Published in Graphics

2015 is all about 4K and VR

by on13 January 2015

 

This is where the graphics industry is going

We had a few dozen meetings at CES 2015 with many interesting people and close friends over the last week and we came to a conclusion that 4K and Virtual Reality will play a big role in 2015 and the future of computer graphics.

The GPU industry is making huge steps forward to make higher resolution gaming more popular. The reason behind is rather simple, as 4K has four times the pixel count of 1080p and needs four times the GPU power to deliver superior image quality gets better. The GPU industry simply needed more pixels in order to continue selling the better graphics cards.

There will be a two popular choices in 2015 - one will be a 60Hz 4K, 3840x2160 gaming monitor for people who like the higher resolutions at the expense of lower refresh rates and WQHD 2560x1440 at 144Hz, where you will need to render more frames.

Despite the choice, 4K will be a great tool for selling more new graphics cards and this trend is happening right now. Nvidia has G-Sync while AMD has FreeSync and we believe that these technologies will help in making the gaming experience better in 2015 and beyond. We will come back to this in another, more extensive report.

The other big thing is Virtual Reality, VR for short. Oculus Rift is the most prominent member of this movement, but all VR companies need GPU players as well. It is a fight between AMD, Nvidia and
Qualcomm.

While AMD and Nvidia know how to push more pixels, Qualcomm has sparked Samsung’s interest with the Gear VR that works with Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 phablet. We have tried the Developers Kit 2 while a few prominent members of the industry have said that they had a chance to try Crescent Bay, the next generation prototype. It is a leap forward but there is still a lot to be done in order to have a VR chat with your buddies via Oculus in Facebook, or play good VR games.

Crescent Bay got better, but this is not something that is ready for retail, at least this is what a couple of people told us. AMD and Nvidia are now racing in order to get VR right. Oculus and Facebook are great, but we don’t think that they can get to a cool VR experience without Nvidia and AMD. There will be a lot of focus on these two technologies and we cannot wait to see how this plays out.

The pixel count needs to increase, the resolution per eye needs to go up and latency has to go down in order to fool our brain we are actually inside the VR world (and to prevent annoying headaches). This is the future of visualization, but we are not sure it is the right answer for all gaming, as you won’t be able to walk around with Oculus VR inside a bus or train, at least not in the short run, as you need cables, lot of GPU power and you need to see where you go.

Last modified on 13 January 2015
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