Is VR dead?

[Leynad777]

Make sure you get the 8K X version that's compatible with the 120 Hz firmware update. I think the serial number has to start with 2076, not 2075, 2074, etc. The 2076 is the newest headset and has some slight physical / technical differences to all the previous gen 8K X headsets. Don't settle for anything less (unless you found some incredible deal on a pre-owned one).

It blows my mind that "Potato" mode's h.FOV - as ridiculously bad and small as it is - is still larger than the Index. When I looked into my 5K Super for the first time ever after having set it to Potato FOV - not having any idea what Potato FOV meant - I almost threw the headset out the window, lol.

I'm pretty sure you won't have to resort to "Potato" FOV with a 3080, probably not even "Small" FOV. Depending on game, game's gfx settings, supersampling setting, refresh rate (72, 90, 120 Hz), you can probably use "Normal" for most games. It's lovely and even more immersive to be able to use "Large" but it's honestly not too drastic of a change from "Normal". "Small" shouldn't be needed unless you're really, really struggling and "Potato" should almost certainly never even need to be touched.

Just make sure you get the 2076 (or newer if it exists but pretty sure 2076 is still newest) so that you can obtain and use the 120 Hz firmware.

Regarding the 120 Hz firmware, I don't know if it allows 120 Hz for all FOVs. For eg. My 5K Super can do the following:
- Large FOV: 72, 90 Hz
- Normal FOV: same as above + 120, 144, 160 Hz
- Small FOV: same as above
- Potato FOV: same as above + 180 Hz

I have no idea how it works for the s/n 2076 8K X 120 Hz firmware. I haven't seen people mention FOV with the 120 Hz firmware so I'm assuming it can do the full 120 @ at least Normal FOV, if not Large.

I highly recommend purchasing the Pimax thicker face foam and the StudioFormCreative counter-balances. They both make a very noticeable improvement to comfort, even more so when used together. Even before I purchased the counter-balances, just the thicker face foam made a big difference, especially with my nose-comfort, but getting both is a great 1-2 combo. The thicker face foam (face pu leather also available) can be more subjective depending on people's different face shape, features, and sizes but the counter-balance kit should give an improvement to just about any user no matter their face-type.

Thanks and changed my order to the DMAS-version, which is the 2076-series. The KDMAS version is the 2075 according to the support and I guess the SMAS-version 'without' headphones is the first version responsible for the worst reviews. Some say the 8KX has a tiny sweetspot and bad sound and some say it's huge and great, so this seems to matter a lot.

They've added now a 60 Hz mode and the official herz-rates are 60/75/90 and 110 Hz upscaled. I think for sim-racing only 60 to 90 Hz really matters even with a 4090 excluding AMS1. I've also recently discovered the benefits of using OpenXR and runs awesome smooth with the Odyssey even with reprojection. Much smoother than SteamVR including foveated rendering with this guide. Just doesn't work with all titles...

I certainly upgrade to a 4080 rather soon to sell the 3080 with warranty left. Too many bottlenecks for a 4090 in my current system (i5, DDR4) and the wattage scares me with those ridiculous energy prices in Germoney... and the price itself...

The counterweight-solution looks nice, but sold out and with import-taxes too costly. I will 3D-print a solution myself and already found some cheap weights.

 

[Spinelli]

Thanks and changed my order to the DMAS-version, which is the 2076-series. The KDMAS version is the 2075 according to the support and I guess the SMAS-version 'without' headphones is the first version responsible for the worst reviews. Some say the 8KX has a tiny sweetspot and bad sound and some say it's huge and great, so this seems to matter a lot.

They've added now a 60 Hz mode and the official herz-rates are 60/75/90 and 110 Hz upscaled. I think for sim-racing only 60 to 90 Hz really matters even with a 4090 excluding AMS1. I've also recently discovered the benefits of using OpenXR and runs awesome smooth with the Odyssey even with reprojection. Much smoother than SteamVR including foveated rendering with this guide. Just doesn't work with all titles...

I certainly upgrade to a 4080 rather soon to sell the 3080 with warranty left. Too many bottlenecks for a 4090 in my current system (i5, DDR4) and the wattage scares me with those ridiculous energy prices in Germoney... and the price itself...

The counterweight-solution looks nice, but sold out and with import-taxes too costly. I will 3D-print a solution myself and already found some cheap weights.

Don't worry about the official refresh rates, the firmware beta should allow 120 Hz in full, non-upscaled resolution. Post on the openmr forums for a member to send it or contact Pimax and bug them for it.

Regarding sound, I hear mixed reviews views about the on-ear and over-ear versions headphones. Some say good, some say bad. My 5K Super has neither the on-ear nor over-ear, it has the tiny speakers sort of built into the headset's frame or whatever. It gives the sound a nice open, airy, sound but, aside from that, it's some of the worst sound I've ever heard. Extremely low quality, tin-ey, fairly low max-volume. It sounds more like a tiny, low-quality laptop or phone speaker. It never bothered me though because I always intend on using my own headphones/earbuds & speakers regardless of what company & model VR headset I purchase.

DDR4 is not a bottleneck for a 4090, heck, fast, tuned DDR4 can beat or match DDR5 all the way until close to 7000 MHz. Same with an i5, especially if it's a Raptor Lake (13th gen) or Alder Lake (12th gen). Regarding power, a 4090 may not use any more power than a 4080 if the 4090 can hit the desired framerate without pushing 100%. Furthermore, you can always dial back a 4090's power limits with something like MSI afterburner. There are 4090 videos showing how a 20-30 % power reduction results in only a 5% performance reduction.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 with Nearly Half its Power-limit and Undervolting Loses Just 8% Performance

The monstrous NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 "Ada" graphics card has the potential to be a very efficient high-end graphics card with a daily-use undervolt, and with its power-limit halved, finds an undervolting adventure review by Korean tech publication Quasar Zone. The reviewer tested the RTX 4090...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[RCHeliguy]

FWIW I've not seen my computer use more than 550W in game with my 4090 in the mid 90% utilization and that's with a 13900K. This is according to my monitoring device which likely doesn't have a high sample rate, so the transient spikes could be much higher. Then again my 1200W PSU has capacitators that could be buffering the spikes well. More typical values in game are 450W for most games.

 

[Leynad777]

Don't worry about the official refresh rates, the firmware beta should allow 120 Hz in full, non-upscaled resolution. Post on the openmr forums for a member to send it or contact Pimax and bug them for it.

Regarding sound, I hear mixed reviews views about the on-ear and over-ear versions headphones. Some say good, some say bad. My 5K Super has neither the on-ear nor over-ear, it has the tiny speakers sort of built into the headset's frame or whatever. It gives the sound a nice open, airy, sound but, aside from that, it's some of the worst sound I've ever heard. Extremely low quality, tin-ey, fairly low max-volume. It sounds more like a tiny, low-quality laptop or phone speaker. It never bothered me though because I always intend on using my own headphones/earbuds & speakers regardless of what company & model VR headset I purchase.

DDR4 is not a bottleneck for a 4090, heck, fast, tuned DDR4 can beat or match DDR5 all the way until close to 7000 MHz. Same with an i5, especially if it's a Raptor Lake (13th gen) or Alder Lake (12th gen). Regarding power, a 4090 may not use any more power than a 4080 if the 4090 can hit the desired framerate without pushing 100%. Furthermore, you can always dial back a 4090's power limits with something like MSI afterburner. There are 4090 videos showing how a 20-30 % power reduction results in only a 5% performance reduction.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 with Nearly Half its Power-limit and Undervolting Loses Just 8% Performance

The monstrous NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 "Ada" graphics card has the potential to be a very efficient high-end graphics card with a daily-use undervolt, and with its power-limit halved, finds an undervolting adventure review by Korean tech publication Quasar Zone. The reviewer tested the RTX 4090...

www.techpowerup.com

I was watching this bench here and the performance plus with the 4090 compare to the 4080 is quite in correlation with the plus in power demand while the 4080 needs less power than the 3080. Yes, this will be different with fixed fps in VR and I could reduce the power limit, but the main reason to choose the 4080 are the 550 € more I need to spend for it and investments into GPUs always end in a huge profit-loss.

A bit ot: Afterburner doesn't work correctly with my 3080 and I got a very strange anomaly. If I just reduce the clockspeed by 500 Mhz, it even needs 2-3 watts more and is getting warmer. Reducing the power limit works, but no undervolting. It's the literally last version of Afterburner and already described here why it's not wise to use this app. I've ditched VR because Afterburner made VR unplayable for me and others for years. Undervolting was working with my former 2080, but I've turned it off because of screen freezes in games like DR2.

 

[blekenbleu]

MRTV Pimax interview: Sebastion summarized in his discord
"First “hundreds” of pre-orders go out end of April

 Pre-order NOW - get it in 3 months

Now 6h battery life - but want to achieve 8h
2 Batteries confirmed
No plans for Lighthouse only SKU, but Lighthouse module still confirmed
Exact number of dimming zones: 24 * 24 per panel
Blooming can be improved
DMAS (decent audio) for pre-orders until end of May
FOV internal goal: Valve Index
WiGig (60Ghz) Module working sample May
Wireless streaming, they hope to get Virtual Desktop, contacted Guy Godin
WIFI Streaming battery life is 2h, their goal is 4h
Eye tracking is ready but needs work, ready in April (auto ipd!)
Dynamic Foveated Rendering on driver level confirmed goal
Working sample for dynamic foveate rendering end of may
4070ti for MSFS as minimum
Still working on 12k with a dedicated team; targeting Q4 Roadshow

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Looks like it's getting released in a better state than AMS2.

 

[RCHeliguy]

So using the old Pimax time dilation factor...

The Crystal will be released in May and be mostly finished by the end of 2023 and the 12K will be released just in time for the 50 series Nvidia GPU to be released.

 

[Spinelli]

I was watching this bench here and the performance plus with the 4090 compare to the 4080 is quite in correlation with the plus in power demand while the 4080 needs less power than the 3080. Yes, this will be different with fixed fps in VR and I could reduce the power limit, but the main reason to choose the 4080 are the 550 € more I need to spend for it and investments into GPUs always end in a huge profit-loss.

A bit ot: Afterburner doesn't work correctly with my 3080 and I got a very strange anomaly. If I just reduce the clockspeed by 500 Mhz, it even needs 2-3 watts more and is getting warmer. Reducing the power limit works, but no undervolting. It's the literally last version of Afterburner and already described here why it's not wise to use this app. I've ditched VR because Afterburner made VR unplayable for me and others for years. Undervolting was working with my former 2080, but I've turned it off because of screen freezes in games like DR2.

View attachment 649127

Ya, def a jump in price from the 4080 to 4090. A 4080 will give fantastic performance no doubt.

I've had cases in the past where under-volting caused instability, and cases in the past where lowering the power limit caused instability (usually only at very low PL though, like <60%).

I wonder if the lower-clock-but-same-power-output in your pics is because the lower clocks are causing a higher load on the GPU. I could be completely wrong but think of it this way: a GPU @ 2000 MHz easily hits 100 fps as the GPU is only @ 10% load. The same GPU downclocked to 1200 MHz has a more difficult time hitting 100 fps therefore the GPU shows a load of 45%. A lower clock & voltage, but higher load, is equaling the same power output?

Speaking of power limits and GPU load. Does any one know if a more powerful / faster card will require less power than a lower card to achieve the same frame rate? Let's say a 4090 and 4070 can both easily hit 100 fps in a game. Wouldn't the 4090 do it at less power since it's a lower load for the 4090 and therefore the 4090 doesn't have to push as hard? Another way to look at it: wouldn't, for eg,, a 4090 be faster than a 4070 at the same power output (eg. 250 W)?

 

[RCHeliguy]

Which looks heavier? Just playing with AI image generation.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Could have used Black Manta from Aquaman and save time. Shrug

 

[RCHeliguy]

Very interesting and not what I was expecting, but the AI decided that what I really meant was that the headset should be counterbalanced by some anchors. I'll give it an A for effort and trying to create a solution to an issue.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Had to make a cute one

 

[Ruttman98]

Had to make a cute one

View attachment 649339

Mouse-claw, anyone?

 

[RCHeliguy]

Next time I feel pumped up!

 

[davehenrie]

To be clear, I'm not trash talking, I'm just suggesting waiting a little longer to get some more realistic reviews by some more level headed people.

Huh? Oh...not me....

 

[RCHeliguy]

Soo..... X64 emulator on a phone running SteamVR and playing Beat Saber (even if it wasn't work well) .

 

[Spinelli]

Why does VR have to render twice?
The high-performance requirements are: The need to render the scene twice since we have two different points of view to represent. This will double the amount of vertex processing executed and the time spent executing draw calls in the CPU.

I just searched for the more efficient Single Pass Stereo rendering.
Because I could remember that iRacing (if I recall right) changed to this rendering method instead of the old or standard one where L/R pic was rendered independent (as in the nVidia quote).

Single Pass Stereo rendering allows the GPU to share culling for both eyes. The GPU only needs to iterate through all the GameObjects in the Scene once for culling purposes, and then renders the GameObjects that survived the culling process.

Unity - Manual: Stereo rendering

docs.unity3d.com

Does that method still result in each image rendered from 2 slightly different points, ie. true stereo 3D vision or is it some sort of fake 3D like, for eg., Nvidia 3D Vision's z-buffer / depth buffer fake 3D option (called "compatibility mode")?

 

[RCHeliguy]

Does that method still result in each image rendered from 2 slightly different points, ie. true stereo 3D vision or is it some sort of fake 3D like, for eg., Nvidia 3D Vision's z-buffer / depth buffer fake 3D option (called "compatibility mode")?

I've used iRacing in VR for a very long time and compared to other racing games, I've never noticed anything wonky with the depth perception I see in game. So if they are pulling a trick, it works well enough to be something I'm not worried about.

 

[BrunoBæ]

Does that method still result in each image rendered from 2 slightly different points, ie. true stereo 3D vision or is it some sort of fake 3D like, for eg.,

Take this for what it is - as I dont use a VR kit.
But from what I have read this is just another way of creating/rendering 3D.

Analogy: To the best of my knowledge all cartoon 3D movies use this z-buffer thing to create the 2 different pics. And I have not to see anybody calling this fake 3D

 

[Spinelli]

Take this for what it is - as I dont use a VR kit.
But from what I have read this is just another way of creating/rendering 3D.

Analogy: To the best of my knowledge all cartoon 3D movies use this z-buffer thing to create the 2 different pics. And I have not to see anybody calling this fake 3D

I'm not sure about SPS but fake buffer depth 3D makes things look more like a pop-out book, as if there are different layers of depth (eg. depth 1 = 5 ft, depth 2 = 15 ft, etc.).

I'm assuming only movies that are converted from 2D use that fake 3D system whereas a movie filmed with a true stereoscopic camera won't need that. That's why movies filmed with a 3D camera have a much better, more natural 3D look than movies filmed with a regular, 2D camera and later converted.

There's a big difference between playing a game with, for eg., Nvidia 3D Vision's fake-3D option ("compatibility mode", z-buffer 3D, depth buffer 3D) and in the normal, proper stereoscopic mode which is true 3D. Fake 3D might look great to someone who's new to 3D or who's never experienced true 3D but true 3D blows away fake 3D.

Check out the following:

"My only and major concern with Single Pass Stereo is that it produces correct stereoscopic images on HMDs that use the same symmetric projection matrix for both eyes. If the projections are not symmetric, then it will produce the wrong image for the right eye. I don’t care about the work I have to do to get my engine running with it, I care about showing the correct images to my users.

This can be bad for our perception of our surroundings. Our brain is trying to fit the pieces and perform stereopsis with wrong input data which can result in nausea or even accidents from the wrong perception of the world. This is reinforced with the comments of a Reddit user [3] (to whom I provided the answer) claiming that they cannot drive correctly in a racing game and having frequent headaches while using SPS. By disabling it, the perception of the world returns to normal. Quoting: “So I play a racing game […] and they have implemented SPS as an option. I noticed that their reflections are not correctly rendered in the sim and that’s fine. However, after playing around with it a bit i also felt like certain things just… lacked depth“.

Another Reddit user [4] admits that enabling SPS in an application they were using broke their immersion and the virtual world was no longer feeling the same. This adds to the fact that our depth perception is not correct and what we are seeing no longer feels so “real” because we lose that third dimension. Quoting: “I have had my own misgivings about SPS and it’s effect on presence in VR ever since I suspected it was diminishing the stereoscopic effect in a sculpting app I was spending a lot of time in. For me it was an effect easy to identify in it at the time because the game was based on voxel cubes. I didn’t share these misgivings because noone else seemed to notice anything had changed and wasn’t going to make a ‘bug’ report; especially since the update that added SPS had brought some very appreciable gains in perf and those were worth having. However over time I have been wanting the original sense of presence to return. It was this sense of being in a “solid” very convincing synthetic reality even if the world was just very basic geometry“.

Google Cardboard, Samsung GearVR and Oculus Rift all have symmetric projections for the eyes and SPS is working correctly. All HTC Vive products, Valve Index, HP Reverb G2, Varjo products and XTAL use asymmetric projections. I can’t comment for Pimax products as I haven’t researched on those."

The above is from "Single Pass Stereo: a study":
This is a series of three posts explaining NVIDIA’s Single Pass Stereo (SPS) and discussing it’s uses and problems. In addition to providing an explanation of Single Pass Stereo, I also want to raise awareness of it’s problems and call on the everyone to prevent them from spreading to many more XR applications.

Part 1: Single Pass Stereo: is it worth it?
Part 2: Single Pass Stereo: wrong depth cues, discomfort and potential risks
Part 3: Single Pass Stereo: the artifacts with HP Reverb G2

This is a good Reddit post:

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com