Samsung Odyssey Mixed Reality Headset

The resolution is a fraction higher than the Rift/Vive. I will wait and see how the 8K Pimax or whatever it's called does in reviews.
 
I'm curious as to how good the inside-out tracking actually is... I'm thinking that it's still inferior to the external cameras/lighthouses used by the Rift/Vive. Will also be interesting to see if MS will attempt or force their own apps store on this or if it will simply work with Steam.
 
I'm curious as to how good the inside-out tracking actually is... I'm thinking that it's still inferior to the external cameras/lighthouses used by the Rift/Vive. Will also be interesting to see if MS will attempt or force their own apps store on this or if it will simply work with Steam.

They've already announced support for SteamVR (later this year), on top of having native MR UWP apps available upon launch. There's videos of people walking around outside with the Windows MR headsets, something you could never do with a Rift/Vive. One guy had a backpack computer and must have walked 100ft.
 
It is probably good if you don't already have a Vive or Rift.
 
Folks walking around outside wearing this with a laptop in a backpack will definitely help maintain a steady stream of Darwin Award nominees... That and keeping their virginity intact. :D

MickeySofts attempt to call it something "new" that they invented by referring to it as a "Mixed Reality" headset is also pretty lame. It's clearly their marketing grab at a "Me Too!" product offering ala the Windows Phone, Zune, Surface....

Another hurdle for MS is going to be attempting to get anyone to use their Microsoft app store... native MR UWP apps will most likely only be available there. If they require its use to setup the HMD and its software, then that's going to be a negative for quite a few folks. Who here uses and likes the MS App store?

It also seems their HMD may not work all that well in a completely dark room as the outside in tracking via the HMD's built-in cameras will require some light in order to resolve an image - in a dark room, it will have nothing to focus on/resolve other than the hand controllers.

Still, I'm glad for the arrival of yet more competitors in the VR space. Will just drive more competition, better products/tech maturation, and help drive costs down.

Looking forward to the side by side comparisons with the Rift/Vive once it does release!
 
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The resolution is a fraction higher than the Rift/Vive. I will wait and see how the 8K Pimax or whatever it's called does in reviews.

It's actually double the pixel count as the Vive/Rift. That will make a huge difference in screen door effect notice-ability. It is also going to support SteamVR, so I pre-ordered.
 
It's actually double the pixel count as the Vive/Rift. That will make a huge difference in screen door effect notice-ability. It is also going to support SteamVR, so I pre-ordered.
You mean the Pimax right? The Odyssey says it's 1440x1600.
 
No.

Rift+Vive - 2160x1200 = 2.6Mpixel.

Odyssey - 2880x1600 = 4.6 Mpixel.

77% is a substantial improvement.
Oh, that is really good!
I will wait still for Rift since I have quite a few Oculus games. Maybe next year will be time for a new HMD!
 
The resolution improvement is definitely a nice step in the right direction, but it's still not as much as I would like. (At least to consider upgrading my current VR setup.)

The actual per eye resolution on the Odyssey is 1,600 X 1,440. (The Vive/Rift delivers 1200 x 1080 per eye.)

Even with the increase, it's still pretty much firmly seated in the ~2k per eye resolution territory. (True 2K is 2048 × 1080, or 2,211,840 pixels, so the Odyssey is providing 2,304,000 pixels per eye which is 2K territory with an added 92,160 pixel bonus. All I see it doing is helping with some of the graininess/SDE and perhaps text legibility that plague both the Rift and Vive - as to a huge image quality boost... well, not so much.

In comparison, the Pimax 8K variant HMD is slated to provide 3820 x 2160 per eye, which is pretty much in 4K territory @ 8,251,200 pixels per eye. (True 4K, UHD-1, being 3840 × 2160 or 8,294,400 pixels)

True 4K per eye is where VR tech is really going to start to shine... especially if they perfect eye tracking with foveated rendering to somewhat lighten the GPU processing load for gaming. I give that tech a good 2 years before it arrives as a solid/viable consumer product.

VR tech 5-10 years from now is what is going to be really mind blowing... It will be capable of fully replacing a PC monitor, in fact I predict it will become the primary visual interface to most high end computers going forward.
 
The resolution improvement is definitely a nice step in the right direction, but it's still not as much as I would like. (At least to consider upgrading my current VR setup.)

The actual per eye resolution on the Odyssey is 1,600 X 1,440. (The Vive/Rift delivers 1200 x 1080 per eye.)

Even with the increase, it's still pretty much firmly seated in the ~2k per eye resolution territory. (True 2K is 2048 × 1080, or 2,211,840 pixels, so the Odyssey is providing 2,304,000 pixels per eye which is 2K territory with an added 92,160 pixel bonus. All I see it doing is helping with some of the graininess/SDE and perhaps text legibility that plague both the Rift and Vive - as to a huge image quality boost... well, not so much.

In comparison, the Pimax 8K variant HMD is slated to provide 3820 x 2160 per eye, which is pretty much in 4K territory @ 8,251,200 pixels per eye. (True 4K, UHD-1, being 3840 × 2160 or 8,294,400 pixels)

True 4K per eye is where VR tech is really going to start to shine... especially if they perfect eye tracking with foveated rendering to somewhat lighten the GPU processing load for gaming. I give that tech a good 2 years before it arrives as a solid/viable consumer product.

VR tech 5-10 years from now is what is going to be really mind blowing... It will be capable of fully replacing a PC monitor, in fact I predict it will become the primary visual interface to most high end computers going forward.
If it turns out to be good, it will test a video card pretty hard.
I would redo my setup if it turns out to be good.
 
It's a good start, no doubt helped by the fact that Samsung knows how to make good OLED panels for VR (because they're the ones supplying the ones used in the Rift and Vive to begin with), but it's not enough of a step up for me to retire the Rift CV1 from mainline service so soon. My outlook there might be a bit different if I didn't already go all-in on Rift + Touch and a quad-sensor setup.

Even if the HMD itself proves to be capable enough, the real question lies in those Windows MR controllers and how well they perform when the HMD can't see them, like you have your hand over your shoulder or behind your back. A sizeable number of existing VR games require exactly that to pick up various items on your body. There's also well-known quirks VR developers have to put up with when designing controls for the Vive wands and Oculus Touch, enough that I've run into a case or two where just having a SteamVR game doesn't necessarily guarantee that it will function correctly with the Touch controllers.

Nevertheless, more options in this market can only be a good thing, particularly since Samsung's going on the high end of what Windows Mixed Reality has to offer.
 
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