@deletedpimaxrep1 I realize with all the focus being on the 8k so close (hopefully) to its ship date that this post may be in bad taste, but I haven’t herd a peep about the 8K-X and its the end of May.
Is there any update you can give us on it at all such as GPU requirements, release time frame (now that the 8k is almost ready), or will you be able to run it at a lower resolution other than 4k per eye?
I’m really hoping I don’t have to upgrade just yet to use it and have it run well.
There’s no point in working on the 8K-X yet since it is basically just an 8k without an upscaler. The lenses and the entire physical implementation should be the same with just some changes to the electronics which should be pretty much off the shelf items.
Right. My understanding is that it’s basically the same electronics as the 5K (no scaling chip), but with 2 circuit boards and 2 connecting cables (much like the early prototypes). I think it should be able to hit 90 Hz refresh like the 5K, but Pimax has NOT confirmed that.
I’d say that’s not accurate! The 8kx is technically less complex with no upscaler required and bandwidth shouldn’t be an issue either as there are two DP connections. It makes perfect sense that their focus being on getting the 8k up to scratch is the priority, once that is achieved its the baseline to adapt to making the 8kx.
So to reiterate: working on the 8k ‘is’ working on the 8kx. Bandwidth is less of an issue due to dual inputs.
All the improvements besides the 80/84/90Hz refresh rate topic were also improvements for the 8k-X and 5k version.
It’s a bit sad they couldn’t wait with the 8k scaler optimization until the end and get everything else sorted out for an early shipping of the 5k. But most probably it’s different experts anyway and parallel progression didn’t really affect the individual delays a lot…
When talking about the 8k-X you always have to look for the road map of nVidia too. It was said there will be a new GPU available so there is at least the chance to drive the 8k-X with sufficient fps for VR. The 1080Ti won’t cut it as far as i understood.
Does anyone understand on a technical level please why dual inputs on the HMD 8K-X make it more likely Pimax could hit 90hz on the panels?
My guess is with dual DP 1.4 this simply allows for a higher screen refresh rate due to the limitations of the chipset/hardware the screen uses when only a single DP 1.4 input is used, as on the 8K.
If so, any idea what the limitations is on the hardware Pimax are using?
Or am I confused and it’s really a GPU horsepower issue?
The dual DP links are necessary to reach high refresh rates at high resolutions for the two displays, these have to fit in the bandwidth limitations of the current DP standard.
The actual cause for the 80Hz limit is not known in detail to the public today. But it has sth to do with the electronic board containing the scaler logic and the DP connector and the display controller. That much is known. So most likely a problem related only to the current version of scaler chips combined with the other electronics, a problem that doesn’t show up in the 5k and consequently shouldn’t affect the 8k-X either. Another thing could be that the scaler of the 8k is drawing too much power at high refresh freq. but again that would be 8k only related… For the 8k this problem might be fixed with future upgrades in electronic components as soon as improved versions become available…
The game content is also a big part. How optimized is it, does it have lots of high quality textures and demanding special effects like volumetrics. Games like Beat Saber might just work fine using a 1080Ti. If not you could reduce supersampling to 0.8 for example. Business apps should be fine too and the 8K-X should shine at that.
Then as you say we have the new series in July with the 1180 being almost 50%? faster than the 1080 so we could assume the 1180Ti will be near 50% faster than the 1080Ti. That’s a serious punch.
As that video shows, If NVidia add hardware acceleration for real-time ray tracing then that could be even more optimal than current game engine code to produce things like reflections, shadows, global illumination, path tracing, volumes, fluids and all the other benefits that would come from it as hardware can always calculate faster than the equivalent software emulation.
On a side note, major 3D visualisation packages will have some of their profits sucked away by this as game studios could save tens of thousands of dollars a year on subscription services (e.g. one seat of 3DSMax is £1,740 per year) by doing all their cut scenes / texture baking etc right inside the game engine like Unity or Unreal instead.
Anyway,
By the time the 2080Ti releases, Pimax would have worked out its eye tracking module and hopefully developers will start to issue updates to their games that compiles in the engine’s foveated rendering features. that’s a huge saving in GPU demand. so no need to spend $$$ on the best GPUs available.
In addition to that VR-SLI/Crossfire should appear on the map again as the demand for it would increase. Single GPU power will never keep up with display panel advancements.
Actually i was referring to the claim of a PimaxVR official that for the 8k-X version they will partner with a GPU manufacturer to provide a graphics card that is up to the task. AFAIK it was nVidia. That is what I ment. Without the next GPU-gen on the market i wouldn’t expect to see PimaxVR shipping the 8k-X, since they want to have a proven/tested possible combo first that they can recommend. At least that was my take away on that story.
8k X customers have spent about a half a million dollars through the Kickstarter. Frankly, I think it would behoove Pimax to have at least a team in the planning stages as it can take over 2 years for a product to get up and running. I for one don’t like the idea of Pimax sitting on my money and doing nothing. An update on the X would certainly be appreciated if only to say, yes, we’re doing something!
@deletedpimaxrep1 Can we please have some clarifaction on the 8K X schedule. Is the hardware for the X locked down yet or are you just waiting for the 8K to be finalized first? Thanks!
They original timeline had the X coming out next month. It’s not about what they have repeatedly said in the past it’s about providing some information to customers. Right now they are saying NOTHING about the X. This is not how business works.
The 8k-X is not going to be difficult to build. Subtract scaler add 2nd bridge chip. Its a minor changes now the 8k looks to be finished. 400 backers whom can play with the 8k in the meanwhile. If so chosen. So please relax.
Any advances on the 5k/8k benefits the 8k-X. So once the 8k is complete the 8k-X will likely be ready with in the 3months after (its not a big change) & 400 backers vs 5000+?
