Microsoft To Make VR Work On Low-End Devices With FlashBack Say hello to Microsoft Flashback, which will make VR headsets more accessible.
By tbreak •
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VR headsets are all over the news these days, and everyday they improve further. Although it is not a technology that has reached its full potential yet, VR headsets like the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive depend on really high powered computers, which can cost quite an amount. Even the more affordable Google Cardboard requires a powerful phone. Well, Microsoft has an alternative.
Say hello to Microsoft Flashback, which will make VR headsets more accessible. This virtual reality technology will allow high-quality VR to work on low-powered devices. Additionally, it will also improve frame rates by 8 times, consume 97 times less energy, and reduce latency by 15 times. This is made possible by taking away the heavy load on the GPU by pre-loading the virtual environment before-hand. This means there won't be a need for a powerful GPU, as very little would be loaded in real time.
This new system will compress data and store it in the GPU VRAM, RAM or SSD. Thus the GPU's main job would only be to decompress this data when it is likely to be utilized. The only thing to worry about would be the need to pre-load all the data into the phone, which might take a while. To show it off, Microsoft used the Oculus Rift on the affordable HP Pavilion Mini. Although it was just a prototype, it is definitely something to look into, especially if the difference in quality is minimal. Looks like you wont need that super expensive PC after all.
This article was originally published on tbreak and has been reposted on Entrepreneur Middle East based on a mutual agreement between the websites.
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