Samsung Officially Unveils $499 Odyssey Virtual Reality Headset

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Megalith

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Samsung has announced their new headset at an event in San Francisco, where Microsoft outlined the future of Windows Mixed Reality: the $500 HMD Odyssey sports dual AMOLED eye displays, complete with a 110-degree field of view (FoV), which puts it ahead of the devices offered by Lenovo, HP, Dell, Acer, and ASUS.

This could potentially make a huge difference in the quality of the Windows Mixed Reality experience for two reasons. First, AMOLED displays can generate deeper blacks and more vibrant colors than your average OLED or LCD screen. Second, all other Windows Mixed Reality headsets we've seen have a 95-degree FoV. The Samsung headset will be more immersive because there will be less dead space in your peripheral vision. The headset is expected to be available on November 6, 2017, and it comes with motion controllers.
 
This looks like the headset to get. I wasn't at all excited about any of the other Windows MR headsets due to their lower quality lcd screens - figuring the slightly higher res wouldn't make up for the lower contrast screen vs Oculus and Vive. However, this has bother higher res and the higher contrast screen, so should have the highest IQ of any of the available headsets provided the optics are good. I still think the controller tracking will be lacking enough to make it a difficult choice vs OR and Vive, but it at least adds a differentiator and will be ideal for cockpit type games (racing/flying).
 
I'm super pumped for higher rez, but will modern graphics cards be able to pump out 90fps for 2 1440X1600 screens?
 
Looks like the thing I've been waiting for!
I bought cheaper monitor and anticipated something like this to replace it very soon.
 
are you sure there's a difference between amoled and oled when it comes to contrast? I thought it was basically the same tech.
 
Pre-ordered. Will be my first VR headset. Has a lot of the features I was waiting for to trigger me to try it out. No idea what I'm going to do with it!
 
waiting for the Christmas or Cyber Monday bundle!
 
If a 1060 can give a good experience on Oculus and Vive, a 1080-up should have no problem with the slightly higher res. A 1070 would probably be fine. Even if it gets rendered at a lower res and scaled up slightly, you get the benefit of less sde and the better quality screen, so it's a non-issue imo. If you want max graphics settings, it might tax a 1080 depending on the game, but it'll be usable on pretty much the same hardware that can run an Oculus or Vive.
cdig said:
I'm super pumped for higher rez, but will modern graphics cards be able to pump out 90fps for 2 1440X1600 screens?
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RogueTadhg said:
I'm interested in knowing the PPI (Pixels Per Inch) or resolution of the screens.
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That doesn't really matter as it's being put through a lense. The PPD (pixel per degree) is more important as is the actual size/shape and gap between the pixels.
 
What about APPD (Average Pixels Per Degree) as the lense warps pixels variably (more/tighter pixels near center of lense, less so near the edge)
 
Disco_Stu_04 said:
I'm unfamiliar with anything vr, how does this compare to the Vive/Oculus for gaming? Eg fallout 4?
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The problem with VR headsets is that there is no way to know for sure until you try them. Specs aside, so much depends on how your eyes and your brain respond to their particular method of motion tracking.

cdig said:
I'm super pumped for higher rez, but will modern graphics cards be able to pump out 90fps for 2 1440X1600 screens?
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Nvidia doesn't do 2 full 1440x1600 renders in the 10 series cards. Over 90% of the screen is overlapping area.
 
lironmiron said:
The problem with VR headsets is that there is no way to know for sure until you try them. Specs aside, so much depends on how your eyes and your brain respond to their particular method of motion tracking.
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If someone was to take a close picture of the screen - for example using VirtualDesktop (Reading text is so. fucking. hard.) it would be a decent measure of what you'll be able to see. If you don't have a VIVE or Rift, you definitely need to try one out and get Google Earth. Too bad that it didn't have 3D maps of everywhere like Tokyo and it's massive ocean of concrete and buildings.
 
lironmiron said:
The problem with VR headsets is that there is no way to know for sure until you try them. Specs aside, so much depends on how your eyes and your brain respond to their particular method of motion tracking.


Nvidia doesn't do 2 full 1440x1600 renders in the 10 series cards. Over 90% of the screen is overlapping area.
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If the screens would overlap , you'd not get depth at all.
Both eyes need a different viewpoint to perceive depth.
The newer gpus just use a better optimised pipeline for multiple renderviews, instead of the old one render pipeline to one renderview
 
lironmiron said:
Nvidia doesn't do 2 full 1440x1600 renders in the 10 series cards. Over 90% of the screen is overlapping area.
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The application has to support that specific type of rendering (which I believe is nVidia-specific right now - Single-Pass Stereo). As far as I know, not many actually do.
 
cdig said:
I'm super pumped for higher rez, but will modern graphics cards be able to pump out 90fps for 2 1440X1600 screens?
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If Simultaneous Multi Projection ever comes to VR (its been like forever since it was announced) they just might.
 
I'm a noob with VR as well. This headset does the same thing at the Vive and Oculus though right? Play steam games and the like? Or only specific content?
 
I have an Nvidia 970 GPU. I understand it's entry level for VR - anyone else have any experience with the 970? I haven't jumped into VR yet but with Fallout VR, I'm having a hard time not doing so.
 
Sedriss said:
This headset does the same thing at the Vive and Oculus though right? Play steam games and the like? Or only specific content?
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I wouldn't assume so. All we have is vague press statements right now.

We don't know how the tracking solution will compare to the established Vive and Rift roomscale systems.

We don't know if it'll work outside Windows 10 and the Windows 10 Store (if not, its DOA).

We don't know if Microsoft's line about "will work with SteamVR titles" means that it'll emulate a Vive and automatically be able to play any SteamVR title including Fallout 4 VR, or if it will be up to developers to add support for WMR HMD's on a per-title basis (and if the latter, don't count on it happening, since VR developers are notoriously, philosophically anti-MS these days - especially after Microsoft laughed off VR for years while betting everything on its failed Hololens play).
 
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had the oculus dev kit, oculus retail kit, and the vive.

Sold them all and will not be buying again until they are at the very least 4k screens. And even then, I bet the resolution will still be pretty crap.
 
MavericK said:
Not currently-existing ones, no.
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That's incorrect, a 1080ti can handle that if you turn hmd supersampling off no problem in most games.

The only game I ever had trouble with was elite Dangerous, and that game is not a great example of your typical vr game. Also with max settings with super sampling at 1.5x it was fine.
 
Chaos Machine said:
That's incorrect, a 1080ti can handle that if you turn hmd supersampling off no problem in most games.

The only game I ever had trouble with was elite Dangerous, and that game is not a great example of your typical vr game. Also with max settings with super sampling at 1.5x it was fine.
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If you are referring to current headsets (Rift, Vive)...they are not as high a resolution as what the person I quoted said.
 
jfreund said:
FOV means much less than resolution.
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cant possibly disagree more. FOV is what encompasses your peripheral vision. It's what removes the "horse blinder/binoculous/looking through a tube" effect. VR is just no fun when it's obvious you're staring at a screen floating in front of you. Resolution simply controls how crappy things look, FOV is what creates immersion.
 
steakman1971 said:
I have an Nvidia 970 GPU. I understand it's entry level for VR - anyone else have any experience with the 970? I haven't jumped into VR yet but with Fallout VR, I'm having a hard time not doing so.
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I have a 970 and the 1st gen software for the vive/rift all ran well. Lucky's Tale required me to set the details to "medium" to maintain 90 fps. Portal/Aperture labs/Gallery and other random indie games ran fine at default settings. Im not sure if current state games would demand more hardware though.
 
MavericK said:
If you are referring to current headsets (Rift, Vive)...they are not as high a resolution as what the person I quoted said.
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Sure, but if a 1080ti can run things at max settings in Oculus and Vive, the added resolution might make you have to drop one notch from max on a couple of games - ie it won't be an issue at all to be playable. I'd imagine if you take the recommended specs for Oculus and vive and bump the vid card up one notch, the experience will be the same - so Oculus recommends a 960 minimum, then a 970 will probably be fine. Maybe some of the 4GB cards start to hit their limit, but for sure a 1060 6GB or Rx480 8GB and up will be fine.
 
nysmo said:
cant possibly disagree more. FOV is what encompasses your peripheral vision. It's what removes the "horse blinder/binoculous/looking through a tube" effect. VR is just no fun when it's obvious you're staring at a screen floating in front of you. Resolution simply controls how crappy things look, FOV is what creates immersion.
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I don't think there's any one thing that breaks immersion for all people. Some people get distracted by SDE, some by FOV, some by compromised visuals (AA etc). For me it's the visuals of the game that's make or break - some games or just a lot more immersive than others. Unless I look for it, sde doesn't bother me and ~100deg FOV is fine. But, the game experience itself is what is make or break for me.
 
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Stoly said:
No roomscale?
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It is inside-out tracking, so it should work in any size room, and maybe even outdoors... of course we'll have to wait to see how effective it really is...
 
According to the required hardware.. my system might work!. GPU 1050 /RX460 CPU i5 or fx4340
 
Please remember the quality and demand of VR titles varies *wildly*. What runs at 90fps might look like a mobile game to you, we'll see what kind of visuals we get with Fallout 4, supposedly Project Cars 2 looks much, much better (and performs better) in VR than the first PCars did, but I don't own it yet to compare.

This headset looks like its taking its queues from the Vive (since Oculus is a walled garden and even as an OR owner I can say the tech is better with Vive....even if the controllers are not (really, the OR hands are a beautiful thing if you have to hold a controller))...I'm assuming it uses lighthouses or is it all internal?

I'm also in the camp that while resoluion is nice, I rarely find it distracting in-game......FOV however is very clearly a problem. You accept it, because Gen 1, but really you're always looking through 'goggles'....peripheral vision is limited, probably so you have to turn your head more, but right now on both vive and OR your FOV does feel contrasined a bit.
Not "scuba mask" restrained, but you always feel like you're turning your head more than you would otherwise while wearing one, which is a little awkward. 110 degrees sounds pretty nice, curious how it is actually implemented...I was under the impression that wider FOV's would mean more problems for the fresnel lenses (fringing, chromatic problems that all VR headsets display) so.....curious about that part.
 
zkostik said:
Should be no problem at all with a 1080 or 1080 ti. This combined res is just barely higher than 2560x1600 screen and way less than 4k.
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I have a Vive and a 1080 and there are definitely framerate drops at times even with the lower HMD resolution. So I would have to question that assertion.

The 1080 Ti...maybe...though I still suspect you will get framerate drops.

Of course this depends on the games you are playing, but they are only getting more and more demanding.
 
Youn said:
It is inside-out tracking, so it should work in any size room, and maybe even outdoors... of course we'll have to wait to see how effective it really is...
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Same underlying tech as HoloLens, so yes. Captured video is juddery because they give rendering priority to the HMD, it looks smooth inside the HMD.
 
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0neTwo said:
had the oculus dev kit, oculus retail kit, and the vive.

Sold them all and will not be buying again until they are at the very least 4k screens. And even then, I bet the resolution will still be pretty crap.
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Shit no one can say you didn't try.
 
Uvaman2 said:
Shit no one can say you didn't try.
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Awesome tech, enjoyed my time with them. The resolution is just not good enough. Sure you can stop noticing it and kinda lose yourself, but as soon as you need to focus or read some text, you see how horrible it truly is. Im pretty sure 2 4k screens will still not be enough either which sucks as thats the logical next step for all the headsets :(
 
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