Latency Compensation for Head-Mounted Virtual Reality
Jason Jerald · 2004
Latency greatly degrades the usability of head-mounted virtual reality systems. This paper discusses consequences of latency, examines sources of latency, investigates techniques to reduce latency, and proposes to integrate existing solutions into a system that approximates zero latency for the most critical types of errors. First, effects of latency are examined such as degraded user experience, lowered user performance, and simulator sickness. System delay is then analyzed from the tracker to the display. Advantages and limitations of existing methods for reducing latency are discussed, followed by an explanation of how software performance engineering allows one to analyze and optimize performance. Finally, a proposed system is presented that integrates three techniques: system delay reduction, head-orientation prediction, and post-rendering image correction in hardware. The proposed system could approximate zero latency for head-mounted virtual reality.