OK this is half joke and half crazy personal imagination, but it’s more concern than craziness. As dedicated a VR enthusiast as me, I am beginning to be worn down by the constant shout of “VR is dead” from the industry and the public, and pathetic active VR user percentage on Steam. Yes FB, Oculus and Sony are still burning money into the business, but for how long?
Sure I still have great faith that VR will shine in the future, but it might be many years away, and it might be too long for us to see the day. I am also sure VR will have dedicated fans, especially in dedicated areas such as sims, but whether that is enough to sustain investment from hardware makers remains a question. I was advocating support of VR for the new Microsoft flight simulator on AVSIM, the biggest flight simulation forum, and I am shocked to find so many adversaries there, who don’t even think VR is a priority.
So this might be a worst case scenario for VR: less and less public interest, funds, 3A titles, and hardware development. There are problems from other sides. Human being is approaching technological limitations especially in computing power which is much needed for VR. So dual 4K native resolution across wide FOV might remain a pinnacle for many years, and the questionable profit will deter most enterprises to do it.
TL;DR: Grab a 8K X while it’s available. See the true value of Pimax and give it more support.
I think that HalfLife:Alyx is one of the best things that could happen to VR and will give it “a shot in the arm”. There’s a huge amount of pent up interest in HalfLife and a VR-only AAA game will sell a lot of VR setups, imo.
The Index appears to be pretty good and I would think that Valve will be able to sell a lot of them, in time. That has to be a good thing for VR, in general.
While i understand resistance from general crowd I don’t understand it from simmers. Isn’t VR the ultimate goal, thing that really puts us inside of whatever we are trying to simulate?
My first headset was Pimax 4K, i bought it out of curiosity and it immediately replaced my triple screens. Even with all its flaws it completely blew my mind, i knew that there was just no going back to flat screens after that.
So is anybody considering going for the 8k+ ? At least I could use the 10 meter cable and I don’t really play driving or flying sims so I wonder if the 8k+ would be a worthy upgrade from the 5k+ because of the SDE and extra clarity .
I’m not. I’m sure it would be an improvement over my 8K, but the 8KX is only a few hundred dollars more and should be an even bigger improvement. I think the 8KX would have a much longer useful life, since GPU upgrades would be able to increase the super-sampling, which improve the image even more (than it would for an 8K+).
For someone who needs a longer cable, wireless, or a high refresh rate, the 8K+ might make sense. The big question is: How much is the SDE bothering you? Is it worth $1000 to fix the SDE, even though the image will not have any more res than your 5K+ and will have a softer (somewhat fuzzy) image?
Yeah I’d like to see some more through the lense screenshots of the 8kx and the 8k+ but not necessarily zoomed in so much before I make a choice. I definitely need a cable solution longer than 5m to get to the middle of my play area . 7m would be enough .
The extra res of the 8KX is most important for cockpit games, where you need to be able to read the instruments. Since you don’t play those types of games, the extra detail probably won’t matter as much. I read someone’s opinion that the 8K+ was good for watching movies (but not quite as good as the 8KX).
You haven’t mentioned the specific types of games which appeal to you, but if a high framerate is important, that might mean the 8K+ is a better fit.
As with all such decisions, I recommend a pros & cons list. Apply approximate weightings to each item or rank them by personal importance. That should help you make a decision. Also: They are both probably going to be better than your 5K+ (which you obviously like well enough to buy another Pimax), so in reality, either choice is a good one.
Yes, that is my biggest concern. Even if the new [AAA] content is not being made, as long as it is at least supported in drivers/etc. I’m Ok. But when driver support gets ditched, like it happened recently with Nvidia 3D vision, then you can’t really do anything and your HW ends up unusable (unless you will stay forever on some old drivers which will lead to another problems and inability to upgrade GPU in future).
Currently the Index is the best mass produced HMD out there. No distortions, best optics, best tracking, most comfort. No modding needs to be done for it to work.
8k+, 8kX will not change this for a lot of people.
That is maybe the real question. Very little leaps & bounds have come out of the competition. Really we need to wait & see if 2020 breeds “Game On”.
Playstation 5 & Next Xbox might help change tge face of adoption. But otherwise VR has still been a niche area. But is slowly growing. Stats are still quite low yet.
2020 or “many years” are two pairs of shoes, aren’t they ? I would not have argued against 2020, perhaps even 2021, but if it held true beyond that it would mean that VR is floating dead in the sea by then.
I think the 8KX is 100%, absolutely, unquestionably, the best headset coming to the market…until the next better one comes along
Overall, VR gaming seems to be slowly gathering momentum right now. There’s been a few new AAA titles recently announced such as Asgard’s Wrath, Stormland, Boneworks etc etc and that was before Alyx was announced. Which indicates that some companies believe the investment and return is now worthwhile.
Also ingenious design and gameplay doesn’t require a huge budget. So as long as individuals are still producing the likes of Aircar and VTOL VR as well, then things are looking up.
I’m now wondering whether there’s any chance that the 8KX will be available by the time HLA shows up
Given that this is now the time that some might take the plunge before the game arrives, especially with Xmas approaching, Pimax would do well to try and steal a few Index sales with a rock solid 8KX package, even if they’re not pushing on the PR front.
It’s also time to start squashing the general view that buying a Pimax = confusion and issues, with a poor order system, comms, and support, and only hardcore enthusiasts need apply. But it’s hard to disagree with that argument until the company prove it consistently in their actions. And that’s not happening yet
I agree the 8k-X is the best, on a paper atleast. Now if they could improve the game compatibility and clean up the pitool it might indeed be the winner VR headset
How long did HTC & Oculus ride on their first offerings with only minor upgrades? 4 to 5 years is an average of special purpose gaming consoles & devices.
@yanfeng was referring to the needed computing resources to drive high res & wide fov. Look at pimax’s competitors so to speak. StarVR dropped to less res than it’s original 5k & Xtal has stuck with 5k.
So Resolution wise the 8kX is likely to stay at the top for sometime. Now granted eventually we will have an 8kX oled rgb or something better than current oled. But I really don’t see the competitors from Small FoV doing anything big for I’d estimate 2.5 to 3 years.
Now we might see a bump to 130 - 140 horizontal FoV. & maybe another mild res bump. But the bigs are going to play it safer as that is where the majority of consumers are low to med priced headsets.
