Next Generation VR - What's the hold up?

[Scott]

I had a play with my Oculus Quest 2 this eve. Successfully running it completely with my sim-rig. This is a little bitter sweet. On one hand, it offers a completely untethered experience in my sim racing. Visually, it's not quite as good and it doesn't have the same FOV.... but for sheer pick it up and play, it's fantastic.

The Index is sooooooo comfortable though. It feels plush when putting it on after the Quest.

It got me thinking though..... where on earth is the next gen? I want to have it all! I want 4k per eye, wireless and 18hrs of uninterrupted play while using a combined energy total of 8w and all for the princely sum of £23.

I've searched around and the rumour mill is very scarce.

Last year there were rumours about patents for the Index2, or at least a wireless module for the Index, but it hasn't came to anything.

Similar with the new "Meta" offering. It's all quiet. I believe we are due to see at least something by the end of the year but it's looking like 2023/2024 before we see some serious contenders.

The development is there though. New "pancake" lenses, OLED screens with insane DPi, etc. The projects are all on-going, just need them to come together in an attainable device.

For any devs reading.....

H2 resolution/sharpness, Index FOV, Knuckles & comfort with Quest 2 portability please

 

[steaky360]

I'm yet to really delve into VR.. mostly because the only time I've gave it a go I needed to remove my glasses and I wasn't really able to see much clearly - think it was an occulus that we have at work (I assume that was a issue with the fresnel lens but I didn't spend any time trying to fix it).

I like the idea of VR, I actually think there are way more applications for it outside of gaming (my industry is using it more and more for training and familiarisation for example). But I'd definitely love to give Half Life Alex (and others!) a go.

 

[TonyCarter]

I think I'll wait for the Holodeck.

Although I do remember - from the early-90s - working next to an nascent VR company called Virtuality, and then saw Lawnmower Man a year or two later!!! I wished for one of those moving VR beds for years!

 

[Scott]

I was on one of those VR beds when they were first released in arcades. It was £4 or something like that for a go..... when most arcade games were 10p with the proper fancy ones being 50p.

I got in, turned my head to the left, turned to the right. Was just about to move the joystick and BAM.... hit by a shell (tank game).

It was literally game over. I swear I was in the VR world for 20 seconds tops. My Dad went absolutely nuts with the guy running it. The tech cost a fortune so they had to get their return ASAP, no excuse for ripping off kids though.

 

[polycrac]

I think incremental gains in pixel count, response time and field of view are all we'll see in the short term.

Getting foveated imaging to work well (some boast limited versions of it already) will be key to reducing power requirements and GPU use, so headsets only render sharply what you are focussing on. That's what I'm hoping for in the medium term

Quantum computing too, will dramatically improve the processing when we eventually get it commercialised. That's my long term hope for improvement.

I agree with the Quest 2 comments though, it isn't far off hat I could achieve with the original Vive and a 970 GPU - but no PC or external power needed, no base-stations required!

On a side note, I got a hololens 2 last week and AR is coming along nicely too - still a limited field of view but a noticeable improvement on the original and the built in hand tracking rivals that of the Leap motion I used to use.