Revealing the specifications on day one would only fuel the controversy surrounding the Vive Pro’s release.
I don't think they really needed to reveal the system requirements at that point. It should be obvious to anyone at least somewhat familiar with computer hardware that increasing the resolution by nearly 75% would require a higher-end graphics card to maintain a similar level of performance. The percentage increase in resolution is similar to that of going from 1080p resolution to 1440p, after all. Now, since dynamic resolution scaling was recently added to SteamVR, you technically could get away with the same level of hardware that the original Vive required, but most content would be rendered at the same resolution as the original Vive and upscaled, which would defeat the main point of paying more for the new hardware.
Specter0420 :
This is so disappointing, this barely qualifies as Gen 1.5! I tried the Samsung Odyssey (same resolution) and switched back to the Rift. I hope Pimax delivers with the 8K, that will be the first true Gen 2 HMD.
I guess that depends on what one considers a "generation". CPU manufacturers typically tend to consider a 10% or so increase in performance as a generation. With graphics cards it's often a bit higher, but they'll still often repackage the same hardware a couple generations in a row with only slightly higher clocks and minor enhancements. With console hardware, each generation tends to bring about a relatively large increase in performance, but those tend to be many years apart. This headset is only coming around 2 years after the first generation of consumer VR hardware launched. How much are they expected to change after just 2 years? From a resolution standpoint, an almost 75% increase is huge, and requires significantly higher graphics card performance. The performance of GPUs at a given price point hasn't yet really improved since shortly after the first-gen headsets launched though. And recently, their prices have increased substantially, to the point where most cards currently cost as much or more for a given level of performance than what one would have paid more than 3 years ago for the previous generation of graphics cards. They obviously can't just release a product intended for a wide audience that requires a $1000 graphics card to use.
I would say that the resolution of this headset was a good choice for them to aim for. However, I would have liked to have seen other additions like eye tracking by this point. Eye tracking, along with foveated rendering support in software, would need to be included in a headset to push resolution much higher. Aside from resolution, the Vive Pro doesn't really seem to add much from a feature standpoint. Support for the new base-stations and controllers is to be expected, but those aren't even out yet, let alone bundled with the hardware.
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