Is VR dead?

[cnhoff]

But this all doesn't apply to sim racing, since motion compensation isn't usable in sim racing (for me not, maybe for some other it is?) and most sim racing titles don't support eye tracking.

It works perfectly fine for me in Simracing and although not being a must like for flying, it is definitely welcome on up-and-down tracks like Nordschleife or with banked turns like on Daytona.

 

[gamma123152]

It works perfectly fine for me in Simracing and although not being a must like for flying, it is definitely welcome on up-and-down tracks like Nordschleife or with banked turns like on Daytona.

It's subjective indeed, I personally cannot stand the artifacts that come with it which are constantly visible in every single corner.

 

[metalnwood]

It's subjective indeed, I personally cannot stand the artifacts that come with it which are constantly visible in every single corner.

i think that you are talking about reprojection, not motion compensation used with motion rigs.
Motion compensation doesn't have what you are describing, that can come from reprojection,

 

[Leynad777]

I've picked up MSFS recently and almost shocked how great it is nowadays, especially in VR. I was flying some hours after release with the Xbox Game Pass, but wasn't impressed by the graphics outside some POI-locations like Paris, but now everything looks like modelled by hand. Just saying in case some put it aside because of the disappointing graphics in 2020.

And thanks to this setup-guide I now know that it's not the 8KX itself, that makes it not as sharp as you would expect from 2x4k displays, it's the settings. He's using 1.5 ultra settings in PiTool and reduced the settings in Game (or Steam), while I was using 1.0 and did the resolution in Steam. The difference between 1.0 and 1.25 is already a huge improvement in clarity (but also a huge hit in performance) even if the factual resolution is lower. All instruments in the cockpit are so much sharper with 1.25 already, clarity is no reason to "upgrade" to a Crystal.

This trick is certainly a game-changer for the 8KX in MFSF because 45 fps is great and 30 okay, but in Sim-Racing only eye-tracking with DFR in combination with a 4090 can IMO take full advantage of the higher display-resolution and flight-sim comparisons are pretty useless...

 

[gamma123152]

i think that you are talking about reprojection, not motion compensation used with motion rigs.
Motion compensation doesn't have what you are describing, that can come from reprojection,

Haha yes you're right that's exactly what I meant indeed.. so much terms these days in vr.

 

[Rebel_488]

Just saw this survey:
View attachment 660250View attachment 660251

Is that reliable tho, it doesn’t appear to pick up those using openxr, I assume it’s just a steam vr chart?

Hmm...
Why would he say this after all the positive Crystal press?
View attachment 661365

He makes some weird choices but tbf he’s just a dude trying things out. Does seem to have an aero relationship but for me personally I would find it very hard to buy the crystal at the price it is. It feels like such a risk.


For those shouting 4090 required remember they demoed it with a 3080 just fine. (They had a 4090 but couldn’t get it working on the day).

Who knows what it needs until honest unaffiliated people buy these things and start raising the real issues tbh. All YouTubers have an angle unless they have less than 1000 subs usually.

 

[gamma123152]

For those shouting 4090 required remember they demoed it with a 3080 just fine. (They had a 4090 but couldn’t get it working on the day).

Just fine is not an opinion that I share. Half Life Alyx was demoed with a 3080 and the crystal and it had 50fps. I call anything below 90fps unplayable(except very slow moving sims like flight sims) and HLA is one of the most optimized/easy to run titles out there. It's impossible to get a good experience with such high resolutions with a slow GPU like that. Maybe if you play pavlov in downscaled resolution it can work OK. But for serious VR gaming and such an expensive high end VR hmd, you simply want a matching GPU.

 

[BrunoBæ]

if BSB actually has had a FOV breakthrough, that makes their headset a lot more compelling.

Thanks for posting this.
Sounds like they are working hard to get this VR kit to have its own (hopefully huge) niche.
Hehe if I did believe in Pimax I wouldnt be so interested in anything else

 

[BrunoBæ]

Is that reliable tho, it doesn’t appear to pick up those using openxr, I assume it’s just a steam vr chart?

Yeah sorry I should have said its just from Steam

 

[Rebel_488]

Just fine is not an opinion that I share. Half Life Alyx was demoed with a 3080 and the crystal and it had 50fps. I call anything below 90fps unplayable(except very slow moving sims like flight sims) and HLA is one of the most optimized/easy to run titles out there. It's impossible to get a good experience with such high resolutions with a slow GPU like that. Maybe if you play pavlov in downscaled resolution it can work OK. But for serious VR gaming and such an expensive high end VR hmd, you simply want a matching GPU.

Yeah I agree just to be clear I was on the crystal interested party but their live streams and some info on the company have put me right off

 

[Leynad777]

Just fine is not an opinion that I share. Half Life Alyx was demoed with a 3080 and the crystal and it had 50fps. I call anything below 90fps unplayable(except very slow moving sims like flight sims) and HLA is one of the most optimized/easy to run titles out there. It's impossible to get a good experience with such high resolutions with a slow GPU like that. Maybe if you play pavlov in downscaled resolution it can work OK. But for serious VR gaming and such an expensive high end VR hmd, you simply want a matching GPU.

Eye-tracking isn't working yet, which seems mandatory even with a 4090 to take advantage of the resolution without too much sacrifice regarding framerates. 2880x2880 pixel per eye means you need to natively render at least 3600x3600 pixel per eye to get something like a native resolution sharpness. I guess that's why Pimax is targeting flight-simmers, because only if you can live with low fps this headset seems to have benefits in terms of clarity.

As I hinted with my last comment it seems very beneficial to push the "render-quality" in PiTools instead of Supersampling. With render-quality on 1.0 I guess it just renders the native resolution (or even less, it doesn't say) and lowering it to 0.75 looks more like a CV1, even if you push the Steam-SS to 4000p. With render-quality on 1.25 or more I can run 2700p and it looks better than on rq at 1.0 with 3800p, but it's more demanding as well. Supersampling upscales and downsamples the rendering-resolution defined in PiTools. That's why I was impressed by the huge numbers in fpsVR, but not so much by the actual image quality with just 1.0 render-quality.

So my conclusion is: Without eye-tracking you can barely run the 8KX with optimal true render-resolution, especially in Sim-Racing. Those Crystal influencer-videos are just smokes and mirrors to click on their affiliate links. My 8KX is now so sharp in MSFS, my eye-vision feels worse and no way you want more "clarity" for the cost of lower FOV. The true bottleneck in clarity is still the GPU, even with a 4090. Pimax still makes headsets for the next GPU-flagship if the eye-tracking doesn't have huge benefits.

 

[gamma123152]

Eye-tracking isn't working yet, which seems mandatory even with a 4090 to take advantage of the resolution without too much sacrifice regarding framerates. 2880x2880 pixel per eye means you need to natively render at least 3600x3600 pixel per eye to get something like a native resolution sharpness. I guess that's why Pimax is targeting flight-simmers, because only if you can live with low fps this headset seems to have benefits in terms of clarity.

As I hinted with my last comment it seems very beneficial to push the "render-quality" in PiTools instead of Supersampling. With render-quality on 1.0 I guess it just renders the native resolution (or even less, it doesn't say) and lowering it to 0.75 looks horrible, even if you push the Steam-SS to 4000p. With render-quality on 1.25 or more I can run 2700p and it looks better than on rq at 1.0 with 3800p, but it's more demanding as well. Supersampling upscales and downsamples the rendering-resolution defined in PiTools. That's why I was impressed by the huge numbers in fpsVR, but not so much by the actual image quality with just 1.0 render-quality.

So my conclusion is: Without eye-tracking you can barely run the 8KX with optimal true render-resolution, especially in Sim-Racing. Those Crystal influencer-videos are just smokes and mirrors to click on their affiliate links. My 8KX is now so sharp in MSFS, my eye-vision feels worse and no way you want more "clarity" for the cost of lower FOV. The true bottleneck in clarity is still the GPU, even with a 4090. Pimax still makes headsets for the next GPU-flagship if the eye-tracking doesn't have huge benefits.

Agree with the performance part. First thing I do when the 5090 releases is buying that GPU. But I'm tired of the Fresnel lenses and the panels of the G2. So I ordered the Crystal. I expect that I can run it with equal resolution as I run with my G2 which is 3400*3400px per eye 90hz/fps locked(4090 with fixed foveated rendering enabled and 4/8x MSAA / TAA depending on the title) and I expect that this will look better then with my G2. I don't agree that 0.75 "will look horrible", according to flight sim guy the difference between .75 and 1.0 is minor/very small. Of course you rather want 1.25 and 0.75 will look horrible on the G2 for example, but the Crystal has a way high Resolution/PPD so it couldn't be compared like that. But better the Crystal now at 0.75/3400x3400px and later the crystal with 1.25 rr / 4400*5500px or something with the 5090 then living 2-3 more years with Fresnel lenses and outdated panels.

 

[gamma123152]

Yeah I agree just to be clear I was on the crystal interested party but their live streams and some info on the company have put me right off

Pimax is indeed an awkward company. It feels like buying a 2K headset from AliExpress. So I understand where you come from. But I'm still doing it simply because I couldn't handle/live with the visual issues that I had with the Aero and the Crystal seems to be the HMD that has the pros of the Aero(except build quality and optimized software) but not the cons of the Aero(a to small stereo overlap, motion blur, red shift, chromatic aberration, low vertical FoV., edge distortion, blacks/colors(but Aero's colors were good enough for me tbh)). So I feel like I don't have a choice because all other HMD's take to long and it's even unclear if they will be better (index 2/quest 3/maybe new HTC/Aero 2/experimental new brands etc.).

 

[RCHeliguy]

Pimax is indeed an awkward company. It feels like buying a 2K headset from AliExpress.

That is probably the most concise way I've heard that explained.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Just saw someone complaining about all the Crystal reviews and how they never mention the controllers, controller tracking, controller battery life, and a number of other topics.

Then someone explained they have read the agreement that reviewers have to sign to get a Crystal to review and they specifically make a large number of issues and items off limits to talk about.

I think that these should be called "Previews" and that they shouldn't be able to call something a review until:

1. There is a finished product, so the review is actually what you get.
2. They can talk about all parts of the product and software without any limitations.

We still don't have a full review of the Crystal. It still hasn't been officially released although they claim the first 50 will be shipping soon. They are really milking this process to try to present an unfinished product in a better light so people will pre-order them.

 

[gamma123152]

Just saw someone complaining about all the Crystal reviews and how they never mention the controllers, controller tracking, controller battery life, and a number of other topics.

Then someone explained they have read the agreement that reviewers have to sign to get a Crystal to review and they specifically make a large number of issues and items off limits to talk about.

I think that these should be called "Previews" and that they shouldn't be able to call something a review until:

1. There is a finished product, so the review is actually what you get.
2. They can talk about all parts of the product and software without any limitations.

We still don't have a full review of the Crystal. It still hasn't been officially released although they claim the first 50 will be shipping soon. They are really milking this process to try to present an unfinished product in a better light so people will pre-order them.

I've seen many comments about the controllers in the reviews(flight sim guy even added it in his video in the last moment, MRTV also commented about it). Not sure what they are not allowed to talk about, all subjects have been discussed except the things that are not finished yet: 42ppd and wide fov lenses, wireless, standalone, eye tracking. But there has been talk about the software issues, the tracking, the battery life, the build quality, the performance etc.etc. In the previous first beta test it was not allowed to talk about all subjects, but that was ~3 months ago. Maybe he referred to that. And to my knowledge the 50 pieces have been shipped last week.

 

[Rebel_488]

Every reviewer has an agenda. Don’t trust you tubers. I would like to say Barry is the exception but these days I would never trust a yt review solely. Do not pre order this product is my advice, genuine buyers will appear soon with their opinions and then we will get more of an idea. Patience is my advice.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I've seen many comments about the controllers in the reviews(flight sim guy even added it in his video in the last moment, MRTV also commented about it). Not sure what they are not allowed to talk about, all subjects have been discussed except the things that are not finished yet: 42ppd and wide fov lenses, wireless, standalone, eye tracking. But there has been talk about the software issues, the tracking, the battery life, the build quality, the performance etc.etc. In the previous first beta test it was not allowed to talk about all subjects, but that was ~3 months ago. Maybe he referred to that. And to my knowledge the 50 pieces have been shipped last week.

VR Flight Sim guy mentioned that they seem fragile.
There were no comments about hand controller battery life and none about tracking. Both were very poor last time anyone touched them.

 

[gamma123152]

VR Flight Sim guy mentioned that they seem fragile.
There were no comments about hand controller battery life and none about tracking. Both were very poor last time anyone touched them.

I've seen reviews about them. I'm not so interested in the controllers to be honest because I am mainly a simmer and I wait for the lighthouse faceplate so that I can use my index controllers for when I don't. So the controllers stay probably in the box since it's clear to me that the index controllers will always be better compared to all controllers with camera-tracking.

Hereby the link of MRTV.

 

[Rebel_488]

Don’t believe a word mrtv says (especially about pimax)