We had written about this sometime ago, that Samsung was thinking about manufacturing a standalone virtual reality (VR) headset – that is, one that did not need to be tethered, connected, or be reliant on a smartphone or a PC for its display and content. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona early this year, Samsung was saying that it wanted to put an Exynos processor inside a standalone VR headset – and now here we are.
The Exynos VR Headset is very close to reality now, and Samsung is highlighting its standalone usage and the use of “foveated rendering” on the device. Let’s break that down. First up, Samsung is talking about using the Exynos 9 chipset line – the most powerful Exynos processors to date – to power these standalone VR products. Don’t expect these to be as awesome as the PC-connected HTC Vive, but the performance should right along the lines of the Samsung Gear VR.
Secondly, Samsung is partnering up with Visual Camp, an outfit that has an eye tracking system optimized for mobile VR. This would lead to Samsung being able to incorporate foveated rendering – a technique that renders in 100% detail only what the user is looking at, and everything else in reduced resolutions. This gives the standalone device a better chance to save system resources and to prevent overheating like when the GPU is required to render everything in detail.
Visual Camp CEO Suk Yunchan said, “By collaborating with Samsung Electronics, our technology was internationally recognized at MWCS 2017, enabling us to secure a bridgehead for future global marketing efforts. Now, we will continue promoting the high quality of Korean startup technologies and products overseas.”
SOURCE: VR Focus
