Is VR dead?

[Jos Swarthoff]

yea you can see the bad sweetspot of the HP Reverb well there, its just got tinier lenses then any other headset, wouldnt recommend it.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

This new Pimax 8K X is looking really good

LOL, nice try Sweviver. Abandon that sinking ship while you still can.

 

[DotComRich]

Need to wait for 3rd party reviews of the 8kx before we can come to any conclusions here.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

More info as the whole Pimax lineup is so confusing.
Not sure I'd call that a headset I personally looking forward to.

 

[EsxPaul]

I'm well aware of swevivers recent move to Pimax. I wouldn't personally buy a HMD from them until they are able to up the general build quality but those displays are looking like a nice step forward which will hopefully spur the competition in to up their game and keep pace in that area.

 

[BrightCandle]

There was a post in the Pimax forums the other day explaining that the reason people get distortions is due to variance in the build quality of the shell that results in the lense placement being less accurate than it ought to be. For literally a year they have been telling people it is due to Z depth, then they added the ability to adjust focus per eye and all of a sudden people are able to correct their headsets and get them working. This brings me hope that mine can with some trial and error be corrected. It also means I now know what they shipped me was faulty and they mislead about the cause for a year.

PiMax is a really scummy company, they aren't going to replace the old headsets with shells prone to cracking or those with the lense in the wrong place. The eye tracking modules they offered as a stretch goal have now been withdrawn, backers wont be getting them at all. They aren't going under or anything dumb like that, no they just don't want to pay for it so are screwing their backers instead. There is zero reason to trust them on the next set of headsets at all.Give it a few months for all the issues to be worked out so you know what you are getting into. As a backer of PiMax I don't recommend the 5k+ (or 8k) nor can I say anything good about this company at all.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

VoodooDE posted detailed review of Cosmos.

Also there is one interesting post claiming that opting into Beta driver fixed most tracking issues. Wondering if that's what they used during demo event.

 

[HoiHman]

 

[RobertR1]

Ouch at that FOV or lack there of on the Cosmos.

Pimax normal fov should be the baseline for HMD's.

 

[BrunoBæ]

Holy shiiii...
Seing that comparesment I think Ill wait 1-2 years before I jump on the VR waggon.
The FOV of the others are way to laughable
The best thing would be if Pimax upped their build quality to normal IT comodity standard AND worked on the picture quality of their OLED version.
Will be back in 1-2 years.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Good luck with that wait

A couple years ago when I got a Rift CV1 I had no idea what to expect. I'd read many complaints by people who didn't think VR was ready, or didn't think there was enough content yet.

I think those complaints will continue as long as the price remains out of reach for many people and some of those people just want to sit and play with a game controller.

Every time I have people over to try out VR for the first time, they would be surprised at how good it was because they had heard it wasn't very good.

I was happy with the experience of the CV1. It was good enough to enjoy VR and have fun. I still think it is good enough to enjoy VR.

The CV1 passed a threshold. It has enough to be a good experience.

The difference between "enough" and what we want varies. I enjoyed my CV1 until I got my Index. Now I'm enjoying my Index and it is a better experience.

I'm very happy with its FOV. Based on the number of people using the Index who have a Pimax, I think it is obvious that the Index is enough and the rest of the package creates a better experience.

 

[RobertR1]

I'm very happy with its FOV. Based on the number of people using the Index who have a Pimax, I think it is obvious that the Index is enough and the rest of the package creates a better experience.

A wider FoV in the index would be welcomed as long it wasn't at the expense of its currents strengths.

You can certainly desire an improvement in technology in the abstract without it being a "us vs them."

It'd certainly help the conversation.

 

[BrightCandle]

For simracing I found the Vive was not good enough. The potential was clearly there but the resolution iwas just too low and the range of vision and the ability to read the dials didn't pass the threshold. It worked great for the roomscale games that came out with it but for simracing it was not really usable. Then I got a Samsung Odyssey+ and that did change things. The dials are readable, you can see cars into the distance reasonably and while there are still aliasing issues it isn't so bad as to severe distraction, I suspect 4k will remove the aliasing artefacts for the most pasrt as well.

The thing is about the wide field of view is that you appreciate it when you have it, but it potentially isn't worth its performance loss or the loss of resolution in the centre spot. Moving your eyes in VR is something you don't do much in the normal headsets, you can't really or you get a blurry image and see the edges. With the PiMax you can look around a bit, the lense is clearer for a larger area (well in theory if your eyes are in the perfect spot) and you don't hit the edge so rapidly. The cost however of rendering those less viewed pixels is pretty high, the high amount of warp at the edges really degrades performance rapidly.

High FOV is certainly better but PiMax just isn't going to be the company to get it from.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I see the trend on German sim forum with more and more people opting for Reverb, that"s what VoodooDE recomended for sim fans at the end of the video as well.
Seems like revised version addressed most of the early failures.
Anybody own one currently to share experience?

 

[RCHeliguy]

A wider FoV in the index would be welcomed as long it wasn't at the expense of its currents strengths.

You can certainly desire an improvement in technology in the abstract without it being a "us vs them."

It'd certainly help the conversation.

Agreed, it's harder to make comparisons without making a comparison, but I'll try.

Ideally I think we all want everything, high resolution, large in focus area, large FOV, perfect color rendering, high dynamic contrast and high fps to make the experience as lifelike as possible.

On top of that the lighter, cheaper and easier to drive the better as well.

Lots of areas to work on.

From what I can see the only area that we don't agree on is how important hand controllers and hand tracking are depending on whether room scale is a priority or not and of course the order of priority of other strengths since we can't have it all just yet.

 

[Bjarne Hansen]

Tried a Pimax 5k the other day. Just very briefly for a total of about an hour.
The son of a friend brought it down for us to try.
No roomscale just the gyro.
Only tried it in PC 2.

Both impressed and disappointed the same time.
The software was a pain to get to work right likely due to our lack of knowledge so maybe we didn't get it 100%
It was the none Oled version. Poor colors but nice resolution.
Clearer display than both my basic WMR and my friend's Samsung O+ regarding reading text and small details.
The wider FOV was very nice too but found the headset very bulky and not comfortable.
Think you will get used to it after a while but for a short try it was testing.

The wide FOV is a great feature and the FOV on my headset felt very narrow after trying the Pimax 5K
The higher resolution wasn't a major step maybe due to the poor colors?

If I had bought it I would be happy with it but colors and poor software really let it down.
It feels very flimsy but for a seated experience it shouldn't be an issue.

Must say that a larger FOV than the normal 100-110 degrees would be high on my list for the next VR upgrade.

 

[RobertR1]

The wide FOV is a great feature and the FOV on my headset felt very narrow after trying the Pimax 5K
The higher resolution wasn't a major step maybe due to the poor colors?

If I had bought it I would be happy with it but colors and poor software really let it down.
It feels very flimsy but for a seated experience it shouldn't be an issue.

Must say that a larger FOV than the normal 100-110 degrees would be high on my list for the next VR upgrade.

There would have to be something like a 2-3x perceived clarity increase for me to trade the large FOV for clarity when compared with traditional low FOV sets. Since I only use my VR for sim racing, it's quite vital to me.

The colors can be calibrated on the Pimax along with the black levels but they will ultimately fall well short of what an OLED panel can do.

 

[Bjarne Hansen]

The colors can be calibrated on the Pimax along with the black levels but they will ultimately fall well short of what an OLED panel can do.

Did write we might not have found the best settings.
But the son though it was close to what he saw home but it was clearly very washed out even compared to my Lenovo which is also a LCD RGB.
A WMR update in connection with the win 1903 update transformed my headset in terms of colors and clarity.

Totally agree now that larger FOV should be a high priority for future headsets at least for race and flight sims.

 

[Turk]

Ouch at that FOV or lack there of on the Cosmos.

Pimax normal fov should be the baseline for HMD's.

I don't find the narrow FOV to be an issue. the thing is, you can move your head a degree and flick your eyes, it's only slightly inconvenient. A wider FOV would be better but it's not going to bring drastic improvements. When driving any car I try to keep my head pointed in the direction I want the car to go, so all I'm every doing is a quick glance to the sides. So 90% of the time I wouldn't be glancing off to the side to take advantage of that higher resolution.

Moving your eyes in VR is something you don't do much in the normal headsets, you can't really or you get a blurry image and see the edges.

I'd move my eyes to the side a bit. Because I'm trying to keep my head pointed in the direction I want to go I'm flicking my eyes off to the side rather than doing a full turn to see the mirror.

 

[BrunoBæ]

I don't find the narrow FOV to be an issue. the thing is, you can move your head a degree and flick your eyes, it's only slightly inconvenient. A wider FOV would be better but it's not going to bring drastic improvements.

OK?
In real life your peripheral vision is constantly scanning the environment outside the central (sharp) image to add among other things fast and instinctive reactions to events observed inside the central image.
The reason is that the connection between the peripheral vision and the instinctive parts of the brain is much more close and direct than the slower conscious relation between the central vision and the motion controlling parts of the brain.
Thats also the reason that when a RL racing driver knows both the car and track enough to get into some kind of instant reaction "flow" then he is using his peripheral vision just as much as his sharp central vision to try to drive that ideal lap.

CatsAreTheWorstDogs: For both eyes the combined visual field is 200–220° horizontally.