8K Closing Gap on 5K+ All Good things come to those who WAIT!

Pimax 8K Series
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I chopped and changed quite a few times as did Neal White and a number of others. Dallas Hao must really love us guys causing massive headaches with our indecisiveness. However, I am now very happy, ecstatic even that I persevered and waited. Especially after reading comments such as the following. This is in regards to the Brainwarp1.0 beta Smart Smoothing thread.

A Mr.UU.

My experience after using it for two days:

Project Cars 2 looks amazing and runs really well!
I set the 8k to 72Hz, Steam general SS 100/Application SS to 50%, ingame all at Ultra(!), Particles low, Grass off, Better mirrors on, ingame SS 1.0, AA at high.
Outputs slightly more than 36fps, so it runs silky smooth - i can not believe it! It looks incredible!

Btw.: image quality on the 8k is waaaayyy better than on my 5k+ (which i will return after Chinese spring festival to exchange it for the new, black dot free panels), really, waaaayyy better, big difference!

Yikes!

And another user who has both headsets.

Evertec

I’m agreeing that with the smart smoothing, the 8k wins over the 5k now for me. It’s plenty clear when you turn up supersampling, has better sde, better colors and blacks. Now we just need it to work consistently without crashing on half the games I use.

You may have noticed as well, the Sweviver, Voodoo and MRTV post way less on these forums now. As owners of both hmds I wonder if their opinions have changed as a result of these new developments?Maybe they are too involved in Xtal? Either way, our lovable Heliosurge has both and no doubt will share his views on this.

Long live the 8K and its users faithful. Let our ranks swell to conquer the 5K+ infidels.

All Your Base Are Belong to Us :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

(please don’t take my deliberately provocative snidely comments to heart, it’s a little bit of fun whilst I wait for my 8K+)

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It’s great news for 8k owners allthough i already did like the 8k more back in Gouda with reasons mentioned here (as i wrote often :slight_smile: some did not believe it) . it even got better.:smiling_face_with_three_hearts: Happy with this news!

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At least, 8k user don’t risk about black dots without warranty.

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So you are using Steam SS 50%? That’s pretty low. What’s your Pitool setting?

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I think it must be noted though aside from preference being fairly subjective, Pimax has always stated (as seen on their website) that the 8K requires a beefy GPU to get the most from it. The recommended GPU is a 1080Ti or higher. To push the super-sampling, then you do need the GPU power to manage that. I found this when comparing the Odyssey+ to my now aged Rift. Whilst I liked the lack of SDE of the O+ the softness wasn’t as pleasant compared to how clear I could get the Rift when SS was pushed to the max. It does make quite a difference. Again, these differences and preferences are subjective.

That said, I can appreciate the attractiveness of the 5K+ for those with lesser GPUs. Not requiring that extra SS to raise the image quality is a bonus.

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I’ve seen it noted a few times on other forums that when pushing the SS too high games will simply not work.
Sweviver said previously that a high supersampling did make the 8k look good and there was little difference between the two (although the clarity was still slightly better on the 5k+). People would be happy with either headset - there wasn’t really a bad one.

This is great news for those who chose the 8k though. Robin always said it was the flagship although I still don’t think the benefits are proven. Hopefully they will also provide colour and constant through PiTool in the future which will also help for both the 8k and the 5k+.

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The vital question: Can 8K have better clarity than 5K+ if Pitool and Steam SS are pushed to extreme for both headsets?

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Brainwarp is still a work in progress, there might still be room for improvement with the 5K+.

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You will undoubtedly reach a point of diminishing returns with SS. However, as with the second quote, the 8K’s colours, lesser SDE and black levels cannot be matched by the 5K+. So overall the image quality appears better on the 8K when all factors are considered for them (I am assuming this from their quotes). From my understanding, it was always the 5K+ sharpness that made it a clear favourite overall from the testers and those who tried them both at meetups. However, certain use cases the 8K was preferable such as movie viewing. That said, the gap is obviously closing between the two devices and it would be very interesting to see now where peoples preferences lie under current conditions with improved 8K visuals. At least these two users of both HMDs show their preferences towards the 8K.

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And this is why I am gonna pick up an 8k(+ maybe by then?) down the road probably as well.

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@mixedrealityTV made a comparision with max SS, of course before brainwarp hit the scene.

Winner was still the 5K+, just an opinion and maybe the software got much better in the meantime.

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Yes for certain games 8K should definitely be better. I am happy 8K owners have more ways for improvements.

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I think this will go on and on. As @RobCram said, its just an opinion. If they add colour and contrast controls then we’ll be able to tune colours to be similar too (one would suspect).

Since the 5k+ will still need less GPU power, it does mean you should still be able to crank up the graphics settings more than for the 8k (by this I mean things like the grass turned on for example).

Having said all this, it does mean if you were worried the 8k might not be as good (its very confusing because of all the variables) it shows that you don’t need to be concerned.

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It’s good news for the 5k+ also, using much higher quality settings in game and extra supersampling is an improvement also on that headset i think, although as pimax said before the 8k will benefit more to reach it’s full potential.

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I don’t rate the science (if any) behind comparison images using mobile phone cameras etc. through the lenses even though they are interesting viewing. I certainly hold real world testimonies/anecdotal evidence above them because there are just too many variables. I also take Seb’s comments as just one opinion in a sea of many. One that I might not take at face value either especially after his somewhat excited 5K BE first impressions comments at CES this year “the best Pimax headset I have used” or words to that effect. He perhaps has a different set of wants and desires than I do and isn’t so concerned with things like SDE affecting the experience. However, after using the Odyssey plus and comparing it to the Rift, the SDE does play a major role in image quality for me looking at close object details and is quite distracting at times even if it can be ignored. In some instances sharpness is better (highly SS Rift) and in others the lesser SDE and softness is preferable (O+).

Is it possible the people I quoted also tested their 5K’s under similar conditions to make their claims? Why would they just rate the 8K as better than the 5K without seeing how the 5K performed in the same scenario?

It seems to me some 5K+ users are naturally going to enter defence mode whenever something positive comes forwards for the 8K. It’s a common human reaction. If I was a 5K+ owner and listened to more positive news about the 8K. I would wonder if I made the right choice. I think this is why I chopped and changed my pledge so much because of the many different opinions favouring one over the other. That said, it’s clear both headsets are good, but as stated already in the past, the 8K does have headroom for improvement as we’re witnessing now to bring it closer to the 5K+ on the clarity issue. But as I already said, the 5K+ won’t match the other visual aspects which make up the overall image.There will always be some trade-off with the 5K+ getting better blacks and colours or SDE in my opinion. For some, the 8K has always been the superior headset - that’s listening to those at the backer meetups.

I backed the 8K over a year ago and it’s the one that is $100 more expensive. There has to be a reason for the price difference. It’s the Pimax flagship product and the one I believe will receive the most focus from here on out to pave the way for the 8K+. I do think though, the 5K+ is “done” as far as Pimax is concerned. Aside from some tweaks here and there most people are happy with it (black dot issue aside).

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Sure, with the 8K delivering a better experience when it comes to SDE and color it could be the better headset overall. With a good scaler and enough super sampling it might even come close to clarity of the 5K+ also.

Who knows, tastest are different, only a few people and reviewers who own both will ever make a good comparision and you’ve already listed two.

I’m not a gamer so clarity über alles for me.

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Just pointing that your’e also going in justifications mode the Price diff is for the 4k panels and the upscaler + now the limited batch . By no means you should infer quality because of the price. 8K has his qualities and the 5 is own no need to declare a winner (which is human)

Most people that have both say these headsets are very close in the overall experience so the preference will remain subjective. I had the OD+ Wich have better colour, black and sde then the 8K but after some time I miss the sharpness and resolution

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Maybe it’s the new firmware update. Need to try old pitool with the new firmware

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I’m very satisfied with my 8k, but the 8k has a clear weakness: a lower fillfactor with bright lines, because the white pixels are much further apart. However, this characteristic is decisive for the overall impression of sharpness. The 8k can therefore not reach the sharpness of the 5k due to the hardware. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t want to switch to the 5k for the known other reasons. To emphasize it again: with bright colors (direction white) the SDE of the 8k is bigger than that of the 5k+.

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I think we will have to wait for the next version of pimax headsets to have something broadly better with no definitive negative features

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