First night with my 8kx, I’ll keep it brief and to the point. I also have the Index, which I’ll use for comparison.
Setup was a pain, but I was expecting that. Changing all the settings in steam vr to allow full resolution, etc. Took some time, but got it done.
Comfort - much worse than the index. 8kx doesn’t seem to lock down to my face like the index does, at least not without crushing the bridge of my nose. Can’t adjust it away from there without getting out of the sweet spot of the lenses, so my nose seriously hurts.
Lenses - Index wins again with a much larger and forgiving sweet spot (i.e. the portion where the image is sharpest). With the 8kx you have to be exactly in it, and even then you can’t look much with your eyes as you are instantly out of it, unlike the index where I got used to using my eyes to look. I tried reading some articles in vr desktop in the 8kx, and unless I froze my eyes and turned my head to read the next words, I was out of the sweet spot.
Sharpness - its a tie between the 2, and this is my biggest gripe with the 8kx and what ruins it for me - I CAN’T GET THE MECHANICAL IPD ADJUSTED SMALL ENOUGH. My ipd is 60 (as verified by several optomitrists over the last couple decades), and at the shortest mechanical ipd adjustment its still way too large. There is NO place I can look where BOTH eyes have a clear and sharp image. The very small sweet spot only exacerbates this. No matter where I look, only one eye or neither can see clearly.
This is the main cause of eye strain for me. Since at no time do both eyes see a clear and sharp image, my brain struggles to combine the two images as it does in the real world. One fuzzy image and one sharp image don’t combine, so my eyes are constantly trying to focus and adjust, they can never relax. I can minimize it by keeping my dominate eye in its sweet spot, and then only using my head to turn and never moving my eyes, but that gets old as well, especially after being used to the index.
Where it is sharp, its shaaaaarp, but its only sharp in one eye at a time, and only then in a postage stamp sized area. So its just not nearly as good as I had hoped it would be.
And yes, I tried all the workarounds to try and make it work. In the end, the 8kx simply cannot adjust below about a 62ish physical IPD. Why they designed it this way blows my mind, because it just ruins the experience. I can only imagine how sharp it must look for those with larger IPD’s that can have their eyes look through their respective sweet spots at the same time, it must be incredible! But I can’t, because of a stupid design choice, in my opinion. One eye, or both, are always blurry. Stupid.
Screens - color was good, but screens were dim, which also added a bit to the eye strain, like trying to see in a dim room. Just one more thing that makes the eyes work a little harder than in the index.
Resolution - When you see clearly, the 8kx wins hands down. However, after spending several hours in it, I decided I’d rather have both eyes see the same image, even if its a lower resolution, than have one eye seeing a sharper high res image while the other sees a blurrier image, causing my brain to hurt as it tries to align them. My eyes are so much more relaxed in the index because of this.
Distortion - a tie, if I’m wearing my glasses. This is weird. If I don’t have my glasses on in the 8kx, there is a LOT of distortion, like the walls seem to wobble and wiggle as I look around. But if I put my glasses on, it goes away completely. I can’t explain that at all. So with glasses on, both index and 8kx have no noticeable distortion for me.
FOV - Here the 8kx dominates, and I can’t wait to try some flight and racing sims, even though the eyestrain and puny sweet spots will force me to lock my eyes and only use my head to look around.
Summation - I had hoped the 8kx would be a great leap forward, but because of the stupid low end limitation of IPD adjustment, this is really only a side grade for me, not an upgrade. I’ll definitely be keeping my index, and if I don’t hack into the 8kx like someone else did to try and force a lower IPD, I’ll be selling the 8kx.
Its a shame. The AVERAGE human IPD is about 62, meaning HALF of humans will be below this, yet for some stupid reason they decided to make that the lowest you can effectively adjust for physically. And all the software adjustements in the world won’t move that small sweet spot to where it needs to be.
All this after waiting a year to get my pre-order, lol. Very disappointing, really bums me out. Hope this helps anybody on the fence that has a less than 62mm IPD. After pulling an all-nighter I’m off to bed, have a good day everyone.
