Hellsweeper VR will soon get foveated rendering support on Playstation VR 2. A short video shows the graphical difference it makes.
Mixed Realms has released another teaser for the upcoming Wrath content and graphics update. It shows three short scenes from Hellsweeper VR: one without foveated rendering, one with foveated rendering.
The resolution is significantly higher, the textures are sharper, and the shadows are more detailed. All in all, a significant visual upgrade. The video was posted on X and is heavily compressed. I have asked the studio for an uncompressed version, but have not yet received a reply.
The studio hopes to release the update by the end of March. It will bring a new weapon (the Magician’s Staff), a new enemy (Wrath), and improved bosses.
The action roguelike Hellsweeper is available on the Playstation Store for Playstation VR 2, on Steam for PC VR headsets and on the Quest Store.
All three versions will receive a graphics upgrade, but PSVR 2 is likely to benefit the most due to the foveated rendering.
Foveated rendering: A great but rarely used PSVR 2 feature
Dynamic foveated rendering is a superpower of PSVR 2 that often goes unused by studios.
The reason is that many studios are using an older Unity render pipeline that doesn’t support the rendering technique because development started years ago, and they are reluctant to switch to a newer one because of the effort involved. “We had to break the game to fix it. But it’s worth it,” Mixed Realms writes on X.
With foveated rendering, the PSVR 2’s eye tracking detects where the user is looking and renders only that area at full resolution. This frees up resources for better graphics.
The PSVR 2 version of No Man’s Sky received a huge graphical boost thanks to foveated rendering. However, it took a graphics engineer four months to implement the rendering technique.
We hope to see more foveated rendering in future PSVR 2 games as studios begin to work with a render pipeline that supports this rendering technique from the start.
Source: Mixed News
