VR vs. Features - Community's opinion (Poll)

[PzR Slim]

All PSVR software displays a 120hz refresh rate. You said it was 60hz, and that it was less than Rift/Vive, you were incorrect.
Have you played GTS at 120hz and 90hz to know it makes no difference?
What do you mean reprojection works well but not as good as maintaining refresh rate of screen itself?

Sony have said it is better to show an artificial frame in the headset than a real rendered one if the headset decides it's best for perception after calculating head tracking. So much so that even if the PS4 has a rendered frame ready, it may drop that real frame and use an artificial one as a priority.
With tracking not an issue then native fps is better, and Sony have said they have some titles running 120fps natively. GTS will be 120hz refresh, whichever way it is rendered.
In terms of immersion and pleasantness of the experience I find it hard to accept that 90hz will be better than a 120hz refresh rate, incorporating the head tracking response.

What I mean is that I'd take a game running at 90fps to match a 90hz screen refresh rate over a game running at 60fps with reprojection running doing it's magic to allow the screen to refresh at 120hz.

I've experienced a constant 90fps to match the 90hz refresh rate of my vive in Assetto Corsa and it's much better than the below 90fps with reprojection in Project Cars. Reprojection is great but I'd prefer if it wasn't needed.

And it's fairly self evident from all we know and have experienced of display technologies that you're going to be hard pushed to notice a great difference between a refresh rate of 90hz compared to 120hz particularly when the latter is using reprojection to achieve the result. The difference between respective resolutions is going to be much more noticeable than the refresh rates.

So I'm not saying a 90 hz refresh rate is better than a 120 hz refresh rate but taking into account that one uses reprojection to the achieve the refresh rate the difference is going to be minimal particularly when you compare it to the difference in resolution between the two headsets.

I think it's pretty self evident that headset with a lower resolution being powered by a much more inferior machine is not going to result in as good an experience.

 

[eran0004]

Curious if PD has made the right decision.

I go for features, I don't care about VR.

What makes you think that VR killed all those features?

 

[Fgame]

What I mean is that I'd take a game running at 90fps to match a 90hz screen refresh rate over a game running at 60fps with reprojection running doing it's magic to allow the screen to refresh at 120hz.

I've experienced a constant 90fps to match the 90hz refresh rate of my vive in Assetto Corsa and it's much better than the below 90fps with reprojection in Project Cars. Reprojection is great but I'd prefer if it wasn't needed.

And it's fairly self evident from all we know and have experienced of display technologies that you're going to be hard pushed to notice a great difference between a refresh rate of 90hz compared to 120hz particularly when the latter is using reprojection to achieve the result. The difference between respective resolutions is going to be much more noticeable than the refresh rates.

So I'm not saying a 90 hz refresh rate is better than a 120 hz refresh rate but taking into account that one uses reprojection to the achieve the refresh rate the difference is going to be minimal particularly when you compare it to the difference in resolution between the two headsets.

I think it's pretty self evident that headset with a lower resolution being powered by a much more inferior machine is not going to result in as good an experience.

You say that, but you haven't experienced 120hz compared to 90hz.
And for what you are able to compare have you tried the difference in one game, so tried locked 45fps in Assetto Corsa and reprojected to 90fps, and then native 90fps?

 

[PzR Slim]

You say that, but you haven't experienced 120hz compared to 90hz.
And for what you are able to compare have you tried the difference in one game, so tried locked 45fps in Assetto Corsa and reprojected to 90fps, and then native 90fps?

Yes I've tried that in AC. As I say reprojection is an amazing bit of tech, it's very clever but matching the fps to the screen refresh rate is better in my opinion. And no I haven't experienced 120hz compared to 90hz in a headset but I have experienced 144hz compared to 120hz on my G-Sync monitor and I know that the difference is negligible. As I say, there will be a difference between 90hz and 120hz but that will pale into insignificance when compared to the difference between the resolution of the two headsets. The difference between the two resolutions will be much more noticeable than the difference in refresh rates.

Like I've said, I'm not trying to be a downer on VR, I've got a vive, my Rift should arrive sometime this month and I have preordered PSVR. I'd just have preferred it if the none VR experience wasn't affected by the VR experience, which from what we know seems likely. PDI and Sony could end up getting a lot of hate coming their way from people with little interest in VR. I can't wait to try VR in GTP, I know just how fantastic it is in PCars and AC, it's game changing but I also see the hype that is being generated around VR and no-one is talking about the drawbacks. I get the impression that a lot of people are going to put on a PSVR headset and expect the game to look how it does in the screenshots and vids that have been released so far. Now that is a completely unrealistic expectation to have if you know anything about VR but if you don't there is no one tempering those expectations.

 

[MisterWaffles]

Well hey, if they didn't keep the frame rate up, all of the VR users would probably be getting sick everywhere because the game couldn't handle the minimum 90fps refresh for the headset.

 

[GranTurismo guy]

Features over VR for me. However, I think people are forgetting that this isn't just about VR. It's also about having a fixed frame rate. PS3 GTs were a nightmare for this, and we don't want it to be a returning issue.

Had the poll been features vs frame rate, I would have voted for frame rate.

 

[PzR Slim]

Features over VR for me. However, I think people are forgetting that this isn't just about VR. It's also about having a fixed frame rate. PS3 GTs were a nightmare for this, and we don't want it to be a returning issue.

Had the poll been features vs frame rate, I would have voted for frame rate.

It's not just a straight up fight between the two then. It becomes a three way fight, graphical quality v fps v features!

 

[Samus]

Features over VR for me. However, I think people are forgetting that this isn't just about VR. It's also about having a fixed frame rate. PS3 GTs were a nightmare for this, and we don't want it to be a returning issue.

Had the poll been features vs frame rate, I would have voted for frame rate.

No but I think most people were expecting, without VR in the picture, the "much more powerful" PS4 could have managed to include the features and maintain 60fps.

I'm sure I could dig up hundreds of posts from people saying the reason for all the issues were the weak PS3 and come the PS4 it would be much simpler, after all they had 32x the RAM. Yet here we are and features have all gone missing and as I've said before, it won't be too long before all blame shifts to VR and Sony, not PD. Just as it did with 3D.

 

[furryboy96]

First add in more features, then the VR can come later.

 

[GranTurismo guy]

First add in more features, then the VR can come later.

VR simply requires stable 60fps. I think as @PzR Slim mentioned the factor that's most likely to blame for the struggle is the graphics.

 

[PzR Slim]

VR simply requires stable 60fps. I think as @PzR Slim mentioned the factor that's most likely to blame for the struggle is the graphics.

It's not quite that simple. Maintaining a stable 60 fps in VR is more difficult than none VR because the combined resolution of the two screens in VR is greater than the 1080p of a single screen. So you are effectively pushing more pixels in VR than none VR. Which means that the quality or fps in none VR is not as good as it could be if VR wasn't included. So unfortunately the inclusion of VR will directly affect the none VR experience if they want both to be exactly the same graphically.

 

[GranTurismo guy]

It's not quite that simple. Maintaining a stable 60 fps in VR is more difficult than none VR because the combined resolution of the two screens in VR is greater than the 1080p of a single screen. So you are effectively pushing more pixels in VR than none VR. Which means that the quality or fps in none VR is not as good as it could be if VR wasn't included. So unfortunately the inclusion of VR will directly affect the none VR experience if they want both to be exactly the same graphically.

Oh, I see. I was under the impression that VR would not require more.

 

[Samus]

How about we put it like this. What, in GTS, can we attribute solely to the power of the PS4? What have we seen so far that could not be done on PS3?

Overall graphics/resolution increase/lighting/
4 extra cars on track
Physics maybe, we don't know if those improvements could've happened on PS3

So again, "power of the PS4"? Where is it?

 

[Toblakai99]

How about we put it like this. What, in GTS, can we attribute solely to the power of the PS4? What have we seen so far that could not be done on PS3?

Overall graphics/lighting
4 extra cars on track
Physics maybe, we don't know if those improvements could've happened on PS3

So again, "power of the PS4"? Where is it?

Well the resolution bumb is most certainly down to the ps4.

 

[Samus]

Well the resolution bumb is most certainly down to the ps4.

Well indeed but I was lumping that in with the overall graphics bump, edited to clarify.

 

[88GTA]

I voted features because I have no intention on buying any VR equipment or using it. It's a shame that PD couldn't just produce GT Sport as a VR-based game with 5 or 6 real-world tracks and 35 cars alongside a full GT7 but this is all we will be getting for a while it seems. One game forced to try and be two.

In the Q/A from the recent news articles it is clear that any time Kaz mentions how a feature needed to be dropped for quality he really means dropped because of VR compatibility. Sony must have made the decision a while ago that the next GT would be fully VR compatible and release at the same time as the VR gear.

One positive that may come from this is that VR could be the only reason we don't have standard cars anymore and a level field of visual quality. PD may have kept standards in (along with a bunch of other premium cars from GT6) if they didn't have such high visual targets set by Sony/VR requirements.

Bottom line: For what could be the next year or two, I will have to dust off my 8 year old PS3 just to drive a proper endurance race in Gran Turismo with weather and time settings because of VR. That's unacceptable.

 

[Fgame]

PSVR is single display at 1920x1080 pixels. 960x1080 per eye. It's the same number of pixels as any standard living room HD TV. It doesn't have more because it's VR. It may do more with those pixels, but it's the same total number.

 

[Soundtrack]

PSVR is single display at 1920x1080 pixels. 960x1080 per eye. It's the same number of pixels as any standard living room HD TV. It doesn't have more because it's VR. It may do more with those pixels, but it's the same total number.

In order to provide an immersive experience VR needs stereoscopic rendering that involves 2 distinct points of view of the same scene. It is not that dissimilar of 3D. In GT5 3D mode ran in 720P. Not sure to what extend those calculations have been further optimised in later updates/iterations but this vid gives you a hint of the added load on the rendering pipeline:



For VR PS4 needs to output 2x 960x1080 at an unconpromised 60fps each (not a single frame drop tolerated according Sony's rulebook) and leave free whatever processing power is required for 120HZ reprojection. I still don't get how this could be reasonably achieved on the original console spec...

 

[Robbks]

There's no way I can justify buying a new PS4, PS4 Compatible Wheel, plus any sort of VR gear aswell.

I voted features, but really I'd like a 3rd option that includes
Proper Smart AI (if there will be a need)
Proper Handling and Tuning Physics Models
Good Sound, with real shifting delay, crackles/ pops on overrun and down-shfting.

Getting the core of the driving and racing experience perfect SHOULD be the #1 priority,
VR, Frame-rate, dynamic weather, damage is all just pretty fluff that can be patched in later.

The cars could literally just be a square box for all I care, as long as it drives properly and we can race properly.

 

[PzR Slim]

PSVR is single display at 1920x1080 pixels. 960x1080 per eye. It's the same number of pixels as any standard living room HD TV. It doesn't have more because it's VR. It may do more with those pixels, but it's the same total number.

Thanks for the correction.

 

[synon]

In order to provide an immersive experience VR needs stereoscopic rendering that involves 2 distinct points of view of the same scene. It is not that dissimilar of 3D. In GT5 3D mode ran in 720P. Not sure to what extend those calculations have been further optimised in later updates/iterations but this vid gives you a hint of the added load on the rendering pipeline:



For VR PS4 needs to output 2x 960x1080 at an unconpromised 60fps each (not a single frame drop tolerated according Sony's rulebook) and leave free whatever processing power is required for 120HZ reprojection. I still don't get how this could be reasonably achieved on the original console spec...

It appears that the 3-D rendering is always greater than 50% of the 720P frame rate, which suggests that the 2 half-screens of the PSVR would display at least at the same frame rate as the full screen (although fixed to 60fps).

 

[AudiMan2011]

I'd rather have a full feature-rich experience in a game than a gimmicky VR one.

 

[Soundtrack]

It appears that the 3-D rendering is always greater than 50% of the 720P frame rate, which suggests that the 2 half-screens of the PSVR would display at least at the same frame rate as the full screen (although fixed to 60fps).

The frame buffer of GT5 @1080P was 1280x1080 (1382400 pixels). In 3D mode it was 2x 1280x720 (1843200 pixels). If addressing PSVR natively, GTS frame buffer should be equivalent to 1920x1080 (2073600 pixels). What is noteworthy is the impact on the framerate from a 720P single view to the 720P stereoscopic render. If you consider the amount of developers that gave up on their initial target of hitting 1080P@60fps on the PS4 (and they are legion) you start to consider the task PD has on hand here.

 

[Fgame]

You remember when PD linked 4 lots of PS3 together and got them to display a 4k GT5 at 60fps.........
Start looking out for cheap used PS4!

But seriously if they built the PSVR with multi HDMI inputs, the headset could join the images together.
Why buy a NEO when a group of PS4 could do it better? We could have super high quality VR at 120fps in 1080p.
Even 2 ps4 could be more powerful than a NEO, each PS4 doing 960x1080 pixels, with 8 cores and 8GB GDDR5 each.

 

[synon]

The frame buffer of GT5 @1080P was 1280x1080 (1382400 pixels). In 3D mode it was 2x 1280x720 (1843200 pixels). If addressing PSVR natively, GTS frame buffer should be equivalent to 1920x1080 (2073600 pixels). What is noteworthy is the impact on the framerate from a 720P single view to the 720P stereoscopic render. If you consider the amount of developers that gave up on their initial target of hitting 1080P@60fps on the PS4 (and they are legion) you start to consider the task PD has on hand here.

Yes, it did seem likely that targetting a fixed 60fps this generation would preclude having dynamic environments as well.

 

[BoneSawTX]

I'll take features over VR, but is VR the reason GTS is missing weather and time. I don't believe so.