Snapdragon 845 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

March 22, 2018

Goertek’s Next Generation VR HMD Reference Design Was Showcased At GDC

Goertek, a global leader in system design and manufacturing, in partnership with Qualcomm, have been at the Game Developer Conference highlighting their virtual reality (VR) head-moutned display (HMD) reference platform based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845.

Qualcomm 845 Mobile VR Reference Design

Goertek and Qualcomm have been working on the VR HMD reference designs for some time now taking advantage of the Snapdragon 820, 821 and 835 mobile platforms. With Geortek bringing extensive experience in Qualcomm mobile platforms, having provided design solutions for industrial design, architecture, thermal management, acoustics, optics and electronic circuitry for VR HMD reference design to utilize the full potential of the Snapdragon 845 mobile platform. This is also thanks to being a member of the Qualcomm VR HMD Accelerator Program.

“This is a landmark product for the entire VR industry,” said Hugo Swart, the head of Virtual and Augmented Reality Business Group at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “First of all, many VR brands can create an unprecedented immersive and realistic experience for users with the powerful processing capacity of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 mobile platform. In addition, VR vendors can rapidly develop their own customized VR HMDs, based on Goertek’s leading integration and manufacturing capabilities, allowing them to reduce R&D costs and focus on user experience and content.”

Qualcomm 845 Mobile VR Reference Design

This new generation of HMD will include the latest in eye-tracking technology, allowing for accurate, real-time tracking of a users’ gaze offering content creators another input to increase realism within VR along with aiding in optimizing of experiences. In addition to this six degrees of freedom (6DoF) is also a feature of the VR HMD reference design, giving new ways to users to interact with experiences and become more immersed in the moment. This is powered by a new 6DoF controller based on ultrasonic technology further improving the user experience and thanks to the included SDK, content creators are able to manage real-world boundary situations and build solutions into their titles.

“This represents another successful cooperation between Goertek and Qualcomm in the field of VR,” said Edwin Yu, Vice President of Goertek. “By working with world-leading vendors like Qualcomm, Goertek is committed to creating more innovative and revolutionary products for users, by combining its vertical integration and technology integration capabilities to drive the development of the VR industry.”

For more on Goertek and the VR HMD Reference Design, stay tuned for VRFocus.

March 22, 2018

Goertek’s Next Generation VR HMD Reference Design Was Showcased At GDC

Qualcomm 845 Mobile VR Reference Design

For more on Goertek and the VR HMD Reference Design, stay tuned for VRFocus.

March 21, 2018

Companies Can Soon Make Vive Wave Headsets Based on Qualcomm’s New VR Reference Design

Qualcomm today announced their Snapdragon 845 Virtual Reality Development Kit (VRDK) reference headset will have support for Vive Wave, HTC’s open API which allows a large range of third-party headsets and peripherals access to a common platform. The move to integrate Vive Wave into Qualcomm’s latest VRDK will essentially give prospective manufactures turn-key access to HTC’s mobile version of its Viveport app store.

Just like the company’s previous 835 VRDK, which was used as the foundation for the creation of several standalone headsets including Vive Focus and Pico Neo, the new 845 VRDK will soon make its way to headset manufacturers looking to integrate the processor along with its new capabilities into their own future VR headsets. This time though, companies won’t have to add support for Vive Wave themselves, as it comes part and parcel in 845.

Qualcomm’s 845 VRDK and its companion SDK, which includes support for 6 degrees of freedom (6DoF) positional tracking, eye tracking, foveated rendering and a room-scale boundary system, are expected to ship to OEMs in Q2 2018.

The 845 VRDK, which was first unveiled at MWC 2018, is said to offer a 30% increase in graphics performance and power efficiency, and twice as much display throughput compared to its 835 predecessor. Eye tracking hardware and algorithms developed by Sweden-based firm Tobii and Qualcomm’s own ‘Adreno Foveation’ foveated rendering solution are also a part of the 845 headset reference design, which is said to allow applications to render more demanding applications while reducing GPU load. Tobii’s eye tracking can also be used to make social VR more immersive by translating eye movement to avatars, enabling gaze-based UI input, and letting developers use the data for analytics purposes.

Here’s a quick spec list of the 845 VRDK:

Snapdragon 845 Processor
2560×1440 (1280×1440 per eye) AMOLED display at 60 Hz
6DoF motion tracking
Two forward-facing monochromatic 1280×800 global shutter cameras
Two monochromatic VGA global shutter cameras for eye tracking
DRAM: 4GB LPDDR4
Flash: 64GB UFS
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
USB3.1 type C (power)
Integrated WCD9335 Audio codec
3DoF controller support

We’ve got feet on the ground here at GDC 2018, so check back for more AR/VR news soon.

The post Companies Can Soon Make Vive Wave Headsets Based on Qualcomm’s New VR Reference Design appeared first on Road to VR.

March 2, 2018

GoerTek Announces Next-Gen VR Headset

GoerTek has announced its third generation of the virtual reality (VR) reference platform in partnership with Qualcomm.

Qualcomm 845 Mobile VR Reference Design

The head-mounted display (HMD) allows a user to experience vivid and immersive VR in a standalone form factor thanks to the design based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 mobile platform. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will be able to take advantage of GoerTek’s vast product experience to allow them to quickly bring the highest performing VR products to market. The latest generation of these VR HMD, GoerTek have been able to integrate the various subsystems including the display, advanced optics and lens, mechanical design, audio, chipset, and software. This ensures that OEMs will benefit from a lower engineering investment and an increase focus on user experience and content implementation.

Dr. Pen C. Li, Vice President, Product Marketing, GoerTek stated: “This is a pivotal moment for our industry, the launch of Snapdragon 845, together with GoerTek’s successful integration of cutting edge VR technologies, opens the opportunity to bring our users the most complete standalone VR experience ever seen. GoerTek’s extensive experience in design, engineering and manufacturing, in both components and systems, has propelled it to become a global ODM leader.”

Qualcomm 845 Mobile VR Reference Design

Having already designed a number of successful VR products Goertek has proven that they are a capable partner who are able to deliver on their promises. By investing in ergonomics, thermal management and system integrations, GoerTek have successful made continuous steps forward to push their products and the VR sector forward.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform features updated architecture and subsystems that power the delivery of unprecedented VR experiences, making it a robust solution for GoerTek’s VR HMD. Additionally, the use of Qualcomm Adreno 630 visual processing subsystem allows for 20 percent faster graphics performance and 2.5x increased display while using 30 percent less power.

Hugo Swart, Head of Virtual and Augmented Reality (AR) Business Group, Qualcomm Technologies, said: “With the Snapdragon 845 Mobile VR Platform, we are paving the way for customers and developers to create the immersive and life-like experiences that our users are asking for, we are pushing forward and delivering leading technologies to support the growing product segment of standalone and smartphone VR products.”

As GoerTek and Qualcomm continue their relationship to delivery outstanding VR technologies you will find further updates right here, at VRFocus.

February 21, 2018

Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon 845 Mobile VR Reference Design

Mobile chip manufacturer Qualcomm has been heavily involved in pushing virtual reality (VR) technology forward for sometime now, most recently at the company’s CES 2018 press event announcing that Oculus Go and the Xi VR Standalone headset would be powered by Snapdragon 821. Today, Qualcomm has revealed far bigger plans for the mobile VR industry, unveiling its Snapdragon 845 Mobile VR Reference Design.

Qualcomm 845 Mobile VR Reference Design

The announcement comes just ahead of Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2018 next week, which has in recent years been a hot bed of VR technology and surprises. The Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform features a variety of new architectures and subsystems that will build on the Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform which powers HTC’s new Vive Focus.

The Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform will use the latest Qualcomm Adreno 630 visual processing subsystem, offering the latest integrated graphics, video and display processing technologies. Qualcomm reports that this translates to a 30 percent faster graphics performance, 30 percent better power efficiency, and more than twice as much display throughput compared to the Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform.

Another technology innovation is Adreno Foveation, which combines graphics rendering with eye tracking. As VRFocus has reported in the past, foveated rendering is seen as one of the key technology’s for improved visual VR performance, focusing the highest graphics resources to where the user is actually looking, for the sharpest visuals possible, whilst peripheral details are rendered in a lower quality.

Qualcomm 845 Mobile VR Reference Design

“We continue to deliver new advancements in technologies for our customers to utilise as they aim to capitalize on the growing standalone and smartphone VR industry,” said Hugo Swart, Head of Virtual and Augmented Reality Business Group, Qualcomm Technologies,Inc. in a statement. “With the Snapdragon 845 Mobile VR Platform, we’re supporting the next wave of smartphone and standalone VR headsets for our customers and developers to create the immersive applications and experiences of the future.

As shown on the images, Qualcomm’s reference design features front sensors – much like Vive Focus or Windows Mixed Reality headsets – to offer six degrees of freedom (6DoF) Roomscale tracking without the need for external sensors and simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). This is thanks to the new dedicated Hexagon Digital Signal Processor (DSP) and Adreno Graphics Processing Unit within the Snapdragon 845.

Qualcomm will be continuing its relationship with GoerTek allowing global manufacturers to quickly build commercial designs based on the Snapdragon 845 Mobile VR Platform, so expect to see more appear in the next year or so. For any further updates from Qualcomm, keep reading VRFocus.

February 14, 2018

Qualcomm Snapdragon 845: Das bringt der neue Prozessor für VR-Headsets

Das derzeitige Spitzenmodell Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 findet man in manchen autarken VR-Headsets, langsam aber sicher steht die nächste Generation der Prozessorreihe an. Erste Smartphones mit dem kommenden Flaggschiff Snapdragon 845 sollten auf dem Mobile World Congress in Barcelona das Licht der Welt erblicken. Die Messe eröffnet offiziell am 26. Februar 2018 ihre Tore. Nun gibt es erste Benchmarks zu dem neuen Snapdragon-SoC, der auch im neuen VR-Referenz-Design von Qualcomm zu finden ist.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 für VR-Devices

In erster Linie wird sich der neue Prozessor wie gewohnt in Top-Modellen von Android Smartphones wie teilweise im kommenden Samsung Galaxy S9 finden lassen. Allerdings hat Qualcomm auch explizit VR auf dem Schirm und stattet ein neues Referenz-Design seiner autarken Virtual-Reality-Brille mit dem Snapdragon 845 aus. Sie beherrscht zwar im Prinzip Eye-Tracking, allerdings fehlen noch Software-Frameworks, um Augenbewegungen auswerten zu können. Einsetzen lässt sich die Technik vor allem, um Rechenzeit zu sparen und nur Bereiche in höchster Auflösung und Qualität darzustellen, die man im Blick hat. Diese Möglichkeit bewirbt auch Qualcomm bei den Spezifikationen zur Grafik-Einheit im SoC – wie bereits beim Vorgänger-Chip. Ebenfalls noch nicht umgesetzt wurde ein 6DoF-Tracking der Controller – ob das mit der neuen Generation der Snapdragon-Chips umsetzbar ist, bleibt abzuwarten.

Ein früher Prototyp des VR-Referenz-Designs von Qualcomm.

Konkreter wird es bei den Benchmarks. Verschiedene Tests wie beispielsweise auf UploadVR steigert sich die Performance des Snapdragon 845 um 20 bis 30 Prozent gegenüber dem Snapdragon 835 und schlägt im AnTuTu-Benchmark das derzeitige ARM-Spitzenmodell im Apple iPhone X. Gerade bei der reinen GPU-Power mit der neuen Adreno 630 im GFX-Test legt der neue Snapdragon mit 30 Prozent gegenüber dem Vorjahresmodell mächtig zu, was gerade für Spiele in VR von Bedeutung ist. Dabei zeigt sich der Snapdraogn 845 deutlich stromsparender als der Vorgänger und verbraucht 20 bis 30 Prozent weniger Energie.

Insgesamt hat der Snapdragon 845 also das Potential, Erfahrungen mit autarken VR-Brillen weiter zu verbessern und beispielsweise die Akkulaufzeit eines autarken Headsets zu verlängern. Laut Datenblatt kann die Adreno 630 GPU 2400 x 2400 Pixel pro Auge bei 120 fps ansprechen. Wichtiger noch wäre allerdings ein Tracking von Controllern mit 6DoF. Ob sich der Wunsch mit dem neuen SoC erfüllen kann, bleibt abzuwarten.

(Quelle: UploadVR, Bild: Qualcomm)

Der Beitrag Qualcomm Snapdragon 845: Das bringt der neue Prozessor für VR-Headsets zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

February 13, 2018

Benchmarking Snapdragon 845 And Testing A New Qualcomm Reference Headset

Last week, Qualcomm invited me onsite to benchmark their latest Snapdragon 845 SoC and platform. This new Snapdragon 845 was originally unveiled at the company’s big event in Maui late last year. With the new Snapdragon 845 there are many improvements to the GPU performance, with a focus on VR and AR applications.

The new Snapdragon 845 brings a completely new generation of GPU architecture into play while still remaining on the 10nm process node. I spent some time comparing the new Snapdragon 845’s performance against the leading smartphones so that you can get an idea of how much of an improvement this really is. Additionally, it will help you get an idea of what kind of performance levels the new Snapdragon 845 VR and AR HMDs might have when they release this year.

Snapdragon 845 Performance

I ran many tests, but for the purposes of XR, I’m going to just include GeekBench 4, GFX Bench and AnTuTu. Each of these represents a different part of the SoC’s performance and AnTutu represents whole system performance.

As you can see from AnTuTu, the Snapdragon 845 is approximately 30% faster than the previous generation and the iPhone X. This has a lot to do with the fact that AnTuTu gives graphics performance a considerable amount of weight, but also CPU and other functions including UX and memory. In fact, the Snapdragon 845 development device that Qualcomm provided for testing has slower memory than some other commercial devices and is around the same form factor as the other devices tested rather than a thick development device that has excessive cooling. More on cooling later.

For GFX Bench, we are looking at purely graphics performance. The red bar represents raw GPU performance independent of the display, while Manhattan performance shows OpenGL ES 3.0 performance based on the installed display on the device. Do keep in mind that GPU performance is extremely crucial for AR and VR and that’s why this is such an important benchmark and maximum theoretical performance increased nearly 30% on GFX bench over the Snapdragon 835 and could translate to significantly improved framerates and more consistent latency.

GeekBench 4 is the CPU benchmark that everyone loves to look at when comparing smartphones, as you can see here, the Snapdragon 845 is without a doubt the fastest among the Android bunch by a noticeable amount, but Apple still takes the cake with their A11 processor inside of the iPhone X. However, when it comes to AR and VR, GPU performance is still more important than CPU even though you still can’t be a slouch when it comes to CPU either.

Snapdragon 845 in XR

In addition to the Snapdragon 845 performance, Qualcomm also showed their latest Snapdragon 845 VR development kit, which is an update to the Snapdragon 835 version released last year for partners to build from. This new version appears to incorporate the use of a 3-DoF controller with the possibility of a 6-DoF possibly coming down the road. They still support eye-tracking with the Snapdragon 845 development kit hardware, but it hasn’t been integrated yet in software so we may still be waiting on that.

In addition to having increased performance of between 20% and 30%, the Snapdragon 845 also features a power reduction of about 20%-30% when running at the same performance as the previous generation. That means you can stream videos in 4K 360 at 20%-30% less power or get more battery life out of the same battery size or reduce battery size and still get the same battery life. That’s why the Snapdragon 845 is such a great chip for XR. I was already pretty excited for some Snapdragon 835 devices last year, but once I knew how fast Snapdragon 845 would be, I immediately changed my mind and had my eyes set on the Snapdragon 845. I suspect that some companies also had the same frame of mind and that’s why companies like Facebook haven’t explicitly stated what SoC is inside of the Santa Cruz prototype, even though we know it is Qualcomm.

Disclosure: My firm, Moor Insights & Strategy, like all research and analyst firms, provides or has provided research, analysis, advising, and/or consulting to many high-tech companies in the industry cited in this article, including AMD, Intel, Peraso, Qualcomm, and others. I do not hold any equity positions with any companies cited in this column.

Tagged with: HMD, performance, Snapdragon 845, VR

December 8, 2017

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 to Improve AR/VR Rendering & Reduce Power Consumption “by 30%”

Qualcomm introduced it’s new Snapdragon 845 mobile processor at the company’s tech summit in Hawaii this week, which Qualcomm says improves mobile AR/VR headset (branded to as ‘XR’, or ‘eXtended reality’) performance up to 30 percent in comparison to its predecessor, Snapdragon 835.

According to a company press release, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 system-on-chip (SoC) will house the equally new Adreno 630 mobile GPU that aims to make entertainment, education and social interaction “more immersive and intuitive.”

The company says their new camera processing architecture and Adreno 630 GPU will help Snapdragon 845 deliver “up to 30 percent power reduction for video capture, games and XR applications compared to the previous generation,” and up to 30% improved graphics/video rendering.

The Snapdragon 845 also boasts the ability to provide room-scale 6 degrees-of-freedom (6 DoF) tracking with simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), and also includes the possibility for both 6 DoF hand-tracking and 6 DoF controller support. The company says it will support VR/AR displays up to 2K per eye at 120Hz.

The new SoC, which no doubt is destined to find its way to the next generation of flagship smartphones and dedicated standalone AR/VR headsets, will feature what the company calls “Adreno foveation,” which has the possibility for a number of processing power-saving methods including tile rendering, eye tracking, and multiView rendering.

As Qualcomm’s third-generation AI mobile platform, Snapdragon 845 is also said to provide a 3x improvement in overall AI performance of the prior generation SoC, something that aims to make voice interaction easier. The benefits to both augmented and virtual reality are clear, as virtual text usually requires you to ‘hunt and peck’ with either motion controllers or gaze-based reticles, an input style that oftentimes tedious and imprecise.

The company says the Snapdragon 845 also improves voice-driven AI with improved “always-on keyword detection and ultra-low-power voice processing,” making it so users can interact with their devices using their voice “all day.”

Check out the full specs of Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 845 here.

The post Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 to Improve AR/VR Rendering & Reduce Power Consumption “by 30%” appeared first on Road to VR.

December 8, 2017

Qualcomm and NetEase Collaborate To Optimise for VR

Qualcomm is the producer of the Snapdragon family of chips, most of which are used in smartphones and tablets. Qualcomm is working with NetEase Games to optimise its Messiah game engine for the Snapdragon chips aimed towards immersive mobile videogames.

The collaboration is directed towards creating next-generation videogame content for the Snapdragon 800 series of chips such as the flagship Snapdragon 845, specifically ‘extended reality’ or XR content, something that can encompass virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).

“We are excited to work with a leading, global gaming content provider like NetEase Games,” said Sanjay Mehta, senior vice president, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and president, QCT China. “By working together, we aim to utilize the cutting-edge multimedia and VR/AR processing advantages of the Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform, allowing players around the globe to enjoy the immersive mobile gaming experiences with higher quality.”

“With our close relationship with Qualcomm Technologies, NetEase can improve our existing and future mobile gaming content more effectively for premium tier Snapdragon platforms, especially the Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform,” said Ethan (Yi) Wang, vice president, NetEase, Inc. “We will develop and optimize more exceptional mobile gaming products for players around the globe, continuing to meet their demands for premium gaming experience.”

The two companies have already made progress on adapting Khronos’ Vulkan graphics, which allows for graphics computations to be offloaded to the CPU, reducing the load on the graphics chip, reducing power consumption and overheating.

Using the Snapdragon VR SDK, NetEase has produced its first VR title designed for Snapdragon, called Twilight Pioneers. The two companies are planning on bringing more NetEase titles to the Snapdragon 845 mobile platform to be launched in 2018.

VRFocus will bring you further news on NetEase and Qualcomm VR projects as it becomes available.

December 7, 2017

Qualcomm’s New Snapdragon 845 Improves VR and AR Performance

At Qualcomm’s annual Snapdragon Summit held this year in Hawaii the company announced their latest Snapdragon chip for smartphones and mobile VR/AR. The Snapdragon 845 represents the pinnacle of Qualcomm’s technology prowess and its ability to deliver a low power system on a chip with lots of performance and minimal heat. The Snapdragon 845 makes notable improvements across the board, but there’s a particular focus on immersive technologies this time around. In fact, according to Qualcomm, Snapdragon is already in 20 different VR or AR devices with another 20 on the way.

Qualcomm uses the term XR to collectively refer to AR and VR together. With such a large difference between those experiences, there are going to be multiple applications of the same technology to deliver different forms of ‘reality.’ Because of this, the processor that runs these applications needs to be flexible and capable of adapting to the needs of the developer and the user running the developer’s application. That’s why the Snapdragon 845 is such a big deal; it isn’t just about improving the GPU, it is also about improving the CPU as well as the digital signal processing and image signal processing to allow for all of the features needed in XR. These improvements are needed for rooms-scale tracking in a standalone headset.

CPU Improvements

I am very excited to see what Snapdragon 845 will do for the XR industry, especially the standalone VR and AR solutions that are highly dependent on performance, thermals, and latency. So, what are the improvements exactly? The new Snapdragon 845 Kryo 385 features eight new CPU cores with four ARM Cortex A75 cores and four Cortex A55 cores. These CPU cores are the fastest and most efficient cores that ARM has ever produced, and Qualcomm tweaked them to improve performance and latency. This new CPU improves performance by as much as 25-30 percent which is necessary for freeing up compute resources for other tasks and ensuring high frame rates.

GPU Improvements

All of these improvements lead to Qualcomm being able to claim that the Snapdragon 845 and the associated VR platform are capable of room-scale VR, beyond simple full freedom of movement. Qualcomm is also claiming that the Snapdragon 845 can power VR headsets with 2k x 2k displays at 120 Hz. In addition to the new CPU, Qualcomm also entirely rebuilt their Adreno 630 GPU from the ground up to allow for a new class of performance. The Adreno 630 is capable of improving GPU performance over the Snapdragon 835 by 30 percent as well, and offers the ability to maintain the same level of performance but at a power reduction of 30 percent. This GPU is also capable of enabling tile-based foveation in conjunction with eye-tracking technologies to reduce the rendering workload and improve the user experience. Having support for this at the GPU level is crucial for enabling it at all because it has to work at a very low latency and appear virtually invisible to the user. The Adreno 630 GPU inside of the Snapdragon 845 is also capable of multiview rendering, which once again speeds up rendering times and reduces the overall load on the GPU.

In the demo room, Qualcomm had numerous Snapdragon 845 reference platform headsets running the FAST demo where you have to identify a stroke victim and use hand and voice controls to complete the experience. I was quite impressed with the Snapdragon 845 platform. The application had hand tracking, and it was smoother than it was in the past. Qualcomm has tightened up the experience with the Snapdragon 845 and simultaneously boosted performance to levels where it may be difficult to tell the difference between a standalone headset and one that’s tethered to a console or PC. I believe that Snapdragon 845 will have a big impact on the overall XR user experience in 2018 and it should allow for immersive experiences with all the right capabilities available to developers and OEMs.

Disclosure: My firm, Moor Insights & Strategy, like all research and analyst firms, provides or has provided research, analysis, advising, and/or consulting to many high-tech companies in the industry, cited or related to this article. I do not hold any equity positions with any companies cited in this column.

Tagged with: CPU, gpu, qualcomm, Snapdragon 845, SoC, Standalone VR