Pimax 8K Plus Review, VR 2.0 is finally here (at least for me ;))

Pimax Hardware P2: 8k(+)
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My review may be a little late, but since I love the 8K Plus I want to add my impressions :wink:

I own the HMD since about a month and bought it to replace the 5K Plus.
And I must say that it was worth it.

Housing

A big improvement over the old black case of the 5K Plus. It feels more stable and much more valuable. The case of the 5K Plus with the cracks and co. never really bothered me, but the case of the Vison series is a huge step up.

Comfort Kit

Also a great new modification that makes the headset much more comfortable. Unfortunately the original face pad is too thick for me.
My eyes were too far away from the lenses, with heavy distortions at the edges. But by replacing the face pad with a 6mm thick one from the HTC Vive, the problem has disappeared and everything is as it should be.
But Pimax knows this is an issue for some People and because of this, the 8K X will have two face pads, one thin and one thicker.

Picture quality and SDE

The SDE is considerably less than the 5K Plus and is well comparable to the HP Reverb. I can still see the SDE, but really only a little bit. The longer I use the 8K Plus, the less I see the SDE. You have to concentrate very hard to see it.

The sharpness is definitely better than with the 5K Plus. The picture is also much clearer and cleaner. Colors are either the same on both or better on the 8K Plus. In some games, the 8K Plus even comes close to the HP reverb in terms of sharpness. This is for example the case with No mans sky (at least for me).
But for that I have to set the resolution in Steam to 4000 x 3300 pixels (Normal FOV), which is about 175 procent supersampling. But thanks to brainwarp no problem at 72 Hz.

Performance

The Performance is in most cases comparable to the 5K Plus. Only in Elite Dangerous I need smart smoothing to have no jerking. With the 5K Plus I didnā€™t need smart smoothing. But now I only noticed this in Elite and not in any other game.

The funny thing is that both glasses need a super sampling of at least 150 percent to have a really sharp picture. So if you stick to the 1440 p input signal, both are blurred in about the same way. In Elite Dangerous you can see this most clearly. I always had to set the HMD quality to 1.5 to be satisfied. So I am curious how the 8K X will look like :wink:

Tracking (Steam VR Tracking, Lighthouse 1.0 and HTC Vive Wands 1.0)

In the beginning I had problems with the 8K Plus while tracking, because I was still using the pitool version .144. The controllers just disappeared after a few minutes. I had to restart everything completely and then disappear again and again.

Then I switched to the current pitool .259 and see there since about 2 days the tracking works fine. No more disappearing of the controllers. I am so glad that i can use room scale vr again :slight_smile:

Conclusion

I love the 8K Plus more than anything else and I am very happy about the decision to buy it. Iā€™ve had a few HMDs like the HTC Vive, Samsung Odyssey Plus, Oculus Go, HP Reverb, but none comes close to the 8K Plus. The combination of very good picture quality, close to 0 SDE and the unique FOV makes the 8K Plus the best HMD you can buy at the moment. When the 8K X comes out, that will of course change, but then the 8K Plus will be at least the second best HMD. I will definitely get the 8K X as soon as it is available, no matter how long it takes.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank every single one of the over 6000 backers who made the foundation of Pimax possible in 2016. Without every single one of them we would not be where we are now. Of course there have been delays and problems from pimax but we must not forget what they gave us: a VR headet with HIGH FOV for us consumers. Without pimax we would have to be satisfied with 110 degrees standard FOV or in the best case with 135 degrees Fov of the Valve Index. Or we would have to spend a lot of money and buy a Star VR One or an XTAL, for several times the price to have the same virtual reality experience. I canā€™t go back to 110 degrees FOV, itā€™s just not possible anymore.
It feels so much better with the Pimax FOV. I am loving it

Pimax moves with the 8K X to XTAL 8K level for only one sixth of the price of the XTAL 8K, you should never forget that!
Of course the price of the 8K X is not very cheap but when I think about everthing, itā€™ s worth every cent.

So letā€™s keep supporting Pimax as long as we can.
At least i need the continuing existens of Pimax and i hope that is for most people the case.

With this little review I want to thank Pimax, the community and of course every single one of the over 6000 backers. Without every single one of you I would not be able to enjoy virtual reality as I do every single day now. It makes my life so much better :wink:

With that beeing said, i wish you all the best!

With best regards

Pascal

(All things mentioned here are my opinion and impressions. They are not absolute. They can vary from person to person.)

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@mixedrealityTV, maybe the thinner face foam would eliminate distortions for you on the 8K-X

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@NextGenVR Yeah, now with the 6mm face foam the issue on the 8K Plus is solved. Thats good to know for the 8K X aswell

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Thank you for your review. We are Pimax backers.

Did you try 110 hz ?

What CPU , GPU do you have ?

Please tell me the name of your motherboard

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Thank you for your thoughts. The 8K plus sounds a very good Hmd. :+1::grinning:

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No problem :slight_smile:

I have a RTX2080 Ti with a ryzen 5 2600x and an AS Rock X370 Professional Gaming motherboard. GPU Clock: 2050 mHz, CPU Clock: 4200 mHz
RAM are 16 GB.

I have not tried the 110 Hz FW yet, because i am afraid to do something wrong and break something in the headset. I donā€™t want to take that risk.
I also donā€™t see any difference between 72 Hz and 120 Hz (already tested with the 5k Plus).

The 8K Plus is completely sufficient for me with the 72 Hz. The X will also not have more in native mode. Then Iā€™m used to everything :wink:

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No problem :wink:

Indeed it is. But if you can wait, the 8K X would be a better Option for. If you can not wait (like me) and want now at this moment the best HMD possible, than buy the 8K Plus. As soon as the 8K X is available, you can sell the 8K Plus. I am going to do the same thing.

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I suppose it depends on the application. In Eleven table tennis the change from 90Hz to 120Hz was big step-up for me and finally I could hit the ball quite consistently. But in GORN there was no real difference (except different FOV shape).

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@McUH
Indeed it depends on the application. But for the most games, which i am playing, i can not see any difference. I think that i am ā€œblindā€ for higer refresh rates but that can be only a advantage for me because the 8K X has 75 hz in native mode ;).
And i prefer a better picture Quality and sharpness overall.

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I think that fast head motion shows the lower frame rate issue best (demonstrates the problem). Since I play seated, 72 Hz is sufficient for me too, although I prefer to play at 80 Hz on my 8K. I would not have ordered an 8KX if I didnā€™t think 75 Hz was acceptable.

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Thereā€™s definitely something to be said for a higher Hz imho. I have noticed on my 5K+ that going from say 90Hz to the recent 144Hz offeringā€¦ that the sense of more presence/a more ā€œgrounded feelingā€, for me, is desireable and easier on the eyes.

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@neal_white_iii, @jTeller Of course it all depends on on the individual person. The are persons out there, for which the higher refresh rate makes a huge difference for them, especially for the feeling of immersion. I am maybe completely blind to the higher refresh rates.

Fortunately pimax also inculde the upscaler in the 8K X, so you can use 120 Hz instead of 75 Hz. And I assume that also in the future there will be a 144 Hz mode for the 8K X and the 8K Plus.
The higher refresh rate is another advantage for Pimax, because a lot of people like it and need it for their immersion.

I am so looking forward to the 8K X! :star_struck:

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The benefits of higher refresh rate are the most obvious when something other than your own physical motion moves the camera (such as pushing a thumbstick to glide forward, or spinning out whilst driving oneā€™s Elite surface vehicle recklessly :9) ā€“ when one only stand still and look around, and even walk physically, the brain kind of momentarily ā€œtunes outā€, in a way, both expecting a kind of rough ride, and benefitting from vestibular feedback, and proprioception. :7

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sounds like a term from ā€œInceptionā€ ā€œChildren of the Cornā€ or Field of Dreams" :crazy_face:

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I shall use my powers of proprioception to poke you all in the eyes! Ow! I poked myself! my powers failed me. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Thatā€™s ok, sometimes my sense of where we are in pimax space and time can spoof me :wink:

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Agreed. That was one of the things that persuaded me to order an 8KX.

I would not assume that. Iā€™m hopeful that there will be some framerate improvements, but I wouldnā€™t count on it, especially since the 8K+ doesnā€™t even have a 144 Hz mode.

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Isnā€™t that because of the bridge/scaler chip being different? It canā€™t handle more than 110Hz I believe.

As far as I understand, the panels are the same and who knows what they (+ whatever chip they ended up with in the X) can doā€¦? :wink:

I mean, the ā€œ90Hzā€ 5K+ I received about a Year ago now does 144Hz in ~140Ā° FOVā€¦ I didnā€™t see that coming! :nerd_face:

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Right. And only with a firmware update.

The 8KX is supposed to do 120 Hz in up-scale mode. Iā€™m hoping for 80-90 Hz in native mode, but Iā€™m not assuming that will happen. If it does, great, but thatā€™s certainly not guaranteed.

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Nope. Iā€™m hoping tooā€¦ :nerd_face:

I think this is mostly down to bandwidth issues though (cable/DP standard) as far as I understood.

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