Playstation VR 2 is the "pinnacle of VR," says one VR developer. The gaming performance exceeds that of a high-end PC.
The tactical military shooter Pavlov is considered the VR equivalent of Counter-Strike and is one of more than 30 launch titles for Playstation VR2.
The VR game was originally developed for PC VR systems and appeared on Steam in 2017, where it enjoys great popularity and benefits from an active modding scene. Meanwhile, there is also a graphically slimmed-down version for Meta Quest 2 called Pavlov Shack.
The PSVR 2 version, which will be released on February 22, will offer cross-play with the PC version. Cross-play with the Quest version won't be available at launch but could be added later.
PSVR 2 outperforms PC VR.
In a Discord chat, studio CEO David Villarreal commented on Sony's VR hardware, calling it the"pinnacle of virtual reality, especially for shooters." Thanks to adaptive triggers, he said, each gun trigger offers different resistance, and each gun offers different recoil.
According to Villarreal, the latest version of the VR game runs "probably ten percent" better on PS5 and PSVR2 than it does on his own PC system with a top-of-the-line Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, a graphics card that alone costs as much as the console and VR headset combined.
Not sure how accurate this is for other developers, but the Pavlov dev mentioned that for their own game, the PSVR2 is 10% faster than even their 3090TI setup. 👀
If true, it's exciting that kinda power could be in the hands of so many people for official flat to VR ports. pic.twitter.com/1uTiKbnzfY
— Flat2VR (@Flat2VR) February 6, 2023
The performance advantage is said to be due to the fact that it is a console, making rendering more efficient.
Foveated rendering makes VR games prettier - and faster
Villarreal doesn't go into detail about the performance and technical differences. One big advantage the PSVR 2 has over other PC VR headsets is foveated rendering.
With this rendering technique, the Playstation VR 2 uses eye tracking to determine which area of the image the eye is focusing on and renders it in a higher resolution, resulting in a sharper image, while the peripheral area is rendered in a lower resolution. This technique is much more efficient, easing the burden on the system and saving processing power.
According to a GDC talk, a Unity demo rendered many times faster when foveated rendering was enabled than without. It's quite possible that Pavlov also uses foveated rendering, which might help explain why it runs so well with the combination of PS5 and PSVR 2. The PC VR graphics wonder Kayak VR: Mirage supports foveated rendering in the PSVR 2 version, making it more impressive than ever.
Playstation VR 2 brings surprisingly good graphics performance, even when compared to PC VR systems, and costs considerably less.