When we saw the news that JDI, the Japanese display conglomerate founded by Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi, were developing a 1001ppi LCD display for VR headsets, it was clear that the race for ever-higher pixel densities was still alive and well. Now, we learn INT, a Taiwan-based display design firm, is developing a 2228 ppi AMOLED specifically designed for VR headsets.

Announced in a fairly sparse press release, not much is known about the company’s 2228 ppi AMOLED, which is built on a glass substrate. INT hasn’t provided any specs outside of the display’s pixel density and the fact that it’s an on-glass AMOLED.

High pixel densities are necessary to reduce screen door effect – the visible lines between pixels, which when magnified by VR lenses, become much more apparent. To boot, the company says the glass–based display “is much more economical and can be made in larger size, thus improve FOV significantly.”

Image courtesy INT

Because INT hasn’t detailed the size of the panel, it’s impossible to say where it fits on the spectrum of VR hardware. It could be a ~3 inch panel that would essentially replace standard displays like you find in the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, or an incredibly small microdisplay destined to function in headsets such as Varjo’s ‘bionic display’, which uses two displays per eye—a standard resolution ‘context display’ and a much smaller, but higher ppi ‘focus display’ that is mirrored to the fovea region of the eye and synced via eye-tracking to essentially increase the perceived overall resolution.

Considering however the company says it can be produced in a larger size format, we’re hopeful that means it’s possible to manufacture a more wide-reaching standard display size.

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For comparison, both the Vive and Rift use a pair of 1080 × 1200 displays with a ppi of ~456. Currently the market leaders in pixel density are Samsung Odyssey and HTC Vive Pro, both with the same Samsung-built panel at ~615 ppi. So the new INT display should have around a 390% higher ppi than Rift/Vive, and around 260% more than HTC Vive Pro/Samsung Odyssey—a staggering increase that would likely require foveated rendering, a technique that displays a VR scene at the center of the user’s photo-receptor-dense fovea, and at its highest resolution.

The image below (from JDI) demonstrates the dramatic increase in acuity that can be had from such high-pixel-dense displays.

Image courtesy JDI

Dubbing it UHPD (Ultra High Pixel Density), INT is slated to show off their display at the Poster Session of the upcoming SID Display Week, which takes place May 22 – 24 in Los Angeles, CA.

Both JDI and Google are presenting high-pixel-density displays at SID Display Week, with Google showing their 1443ppi OLED on-glass display there as well. We’ll certainly be reporting on whatever comes out of it, so check back then.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • theonlyrealconan

    Great news. It just keeps getting better and better. I just wish games would catch up.

    • JJ

      we need the computing power to improve as well

      • Engineer_92

        I agree. I believe it will take a combination of raw computing power plus AI to reach that goal within 3-5 years. NVidia seems to be on the right track.

        • kontis

          I’m more worried about CPU. Ryzen was a catch up and a comeback of a competitor, but didn’t move perf forward.

          An order of magnitude boost in CPUs would have a dramatical impact on game engines, AI and physics. Tons of cool algorithms “gather dust” (not viable for real-time).

          • Kev

            The CPU power is there it’s just most game programmers are coding for just 1 core and the benefits for those games are just ancillary. Once they get good at it and multicore programming is commonplace we have the dramatic leap you are referring to.

          • Guest

            But labor costs are more expensive than hardware costs…

          • daveinpublic

            With Unity focusing on this problem, we may see some headway. Think they call it the job system or something.

        • kalqlate

          Good point of requiring AI. There’s already lots of research on ML models that intelligently extrapolate and interpolate low-res streams to high-res streams. I say “streams” rather than “images” or “video” to represent moving scenes computed in real-time. Use of AI will significantly diminish necessary compute resources and transport bandwidth, while increasing compression and allowing expansion to occur at the display.

  • Sandy Wich

    Companies are starting to get it. Can’t wait to see the nay-sayers and haters suck it.

    VR4Life

  • Ian Shook

    At this rate we should see 10,000ppi by next Wednesday.

    • Jonathan Pratte

      Can’t wait!!

    • Tomas Sandven

      HAH I was thinking exactly the same. Sure would be nice to get one of these displays in an actual consumer headset in my life time :)

      • VRfun

        Next up iRetina Display. >9000 ppi which bends light and reality. Get it at all avail Apple stores with the iPhone XXI. Despite popular opinion, we swear it doesn’t look like the iPhone 3, we promise! (So buy it)

    • Darshan

      What sort of magic we have to drive 10,000 ppi display, Without giant leap in gpu processing this success is like Ferrari without engine.

      • Mei Ling

        You don’t need a “giant leap” if an efficient foveated rendering solution exists which would make extreme pixel density displays attainable within the next two years.

        • Darshan

          If so materialize we will able to see “The Matrix” but i doubt about 2 years, may be next 5 years..

    • LOL, exactly!

    • visual

      In related news Nvidia will make a GPU that can push those pixel at 144hz in the year 2045.

      • q23main

        no need – lookup “foveated rendering”

  • MosBen

    It’s like I’ve been saying, increasing the resolution/ppi of the displays is overrated by some VR enthusiasts, but it’s also the upgrade that’s most likely to be sorted out the fastest. Improving inside out tracking, especially with regard to hand tracking, improving the ergonomics of VR gear, improving input devices, and bringing the cost down are all, I think, going to be more important to the widespread adoption of VR, but they’re also all have somewhat less obvious solutions. So the next generation of VR gear will likely have a nice bump in resolution, which is nice, but I’m much more looking forward to other details.

    • JJ

      yupp theyre just going after the low hanging fruit

      • MosBen

        Absolutely, and of course that makes sense from both a business and technology perspective. I just often see people in the comments here talk about getting 4k per eye resolution as the point at which VR will become popular with the masses, but I don’t know anybody who would be interested in getting into VR but for the current resolution. Other stuff is a much bigger turn off, and will need to be addressed before we see widespread adoption.

        • sfmike

          Don’t agree with you as we live in an world that surrounds us with HD graphics. 4K TVs and HD quality on our phones and then you watch a 360 VR video with VHS quality images. A complete turn off to the average consumer. I’m sick of showing VR demos and having people ask “why is it so blurry.” Resolution is as important as all the other factors for mass adoption, which incidentally is very slow in coming.

          • VRfun

            Yeah, I agree with this and MosBen sounds fairly ignorant when it comes to the subject. SDE and motion-sickness play a LARGE part in mass adoption. It’s one of the largest reasons why 2x people I know refuse to even try VR because of slight vertigo and motion-sickness. Resolution/PPI increase, glass magnification perfection/manual adjustments, and increase in developers creating better locomotion play a large roll in alleviating these issues. Despite the hold-backs for GPUs to push this, people aren’t going to hop in until at least 4k/4k per eye (at least not buy then resell – do you not remember the mass amount of Samsung Gears on Craigslist haha!). Until the hardware is ahead of the game, all else will be forced to catch up. GPUs will hopefully start being on a quicker dev cycle but like the reasons sfmike listed, this is practically all I hear from people. Have you not been on YouTube and watched a 360 VR video? They look like I’m using an old 360p VHS player. This is also a problem with the current camera systems out to capture real high quality content. I’m excited for more companys to release 360 video/picture 4k equipment.

          • brubble

            Ive tried the CV1 a few times. I really want to buy an Oculus but the sh*t resolution and crappy lenses are the main reasons I havent and wont. Im not asking for a miracle of crystal clear vision here, just something that doesnt look like goggles smeared with dishsoap and Vaseline. Until that sh*t get sorted, Im out.

          • MosBen

            I certainly don’t pretend to be an expert, but I’m a fairly knowledgeable VR fan. Yes, SDE is a part of motion sickness, but it’s not the only part. But my point is that the things that matter to you, me, or our friends aren’t necessarily the things that matter to the broader public to whom VR needs to appeal if it’s going to become a mainstream form of media. And you even acknowledge that in your examples because you mention glass magnification perfection/manual adjustments, improvements to locomotion, and the need for more powerful (and I’d suggest more affordable) hardware. Increasing resolution is certainly going to be a part of any next-gen VR hardware, but that’s primarily because there’s a larger industry for display panels that extends beyond VR that’s always pushing for high resolution panels. But resolution is just a piece of what needs to be improved for VR to go mainstream, and it’s a piece that is way overvalued by the enthusiast crowd that tends to hang out here.

          • daveinpublic

            The resolution could definitely use an upgrade, and I think it’s an important factor going forward for many people, whether they know what the term resolution is or not. Some VR headsets feel like you’re literally sitting right next to a giant CRT monitor. There are many factors that need to improve, but that doesn’t lessen the importance of higher resolution. It’s just another one of those upgrades that as it gets closer and becomes more attainable, we take for granted. As soon as we get it, oh we didn’t really need that anyway, it’s a low priority item!

          • MosBen

            My point is that those other factors do make resolution less important. If resolution is the thing holding VR back from being widely adopted, then it’s massively important. If VR would be widely adopted with some improvements to areas like cost, comfort, and ease of use, with resolution staying the same, then resolution’s importance vis a vis mass adoption is rather low. If mass adoption won’t happen until there’s improvement in several areas, including resolution, but the increase in resolution necessary to satisfy that requirement is small relative to the improvements needed for the other factors, then resolution’s importance, at least in terms of allocating resources to solving the problem, is lower than the other issues.

            Improving the resolution over the first gen Rift and Vive would be nice, and it’s also the single technical improvement that’s most likely to be included in a second generation simply because higher resolution screens will be available. But just because we’re likely to get better resolution screens does not mean that increasing resolution is the necessary hurdle to wide adoption, and I don’t think that it is. If resolution was really the hurdle, we’d see lots of people who had previously not been interested in VR lining up to buy the Vive Pro, and I certainly haven’t heard my parents mention it.

          • MosBen

            Things like the comfort of the HMD, the necessity of being connected to a powerful gaming PC, etc. are much bigger turnoffs for the people that I show VR to than the lack of resolution. Increasing resolution is a good thing, and because it’s one of the easier problems to solve it is likely to be one of the current issues with VR that’s resolved the fastest, but it’s not the limiting factor holding back general acceptance of VR that some enthusiasts think that it is.

          • Konchu

            I feel in general comfort has been addressed pretty well in Room Scale with a Vive with no unnatural locomotion added is comfortable for most everyone. Now if you are saying mass gaming adoption there is still some major work here cause locomotion is a limit to VR games at the moment. But for the general public those that might use VR to consume media like movies or buisness users that might use VR to replace multiple high end monitors Resolution is king.

          • MosBen

            Comfort has improved, certainly, but it still has a ways to go. I guess that I could be more explicit in what I mean by “comfort”. I mean basically, “ease of use”. This includes the physical comfort of wearing and using the VR device, but also things like needing to avoid tripping on cords, the device getting warm while using it, the lenses becoming fogged while using it, the padding becoming damp from sweat, the intuitiveness of the controller, the ease of switching between users and adjusting to fit them, the weight of the unit, the creation of marks on the user’s face from wearing it, the pressure on the forehead, eyes, and nose, the ease of using the device while wearing glasses, the ability to use a pass through camera to see your surroundings without removing the device, etc. And this is pushing a bit beyond how I used comfort in that other post, but I think that you could include things like the tendency to cause motion sickness, of which resolution is only a part, difficulty of setting up the device, and how easy it is to take the device to another location (say, to your friend’s house to show them VR).

            Saying that Resolution is king is overstating the case. Let’s say that someone made an HMD with retina resolution displays, but it cost $50,000. Would millions of them be sold? Probably not, both because the cost is prohibitive and also because without other technological advances we don’t have the computing power to drive such displays, certainly not at a price affordable to your average non-enthusiast consumer.

            And that’s all that I’m trying to get people to think about. We as VR enthusiasts, most of whom probably have incomes a bit above average and also with more inclination to dedicate that income towards VR, have a tendency to get blinders on about what features would be most beneficial to us and simply assume that those are the features that would be best for expanding VR as an industry, as well as its audience. Right now, I think that cost is far and away the biggest issue, with the necessity of a complicated setup close behind. I have friends that might be willing to pay $400 for a Rift, but they’re not going to pay $400 for a Rift plus $400 for a graphics card for their PCs, especially since most of them don’t have desktop PCs anyway and most of those that do have desktop PCs have pre-built systems that don’t have power supplies big enough to power an expensive graphics card. And even those that do are turned off by needing to set up sensors around their room that all need to be plugged in and leave unsightly wires around. And that’s among my pretty nerdy group of friends. Forget about the non-nerdy people in my life (parents, siblings, etc.).

            Growing VR means appealing to people like our parents, siblings, non-nerdy co-workers, etc. Resolution is certainly a piece of the puzzle, but it’s not everything.

          • david vincent

            The people that I show VR to complain mostly about the resolution (“it’s neat but tell me when it looks like my 1080p screen”), not about FOV, ergonomics, etc.

          • MosBen

            And that’s fine, but the people to whom you show VR might not be representative of the broader VR market. And while their stated preference for higher resolution is genuine, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t other, bigger barriers. If, say, an HMD came out with 140 degree FOV, weighed half as much as current HMDs and was more comfortable to wear for long period of time, did not require any connection to a PC and was completely self-contained, had perfect inside out tracking for both head and hand movements, had several AAA applications including games and experiences, and cost $200, would they be interested? That hypothetical seems ridiculous, to me at least, but it gets at my point, which is that if resolution is truly the limiting factor today, the answer is “No, they would not”. But while that may be true for your friends, I have a strong suspicion that the hypothetical HMD that I described would sell like gangbusters.

            Resolution is a fairly straightforward problem to solve. LCD/OLED/etc. panels have lots of applications outside of VR, so there’s always lots of money going into making them better. But while higher resolution will obviously be a feature of next generation HMDs, it’s not the feature that’s going to open the floodgates of mass adoption.

          • david vincent

            Agreed, most new VR users will complain about the resolution (“tell me when it looks like my 1080p screen”), not about FOV nor ergonomics.

    • Raphael

      I had a chat with a VR scientist some years ago. He had access to pro/military VR and was very clear that VR is more than just pixel density. He said pixel res was not the most important feature for good vr. He’s right of course. He was involved in hand and whole body tracking. A shocking number of roadtovr readers have the “pixel density above all else” mentality.

      Of course pixel density needs to increase but tracking, field of view, foveated are equally important. More realistic depth displays are also crucial for future VR. The ability to focus at different screen depths. Simply flooding the market with gen1 VR at higher density is ultimately counter-productive.

      • MosBen

        Agreed. One of the ideas that I think is the most important concept to come out of this recent rebirth in VR is the idea of presence. Lots of things come together to create a convincing experience, and resolution is just one of those pieces. Additionally, once one of those pieces reaches a given level the other pieces are become what’s holding the experience back from achieving a higher degree of presence. Resolution is currently good enough for now, especially on things like the Vive Pro and Samsung Odyssey, but there are lots of other aspects of VR hardware that are lagging behind.

        • Raphael

          Yes, many factors. Multi-plane displays allowing variable focus for more realistic 3d, reduced nausea (for those who vomit a lot), inside tracking and of course FOV. Achieving human FOV with increased pixel density will make the whole experience very lifelike. Let’s not forget display frequency. 120hz+. All these things will come in time.

          At the moment we’re mostly seeing gen 1 technology with increased display resolution and some internal tracking.

          • Lulu Vi Britannia

            I don’t really agree with what you both said.

            – First, the ergonomics are not bad at all, except for the Vive. There is nothing more ergonomic than the Oculus Touch controllers, and the WMR headsets have a perfect design with a great weight repartition.
            The point is, current VR gears are undeniably comfortable (although some of them are hard to wear correctly). There is no need to make better.

            – Then, 90 Hz is smooth enough for VR to seem real. There is no need to push further, that would just be a waste of computing power, so THAT would be counter-productive.

            – Although FOV will definitely improve the experience, it is not really a crucial point : human vision is blurred on the edge anyway, so whenever you want to look around, you usually turn your head (not just your eyes). A small FOV forces you to turn your head around, but like I just said… you do that in real life anyway.

            For the rest, I mostly agree though ^^.
            Also, I’ll add that people tend to think screen resolution is the visual limit of VR, but really, it’s the software graphics : as VR is awfully demanding, the devs can’t put a lot of anti-aliasing in their apps nor can they make detailed textures and meshes.
            THIS is what needs to change : we need less demanding headsets, and/or more power.

          • Raphael

            Meshes and textures have been increasing over the years anyway and will continue to do so. Photorealism is already a reality with Unity and Unreal but of course these engines aren’t using ray-tracing so there are compromises. But these game engines can already produce photorealistic results. Adding lots of AA isn’t a good idea especially with VR. SuperSampling does make a difference but ultimately the resolution will increase to the point where minimal to no AA or SS is needed for human-eye resolution.

          • Lulu Vi Britannia

            Of course, I never said otherwise ^^. Unity and UE graphics are damn impressive!
            But current computers can’t run VR apps with great graphics. That’s why most of VR apps have low poly and simple textures : of course the engines (and the devs) can do better, but the computers simply can’t handle it.

            As for AA, it is necessary even with a high res. No matter the quality of your screen, you need to soften the shapes of the meshes and the textures. Not too much, of course ^^. But I do find AA x2 mandatory for beautiful graphics (AA x4 if you want really detailed visuals).
            As an example : I’ve been using Mocu Mocu Dance for a while now, and some models in this app simply don’t look good if I don’t use AA x4 (even on a 1920×1080 screen).

            Now of course this will improve with time, just like resolution. It doesn’t change the fact that improving the software graphics is the priority to get better visuals in VR.

          • Raphael

            Are you a VR user? AA typically makes VR graphics worse. That’s why the focus is on supersampling.

            “As for AA, it is necessary even with a high res. No matter the quality of your screen,” << for current hardware. I was talking about future hardware. Where the pixel density is high enough AA is not necessary. For most VR games I disable AA and its effects vary from one game to another.

            "But current computers can't run VR apps with great graphics. " << Define "great graphics". Have you actually seen DCS 2.5 or Project Cars?, Lone Echo, Robot Arena.

            Plenty of VR games have "great graphics"

            "That's why most of VR apps have low poly and simple textures : of course
            the engines (and the devs) can do better, but the computers simply
            can't handle it." – It's one of the reasons. Another reason is that VR is flooded with "my first coding attempt" games from lone developers with no history and or no budget.

            I would suggest that if photorealism is your only criteria for a "great game" then VR was a bad choice for you.

            However… powering PC VR is an issue for higher end graphics but this isn't simply due to "improving software graphics"…Nvidia has been pushing more and more expensive GPUs exceeding the rate of inflation. Nvidia puts VR specific features on its GPUs and then doesn't persuade developers to make use of them. A game making use of VRworks will see a significant performance boost… Raw Data being one example, Eve Valkyrie another. After the developers added VRworks the games ran perfectly smooth even with graphics maxed-out.

            What needs to change in game development is that the biggest percentage of developers refuse to change to the latest APU. DX11 is vastly inefficient as is openGL. Consequently people are forced to spend way more on a GPU that's not even fully utilised because most developers won't add VRworks (and ATI equivalent).

            The number one thing game developers need to do is make use of VR specific hardware features of GPUs and ditch the ancient API. Switch to DX12 or Vulkan. Vulkan or DX12 with VRworks would unleash the full power of a GPU. VR games that currently need a 1080Ti would be smooth on a 1060.

            .

          • Lulu Vi Britannia

            Of course I am a VR user, I wouldn’t talk otherwise.

            And you, are you as PC user at all? Because saying something like “AA typically makes VR graphics worse.”, I’m sorry but it’s just plain stupid.
            AA just smoothens the edges, thus it makes the shape of the meshes better. Without that, you just get stairs-like edges, which is undeniably worse. Whether that be in VR or not.
            The inconvenient of this technique is it takes power, that’s all. But when it comes to graphics, it makes things better, period.
            Here is an example :
            – without AA: https://ibb.co/kHAeMT
            – with AA : https://ibb.co/d4HR1T

            You clearly see the difference in the hair, there’s no denying.
            And that’s just an example. Without AA, the objects edges don’t seem natural at all, there is no denying.
            Every game allows it, including those you quoted, so I suggest you just try those games without AA and then with AA. You’ll see the difference. Lone:Echo is wonderful, but if you don’t use AA it’s a nightmare for the eyes (and I’m barely exaggerating here ; you clearly can’t say it’s beautiful as all the edges are stairs-like).

            PCars, Assetto Corsa, Elite:Dangerous, Robo:Recall, Echo:Arena, I use AA in all those games because without that, the graphics just aren’t that good, it’s unbelievable that we have this argument.
            Anyway, I won’t waste anymore line on this, just try those games without AA and then with AA. There’s nothing better than experience to learn things.

            “Define “great graphics” “. Easy : in VR standards, if it’s PS2-like, it’s good, if it’s PS3-like, it’s great.
            Lone:Echo, Elite:Dangerous, PCars, they are at PS3 level if you can run the average config. So they definitely have great graphics at full config, but that can’t be run by many PCs, so as I said, it is limited by the minimum config.

            That said, I am not able to use VRWorks so I didn’t know if it was that efficient, thank you for the info ^^. But if I recall, VRWorks only works with GTX 1060 or better.
            Thus, we come back to what I said : the main problem for VR graphics, it’s the minimum configuration required to run it (thus : the power needed).

          • Raphael

            I know what AA does flappy. The degree to which it works in VR depends on the game engine. There were many unreal vr games where AA made the image too blurry. Unity games also had varying degrees of success with AA used in VR. The pixel res is too low in VR to be thinking you can get rid of jagged edges even with AA. That’s why people for focus on super sampling. I notice you haven’t mentioned supersampling once which is why I wondered if you even had PC VR.

          • daveinpublic

            Not sure if 120HZ is going to help that much over what we have, seems like the refresh rate is already pretty good. I would put that at a lower priority than a higher resolution screen. I think FOV needs to increase to have that feeling of freedom, also I think the headsets need to be lighter. That along with higher resolution screens are very important.

          • Raphael

            I agree that 90hz is OK at this point and would be fine with higher res and bigger FOV. Will be interesting to see what the pimax finally drops down to on refresh… started out at 90hz target and has been dropping lower and lower.

      • Gato Satanista

        Yes, but pixel density are crucial to VR in working enviroments. Reading small text and software interfaces…

        • Raphael

          Pixel density, FOV and many other factors. Not just pixels.

          • Konchu

            I think it depends on application too though I feel Smoothness->Tracking->FOV->Resolution are most important in that order for gaming( I get there has to be some balance to this I wouldn’t trade 100 extra degrees for Atari graphics). But to take VR as a monitor replacement I think PPI is going to trump all. Which means a lot to business applications.

          • Raphael

            FOV has to reach human capacity anyway just as pixel resolution has to. There’s no application where small fov is an advantage in terms of consumer VR. So anything released over the next few years without a significant boost in FOV is just temporary filler regardless of the pixel density.

          • Konchu

            Not gonna lie I want both for sure got a Pimax ordered which I hope they can deliver on. Super excited bout even the modest FOV update on the new Oculus headset in testing. And as someone that bought a Odyssey for better res I agree it doesn’t feel that much better for games. But it is tons better for non gaming things but not near good enough. So if this headset came out tomorrow for sub 500 bucks same FOV and zero screen door you betcha(I’m a consumer whore).

          • Raphael

            I hope Pie delivers! I’d also upgrade even with current Vive/Rift FOV for a significant jump in display resolution if the price was right. Clearly that ain’t happening with crappy HTC and their abandonment of home VR users. I hope they lose sales to competitors over the next year.

        • Raphael

          Working environment can have a different set of requirements so yes… For non entertainment such as medical… Pixel density can be most important.

    • rabs

      Everything is going to improve, but pixel density is currently too low for many tasks.

      • MosBen

        Don’t get me wrong, it is certainly good that it will improve, it’s just not the limiting factor keeping VR from breaking out into mainstream use, and some enthusiasts put way too much importance on increasing it. As another commenter said, increasing resolution is low hanging fruit, so it makes sense that that’s going to be one of the things that we see progress fastest as new HMDs come out.

    • mirak

      I think the most important is focus accomodation with light fields displays or whatever, because it physically increase confort, by reducing eye strain.

    • crim3

      As a flight simmer, I’m always looking at the small fonts of the gauges and displays inside the cockpit and long distances outside the cockpit, two things that are constant reminders of how low the resolution is. Wider FOV is going to feel great, but if I can only choose one feature to improve that’s pixels per degree by a long shot because of my particular use of VR.

      • MosBen

        Right, but as I’m sure you would agree, that’s a very specific use case. Higher resolution is surely a good thing, but my point is that it’s not the feature holding VR back from mainstream acceptance at the moment. Too many of the enthusiasts that hang out on these boards equate “things that I want” with “things that would be good for broadening VR’s audience”.

        • Atheist Prophet

          At the moment it’s not that specific a use-case. On the current-gen, ppi is simply too low for many apps. We need to double the res at least.

  • Jim P

    Now the Hardware needs to catch up to run these bad boys.

    • Tomas Sandven

      If by hardware you mean eye tracking, then I agree. Today’s GPUs can easily render to super high resolution displays as long as they only need to render details where the eye is looking.

    • daveinpublic

      Foveated rendering can’t be far away now, right?

  • impurekind

    Nice.

  • Rodgerroe

    Gotta love competition. Any news of resolution/PPI increase is hype for me. Resolution increases are needed in order to make FOV increases a good thing.

    • daveinpublic

      I’m getting more excited for Oculus Connect 5 than ever. You know they’ve been working on foveated rendering.. now combine that with a 140º FOV and one of these high res screens and you’ve got a really nice setup.

  • wcalderini

    Nvidia better crank up the magic factory. Turing is not going to drive this, but I trust them to already have the tech incubating somewhere ready to drive these new cars. (I hope)

    • Tomas Sandven

      Also foveated rendering. Today’s high end graphics cards could easily handle rendering to two 4k displays if they only had to render two 1080p images worth of pixels.

      Also I don’t remember what the technology is called, but I’m pretty sure rendering two images for VR is much faster than rendering 2 unrelated frames.

  • bud

    What would be the point at which the ppi would present real life impression, what is the maximum ppi the eye can see?

    • Xron

      ~120 pixels per degree (according Arbash)

      • bud

        what does that mean per degree?
        how many ppi on the panel would have to be there for it to look like real life out of your eye into the real world but it is via a panel inside a headset.

        • Simple math, divide resolution over FOV. For Oculus Rift CV1:
          2160px / 110deg = 19,5px/deg. Dpi without the rest of the specs means nothing, it’s only revelant to form factor of the HMD.

      • crim3

        That’s quiet a number. It’s going to take some time to reach there.

    • Facts

      2600ppi

  • Molmir

    The term PPI (pixels per inch) is misleading. Doesn’t matter at all what the pixel density of the display is, as long as the distance to the eye is unknown.
    Use the term PPD (pixels per degree) instead, it describes the actual experience inside the headset.

    • Weston

      How would the author know what the PPD is if this is just the display?

      • Molmir

        I intended to criticize the manufacturers.
        INT certainly have working demo units, although I mistakenly thought the headline photo was INT’s.

  • Omri Levy

    Does anybody know what is roughly the resolution this PPI translates to? :o

    • Konchu

      At 390% that is (1080)4212x(1200)4680 i believe.

  • Konchu

    I’m excited for all these advances, we cannot quite use VR headset for a full monitor replacement so this will help. And will be nice for there to be no screen door that is a bonus.

  • Lucidfeuer

    So how does this translate in terms of “increased FOV”? Also this is coming in 2019, but is there any rumours of manufacturers purported to have worked/ordered from them besides Sony?

  • Mr. Moon

    Foveated Rendering and eye tracking will bring VR to the mainstream!

  • Blindguy

    Why cares about pixel density anyway?
    We VR enthusiast will all be blinded by the OLED sticking right in front of our eyes anyway
    Should care about electronic eye instead