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setsunatenshi on 05 February 2017
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spemanig said:
setsunatenshi said:

Ok, I think there's some confusion here since you keep bringing up some mario kart 8 as an example.

A VR game needs to be rendered twice, once for each eye. So actually if you'd want to have a game run at 60fps, the game needs to be actually rendered at 120fps.

So in short, no a game like mk8 would not run on the switch in VR at 60fps.

For comparison, if you play Drive Club VR on the vanilla PS4, the level of graphics pretty much looks on part with what a late PS2 game would look like. The depth of view is really small. You see the turns when you're quite close to them as the world is not even rendered far enough with any level of detail that allows for a smooth experience.

And this is on a console at least 4 to 5 times more powerful than the Switch.

So, in short, could they bring some sort of VR to the Switch? Yes.

Would you be able to play any 'real' VR game on it? No

Would you be able to play some VR videos? Sure

Would your eyes bleed on a 6 inch screen / 720p VR setting? You can bet on it.

 

So yeah, you think it will be the Wii of VR, I'm saying it will be the Virtual Boy 2. Nothing like a wait and see at this moment :)

...I am confused. All VR does is split the screen in half. I've literally seen what it does on my phone. It's the exact same thing as any split screen mode. That's exactly what split screen mode is on MK8. I don't understand what you mean by 120fps. It's not. It's running two separate screens at 60fps. If you think I'm not aware that running two separate screens is more taxing than running one single screen on a game like that, I am aware. That's why MK8 can't, for example, run 4 player split screen at 60fps; it has to downgrade to 30fps then. But Mario Kart 8 does do 60fps with two players, which is exactly what's going on in VR. It's rendering two images of the same game.

So in short, yes a game like MK8 would run on Switch in VR @ 60fps.

Also, about Driveclub, I just looked at a comparison, and it definitely doesn't look like a PS2 game. I guess you could say it looks like a PS3 era game, but a lot of the "bad" you see in VR is just due to noticing workarounds devs always use when programming games because you're in the world. EDIT: The VR version also Driveclub runs at 30fps on the regular PS4, and has to run at 90fps split screen in PSVR. By your math, that's 180fps, or 6x the fps of the vanilla game, so obviously there's gonna be a downgrade there. Switch will never face such a downgrade targeting 60fps on two screens, especially with Nintendo games which mostly target 60fps anyway.

So again, the idea that the Switch is too weak to handle VR games is absolutely absurd. Even on mobile, a big reason you don't see big games on the marketplace is because of limits on game size enforced by Apple (and i assume android) that won't be there on Switch. The idea that 'real' VR games aren't possible on Switch is flagrantly false. They would be there aplenty.

I get that we're just talking about opinions here and all, but Gear VR sold 5m it's first year on the market, and that sold on just mobile hardware and freemium mobile games alone. If the PSVR sells even 2.5 million its first year, I'll be incredibly surprised. Much of that is due to a naturally higher attatch rate because it's on dedicated gaming hardware, an advantage the Switch will also have. The mass market doesn't care about the quality difference. They care about accessibility above all else, and $500 for everything just isn't accessible.

$100 for everything is, and I can't wrap my head around how you can see something like the Gear VR do demonstrably better than every other dedicated VR headset, but a better headset in literally every way for the exact same price wouldn't do better than PSVR. I guess we can wait and see, but the answer is already set in stone with numbers already. Again, my eyes didn't bleed at 640p. No one's will bleed at 720p, even at 6 inches. People don't care. Not with what you're getting for $100. And not with a software push that VR otherwise just isn't getting right now because no one wants to invest in it yet.

1- You're rendering a different frame per each eye, that's why in order to perceive 60fps, the total fps count must be 120. There are different techniques to achieve this effect, but still, it requires a much more taxing hardware to maintain this framerate on current demanding console/PC games than what the Switch is carrying.

It is pointless to compare it to a phone VR, because the types of VR experiences on a phone are not the ones we are talking about for real gaming. It's one thing to play the lates $1 shitty vr game on the app store and another thing trying to play resident evil 7 in VR. Hell,  really basic VR experiences like job simulator probably wouldn't even work on an Xbox 1, much less a low powered handheld device like the Switch.

Job Simulator Minimum System Requirements
  • OS: Windows 7 64-bit Service Pack 1 Or Newer.
  • CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3 GHz or AMD FX-8350 4.0 GHz.
  • RAM: 4 GB System Memory.
  • GPU RAM: 4GB Video Memory or greater.
  • GPU: GeForce GTX 970 or Radeon R9 290.
  • Display: VR Headset - Oculus Rift or HTC Vive.
So yeah, that's the minimum requirement on the most basic of VR games with cartoony graphics comparable to the ones you'd find on the typical Nintendo game.
2- Gear VR selling those numbers is quite expected as it was bundled in with the purchase of the Samsung S7 and S7 edge when they came out. The question is, how much software is it selling? Exactly...
I don't know about apple's policies, but on android you obviously have a limit to the apk size on the store, but once you download the apk, the game installation is done from other websites. As an example, the play store has a size limit of 100 MB, but the latest magic the gathering game i purchased was over 1 GB. Same for Yugioh. This is pretty standard, so there's really no limit to the size of the game other than your phone's storage (which on android world usually has the optional micro SD card expansion).
My conclusion from what I've seen you write is that you're comfortable comparing the possible Switch VR to a mobile phone VR. If that's the case we're arguing past each other at this point. When I'm saying it can't do gaming VR, I mean real games (console/pc quality). 
3- Finally just to get the facts straight on Driveclub VR:
"Driveclub VR, the special version of the PS4 racing game that is being developed for PlayStation VR, will run at 60 frames per second (the original runs at 30fps). However, it will be "upscaled" to the needed 120 frames per second. That has been clarified by game director Paul Rustchynsky via Twitter."