My thoughts on the new Pimax hardware

Pimax Hardware Pimax Discussion
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So I think the Pimax portal will be a letdown. It has far too little graphics power. It is significantly slower than the Steam Deck.
In addition, it is not possible to install Steam games and play them natively. Games like “the callisto protocol” will never run with it. The hardware is just too weak. It’s nothing and nothing whole. It runs on android! Android is a very bad choice for this device! The Steam Deck shows how it’s done, everything works right here!
Pimax portal? NO THANKS!

I don’t find the pimax crystal interesting either. The FOV is way too small. I own a Pimax 8KX and bought it because of the large FOV. I wouldn’t go back to small FOV. It’s boring for me. Then I prefer to keep my Pimax 8KX!

Also, 1 year ago, Pimax also announced the Pimax 12k with large FOV. Why are there no more updates from the Pimax 12K with large FOV? I don’t want a small FOV! The FOV must be huge!
When is the Pimax 12K coming? It should be out now in December! One often feels cheated by Pimax!

Please check for yourself! Pimax 12K has been announced by Pimax! Pimax even showed a video on their youtube channel.

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calm down, isn´t it Christmas Time?
You know, time flies a different way with Pimax.
As well, think about the current situation in China, spreading Covid, supply chain issues everywhere.
Expect the 12K not earlier late next year or even 2024 spring. No need to buy Crystal, neither Portal if you don´t want to. You still own the best headset in market, don´t you. (So am I)
Merry Christmas to all

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Agreed to both of you. It’s very frustrating to see that Pimax puts all this time in developing the Crystal and even more so the Portal. I never want to go back to small FoV and the Portal, pffff does so NOT interest me at all… And it’s very frustrating that they’ve been touting the 12K as ‘almost ready’ or ‘70% ready’ for a year now and there’s still nothing.

But indeed, time flies in a different way with Pimax. The key is to try not to buy into the hype, because you will only get frustrated by all those delays. And with Pimax, things always take longer than even the most pessimistic person predicts.

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don’t worry, i’m calm!

I just find it very frustrating that pimax doesn’t take a position on this.

if you would at least write about the current status.

or just write:

Hello dear Pimax users

we haven’t given up on the Pimax 12k yet. we are of course still working on it. We’re very sorry that we can’t show any new results yet.

And what does Pimax do???

pimax writes NOTHING!

You’re just leaving us in the dark!

And that’s what I find so frustrating!

they could at least get in touch or write something about it.

one has the impression that there will never be a Pimax 12k!

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You may be right, Pimax may be in serious trouble. You may as well have a look here to a reddit post and think about what we may miss to see or to know about the situation there. I sincerely hope they will survive the covid tornado.

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Obelix now would say: “Die spinnen, die Chinesen!” :wink:

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A German digression into the outside world: Na ja, ich finde das ja gesittet, gegenüber Bildern aus den USA, wo die Post systematisch geplündert wird / systematic ransacking of postal shipments on trains in the US.
One would say, chaos is growing nowadays everywhere. If you order, may it be Aliexpress, Wish or Amazon, not sure, if a delivery reaches you because of so many different reasons.
So, If I would like to order now from China, maybe a spare part from PIMAX, who knows…

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Something something - people with a penchant for using words such as “snowflake”, “sjw”, or “woke” as invectives - something something - sorting straight into garbage bin where belongs.

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Okay folks lets try to avoid politics. Sure often things sucks in the world of politics.

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My take on the 12k comes from the Crystal updates. They state that they share the same platform and as such, many gains for Crystal may well benefit the 12k.

If I understand it correctly, the 12k is getting improvements along the way.

When the Crystal is stable and released, perhaps the 12k will simply be an incremental change compare to the Crystal.

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Agreed, that´s what I hope, too. With possible prescriptive lense solution, a valuable IPD adjustment etc.
So, I sincerely wish they will succeed with the Crystal, even if I avoid it.

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You are right. In a way.
But I cannot completely ignore the facts which influence the supply chain towards PIMAX , from there towards me as a customer.
Because of those “difficulties” (no more details) in various countries, my expectation is very low regarding the 12K.

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You do realize that if two headsets have substantially different FoV, resolution and lenses, that you’re actually talking about two very different headsets? What is the ‘same platform’ in this regard anyway exactly?

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I obviously don’t have the differences, you know this. Likewise we don’t know the similarities.

I hope the following comes across a little more respectful than how I could have taken it. I chose to read this as “I don’t understand how the 12k could benefit from the Crystal development, they seem completely different to me. What do you mean by your comment?”

My perspective as an electrical engineer, software developer, technology executive, optics and image processing, control systems engineer, from small startups to the largest companies in the world… What I have done is design, manufacturer, build test jigs, write embedded device code, get compliance testing completed, held red carpet press reveals, launch and support IoT and human terminal devices since before it was called IoT (which I still think is a hilarious moniker).

Things that need to be built and refined may be beyond the obvious. Think about the mechanisms that hold the different lenses, the housing, the embedded software that could be standardized with different display panels, testing jigs, certifications and qualifications, QA processes, support process, people, systems, manufacturing and assembly processes and facilities and contracts, material sourcing, shipping partnerships, the fancy boxes that cause ooos and ahhhs, battery form factors, warehousing, wireless improvements, power efficiency improvements, fundamental navigation software, controller work, eye tracking, positional fidelity, the headset comfort level and balance, game compatibility, lens manufacturing…

There are many more, but hopefully this helps. These are things that need to be developed for Crystal that can very well benefit the 12k. Some may obviously be available from previous headsets, but as a fast growing company, perhaps they are stepping up their game from lessons learned and 12k will benefit.

Platform, in my experience is all the above and more.

Plus, I’m an optimist! Life is just better for me this way.

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I guess in general you can interpret anything as disrespectful, but my post surely wasn’t meant as such.

I just don’t see how the 12K could be an ‘incremental change’ to the crystal when it’s really a very different beast. Just the resolution alone, no way you can pump that through as single DP 1.4. Trying to fix the distortion on such wide FoV is going to be another huge challenge.

Much of what you gave as an example goes for any Pimax product, not necessarily an advantage that the Crystal exists.

I THINK what pimaxusa meant with ‘same platform’ simply is the XR2 processor. And sure, although the eye tracker hardware (and its firmware) will actually be quite different between the Crystal and the 12K, I guess the exposed API will be equal so yeah that could be an example of software that they can probably pretty much copy 1:1. But other than that, I really don’t see how you can think of the 2 products as an ‘incremental change’ when they’re such different beasts.

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Refering back to your initial post:
Yes, the 12K was announced. Correct.

But seriously:
At least my 8K-X is still working perfectly, and considering the fact that not even a 4080 is able to provide stable 75 Hz/FPS (not talking about 90), at least for me, the 8K-X still has a lot of reserves.

=> i.e. thinking of a future RTX 5090, I probably would be able to either

  • finally run it at stable 90 Hz/FPS with large FOV; or
  • run it at stable 75 Hz/FPS with normal FOV, but with increased SS up to ~150% giving me a significant image quality boost already.

It’s not that I do not want a 12K - I would want.

But considering its assumed price plus the required GPU/CPU hardware and although it apparently should have a good upscaler, I think staying as long as possible with the 8K-X and getting the most out of it over time, is a much cheaper way…

Unless I win a larger lottery prize :wink:

So, for me right now, no need to worry about anything - except the general fact that Pimax might be in some kind of troubles, of course, which would put at risk any future Pimax HMD development.

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What general fact would that be and doesn’t “might be” negate the word “fact”? :smiley:

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The first sign of trouble will be the fact that people will see the final retail version two days before release.

If everything is ‘READY’ as Pimax suggest in their chart then they’ll have a free market with the best HMD available bar non.

If on the other hand half the Crystal functions are missing it’s not going to go down well when Pimax have a chart that stated ‘READY’ and no one at Pimax has suggested things won’t be ready come CES2023. Pimax have put out videos on tracking and eye tracking, etc.

If lol, Crystal is not in a state of readiness yet they’re pumping units out to the public expecting them to become beta testers then for me at least Crystal has not launched at all and we’re still in a pre launch phase.

Let’s hope this is not the case and Crystal gets good reviews and not talked about like prototype anymore.

To finish off. If Crystal has not fixed the eye strain, controller tracking, eye tracking, Wifi6e and things are just a glitchy mess where the battery lasts 40mins in stand-alone mode and frustration sets in then who is going to buy Crystal apart from the Pimax core supporters when other capable headsets are on the market?

I’m sure there will be a few VR surprises this CES2023.

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Pimax announced a “mini station” accessory for the Portal which would give it steamdeck-like capability. Only it’s based on a chipset which is more powerful than the one in the steamdeck.

It’s not clear when or if the mini station will be released, but if it is, then the Portal would become able to play steam games like a steamdeck.

I’m only here for the large FOV myself. It’s the only reason I put up with Pimax. They’re the only game in town.

I don’t think the Crystal is really targeted so much at current 8KX owners. The 12K is the direct upgrade path there. The Crystal, I believe, is primarily targeted as an upgrade for Index owners especially. And also Quest 2, Reverb G2, etc.

There have been updates on the 12K status from Pimax actually. Most of it has been scattered around on the forums here. But they did also mention the 12K during… I believe it was the Crystal “launch event” video on YouTube that the 12K is at “70% completion”.

On the forums afterward, PimaxUSA has said that nearly all remaining 12K tasks are also shared with the Crystal. Except there is one outstanding issue with eye tracking at large FOV which is specific to the 12K and which has been a very difficult problem. That suggests that the 12K could release not long after the Crystal if the eye tracking issue is resolved. It’s not very clear, however. And it seems like different employees within Pimax have had somewhat conflicting reports on where development is at for both the Crystal and 12K.

Dates coming from posters on the forums like this are pure speculation and not based on any facts that I’ve been able to determine. How far out these dates are seems to vary directly with how disillusioned the particular poster feels about Pimax as a company.

I don’t think anyone can provide a reliable projection about when the 12K will release at this time, not even Pimax itself. It could be right around the corner after the Crystal, or it could be much farther away.

I do agree that covid is causing a lot of random delays for Pimax which is part of why I think it’s very difficult to predict outcomes here.

I think that “general fact” is nothing more than speculation by certain posters on these forums that generally speculate such things. It’s not based on any actual facts that I can tell. The actual facts would seem to suggest just the opposite. Pimax claims to have grown its employee count substantially in the last year.

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You use the word “if” a couple of times. I was talking about facts, not conjecture on possibilities. Could they screw the pooch? Sure, as they have before but I don’t see Crystal hmd as a fail. The controllers are their biggest challenge. Past effort here hasn’t instilled confidence but we shall see. CES will be a big litmus test.

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