For me distortion comes from the inner part of the lens when I want to look to the far left with the right eye. Left eye is clear, right is blurred. It’s a lens problem that’s difficult to solve, even if IPDs match perfectly.
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Try wearing glasses with the lens removed or +.25 slight magnification , still get wide fov feel but the frames hide the distortion ,trick the brain
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Wrong user reply to @Sjef
Sorry , was using on screen keyboard that covers half the display , with an air mouse , sort of blind typing
I should get some proper glasses
I think a lot of people do notice the distortion, I did not at first, but once you do see it, its irritating some times, The distortion for Me is, If I have a Circle like on the HUD of elite dangerous, If I keep looking at it when I turn My head left OR right, the Circle starts to get squashed as it moves towards the edge of the screen as I turn My head, Its not a lot but dose get annoying.
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We should just turn a blurry (blind) eye like we did with the SDE on the early headsets
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Interesting. The 8K is the first VR headset I’ve owned, but I have tried others (and didn’t notice any distortion in those either). I said so before, but I always use Normal FOV; I do see distortion with Large FOV.
My head is large, like yours. (I have trouble finding a hat that fits.) Originally, my eyes were so close that my lashes touched the lenses. I’ve added a layer of double-sided Velcro for an extra 1mm added to the thickness of the original Pimax face-pad (~14mm thick). That makes me wonder if the lack of distortion is due to my usage of progressive (multifocal) prescription glasses and my brain has learned to adapt.
However, I never noticed distortion, even when I first used my 8K. I played ED for about an hour, with no eyestrain whatsoever.
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i cut the screen back-plate of my lenovo wmr headset in half and added 3mm to match my ipd , I was very very careful to get everything well aligned before flowing epoxy between the panels and fixing them into place ,
I can comfortably use the headset for about an hour or so but there must be the smallest discrepancy in alignment and I will get some eye strain ,
My point is that the tiniest bit out of alignment is all it takes scupper the vr experience , maybe they have had some small qc issues with the panel lens ipd fixings . It must be very difficult to design in the right lightweight materials that have enough rigidity .
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I kinda wanna test my Pimax 5k+ again and compare it to the Index, but the facemask is slaughtered. @PimaxUSA send me a new one, please.
I think this is important and often overlooked. The image we see is formed by brain, and honestly our eyes are full of distortions and obstacles themselves (including blind spot in the middle, floaters etc.) which our brain learned to process and correct. I also wear glasses from early childhood and this probably forced my brain to adapt even more (sometimes glasses are on, sometimes off). So part of not seeing distortion might indeed be our brain either correcting or ignoring them.
I think everyone agrees there are some distortions on large FOV and since we don’t have way to compare, that debate is mostly subjective. But people reported distortion also around nose area, and I really tried to see them, like moving objects with strait lines, texts etc. slowly there but I did not see any distortion around nose area on either eye. The objects just disappeared when moving outside FOV without being deformed.
Also the scale and geometry seems pretty good for me, but this is indeed mostly about dialling correct values and also about the SW (game) to scale properly.
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Interesting, do you also wear blinkers that block out your peripheral vision in every day life (as that is also outside your glasses FOV)?
Just because its not clear (nothing outside your foveal view is anyway), doesn’t mean its completely useless as you can still detect movement (which is the whole point of peripheral vision).
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Correct, I do assume that 99% of the people will experience a given resolution and level of detail similarly as compared to a substantially higher resolution with more detail - as this is one of the glaring issues the current generation of headsets has, I do not think that opinions will differ too much whether the Index improves this much beyond Vive Pro/Odyssey/Rift S levels.
That is different from the fact which priorities a user has, when you have a whole bunch of features you’d like to see improved but can only get some of them in one given headset, while another one offers a different subset of improvements. And this is the issue where so many people have so many different preferences.
But I know for sure that it will reduce the FoV, one of my secondary top priorities, compared to a Pimax. But it doesn‘t seem to deliver more than more polish on my other top or secondary priorities, so I wasn’t sure that I would even consider it equal as a package. But to justify the extra spend it should not only equal the current package but beat it by some distance. The Rift S is just a convenience tool, a limited use device for me. I could not see that use case for an Index and that let me abstain from a purchase.
As I said, I will give it a try in a month at MRTV’s place, who knows, perhaps I‘ll be blown away. I will be able to directly compare it to the other Pimaxes, hopefully incl. the 8K+, and the Reverb. Let‘s see if you were right and the Index comes out on top…
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On the distortions thing, I did try because it was being made such a big story in the forum, but couldn‘t find it. Usually I actually try to avoid searching actively for flaws because of this „cannot unsee“ issue and I want to use the headsets for fun and don‘t need to be scientifically precise on them; but here I thought okay, let‘s see if I can at least see for once what they are getting so excited about. Wasn‘t successful.
Instead I have a convergence issue not many seem to share, but hey ho, such is life. But I wouldn‘t go as far as saying that all of those who don‘t share my issue just don‘t know what good VR is… 
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I have both the 5k+ and Index. While I can put up with the distortion/convergence anomalies on the 5k+ I much prefer the image clarity of the Index. When I take off the 5k+ my eyes are crossed. When I take off the Index I have no side effects at all. So in conclusion there is an inherent design flaw with the 5k+. This is obviously being ignored by Pimax who are pursuing higher resolutions while keeping the same lens array.
Like others no matter how much adjusting, padding, lifting, tilting will make these optical anomalies go away. Pimax need to go back to the drawing and design better optics or wait until curved panels are available. Throwing more resolution in a new HMD is only going to shrink your market who have just received their last HMD is only going to limit your profits.
Pimax need to expand their user base not shrink it.
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Have you tried this? https://community.openmr.ai/t/guide-how-to-achieve-perfect-real-view-with-pimax-ipd-compensation/18369/122
It sounds like it’d solve your problem. They describe feeling cross eyed when taking the headset off in this guide, and if you follow the steps you should be able to fix it.
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Agree with Rob… I have the Vive Pro ( lens mod ), HP Reverb and Index and of course the 5K+.
Personally, each headset does some things well, but none of them do everything well…
Pimax Wide FOV, but horrible distortion and uncomfortable, fov nice, but cannot out weigh the other issues.
Vive Pro ( lens mod ) Best colours by a LONG way, but narrow FOV, software wise, just works
HP Reverb, Clarity, But only looking straight ahead, movement of eyes reduces clarity significantly. Have to deal with WMR, but not that bad
Valve Index, Best all round headset at the moment, not the best colours, not the best FOV, better clarity even when moving eyes, absolutely horrible god rays !!! software wise, just works
Each headset has advantages and disadvantages, for me, Valve Index is the best all round, but for some games I swap back to other headsets. The only one for mke I no longer really use is the Pimax, just causes too many headaches, literally… No issues in any other headset… Don’t negate the advantages of having the software just work, means more time actually playing … games, not setup etc…
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Completely agree mate, I have always felt that it was tolerences during manufacturing that, while maybe not the entire cause ( face type for example ) certainly lead to the variances that for some there was no distortion and for others it was full of distortion etc…
Same hmd’s here except i have not bothered with the index because my vive pro ( lens mod ) is wireless,
I’m using very thin face mask with the vive pro and reverb , this helps a lot with fov especially on the reverb.
I tend to use the vive for intensive games and the reverb for sims or scenic stuff ,
Pimax every now and again for immersive fov
But the reverb and wireless vive are the ones that always connected to my pc
Maybe the 8k+ can replace the reverb and 5k+
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I see the potential is there, but…
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Well at least we will have the MAS and lens inserts to try before the 8K+/X come about so we can try to get the best possible experience with current headsets before making any decision