from there to ensure a solid 60fps frame rate...for VR, the frame rate being rock solid 60fps is more important than any other consideration...otherwise you get motion sickness.

Bottom line, as long as the developers take care, there is no problem with the PS4s hardware keeping up with this tech.

And no, Sony has no plans on making this PC compatible. They are aiming for a "plug-and-play" VR experience for the mass market. If you want PC compatibility, get an Oculus Rift. Personally, I think Sony will have NO problems whatsoever if this comes out as a $300-$400 add on to the PS4.

[user5669510]

ORift devs stated you need a min 90 hz. Dont worry Sony is just going to follow their lead and copy what ever they do. And its not the same as rendering a game just because 2 halves of horizontal 1080p displays.

Wish the best luck to Sony but I'm not going to be blind and say if it launch at the same price of the ps4ps4 its not going to be any problems . Lol when console gamers complain the most about the price of a better experience but than pay for skin or a couple of maps getting nickeled and dimed. This could of been old school vr a lot of people on this site still would have said that

[kingduqc]

Best way to remove blurr is to get a 95hz screen and strobe it and increase the resolution... both are not possible with ps4 hardware so im quite septic about that honestly.

[hkgamer]

I know its nvidias tech, but wouldn't something like g sync solve the problem with display lag? or have i jsut bought into Nvidias PR bullshit?

[WickedLester]

What it needs is to be smaller. A lot of people didn't want to embrace 3D because they didn't want to wear glasses while watching TV. How do you think they're going to react to having to wear something like this?? Honestly, until VR head gear can be reduced down to something like a pair of sunglasses, it will never be a mass market item.