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TR: The PlayStation VR2 would be better off without eye tracking

Minsc

Gold Member
What. Eye tracking is the best thing about it. At least something interesting.
Shame about fresnel lenses

Isn't it true that there are some plus sides to the lenses besides cost? Don't they help with the HDR or color or something? I feel like I read there's some benefit alongside the OLED HDR-ness besides just being cheap (and not as good). Either way, it's still a pretty good package/step up from the prior model - from everything I've read.
 

Rudius

Member
"I was really disappointed to see that Horizon Call of the Mountain only uses eye-tracking technology for menu navigation."

It is used for dynamic foveated rendering, allowing for the graphics you see in game.

But we can't expect journalists to investigate and understand the subject matter of their reporting.
 

Portugeezer

Member
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lukilladog

Member
Carmack offers a very good explanation as to why foveated rendering is not the holy grail, as quoted in that article, but of course its easier to dismiss all of that as a stupid take, no surprise.
 
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Mr.Phoenix

Member
"I was really disappointed to see that Horizon Call of the Mountain only uses eye-tracking technology for menu navigation."

It is used for dynamic foveated rendering, allowing for the graphics you see in game.

But we can't expect journalists to investigate and understand the subject matter of their reporting.
That's what gets to me about this shit... how can we know more about these things than some of the people who make it their profession to cover these things? And they say some of the dumbest shit sometimes.

But even worse, they operate in a vacuum... it doesn't take rocket science to be able to look at PSVR2, and compare it with everything else out there, and have an idea how much it should cost and why it costs what it does.

These are the kinda idiots that you can see a brand new limited edition RX4090 to for $299.

Idk, I think these companies need to be more selective of who they send review material to.
 
Carmack offers a very good explanation as to why foveated rendering is not the holy grail, as quoted in that article, but of course its easier to dismiss all of that as a stupid take, no surprise.

To be fair those comments were from 2021.
 
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Brigandier

Member
A total waste of a unit that could have been given to someone who actually has a clue about what the fuck they're talking about.... He's entitled to his opinion it's an absolutely shite opinion and just plain dumb but he's entitled to it.

Edit: Carmack said this carmack said that... Should reviewers just not review units properly anymore and make their own opinions up or just quote him going forward... Let's just not learn what and how FR works and just complain about the price, Honestly these sites need to employ better people the reviews on some tech sites are embarrassingly ill informed
 
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Three

Member
Carmack offers a very good explanation as to why foveated rendering is not the holy grail, as quoted in that article, but of course its easier to dismiss all of that as a stupid take, no surprise.
Carmack talked about latency with eye tracking but he is talking about the Quest and past R&D. He doesn't say it wasn't worth pursuing and we have games with foveated rendering now. His comments were before Quest Pro and PSVR2.
 
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Mr.Phoenix

Member
Carmack offers a very good explanation as to why foveated rendering is not the holy grail, as quoted in that article, but of course its easier to dismiss all of that as a stupid take, no surprise.
To be honest, his comparison of fixed and dynamic foveated rendering makes no sense to me. I can understand him saying that a fixed foveated renderer would only yield about 10% gains, but a dynamic foveated renderer by default does the exact opposite.

Eg, with fixed, you are blurring out the edges of your screens and concentrating on the center. With dynamic + eye-tracking, you are blurring out the whole of the screen and only focusing on the 10-20% of the screen that the person's eyes are fixed on.

Just by that simple layman's explanation can you see why I say what he says doesn't make sense to me?
 
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gothmog

Gold Member
Carmack offers a very good explanation as to why foveated rendering is not the holy grail, as quoted in that article, but of course its easier to dismiss all of that as a stupid take, no surprise.
He offers an explanation but it's thin on proof. I have a ton of respect from him and would have loved for him to go into it more.
 
He offers an explanation but it's thin on proof. I have a ton of respect from him and would have loved for him to go into it more.

It's funny how people will roll with something someone states on the internet. He completely failed at Meta, but for some reason, we think he can speak definitively on another company's strategy and tech.

I think he falls into this larger category of people who keep trying to define for Sony what success looks like for them.

They've guilt out their tech, they've created their price point, they know how many units they need to sell. There is a reason Sony doubled down on VR where they cut out on handheld.

They realize that a big part of the future of PSVR is AAA games with VR modes, games that otherwise wouldn't support VR.

Do they need to sell 5 million units at 600 dollars in year 1? Like where do people come up with this.
 

gothmog

Gold Member
It's funny how people will roll with something someone states on the internet. He completely failed at Meta, but for some reason, we think he can speak definitively on another company's strategy and tech.

I think he falls into this larger category of people who keep trying to define for Sony what success looks like for them.

They've guilt out their tech, they've created their price point, they know how many units they need to sell. There is a reason Sony doubled down on VR where they cut out on handheld.

They realize that a big part of the future of PSVR is AAA games with VR modes, games that otherwise wouldn't support VR.

Do they need to sell 5 million units at 600 dollars in year 1? Like where do people come up with this.
I think it's just losers who think that success in terms of millions or hundreds of millions is a failure because it's not billions. There's no concept that someone might be doing this to push experiences forward without worrying too much about trying to set the world on fire.
 

mckmas8808

Banned
Carmack offers a very good explanation as to why foveated rendering is not the holy grail, as quoted in that article, but of course its easier to dismiss all of that as a stupid take, no surprise.

He's but one man guys. He isn't the holy grail of all tech knowledge. There are other engineers that are just as smart as him or smarter depending on the subject.


Samuel L Jackson Reaction GIF by Coming to America
 
I think it's just losers who think that success in terms of millions or hundreds of millions is a failure because it's not billions. There's no concept that someone might be doing this to push experiences forward without worrying too much about trying to set the world on fire.

I kind of see it as Sony is dabbling in areas where they want to stay relevant.

Is Sony losing billions of dollars on VR like Meta? No, they aren't. Would definitely take anything Carmack says with a grain of salt.

This is probably the deepest Sony has gone towards with their niche hardware, since back in the day with the PS Move.

It only takes one killer app to kind of justify these things, but these killer apps can't come at all if the technology isn't there to begin with.

You look at the ipod, and Sony totally could have created it, but they just weren't thinking in that space. While Sony was focused on minidisc players, the ipod took off. They tried to pivot last minute with atrac digital players, but had they had more experience in the market, they would have realized that atrac wasn't going to beat mp3.

Sony is firmly putting its foot in VR in case VR is the future, they want to be a leader in that space. Hard to do if someone else is best in class before you.
Failed at doing what?
Creating a product that was profitable and sustainable.
 

sachos

Member
Sony not having a major FP showcase of the feature at launch.
What does this mean? Horizon uses foveated rendering, John made an awesome demostration of it on his DF review.

"But I was really disappointed to see that Horizon Call of the Mountain only uses eye-tracking technology for menu navigation. It’s odd to see the headset’s biggest launch game failing to make full use out of one the PSVR 2’s most exciting features." WTF is this shit, is this another reviewer thinking its not working "because i can't see it"?? (the whole point of foveated rendering)
Also, even if it were true its not using foveated rendering, he would still be wrong since they use eye tracking for aim assist and also im pretty sure they use the eye tracking to make the NPC keep eye contact with you while you talk to them. (saw it in a review but can't remember wich one)

9:49
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Can't agree with it either. Without the enhanced graphics the ps5 can offer with foveated rendering, it wouldn't be able to offer a proper version of gt7 or horizon.
You would be taking away one of the biggest reasons to buy psvr2. A cripped psvr for $399 would be a flop.
 

yurinka

Member
What a joke. Beyond adding improvements and additions to the mechanics side, when eyetracked is combined with foveated rendeding it boosts the fps performance in a x3 or x4 scale, something that is much needed for VR.

Eyetracking is one of the reasons of why it can look that good. And a $100 price cut removing eyetracking wouldn't almost boost sales, it would only make the games look way worse.

Has anyone watched movies with this thing? How is it?
I haven't, but it has a virtual cinema screen where you can play any PS5 non-VR content: from movies to non-VR on a big cinema screen.

Considering it has a 4K OLED HDR display with tiny latency, it must look great.
 
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sachos

Member
These guys sure loved foveated rendering

6:19


Although i don't quite get what he means later when he says "we did not see an impact on performance". I think he means they could mantain 90+fps without needing to reduce overall res thanks to foveated rendering.

I just finished reading the article. I mean i get what he is saying but he is basing his argument on a falsehood plus its such a weird negative spin on the tech, you could easily be praising Sony for releasing a headset with better tech and features than a 1500 headset.
 

gothmog

Gold Member
A skeptic, nice. I´m a hardcore one specially when companies try to sell things.
I'm buying a PSVR2 for GT7 and RE8. There's no smoke and mirrors when there are real games. Foveated rendering and eye tracking will either take off or fail. I doubt it will decide the fate of the device as a whole.

It's like getting overly upset that activity cards in the PS5 didn't work out when there's a fantastic library to play.
 

lukilladog

Member
To be honest, his comparison of fixed and dynamic foveated rendering makes no sense to me. I can understand him saying that a fixed foveated renderer would only yed about 10% gains, but a dynamic foveated rendered by default does the exact opposite.

Eg, with fixed, you are blurring out the edges of your screens and concentrating the center. With dynamic + eye-tracking, you are blurring out the whole of the screen and only focusing on the 10-20% of the screen that the person's eyes are fixed on.

Just by that simple layman's explanation can you see why I say what he says doesn't make sense to me?

It all depends on how much of the screen those systems decide to "blurr", and the blurring he talks about is just the natural limitation of a system that cannot possibly predict where your focal point will exactly land in order to get a sharp focal area ready in advance, maybe with some AI training?, I don't know, it seems to me that they are gonna have to increase the focal point big time, and the most demanding games are gonna be bit blurry because they are gonna have to reduce it.
 
Can't agree with it either. Without the enhanced graphics the ps5 can offer with foveated rendering, it wouldn't be able to offer a proper version of gt7 or horizon.
You would be taking away one of the biggest reasons to buy psvr2. A cripped psvr for $399 would be a flop.

I haven't seen anyone push for iteration over revolution in VR or gaming in general... such a garbage take here.

I would have paid 1000 for the PS5 though, but I also recognize that wouldn't have been as mass marketable. These products require some level of balance depending on what their end goals are.
 

lukilladog

Member
I'm buying a PSVR2 for GT7 and RE8. There's no smoke and mirrors when there are real games. Foveated rendering and eye tracking will either take off or fail. I doubt it will decide the fate of the device as a whole.

It's like getting overly upset that activity cards in the PS5 didn't work out when there's a fantastic library to play.

I'd definitely be upset if I had to play my favorite games with flawed tech that gets in the way... but I don't think it will be the case here, some devs are gonna use big ass focal points (negating these absurd performance gains people are dreaming with), or not use it at all, I think.
 

lukilladog

Member
Carmack talked about latency with eye tracking but he is talking about the Quest and past R&D. He doesn't say it wasn't worth pursuing and we have games with foveated rendering now. His comments were before Quest Pro and PSVR2.

He seems to be talking about the fundamentals and not the limitations of the technical aspects.
 

ABnormal

Member
What. Eye tracking is the best thing about it. At least something interesting.
Shame about fresnel lenses
Well, we can be sure that Sony's engineers know better than us what the best possible trades are. And since reality is what matters, since reality is that all reviewers are finding PSVR2 image quality outstanding, that's what matters.
About that, one thing that is not appreciated about Fresnel lenses are God rays, but that has been almost completely resolved by Sony's Fresnel patent. Also, Fresnel lenses are significantly better than pancake in the amount of light that they allow to pass, allowing the use of OLED screens, traditionally less bright than LCDs. One more thing is that Fresnel lenses cause less pupil swim, which is one of the causes for motion sickness.
Those are things that in VR are significantly more important that avoiding a negligible amount of MURA in some dim situations (and that you notice only if you look for it, or if you are particularly sensible to it). Perfect lenses maybe don't exist, and the choice depends by what you want to realize and the overall cost. One sure thing is that the entire headset has been engineered in order to have the best possible experience at the cheaper cost possible, not to use various high tech components only to ruin everything using bad lenses.
They have a small sweet spot for the eyes, so to be able to see the whole image in focus, it's necessary to be sure to set everything correctly, but once it's done, the image is more than great. And luckily, the setup process is very simple and quick right thanks to eye tracking.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
I haven't seen anyone push for iteration over revolution in VR or gaming in general... such a garbage take here.

I would have paid 1000 for the PS5 though, but I also recognize that wouldn't have been as mass marketable. These products require some level of balance depending on what their end goals are.

I think they found the right balance, it would have had to be dirt cheap to move a ton of units and even then some people just don't care for vr at all.
 

Mung

Member
Utter nonsense. It's crucial for the system.

Tech media got up get in their crappy takes in the window of opportunity before the public get the system. After that they can't post it without instantly being called out. Media would criticise the system for not being forward thinking or advanced enough if eye tracking wasn't there
 
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midnightAI

Member
Stupid ass clickbait article.
Eyetracking is for Foveated Rendering not for gimmicky eye navigation/shooting. No one was excited for the later.
Yeh, it's really weird, on one hand he says its used for foveated rendering then says Call of the Mountain only uses it for navigation. In other words, he's another one who has heard a few things, put two and two together and got five.
 
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