Star Citizen 4.5 and VR

[PimaxQuorra]

Yea, I have sent this to Silvan as well.

He will be looking into it.

[Psychotik2k3]

hi any news about that ? i feel like using a handbrake with steamVR xr runtime

[Octofox]

Hey @PimaxQuorra I don’t suppose there’s any update on why the 8KX still needs Parallel Projections for Star Citizen? Silvan-CIG said he was taking all the correct API transforms etc and doesn’t know what PP is or why it’s required.

I know it’s an old gen headset and there are other priorities, but he may need help from your side to see what’s up. And I could really do without the GPU overhead!

Forum is back, but database was rolled back by 9 days or so?

Parallel Projections is required to make the 8KX work with Star Citizen, which of course is a large GPU hit on an already demanding title. And I only have a 2080 Ti So I explained to Silvan as best as I could what this is and how the 8KX could be supported natively to circumvent the need for Parallel Projection eg Implement Proper Eye Transforms, avoid hardcoding any FOV settings, ensure frustum culling support for canted displays etc - he said that “I already do all of that. The projection matrices are coming straight from openxr”, so asked what is the issue. It’s not something he has…

[Shazboticus]

PP is evil incarnate. Whenever I try a new VR title that doesn’t need it on, I literally jump for joy.

[Octofox]

[Shazboticus]

Is PP still a thing with the new headsets like the Dream Air? Or is it only for the OG units like the 8K?

[Octofox]

No, only legacy now for the 8KX and maybe others with heavily canted lenses. The new designs plus improved software has eliminated the need for workarounds. I think it’s effectively on by default with new headsets, but doesn’t need that huge corrective hit.

The fact that the M-OLED / Dream Air pushes the resolution that it does, has 53 PPD, needs far less distortion correction, and still only needs to push 43.76 million pixels is an impressive improvement.

[PimaxQuorra]

Hey,
I met with Silvan at CES. He’s currently working on an issue where the OpenXR runtime is being blocked by EAC, and I’ll also give him a heads-up about the 8KX.

[Octofox]

Great news, thanks. Hope you all enjoyed CES and the event went well

[fakeoptimism]

@Octofox

I think it’s effectively on by default with new headsets, but doesn’t need that huge corrective hit.

Oh. Are you saying that the newer headsets take a performance hit too (the more canted they are), but since the angle is smaller, the performance hit is smaller as well? But non-zero compared to fully parallel headsets like Meganex? In all games?

[Octofox]

Others can explain the technicalities much better than I can, will do my best. Also better locations than this thread but I hope this helps.

All headsets by their design of lenses and displays take a performance hit, the GPU has to render internally a higher quality image and this is sent to the headset to have a distortion profile applied to suit those particular lenses, so you see the clearest possible image (considering all the factors of clarity, FOV, distortion, aberrations etc). Canted lenses need more aggressive profiles for this with more pixels, angle is likely a factor. This requires more performance.

In this context there’s no such thing as a fully parallel headset and therefore zero hit, all lenses need to bend the light to present the image at a specific distance to the user, that’s physics hehe. So work must be done on all headsets, canted at some angle or not, it’s about efficiency.

On that pixel comparison image above, you can see how much extra the 8KX in PP mode pushes compared to without PP, or compared to current gen headsets. It has huge asymmetric Fresnel lenses. To compare, the efficiency of the M-OLED optical stack with its new pancake lenses, needs far less distortion correction, and requires way less pixels, despite its higher screen resolution. Less FOV to deal with but also increases PPD to 53 (8KX 20-23, with ~35 in centre apparently, much lower clarity). Martin’s video above covers the M-OLED stack.

Pimax have also improved the software so it is more efficient, and there is also no specific need for the old heavy PP mode workaround for newer headsets to my knowledge, unlike the 8KX which is an extreme example now - and why some games don’t cater for it by default, they’re not picking up all the API geometry values needed - SC does, but needs further investigation to solve. The Valve Index also has canted lenses and doesn’t require any heavy workaround, but ofc some hit is being taken nonetheless.

[blanes]

Great News Calvin and that explains why Pimax OpenXR never worked with EA WRC because it also uses the same Anti Cheat software. It causes many problems but I guess is necessary in racing games, not sure why they need it in a Space flying game ?

[Octofox]

It’s an MMO. Where there’s multiplayer, there’s people trying to cheat. There’s PvP FPS combat just as much as ship combat, for those into all that.

[PimaxQuorra]

Back in the Shanghai office at last! I’m catching up on the messages I missed and will keep in touch with Silvan about the debugging.