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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.
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Wildt said:

Any good price estimates for the entire 5k+ package with controllers and whatnot?



The kickstarter pledge for the 8K package was $799 and the 5K package $699. Buying 2 Vive controllers and 2 sensors separately would currently set you back $530.

I'm guessing the retail price for a Pimax 5K+ full package will be somewhere around the $1,000 mark maybe less. Depends how much money they need to claw back from the development process or if they're still in the black.

Anonymous
Not applicable
Okay, those reviews are really lightening, thank you for everyone who shared them and summed them up!

Personally, I'm really not convinced by the apparent result. Have you seen those FPS benchmark results? It's just unplayable most of the time! Even when lowering all the settings to the Vive Pro level (including the FOV, it seems), it's still below 70 FPS even with a 1080Ti?!
The second major problem is distorsion. Sure you won't notice it if you look in the sweet spot. But the point of having a high FOV is to be able to look on the sides. I do roll my eyes a lot in VR apps, so I know I will notice the distorsions on the sides.

I stand on my position about this headset: they promised huge numbers, but not only the didn't achieve most of them, it also was too big for them or for the computers to handle.

lensmandave
Superstar
The mention of distortion is a real worry for me. ANY distortion is going to kill the immersion stone dead in any 'real life' simulation game - flightsim, racing etc.
Intel Core i7 6700K @ 4.5GHz. Asus-Z170-PRO MB - Nvidia RTX 3080 ti - 16GB DDR4 2666MHZ HYPERX SAVAGE.

I'm willing to go with the reviewers opinion that distortion is just around the periphery and not really a distraction.

I'd personally put more importance on black levels, godrays and GPU requirements if I were considering this, The Pimax seems to have the lowest level of godrays so far but maybe the worst black levels.

If CV2 has 140 deg FOV but a noticeably better level of detail over the 5K+, and if it has the same level of blacks and godrays as the Go, that would make it my choice for an upgrade.

Some will take the opposite view which is understandable, FOV does more to increase immersion, detail does more to make a game more playable I think. Godrays and black levels just make for a more enjoyable experience.


We don't know yet what Pimax's customer service is like or the reliability of the hardware but i think they should be given the benefit of the doubt until we know otherwise.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
The big issue with Distortion is that the solution requires lowering the FOV even further, to about 155 degrees.

Current FOV playable categories are: 170,155, 125.

While those are improved over the current Rift and Vive, they are a far cry from the 200 FOV promised, on top of the fact that the highest end GPU is required as a bare minimum.

In truth, the promised 8K HMD is still not being delivered. Users have to wait until next year for what Pimax has branded the "8K-X" along with the new hand-controllers. The only recommended product right now between the released 8K and 5K-Plus is the 5K version.

Techy111
MVP
MVP
I did notice on his video on the Kickstarter page I saw something I never noticed before "for next gen GPU" that new ?
A PC with lots of gadgets inside and a thing to see in 3D that you put on your head.


Zenbane said:

The big issue with Distortion is that the solution requires lowering the FOV even further, to about 155 degrees.

Current FOV playable categories are: 170,155, 125.

While those are improved over the current Rift and Vive, they are a far cry from the 200 FOV promised, on top of the fact that the highest end GPU is required as a bare minimum.

In truth, the promised 8K HMD is still not being delivered. Users have to wait until next year for what Pimax has branded the "8K-X" along with the new hand-controllers. The only recommended product right now between the released 8K and 5K-Plus is the 5K version.




True, I think the bottom line is that this is really all in Oculus' court to win or lose.

Actually I hate that winning or losing analogy, scrub that, too many us/them arguments of the past. Pimax's entrance, despite the quibbles, injects some optimism in PC VR, I'm sure Oculus will inject some more soon enough. It's reason enough to be enthusiastic again.

@Shadowmask72 you deserves a well played for braving out our doubts and holding your nerve with the backing. Are you going with the 5K+ ? When do you expect to get your hands on it?

Anonymous
Not applicable

Zenbane said:

The big issue with Distortion is that the solution requires lowering the FOV even further, to about 155 degrees.

Current FOV playable categories are: 170,155, 125.

While those are improved over the current Rift and Vive, they are a far cry from the 200 FOV promised, on top of the fact that the highest end GPU is required as a bare minimum.

In truth, the promised 8K HMD is still not being delivered. Users have to wait until next year for what Pimax has branded the "8K-X" along with the new hand-controllers. The only recommended product right now between the released 8K and 5K-Plus is the 5K version.




I don't think anyone who knows anything about HMDs was expecting 200 degrees horizontal FOV tbh.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

snowdog said:
I don't think anyone who knows anything about HMDs was expecting 200 degrees horizontal FOV tbh.


I'm just going by what people were saying before the final release of the 8K headset. If you're saying that people were lying to themselves or didn't believe themselves then sure, I guess that is always possible. But I don't know what is in people's heads lol

Taking both Pimax and most Backers at their word, there was 200 degrees FOV promised and expected.

LZoltowski
Champion

snowdog said:


Zenbane said:

The big issue with Distortion is that the solution requires lowering the FOV even further, to about 155 degrees.

Current FOV playable categories are: 170,155, 125.

While those are improved over the current Rift and Vive, they are a far cry from the 200 FOV promised, on top of the fact that the highest end GPU is required as a bare minimum.

In truth, the promised 8K HMD is still not being delivered. Users have to wait until next year for what Pimax has branded the "8K-X" along with the new hand-controllers. The only recommended product right now between the released 8K and 5K-Plus is the 5K version.




I don't think anyone who knows anything about HMDs was expecting 200 degrees horizontal FOV tbh.

Well, Star-VR has managed it, according to the first impressions, mind you I wonder what they ran their demos on!
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