8KX User Reviews

[Heliosurge]

Mr.uu received 8kX

@mr.uu

After receiving my 8kx half an hour ago i want to share my first impressions, too:

Setup was easy and straight forward. Tried first Fallout 4 VR with the 5k+ on a DAS to compare then directly after swapping. Comfort Kit played out nicely. Also my packeage did not contain the thinner face foam, so the lightbleed from the cutouts for the glasses are a bit distracting at first, but thankfully not having a lightsource behind myself was beneficial for my experience.
The audio was barely hearable. Even after cranking up the volume to 100%. I think i need to use a booster or my vive in ears in future.
I swapped the 5k+ with the 8kx and paired the controllers. then i strapped on the 8kx and…well… still saw screendoor in the white pimax logo. and chromatic aberation at its borders, too. Hmm. Then i checked the IPD and suprise, it was set to 69.5 automaticly??? Must be pure luck? Or software adopted my setting of the 5k+, but hardware setting was different, still showing my IPD in the HMD? I don´t know.
Destortions are better than in my 5k+. But it is definately there. Maybe i can improve it with dialing in my IPD better with software, etc. I am waiting for @SweViver s NewPimaxExperience. If i look at a vertical beam structure in FO4VR everything is fine. If i turn my head to the right/left, the more i do, the more that vertical beam bends in the middle outward (barrel distortion) - not a lot, but visible. If i look with one eye/lens centered then the more i go to the middle of the lens, the more it bends inward. So the more you go to the outer edge of the lens it bends outward, the more you go to the inner lens area it bends inward. Again, very likely gone with thinner facepad or more accurately dialed in position/aligment in software.
Chromatic Aberation is also still there. I had the SteamVR-Performance-Window active in my lower viewing area (standard position). And on its borders you can clearly see the blue/yellowish colors at the border of that overlay.
Sweetspot is similar to my 5k+. I think that is the biggest disapointment. Not that its pimax fault. Just that i thought they could improve that with using the sdame lenses - silly me.

Overall despite this all sounds disappointing because i was nitpicking on some known issues, THIS HEADSET IS FREAKING AWSOMELY SHARP and i can´t wait to test it more thourougly with automobilista2 in my sim-rig (a shame i have my d-box system not setup yet)

Edit: colors are fine, brightness, too.

Part 2:

@mr.uu

Today i have some spare time to try some games and find good settings for my 8kX.

I selected HL Alyx because it is one of the best VR games out there.

I run a i7-7700k @ 4.8GHz and a 2080ti @2000MHz for reference.

Before i run the game i did add “-console -vconsole +sc_no_cull 1 +vr_multiview_instancing 0” to the start options of the steam game. I let the game do its performance adoptionmagic.

Pitools is at 1.0, pp and smsm off, FOV small.

Started the game and centered the hmd on my so i saw a crisp picture.
Went to the ingame options and did select the ultra settings.
Did start a new game and found myself at the balcony of chapter one.
looked around and did realise to see some aliasing (on the cables left above the black combine outpost, going from there to the center citadell). started fpsvr and saw that steamvrss-setting was at 40% (below 2000v pixels). Frametimes were way below the critical number.
Walked around and was nevertheless pleased by the sharpness of the textures, reaching to the house on the other side of the street.
Decided to bring up the steamvr menu, set the steamvrss value to 80% (around 2800v pixels), closed the game and restarted it.
This time i immediately got the message that the settings are probably to high to have a nice experience. nevertheless i started the game and was back at the balcony, now with frametimes close to the critical value, sometimes (very rarely) spiking above it. Aliasing was almost none to see anymore. Could not make out a big diference on close items, but looking from the balcony down to the other houses, i could see details of the rooftop now as far as the end of the street.
Realised that something looked odd with volumetric fog. Closed one eye and saw that there is a difference in the picture rendered for each eye. Either because of pp off or it is not rendered at all in one eye. was hard to tell. Decided to change steamvrss value to 60% (around 2400v pixels), set the pitools fov to normal and turn off volumetric fog rendering with adding the line “+vr_enable_volume_fog 0” to the start parameters.

jumped into forum to write this down. i will continue with edits.

Let me know what you want me to test for.

EDIT: let´s go on.

did a hmd restart to properly change to normal fov. started HL Alyx again with normal fov and again i got the message about the performance. checked steamvrss - was set to 80%. looked around, saw some minor aliasing. started fpsvr abd that showed me a ss value of 64%? hmm. looked around and enjoyed the benefit of the larger fov. but saw also the downsides. performance was not much less, probably thanks to HL automatic settings magic.

saw a pop in/out of shadows on the very right end (around 1cm in) of the view. This is probably fixable with a culling setting out of the starvr-thread (+r_size_cull_threshold_shadow 10)?

then i checked for the missing volumetric fog. and it was missing but i did not miss it really. some dust particles still floating around, so to turn the fog of seems not a big deal. Maybe a different story for later in the game where there is lots of plant exhaust?

Then i checked for distortion at an open door and there was obviously a barrel distorton going on when turning. i brought up the steamvr menu and the desktop view, went into pitools and played with the screen vertical offset values - on the fly. love that feature! after trying different values and convinced myself to see improvement, i set it back to zero and pressed the hmd to my face as hard as possible. Distortion was gone! So with the screen offset values i just did move the center of the distortion up or down. the reason for it was my in deep sockets sitting eyeballs. sh*t.
Nevermind. i am not really sensitive to distortion, i adopt quickly to it to a point where it does not disturb me at all. lucky me. Left the vertical offset to -2/-2 to help in adjusting the hmd easier to my face and because it somehow looked the best with least and even distortion.

I did realize with all that fiddeling around, that the sweetspot (the area where you see clearly) is actually narrow. I have to undust my index again to doublecheck that. I think i remember the index having a better sweetspot and more clarity fov range.

Checked the steamvr ss settings and it really was set to 64% (2528v pixels). left it for good but maybe i increase it because frametimes performance was not close to the limit.

Original Post: https://community.openmr.ai/t/mr-uu-s-8kx-experiences/29395?u=neal_white_iii

[Update] Part 3

@mr.uu

So, tried some more.

Was watching some nature videos. from czechvr.com via VirtualDesktop
First was watching 4k content (i had already downloaded a year ago) and that looks amazing already.
Then i downloaded new 8k content. Was even better, more detailed. But even with lower quality you have a weird feeling of presence - what it´s all about - isn´t it?

Then i tried HiRes youtube videos via VirtualDesktop. size 90deg, 1.5m distance. Distance similar to a movie theatre. Desktop was at 1440p and stream, too. Already that was amazing. Did not try real 4k - can only be even better. First time you think you look at a normal Monitor, not focusing on sde.

Then i thought i could use this setting to compare my index and switched to it. Well, i almost forgot how i immediately focus on the sde while watching movies with the index. If you slightly move your head while watching it looks great because the sde gets kind of blurred. But as soon as your head keeps steady, the picture becomes sharp and the sde jumps right into your eye…

Nevertheless compared the sweetspot aaaaannnnndddd: felt better (reasoning below). The numers at the bottom (timeline) and the Title on top/left was less blurred than with my 8kX. saw no barrel distortion when looking at the borders of the movie “wall” but slight warping inside it. roughly at the point of half of max fov of the index there was some slight warping going on. And also on top. On top was also compression going on.

Then i started HL Alyx with the index. Steamvrss resolution was around 2300v pixels. Went to the balcony and enjoyed the view. I did want to compare the fov and warping/clarity with my 8kx. so i went around one meter left of the radio on the table, looking straight ahead to the citadel. down, outside of the balcony you see two leafs. i centered myself on the right leaf and checked how far i could see from side to side and up and down. with the index i could see up to the massive high block on the citadel and below i could almost see the balcony handrail. Left i could see until (including) the round windows like structure of the combile outpost and right i could see until (including) the big rooftop window of the next building.

I focused on the smoke coming out of the chimneys and was surprised about the details i saw there. BUT the screendoor when my head was still. terrible. was the same impression as before when watching videos.
Clarity/sharpness is simply so much better on the 8kX.

Then i checked the blur area of the lenses again. Was pleased with the amount of blur. Better than 8kX (reasoning coming soon). Then i switched to the 8kX again.
First of all i switched pp on and dialed steamvr ss to 100% (3004v pixels) compared back with pp off and have to say that it is overall a better experience with pp on (contrary to my old thinking).
Checked the details and have to say it is a massive improvement in clarity over the index. checked the fov and could see now (from the same position as before) another roughly two centimeter in the lenses further. left to the end of the combine outpost and more, right to the end of the rooftop around the corner of this building and below i could see the handrail. but i couldn´t see as far up as before - minimal less far. Reason for it could be my vertical ipd offset of -2 on both eyes. But i am not sure about that.

Checked the blur of the lenses (sweetspot) and was positively and negatively suprised at the same time. It looks to me as if the blur of the index lenses is starting earlier but is less intense. So i think the sweetspot of the pimax lenses is overall bigger, but sharpness degrades quicker over fov.
So my feeling about the better clarity of the index was not completely wrong. But after having swapped the index with the 8kX, the improvement in quality is so big that i never want to go back (exception: 144Hz needed)

Can not test more today, will do next week.

Original Post: https://community.openmr.ai/t/mr-uu-s-8kx-experiences/29395/81?u=neal_white_iii