My 8K+ first impressions

[gregormax]

Allright, so I got my Pimax 8K Plus today. Can’t say much about it right now as I didn’t manage it to work, but we’ll get to this.

The packaging is good, but it’s just packaging, so it doesn’t matter too much. Indeed the plastics are a bit better, but it doesn’t matter to me either as I don’t see the headset when it’s on my head, that’s the tech that matters ;).

Seems the AC cord is much shorter than in the Pimax 5K+, but I don’t have it side by side right now to compare, either way it’s a bit short, but if you plan to plug it close to your computer it’s not a problem.

Now - I was not able to make it work like I mentioned above, but this is something I expected. I had the same exact problem with my Pimax 5K+, it just doesn’t want to work with my two Alienware laptops, nor the 18 R3 (which is quite old though), nor my Alienware 17 R4 with a GTX 1080. I’m sure the port is connected to the graphics card, but it’s a mini-DP, so you need a converter. Actually I have 3 converters and none of them seems to work with Pimax headsets. One seems to be a bit better (the screen blinks and I get the green light), but that’s all I can get. Actually I get the best results if I plugin it to the USB-C port with DP 1.2 compatibility - I get the desktop image for a few seconds. It’s enough to observe the quality of the picture with the most important thing to me - I didn’t observe any SDE and for me it was the biggest reason to buy the 8K+. So I can confirm, there’s no screen door effect on the 8K+, at least not at first glance (I have the picture only like for 2-3 seconds).

Anyway as I wrote above this is something I have expected as I had exactly the same problems with my Pimax 5K+ which worked great on my desktop computer. Sadly right now I cannot test in on a desktop as I’m buying a new one. I ordered one with a GTX 2080Ti a few days ago and hopefully I will get it this week.

I can also give you some feedback on the comfort kit without the MAS. Well, it’s better than it was, but still not perfect with the strap. When you move your head the HMD is also moving a bit (maybe a little less than in the case of the 5K+, but it’s not a great difference). It is a bit more comfortable, but the plastic near your nose is hard, so you feel it a bit on your nose and after a few hours of playing it might be disturbing, but will see when I have the opportunity to really test it. When the MAS will be available maybe I’ll order it, but only if it changes something in the comfort sector.

So not much feedback from me at this point, but as soon as I get my new desktop I will post more impressions, as there’s not much on the 8K+ on the forums right now.

[MReis]

Thanks will be nice to get you impressions!
Also an Alienware Desktop?

[gregormax]

No, I don’t want to take any risk :).

[asampal]

Does the unit ship with foam without cutouts for glasses? This was shown to be available in some of the CES videos. I want that - getting too much light bleeding on my 5K+.

[PimaxQuorra]

Hello Gregormax,

Thank you for the review and the compliments on our headset.
By the time when your GTX 2080Ti, you may plug in the 8K +, and enjoy the high resolution and wide FOV. Yes, it might be not perfect match the Comfort kit with the normal strap, it will be better when you get the MAS on the headset. The experience will surely impress you.

Shall we expect more feedback from you once you got your new desktop?
Can’t wait for the it!

Have a nice day!

Sincerely,
Quorra.Pimax

[gregormax]

Yes of course, as soon I get my new desktop I’ll write more feedback:). I’ll also test it with a 3DOF simulator to see how the motion compensation works.

I’m not sure if that’s what you meant but here’s a picture. This is for sure better as nothing from outside is coming to the HMD, no light, etc.

[asampal]

Thanks for the picture - it looks like the face foam has cutouts on the sides (to allow for glass wearers). These cutouts can let in a lot of light, depending on the shape of the face. Was that foam the only one included in the package?

[Cmorg]

Let me know what form of motion compensation you use and how you have it set up. I also have a 3dof motion platform which I use for iracing. I use a vive tracker and for me, motion compensation is pretty much unusable. The vibration that the tracker picks up makes it next to impossible to enjoy

[Dreamwriter]

I did a setup with a 4-DOF motion platform. We attached an actual Vive Wand to the frame, and used OpenVR-InputEmulator to cancel out the motion-sim motion.

[gregormax]

There’s just the “standard” foam which is actually pretty great. I wear contacts all the time, but just did a quick check with my old glasses and there’s no problem at all - fits perfectly, though it might depend on the glasses shape - mine are quite flat:

[asampal]

If you’re not seeing light bleeding from the cutouts it could be that with your particular face shape the foam at the sides is getting squashed enough that the cutouts don’t matter.

[gregormax]

Guess it’s because the foam is really soft, so it adjusts to the shape of the face.

[Mpmo10]

so how was it? how’s the screen door effect?

[gregormax]

Sorry for the long delay guys - got my desktop on Monday and I had to configure it and stuff. But as soon as I could I checked out the 8K+ - now I’m configuring Project Cars 2 cuz I will move the desktop next to my 3DOF sim setup and then will try it also with the simulator.

So some new thoughts. The SDE is visible, especially in movies when there is some really bright stuff on the screen. But by visible I mean barely. If you don’t look for it you generally don’t see it, however it’s still present, but the difference is huge and you just forget about it.

On the other hand I see no SDE in games, so maybe it’s something I need to tweak or smth. Also the quality of the movie makes a huge difference.

In the case of Project Cars I’ve spent a few hours tweaking it - by copying the Oculus DLL files, editing the XML files and some other stuff, etc. In the XML file i changed the resolution to 5120x2880 and refresh rate to 90.000. The difference in the game is huge. I’ve posted a few pictures, though in reality the quality is far superior and everything in the car is sharp and crisp, you can see all the details, letters, pictograms, etc very clearily, like on an HD monitor. That’s really impressive to the point that I don’t know if I will switch to the 8KX in the following months, but I need to do some more tests. Anyway the game looks as close to reality as possible, you can especially see it on the drivers and cars and generally if something looks worse it just looks worse because of the game, not because of the headset.

Right now I just have two problems with Project Cars 2 - when I run the game from Pitools with the Oculus DLL’s and “Compatible with parallel projections” turned off, my camera in the car is centered a bit, so I’m not sitting in the seat of the car (have no idea how to change this) and it seems like there’s some kind of weird problem with FOV/rendering, maybe because of the Oculus DLLs - when you move your head you see some big white round thing and this part of the frame is not rendered the same way (like in lower quality). When I run the game via Steam or with parallel projections turned on I don’t have these problems, but the picture is far less sharp.

[Culver9]

@gregormax thank you for review. Did you notice any shimmering? I’m playing dirt rally 2 on 5k+ and even with MSAA x4 shimmering is huge

[gregormax]

@Culver9

shimmering

You mean aliasing? Of course it depends on your video settings, but in general I don’t see too much aliasing - there is some on straight lines far ahead but it’s really minor, but it also depends on your game settings, and for example in Project Cars you need to force a higher resolution, etc., but to be honest I’m pretty amazed with the picture quality.

Here’s a video that I just recorded however in reality it looks much better (I don’t think the camera can focus perfectly). Also the colors on the headset are better than on the video and there’s much more detail, but I’m not able to catch it on video. Either way no SDE in game and the picture is really sharp. Sadly in this quality the framerate is not perfect on a 2080Ti, but I still didn’t finish to tweak it.

Pimax 8K+, Project Cars 2, through the lens

[neal_white_iii]

@gregormax

When I run the game via Steam or with parallel projections turned on I don’t have these problems, but the picture is far less sharp.

Have you tweaked the “maxRecommendedResolution” SteamVR setting? The default isn’t large enough to handle PP, so the image is drawn in a lower res. If you haven’t, just search the forum for info on what to do.