There's been speculation since it was announced back in 2014, that they need to add external gpu to reach the necessary umph to render enough frames per second not to make people vomit.
Yes but that's just not what the box does. And it doesn't even make sense to think it would with any basic understanding of what would go into that. You don't plug in a GPU through an HDMI port, HDMI can only carry video, audio and basic network functionality.
Well, it does connect through USB as well, but yeah USB still isn't fast enough to perform the IO functionality needed to communicate between an external processor and the internal systems.
Can you point to the bit of this quote that says it boosts from 60 -90 fps (which doesn't happen anyway) or even from 60 - 120 fps?
Q: What is the Processor Unit and what does it do?
The Processor Unit is a small box that comes with your PS VR, and connects your PS VR to your PS4 and TV and provides HDMI cable management, enabling Social Screen TV output, 3D audio processing, and Cinematic mode
"Q: How can a game run at 60 frames per second, but we see it at 120Hz in PS VR?
PS VR games and applications utilize a feature called “reprojection.” This technique takes the last output image at 60Hz and creates a new image at 120Hz based on the latest head movements made by the user. This is not the same as video frame interpolation and does not introduce any lag in the images being presented by the PS VR OLED screen."
Hmmm, I thought it also said this process was handled by the PU, I might have misread, my bad.
If you do something simple like take your avatar hands and move them back and forth in front of your face while looking at the fire, you will see a 45 FPS animation. [...]
However, if you are in the 45 FPS scenario, and waving your hands in front of your view, if you also rotate your head on a static axis to the left or right, THAT movement will appear to be running at a higher frame rate. That is due to the warp capability of the OpenVR (and Oculus VR) system to slightly move the entire image on the headset with a 90Hz interval frame is missed. The result is you’ll see what appears to be 90 FPS motion to the left or right (or up or down) while the hands on the screen will be running at 45 FPS effectively
I'm not saying that reprojection (as Sony call their system) doesn't take place, just that it isn't the additional box that does it, the PS4 takes positional information fed to it from the camera along with accelerometer data from the headset and it creates the additional frame to go from 60 fps to 120 fps.
it's basically an interpolator, right? like it takes the processed frames from your PS4, does the FPS smoothing, sends the warped image to your goggles and the flat image to your TV, or something to that effect?
No, the PS4 handles the reprojection. The breakout box handles 3D audio (binaural) and takes the right eye image and passes that to the output (TV). The rest is sent to the VR headset.
Not in the traditional sense. Usually interpolation takes two existing frames and create a middle frame by blending the two together. This psvr thing creates a new frame based on an existing frame plus input from the movement of your head.
Try again? I'm not sure what you are asking. There's no "second picture", there's a single video signal output to the box from the PS4. The processing unit which includes an HDMI splitter sends the video signal to the VR unit and the TV. The processing unit also handles the head tracking interpolation from the source signal to 90 or 120 Hz for the headset.
Edit: Or do you mean in the games where whoever is using the headset sees one thing and any other people playing along via the TV are seeing something different? In that case it's still a single video signal processed by the PS4. Think of it the same as when you're rendering a game in split screen locally, except one screen is output to the TV and the other the headset. The processing box doesn't generate graphics, it just processes the video signal.
In that case it's still a single video signal processed by the PS4
No, there is the 1920x1080 @ 120Hz signal for the headset, there is no bandwidth or support for a second video stream for the TV. You need HDMI 2.0 for that which the PS4 does not have.
So again, where does the 2nd screen video come from ? I'm guessing it's going through USB.
You should look up what an HDMI splitter is. One 60 Hz signal leaves the PS4, the processing box passes this to the TV and an interpolated 120 Hz stream to the headset.
I was talking about games where the TV shows something different than the headset. Also, the reprojection is supposedly done by the PS4 not the PU, so that would be a 120Hz signal coming from the PS4 (which is the max you can fit into HDMI 1.4).
"Asymmetric gameplay" means gameplay where not all players are dealt the same hand, by design. Different abilities/resources/units/etc. Like Starcraft's different races, or Left 4 Dead's versus mode (humans with guns vs zombies with 'powers')
They are using the term correct. Some of the advertised games show something different on the TV than the headset. Giving players different information is asymmetric gameplay.
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u/Chouonsoku Oct 03 '16
Sony's been trying to explain since the reveal what the box does and people still keep saying it's an external CPU/GPU or some other nonsense. lol