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Gear VR performance?

Anonymous
Not applicable
I'm seriously considering jumping into Gear VR development since that will be the 1st consumer product out. I have parts of what I think can make a good game on it, but I'm wondering about performance. My game uses Unity terrain and some custom terrain shaders that I can optimize for mobile, but I'm wondering if a terrain-based game is going to be too much for the GearVR. I'm concerned about either the terrain LOD system causing stuttering or having LOD off and having too much geometry at once. My partial game runs about 400fps on my i5 + GTX760 system with terrain LOD off and all terrain I need active at once, so I'm thinking I might be safe, but I don't have a good sense of just how powerful the Note 4 CPU/GPU is compared to a decent desktop system. Anyone have any ideas here? I found Drash's blog post here the most helpful so far:

http://www.drashvr.com/2014/09/titans-of-space-has-been-ported-to.html

In any case I was due for a new phone, so I pre-ordered a Note 4 and will get the Gear VR as soon as it comes out, but I was trying to get a jump-start on development. If my concept isn't really feasible on Gear VR I'm not sure I want to waste the next month working on it when I could be working on some of the other stuff I have in mind for CV1. I guess worst case I just have my game be a CV1 game and the effort won't be completely wasted, but I was hoping to dabble in Gear VR to see what becomes of it. I don't think there will be that many apps/games at the beginning, so I think there is a large opportunity to break into a new market here.

ccs
16 REPLIES 16

Gerald
Expert Protege
"owenwp" wrote:
I think the low poly faceted look is a mistake, in terms of using the hardware efficiently. Sharp lines and solid colors will make the low rendered resolution and 60hz flicker much more apparent. Also in general geometric detail costs a lot more than texture detail. It is not a very good way to improve performance.


I hope you are wrong. But "Low Poly" already implies that we have very little geometric detail, the texture will always be an extra processing step. I can't wait to get some data on this, but I have the hope that with memory operations going down a lot without textures we will also see a lot less power being eaten away and the battery to last longer.
check out my Mobile VR Jam 2015 title Guns N' Dragons

Jotokutora
Adventurer
I am actually looking forward to develop for the Gear. And the fact that it has limitations kinds of makes it a good challenge. It will have to push us to be clever and creative. 😄

kongking
Explorer
Maybe they could develop an external gpu for the Gear VR that would connect to the phone once its in the slot. And add a battery for it too. Doesn't seem impossible at all.. These chips weigh almost nothing.

Jotokutora
Adventurer
"kongking" wrote:
Maybe they could develop an external gpu for the Gear VR that would connect to the phone once its in the slot. And add a battery for it too. Doesn't seem impossible at all.. These chips weigh almost nothing.



If you think as a consumer, that would be great. As a business that refresh their units once a year, not a good idea at all.

Technically, that would increase weight compromising the center balance. More powerful GPU would require more cooling and drain the battery faster.

Connecting a desktop GPU as another option would not be supported certainly. That wouldn't be part of the objective as a business.

If you want power, get the DK2 or wait for CV1

kongking
Explorer
As a consumer - First I'd choose a phone not by it's VR readiness but something else. If I learn that the advertised VR is useless compared to the real PC-powered one, its not going to add anything to the decision.

Jotokutora
Adventurer
"kongking" wrote:
As a consumer - First I'd choose a phone not by it's VR readiness but something else. If I learn that the advertised VR is useless compared to the real PC-powered one, its not going to add anything to the decision.



Decision making for purchasing anything is something personal and variable. The Gear VR, should be a great experience to people that aren't exposed to sources, environments that know, or follow about the Oculus (I know many people that never heard of Oculus). The Gear is targeting a different segment altogether, although as a product offering it shares similar overlapping experience to the PC brother.


Graphic wise the GPU's on this chip sets are rather powerful considering the form factor, although there are compromises when planing the games for it. The experiences will be much shorter for obvious limiting factors. My feeling is that one segment the Gear VR will not intent to focus "mainly" is gamers. Many people don't consider themselves gamers, but would admit to casually play games. A big segment of phone users may rather just watch movies and, or view pictures on a entire new way. The Gear VR is an interesting experiment, because by not been tethered, and also been powered by a self contained cell phone, it can open possibilities, and abilities that will only apply to it.

I bet the games design for it will be pretty cool as long the developers are considering the limitations! Just don't expect Call Of Duty, at least not soon.

Just get it bro, I'm sure you will love it! 😉

kongking
Explorer
If I can watch 3d movies with it, its probably enough. But yeah, I don't know anything about the crowd. So, good luck. Its a nice idea even with fewer polygons and shaders and what not:p