Meta Tiramisu "Hyperrealistic VR" Hands-On: A Stunning Window Into Another World

At SIGGRAPH 2025, I went hands-on with Tiramisu, Meta’s analysis prototype that mixes beyond-retinal decision, excessive brightness, and excessive distinction, albeit with a slim area of view.

Since Oculus extensively demoed the DK1 over a decade in the past, we have seen the angular decision of reasonably priced headsets advance from 6 PPD (pixels per diploma), an acuity that will classify an individual as legally blind, to now 25 PPD, whereas higher-end headsets attain 35 PPD, and Varjo XR-4 even achieves 51 PPD within the middle.

However how excessive does the angular decision of a headset have to be to really feel actual? Are there diminishing returns? And do the opposite specs of a show system matter simply as a lot, or much more?

Tiramisu helps to reply a few of these questions.

It is a key step in the direction of Meta’s acknowledged purpose of in the future passing the “Visible Turing Take a look at”, whereby you would be unable to inform whether or not what you had been taking a look at was actual or digital. Put one other method, a move for the Visible Turing Take a look at means you would not know in case you had been carrying security goggles or an XR headset.

What Actually Is “Retinal” Decision?

Within the XR business, we regularly say that it is “typically accepted” that 60 PPD is the restrict of what the human eye can discern. Meta’s personal weblog publish about Tiramisu and Boba 3 even repeats this so-called “widespread data”.

However inside Meta’s analysis groups, a number of the biggest minds in VR have been skeptical of this because the early days of Oculus.

In 2022, Meta offered a prototype known as Butterscotch, with an angular decision of 55 pixels per diploma. The tradeoff is that Butterscotch’s area of view is simply 50 levels, however the level of the headset was to analysis what “retinal” decision looks like, and determine the place the diminishing returns begin, by adjusting the decision in real-time throughout testing.

I even went hands-on with an evolution of Butterscotch, known as Butterscotch Varifocal, at SIGGRAPH 2023. Because the identify suggests, it mixed “retinal” decision with varifocal, and the results of this mixture of near-retinal angular decision and dynamic focus adjustment was a view right into a digital world with no seen pixelation or aliasing.

In concept, 60 pixels per diploma gives 20/20 imaginative and prescient. However the actuality is way extra complicated.

For starters, the best way by which pixels are sampled and delivered to your eye in a VR headset could be very completely different from a flat monitor.

A VR system renders a digital world, sampling out of your precise viewpoint, so for textual content you’ll be able to’t use flatscreen methods like aligning the sides of characters to attenuate splitting pixels. Additional, in VR the picture is deliberately barrel-distorted, to match the pincushion distortion of the lenses used to ship a large area of view, so there is no such thing as a true 1:1 mapping of pixels from rendering to imaginative and prescient.

Additional, round 30% of individuals have higher than 20/20 imaginative and prescient. So even when this sampling subject didn’t exist, 60 PPD would not be the restrict for them.

So to show that the doubts all through Actuality Labs Analysis about 60 PPD as a restrict had been well-founded, whereas incorporating the data from Starburst that brightness and distinction are simply as vital, the Optics, Photonics, and Gentle Methods (OPALS) group, constructed Tiramisu.

OPALS is a sister group of Show Methods Analysis (DSR), which you will have already heard of, and so they usually collaborate.

Tiramisu: Approaching The Visible Turing Take a look at

Tiramisu has an angular decision of 90 PPD, a brightness of 1400 nits, and thrice the distinction of Quest 3.

It makes use of micro-OLED shows, much like what you’d discover in an Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional or Play For Dream MR. To attain its 90 PPD, it magnifies these shows over a small area of view, of simply 33°×33°. Not like each micro-OLED headset we have seen to this point, although, Tiramisu doesn’t use pancake lenses.

Lately, pancake lenses have delivered thinner, sharper headsets. However additionally they have a major tradeoff: they’ve extraordinarily poor optical effectivity. Which means nearly all of the sunshine passing by way of them is misplaced, considerably lowering the brightness delivered to your eye. Future brighter shows can considerably mitigate this with brute drive, however it is not going to be straightforward.

Quest 3 and Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, for instance, ship solely round 100 nits to your eyes, regardless of utilizing very brilliant shows. For comparability, a typical laptop computer will attain round 200 nits, whereas a high-end HDR TV or iPhone Professional reaches over 1000 nits. And the brightness of the solar dwarfs these numbers – a transparent sunny day is tens of hundreds of nits.

For Tiramisu, OPALS constructed a customized refractive lens. It consists of three components product of excessive refractive index flint glass, which Meta claims right virtually all geometric and chromatic aberrations. Every aspect is customized made with anti-reflective coatings which improve distinction and maximize brightness throughout the complete area of view.

The result’s a thick and heavy headset, a lot in order that Meta’s demo had me maintain it as much as my face – there was no strap. However it has the resolving energy to ship 90 PPD, and lets by way of way more of the sunshine than any identified pancake optic.

To showcase this, Meta offered a sequence of Unreal Engine 5 scenes, operating off a robust desktop PC and utilizing Nvidia’s DLSS 3. The first scene, a park with a map board, leveraged photogrammetry from Quixel Megascans, in addition to UE5’s Nanite geometry system and Lumen lighting system.

So what did this appear like in apply?

Tiramisu’s tiny area of view meant that I used to be not engulfed within the digital worlds it offered. However the visible high quality of those worlds was nothing in need of beautiful. A wealthy, vibrant, extremely detailed picture with no distortion of any variety, at the very least to my eye.

Within the park scene, even essentially the most delicate contour traces and markings appeared clean, with none signal of pixelation or aliasing. In an plane cockpit on the runway at night time, I might make out the ridges and grooves of tiny switches, and looking out outdoors it, the smallest runway edge markers within the distance.

Whereas I wasn’t in a position to attempt them back-to-back – it has been two years now – Meta’s researchers inform me they’ll positively see the distinction between Butterscotch’s 55 PPD and Tiramisu’s 90 PPD.

However it was not the angular decision of Tiramisu that impressed me essentially the most. It was the brightness and distinction.

Starburst: Eyes-In With Meta’s 20K Nit HDR Show Tech

Is high-dynamic vary (HDR) the important thing to subsequent era VR shows? Fingers-on time with Meta’s newest demo and an interview with the top of show programs analysis suggests it’ll be fairly key. Learn on for particulars. On the current SIGGRAPH convention in Vancouver David Heaney and I went

I’ve lengthy argued that brightness is an underappreciated spec of VR shows, and when Ian and I attempted Meta’s Starburst prototype at SIGGRAPH 2022, with its monstrous 20,000 nits, it was proof optimistic.

In Tiramisu, the digital LEDs on the controls of the plane cockpit, and on the runway within the distance, appeared actually like emissive mild sources. Within the Quest 3 beside it, operating the identical scene, these lights appeared like coloured stickers as compared. This sensation of digital mild sources being actually brilliant, and their distinction to the darkish elements of the cockpit, delivered a sense of realism that far surpassed even Butterscotch.

Additional, the elevated brightness and distinction even appeared to reinforce the sense of depth, regardless of Tiramisu not being varifocal. This can be a unusual and poorly understood phenomenon, however has been reported for even 2D HDR TVs with very excessive brightness.

And past that feeling of realism, Tiramisu’s brilliant and vibrant picture was downright nice to take a look at. As the top of DSR, Douglas Lanman stated, it was paying homage to seeing a 4K HDR OLED TV for the very first time – besides much more putting.

Tiramisu 2: The Highway To Practicality

Not like Boba 3, Meta could not feasibly ship Tiramisu even when it needed to. The sphere of view is way too slim, and it is so thick and heavy that it will be virtually not possible to make comfy.

However whereas Meta didn’t say something about future plans in its weblog publish final week, at SIGGRAPH it was exhibiting the lens stack of a still-in-development headset it calls Tiramisu 2.

Tiramisu 2 appears to be like to stability angular decision, brightness, and distinction, with area of view and compactness.

Whereas Tiramisu 1 has a refractive lens stack 63mm thick, Tiramisu 2 will mix refractive and diffractive components, and the end result must be 26mm thickness, only a hair above Quest 3’s 23mm. And it ought to have a area of view of round 90 levels horizontal, roughly what you bought within the unique Oculus Rift.

This may come at the price of some angular decision and brightness. Tiramisu 2 is concentrating on 60PPD and 700 nits. However that is nonetheless greater than double the angular decision of Quest 3, and 7 occasions the brightness. These appear to be wise tradeoffs.

Will I see Tiramisu 2 at SIGGRAPH 2026? Geng declined to say. I think about she in all probability would not know but. However I actually hope I do, as seeing a picture even half as practical as Tiramisu over a 90-degree area of view might problem my present views about area of view being crucial specification for future transport VR show programs to push.

Boba 3: Extremely-Huge Subject Of View

At SIGGRAPH 2025 I additionally went hands-on with one other Meta prototype headset, known as Boba 3, from the DSR group.

Boba 3 has related angular decision and the identical low brightness and distinction as headsets like Quest 3, however engulfs you in an infinite 180° horizontal by 120° vertical area of view.

Meta Boba 3 Prototype Fingers-On: Extremely-Huge Subject Of View With out Compromise

We went hands-on with Boba 3, Meta’s sensible ultra-wide area of view prototype headset, and it has us extra optimistic than ever about the way forward for VR.

You possibly can learn my impressions of Boba 3 right here.

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