They didn’t say that their VR headset could actually see both of the 4k displays at once. The highest resolution consumer VR headset is 3840 x3744 @ 90hz.
So it isn’t a lie to say that I can create a 16k 240hz virtual display but unless my face is right on top of it then it is like reading through a screen door and I’m only seeing, at max 144hz (Index). While VR/AR is incredibly promising, currently it’s certainly not a replacement for an actual monitor for high-end tasks (like gaming).
In practice, it very much is. My monitor is at 80 degrees field of view, so the headset is only directly representing about 1440p worth of pixels, but with the passive temporal upscaling of your heads constant micromovements meaning a completely different set of pixels is seen each frame, I tested and 4k still looks notably clearer than 1440p on it, so I use 4k.
It’s pretty important to use Virtual Desktop, as all other desktop streamers are doing it wrong. It seems no one else listened to John Carmack about how important it was to use cylindrical timewarp layers for maximum clarity of flat graphics on the compositor. The difference from every other desktop viewer to Virtual Desktop is night and day because of it.
A modern VR headset is like, what if you had a Steam Deck, that could nearly represent 4k and the streaming latency from your computer to that “steam deck” screen was 6ms total. Now, imagine that ~4k steam deck screen wasn’t attached to your hands, and you didn’t have to look down to play or hold your hands up instead. Hell, lets say the screen was only 1080p, it would still be a huge improvement over the steam deck screen. And if 1080p is the target, you can get native at 60 degrees or so, or a representation that looks close enough to native at 40 degrees. 40 degrees is about how much field of view a real steam deck takes up.
Can you imagine how much better your neck would feel after hours of gaming on that version of the steam deck as opposed to a real one? What if that steam deck was also a nice way to watch TV, and have all your social media feeds, and a fully functional browser. And play all your phone games also without having to choose whether you strain your neck or your arms.
And also, when you aren’t using it as a streamed flat screen from your computer or phone, you can just use it to step into a completely different world with an entirely different ruleset, where you are now a magicians apprentice slowly learning to harness and shape your latent magical abilities…
Man, that device must be super expensive compared to a steam deck… oh wait, no, it’s actually cheaper.
The upside of a steam deck is playing computer games natively while not on wi-fi, albeit at shitty quality. A VR headset has a different set of games when not on wi-fi. And since they still don’t have their own cell antenna, they have to be tethered from your phone if you want to do internet stuff out and about. Hopefully that changes with how clear passthrough and aumented reality stuff is now.
Though I haven’t yet tested what a 1080p 60hz stream would look like on a cell connection… maybe they can still rival a steam deck out and about too.
And once I get to my destination, I can be back on wi-fi and stream full quality again. And optionally play PCVR games streamed from my house. Though that is only viable if they have a legit networking set up. It’s a nearly unbuffered 200mbit stream to play a PCVR game at the quality I would want to play at. Very doable, but you wouldn’t want to try it on an ISP router with 60 other devices interacting with it. Pretty much any quality of supplemental gaming router would be fine though.
They didn’t say that their VR headset could actually see both of the 4k displays at once. The highest resolution consumer VR headset is 3840 x3744 @ 90hz.
So it isn’t a lie to say that I can create a 16k 240hz virtual display but unless my face is right on top of it then it is like reading through a screen door and I’m only seeing, at max 144hz (Index). While VR/AR is incredibly promising, currently it’s certainly not a replacement for an actual monitor for high-end tasks (like gaming).
In practice, it very much is. My monitor is at 80 degrees field of view, so the headset is only directly representing about 1440p worth of pixels, but with the passive temporal upscaling of your heads constant micromovements meaning a completely different set of pixels is seen each frame, I tested and 4k still looks notably clearer than 1440p on it, so I use 4k.
It’s pretty important to use Virtual Desktop, as all other desktop streamers are doing it wrong. It seems no one else listened to John Carmack about how important it was to use cylindrical timewarp layers for maximum clarity of flat graphics on the compositor. The difference from every other desktop viewer to Virtual Desktop is night and day because of it.
A modern VR headset is like, what if you had a Steam Deck, that could nearly represent 4k and the streaming latency from your computer to that “steam deck” screen was 6ms total. Now, imagine that ~4k steam deck screen wasn’t attached to your hands, and you didn’t have to look down to play or hold your hands up instead. Hell, lets say the screen was only 1080p, it would still be a huge improvement over the steam deck screen. And if 1080p is the target, you can get native at 60 degrees or so, or a representation that looks close enough to native at 40 degrees. 40 degrees is about how much field of view a real steam deck takes up.
Can you imagine how much better your neck would feel after hours of gaming on that version of the steam deck as opposed to a real one? What if that steam deck was also a nice way to watch TV, and have all your social media feeds, and a fully functional browser. And play all your phone games also without having to choose whether you strain your neck or your arms.
And also, when you aren’t using it as a streamed flat screen from your computer or phone, you can just use it to step into a completely different world with an entirely different ruleset, where you are now a magicians apprentice slowly learning to harness and shape your latent magical abilities…
Man, that device must be super expensive compared to a steam deck… oh wait, no, it’s actually cheaper.
The upside of a steam deck is playing computer games natively while not on wi-fi, albeit at shitty quality. A VR headset has a different set of games when not on wi-fi. And since they still don’t have their own cell antenna, they have to be tethered from your phone if you want to do internet stuff out and about. Hopefully that changes with how clear passthrough and aumented reality stuff is now.
Though I haven’t yet tested what a 1080p 60hz stream would look like on a cell connection… maybe they can still rival a steam deck out and about too.
And once I get to my destination, I can be back on wi-fi and stream full quality again. And optionally play PCVR games streamed from my house. Though that is only viable if they have a legit networking set up. It’s a nearly unbuffered 200mbit stream to play a PCVR game at the quality I would want to play at. Very doable, but you wouldn’t want to try it on an ISP router with 60 other devices interacting with it. Pretty much any quality of supplemental gaming router would be fine though.