The Oculus dev kit does a good job of that itself. I've demo'd mine to about 6 people and all got sick. One of my friends laid down on the floor for a good 30 minutes after. I know my limits, the first few times required taking off my shirt and blasting the air conditioner as I was drenched in a cold sweat. Yet it asks you to return, its a feeling I can only relate to with lucid dreaming. The Oculus and truly immersive VR is one of those forces, once its released will just flatten everything in its path. Nothing will return this cat to the bag.

My question, is the PS4 going to be able to handle rendering its existing games x2? Michael Abrash's presentation was pretty clear that the Oculus and its competitors would really be pushing the PC's requirements and laid out exactly why.

Yes, but that's the original dev kit launched in 2012. Their current prototypes don't do that anymore, and they're still a year away from launch. Oculus is worried Sony didn't solve that. Sony just announced the device will use LCD instead of OLED. Oculus picked OLED for its low persistence which greatly reduces the nausea effect. We'll see. Sony's device is probably coming out next year, too.

And no, I think most VR PS4 games will be made at 720p@60fps. You might see some indie ones at 1080p. PS4's hardware is barely enough for VR, but should be sufficient for a decent experience. The worst part about it is that Sony won't be able to upgrade it until PS5, while Oculus will move on to 4k displays in a few years, 120Hz, better optics, and so on.

yeah I find it incredibly hard to believe that the ps4 can push 2 x 5" 1080p displays, with the necessary latency to give a real sense of presence, as the the parlance now is.

I can only assume that if the SDK is being made soon then devs may well have had time with it. I am really looking forward to hearing about their experiences.

I believe the dev kit contains 1x1080p display but renders a different view on each half of the screen.

> PS4 going to be able to handle rendering its existing games x2

Well, yeah, at 10fps. Currently if the PS4 outputs 1080p it drops the framerate to 30.

You message doesn't make sense at all if you don't specify in what game, the PS4 is entirely able to output in 1080p at higher framerate.

For reference, metal gear solid 5 renders at 60 fps in 1080p on the PS4, and that is "with room to spare" according to the dev team (the weaker xbox one only delivers it in 720p).

http://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2014/02/MGS-...

The image linked in the comment above comes from Konami's Current Gen/Next Gen comparison page for Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes: http://www.konami.jp/mgs5/gz/en/products/compare.php5

> Currently if the PS4 outputs 1080p it drops the framerate to 30

"On launch games"

Go look at a launch PS2 or launch PS3 game then come back

Yes, or, they are afraid that history will repeat itself yet again.

-Consoles make inferior version of something that can be done so much better on PC. -People buy up the inferior version one cause they apparently have no problem with being stuck for a decade on hardware/games that will never change. -Developers make so much money from that bargain basement segment that they only care about the console version and if they feel like it, port it over to PC as is. Without any refinement whatsoever.

When did that ever happen before you ask? With games in general, of course.

Most recent example: DICE developed a shield as DLC for Battlefield 4. Should have been shield in one hand, pistol in the other. But!, since that would take ONE MEGABYTE OF ADDITIONAL RAM it was scrapped cause the dumb kiddie consoles can't handle that "enormous" additional load. Instead you only get the shield which is now held "in both hands"!

No problem right? Just gimp the console version and do it right on PC. Wrong. DICE is hell bend on keeping the tradition of giving the PC gamers the finger alive and just shells out this crutch on all systems.

Yeah, if these console people really have to enter the VR business, I already know how that will turn out for the one system that is best equipped to do gaming. And that is very very badly. Unless Oculous also enters the game development in a big way and more developers with the correct focus like Bohemia Interactive come forth, PC will get hosed again.

Prime Examples for developers with the wrong focus would be again, DICE and of course Rockstar who have nor problem putting GTAIV on sale on Steam now, even though who knows what will happen once the gfwl servers are shut down. And of course, nobody needs to talk about GTAV on PC. They made enough money with the cheap console version. Why should they even do a poor port to PC? Let alone maybe take some pride in their work and do things right and make the PC version really push the envelope.

> People buy up the inferior version one cause they apparently have no problem with being stuck for a decade on hardware/games that will never change.

I hear that a lot from bitter PC gamers. It's just as valid to say "People buy up consoles because they want to just be able to play some damn games without worrying about hardware upgrades and framerates and heat dissipation."

(I have a 360 and a high-end gaming PC. I am platform-agnostic. I just like games.)

>It's just as valid to say "People buy up consoles because they want to just be able to play some damn games without worrying about hardware upgrades and framerates and heat dissipation.

Except that it is not. HW upgrades have not been an issue for a loooong time. Example, I still run a non i3/5/7 intel CPU and a mid range nvidia and have no problem getting a gaming experience that is at the very least on par with consoles. And if we look at the FPS I get, it is far superior.

If you check now just how many generation of iX CPUs there are and I am still running something from before that, you know that upgrades are not that vital anymore. And I just mention the CPU as it is still the biggest cost factor in a PC. Along with the GPU which I also stated is years old and was mid range when I bought it to begin with.

And I could just enjoy games with that PC if the games I get wouldn't be horribly ported messes of what often looks like copy/paste from the console codebase.

If only the developers would finally employ two separate teams for their games. One camp can focus on the consoles all they want. I don't give a damn. As long as there is one separate team solely focusing on the PC version. This whole thing would go away. No more PC/Console wars. No more animosity or the repeated question "why can't we all just get along?". We could get along if one platform would finally stop getting the short end of the stick. And in the past, that platform was always the PC. Which, incidentally should answer just why PC gamers have such a low opinion of console gamers. It is the direct result of console gamers flooding the market and shoving so much money down the developers throats that they can't help but go where the money is. And just go there period.

Just look at the "new" consoles. Spec based a mid range PC from a couple of years ago. But in comparison so much "advanced" when looking at the old consoles. And now what? Suddenly 60fps is "soo awesome". 1080p FTW etc pp. Before? Couldn't care less when PC gamers were telling them how great it is. And the fact this was possible for the last decade. "Not needed", you'd hear. "I don't care", you'd hear. But throw them this past decade tech in console form and they cheer. Not realizing that this is it for them for the next ten years.

Bohemia gets it. No console version of Arma3. Could focus solely on their PC version and it is great. No tradeoffs. No cutting corners by just taking the dumbed down assets instead of working on PC specific ones that highlight its capabilities.

As someone with an R290 and 4670K that's hard to believe.

Plus I probably spent $2500 on this setup. Started out as a miner. Went through three cases (NZXT -> Corsair 300R -> Bitfenix Prodigy), three motherboards (Asus MA97-2 -> Asrock Fatal1ty Killer -> Asrock Z87E-ITX), three CPUs (Sempron 145 -> FX-4130 -> Intel 4670), replaced the 2x2GB of RAM with 2x4GB, added a 1TB SSHD, sold reference R290's, got an XFX R290-DD, several USB WiFi adapters (all junk, bought an Airport Express and extended the ethernet reach instead), Keyboard, Mouse, Gamepad, Corsair fans (loud, low flow), NZXT fans (ok-ish, high flow), Phantek fans (high flow, really loud), Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO...

The list goes on. It's a hobby. And I like some things about it. But it's not a cheap one, and while you might have more sense than me in knowing what you ultimately want, more PC gamers than not have the upgrade bug IME. A valid Windows license alone is 25% of the price of a PS4. Just my current CPU is over half the price. All together I could've bought a PS4 for what I've spent on CPUs.

"My computer is more powerful than your console, so that means it's more fun! Can't you see that I'm having more fun than you?!? Hey! Stop having fun right now!"

Yeah, shitty PC ports of console games are a problem, I'll totally agree with that. Of course, they're also a tiny percentage of all PC games. It's not like there's not other stuff for you to play. And whose fault is it that there are shitty PC ports? Well, the publishers looking for a quick buck--oh no, silly me, it's the console gamers! Their gamepad-clutching fingers are pulling the strings of a Machiavellian global network designed expressly to ruin your fun!

Jesus Christ. The Xbox fans hate the Sony fans, and the Windows fans hate the Apple fans, and the PC fans hate the console fans, oh, the black folks hate the white folks, and the white folks hate the black folks, all of my folks hate all of your folks, it's American as apple pie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgASBVMyVFI&t=0m44s There's gotta be someone I can blame for my burnt toast and my broken shoelace.

Get your shit together and get worked up about something that matters.

And in the mean time, play some games, have fun, and stop stressing so much!

I think the main fear here is that a bad VR experience - and one of the fastest ways to do that is not having the hardware and features (ie a screen with low persistence) needed to drive vr - will kill the technology for consumers.

heat dissipation is arguably a much bigger problem on consoles.

It's certainly a problem, but it's not your problem. Until your 360 RROD, of course.

Still, the PS4/XB1, like previous consoles, were designed with heat dissipation in mind. If you build your own PC once you go off the beaten path you're going to have to be careful.

> Consoles make inferior version of something that can be done so much better on PC

That's a bit of a blanket statement, no?

The PC controller market has been rife with crap. 3rd-party console controllers were equally sucky. Even Microsoft's PC controllers weren't that great.

These days, you could get by with a Logitech controller. But by and large if you want to game with a controller on a a PC you're going to use a wired 360 controller.

Yeah that's not how it works. You use a game controller on a console because that's all they have.

There's nothing a controller can do, that a simple mouse and keyboard can't do better.

Now you'll say you are kick-butt with a controller and terrible with a PC. But that's because of the 10000 hours you've spent on a console.

The user-bandwidth available thru a mouse and keyboard is like an order of magnitude higher than a controller with bang-bang 'joysticks'. There's a reason online gaming separates PC clients from console clients. Just watch the console users trudging around a virtual landscape like a tank, turning jerkily and aiming erratically. Then watch a mouse virtuoso leap about like a ninja and literally run circles around the console folks.

>There's nothing a controller can do, that a simple mouse and keyboard can't do better.

Analog control for a flight sim or racing game. Mouse and keyboard is absolute shit for those.

Platformers also really aren't great.

Fighting games too. You can argue that a fight stick is preferred, but a controller is an order of magnitude better than a keyboard.

> m-m-muh m-master race

> muh gaben

Which is arguably what they'd say no matter what they thought. Not that Oculus doesn't have a lot going for it, but as a startup I'd be nervous to see a much larger company that makes both a game console and display technology push their own alternative.

But I guess there is not much lock-in effect - except for the current Oculus SDK, so hopefully games will start using a platform neutral one soon - and the market is potentially huge, so competition can also have a lot of pros.

I don't think there's much overlap.

Sony's VR will be PS4-only for a long time, perhaps forever.

The Oculus will be disallowed from the PS4 by Sony, probably forever.

Honestly, I don't think they're really worried about the competition. They have Jon Carmack, enough said.

The Oculus SDK is open-source, so it wouldn't be too hard.

> motion sickness

The hardware doesn't matter; some people just cannot stand certain forms of stimulation-without-movement that occurs with virtual reality. I can't play FPS or watch videos containing lots of movement on large screens for this reason, and I doubt the experience would be any different for VR; if anything, making the graphics more realistic would exacerbate the situation.

The hardware does matter. There will be VR games that don't induce motion sickness in anyone, because they don't involve movement at all (other than actual movement of your real head, reflected 1:1 in the virtual world). When people think of VR they naively imagine virtual Call of Duty, but that's not going to happen the way people imagine it. FPS is a genre designed for traditional screens; VR will require new genres. I doubt ports of traditional FPS games to VR will even be very popular.

Precisely. Simulation and piloting games will be the prime target for VR, which are coincidentally my favorite genres. I can't wait to try flight sims (e.g. DCS Warthog) and piloting games (e.g. Star Citizen). It will be a whole new experience, with no motion sickness potential whatsoever.

> …with no motion sickness potential whatsoever.

Who's making such a claim about VR? People who think Michael Abrash made this claim simply didn't read his white paper closely enough. Here's what he said:

> …VR may be best with slow movement and a lot of up-close interaction, in which case we’ll have to learn how to create fun games around that.

Longer quote and more discussion in my earlier comment on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7249118

There's always motion sickness potential. When you move your head there is a delay before the image on the screen updates; make this small enough and you won't notice, make it large enough and the world will appear laggy and unresponsive.

It's definitely less likely to cause sickness than some of the other genres, but not guaranteed safe.

> When you move your head there is a delay before the image on the screen updates; make this small enough and you won't notice

Hence why hardware does matter

>The hardware doesn't matter; some people just cannot stand certain forms of stimulation-without-movement that occurs with virtual reality

While it won't help every case, for the vast majority the motion sickness is alleviated when the head tracking is better (accurate positional tracking and low latency).

You can make pretty much anyone feel sick if you add enough lag to the display.

Apparently a lot of people who were getting motion sickness from the first occulus dev kit are now fine with the latest hardware. It turns the screen off after the frame is displayed so the amount of time that you are looking at something that is simply not right is extremely small. All the reviews say it makes a huge difference to people who got bad motion sickness.

i'd have to guess the hardware to some extent, and at least the algorithms applied on top of it, can make a difference in many cases.

that is to say, you can probably not eliminate motion sickness entirely in all cases, but without care it's probably not hard to catalyze either.

It's like when IBM got into the personal computer market. They made it a legitimate business and created a bigger market for personal computers.

It wasn't very good for Apple, though...

I'd say it was quite good for Apple.

Without IBM, Lisa with its 10k price tag might have actually won out over Mac. That is, Apple would have made Lisa their business computer and not even bothered pushing Mac. (see folklore.org et al)

At the time, Apple II was not considered business level hardware (although people used it for business, ie VisiCalc).

Without IBM entering PC market, the micro revolution would have taken a few years longer.

Interesting viewpoint. I got the impression that the Lisa just wasn't a very good computer, and not worth the price, but maybe you're right.

Why do you say that? Apple was big in the 1980's.

Because the IBM PC and compatibles ended up running away with the market.

That's because, as Steve Jobs put it, Apple squandered a 10 year lead on Windows. You still have to show up and compete.

If you look at the market now, Apple is the most profitable "PC" maker.

3..2..1..

Oh common, I have one semi "reddit-like" post about a real opinion and you can't put 2 and 2 together? Are my downvotes faith in Sony corp?

Your comment adds nothing to the discussion and thus a downvote. (my own comment does the same, but I hope people recognize `my attempt to educate` = `better community` = `more value to discussion`)