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Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

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Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#41
post #12

I don’t think people fully grasp how much power and compute it takes to record and process video (me included). let me know how long that canon r5 can record for continuously, and how many batteries it’ll go through for that recording time. It wasn’t that long ago that it was taxing for desktop computers to play a 4k video file.

The Canon R5c can record indefinitely at 8k60, or as much as you have storage for.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#42

A new VR arcade opened up in my area and I visited with my son. They were using HTC Vive headsets, which retail for $1,000+. It’s the first time I really used VR, especially in a couch coop mode setup. The following struck me: (1) There is no killer, must have game for VR. Beat Saber seems to be the most popular and mainstream game but not nearly engaging enough to convince the mass market to buy one or more VR heads…

The "problem" with VR is that it doesn't yet have the mass market appeal of traditional consoles or PC gaming. For higher-end VR gaming, that's mostly because the hardware is (as you say) quite expensive and compromised in various ways; however, it's an absolute game-changer for some people, e.g. flight and space sim players, for whom none of the issues you've raised are relevant. For lower-end stuff, I imagine it's facing the same old problem of trying to market a new product category to consumers who don't really understand or care.

I can't really speak to what Meta's doing, but as somebody who pre-ordered a Vive at launch and has had some of my most compelling gaming experiences ever in VR, I think you should recognize that you aren't really in the target market for higher-end VR gaming. The absolute size of that market is certainly a concern for the continued development of VR tech, but so far it seems to be doing alright as a relatively niche gaming sector (see: the Valve Index).

> somehow bring down the cost so two headsets cost about as much as a current generation console

You can get an Oculus Quest 2 for $400 + tax.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#43

A new VR arcade opened up in my area and I visited with my son. They were using HTC Vive headsets, which retail for $1,000+. It’s the first time I really used VR, especially in a couch coop mode setup. The following struck me: (1) There is no killer, must have game for VR. Beat Saber seems to be the most popular and mainstream game but not nearly engaging enough to convince the mass market to buy one or more VR heads…

Half Life: Alyx is the killer VR app.

It's so good that it ruined VR for me entirely. I can't play any other VR games, they all just feel like tech demos or shoddy old Unity asset flips.

It's scary good and immersive. Try it, it will blow you away.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#44
(Edit: the tearing is not visible through the device, so quite a bit less damning than I thought.)

The tear and color lag on this picture of a moving chart is damning: https://i0.wp.com/kguttag.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/MQP...

As is this quote:

  > I also ran a small experiment where I sent a camera flash off in a dimly lit room and measured the delay with light sensors using one sensor to trigger an oscilloscope’s capture and the second light sensor to capture the display response. It typically took a little over four 90Hz frame times (~40 to 50ms) for the flash to show up on the image.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#45
The author persistently conflates AR and MR throughout the posting, evaluating the Quest Pro as an AR device but the concluding at the end it's a terrible "MR" device because it failed at their AR tests. It seems to suggest they really think these terms are synonymous but they aren't. While AR aims to enable display and interaction with the real world but with augmentations, MR aims to bring virtual objects into the real world and allow you to interact with those. You really don't need such a high fidelity view of the real world to do that. The virtual objects are rendered with very high fidelity.

I am fairly confused by the low res cameras used in the QPro. I have to assume Meta were just heavily constrained by the need for them to do double duty as tracking cameras and pass through cameras, so higher quality cameras just weren't available. But why only a single color pass through camera? This really doesn't make much sense other than if you allow that the processor on the Quest Pro is so limited that even if it had both feeds it probably couldn't process them.

I think it's actually great news that there is so much optimization left to do. Seems like they should be able to improve it a lot over time, and in the meantime it's pretty adequate to enable exploration of some unique experiences.

edit: VR => MR

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#46

On mobile, so I can’t properly view/appreciate the detail-shots, but this is exactly the kind of post I’ve been waiting to see written covering the Quest Pro. I tried the Quest 2 last year mostly out of curiosity for the use cases that Meta themselves would go on to push as the primary focuses of the Quest Pro; VR productivity and virtual monitors. I was left drastically underwhelmed at the time with the resolution a…

> after hearing that the Pro wouldn’t have much of an upgrade in that department

Not sure where you heard that, the Quest Pro absolutely offers a massive upgrade in the viewing experience, specifically for the case of virtual monitors. It's mostly in the lenses but it's an absolutely huge difference.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#47

A new VR arcade opened up in my area and I visited with my son. They were using HTC Vive headsets, which retail for $1,000+. It’s the first time I really used VR, especially in a couch coop mode setup. The following struck me: (1) There is no killer, must have game for VR. Beat Saber seems to be the most popular and mainstream game but not nearly engaging enough to convince the mass market to buy one or more VR heads…

Interesting, my first experience with the Vive was mind blowing and I left thinking that VR was the future. It’s quite an outdated headset now.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#49

A new VR arcade opened up in my area and I visited with my son. They were using HTC Vive headsets, which retail for $1,000+. It’s the first time I really used VR, especially in a couch coop mode setup. The following struck me: (1) There is no killer, must have game for VR. Beat Saber seems to be the most popular and mainstream game but not nearly engaging enough to convince the mass market to buy one or more VR heads…

I had to laugh because you typify so much the average commenter about VR ... "I tried it once for an hour and here is my essay writing off the whole field".

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#50
I did some calculations this morning after reading The Information's (paywalled, sorry) article [1] on the Apple VR device which has 4K per eye resolution. My 27" 4K monitor sits about 28 inches away from my eyes on my desk. This translates into about 46 degree field of view, or about 83 pixels per degree. I can't see pixels at that distance.

If we take 60 pixels per degree as the Apple "Retina" standard, and if we assume that the field of view of the Apple VR device is ideal (120 degrees), then we would need a horizontal resolution of ~7k to match my setup at the "Retina" standard. If you compromise a bit on FOV, you can squeeze it down to 6k, which is within the reach of "today's" current display technology [2].

The Apple VR device is rumored to be powered by some custom silicon with foveated rendering optimizations (render only what you are looking at with the highest resolution) and is maxing out an M2 class GPU with unknown # of GPU cores on the device per The Information article. A doubling of GPU performance may get us to the 6K display per eye, optimistically the v2 of the Apple VR device?

[1] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/inside-the-tech-powe... [2] https://www.roadtovr.com/pimax-reality-12k-qled-announcement...

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