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Comment by pzo | Hacker News Reader

According to some rumors headset will have 2x M2/M3 chips so it will have a lot of computing platform.

If they provide some dock so that headset can be used Mac mini/ultra style as desktop + VR/XR is more like a bonus then this could still sell well.

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This is effectively a reasonable graphics card per eye. Sure it's no Nvidia 4090, but the M2 is running recent games with very good graphics on Macs.

Combine that with foveated rendering, possibly implemented deep in Metal, and being careful about graphically intensive applications, and this could be high FPS on 3K resolution, and be a significant step up in immersion.

The current leaks and analyst claims are saying an 8K screen per eye [1], with some kind of advanced eye tracking and foveated rendering to keep the GPU processing requirements under control. PSVR2 has already shown that at least the foveated rendering part is totally practical even at a much lower price point.

[1]: https://www.techradar.com/news/apple-vr-headset

Foveated rendering doesn't seem to have a big impact, as it is only capable of momentarily reducing the resolution of half of the screen. It's very coarse.

eye tracking isn't really reliable enough to make foveated work well enough for users.

most hardware support foveation, its not that challenging to do in software. its not the magic bullet until you get low latency accurate universal eye tracking.

now that is an interesting thought, they would be more powerful than current MBPs... Screen Mirroring can already be done from MacOS to iPadOS for example. It would be super awesome if one could connect the headset to another Mac and use the screens / keyboard / touchpad of that device. Ideally it would allow virtual desktops to have quick access to both devices by simply swiping on the touchpad.

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