Tobii Spotlight’s foveated rendering can cut VR graphics load by 57%

Tobii’s gaze-tracking hardware for VR headsets is getting some serious software enhancements, the company announced today, in the form of full support for foveated rendering — with “even more foveated-related capabilities and benefits moving forward.” The features are being offered as Tobii Spotlight Technology, with significant initial rendering performance benefits.

Foveated rendering is an advanced technology that uses your eye’s position to create a particularly sharp focus point for a GPU to concentrate more of its resources upon, while areas outside that point can be rendered at lower detail levels. In order for the feature to work, the eye’s position needs to be tracked — Tobii’s specialty — and the software needs to have both designated “in focus” and “out of focus” areas, with a rendering pipeline to differentially tackle those areas.