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AMD’s chief gaming scientist Richard Huddy says that virtual reality is still in its infancy and the best is yet to come.
Talking to PCR ahead of his keynote on ‘virtual reality, gaming and beyond’ for retailers and resellers at PCR Boot Camp later this month, Huddy gave us a teaser as to what he’ll be talking about and his thoughts on VR.
"I will be discussing the explosive growth in the VR market, the challenges and opportunities there-in, and what’s new in gaming for 2016," he said.
"Virtual Reality is here to stay and we’re only just beginning the consumer launch phase. Tens of thousands of developers are working on an array of applications, including simulation, gaming, entertainment, education, social media, travel, medicine, real estate, ecommerce, and more.
"At AMD we extremely excited by VR and we’re looking forward to continuing to provide and evolve the platform the industry needs to develop and grow this new technology."
On HTC partnering with retailers to demonstrate the Vive headset to customers, and Oculus teaming up with Best Buy in the US, Huddy added: "Any opportunity that allows anyone to experience VR whether it’s at an expo, store demo area, or system integrator, is a great way to help show the impressive technology that HMD’s like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive have to offer.
"There are many headsets planned to come to market over the next year or so and we are only seeing the beginning."
AMD announced a number of VR initiatives at game developer show GDC earlier this year. How important is this space to AMD and what is the firm doing to get ahead?
Huddy explained: "Last year we launched our LiquidVR SDK to create a platform to provide software functionality to simplify and optimize VR development, and unlock many unique hardware features designed to seamlessly interplay with headsets to enable smooth and immersive VR experiences.
"From a hardware point of view we recently announced the launch of our VR Ready Creator platform that features the Radeon Pro Duo graphics card along with the LiquidVR SDK.
"This graphics card delivers the horsepower needed by VR designers and content creators, and for virtual reality consumers. The Radeon Pro Duo card features an astonishing 16 teraflops of compute performance and is aimed at all aspects of VR creation: from entertainment to education, journalism, medicine, and cinema.
"With the launch of our Radeon Pro Duo card and our LiquidVR SDK, AMD is developing a full VR ecosystem to help create and deliver tomorrow’s killer VR experiences."
Finally, Huddy told us about his background and how he’s looking forwards to speaking at Boot Camp.
"I have been in 3D graphics for longer than anyone can remember," he commented. "I was the mad scientist in the original Max Payne, contributed to the first version of DirectX to include 3D, have been to no fewer than twenty GDC conferences and maintain some pretty cool relationships with games developers. I’m lucky to have had good fortune to have participated in so many ways in modern graphics!
"It’s going to be a busy and exciting 2016 for PC gaming, so get down to the PCR Boot Camp. It’s the ideal place to meet the people who drive the business, to learn about the trends which will dominate, and to firm up your own plans for what promises to be a spectacular year."
Don’t miss Richard Huddy’s panel discussion at the 2016 PCR Boot Camp IT conference and expo on May 18th.
Sign up to attend now atwww.pcrbootcamp.com – it’s FREE for PC retailers, resellers and dealers
