5 ms·

Those are valid points, especially your point about fidelity, current tech is good enough for gaming and apparently not good enough for work (or we haven't figu

Those are valid points, especially your point about fidelity, current tech is good enough for gaming and apparently not good enough for work (or we haven't figured out how to use it right). So they can sell it for that right now. But this and other comments are vastly underestimating the resources that people would be willing to exchange to make their work better. For what I described, a "reasonable" price point could easily be around $10,000. Apple is selling their new iMac at a starting price of $5,000 and there is nothing particularly revolutionary about it, it's an upgrade of what is already available. When you are spending all day using it, and it is the tool you use to make your money, it is worth a lot.

grogenaut 9y ago
What is the rate of spending in industry on displays vs computers? My general feel is people skimp on displays and over spend on compute. So it would be hard to fight that trend. Secondly with VR as a desktop replacement... This is simple math. A 4k (or higher) 30" monitor will always be easier and cheaper to build and worst case the same. Except it's at 3' from your face. Shrink that monitor massively and stick it inches from your face. More expensive. Now do the trig on how many and how small of pixels would be required to pay that same resolution from 3' to 1"... Massive downscale... But great we'll get there on display density.... Except, and this is the kicker... For a lot less you can just upgrade the 4k monitor. Basically unless something fundamentally changes in display tech or we hit a Max resolution that people care about... Miniture displays will mathmatically lag large displays. Yes smartphones tipped the balance but it all got rolled into desktop displays and tvs. So you lose on econimics and math. A display tech with massive resolution but something that inherently keeps it from scaling would be a big kicker. Or as some people have said... Hitting 16k or so resolution on VR screens per eye and your dream is there. Till then gaming is a massive tech driver... Not people using spreadsheets
- phyller 9y ago
  I don't need a virtual 4K monitor. I can turn my head to see more, just like I do in real life. How close do you have to be to see the pixels in a 4K monitor, and at that point, can you see the entire monitor without looking around? I want the portability, and then the resolution just has to be good enough. If we could get a virtual 1080p display that would be amazing and good enough. But to your point, the VR display would probably have to be 4K just to be able to properly represent a 1080p virtual display.
  - grogenaut 9y ago
    you're not doing the math... this is not meant as a slight but: how big is your virtual 1080p screen representing? and at what distance. give me those numbers and I can tell you what display tech it needs to be, but it's going to be on the order of 10-20x density. it's all about pixel radians. Also, 1080 is quite small for reading, macs have retina displays which is nearing print when running anti-aliasing. And don't think I'm attacking you, I want this too. It's just that I did the math.
    - phyller 9y ago
      I guess I'm ok with a virtual screen taking up most of the view. Of course it would be better if it didn't. But I'd still pay for one where I could pretty much only look at one screen at a time, with enough space around the edges to see if there was another screen to look at. And to avoid eye strain I'd need to not have to focus a few inches away. So if I could focus like it was 6 feet away but it was big enough it took up most of the screen from that distance, and it had a 1080p resolution, that would be good enough. And then I'd buy the upgrades when they came around :) The rough math I was doing in my head was that anything that wasn't 1:1 would need probably 4 pixels for every one virtual pixel. So 4K would about do it. I pick 1080p because most laptops today still have that resolution, and several laptops that I still use have less resolution than that and are still usable.
    - kayoone 9y ago
      a virtual 1080 display that looks like the real thing would be a big gamechanger. Most companies don't buy 4k displays for their employees because 1080p is generally a lot cheaper and also good enough, even for reading. I still have 2 Dell Ultrasharp 1200p IPS displays at home that are 12 years old but reading/writing text on them is totally fine at the normal viewing distance. I'd want 4K mostly for more real estate.
      - grogenaut 9y ago
        You can get a 4k tv for like $500 which is several huge res montiors and huge. You could easily sue for that
- rmbo 9y ago
  ^this. Well said.
- woolvalley 9y ago
  There is a max resolution that people care about, often talked about with 4k TVs. Look at the chart in this example: http://carltonbale.com/1080p-does-matter/ http://carltonbale.com/1080p-does-matter/ So eventually, we will get there :) There is also talk about how we actually only mentally process a small focus point in high resolution, and a renderer that could track our focus point could use a lot less GPU compute for a scene if fast enough.
  - grogenaut 9y ago
    We once had a different max resolution and different max harddrive sizes too. I think we also said only 5 computers total once.
    - woolvalley 9y ago
      These resolution charts are based on what level of detail humans are able to resolve at what distances, and that is not going to change anytime soon. This is the entire concept behind 'retina' displays. The max DPI that humans are able to resolve at typical usage distances.
madeofpalk 9y ago
> current tech is good enough for gaming Honestly, even that is debatable. Gaming has been the most successful application of this technology, but that doesn’t make it good. Like it or not, we’re still in the land of hype and tech demos.

grogenaut 9y ago

What is the rate of spending in industry on displays vs computers? My general feel is people skimp on displays and over spend on compute. So it would be hard to fight that trend. Secondly with VR as a desktop replacement... This is simple math. A 4k (or higher) 30" monitor will always be easier and cheaper to build and worst case the same. Except it's at 3' from your face. Shrink that monitor massively and stick it inches from your face. More expensive. Now do the trig on how many and how small of pixels would be required to pay that same resolution from 3' to 1"... Massive downscale... But great we'll get there on display density.... Except, and this is the kicker... For a lot less you can just upgrade the 4k monitor. Basically unless something fundamentally changes in display tech or we hit a Max resolution that people care about... Miniture displays will mathmatically lag large displays. Yes smartphones tipped the balance but it all got rolled into desktop displays and tvs. So you lose on econimics and math. A display tech with massive resolution but something that inherently keeps it from scaling would be a big kicker. Or as some people have said... Hitting 16k or so resolution on VR screens per eye and your dream is there. Till then gaming is a massive tech driver... Not people using spreadsheets

phyller 9y ago
I don't need a virtual 4K monitor. I can turn my head to see more, just like I do in real life. How close do you have to be to see the pixels in a 4K monitor, and at that point, can you see the entire monitor without looking around? I want the portability, and then the resolution just has to be good enough. If we could get a virtual 1080p display that would be amazing and good enough. But to your point, the VR display would probably have to be 4K just to be able to properly represent a 1080p virtual display.
- grogenaut 9y ago
  you're not doing the math... this is not meant as a slight but: how big is your virtual 1080p screen representing? and at what distance. give me those numbers and I can tell you what display tech it needs to be, but it's going to be on the order of 10-20x density. it's all about pixel radians. Also, 1080 is quite small for reading, macs have retina displays which is nearing print when running anti-aliasing. And don't think I'm attacking you, I want this too. It's just that I did the math.
  - phyller 9y ago
    I guess I'm ok with a virtual screen taking up most of the view. Of course it would be better if it didn't. But I'd still pay for one where I could pretty much only look at one screen at a time, with enough space around the edges to see if there was another screen to look at. And to avoid eye strain I'd need to not have to focus a few inches away. So if I could focus like it was 6 feet away but it was big enough it took up most of the screen from that distance, and it had a 1080p resolution, that would be good enough. And then I'd buy the upgrades when they came around :) The rough math I was doing in my head was that anything that wasn't 1:1 would need probably 4 pixels for every one virtual pixel. So 4K would about do it. I pick 1080p because most laptops today still have that resolution, and several laptops that I still use have less resolution than that and are still usable.
  - kayoone 9y ago
    a virtual 1080 display that looks like the real thing would be a big gamechanger. Most companies don't buy 4k displays for their employees because 1080p is generally a lot cheaper and also good enough, even for reading. I still have 2 Dell Ultrasharp 1200p IPS displays at home that are 12 years old but reading/writing text on them is totally fine at the normal viewing distance. I'd want 4K mostly for more real estate.
    - grogenaut 9y ago
      You can get a 4k tv for like $500 which is several huge res montiors and huge. You could easily sue for that
rmbo 9y ago
^this. Well said.
woolvalley 9y ago
There is a max resolution that people care about, often talked about with 4k TVs. Look at the chart in this example: http://carltonbale.com/1080p-does-matter/ http://carltonbale.com/1080p-does-matter/ So eventually, we will get there :) There is also talk about how we actually only mentally process a small focus point in high resolution, and a renderer that could track our focus point could use a lot less GPU compute for a scene if fast enough.
- grogenaut 9y ago
  We once had a different max resolution and different max harddrive sizes too. I think we also said only 5 computers total once.
  - woolvalley 9y ago
    These resolution charts are based on what level of detail humans are able to resolve at what distances, and that is not going to change anytime soon. This is the entire concept behind 'retina' displays. The max DPI that humans are able to resolve at typical usage distances.

madeofpalk 9y ago

> current tech is good enough for gaming Honestly, even that is debatable. Gaming has been the most successful application of this technology, but that doesn’t make it good. Like it or not, we’re still in the land of hype and tech demos.