AMD's Next Radeon Flagship Spotted Powering Oculus Rift

wrxturbo · Mar 6, 2015

As an avid flight simulator fan I have long seen a need for some sort of VR set up. Playing flight sim games currently from the cockpit view has a severe limitation of the range of the field of vision. You have to pan the mouse or arrow keys to look around all while trying to fly the plane and keep an eye on your target. It becomes easier to just use the unrealistic 3rd person view. But playing a flight sim with VR would not only give you the 360 view but you would really feel immersed and think your flying a real full sized plane. Flight sim games like Digital Combat Simulator and War Thunder already support the Oculos Rift. There are already numerous videos on youtube of people playing these games with an Oculus rift. I even saw one video were the guy had diched his fancy 3 monitor setup for an Oculos Rift, a flight stick, rudder pedals and throttle control.

BRio · Mar 6, 2015

AMD staff fakes GDC press with NVIDIA’s new TITAN X GPUs?

AMD 'fictional' 300W R9 390X with integrated water cooler - was an Nvidia TITAN X <strong>Epic "Showdown" demo</strong>

http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/GDC-15-Upcoming-Flagship-AMD-Radeon-R9-GPU-Powering-VR-Demo#comments

wrxturbo · Mar 6, 2015

As an avid flight simulator fan I have long seen a need for some sort of VR set up. Playing flight sim games currently from the cockpit view has a severe limitation of the range of the field of vision. You have to pan the mouse or arrow keys to look around all while trying to fly the plane and keep an eye on your target. It becomes easier to just use the unrealistic 3rd person view. But playing a flight sim with VR would not only give you the 360 view but you would really feel immersed and think your flying a real full sized plane. Flight sim games like Digital Combat Simulator and War Thunder already support the Oculos Rift. There are already numerous videos on youtube of people playing these games with an Oculus rift. I even saw one video were the guy had diched his fancy 3 monitor setup for an Oculos Rift, a flight stick, rudder pedals and throttle control.

wrxturbo · Mar 6, 2015

It seems like there are a lot of people that are not up to speed on what's currently possible with the Oculus Rift. There are several PC games that have been out for while that have added VR support. The two I will mention are combat flight simulators DCS and War Thunder. Someone had commented that there isn't much of a fan base for VR yet. One fan base that is in full support of the Oculus are the Flight sim gamers, which is very large. Here are just a few samples of the Oculus Rift DK2 currently being used in in flight sims.
DCS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDd9_tAHtXY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xiV5Y4nhQE
War Thunder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFyAgRtToL4

somebodyspecial · Mar 7, 2015

wrxturbo :

No argument about it being good for some stuff. But as a person who doesn't do flight sims (not serious sims that is) I can't see paying $300 or whatever just for that. I'd rather put another $300 toward my next gpu. But I can see it being very good for special purpose users. I know people that are the kind you're describing and had the whole works ages ago, spending more on flight gear than I did on my Pc back then...LOL. But a few were REAL pilots, so it was right up their alley and some used the stuff as training when out of the real cockpit.

Now if they get them under $100 and have lots of support in games a few years from now, and it has all the kinks worked out...Maybe. I got 3D vision glasses with an Nvidia card a long time ago, and they never even got plugged in (not once). For the time being I have a PC upgrade, GPU and a gsync monitor (or freesync if that pans out) to buy first. Most likely I'd buy a tablet for training vids before this also. Those things I can enjoy no matter what I'm doing daily. I'm not saying VR won't make money from some people, just that they won't be getting mine for quite some time. I got lasik to avoid wearing anything on my head, so not sure I'd every like anything more than some type of glasses, rather than diving gear style.

jossrik · Mar 7, 2015

somebodyspecial :

I like the cut of your jib guy. I game on a 40in 120hz monitor/tv, and my parents game on a 60 that I set up for them. My point was even with your 65 in the living room, it's not the same experience as going to the movie theatre with your favorite girl or girls or whatnot (I'm not here to judge). And you're absolutely right, content will drive this. But as more content comes out and the headsets get better and cheaper, this has massive potential. 3D was a flop cause it's gimmicky, this is immersive. When you first put the Oculus on you feel like an idiot turning your head to see if you can mess up the tracking and how bad the lag is, but then you actually watch what's on the screen, and just like that, you're trying to look around corners and see the people behind you etc... You get pulled in. Like a good book that you can't put down, or a game that you have to play just a little bit more before you goto bed. And like I said before, it's not even at the point where it's good, in a couple years when people have the experience down, it's gonna be even better. It might not make you a believer, but there is a point to it.

somebodyspecial · Mar 9, 2015

jossrik :

Agreed. As I said: I reserve the right to sing a different tune in 2-3 years

They'll get me at some point at the right price (at least as a toy in my gaming repertoire, much like a flightstick I don't use much but very good at what I do use it for), things ironed out, price at a level I can swallow for the things that interest me (assuming they come out with stuff that does, surely they will at some point). With a few more die shrinks (say 10nm) maybe they can get a good set that is in glasses like I'd desire anyway, rather than full headgear. I still enjoy gaming on Klipsch surround or Logitech Z560's (for that boom they have...LOL - Gunshots make people think a war is going on next door), so most of my gaming is done using that and monitors when I get time. Looking around the corner of a building is pretty cool though 😉 Very cool tech coming, no doubt about that.

cub_fanatic · Mar 10, 2015

April 2015, the supposed month that we will get GTA V on PC (now almost at vaporware status) and Oculus Rift consumer version in retail stores. I wonder which one is actually going to be ready to ship first. We might have 16nm FF desktop GPUs before we are all running around Los Santos as Trevor in his fictional tightie whities on our PCs.

mapesdhs · Mar 10, 2015

Unfortunately for tech of this kind, a bigger factor than content is side effects. It's what made Nintendo decide not to
produce an HMD for the N64 (they chucked the money into the pointless VB instead - I tried one when visiting their HQ).

All it needs is a few disgruntled users who become nauseated, or fall over, hurt themselves in some way, etc., the
proverbial lawsuits (alas an issue mostly found in the US I suspect) and you'd have the relevant tech makers backing off fast.

The key to making it work and minimising unwelcome side effects is, a) precision, b) quality, c) coherent sensory input.

Lag is critical, as is the ability in some way to allow users to control the simulated degree of depth perception, especially
for anyone wearing glasses. Likewise, audio needs to match the visual inputs closely.

I was a sysadmin at a VR research centre for some years, we dealt with these issues a fair bit, though back then the
tech wasn't good enough to solve them. It is today, in demo setups, etc., but getting all that down into a consumer
product that is affordable, reliable, idiot-proof, etc., is not going to be easy. I really hope they succeed, but it's been
a long time coming and past promises haven't exactly helped when they kept being broken, eg. look at the way the
early high hopes for super AI innovation went nowhere (plenty of good AI applications & stuff going on, but not quite
in the way people were led to believe). As someone said once, where's my jetpack already??

Note that I don't think there will ever be a way with modern tech options to counter the balance sense distortion
when visually perceiving an apparent lateral motion; the incoming data does not match the balance sensors in
one's ears and feet (yes, feet! Very important to balance, it's partly why drunk people can't stay standing), so
the auto muscle response is to move to counter the expected motion, making one wobble or fall over. One could
fix this by using nerve interception or some other method to block the auto response, but that's a whole different
field of tech meddling. Another decade+ perhaps.

Back when I was a sysadmin (first CAVE in the UK), the boss had a laugh once putting his toddler daughter
in the CAVE setup (the system had a VR demo of the Teletubby world); all he had to do was use the hand
motion sensor to give the simulated environment a slight jolt forward and she would instantly fall over (don't
worry, padded floor). Point being, the sense reaction to visual motion is incredibly automatic - just watch the
numerous OR clips on youtubes for typical examples.

In VR arcades they get round some of these issues by having one stand inside safe enclosed cubicles of some kind,
or a complete mini room, or just a padded waist-height ring, like a giant hulahoop.

Hence, even assuming they can get the OR done very well as a final released product, there will still be other issues
to deal with. This is just the beginning.

Ian.

PS. Quake in a CAVE networked to other VR centres around Europe with separately motion tracked head
and hand/wand-gun was one of the more fun days as a VR sysadmin. 8) Crouch behind a low wall, stick
arm in the air, point backwards and fire over the wall. Ahh yesss.... (this was circa 2002 I think)

somebodyspecial · Mar 11, 2015

mapesdhs :

Unfortunately for tech of this kind, a bigger factor than content is side effects. It's what made Nintendo decide not to
produce an HMD for the N64 (they chucked the money into the pointless VB instead - I tried one when visiting their HQ).

All it needs is a few disgruntled users who become nauseated, or fall over, hurt themselves in some way, etc., the
proverbial lawsuits (alas an issue mostly found in the US I suspect) and you'd have the relevant tech makers backing off fast.

The key to making it work and minimising unwelcome side effects is, a) precision, b) quality, c) coherent sensory input.

Lag is critical, as is the ability in some way to allow users to control the simulated degree of depth perception, especially
for anyone wearing glasses. Likewise, audio needs to match the visual inputs closely.

I was a sysadmin at a VR research centre for some years, we dealt with these issues a fair bit, though back then the
tech wasn't good enough to solve them. It is today, in demo setups, etc., but getting all that down into a consumer
product that is affordable, reliable, idiot-proof, etc., is not going to be easy. I really hope they succeed, but it's been
a long time coming and past promises haven't exactly helped when they kept being broken, eg. look at the way the
early high hopes for super AI innovation went nowhere (plenty of good AI applications & stuff going on, but not quite
in the way people were led to believe). As someone said once, where's my jetpack already??

Note that I don't think there will ever be a way with modern tech options to counter the balance sense distortion
when visually perceiving an apparent lateral motion; the incoming data does not match the balance sensors in
one's ears and feet (yes, feet! Very important to balance, it's partly why drunk people can't stay standing), so
the auto muscle response is to move to counter the expected motion, making one wobble or fall over. One could
fix this by using nerve interception or some other method to block the auto response, but that's a whole different
field of tech meddling. Another decade+ perhaps.

Back when I was a sysadmin (first CAVE in the UK), the boss had a laugh once putting his toddler daughter
in the CAVE setup (the system had a VR demo of the Teletubby world); all he had to do was use the hand
motion sensor to give the simulated environment a slight jolt forward and she would instantly fall over (don't
worry, padded floor). Point being, the sense reaction to visual motion is incredibly automatic - just watch the
numerous OR clips on youtubes for typical examples.

In VR arcades they get round some of these issues by having one stand inside safe enclosed cubicles of some kind,
or a complete mini room, or just a padded waist-height ring, like a giant hulahoop.

Hence, even assuming they can get the OR done very well as a final released product, there will still be other issues
to deal with. This is just the beginning.

Ian.

PS. Quake in a CAVE networked to other VR centres around Europe with separately motion tracked head
and hand/wand-gun was one of the more fun days as a VR sysadmin. 8) Crouch behind a low wall, stick
arm in the air, point backwards and fire over the wall. Ahh yesss.... (this was circa 2002 I think)

Careful, I got voted down 9 times on the 4th for my post saying much of the same about nausea etc..LOL:
"I'm not excited about a tech that causes most to get headaches or nausea after mere hours or less."
But agreed, that is the stuff I'm talking about when saying if they get the kinks worked out I'll be more interested, or some really cool stuff comes out that's up my alley on top of that, that makes me more willing to pay higher price than I would now. With more and more power coming (via shrinks, new SOC chip IP constantly etc), I think they'll have what they need to get this right at some point. Everyone has announced something VR related now, so surely someone hits the home-run this time around. But for now, I have many other things on my MUST BUY list 😉

mapesdhs · Mar 11, 2015

"Careful, I got voted down 9 times on the 4th for my post saying much of the same about nausea etc..LOL:"

Ach, don't worry about that; some might not like the notion that one may be underwhelmed until a proven
product is available, but that can't change the fact that it's a very important issue, perhaps the most important
of all. Numerous IT projects fail because of the unexpected or what should have been the obvious; indeed,
every year vast numbers of IT programmes are completed on time, within budget, but never used, because they
were what the customer wanted rather than what they needed. My point being I hope the OR devs don't get so
focused on making an awesome HMD in the technical sense that they forget about the practicalities of its use by
ordinary people.

It just needs one company to take the plunge into the market with a product that's successful, then everyone else
will follow suit. Has to be popular enough so that those who love using the device vastly outweigh those who may
complain. The hard part with this kind of tech is making ordinary consumers understand that it will not be suitable
for everyone who may want to buy it, just as some people are unable to lock into the simulated 3D effect in 3D cinema,
or they get headaches watching 3D movies, or are unable able to view magic-eye images, etc. I studied these issues
for the 1st half of my dissertation; the range of ability in people is huge (had some help from an expert at USARI; check
out her paper on simulator sickness in virtual environments). Some find it laughably easy to view 3D, others impossible,
most somewhere inbetween (as with so many things). And even for those who are able to perceive the effect ok,
they may suffer badly from nausea & suchlike, or a bit, or not at all. I just wish we didn't have such a dumb modern
culture of people suing companies for lame reasons; if someone doesn't like or can't use a VR product, then take it
back, get a refund & leave it at that. But the fear of legal action is strong, it's what kept Nintendo away from it ~15
years ago. At least today a lot more is known about how side ffects of 3D/VR systems occur, so it should be easier
to resolve any issues with an OR HMD, or at least minimise them.

If/when OR goes public with a final product, it needs to be nicely polished re how it works & suchlike, not rushed
to market, but at the same time not too expensive and too heavy or large. I figure if it could slot in somewhere
among the upper 3rd of typical GPU prices (excluding the TitanZ-type stuff), ie. somewhere around the 970 mark,
but less than a 980, then it should do ok. Who knows though, maybe they could have more than one version,
a cheaper model & a best model, though that would complicate support issues, etc.

Ian.

PS. Here are the pics I took at NOA in 1995. Seems like so long ago now.

Snookslayer · Mar 11, 2015

I totally agree with Somebodyspecial... I don't see this technology standing the test of time, at least gaming wise. It's interesting and looks neat, but most people (especially gamers) will quickly tire of wearing something like over their face for long periods of time.

It'll be similar to the Wii. A gimmicky product that sold a lot at first because it was new and interesting, but people quickly lost interest in jumping around to a video game.

mapesdhs · Mar 11, 2015

You could well be right Snookslayer, but atm we really don't know how the market will respond. The OR already has
a vocal following, but who knows, much like the Wii it may end up attracting an entirely unexpected audience. Even
if it never achieves major success as a consumer product, I have no doubt it will be very much welcomed by industry
& commerce, hence my reference to the SGI 6DOF video earlier (I really must get that digitised, looks like it's not on
youtube atm). Aside from the usual VR applications such as maintenance/pilot/sim training, it has huge potential in
other areas, eg. remote medical ops, and especially augmented reality. If I was working today on the topic I was
dealing with in 1995 (VR systems for undersea ROVs & maintenance), it would without question be based on the OR.

Oil rig ROV operators told me at the time that an AR system to help with maintenance would make a huge difference;
maybe they've produced stuff like this by now already, but I'm sure the OR can take it a step further with a better
screen, better spatial awareness, better host processing power for AR overlay effects, etc. My work was limited to
position, orientation and direction indicators (example images 1 and 2), but that was 20 years ago. OR should enable
some really good solutions for this type of work, allowing operators to get more done in less time, with less stress.
As one op told me, 45 mins to fit a single bolt with an ROV arm is a PITA, as can often happen when the water is murky.

Ian.

somebodyspecial · Mar 13, 2015

mapesdhs :

"Careful, I got voted down 9 times on the 4th for my post saying much of the same about nausea etc..LOL:"

Ach, don't worry about that; some might not like the notion that one may be underwhelmed until a proven
product is available, but that can't change the fact that it's a very important issue, perhaps the most important
of all. Numerous IT projects fail because of the unexpected or what should have been the obvious; indeed,
every year vast numbers of IT programmes are completed on time, within budget, but never used, because they
were what the customer wanted rather than what they needed. My point being I hope the OR devs don't get so
focused on making an awesome HMD in the technical sense that they forget about the practicalities of its use by
ordinary people.

It just needs one company to take the plunge into the market with a product that's successful, then everyone else
will follow suit. Has to be popular enough so that those who love using the device vastly outweigh those who may
complain. The hard part with this kind of tech is making ordinary consumers understand that it will not be suitable
for everyone who may want to buy it, just as some people are unable to lock into the simulated 3D effect in 3D cinema,
or they get headaches watching 3D movies, or are unable able to view magic-eye images, etc. I studied these issues
for the 1st half of my dissertation; the range of ability in people is huge (had some help from an expert at USARI; check
out her paper on simulator sickness in virtual environments). Some find it laughably easy to view 3D, others impossible,
most somewhere inbetween (as with so many things). And even for those who are able to perceive the effect ok,
they may suffer badly from nausea & suchlike, or a bit, or not at all. I just wish we didn't have such a dumb modern
culture of people suing companies for lame reasons; if someone doesn't like or can't use a VR product, then take it
back, get a refund & leave it at that. But the fear of legal action is strong, it's what kept Nintendo away from it ~15
years ago. At least today a lot more is known about how side ffects of 3D/VR systems occur, so it should be easier
to resolve any issues with an OR HMD, or at least minimise them.

If/when OR goes public with a final product, it needs to be nicely polished re how it works & suchlike, not rushed
to market, but at the same time not too expensive and too heavy or large. I figure if it could slot in somewhere
among the upper 3rd of typical GPU prices (excluding the TitanZ-type stuff), ie. somewhere around the 970 mark,
but less than a 980, then it should do ok. Who knows though, maybe they could have more than one version,
a cheaper model & a best model, though that would complicate support issues, etc.

Ian.

PS. Here are the pics I took at NOA in 1995. Seems like so long ago now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz-WuLQz_ns&html5=1
Your 1995 post brought back memories...LOL. Reineer Beer commercial. We were all at the TV the first time it came on (the advertised it was coming so to speak, IIRC). If you lived anywhere in WA or OR you knew about it, of course all the mountains (I used to ski mt hood a lot), probably been to the space needle etc (I have). Going to NOA must have been fun

Thanks for the memory rehash. 😉 Some of my best times with friends were on MT Hood!

mapesdhs · Mar 16, 2015

Hehe, cool, but maybe I prefer this one. ;D

Visiting NOA was certainly good, one of the highlights of a week-long venture to the US, which btw was
my first trip anywhere outside the UK.

I think I talked briefly with the id guys about VR, but I can't remember what was said now.

Ian.

somebodyspecial · Mar 16, 2015

mapesdhs :

ROFL. You win. But in fairness, mine was from decades ago and I didn't know beer ads outside the topic of mountains were fair game... 😉 Zilda Williams. OK, game over man...

I'll note the original was much better (a little longer and you could hear the words better), they seemed to have shortened it, but I just did a quick google to find one that made the point. People were saying that for ages at work etc after the commercial hit. At parties someone would ask for one, and immediately get corrected by at least one person (in the North West anyway), "no I don't want a raineer beer, I want a ..........." LOL. It was a great ad campaign for the NW (WA/OR that is). People there know the brand and love the mountains pretty much. I could see MT Hood from home. You could be skiing literally about an hour after school there. Car all loaded for the trip right out of the school doors

mapesdhs · Mar 16, 2015

somebodyspecial writes:
> ... and I didn't know beer ads outside the topic of mountains were fair game... 😉 ...

Neither did I, that one just came up as 'recommended' after watching your link, which I found kinda funny. 😀

I don't actually drink beer... *shock horror*

> ... I could see MT Hood from home. ...

Alas I never got that close. Wasn't there long enough to seriously explore, just a few days.

Btw, interesting ditty about OR from Pax East last week, a comment from an OR guy who
was letting bluedrake42 try one out, he said the unit bd was using was a better-than-1080
display, but couldn't say exactly what it was. Has me wondering whether they're already
experimenting with 4K. I hope so.

Ian.

somebodyspecial · Mar 18, 2015

mapesdhs :

Not so shocking on the beer, as I don't drink it either. I like ABS, as in actually having them.

VR is definitely going places. We have very interesting times coming, with multiple things to excite the nerds among us (myself included). 3D printing changing a lot of stuff, VR, self driving cars, a few quick die shrinks that will up power/perf across many devices (everything from mobile, pc to cars, supercomputers etc) etc. Life seems to be moving at the speed of light in tech advancements these days.

TNT27 · Mar 18, 2015

somebodyspecial :

mapesdhs :

Not so shocking on the beer, as I don't drink it either. I like ABS, as in actually having them.

VR is definitely going places. We have very interesting times coming, with multiple things to excite the nerds among us (myself included). 3D printing changing a lot of stuff, VR, self driving cars, a few quick die shrinks that will up power/perf across many devices (everything from mobile, pc to cars, supercomputers etc) etc. Life seems to be moving at the speed of light in tech advancements these days.

"Aliens"

On a serious note, capitalism, works wonders for driving innovation.

AMD's Next Radeon Flagship Spotted Powering Oculus Rift

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