today I had a visitor at the MRTV headquarters! Dennis Ziesecke is a well-known writer in the German videogame scene, writing for the top videogame- as well as computer magazines (Gamestar,etc.). He came to check out the Pimax headsets for the very first time. I suppose this could be really interesting. It is in German language, so I put a summary below:
This is how VR should have been from the very beginning
New Wide FOV is an eye-opener
Both FOV and resolution is just better than anything on the market
Distortion is still very visible and might put some people off
Distortion is worst on large FOV, nearly gone on small FOV
Small FOV is still enjoyable as compared to current gen headsets
FOV difference between Large FOV and Normal FOV is smaller than he thought
Normal FOV is still great and the sweetspot
Sweetspot is amazing
Distortion is clearly more visible on 8k than on 5k Plus
Picture quality is better on 5k+
Clarity is just great on 5k+
Finds that even SDE looks better on 5k+ because of the Pixel arrangement that he prefers over that of the 8k
Cannot understand how anybody would go for the 8k instead of the 5k+, especially if it is more expensive
Wants a 5K+ as soon as possible and did not want to go back home (offered me to leave my home instead)
I think this is a breath of fresh air Sebastian thank you.
We’re very much appreciating, but also getting quite confused by various claims and counter claims among only 3-4 reviewers and some Berlin backers, so to have more people trying both units in-depth really adds great value.
The biggest surprise for me is the increased distortion in the 8K. Is he talking about blurriness if the picture throughout the FOV or distortion at the edges?
Would there be a possibility of altering the software to have the edges of the screen slowly fade into a blur? I think that would help making it not so obvious that there is some funny effects around the edges while playing from the distortions. And, if its possible, it would be nice to allow you to move the blurred edges in and out as it seems it effects some more than others. Depending on IPD and how close they are to the lenses they could move the blur to adjust for everyone. Just a thought.
@mixedrealityTV - do you think the pimax HMDs will finally allow for reading of virtual books in VR environment? I have been really hoping to see an ebook reader that can place me in any number of beautiful locations. I currently own a Vive and know why no one would bother creating such an app due to the image quality.
Thanks a lot for this additional point of view Sebastian.
It’s nice of you to have translated the main points from Dennis but I would be grateful if you could also add proper english subtitle to the video. I really would love to hear the exact wording Dennis use to describe his feeling while testing both headsets and comparing them.
@mixedrealityTV Can you specific that what should we do on 8k and we will not found the distortion issue?
If we use normal fov, it will be like the 5k+?
Same for me Arno, but when I think back to the backer meetup… the 8k looked better for me. What I can say is that the Distortion is really more visible on the 8k, otherwise the 5k+ has this SDE and the 8k not… I think I stuck with my 8k
I started a whole new post on this as this is the impression I got. I felt that they and the reviewers were trying to push 5K+ on us perhaps for financial reasons I don’t know. Eg at the Berlin meet most tests are shown on vids at the 5K+ station.
But then the reviews have come out and whilst mrtv and Voodoo clearly say 5 is better SweViver isn’t as clearcut so I don’t think there’s anything dodgy going on.
I do however suspect that Pimax have cocked up slightly with the 8K. Initially the big promise was 200FOV 8K that would be able to run fine on current GPUs with a minimum of 1070 and 90Hz refresh rate and brainwarp. Seemed too good to be true. And it was. That has slowly whittled down to 82 then 80Hz refresh… no brainwarp… Distortion at the largest FOV (which is 170) and most importantly need an absolute minimum of 1080Ti to run it, preferably 2080Ti. If this was announced right at the beginning it would not have been such a hit. Imagine if they’d announced the Kickstarter for something that needs the absolute best GPU you can buy or preferably the next gen. Basically they’re realising that whilst the 8K is still great its not quite what they promised and to have people not feeling disappointed those people need 1080Tis.
So theyve saved face by creating the 5K+ which runs a lot better and just happens to look really good.
So I don’t think they’re pushing for us to switch but feel that they have done a better job with it and don’t want to come out and say “guys sorry we were wrong you will need to buy a new GPU or wait a few years. Please get the 5K+ instead.” They’re giving us the choice, which is fair enough.
I don’t really know but it was clearly more visible. Unfortunately I was one of the first testers there and I didn’t even know that there are different FOV types -> so I don’t know if I saw large or normal FOV.
Not more distortion itself, but perception of that same distortion will be worse. Reason: You see that same distortion for a longer time in each second because the 8k runs at 80hz max and the 5k plus runs at 91 hz. That is 91 pictures per second that are corrected for distortion on the 5k plus vs 80 pictures per second on the 8k. Which headset will have perceived less distortion?
What I find most interesting is the statement that the SDE is lower in the 5k+. Is it possible that it also depends on the coloration of the displayed area? (Should not be like that, since both have full RGB).
Sebastian thank you. I was very impressed by your theory and it makes sense.
The way to test this theory though would be to run the same game but with different FPS by roughly 11fps somehow. You should then be able to recreate this.
Actually the wider implication of what you are saying is that FPS is related to distortion at the edges for anything less than max. So if a game runs low FPS it will also have more edge distortion.
So unless you’re already at the max (80 or 91) at the same Pitools setting a 5K+ will have lower FPS than 8K so distortion should be more evident?
IE 8K will have more distortion than 5K+ if you are max FPS for the refresh rates. If you are lower then it just depends on FPS and the likelihood is 5K+ will distort more?
