After all the hypes of major players’ next gen headsets which all look to be big threat to Pimax 5K/8K, it turns out all to be wishful thinking. I am both relieved and sad, relieved for Pimax, sad for the whole VR business.
My major disappointment is towards Valve Index. This could be the ONE that would greatly boost the whole business, if only they could increase the resolution just a bit. Why can’t they opt for 4K just as HP Reverb has done? It’s already 2019. 3K is the resolution of 2017 and it’s not attractive to the VR enthusiasts, nor is it attractive to the non VR users who have already been spoilt by the 4K flat panel which has now gone mainstream. The $1000 price is also very unattractive to non VR believers.
Don’t get me wrong. I really think Index is a very polished product. They just haven’t polished it in the most needed area. We already have some polished products. Vive Pro is a polished product. Index looks like a even more polished Vive Pro, but it is still Vive Pro level product, however polished it is. But the industry needs more than that. We need to move forward. VR is something that especially needs constant upgrade, the kind of upgrade as from DK1 to DK2 to CV1. Well I really miss that era.
At least we can now see more clearly Pimax has been on the right road, and we are still ahead of others…for some price. And we can see more clearly it’s worth the price. There is no perfect product. If we can’t make both ends meet, we have to choose which end we stick to first. For me that’s resolution followed by FOV.
The problem imo isn’t VR headset manufacturer’s but the GPU power required to drive high end hmds.
Most people balk at spending $1000+ for a hmd+acessories set, now imagine if you have to convince them to buy a $1500 GPU and appropriate other components to get a great expereince.
On top of that VR isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, e.g. standard FPSes for casual gaming, and commercial demand is limited.
Note: not to be nitpicky but the Reverb’s combined resolution is 4K but it only delivers 2K per eye. Still a higher pixel count than the P5K
We can now look at GPU power from more comprehensive perspectives. It’s not just “Oh the GPU is not ready for 4K display and very few people are even willing to paying for a 2080Ti.” It’s more complicated than that. Take a most demanding area such as flight simulation. X-plane can make a 2080Ti crawl on its kneel in Orbx TrueEarth scenery with everything maxed out. But we can turn down the graphic option and it’s still the most eye poping VR experience. And with other less demanding sceneries of X-Plane we can still turn up the graphics. And we can turn everything to max with Orbx TrueEarth in Aerofly FS 2! There are just so many less demanding games and game options that can make good use of a high resolution panel even without a top class graphic card.
What I like to see is a positive circle. A top game on a top headset that will fully convince a layman to shell out his hard earned money. I remember the day when I see Wing Commander 2 in 1992 and I immediately bought a computer that’s more than several years of my salary. That’s the way to push the industry forward.
Now what has Index or Oculus S to offer to hook VR or non VR believers? Very few indeed.
Most importantly Reverb does not have a hardware IPD adjustment, so for some (like me) with a big IPD it has already disqualified itself, and it has nothing to do with me being an enthusiast or not, I just like my eyes.
Too bad that the Index, while having the hardware IPD is still coming a tad short for me.
You’re correct that a 2080ti isn’t really necessary right now, but if we want even higher res hmds it might be.
I’m with you on that .
Going by game sales, there is a bit of a problem for high end VR.
FPS 25.9%: not everyone will prefer Pavlov, Contractors, Onward, etc. to Battlefield, etc.
Action 21.9%: same as FPS but better suited for VR
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Racing 6.4%: prime target market
Dunno if Sims have been lumped into Action or Other.
What is not helping is nVidia focusing on features like ray tracing which are marginally benefitial to VR and increase the cost of their cards. Foveated rendering saves some performance but isn’t enough to eliminate requiring a powerful GPUs. Smart smoothing is a trade off.
No reason whatsoever for me to buy another hmd if i look at the specs of the other brands.
Only want better controllers, strange pimax only offer them on there site with lighthouses…
I think Pimax has made it very difficult for themselves. I think potential customers are wary because they see a lot of people with hardware problems, a horrible customer service and software that seems to be quite difficult to use. It’s too bad because this should have been Pimax’s years. Everything externally is folding out perfectly for Pimax (like you said, theoretically Pimax still has the lead). Unfortunately internally it’s a mess.
It’s very obvious that Valve is taking the opposite direction of Oculus. That is Valve targeting at high end gaming market and Oculus targeting at the general mass. Now that Valve is going TOTL, it’s even harder to understand why they don’t make the most important appealing factor TOTL. I am a die hard VR fan and I have most of the major headsets. I have just ordered Quest for portable Beat Saber, and HP Reverb for flight sims, but I am not going to buy Index. I just can’t find a reason that’s appealing for me. Maybe a pair of knuckle controllers, at most.
But problem is they also lead in broken promises, terrible support system. And a software+hardware package that makes the very very early days of the vive and steamvr seem polished.
I have gone from being an optimistic pimax endorser to basically having to tell anyone to stay far far away.
I think parallel projection requirements make it more GPU demanding than it could have been. If we didn’t need PP then most popular games would be close to 90 fps or at least above 70 fps which is very playable. This would also reduce GPU requirements from 2080 ti to something more reasonable.
Being a small company with a small team is something that is unavoidable. It means clunky software and mediocre customer service. This can be improved with further profits and growth over time. Time will tell if it does actually happen.
I think Pimax has the best product for a tech savvy enthusiast with a fat wallet. The Valve headset will hopefully be better than the Vive Pro, which will hopefully become the gold standard for upper mid-tier around 1080ti level.
Aye, Pimax has a great FOV but it’s myriad other problems bring that back down tbh.
Cracked casing issues, poor communication, long shipping times, etc.
I do want to like the Pimax as I like the look, and FOV but the company needs to get some things together…far too many QC issues and beating around the bush with some of these issues for me to want to fork over my hard earned cash to pimax…which sucks as I really want to.
Pimax could be the top VR HMD but right now disintegrating casings, eyestrain issues and few other things like that are making it come in under the VivePro (with lens mod) IMO in terms of quality.
A for the Index still waiting til we see some real reviews on it…ahem SweViver ahem…
While Pimax has wide FOV, only normal is really used which is 140-150
Also getting ipd and optics working is very hard for a good amount of users.
On top of that the strap it ships with is not great and does not include head phones. (hard strap not included in price)
Then we have the PP mode that has to be used on a lot of games bringing down performance.
We also have to use PI tool (which is not so bad) and have change settings a lot of times to get games to work optimally (no per game settings)
Pimax’s Eyetracking module release date is no where to be found and the chance that apps will support some kind of fovated rendering with is slim to none. Also nothing about wireless other than its hard we hope we can do it.
This is why I think Valve index’s upto 130 FOV might be good enough for me. Everything else it offers seems like an advantage over pimax. (especially the optics for me). The 120-144hz mode will also be great.
Current consumer HMDs don’t take the most advantage of current GPUs yet. So I don’t agree GPUs are limiting factor.
SweViver’s XTAL video shows that with better panels/optics and panel utilization even rendered with its native 2560x1440 resolution it gives a lot more actual resolution and clarity.
I regularly run my Pimax 8K at 3,700 x 2,xxx … imagine if there was an HMD that could take full use of those pixels.
As for Index … maybe the overall result of all the improvements will surprise us. I hope a company like Pimax hurries up and brings out an even better HMD though.
Despite that, even if XTAL is less taxing than a Pimax 5K/8K, if you consider the resolution and FOV (which make the game compute more data) for each eye, the GPU IS a limiting factor.
I do believe the VR scene won’t make any major leap before eye-tracking becomes a thing in consumer headset (what happened the the japanese FOVE headset ??), which will fully make use of big resolution while keeping requirements low thanks to fovated rendering.
The problem with foveated rendering is that it simply isn’t a thing yet.
I also, now that I have a working backer 5k, no belief how they are going fit any additional tracking cameras inside the pimax.
There simply isnt any room, there isnt any depth left and I have already damaged my new specs because of it, so using my older smaller glasses for now.
Whatever I have seen of the eyetracking prototypes simply wouldnt fit the hmd’s we now have.
For the fove i believe someone on the elite forums a while back got a backer unit, but it would not work on windows 7 and he was clearly too autistic to update to win 10.
That was the last inheard of that.
What we currently have for eyetracking tech is also simply not up to task, it would need to be 90+ hz at minimum and we just don’t have bamdwidth to handle 2+ such cameras and an hmd on a single usb 3 cable.
In a nutshell foveated rendering as what people hope it will be is most likely years away, maybe before 2030.
For game integration on the other it wouldn’t be near that demanding, for looking at menus or aiming something etc, that we should be able to handle with off the shelf tech already.
I havent heard anything about fove lately either and I suspect that is simply because they realised that it simply creates more issues than they solve.
Like Carmack states, if we could simply create software that fully utilises the hardware we have already we wouldn’t need foveated rendering.
So that is honestly where I think the effort is best spent, on software optimisation.
yes you are absolutely right, I was thinking this as well. All the cards are out on the table now and Pimax is superior to all of them in some way or another and yet I see backers selling their units. Lets look at the facts
People were kind of on pimax for using LCD. But now every major player has switched to low persistence LCD. What was potentially a disadvantage has now become the norm.
I’ve read articles claiming that Pimax wasn’t VR 2.0. But one look at the Index and the Rift S and you realize that Pimax is definetly 2.0. I mean just a couple of months ago we all witnessed ACTUAL EYETRACKING on the show floor the day HTC announced it on their future headset. Wow. Anyone how thinks Pimax isn’t 2.0 needs help considering Pimax has built to be modular.
Index controllers revolutionary? I know pimax sword controllers are copies, but from Voodoo DE and if you listen to Norm from Tested He still wishes the Index had an analog Grip button like the touch. Guess what the Sword has that button, and according to VooDoo has more natural button placement.
But what really hurts pimax here it seems is themselves. They have like 6 SKUs before they even deliver all of their pledges to backers. What the hell is a rugged edition. Does that make the 5k+ i currently own the Fragile Edition? After hearing numerous reports of pimax headsets cracking for no reason. You would think that the goal would be to make all Pimax headsets “Rugged” no charging for it like it’s a feature. In all the years of owning different headsets ive never had a headset feel as fragile as my pimax, it honestly feels like it could break at anytime.
Within the first few weeks, prominent VR Youtuber’s all got Pimax headsets and Nathie, Steve from VR Roundtable, Tyriel Wood , and all of them have had to RMA their headsets publicly , what are the odds of that!?
I love my pimax but I dont have alot of time these days and all I wanted to do was fire up battlezone which i owned on Oculus Home. But when i start it i get a black screen but when I move my head i can make out the battlezone logo. If i increase to Large FOV it crashes on startup. I love this headset when it works, but man it can be frustrating sometimes.
So to summarize, you’re right this should be Pimax’s year to overthrow everybody, a true underdog tale, but it seems that ALOT of work needs to be done to gain the trust of the general consumer if that is ever going to happen.
Yeah I really dont get that. They literally dont want our money its weird. Why not just accept the pre order and tell us that shipping time may vary from country to country instead of turning us away. Say what you will about pimax but they never turned customers away at the door.
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haha as if it were that easy!