Thread by @Griff_

It’s quite common to illustrate foveated rendering in the way we did for the recent No Man’s Sky Echoes release - but the actual image the GPU renders in this mode is quite different and somewhat less intuitive.. possibly even unexpected unless you’re a graphics engineer. (1/n).

https://twitter.com/nomanssky/status/1694708061615824972

So here’s the PS5 output you see on a TV - in this case a scene from the Nexus, which is basically the right eye stereo view “converted” to flat mode, from the foveated render.

.. but the actual image being rendered by the GPU looks like this, when looking at the centre of the hexagon/pad, with eye tracking enabled:

.. and then switching my gaze to the centre of orb in the cube, we get this foveated render. Note that the image displayed on your TV is the same but with the area in focus sharp and the outer region progressively lower in resolution.

Finally, looking at the far away balcony the GPU render looks like this! I hope seeing these real source headset images illustrates why foveated rendering gives such a huge leap in fidelity - the GPU is rendering detail exactly where it’s needed, at the centre of your focus!