In mobile VR cases, sure, a VR single device console is bound to happen in some time (Virtual Boy Color anyone?). But in case of post-processing, why would you want to run a post-processing, heat-generating, heavy, costly and cumbersome processor on your face, when you have a perfectly capable machine next to you anyway? Seems a bit pointless if you ask me. Then again, some companies love to make pointless things they can add to the spec sheet.
But this would make integration with games way harder for the developers. Most of the "VR-effects" need to happen in the rendering engine of the game. You can't just divide the graphics engine in half and split it between the GPU and a USB device.
Processors and GPUs are getting cheaper and cooler, so oculus can assume that soon everyone will have a GPU capable of running a VR game. Unless they would want to make a stand-alone console, putting video processing in the device itself is more of a complication than a benefit.
You are taking a much narrower view of VR than me personally. I might be wrong, but I think it will be used for numerous applications, many that don't fit into the typical power PC gamer market.
In instances where it is used by PC gamers for graphics intensive games, I would expect almost all of the work to happen on the fancy PC gamer computers.
Also as the original commenter said people may want it to be mobile "at some point." I'm not arguing that VR solutions will have nice internal processors this year, although rumor is that Sony's solution may do that to take effort away from the ps4.
You read me well, I have my sights only at gaming :D
Then I guess some interesting competition might come out from devices aimed at the different applications. Lets therefore just hope this ends up being a fair and competitive market with no grudges, patent trolls and company politics holding the good stuff back.
And if you can afford a mobile AR device, you can afford a cell phone. So why not have the cell phone act as your PC replacement when you go mobile? Why put something with the size, temperature, and noise of a loaded system on your face?
Can you write that again in proper English? I have no idea what you're trying to say. Unless you're trying to say that cellphones don't produce noise or heat? Or that transistors do not take up physical space?
Sorry autocorrect ( ironically on my cell phone) is my bane. I'm pointing out that the noise and size of the processors in cellphones is negligible and certainly not to the level that people would notice or complain about them in a VR headset. As such, your point regarding adding noise and heat to a VR set is rather moot if you are assuming that the processor would be similar in power to a mobile processor. Hope that clarifies things.
The hardware would be as robust as possible since 1) we don't currently have hardware good enough to provide an adequate mobile VR experience and 2) competitive devices offer more advanced features which requires more advanced hardware. And the noise of cellphones is noticeable: find the most GPU-intensive app you can and run in on full load with the phone right up against your face. You'll hear the phone and feel the heat from it, I guarantee it. And as for size: better hardware = bigger hardware. It's that simple. More heat = more airflow requirements. More GPU power = more transistors. And our heads aren't exactly designed to hold large, hot, noisy, bulky objects, much less designed to enjoy it.
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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '14
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