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I'm Stephanie Essin here to tell you about the Intel Core i7 CPUs, and how they power VR experiences, making your VR games more immersive. Follow the links below to learn more. 

I've played VR first person shooters, painted in 3D, I've even confronted my fears in VR while shooting hordes of zombies. Not to mention that time I got to dive to the ocean floor with a whale. The first time I put on a headset, it was both terrifying and exhilarating. Terrifying because you fully surrender your senses to a virtual world. But the things you can do are seemingly endless. 

What you may not know, is some of the effects which provide the next level of realism, and immersion are processed on your CPU. Realism is created by complex effects and physics. Things like Advanced Ragdoll Physics, Shock Wave and Wind Effects from explosions, Object Destruction, Realtime Global Illumination, 3D Positional Audio, and Particle Effects are all processed by the CPU. 

So what happens if the CPU can't keep up with these realistic effects? Dropped frames. Dropped frames make the game feel like it's hitching and choppy, destroying the immersive experience. To combat dropped frames, VR developers from Oculus and HTC have come up with two techniques called Asynchronous Spacewarp and Asynchronous Reprojection. These generate synthesize frames. 

Under normal circumstances, a VR headset renders 90 frames per second. If a frame takes too long to render, these techniques kick in allowing the frame rate to remain constant instead of dropping a frame. Synthesized frames take a motion vector analysis of the previous frame. And tries to extrapolate the new positions of all the objects in the scene when the user rotates their head, but a new frame hasn't been rendered yet. Though a synthetic frame isn't as good as a real one, it's better than dropping a frame. 

Synthesized frames come at a cost. They produce graphics artifacts and increase latency while moving your head or using fine tuned controls. For example, if you are firing a weapon it might feel less responsive, even laggy with synthesized frames. But all in all, with Intel Core i7 CPUs you can play even the most demanding games with less dropped frames. 

Thanks for watching. For more information about the Intel Core i7, check out the links below. Or visit the VR page on the Intel Developer Zone. And don't forget to like this video and subscribe to the Intel Softward YouTube channel.