Backing the 8K X? Come on in!

Pimax 8K Series
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I have a few for my fellow backers:

  1. Are you planning on trying to run it with a single (or dual) 1080ti? OR are you waiting for VOLTA / NEW TITAN?

In my case, I am planning on building a new computer come May 2018. This will be my first purchase into VR (I am getting the early bird, 8K X Full Package).

  1. Are you at all worried that we haven’t seen any testing, with the 8K X?

Personally, I am a little, however, I am confident that they will be able to work out all the kinks in time for May 2018.

Do you have any questions? Etc? Lets band together! There aren’t too many of us out there…

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I’m looking at the 8k simply because I’m not confident in the 8k x performing well. Pimax said that the minimum specs may require 2 1080ti’s in SLI, meaning a single Volta might not even be enough. For now I’m waiting for performance reports on other games given that most people who tried fruit ninja on the 8k reported frame drops on a 1080 laptop.

That said, even the 8k at 1440p is intensive, I run my vive (way lower res) on a 1080 and it can’t run everything perfectly with no frame drops.

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My 2 cents. Native 4k VR is going to be fuc#*ng Incredible

8K X + Elite Dangerous + Whisky

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Lol, I agree wholeheartedly

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Waiting for Volta.

Personally I’d probably tick the option to get an 8K shipped to me and then send it back before the 8K X arrives.

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I understand your worry, I am hoping they are going to be able to post a demo using the X version, however, like the saying goes, no risk, no reward… Since the X is a limited quantity type of deal. I am worried that its possible they won’t mass produce them (at least anytime soon). Everywhere on there kickstarter is basically pushing people to buy the standard version. They have mentioned that they can’t see any difference between the two in gaming etc.

One could believe this is because they don’t want people who simply don’t have the proper PC setup to buy it, and than cry a river because it won’t work. OR it’s because the X version came about due to the enthusiasts complaining that the 8K version wasn’t true 4K, thus the X was born. I really don’t know, but… rare limited item + 4K just seems to good to pass up. My hope is that if any problems arise with the 8K during / after release, they will be able to incorporate the fixes etc into the X version come May. It is a $200 gamble, but I think its worth it.

I am sure the 8K version will be amazing, but I compare it to a situation where a person passes on the 1080ti for the 1080 (GPU). That longing of, “what if…” heh. They have mentioned that its possible to upgrade the 8K version to the X version but I am very suspicious of the reality of that. You would need a professional clean room to open the device to do any substantial changes etc.

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@Davobkk I completely agree!

@generic - I am considering it, but I am in no rush. So I think i am actually going to be one of the few that opt not to receive the 8K version and wait for the X to come in. Also I currently don’t have the computer to power the device ( am using an alienware 15R1). Since I want to build my desktop right before the release of X, I think waiting is my best option. Unless they release data that the X version can be played with dual 1080ti’s than I might go that route. Not sure.

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I am trying to downgrade from the 8k X back to the 8k. I am finding it difficult to do so because the Early Bird Packages are all no longer available. I found out that the 8k X will not have any upscaling at all so I worry that it might not work for current Games. I want to replace my Vive but do not want to give up the ability to use my current library of over 300 VR games. Especially since there is no noticeable difference visually between the two according to PiMax.

Edit: I decided to choose the 8k Full Package instead since it is available. That means there is 1 [Early Bird] 8k X Full Package available.

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I’m using a 1080 ti - I’ll prob get Volta though. I plan on using the Steam VR subsampling thing to make it playable lol

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Most people seem to think that Volta will be available end of Q1. If that happens then I’m going for Volta for sure, since the X is planned for May.

Not at all. If the 8k works, then the 8k X will for sure. I AM worried though about that first part …

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  1. waiting for vodka
  2. not at all (you can always sell things on ebay if you dont like them)
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  1. I’ll be waiting on a good whiskey here.
  2. not at all too. Even with issues everyone is still saying that this is an improvement over the current crop of HMDs.
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BTW, rumour has it that AMD will launch its next gen, “Navi”, in August https://www.tweaktown.com/news/59428/amds-next-gen-navi-gpu-launching-august-2018/index.html

Given that the X is planned for May but might very well be released a few months later I’m not too worried about lack of GPU cards for it. This will at least twist Nvidia’s arm into releasing Volta before august (and again, I think we’ll see it even a few months earlier, april/may is my own best guess).

As I’m currently on GTX 1080, I will skip the TI.

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LOL yeah watch out for those drunk commanders , hmmm… is it human nature to get Shit faced while operating vehicles ? Thank god for VR , I’m going to do the same in project cars.

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That’s my idea. I took a look at it and said, if all else fails, someone is going to want it. Ebay is your friend for this very situation!

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Only in a particular country’s military in the East of Europe ))
Hint, it’s name in Cyrillic starts with the letter Y

I do enjoy a glass or two when flying combat missions in and around Stalingrad 1941 :wink:

Vodka pref and nice and cold.

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Well no upscaling support for 8k X… So be prepared to brace yourself for frame drops for gaming.

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I did some testing on the Resolution nearly same # of pixels as what 8k X will be running using VR Mark, and 1 1080ti doesn’t seem that unlikely to be crushed in all scenarios, some games maybe.

I have 8k X tier pledged, and currently have 1 1080ti, I don’t think I plan on buying a second one since when the 8k X actually finally arrives I’m sure Volta will be on the horizon, and I feel like at that point I’d be better off buying a Volta Ti instead of a second 1080ti, unsure yet which will be the best choice, its more of a wait and see approach.

I’m confident between using the 8k Version though and subsampling the odd game in 8k X or sub-optimal frame rates, I’ll be fine with my single 1080ti for the time being.

This is my testing from a different thread, showing 14.5MPixel density super sampling vs Vive’s for performance loss.
Keep in mind the Blue Room is a much more graphically intense scene, I’m not sure however how it directly compares to games, and what game Blue room vs Orange room would be comparable to.

On VRMark with Advanced mode I can do runs at 5120x2880 which is 14.75M Pixels vs the resolution the pimax will be running is 7680x2160 which is 16.56M Pixels, so about 10% more.

This is on my 1800x @ 3.95 (4.0 gets the odd crash no matter what I do when I try to do encoding etc ;x) and 1080ti OC’d to 2000mhz & 6050 memory clock (it can’t hold 2000mhz in the testing though

For whatever reason the results for below ones wouldn’t upload, and I can’t link images as a new user, can link one however! so the blue room results below

d5e7fe589638e283ce66f20252a0c68d.png1512×853 70.4 KB

5120x2880
Blue room (Very graphically intensive scene) 89FPS Average
Orange room (Less Graphically intense) 133FPS Average

and for contrast scores at Vive Settings

Vive 3024x1680
Blue Room 152 FPS
Orange Room 204 FPS

Now looking at these in contrast, the vive has only 5M effective pixels showing on screen, obviously there may be some CPU bottlenecks present and for this reason I’ll be primarily looking at the Blue Room Results.

Roughly speaking the Above test has 3x the effective number of Pixels then the Vive, the 5120x2880 vs the 3024x1680, more percisely 2.9x the # of raw Pixels.

Now you’d expect then 3x less performance, but that obviously isn’t the case. In this test we saw only a drop of about 41% in performance, which clearly means you cannot calculate VR performance by raw Pixel density, else we’d expect to see fps closer to around 40.

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Magic Mushrooms + VR…That is all.

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Well, upscaling on the software side in the driver should always be possible. The performance loss should be neglectable, but the quality would be not as good as with a hardware scaler.

However the best way to implement the whole thing is to reuse the Pimax 8K by adding some multiplexers in the right spot. That way it would be possible to plug in only one DP and use the hardware scaler. If two DP cables are plugged in, the headset would work at native resolution without the need for upscaling.
This would keep the production price low ( only 1 scaler chip necessary) and would also provide benefits (hardware upscaling possible; using only one DP cable possible).