FoV vs Pixel density.. DK, HD Prototype, dual screen DIY HMD

[remosito]

Howdie y'all,

I had the jawdropping, mind blowing and grin inducing pleasure of using the HD prototype at gamescom and have been mulling over the experience a lot since. Especially with regards to FoV and pixel density!

The first thing "this is distracting a bit" thing I noticed was seeing the outer border of the screens. I am well aware this is because the optics were made for a bigger screen. And can be easily corrected by using different optics. But my HD prototype had the optics it had and my experience was what it was. But I can't really put that experience into perspective as obviously seeing the border means my horizontal FoV was not 90 degrees like the DevKit (outermost degrees were cut off due to panel ending to early). But less.

If somebody who has tried both the DevKit and the HD prototype would be so kind as to try give an estimate on horizontal FoV of the HD Prototype. I would be very grateful.

I thought the HD prototype was an incredibly amazing experience. (if you ever read this post PL please give my heartfelt thanks to the guys having to put all those together. I imagine most work y'all do to be a lot of fun and exciting. I doubt assembling two dozen HD prototypes is in any way fun or exciting).

As amazing as it was. One thing was very clear as well. The experience would profit greatly from both more FoV as well as higher pixel density per degree of FoV. As we all know one is the "enemy" of the other. And I would be very interested in hearing what others think about balancing it.

Especially with regards to higher resolution screens we will see sooner or later and foisi/hannibalj2 style dual screen high h-FoV HMDs.

To me the h-FoV of the HD prototype seemed to be the more limiting factor than pixel density. So I would "invest" the additional pixels a 1440p screen would give primarily into increasing the FoV.

But that might just be because part of the FoV was cut off at the outer ends on my experience . Meaning the HD prototype has smaller FoV and higher density than a 90 degrees HD HMD would have...

As for dual HD screen HMDs. I don't think the pixel density was THAT great and the FoV THAT bad that I would invest all the extra pixels into the FoV. Basically I don't think I would shoot for 180 degrees h-FoV at same pixel density. But would go for 130-160 degrees h-FoV at increased pixel density. But that is really just gut feeling as I have never used a high-FoV dual screen HMD! (Maybe I should consider trying to talki foisi into a test drive and do a weekend trip to France to remedy that deplorable situation )

would be very interested in y'alls thoughts....

[Kamus]

Nice to read about your thoughts on the prototypes over at Gamescom.

I remember reading in an interview (or hearing in a youtube video) that they initially think the Consumer version would be so much better than the dev kit. They thought it would be better, but not by such a huge margin.
I've also heard them say they have multiple prototypes that address the different issues that needed to be fixed.

It makes me wonder just how much of that problem solving technology is in those prototypes. I would guess just the screen, and nothing more. Since apparently even the lenses are still from the dev kit.

Comments like those also make me wonder if they have a super-limited quantity higher resolution prototype that is meant to be used in the consumer version if they could get their hands on enough screens by the time shipping date approaches.

I would just love to see how much progress has been made in all those different areas. But i have to admit the most exciting thing for me is the display at the moment, because i'm sure they will nail things like positional tracking very easily.

[remosito]

update on HD prototype: did some guesstimating of the height of the screen border that is visible and pythagorassed it.
Might have been half the height of the screen and the resulting h-FoV would have been 80 degrees.

Anybody wanna guesstimate the heighr of the visible borderas well?

[Inscothen]

remosito- If you have a devkit, can you check this and give me feedback comparing it to the 1080p prototype. It's setup for 64mm IPD. Fullscreen it on the devkit. White space would be no screen.



Do the display dimensions appear about correct?

[przecinek]

Forget them prototypes... dev kit is the best

Seeing borders takes away from the immersion. You can see that when playing DOOM3 in VR.

[Marulu]

You can see that when playing DOOM3 in VR.

In the Doom 3 BFG mod you can adjust the settings so you can´t see the borders anymore.

[przecinek]

Yes. I'm one of the people that reposted these console setting that let you expand the borders on other forums ->
but after a while I realized you don't have perfect convergence if you tweak them outside default "0.86"
I only figured that out after one of my more sensitive mates said it's unplayable, that he's seeing double etc. Therefore expaning borders will cause extra eyestrain, even if you're not aware of it. It's been brought up somewhere on this forum but can't find it now.