Hacker News Reader

Comment by edandersen | Hacker News Reader

One of the more interesting parts of the PSVR2 is that it proves that the PS5 is the only console that can output two different video streams independently (HDMI and the front USB-C port). PSVR1 did some passthrough hack.

Imagine the possibilities if Microsoft had actually added multiple HDMI ports on the Xbox Series X:

- screen mirroring for capture cards without passthrough

- native single console multiscreen cockpit view modes for Forza

- Split screen Halo/Goldeneye without actually splitting the screen - LAN party with one console

- minimaps, HUDS on separate screens like the Wii U

- Discord / chat on a seperate screen while streaming

- support for the ecosystem of actually sometimes quite high quality Windows Mixed Reality VR headsets

I wonder if they could technically add more video out ports via the PCI-E based expansion card slot...

View on HN

Imagine they did and now you have to pay $50 extra to never use one of these niche and gimmicky possibilities

The original PS3 demoed at E3 2005 had 2 HDMI ports and I suspect they removed it for the same reason. Extra cost and little value.

Is that why modern GPUs are so costly? Half a dozen unused connections?

No, it is a per-product royalty.

https://www.symmetryelectronics.com/blog/what-are-the-licens...

Above link is broken, use: https://www.symmetryelectronics.com/blog/what-are-the-licens...

They’re expensive simply because people will pay that much.

Pretty much all PCs support multiple video outputs. It's not a gimmick at all.

True - but I can't think of a single game which actually makes use of multiple monitors even on PC where plenty of people have the hardware to support that sort of thing. A second monitor with Discord on it, or for streaming? Sure. But nothing that video games themselves make use of.

Even if games supported it, who has multiple TVs in their lounge room close enough to connect both of them to your xbox? That sounds super niche.

Simracers use triples quite often! Alignment is a pain.

Gran Turismo 5 supported a triple monitor setup, but you needed three PS3s and three copies of the game.

That is cool, I didn’t know that! PC simracers just use wide viewports, I think.

Live For Speed renders from multiple cameras - one camera per monitor - to prevent distortions. It can render a 360 degree view if you have enough monitors. Can't do that with a single viewport.

I really want to try that one, it sounds like an amazing game.

Perspective projection only works for FOV < 180deg. At FOV = 180 the projected coordinate has to be +inf and it won’t work, so games that support FOV beyond 180 stitches multiple viewports, either on display or by having multiple displays.

Gran Turismo 4 had that too, all you needed was three PS2s, three network adapters, three TVs and three copies of the game. The feature was mainly intended for installations at E3 and the like but it was left in the retail build so anyone dedicated enough could set it up at home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHM42OcnX_E

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_games_that_support...

Supreme Commander did it all the way back in 2007, you could have a second independent viewport on the second monitor to keep an eye on a different part of the map. IIRC it had to jump through some weird hoops to pull that off with the graphics APIs of the time, it spawned a second instance of the game which acted as a spectator client for the primary instance.

I think that about the HDMI In port every time I see it on my OG Xbox One.

I figured out what you meant eventually, but when I first read this comment I thought you meant paying $50 extra if you didn't want these features.

The Raspberry Pi 4 has dual HDMI and it costs $35 for the entire board. Cost is absolutely NOT the factor for an extra port. Extra ports and extended monitor support are literal pennies.

Ignoring HDCP for the secondary port, it would cost an additional $0.27 to add a secondary hardware port along with whatever cost for the software, which still wouldn't even add up to $5, let alone $50.

I don't know how you see the prospect of saving $27 million dollars and say that cost isn't a factor.

I remember reading about a technology that used the 3D functionality of TVs, along with 3D glasses, to display two separate video feeds to two separate users - split screen, but without splitting the screen.

Instead of the video feed alternating between left and right images, it alternates between first player and second player feeds. The glasses, instead of alternating between left-open/right-closed and vice-versa, alternates between both-open/both-closed.

I'm not sure how audio would be handled in this case, and I don't know if anyone actually really supported it in practice, but it was a pretty neat idea.

You’re describing the gaming PC. They’re quite popular is my understanding.

Not every game is on PC (e.g NHL series), and some popular games that are, aren’t the best versions available (e.g. Last of Us)

NHL 97 is on the PC and that’s all anyone should ever need. :)

Plus sometimes I don't want to develop a high dimensional regression model for how the setting affects the fps or deal with all this shader compilation stutter.

It can be a lot of fun to squeeze out every frame you can, but other times I just want to play a game.

Atomic Heart had the best shader compile I’ve seen yet. It happened with a loading bar on the main menu and didn’t stop you from exploring settings. IMO the compile should be part of the install step outside the game though

The newest Call of Duty does that as well

There is never a reason to disable the main menu.

Just because everyone is doing it does not mean it was ever a good idea.

Setting up shader precomp is apparently a manual process that can be really developer intensive, especially in open world titles. That said, I agree, there is a lot of low hanging fruit that can be handled. Devs seem to be deciding between all or nothing and often just pick the nothing path.

You could just leave it on the defaults? You'll get better FPS than on console and higher quality graphics, assuming a decent gaming PC.

You still have to manage the PC and games. My console has never let me down when I want to relax. I do this for a day job, I prefer not to fuck with troubleshooting at night.

> My console has never let me down when I want to relax.

You've never run into the 'must update the system firmware and download a 400TB patch to play this game you played yesterday' thing, I guess.

Nope, my PS5 and previous PS4 both update(d) themselves while asleep at night. I only have to update games I haven’t played in forever. My internet is fast enough that I don’t care about that either.

When I had a gaming PC a few years ago, it always wanted to update something on steam or windows then restart.

My gaming PC always does that while asleep at night...

Depends on the game. My 5800x/3080 Ti doesn’t do much better at maintaining a stable 60fps in Jedi Survivor than the PS5 does. Recent triple-A PC releases have been super bad.

Unless you play on HDR/OLED TV, in which case the better colors give more quality than any graphical setting difference.

Oh, you mean like the QD-OLED monitor hooked to my PC?

PC HDR sucks a lot compared to consoles.

The defaults can be a double edged sword. Places like DF put out optimized defaults for really mainstreams config for just that reason.

If you have a 3080 ti or 4090, sure, you have paid to just push play and expect stuff to work (well that still doesn't solve the compilation issues), but then you are leaving a lot of performance / fidelity on the table.

However, if you are even somewhat underpowered (think of all the people that bought 6500 xt or 3050 because of the GPU shortage), you are going to have to do some type of manual tuning. Most users according to the April Steam survey use worse than a 3060 and a large fraction of those use something way worse than a 3060.

Plus the CPU side isn't always a solved issue. I play on an 64 core epyc I primarily use for simulation. I have plenty of power on tap, but the lower clocks plus NUMA arch force me to do some fiddling. And I'm spoiled on that front, over half of gamers still play on 4 and 6 core machines (again, see the steam hardware survey for April) that chock gpus very quickly.

A 300 dollar Series S may not show the most crisp image, but I often use mine to avoid the whole song and dance.

An extra $10 BOM cost that results in a $25 price premium for a gaming PC is no big deal. That same $25 would have a huge impact on console sales.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com