Sony is using full rgb stripe panel, so they have 1920x1080x3 subpixels, while oculus and htc supposedly have pentile displays with 2160x1200x2 subpixels. So sony actually has more, though logical resolution is for sure higher in pc competitors. It remains to be seen that what are the real differences in picture quality and responsiveness. Sony claims very low motion to photon latency, which it seems to achieve using the control box to do timewarping at 120hz while the game itself is rendered at 60hz.
I'm pretty sure that Sony's Trimaster professional OLED monitors are RGB matrix. Samsung makes an RGB matrix in the form of Super AMOLED Plus. LG also has some RGB matrix products, but all of their TVs are WOLED. Honestly, I'm pretty sure all the big players have RGB matrix OLEDs in production to some extent, but as to which products and which production lines, that's pretty well obfuscated.
In practice, I bet the Sony Panel looks slightly better, and considering that there are less logical pixels to drive, it will require less GPU power. I think Sony made the smarter decision here.
"[PC VR] will require a relatively powerful PC that typically starts at $949" - what? I'm not quite sure how this number was calculated as it seems to be rather arbitrary. AFAIK the recommended minimal VR specs of both Occulus and Vive are an i5 4590 (~$200), a GTX 970 (starting at $310 atm), and 8GB RAM (<$50). A decent MB and PSU should be another $150. Add a few bucks for a cheap case and mouse/keyboard and we're at a total of roughly $750. Where do the other $200 go?
The VRScore Article also quotes a much lower sum: "the minimum requirements come out to what in today’s market is likely to be around an $800 custom build or more."
You can get a Win7 Key for $50 or less (not even from shady webshops, but on Amazon Prime), which would match the $800 from the VRScore article. Although technically it isn't even required as the Vive should be supported on SteamOS, and the Rift will supposedly get Linux support as well.
The Windows license keys sold on Amazon may work, but they are still technically illegitimate. They're often OEM license keys (which are not supposed to be transferrable) harvested from old computers.
As for the price of the system, most users will buy pre-built, which usually raises the cost. And DIY PC builders will often choose to pay slightly more for better reliability and much higher quality.
Also, unless you want to rely solely on the HMD, you will need a traditional monitor display as well.
You can have it lower - and depends on where you buy and where in the world you are. But add 100 or so for an SSD. But it can get much more expensive :p
Samsung has made some fullstripe oleds in the past. They had a branding name "Super Amoled Plus".
However, they dropped them, most likely because the benefit of full stripe was not worth the drawbacks. Oled manufacturing is a delicate balancing act between drawbacks and benefits of each decision and it is quite possible that a higher logical resolution 2560x1440 pentile panel provides for higher apparent resolution allows higher brightness and expected pixel lifetime compared to 1920x1080 full-stripe panel, due to more favourable distribution of sub-pixel sizes / shapes etc.
However, PS4 processing power and HDMI 1.4 output limits the logical resolution more than in PC's, so it is obviously more important to eke out everything out of it. In PC space it might be better compromise to render at higher resolution, throw off some information and use pentile instead to get whatever benefit they offer.
A decent motherboard is around $100-150. A decent power supply is around $70-80 if not more.
Having built numerous PCs I'd say: - i5 4590 - $200 - GTX 970 - $310 - 8GB RAM - $50 - motherboard - $100 - PSU - $70 - case - $50 - Windows - $100
$880. Not far off what they stated. And considering most PC gamers also run non-stock heatsinks on their CPUs for better cooling that's another $50-100. Plus most are going to run 16GB RAM these days so that's more. Plus if you still buy discs for games you need a DVD drive (granted only $20 there).
Oh and a decent keyboard and mouse combo is about $80-100 as well.
Oh yeah and I forgot a hard drive. About $60 for a 1TB 7200 rpm drive. Or $100 for a 256GB SSD. So adding just the hard drive to the price, that's $940.
We're looking for a lower bound here, your prices are somewhat high for that. E.g. you don't need a Z97 MB, a H97 is more than enough - as is the stock cooler if you don't OC. From a quick look at Amazon and Newegg:
That's a sum of $790, Windows included (and optical drive not included because it's not required for VR). Granted, I wouldn't build such a system for myself as I'd choose better parts or more expensive brands, e.g. WD Black HDDs instead of Blue or cheap Toshibas. But you can absolutely build a working system capable of running VR for under $800.
That said, I doubt most gamers need to buy a PC from scratch, upgrade it at most.
Unfortunately the Steam hardware survey is useless these days for finding what graphics cards people have. However, it does show that about half the people have 4 or more CPU cores and about half have 8GB of RAM or more.
Decent move. Should consider editing the phrase "will require a relatively powerful PC that typically starts at $949." then, though. My suggestion: "will require a relatively powerful PC, a recommended complete build by Occulus starts at 949$, cheaper self build or upgrade options are avilable for those with the knowledge."
A decent MB and PS for $150? I have seen decent MB alone for more than that.
If you want the cheapest of everything you can do better, but buying a prebuilt will be about what they claim from Dell/Asus, and really that is what most people will do if they don't already have a capable machine.
How can the PS4, which can't even drive 1080P on many games actually drive it for this VR headset, and at a higher FPS than 30? PC requires a min. GTX970, but a PS4 chip which isn't even as powerful as a GTX660 can somehow do VR?
The ASIC in the headset might be doing something interesting, maybe GSYNC tech?
I've used Google cardboard with 1080p phones and the quality was VHS like.
While the price is low, if the experience is bad it'll give VR a bad rep.
Is there any chance Sony gonna upgrade the PS4 hardware with better CPU, GPU and storage? That AMD solutions is really really backdated with low performing AMD CPU compared to Intel alternative and powr hungry still, 28nm transistors.
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zepi - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
Sony is using full rgb stripe panel, so they have 1920x1080x3 subpixels, while oculus and htc supposedly have pentile displays with 2160x1200x2 subpixels. So sony actually has more, though logical resolution is for sure higher in pc competitors. It remains to be seen that what are the real differences in picture quality and responsiveness. Sony claims very low motion to photon latency, which it seems to achieve using the control box to do timewarping at 120hz while the game itself is rendered at 60hz.jjj - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
Are you sure and any clue who makes RGB OLED? Would be great to see that in phones too and escape the Pentile madness.nathanddrews - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
I'm pretty sure that Sony's Trimaster professional OLED monitors are RGB matrix. Samsung makes an RGB matrix in the form of Super AMOLED Plus. LG also has some RGB matrix products, but all of their TVs are WOLED. Honestly, I'm pretty sure all the big players have RGB matrix OLEDs in production to some extent, but as to which products and which production lines, that's pretty well obfuscated.guidryp - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
In practice, I bet the Sony Panel looks slightly better, and considering that there are less logical pixels to drive, it will require less GPU power. I think Sony made the smarter decision here.SaolDan - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
Neat!srslyWat - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
"[PC VR] will require a relatively powerful PC that typically starts at $949" - what? I'm not quite sure how this number was calculated as it seems to be rather arbitrary. AFAIK the recommended minimal VR specs of both Occulus and Vive are an i5 4590 (~$200), a GTX 970 (starting at $310 atm), and 8GB RAM (<$50). A decent MB and PSU should be another $150. Add a few bucks for a cheap case and mouse/keyboard and we're at a total of roughly $750. Where do the other $200 go?srslyWat - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
The VRScore Article also quotes a much lower sum: "the minimum requirements come out to what in today’s market is likely to be around an $800 custom build or more."Syklis - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
Add a $100 for Windows.srslyWat - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
You can get a Win7 Key for $50 or less (not even from shady webshops, but on Amazon Prime), which would match the $800 from the VRScore article. Although technically it isn't even required as the Vive should be supported on SteamOS, and the Rift will supposedly get Linux support as well.naretla - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
The Windows license keys sold on Amazon may work, but they are still technically illegitimate. They're often OEM license keys (which are not supposed to be transferrable) harvested from old computers.As for the price of the system, most users will buy pre-built, which usually raises the cost. And DIY PC builders will often choose to pay slightly more for better reliability and much higher quality.
Also, unless you want to rely solely on the HMD, you will need a traditional monitor display as well.
Pyrostemplar - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
You can have it lower - and depends on where you buy and where in the world you are. But add 100 or so for an SSD.But it can get much more expensive :p
zepi - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
Samsung has made some fullstripe oleds in the past. They had a branding name "Super Amoled Plus".However, they dropped them, most likely because the benefit of full stripe was not worth the drawbacks. Oled manufacturing is a delicate balancing act between drawbacks and benefits of each decision and it is quite possible that a higher logical resolution 2560x1440 pentile panel provides for higher apparent resolution allows higher brightness and expected pixel lifetime compared to 1920x1080 full-stripe panel, due to more favourable distribution of sub-pixel sizes / shapes etc.
However, PS4 processing power and HDMI 1.4 output limits the logical resolution more than in PC's, so it is obviously more important to eke out everything out of it. In PC space it might be better compromise to render at higher resolution, throw off some information and use pentile instead to get whatever benefit they offer.
06GTOSC - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
A decent motherboard is around $100-150. A decent power supply is around $70-80 if not more.Having built numerous PCs I'd say:
- i5 4590 - $200
- GTX 970 - $310
- 8GB RAM - $50
- motherboard - $100
- PSU - $70
- case - $50
- Windows - $100
$880. Not far off what they stated. And considering most PC gamers also run non-stock heatsinks on their CPUs for better cooling that's another $50-100. Plus most are going to run 16GB RAM these days so that's more. Plus if you still buy discs for games you need a DVD drive (granted only $20 there).
Oh and a decent keyboard and mouse combo is about $80-100 as well.
06GTOSC - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
Oh yeah and I forgot a hard drive. About $60 for a 1TB 7200 rpm drive. Or $100 for a 256GB SSD. So adding just the hard drive to the price, that's $940.srslyWat - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
We're looking for a lower bound here, your prices are somewhat high for that. E.g. you don't need a Z97 MB, a H97 is more than enough - as is the stock cooler if you don't OC. From a quick look at Amazon and Newegg:i5 4590: $200
H97 MB: $70
8GB RAM: $35
GTX 970: $310
500W PSU: $40
500GB HDD: $45
Case: $25
KB/Mouse: $17
Win7 Key: $50
That's a sum of $790, Windows included (and optical drive not included because it's not required for VR). Granted, I wouldn't build such a system for myself as I'd choose better parts or more expensive brands, e.g. WD Black HDDs instead of Blue or cheap Toshibas. But you can absolutely build a working system capable of running VR for under $800.
ET - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
True for a lower bound, but I'm pretty sure no gamer will buy a GTX 970 then put it in a $25 case with a 500GB HDD as the only storage.ET - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
That said, I doubt most gamers need to buy a PC from scratch, upgrade it at most.Unfortunately the Steam hardware survey is useless these days for finding what graphics cards people have. However, it does show that about half the people have 4 or more CPU cores and about half have 8GB of RAM or more.
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
In this case we went with the cheapest VR Ready PC on the Oculus list.https://www.oculus.com/en-us/oculus-ready-pcs/
Death666Angel - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
Decent move. Should consider editing the phrase "will require a relatively powerful PC that typically starts at $949." then, though.My suggestion: "will require a relatively powerful PC, a recommended complete build by Occulus starts at 949$, cheaper self build or upgrade options are avilable for those with the knowledge."
guidryp - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
A decent MB and PS for $150? I have seen decent MB alone for more than that.If you want the cheapest of everything you can do better, but buying a prebuilt will be about what they claim from Dell/Asus, and really that is what most people will do if they don't already have a capable machine.
milkod2001 - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
you have forgotten about HDD options and OS. there is your $200 missing.xthetenth - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
I'm pretty sure you can both save and get a better GPU by going with the 290, there's a vapor-x for 280 before a 20 dollar rebate on Amazon right now.Murloc - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
prebuilt computers rip you off.webdoctors - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
How can the PS4, which can't even drive 1080P on many games actually drive it for this VR headset, and at a higher FPS than 30? PC requires a min. GTX970, but a PS4 chip which isn't even as powerful as a GTX660 can somehow do VR?The ASIC in the headset might be doing something interesting, maybe GSYNC tech?
I've used Google cardboard with 1080p phones and the quality was VHS like.
While the price is low, if the experience is bad it'll give VR a bad rep.
jsntech - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
I envision legions of kids donning PS4 VR sets and Exorcist-style projectile-vomiting ensuing.manjurul.islam - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
Is there any chance Sony gonna upgrade the PS4 hardware with better CPU, GPU and storage? That AMD solutions is really really backdated with low performing AMD CPU compared to Intel alternative and powr hungry still, 28nm transistors.kaisersoser - Sunday, March 20, 2016 - link
This article is misleading. If you need a PS4 camera to use the VR, then the cost is not $399 but at least $460.