How Blur Busters Convinced Oculus Rift To Go Low Persistence

Hot off the heels of Blur Busters 2018 VR State Of The Union, a little known piece of Blur Busters history has just become public: Low-persistence (zero motion blur) was accelerated into virtual reality headsets is thanks in part to Blur Busters in 2012-2013!

Blake Harris’ new virtual reality book just came out today, The History Of The Future. This book, for the first time, reveals Blur Busters’ hidden role in the virtual reality resurgence. Blake Harris is the author of the bestseller Console Wars book.

I — founder of Blur Busters (Mark Rejhon) — had a small contract with the Oculus Kickstarter. As part of this contract, the Oculus Kickstarter were also beta testers of TestUFO.com in late 2012 six months before the public launch of TestUFO!

A major problem was VR OLED screens still had too much motion blur, unless you used a low-persistence mode (a form of black frame insertion or strobing). This was the only way to fix OLED motion blur.

This helped the Oculus Kickstarter Team with low-persistence research in the innocent Kickstarter days long before they hired John Carmack and Michael Abrash. This work was completed in 2012-2013, more than a year before Facebook purchased Oculus!

Motion Clarity Is Extremely Important for VR

Head turning in virtual reality creates screen panning, which can generate motion blur on many displays.

Avoiding unwanted display motion blur is critically important to avoiding extra motion blur above-and-beyond natural human vision, for proper immersion that feels like a personal Holodeck.

All VR Competitors Copied the “Low Persistence” Idea By Oculus

All competitors (HTC, Samsung, etc) were spawned from Oculus re-igniting the virtual reality revolution.

There was a huge realization within the Oculus Kickstarter team that low persistence was hugely important for virtual reality. All the other VR headsets (Samsung GearVR, HTC Vive, PIMAX VR) piggybacked off this Oculus realization.

Blur Busters pointed Oculus down the correct direction long before they hired the big names like Carmack and Abrash.

Today, wearing Oculus Rift is like wearing LightBoost or ULMB Motion Blur Reduction except with bright and excellent OLED colors. Not even the best desktop gaming monitors match the motion quality and immersion afforded by an Oculus Rift. VR is already running with full CRT motion clarity!

The John Carmack Tweet That Convinced Me To Start Blur Busters Six Years Ago

Long-time readers will be familiar with this tweet that started Blur Busters.

Today’s VR resurgence of better and improved VR — despite still being a niche industry — is thanks in huge part to the discovery of how important low-persistence (lack of motion blur) is in reducing VR motion sickness and nausea.

My contract with Oculus (before they were a real company) completed during the Kickstarter days long before the Facebook purchase (which I did not benefit off, by the way — so it’s okay to put down your pitchforks, buddies!). I finished the contract long before John Carmack and Michael Abrash began work there. And well before the drama started — I’m located in Canada. After all, we were just geeks back then in the innocent Kickstarter days!

Yes, multiple titans have convinced Oculus down the low-persistence path — Carmack and Abrash included.

However, I, Mark Rejhon, founder of Blur Busters was the first to convince a modern VR headset maker down the low persistence path — in the early Kickstarter days six years ago. Before Steam VR. Before Samsung Gear. Before HTC Vive. Before PIMAX. Before everyone else.

Blur Busters Continues To Be The Low Persistence Publicity Trail Blazer

Now Blur Busters trail blazes low-persistence advocacy, with peer-reviewed conference papers, with our inventions used by display testers, becoming the world’s first mainstream website to test a 480 Hz display.

I continue to write inspiring low-persistence articles such as Blur Busters Law: The Amazing Journey To Future 1000 Hz Displays which is vouched by multiple scientists including NVIDIA researchers. NVIDIA complimented me on this amazing article at CES 2019.

Since 2012, multiple monitor manufacturers have hired Blur Busters services behind the scenes over the years for monitor tuning services such as overdrive tuning and strobe tuning services. By 2020, we are going to launch a new Blur Busters Professional division to better publicly advertise our quietly behind-the-scenes manufacturer services.

Want To Finally Try VR?

Many Blur Busters readers with high-Hz monitors already have a VR-ready system.

If you are interested in adding an Oculus Rift, get this whole Amazon shopping list for a roomscale system which includes all the sensors and extension cables you likely need. All you need is an approximately 5×7 foot clearing in the middle of a cluttered room (a blue “holodeck grid” will automatically appear in your VR environment if you get too close to bumping into your furniture). Don’t worry about your furniture! Purchasing this kit via these links supports Blur Busters (thank you!).

If you don’t have enough reliable USB 3.0 ports on your system, also get this StarTech quad-USB3 Port Expansion Card too because a good, reliable Roomscale system requires four very fast, high-performance USB ports.

Here’s my best headache-free VR personal recommendations for you classic FPS gaming monitor users: Try these 3 amazing high-rated VR gaming titles: Robo Recall, Lone Echo, and Red Matter.