Why are VR games ugly compared to modern non VR Games?

[Shooter Mcgavin]

I am dying to fork out a grand one the new index but to be honest, Ive never played or even put on a VR headset. I have seen videos of VR games and Im not really impressed.
I would like to point out that I would rather play a regular game like the new ghost recon using VR as apposed to a game where Im doing the VR thing( punching the air like a fool)

[Satoru]

So with modern VR games you have one very very important constraint

Your game MUST run at 90fps

Not 'kinda sorta' 90fps

not "ok like most of the time its 90fps"

it must run 90fps ALL THE TIME

This is becaus of how the displays are actually projecting the image on the display to reduce ghosting, and reducing motion sickness. Dropping below 90fps is the #1 way your users will start getting isck

Sure you could give your game mega high fidelity, but hten how is it going to run at 90fps? You gotta make compromises then. Lower poly count. Less textures maybe? Less objects in view? Wiat I can't really control what you see because you can and look anywhere. etc etc

Because of this necessity to run at 90fps, devs have to make fidelity sacrifices in order to maintain this very critical 90fps. Sure you could put on an HMD and try to play Skyrim with every high texture res pack, hair pack and 'lets make everything pretty' mod. You wont make it out of the tutorial wagon without throwing up.


I would say that screenshots and such really don't do VR justice unfortunately. Its really hadr to describe the 'presence' you feel in a high quality VR session. It might looks ridiculous that someone would be utterly terrified playing Ritchie's Plank Experience. Fidelity is low, it doesn't 'look' photorealistic at all. You 'know' you're not going to fall. But your brain is telling you "you are going to die"

[Washell]

Originally posted by Satoru:

So with modern VR games you have one very very important constraint

Your game MUST run at 90fps

Not 'kinda sorta' 90fps

not "ok like most of the time its 90fps"

it must run 90fps ALL THE TIME

They're working on that. Well, it'll still need to run at 90 to 120 fps (or higher), but they're working on reducing the workload without reducing the perceived quality.
https://www.roadtovr.com/why-eye-tracking-is-a-game-changer-for-vr-headsets-virtual-reality/

[Nice]

Oh boy. 90 or 120 fps isn't even the main thing.
It is important, of course, but the main thing is...
...EVERYTHING NEEDS TO RENDER TWICE.

Put a finger close to your face and look with just one eye, then switch.
Each eye is like an camera- and the full view with the sense of depth comes from overlapping and mixing 2 different eyeviews, from different angles, at a specific focal point- giving us a wider percpetion, with depth, of what would be a single camera at the center (but it have depth and wider fov, so its better then if we were cyclops).

In game engines those cameras mean more rendering. VR works by giving each eye a view exactly like they would have in real life- meaning a different angle for each eye.
So each lense on the headset is showing a completely different render then the other, different angles. The game engine needs to calculate and render the whole scene for each such angle- twice.

If a game would run at 60 fps it could hope to run at 30 on each lense (double the work).
They need games runing at 90fps at least, so that means the 'non vr version' would need to be light enougth to run at 180fps plus minimum. They generally go for more then that, and you have to take into account hiccups...

[Xite >X< 👁️👁 🇦🇺]

You want immersive get VR, want image quality get 4k.

[4425 messias]

yy

[Shooter Mcgavin]

Wow, some really excellent posts!

So, if most "VR" games need to keep the graphics on low as to not drop the frame rates, what about regular games that have a VR option?
Most new non VR only games have fantastic graphics, if you have a high end PC could you then play modern games that allow VR without barfing?

I have a I7 9700k with a 2080TI and want to buy a high performance headset like the Index.
Could I then play these regular games in VR without dropping below 90 FPS?

I really want to but a Index but I just think most "VR" games look dorky (on youtube)