In my years-long saga in this blog of ranting about the current VR headsets, their characteristics and flaws, and the games (or lack thereof), and the reasons why I think they are pretty much effectively a failure, one thing I haven't touched much is how outright impractical they turned out to be. Much more so than was expected.
Prior to launch (mainly during the Oculus Rift Development Kit years), many people were envisioning using VR headsets as an alternative display. Perhaps even their main display.
That's right. Many people actually envisioned even playing normal non-VR games with the headset, and watching movies and videos, and other such things (perhaps even browse the internet). The idea was that the VR headset allows the illusion of watching the game or movie on a giant cinema screen, rather than a tiny monitor on your desk. It would be like sitting in a movie theater with a giant screen, rather than at your home watching a small monitor. Just imagine playing your favorite first-person shooter in a movie theater, with the game being projected on that giant screen. How awesome would that be! Well, with VR it becomes perfectly possible, without having to leave your home!
Except it turned out that VR headsets, at least as they currently are, are not very practical for that.
Firstly, the pixel resolution of current VR headsets is very low, and causes images to be very visibly pixelated. Yes, even the 2160x1200 pixels of the PC VR headsets, while it sounds high, is not even nearly enough. The problem is that those pixels are effectively extended to a very wide area; it's like you took a monitor of that resolution and extended it to be 5 meters wide (while still looking at it from the same distance as you normally would). The individual pixels become large and visible. (It is my understanding that the effect is even worse due to the fact that pixels at the center are scaled larger than pixels at the edges of the display, due to how the lenses work.)
So yeah, you can get that giant cinema screen effect... but it will look like its resolution is something like 640x360 pixels. And that's no exaggeration. It may be surprising to somebody who has never tried a VR headset, but knows the specs, but it really looks that bad. Live action videos will not look horrendously pixelated (due to their natural antialiasing), but it will look like you are watching an old CRT TV, rather than a crisp HD display. BluRay resolutions go pretty much to waste with VR. (DVD resolutions might be on the ballpark, barely.)
The effectively low resolution of VR headsets, even those that were finally published, was quite a surprise to many people (including myself).
Secondly, both major PC VR headsets suffer from a relatively strong "screen-door effect". This makes it look like you are looking the scenery through a fine screen-door. The reason for this is that the pixels in the display are not perfectly adjacent to each other, and thus there are tiny gaps between them. Normally these gaps don't matter much in normal computer monitors because they are so small, but as mentioned above, in VR the pixels are blown to a rather large size, and thus these gaps become much more visible.
So, in effect, watching a movie or playing a (non-VR) game using a VR headset is like doing so in a movie theater with a giant screen... with the image being of CRT TV resolution (often with heavy aliasing if talking about a video game), and as though you had a screen-door in front of your eyes. Not exactly the best possible movie-going experience.
The PSVR is much better in this second regard (although about 10% worse in the first regard), as it uses a better type of display where there are virtually no gaps between the pixels. There is still a visible pattern caused by such gaps, but it's more randomized (it almost looks like a cloth rather than a screen-door) and significantly fainter, often pretty much unnoticeable. This makes the experience significantly better, but of course still doesn't help with the low resolution.
There exists already at least one VR headset that uses a 4k display. This would probably fix many of these problems. However, currently this is quite infeasible for playing VR games because a 4k resolution at 90 Hz is so demanding on the hardware that probably not even a $2000 top-of-the-line PC would be capable of it. Maybe in 5 to 10 years, but not currently. It might be usable for watching movies in relatively high quality, though.
I do not know how it is on the PC side, but at least on the PSVR side there is also the problem of the headset tracking constantly veering off to the side, requiring re-centering, often within minutes. (This might be much better with the PC headsets because they use a different form of tracking, but I can't say for sure, without trying myself.) I don't really understand why the system can't just keep the picture centered, but it just tends to veer off to the side. Incidentally, and luckily, this seldom matters within actual VR games because they work well regardless of how the headset is positioned and how much the tracking has "veered off" to the side; but it does matter when in "cinema mode" (ie. when watching non-VR content on a simulated flat screen; the screen will often start veering off to the side.) This also detracts from the experience of eg. watching a movie on a "giant screen".
In addition to the severe image quality issues (which pretty much effectively mean that VR headsets are not currently a viable alternative to regular displays), there are also other practical, physical issues.
One would think that starting using a VR headset, once the system has been set up, is very simple: Just put the goggles on your head, and that's it. And while that sounds like it's the case, in practice it's slightly more inconvenient. It's hard to explain it with words; you really have to experience yourself. Grabbing the headset, managing the cables, putting on the headphones, adjusting the headset... When you have to go to the bathroom, or whatever else, you have to take it off, and then do it all over again. Suppose that you are a bit cold and would want to put on a sweater, or too hot and remove it. Normally you would just spend two seconds doing it and that's it. However, if you are using VR, it becomes a hassle.
It might sound like it isn't such a hassle and that I'm exaggerating, but you really have to start doing it yourself to really experience how it becomes a nuisance. All the small things add up to a moderate nuisance, which you are not looking forward to do, especially if you need to do it again and again. (Of course personally I only have experience with the PSVR, but I wouldn't be surprised if the PC VR headsets weren't similar in this regard.)
The VR headset, and all of its cables, can also be in the way when not in use.
VR also requires its space. The HTC Vive is especially bad in this regard, but the same is true to a lesser extent with the Oculus Rift and the PSVR.
And of course, and not very surprisingly, a VR headset is not something you will be using for many hours on end. It's not especially straining to the eyes (although it depends on the person), and it may not cause any sort of nausea (again, depending on the person), but having such goggles strapped onto your face inevitably becomes uncomfortable over time. Luckily they are extremely light, but on the other hand they can be warm, and become more and more uncomfortable for each passing hour.
All of these, which alone sound like small things, together add to the inconvenience level.
VR, as it currently is, is not very practical as an alternative display, nor for watching movies, or playing regular games on a "giant screen". Its use is in fact quite niche, mostly to play actual VR games (which aren't exactly aplenty).
Prior to launch (mainly during the Oculus Rift Development Kit years), many people were envisioning using VR headsets as an alternative display. Perhaps even their main display.
That's right. Many people actually envisioned even playing normal non-VR games with the headset, and watching movies and videos, and other such things (perhaps even browse the internet). The idea was that the VR headset allows the illusion of watching the game or movie on a giant cinema screen, rather than a tiny monitor on your desk. It would be like sitting in a movie theater with a giant screen, rather than at your home watching a small monitor. Just imagine playing your favorite first-person shooter in a movie theater, with the game being projected on that giant screen. How awesome would that be! Well, with VR it becomes perfectly possible, without having to leave your home!
Except it turned out that VR headsets, at least as they currently are, are not very practical for that.
Firstly, the pixel resolution of current VR headsets is very low, and causes images to be very visibly pixelated. Yes, even the 2160x1200 pixels of the PC VR headsets, while it sounds high, is not even nearly enough. The problem is that those pixels are effectively extended to a very wide area; it's like you took a monitor of that resolution and extended it to be 5 meters wide (while still looking at it from the same distance as you normally would). The individual pixels become large and visible. (It is my understanding that the effect is even worse due to the fact that pixels at the center are scaled larger than pixels at the edges of the display, due to how the lenses work.)
So yeah, you can get that giant cinema screen effect... but it will look like its resolution is something like 640x360 pixels. And that's no exaggeration. It may be surprising to somebody who has never tried a VR headset, but knows the specs, but it really looks that bad. Live action videos will not look horrendously pixelated (due to their natural antialiasing), but it will look like you are watching an old CRT TV, rather than a crisp HD display. BluRay resolutions go pretty much to waste with VR. (DVD resolutions might be on the ballpark, barely.)
The effectively low resolution of VR headsets, even those that were finally published, was quite a surprise to many people (including myself).
Secondly, both major PC VR headsets suffer from a relatively strong "screen-door effect". This makes it look like you are looking the scenery through a fine screen-door. The reason for this is that the pixels in the display are not perfectly adjacent to each other, and thus there are tiny gaps between them. Normally these gaps don't matter much in normal computer monitors because they are so small, but as mentioned above, in VR the pixels are blown to a rather large size, and thus these gaps become much more visible.
So, in effect, watching a movie or playing a (non-VR) game using a VR headset is like doing so in a movie theater with a giant screen... with the image being of CRT TV resolution (often with heavy aliasing if talking about a video game), and as though you had a screen-door in front of your eyes. Not exactly the best possible movie-going experience.
The PSVR is much better in this second regard (although about 10% worse in the first regard), as it uses a better type of display where there are virtually no gaps between the pixels. There is still a visible pattern caused by such gaps, but it's more randomized (it almost looks like a cloth rather than a screen-door) and significantly fainter, often pretty much unnoticeable. This makes the experience significantly better, but of course still doesn't help with the low resolution.
There exists already at least one VR headset that uses a 4k display. This would probably fix many of these problems. However, currently this is quite infeasible for playing VR games because a 4k resolution at 90 Hz is so demanding on the hardware that probably not even a $2000 top-of-the-line PC would be capable of it. Maybe in 5 to 10 years, but not currently. It might be usable for watching movies in relatively high quality, though.
I do not know how it is on the PC side, but at least on the PSVR side there is also the problem of the headset tracking constantly veering off to the side, requiring re-centering, often within minutes. (This might be much better with the PC headsets because they use a different form of tracking, but I can't say for sure, without trying myself.) I don't really understand why the system can't just keep the picture centered, but it just tends to veer off to the side. Incidentally, and luckily, this seldom matters within actual VR games because they work well regardless of how the headset is positioned and how much the tracking has "veered off" to the side; but it does matter when in "cinema mode" (ie. when watching non-VR content on a simulated flat screen; the screen will often start veering off to the side.) This also detracts from the experience of eg. watching a movie on a "giant screen".
In addition to the severe image quality issues (which pretty much effectively mean that VR headsets are not currently a viable alternative to regular displays), there are also other practical, physical issues.
One would think that starting using a VR headset, once the system has been set up, is very simple: Just put the goggles on your head, and that's it. And while that sounds like it's the case, in practice it's slightly more inconvenient. It's hard to explain it with words; you really have to experience yourself. Grabbing the headset, managing the cables, putting on the headphones, adjusting the headset... When you have to go to the bathroom, or whatever else, you have to take it off, and then do it all over again. Suppose that you are a bit cold and would want to put on a sweater, or too hot and remove it. Normally you would just spend two seconds doing it and that's it. However, if you are using VR, it becomes a hassle.
It might sound like it isn't such a hassle and that I'm exaggerating, but you really have to start doing it yourself to really experience how it becomes a nuisance. All the small things add up to a moderate nuisance, which you are not looking forward to do, especially if you need to do it again and again. (Of course personally I only have experience with the PSVR, but I wouldn't be surprised if the PC VR headsets weren't similar in this regard.)
The VR headset, and all of its cables, can also be in the way when not in use.
VR also requires its space. The HTC Vive is especially bad in this regard, but the same is true to a lesser extent with the Oculus Rift and the PSVR.
And of course, and not very surprisingly, a VR headset is not something you will be using for many hours on end. It's not especially straining to the eyes (although it depends on the person), and it may not cause any sort of nausea (again, depending on the person), but having such goggles strapped onto your face inevitably becomes uncomfortable over time. Luckily they are extremely light, but on the other hand they can be warm, and become more and more uncomfortable for each passing hour.
All of these, which alone sound like small things, together add to the inconvenience level.
VR, as it currently is, is not very practical as an alternative display, nor for watching movies, or playing regular games on a "giant screen". Its use is in fact quite niche, mostly to play actual VR games (which aren't exactly aplenty).
I agree that VR Headsets
ReplyDeletecan be impractical at times, but they are still relatively new and I am excited for the future regarding them.