It was pointless to have builtin scalars on the 8K. Please everyone stop claiming that native 8K would be too demanding for current GPUs. There are a MULTITUDE of rendering performance settings you can adjust in steam VR and pimax app which would allow for better performance IF needed and IMO at 8K native still look better than running the signal through a builtin scalar inside the headset. Not only that but not all games REQUIRE massive performance to run. There are countless games and apps that would run perfectly fine at full 8K signal resolution and benefit massively from native 8K resolution. one such app would be Big Screen. Pimax has crippled the 8K and gave us no CHOICE and forces us to run the signal through the scalar. Huge disappointment.
To be fair, no one knew when we’d have GPUs available to drive two 4K panels. That the 2080 Ti might be able to drive the 8K-X (I’m optimistic) wasn’t a certainty. Especially if you bought into the HMDs being able to ship in the Spring per KS schedule…
You’re not getting it. There are countless games and apps that do NOT require such a GPU to run at native 8K. Big Screen can EASILY run at native 8K with GPUs we have had for the past 2 years. Not only that but watching movies and videos do not require much GPU power and for all these media apps we have been robbed of true 8K native resolution.
YES you CAN run many many apps at 8K native resolution with the GTX1080 and even GTX1070 and as stated before if you cant run them smoothly there are a MULTITUDE of rendering settings you can adjust to increase performance.
Pimax forcing us to use the scalar was a big mistake.
I see. But… I really don’t think there’s a market for HMD that can do light weight VR apps that hasn’t already been captured by the cheap smartphone VR headset.
Look through my history on the forums a bit, I’m not an 8K fanboy and an avid opponent of upscalers. But I just don’t agree that the upscaling was a bad decision at the time. In hindsight, sure. But at the time it made sense. And apparently some people really loved the 4K (though I never ran into any before commenting here), but seems to upscale well (granted at 60Hz and half the incoming bandwidth, it had much more time to do its job).
lol did you even read what I posted? You CAN play ANY current VR game at native 8K resolution. If you have a slower GPU like a 1070 you can adjust the rendering quality in software and it will STILL look better at 8K native resolution than going through a scalar. How do you not understand this lol Who is talking about smartphone VR apps other than you?
Alright, buddy. Get yourself an 8K-X and run it on a 1070. I’ll wait for your in depth review of how the experience is.
A 1070 will run an 8K-X perfectly fine in MANY applications and games, Big Screen is one such app.
Plus you;re not getting the point. If you want to put a scalar in to boost performance then give us the OPTION to turn it off. This is NOT a true 8K headset if it can only take in 5K signal. You dont NEED the scalar running for countless games and apps in VR and if performance is an issue you can always lower the setting in software. If Pimax was so afraid of performance then FINE, put the scalar in but give us the OPTION to turn it off so that we CAN play the games and app that WILL run in 8K on current GPUs.
How do you not understand this??? You are not going to win this argument.
I suggest you take a breath and read what I’ve posted previously in the forums on scalers (as I’ve suggested previously). I’m not arguing with you and don’t care to win this argument.
How does 1440p goes to 4k screen without a scaler.
Look up 8k gaming. It covers full 8k gaming. Was dismal on 1080ti. Op is out of his depth. Maybe the 20series might change this. 8k was pitiful at 30fps believe Eurogamer did the article. VR is more demanding & were running half of full 8k. So 8k at 30 fps maybe 60 fps at half.
No we don’t want to play fruit ninja.
With a closed mind no. Any game in vr in 8k. Pc2, Hellblade.
Now if you want ps1 or 2 graphics maybe.
Who’s talking about wasting their time on Fruit Ninja? I just want to stare at Big Screen…
@Evoportals The scaler is not for performance, it’s for bandwidth. No video card today(*) can drive that bandwidth, it’ s not a fps or settings problem, is more of a resolution and refresh rate problem.
(*) Except likely for NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX with the new VirtualLink connector, but you can’t build an headset today based on a tomorrow standard. 8K-X will be the headset that will presumably use this new standard
IIRC even the VirtualLink connector doesn’t have enough bandwidth for 2xUHD panels at 90Hz. It would get 2xQHD panels at 90Hz and also get rid of the USB connection requirement. It seems like it’d allow the Pimax 8K and 5K to run on one cable. It provides 27W of power, but don’t know the power requirements of HMDs to tell if this gets rid of the power cable. But 8K-X would still need another cable for video bandwidth.
On a related note, I have to nightly balance my Pixel on the USB-C connector to get it to charge after the tiny retaining clips failed on me… not keen on a USB-C based connector for a room scale HMD…
Yesh it would be good to surf the web & read email at native dual uhd. 
Plus the vr link is an all in one cable… Any headset atm today could potentially use a vr link cable that is removable on the hmd.
Fundamental issue here- the scalar is not for boosting performance. The stream is reduced from 4K to 1440 because a single displayport can’t deal with that much bandwidth. Pimax was working for months just to get this setup to make a stable 80hz. Robin Weng has made it clear from the get-go that the 8K is thirsty and a 1080ti would maybe just cut it. The X is literally packing more than twice the output of an 8K. The 8K X would crush our peasant machines like Oberyn Martell’s head in Game of Thrones. It’s TWO 4K displays- running one DP per eye.
Pimax made no mistake. There is an 8K without a scaler chip; it’s called the 8KX. It’s more expensive because it needs 2 video cables and 2 bridge chips.
Nothing has changed regarding the 8K, other than it was so ambitious that it had to have some of the specs had to be downgraded.
Don’t like that? Switch to the 5K+. You want dual 4K panels at native res? Wait until Pimax sells the 8KX (or updated model) at retail. It will surely be available, eventually.
Not even that, C64 graphics maybe at 30fps