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Comment I thought current consoles were like current PCs (Score 4, Insightful) 117

Only they're also known targets, and should be able to be easily programmed for, as a result. Performance for 1920x1080 shouldn't be an issue for any title on the hardware available. It boggles the mind at how poor these developers must be if they can't even target known hardware, console-style, and get good performance out of the thing. Average PC game devs don't seem to have any problem doing so on the PC, and that's a moving target. Why would any competent devs have a problem with a fixed target? They've got decent CPUs. They've got decent GPUs. They've got a decent amount of RAM. Yet they found a way to get horrible performance out of it. Send in the firing squad.

Comment Re:Field of view (Score 1) 135

Plenty of 'iRacers' have multiple 3D monitors. It works fine.

I have no doubt that your 'sense of presence' might be better with a VR headset, but to say I will not get a sense of presence with three monitors in front of me is ridiculous. You say don't discount VR's VRness. I say don't discount wide FOV for vastly improving the immersiveness factor, too. My view of the race track in this particular sim (thanks to its display calculator in the graphics options) gives me a 1:1 view of the sim world. It would look exactly the same to me if I were in that car at that track in the real world, save for the fact that I would have a full FOV in all directions rather than just the monitors in front of me.

Believe me, once the racing starts I am in that world. I completely lose the fact that I'm looking at monitors because of how much of my FOV it is taking up. The bezel gaps disappear. I fail to notice anything beyond the monitors' display area. A good VR headset *with* as much or greater FOV would be even better, yes. But I would not want a VR headset with less FOV than I have now, no matter what else the headset brings to the table in terms of immersiveness. FOV is too important, and trumps all the other headset pluses, for me, with this usage.

Comment Re:Field of view (Score 1) 135

A larger field of view by turning your head is not the same thing as a larger field of view at once. If I can't have both, I choose larger field of view at once. And, btw, you can do 3D with monitors. And I don't notice the bezel gaps while I'm racing on iRacing. I notice the track in front of me and the large FOV means I can see the cars beside me. It would be great to be able to turn my head to see even better beside me, but most of the time peripheral vision is enough for that use. But that absolutely requires a large FOV. In that use, a smaller FOV with head-tracking is still going to be a disadvantage compared to the larger FOV. The larger FOV will still be greatly preferable.

Comment Field of view (Score 1) 135

The resolution of these types of devices is a huge factor in whether or not I would find them acceptable to use, but the field of view they have is an even bigger factor. With very inexpensive monitors I can have a combined display that takes up a very large portion of my horizontal vision. I currently have three 24" monitors that give me a combined field of view of 123 degrees in their current configuration, with a 5760x1080 resolution also being a plus. Going to a VR headset with a FOV of only 90 degrees would be a step down as far as I'm concerned, and I would not take that step. The VR aspect of it, while cool in and of itself, would be a non-starter for me if the FOV was well below what I can do with monitors. Getting slightly bigger monitors, like 27" ones, would give me an even larger FOV, and alterations to their physical configuration can also change that FOV value and give me close to 180 degrees if I want.

As far as I'm concerned, if a VR headset isn't giving me something near/beyond a 180 degree FOV I really couldn't care less. I'd rather keep my head stationary and look at a display setup that does give me a larger FOV. Hopefully they get there soon, because everything else that goes along with the idea is pretty damn cool. But I don't want to look at an image where only a small portion of my vision is taken up. The immersiveness of a large horizontal FOV (vertical is less important to our vision, but would still be desirable) is too much to give up. I've lived with this setup for a couple years now, and wouldn't want to go without something similar/greater in FOV capability.

Comment 4k will never be useful for a TV at home (Score 1) 271

I said this in the last 4k TV discussion. I have a 60" 1080P set, and my couch is 8 feet from it, or 96 inches. According to http://isthisretina.com/ 60" 1920x1080 pixels should only be visible to the average retina up to 94". That 8 foot distance is about as close as I would want to sit to a TV that size anyway, so I lucked out there. If I got a 60" 4k TV it WOULD NOT LOOK ANY DIFFERENT at that distance. The 1920x1080 pixels are already just small enough to not see.

Now, go back to isthisretina and punch in 3840x2160 and 60" and what do you get? Yep, 47". Do you want to sit 47" from a 60" TV? Pretty sure you don't. I know I don't. You need to double the size to 120" in order to make the 8-foot viewing distance happen. But, again, do you want to sit 8 feet from a 120" TV? I don't think I would want to. Nevermind that an 85" 4k TV is something like $40,000! haha. How much would a 120" one be? Pff, yeah. That'll happen.

Also nevermind the fact that the last time you were in a movie theater with that big screen you were looking at a 4k picture. Did you see pixels during the movie? No. (And you were probably looking at a lot of 2k content during that movie anyway.)

TLDR: 4k is useless for the home, and always will be.

Comment It depends how far away and how big the set is (Score 1) 307

I have a 60" 1080P set that is 8 feet from my couch, or 96 inches. I actually fluked out, without knowing this in advance or even thinking about it at the time, in that a 60" 1080P image only has visible pixels at up to 94 inches away, beyond which point you're past the average retina capability. Punch in 1920 x 1080 and 60" at this site. http://isthisretina.com/

Not only that, but I don't think I would want to sit closer than 8 feet from a set that big, anyway. It's a pretty big image from that far away. Now, if you go back to http://isthisretina.com/ and punch in 3840 x 2160 and 60" and what do you get? Half of what you did before, or 47"! Sorry, but I do not want to sit 47" away from a 60" TV in order to appreciate all the pixels I would have paid for.

Now, extrapolate. If I wanted to continue to sit 8 feet from my TV, but I wanted a 4K TV that I could actually see (or nearly see) the pixels I paid for, knowing the information from above, how big would it need to be? That's right, 120" is what it would need to be. So we get back to the same problem again. I don't think I would want to sit 8 feet away from a 120" TV. But that's exactly what I would need to do in order to make use of 3840 x 2160 at that distance.

Maybe that wouldn't be too bad for watching movies, actually, but I doubt I would want to carry out my regular TV watching at that size/distance. I wouldn't mind trying it, but I am not confident that I would actually like it. Again, maybe for movies. Maybe.

Comment Re:Fastest? Do they draw every frame yet? (Score 1) 212

They couldn't test for dropped and runt frames, and said so. So, the tests tell me nothing I want to know, other than I'll still be sticking with NVidia. ;)

"That leaves us with Fraps. And of course, there’s no way for us to pick up dropped and runt frame using Fraps. So, we immediately shed the dual-GPU solutions from our charts."

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