[diziet]

VR is amazing and the opportunity is incredible. However, I am worried worried that the technology to produce high enough resolution displays will take some time to get here. Without smartphones driving the demand, will we get to 5-10k dpi displays for VR tech? We have 800 or so dpi displays rolling out, with current generation devices filling their FOV with about 500 dpi screens. We're driving 1.3-1.8m pixels per eye, but that is not enough if you want to pretend to gaze at something 20 meters away. The pixel density, especially in the center area of the display, should be much higher. Otherwise only abstract low polygon count content will work.

[sergiosgc]

I own a Vive. We are quite a few years from having HMDs where you can't see pixelation. I estimate we need a tenfold increase in density.

However, and this is something you need to try to believe, pixelation does not affect immersion. The human brain is amazing at coping with vision defects. When in a game, you absolutely forget about pixel visibility. You are just "in there".

So, it is true that you can't get detail for showing stuff in detail at 20m. It limits applications, but there's already plenty of activities that are possible now, instead of having to wait ten years.

[majewsky]

> The human brain is amazing at coping with vision defects.

Indeed. I am a bit short-sighted (literally, not metaphorically), but I usually spend the day without my glasses. Only in lectures, I will put them on, and immediately wonder how I could cope with the blurry mess that I saw before. But it just doesn't matter when you're focusing on different things.

[fsiefken]

Yes, I was pretty immersed in Duke Nukem 3D even though you could see the pixels. I had an 800x600 emagin z800 hmd, but my brain interpolated both displays to a higher resolution

[StavrosK]

When you're in a game, yes, but I want my VR for working in a virtual desktop, and, for that, you absolutely do need all the resolution you can get.

[conception]

I'm also worried about the actual effects of motion sickness once it becomes actually mass consumer affordable. Generally, reports are that VR can be particularly rough for most folks.

[woodman]

As I understand it, the motion sickness is directly related to rendering lag. Outside of VR there isn't much of an incentive to reduce that lag - as the only people who really care much about it now are the most enthusiastic of PC gamers. There is a lot of buffering and synchronization between the software and our retinas right now, so the hardware advancement needed to enable motion sick free VR (low lag GPU and display) is going to have to come from a drive to specifically deliver motion sick free VR.

[jobigoud]

We already have virtually zero latency in VR at the moment thanks to predictive tracking and rewarping of the frames to the predicted head pose and direct driver support.

The motion sickness is mostly coming from vection now, when you move in VR but not in real reality. It's an active area of research, people are experimenting with things like reducing the FOV while moving, using interactive overlaid grid to pull the scene around, etc.

[chongli]

No, it's not just due to rendering lag. Motion sickness is caused by a disparity between the what the eyes perceive as motion and the vestibular system of the inner ear [0].

That's not all, though. Another major problem with VR is the lack of compensation for vergence [1] and accommodation [2]. These two systems are critical for depth perception and when they are not accounted for the result is confusion of the visual system, eye strain, fatigue, and even nausea.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestibular_system

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergence

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accommodation_(eye)

[slavik81]

While I enjoyed the DK2, I got unbearably sick from Half-Life 2 within a half hour. Playing with Tilt Brush on the Vive, I didn't feel the slightest bit queasy.

Not sure if the difference was the hardware or the software, but it seems like a solvable problem.

[Shish2k]

FPS games are inherently a million times worse for VR sickness than room-scale walking around, since the former has the mismatch of the avatar walking around with the player sitting in a chair, while the latter is 1:1

[mnsc]

HL2 is the only game that I felt nauseous from. Wonder why? I stopped playing though instead of trying finding a solution so I don't know if it's a known problem.

[mrfusion]

I actually got really naughtius playing half life 2 on the pc many years ago. Maybe there's something about that game.

[Wintamute]

I am pretty sensitive to motion sickness ... get sick easily in cars, awful in boats and have suffered week-long bouts of pretty nasty positional vertigo a few times in my life but I can stay in the Vive for hours with no ill effects at all. It doesn't feel like my vestibular system is under any sort of stress at all, the tracking is super tight. My assumption is that the majority of people that experience nausea do so due to either defective hardware, or under-powered systems.

[sergiosgc]

I think it's the games. Room scale games, like Fantastic Contraption, induced no motion sickness on the twenty or so people I had trying it out. Games where your avatar is moving but you physically aren't are dangerous territory. I never tried HL2, but I easily imagine it begin nauseating.

[diziet]

There is a reason why most current demos or games do not give you full control of movement, and the demos that give you mouse / keyboard controls to move around a space with jerky accelerated motion do cause problems. I think we'll get better in time with control schemes and design that does not cause nausea.

[empath75]

I have a rift and I don't get sick and nobody I've shown it to has gotten sick. I think that concern is way overblown.

[sergiosgc]

I own a Vive. Zero motion sickness on room scale games, zero when flying around in Elite:Dangerous. However, get me in something with wheels and it's hell. Rolling in the buggy in Elite is bad, driving in Project Cars is worse.

I've learned that, in Elite, if I look at where the buggy is going (it power slides a lot), then I almost avoid motion sickness. Project Cars, though, I can't play. Cornering, at high speed, completely immersed, with no lateral acceleration, triggers some alarm in me.

[JibberMeTimbers]

Does a 1st person view from the driver's seat have any impact?

[sergiosgc]

VR or no VR, I always play car games from the perspective of the driver's seat or, in some cases, from the front bumper cam. Playing from the third person perspective cam is a bit too arcade for me.

So, my description above is for playing from the driver's seat perspective.

[woodman]

I don't know if it is overblown, but it is certainly real. I've only experience motion sickness under two conditions: helicopter flight on moonless nights, and developing software for the original rift. It was a real bummer, after a few uncomfortable weeks I put it back in the case and haven't touched it since.

[drewrv]

IMO the concerns are overblown. If a game is well designed and the hardware is up to par there isn't really a problem.