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Comment by skhameneh | Hacker News Reader

As a Vive owner, this is the first headset to really catch my interest since!

120hz and OLED are exactly what I've been looking for in a "next gen" headset. The inside-out tracking does give me some hesitation, but overall it's sounding like this will be an excellent piece of hardware. The biggest downside (and upside for general consumers, just plug and play) would be platform support limited to Playstation... Which I'm eager to see if community efforts try to bring PC support given the excellent hardware specs/price.

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Inside out tracking is great these days. Unless you mean you're worried about Sony's implementation specifically?

My worries aren't specific to Sony's implementation, it's specifically related to the processing latency that's been associated with inside-out tracking. My understanding is inside out typically uses CMOS sensors which generally have inherent latency returning an image that must be processed quickly. Outside-in generally uses photo-diodes with lighter processing.

I have yet to try modern headsets to see for myself, but my hunch is there's some level of latency that isn't present with outside-in. It's also worth noting some individuals may have varied perceptions of latency while their pyshical response of fatigue/etc may be more present than their actual awareness. Anecdotally, I once got in an argument with a professor that I could visibly notice when CRT monitors were set to 50hz (instead of 60hz) and would get headaches. Now it's generally accepted many can discern between much higher refresh rates than that FWIW.

Inside out SLAM isn’t solely dependent on optics. It also uses IMUs to fill in the interim.

You can quite easily test this on any phone that supports AR (I’d recommend an iPhone).

You get tracking even if you occlude the camera for a couple frames.

I've since learned SteamVR is considered inside-out marker based tracking because of the sensor placement. My general understanding of inside-out tracking was correct and it would more accurately be referred to as markerless inside out tracking.

My concerns are strictly with markerless inside-out tracking, here's an article detailing accuracy issues that have been associated with markerless inside-out tracking: https://www.roadtovr.com/htc-vive-cosmos-accuracy-test-contr...

> I have yet to try modern headsets to see for myself, but my hunch is there's some level of latency that isn't present with outside-in

As someone who's owned both a Vive Pro and Valve Index, if there is any performance issue with inside out tracking it's very negligible. I don't notice it, and this is with playing on Expert Plus with Beat Saber. You'll notice performance issues if you ever start to use wireless. Wirelessly using Oculus while not having your PC wired up to a WiFi 6 router is as terrible as using HTC's wireless add-on but in different ways

>Outside-in generally uses photo-diodes with lighter processing.

No. There were only 3 consumer headsets to use outside in tracking. They were the Oculus Rift DK2 and CV1 and the PS VR headset. All of those tracking systems used cameras and not photodiodes. Even commercial outside in tracking solutions like optitrack don't use photodiodes.

No the SteamVR tracking system used by Valve Index, HTC Vive, Pimax and some headsets with extra tracking-plates use IR photo-diodes:

https://triadsemi.com/product/ts4112/

VR users that want full body tracking usually go with outside-in tracking, with tracking devices strapped to their bodies. It is expensive, but the accuracy is very good.

SteamVR tracking does use photodiodes, but it is an inside out tracking system. This is because the photodiodes are on the tracked devices. The base stations project distorted planes of light that sweep through the play space and thef planes quickly flash to communicate information like the orientation of the base station.

Thanks for the clarification!

Does PS5 have enough power to really do 4k120 with ray tracing?

Yes and no. I believe it's called foveated rendering where eye tracking is used for adaptive rendering, which allows for high performance without any perception of degradation.

2.5 - 3.5x fps with these optimization tricks, according to Unity GDC talk.

Not really unless they have some programming magic. Some of the stuff the console devs squeeze out is pretty magical sometimes.

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