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The Pimax 8K MEGA Thread - First Reviews Now live

Shadowmask72
Honored Visionary
I've been on the fence about this and have some reservations about build quality and performance under heavy load, but for me the positives outweigh the negatives and I guess many others feel the same way. Now I never backed the Rift during its Kickstarter campaign (unfortunately) but I assume the feeling is similar where you're helping to forge the future of VR in some way, or at least like to think so. I consider myself an enthusiast and not the majority, therefore what's another £600 to experience the latest  in VR. Sadly, having Samsung not release the Odyssey here in the UK left me with an itchy wallet finger, a void that needed filling and with GO not releasing until next year either I thought the Pimax 8K will scratch the itch and might just prove to be pretty good too. I'm excited for it.

There is always going to be skepticism and no doubt a number of people will suggest I am backing a paperweight but, that's ok it's fully understandable to have those feelings and that prediction is always a possibility. But... if someone doesn't take the risk and we all play it safe, how can VR move forwards - I guess we've already taken risks with past VR investments in some way or another including with the Rift. I've never claimed any loyalty to anyone having owned The Gear VR (still have that knocking around somewhere) DK2, Vive, Rift, PSVR and come next year Pimax will be added to the list. However, I am interested like many of you agreed in the poll we did here a while back that certain things were important to improve on what we have now and it seems the Pimax 8K is offering some of those things on paper. 

I think once you can look past the silly marketing name (8K) and the hammerhead shark design and focus on what's inside, this HMD offers something many claimed they would like in the past but are not prepared to trust Pimax to deliver. I think a number of people would rather wait for a more established company (like Oculus) to offer a similar experience further down the line. All very understandable. But I am impatient, and whilst I use my Rift quite often I want more of what VR can offer sooner rather than later. 

So, (and the main reason for this post) is come Feb 2018 some point in 2018 I will gladly post impressions and comparisons without hyperbole and answer questions any of you might have. That said, I expect many others at the time will post their impressions also so there should be plenty of opinions going around from various sources.


System Specs: MSI NVIDIA RTX 4090 , i5 13700K CPU, 32GB DDR 4 RAM, Win 11 64 Bit OS.
1,860 REPLIES 1,860

iJudgement
Heroic Explorer

kojack said:

I get some sleep, go to work, and now there's 60 posts in here to read. 😞


Atmos73 said:


Things changed. The original render was 2560x1440 which gave the stretching. Then Valve got onboard and fixed SteamVR to output 4096x2657. No more stretching.



First, that's not the reason for stretching (by which I assume you mean the distortions it used to have), it was because SteamVR was rendering low FOV then Pimax was stretching it to high FOV. You can't do that, it distorts. Upscaling FOV is very different to upscaling resolution. But we've discussed this before.

But if this is true, is everybody who ordered a Pimax 8K X getting a $200 refund? The difference between the 8K and 8K X was:
- 8K can only handle 2560x1440 over the cable, which is upscaled on the headset to 4K.
- 8K X can handle 4K per eye by using 2 cables
Now you are saying that Valve have somehow magically made the cable send more data so the 8K is now equal to an 8K X. So what's the difference between them now?
(See, this is why I don't like kickstarters like this, things keep changing, you have no idea what the final product will be)

Or is SteamVR outputting 4096x2657, which is downscaled to 2560x1440, which is upscaled to 3840x2160? That seems more likely and nothing has changed in the headset, it's just more marketing.


Now as to the whole 8K issue.
There's two common definitions of 8K that could apply when doing VR rendering:
- 8192 x 8192 textures (textures are usually square, so just give one dimension)
- 7680 x 4320 (tv standard)

Using 8K as a marketing term is problematic because it doesn't meet either of those (it's half the pixel count of an 8K TV and one quarter of the pixel count of an 8K texture). But even more importantly you don't actually see 8K horizontal res because of stereo overlap. You don't have 7680 pixels spread over 200 degrees. If the per eye FOV is 150 degrees, then that means you have only 5120 horizontal res visible.
(150 degrees per eye, 200 degrees total means 50 degrees left mono, 100 degrees stereo overlap, 50 degrees right mono. This becomes 1280 pixels mono, 2560 stereo overlap, 1280 mono, which is 5120 actual visible pixels).

The correct way to refer to the Pimax 8K resolution would either be 3840x2160 per eye or 4K per eye. Not just 8K.


Anyway, I've wasted far too many words recently on this.
Complaints have come in about this thread, expect mod actions like closing or bans to follow if things don't improve in here (which of course isn't going to happen, the destiny of this thread was clear from the very beginning).

Remember, this is an Oculus support forum run by Oculus, Pimax have their own forum where you can talk about them as much as you want.


I understand how you feel. This post is always being updated... Luckily I can read it at work.

Anonymous
Not applicable
Now that we have that understood - the question then becomes: Why not aim for higher res if they really are using a base of 2k instead of 1k? The cable itself only needs enough bandwidth to carry the 2k single, so why not do a real 1:1 scaling option and go 1:1 output per eye? Now that would be impressive:) I would so consider that such a jump in pixel count to be it's own gift from god:))

Then again you be beating Samsung to their 11k display they are working on a while back: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/209740-samsung-is-reportedly-working-on-an-11k-screen-claims-it-can-create-3d-illusions

"Or is SteamVR outputting 4096x2657, which is downscaled to 2560x1440, which is upscaled to 3840x2160? That seems more likely and nothing has changed in the headset, it's just more marketing."

I hope that is NOT what is happening though. That would be a very bad design if they are. 1) That is a waste of resource for the GPU to output that 2) then wasting time to downscale that 3) waste of money to have to re scale it back up once it gets to the headset. Sure it over comes the cable bandwidth problem for a higher input/output res, but at the cost of all the work - that is just grows. Then again I wouldn't put it past them to do so....

elboffor
Consultant
Hold on, are primax making a new headset?
Hard to tell from this thread.
This is my forum signature.
There are many others like it, but this is mine.

reefy86
Adventurer
its the first thread i look for 🙂

Snot_Shot
Expert Protege
Love this thread too :smiley:  Love Zenbanes very simple but to the point arguments with links to factual information. I do understand Atmos too, he and other early Pimax backers searching for moral support that they made "good" choice by backing Pimax 8K kickstarter.
I have no doubt that even Zenbane would buy Pimax 8K if it turns out to be a very good product. However, Pimax 8K promises way too much. You can sugar coat it anyway you like it but marketing Pimax as "8K" HMD is total bullshit.
Then you have delivery, quality control which is the most crucial bit of the project, post launch support, warranty support, software support and suddenly that 4.2 million raised is just a drop in the ocean. Pimax will have to cut corners and that is where troubles will start.



 

reefy86
Adventurer

Snot_Shot said:

Love this thread too :smiley:  Love Zenbanes very simple but to the point arguments with links to factual information. I do understand Atmos too, he and other early Pimax backers searching for moral support that they made "good" choice by backing Pimax 8K kickstarter.
I have no doubt that even Zenbane would buy Pimax 8K if it turns out to be a very good product. However, Pimax 8K promises way too much. You can sugar coat it anyway you like it but marketing Pimax as "8K" HMD is total bullshit.
Then you have delivery, quality control which is the most crucial bit of the project, post launch support, warranty support, software support and suddenly that 4.2 million raised is just a drop in the ocean. Pimax will have to cut corners and that is where troubles will start.



 


EXACTLY 🙂  

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

Unfortunately, even if the Pimax 8K ended up being God's Gift to HMD's, I still wouldn't buy it because:
  1. It relies on SteamVR and I prefer the quality of the Oculus Platform.
  2. It uses either its own proprietary base stations and controllers, or those of the Vive.
  3. The total cost for the entire setup is near $1,000... and exactly zero new or exclusive software titles are provided.
  4. Its main target audience is "simulation enthusiasts" which I am not, nor have ever been.

Pimax requires leaving the prestige of the Oculus VR landscape for the (imo) low quality Flea Market that is SteamVR. That's like spending $200 on shoes that you wear while living in a cardboard box, na' mean?

I have probably spent nearly $1,000 on my VR software library up to this point... so spending money isn't a problem. However, throwing money away is not something that I find alluring. As a friendly reminder, the author of this thread once backed the HTC Vive and then reached the logical conclusion that selling it in favor of the Rift is the smartest choice:
That is not meant to be a "jab" at the OP, I have nothing but respect for Mr. Shadow. I have friends who enjoy a good gamble, and losing money for some is just as fun as winning it. I aint that kinda person. Besides, selling a failed product is "reactive," I am much more of a "proactive" kinda fella.

But here was Shadow's big argument about selling the Vive,
"The problem with the Vive aside from its clunky design is the fact that the software that I expect from VR isn't there to drive it once you've rinsed out the few must play games. "

Pimax is literally targeting the exact same VR software lineup that fails to drive VR. Everything in VR worth playing is available on Oculus Home. I will only consider upgrading my VR hardware when the software itself calls for it; and we aint there yet. When we do finally arrive to that point in a sensible way... I have no doubt that Facebook will 
accommodate.

Big PC, all the headsets, now using Quest 3

Anonymous
Not applicable
Having to faff about putting those Lighthouses is a big sticking point for me too, plus the Pimax headsets are going to suffer the same problem that the Vive has had since it launched - Valve's technology is expensive to produce, even with the upcoming Lighthouse 2.0 on the way. I've said it here before and I'll say it again, what was the Vive's strength at launch (the superior tracking) has now become its Achilles Heel. The Rift now has tracking on a par with the Vive and the price is only going to continue to come down.

This time next year the cost of the Rift and Touch bundle will come down to $300/£300 because all Oculus have to worry about is manufacturing glorified web cams as IR LEDs which are both as cheap chips to do.

You'll see the Rift CV2 coming down in price (and probably being cheaper than the Pimax headsets and Vive CV2 on launch day anyway) sooner than the Pimax and Vive CV2s.

kojack
MVP
MVP



I understand how you feel. This post is always being updated... Luckily I can read it at work.


Sadly I have to read it whether I want to or not. 😞
But I was at work too, taking a break from implementing a real time 2D destructible terrain system combining two physics engines for use in a networked C++ game for my students (I'm writing the server, they are writing the clients).  🙂


I'm partially interested in the Pimax, but I'm waiting for a real product to launch before I consider buying one.
Author: Oculus Monitor,  Auto Oculus Touch,  Forum Dark Mode, Phantom Touch Remover,  X-Plane Fixer
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