One of the best features of the Cupertino glasses is the enormous resolution and especially the ratio of pixels per inch that their screens have. However, this feature makes the Apple Vision Pro and VR don’t get along at all and it is a subject that those of Tim Cook prefer rather to pass on tiptoe. Because?

There is something that caught our attention was the fact that virtual reality was barely seen during the presentation of the Apple Vision Pro. However, this absence is not to give more importance to the so-called extreme reality and spatial computing , but rather due to device limitations.

What happens to Apple Vision Pro with VR?

In the presentation of the Apple Vision Pro, which was totally conceptual, what we saw were real environments with two-dimensional floating windows. Not a single demo was seen in a 3D virtual environment. It is clear that many of the defenders of the device affirm that it is a product that is not created for entertainment. However, the key to all this lies in the costs in terms of virtual reality to generate three-dimensional environments in a decent way. And no, the problem is not the Apple Vision Pro itself, nor is it its new chip, the R1, but the Apple M2, whose integrated GPU is at least limited to be able to move the high frame rates per second to the resolution of Apple’s extreme reality device.

Let’s put ourselves in a situation a bit, the total resolution of the Apple Vision Pro is 23 million pixels. Keep in mind that a frame of PS VR 2 and Meta Quest 3 is around 8 million points. So the Cupertino device shows 3 times the resolution of its rivals. An achievement, thanks to the technology of its high-density Micro OLED screens with HDR.

What is the technical limitation?

Although nature such as the Tile Renderer of the Apple GPU avoids a large impact on bandwidth, we cannot forget that such an amount of resolution can mean extreme slowness when generating real-time three-dimensional environments with enough ease to work in real time.

In virtual reality the important thing is motion-photon time, where the period between the user performing an action and seeing its result in the viewer must be less than 20 milliseconds. Devices like the PS VR 2 use the hardware of a PS5 to output the images fast enough at 4K resolution. Taking into account the GPU of the Apple M2 is much less powerful, then you can already imagine the reason why Apple has not presented anything related to virtual reality or even 3D modeling environments mixed with real images.

Despite the impressiveness of its screens, its high resolution and frame rate demands mean that Apple Vision Pro and VR do not get along at all. All because of the graphic limitations of its central processor. So at the level of what it can offer, it would not improve on Meta Quest 3.

Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 vs. Apple M2+R1

He Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2used in the Meta Quest 3, is a variant for mixed reality headsets (VR+AR and XR) of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, so it has the same GPU inside, neither more nor less than a adreno 740. Of which we do not know its technical specifications, while the integrated graphics processor of the Apple M2 has 8 coresbut neither of the two companies are very fond of talking about their architectures.

In raw power, it is clear that Apple’s M2 wins, but not really by much if we take into account that in the Apple Vision Pro it will have to shoulder the responsibility of moving three times as many pixels. In contrast, the performance per watt of Qualcomm’s chip is much higher. Reaching a performance per watt three times higher.

• We don’t know at the moment how fast the Adreno 740 is going in the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2, but in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 it gets a score of 3729 points in 3DMark Wildlife Extremewhile the standard M2 reaches 7017 points.
• In the case of GFX Bench Aztec the result for the Apple M2 It is 109FPSMeanwhile he adreno 740 stays in the 69FPS.

Now keep in mind that in the Apple Vision Pro, that poor M2 will have to move 3D scenes with three times as many pixels. Perhaps that is why those from Cupertino have not shown anything in the presentation of their glasses under virtual reality. In conclusion, the numbers do not really give.