LG Shows Off SteamVR Headset with 1440x1280 screens at GDC

Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

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All week we have been hearing multiple reports of LG intending to demo a "Next Generation" VR headset with Valve at GDC, but up until now the details were scant. They didn't even share any pictures of the device. UploadVR now has some real details on this new HMD.

LG's headset is built around the same Valve SteamVR Tracker used by HTC in the Vive, and features some pretty impressive specifications, among them dual OLED 1440x1280 screens. By comparison, both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift have 1080x1200 screens. While this will certainly go a way to combat the dreaded "Screen Door" effect of low resolution screens in VR, it will certainly also increase the already pretty hefty GPU requirements associated with VR.

"These dev kits are going out to “select partners” by the end of this week. Representatives from the company were reluctant to commit to a time frame for a consumer release, but said an announcement should come some time this year after they get feedback from partners and developers."
 
On the GPU requirements, I am not certain that higher resolution or density would increase GPU requiremnts - I'm no engineer; but equating this to monitors - greater pixel density doesn't mean you have to render at that resolution, e.g. 4K screen with 1920 resolution will look better without the screen door. or render at the higer resolution but then cut back on all the rendering and post-processing FX that are primarily there to compensate for lack of pixels. e.g. AA isn't need as much which is massive hit.

What it does give you, is that the VR hardware would last longer and scale better, so getting a next-gen graphics card would make this VR headset better, where the current gen VR headsets like oculus would look the same.

Right? or am I missing something?


Also - next gen needs two things... higher pixel density to eliminate screen door and wireless... It will be a hobbiest topy until they address these two issues.
 
kring said:
On the GPU requirements, I am not certain that higher resolution or density would increase GPU requiremnts - I'm no engineer; but equating this to monitors - greater pixel density doesn't mean you have to render at that resolution, e.g. 4K screen with 1920 resolution will look better without the screen door. or render at the higer resolution but then cut back on all the rendering and post-processing FX that are primarily there to compensate for lack of pixes. e.g. AA isn't need as much...

What it does give you, is that the VR hardware would last longer and scale better, so getting a next-gen graphics card would make this VR headset better, where the current gen VR headsets like oculus would look the same.

Right? or am I missing something?
Click to expand...

Unless things have changed in recent years, there is that whole shit look of a panel displaying in its non-native resolution?
 
if it's scales right it'll look fine.
If not, you have two choices. black borders or a stretched out image.
Rendering at higher resolution and cutting back has another name. Anti aliasing. At least early versions just rendered at higher resolutions (that's where the 2x, 4x comes into play) then shrunk it to fit on the screen to get rid of jaggies.
Going from 1080 to 1440 isn't that big of a jump in terms of horsepower needed. Probably just a step up. It's not like you're going from 1080 to 4k which is double the pixels, then you double that because of the two screens for double rendering.
 
Hypergreatthing said:
if it's scales right it'll look fine.
If not, you have two choices. black borders or a stretched out image.
Rendering at higher resolution and cutting back has another name. Anti aliasing. At least early versions just rendered at higher resolutions (that's where the 2x, 4x comes into play) then shrunk it to fit on the screen to get rid of jaggies.
Going from 1080 to 1440 isn't that big of a jump in terms of horsepower needed. Probably just a step up. It's not like you're going from 1080 to 4k which is double the pixels, then you double that because of the two screens for double rendering.
Click to expand...


4k is 4 times the pixels as 1080p, not double. Remember it doubles in both the X and Y directions, which means its a 4x increase.

Going from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 is a 78% growth in pixels, so it is not insignificant at all. If it supports the AMD/FOVE type eye tracking with dynamic resolution rendering (full resolution rendering where you are looking, lower resolution everywhere else in the periphery) the load could probably be reduced though.
 
Cool. It'll be interesting to see how well the set performs and what the increased resolution will impact it's performance and how much better the visuals are.
 
heatlesssun said:
Cool. It'll be interesting to see how well the set performs and what the increased resolution will impact it's performance and how much better the visuals are.
Click to expand...

What excites me the most about this is that it sounds as though you can use existing Vive base stations (maybe the Vive controllers...? not sure) with the LG headset. Would be nice to just buy a new headset for $200-300 or so rather than a whole new system.
 
MavericK said:
What excites me the most about this is that it sounds as though you can use existing Vive base stations (maybe the Vive controllers...? not sure) with the LG headset. Would be nice to just buy a new headset for $200-300 or so rather than a whole new system.
Click to expand...

That is cool indeed.
 
MavericK said:
What excites me the most about this is that it sounds as though you can use existing Vive base stations (maybe the Vive controllers...? not sure) with the LG headset. Would be nice to just buy a new headset for $200-300 or so rather than a whole new system.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure why you would expect a new VR set with better specs than either the Rift or the Vive to be substantially cheaper than the PSVR...
 
tetris42 said:
I'm not sure why you would expect a new VR set with better specs than either the Rift or the Vive to be substantially cheaper than the PSVR...
Click to expand...

it has the potential to be just the headset. Trackers are probably 200-300 of the vive cost, similar with the wands.

A stand alone headset should be in the 200-400$ range depending on quality.
 
https://developer.nvidia.com/vrworks/graphics/vrsli

This just makes sense. Thankfully, this is actually a thing that exists and justifies having two GPUs.

Aireoth said:
it has the potential to be just the headset. Trackers are probably 200-300 of the vive cost, similar with the wands.

A stand alone headset should be in the 200-400$ range depending on quality.
Click to expand...

Doubtful that the headset of better quality would fall within 200- 400$. Afterall, the PSVR is 400 dollars and has the worse resolution. I'd be willing to bet 600-800 at the start, as it is the first of the next gen headsets (Seemingly).
 
RogueTadhg said:
Doubtful that the headset of better quality would fall within 200- 400$. Afterall, the PSVR is 400 dollars and has the worse resolution. I'd be willing to bet 600-800 at the start, as it is the first of the next gen headsets (Seemingly).
Click to expand...

I think the point he is trying to make is that the full price for these things is usually for the full kit, which includes the trackers.

I guess the point he is trying to make is that maybe, just maybe, if you already have the SteamVR trackers, you might be able to get a lower price on the headset only.
 
RogueTadhg said:
https://developer.nvidia.com/vrworks/graphics/vrsli

This just makes sense. Thankfully, this is actually a thing that exists and justifies having two GPUs.



Doubtful that the headset of better quality would fall within 200- 400$. Afterall, the PSVR is 400 dollars and has the worse resolution. I'd be willing to bet 600-800 at the start, as it is the first of the next gen headsets (Seemingly).
Click to expand...

I could be wrong, but i beleive the psvr comes with some kind of hardware acceleration. This again would potentially just be the headset. Like Zara says, maybe it will be sold stand alone.

Edit: totally interested in the sli bit!
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
4k is 4 times the pixels as 1080p, not double. Remember it doubles in both the X and Y directions, which means its a 4x increase.

Going from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 is a 78% growth in pixels, so it is not insignificant at all.
Click to expand...
I'm so used to seeing 1080p everywhere that I did the calculation like that too. But I looked again at your post and it's not 1080p vs 1440p. These are 1080 and 1440 horizontal. The growth is around 42%. Still significant.

Edit: and because it's hard to stop once you get started, it would be a 540% growth in pixels to reach 4K.
 
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MavericK said:
What excites me the most about this is that it sounds as though you can use existing Vive base stations (maybe the Vive controllers...? not sure) with the LG headset. Would be nice to just buy a new headset for $200-300 or so rather than a whole new system.
Click to expand...

Controllers/tracking and headset will reportedly be interchangeable since LG is making this for Lighthouse and SteamVR. Valve announced they have 10 hardware partners signed up now, so I guess HTC was just the beginning.

HTC is meanwhile a little concerned at the coming influx of competing SteamVR/OpenVR hardware so they're trying to distinguish themselves a bit with all their Viveport/ViveX and content subscription program, in some ways trying to emulate the Oculus approach as far as content and digital marketplace. It's somewhat reminiscent of Samsung wanting to break away from Android - who made Galaxy phones what they are symbiotically - and go their own way with Tizen. But Steam, like Android, is too massive and nothing escapes it's gravitational pull.
 
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The resolution needs to be double that per eye before the screen door effect goes away.
 
trudude said:
The resolution needs to be double that per eye before the screen door effect goes away.
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Well, I wonder if the combination of going higher resolution like LG has done AND adding true RGB rather than pentile screens could help. (They haven't said they are doing this, I'm just wondering out loud if it would help) Sony has made much of the true RGB screens in their lower resolution PSVR and its ability to reduce screen door effects.

I mean, if you go much higher in resolution, you are going to get to the point where the tech gets even more prohibitive from a "you need a really beefy PC for this" perspective, especially since to be ideal, VR needs a minimum framerate of 90fps at all times, or it goes into reprojection.

I wonder if some sort of special VR antialiasing mode can help with the screen door effect to help soften it out, or even rendering at a lower res and sstretching it up onto a higher res screen to smooth things out.

One thing that looks promising is the eye tracking tech that Fove and AMD have been working on together, and SteamVR seems to have implemented recently. It not only helps use eye movement as a way to control things (menu's etc.) but it also uses it to selectively render the areas your eyes are focusing on at a higher resolution, dropping the resolution of the areas in the periphery, since peripheral vision is never going to tell the difference anyway.

I feel like this certainly has a lot of potential to lower GPU rendering load, as long as it works well, and the transition from high res to low res regions is smooth and doesn't look like ass.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I think the point he is trying to make is that the full price for these things is usually for the full kit, which includes the trackers.

I guess the point he is trying to make is that maybe, just maybe, if you already have the SteamVR trackers, you might be able to get a lower price on the headset only.
Click to expand...

Indeed, that was my point. If it's compatible with the existing tracking hardware, it would be nice to see a stand-alone headset option for purchase.
 
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