Am I the only one who thinks Pimax heard about the 144 Hz Index and thought “that’s the key selling point we need to beat it”
[Typical Pimax year delay bringing things to market]
TA-DA!
[Tumble weed]
We need better customer service, smart innovative solutions to the VR overheads (dynamic FOVR is a good start) not a constant barrage of sub-standard headsets that apparently get delayed due to QA testing and then fail anyway (making me think it was just a BS excuse in the first place for the delays).
Great pioneering spirit but if you don’t look after your customer base we won’t stick around and I want Pimax to dominate.
Just a thought around the 5k Super that is not related to refresh rates, and if I am right, Pimax is not doing the optimal marketing for the 5k Super.
I had the Artisan for some weeks and sold it because of tracking issues that could not be solved. The display however was amazing! Much less SDE and better colors compared to 5K Plus. The black levels where great for a LCD display, much better than the 8KX.
If the 5k Super uses the same displays as the Artisan (yes the artisan has a 2560x1440 pixel display that is restricted by firmware/software) it would be the reason to buy it as it was the best compromise between OLED and LCD. You have the almost zero SDE combined with good black levels and vivid colors! I have the 5k XR as well, but the dim screen and huge SDE make me still use my Vive Pro for dark games (and it being wireless is a strong point as well)!
If I am right about the screen, they should market it as an OLED alternative!
I also would like to add that the screen of the Artisan had no perceivable Mura. The most clean picture I ever saw in a headset!
I don’t believe the Artisan is using restricted display res as panels exist in that res the Artisan has. Otherwise when someone accidentally flashed a 5k firmware on it it would have unlocked the full panel. And prior you woul see the blackef out unused panel backlight.
Hopefully the 5kSuper is using something like the Razer Phone’s igloo hdr lcd screens.
So I can confirm that I flashed the 5k plus firmware and had the Large and Normal FOV option. I also could use 144 hz without issue. These are facts, not a theory!
The Colors however where totally oversaturated and made the system almost unusable.
Okay so then at least with the model you received had 5k+ screens.
What is curious though is why they haven’t updated the Artisan with the 144hz option if they all have repurposed 5k+ screens(there is likely some variants in the hardware)
I just recall another user had a 5k+ firmware flash on the Artisan and required support to fix it.
I doubt it is the 5k plus screen! I have had two 5k plus on my face and one was a 203 serial number. The SDE with all I tried was higher! The colors less vibrant and the blacks not good!
As mentioned, the colors where broken when using the 5k Plus firmware. It is reasonable to think that two different Displays with MIPI interface can technically work with the same firmware on the same “universal” controller board. Pimax makes most parts modular.
I did not try this intentionally. I had Pitool 264 and used the tool coming with it to update the firmware. I did update, but the unit was bricked with white LED!
I used the firmware (5k Plus for 202 serial) and tools found in this forum to flash it after bringing it to flashing mode manually. The unit was identified as 5K Plus afterwards.
I then requested the 266 Firmware from Pimax support some days later to get the Artisan back. The colors where really not working correctly and the large FOV did not outweigh this issue.
You would need to try @risa2000 hmdq tool if you still have the Artisan and reflash 5k+ firmware(don’t Recommend flashing it) and also try the other FoV visual check tools.
It is likely the firmware may have worked but you might not have had increased FoV.
The mipi bridge chip is shared between 5kseries Artisan and og 8k
You ask why they would not allow 144 Hz mode? The same reason why they would not allow the large FOV. To make a cheap product and get users on buying the better products later on.
And I think this is not a bad idea. If you sell a mass market product, certain components can be ordered in higher volumes and this will increase the margin on the more expensive products as well, as you increase volume.
You get a car and it can o a lot of things. it is just restricted by some bits in the control module. You can activate it if you know what you do (I pimped mine with Bluettoh and Wifi, right Mirror lowering when driving backwards, hill assistant and more! The hardware was already there!
The same Intel, AMD and NVIDIA are doing with their lower lines of CPUs/GPUs and there are tons of examples. It is more expensive to have different manufacturing lines then restricting features by software.
If they only use displays that have issues doing the full FOV is beyond my knowledge, but I doubt they would do an expensive preselection for that. Mine was working on full FOV. No dead pixels
Getting Pitool to display other headset options like Normal and Large and other refresh rates via a mismatched firmware flash doesn’t mean the hardware is really capable of those options. I imagine even if this works it could cause serious problems.
I used the HMD Test tool that can be bought for ~5,- Euros and measured 160, 140 and 120
The 128 of the Normal Artisan FOV was gone. I know what I am doing and what a larger FOV looks like
Please have some more confidence in me!
To reduce cost it would allow panels to be used that had issues beyond the highest res available on the Artisan.(ie dead pixels out of top fov available)
As the Artisan and 5k+ have no scaler it is possible this is why your firmware flash worked somewhat but had color issues.
The mipi bridgechip itself is not restricted to a particular panel.
Not doubting just getting clarification on methodology. It is interesting that the refresh worked as it demonstrates the Artisan should be upgraded to include the higher refresh rates. However it is possible like the 5k+ there are some out there that might not be able to support higher refresh rates due to different panels used.
I had the Artisan as well and although I liked it I don’t think the colours were significantly different than the 8KX (which I now have together with an OG vive (so I have experience with OLED)) after it’s recent firmware and Pitool update that give it backlighting. I had them both together before the update and yes, then I would have said the screens were better on the Artisan than the 8KX but not now. I say that because I’m almost totally happy with the 8KX in terms of it’s colours. When I first owned it I would lift it up and look at the colours of the game I’m playing on my monitor and be disappointed at the difference but now I go between the two and can hardly tell the difference. The only thing that bothers me is the burn out you get on highlights when you turn the contrast up but I remember I had exactly the same with the Artisan.
I understand your concern and why you don’t want this info floating around here. However, as I said the colors where to oversaturated and obviously the firmware settings had a problem here. I flashed it back to standard Artisan! I also don’t recommend this mod!
My point however is, if you have “similar” panels in the 5k super i would consider buying it despite having a 8KX and I would also sell my XR. I would also market it in the way to point out the minimal SDE, color quality and black levels. It might be more important to people than running 180 HZ. Of course you can mention this too
Since you are here and reading: Why is Pimax not able to solve the tracking (stutter/judder) issues that I had with all my headsets in blue housing with certain 2.0 base stations. I tried 8kx, Vision Artisan, 8K Plus. I started a thread here and there is also one about 8kx tracking. I had to buy Vive base stations 1.0 to use the 8KX without motion sickness! My Base Stations 2.0 worked fine with Vive Pro, Index and 5k XR (black housing). Why is there no info from Pimax on this issue?
Not at all, I love stuff like this - however flashing panels that are not the same with incorrect panel timings and incorrect backlight and lcd driver power levels can potentially (and even likely) cause perm damage.
It is incredibly dangerous and for us with internal testing we found panels can be quickly ruined with experimental settings. We put a lot of effort into offering Firmware options that we have tested not to cause damage.
Yes, since the new firmware is out I like it much better and the gap is closing! The colors can be good as well.
However, my memory tells me this: The colors were bright and vivid and the blacks deep. With the 8KX I can lower the backlight and have contrast high and color brightness lowered. I can even get rid of the green tint. But with lower backlight the colors are less vivid and with brighter backlight the blacks glow in my eyes when looking at them. They are blackish, not grey as with the Quest 2, but they “glow”, which is immersion breaking for me. The Artisan panel was good colors and good blacks at the same time.
It could also be that my memory is remembering things better as they are. However, I visited another Pimax user (bought my XR from him) and he also had the 8kX and a 5K plus and he was very stunned by the colors and almost zero SDE at the screen. So I am not alone
Since it was a Vision Artisan, maybe they used different panels as in the black ones, I cannot know if my observation is true for all Artisans out there.
I just would like to know if I buy a 5k Super, would it have the same screen. Having no Mura is also helping the immersion a lot. There is “clarity” despite the lower resolution.
Yes I like my 8KX a lot and look forward to 90 Hz mode (fingers crossed). It just has a green pixel in the center of the right eye, an offset in the vertical screen alignment of 2.5 (unusable when not changing this in software, heavy eye strain!) and some Mura! The Artisan that I got for 380,- Euros on Ebay was not 3 times worse when considering the 1500,- Euros that I spend on the 8KX! It had these flwas from the beginning!
More details on the panels in the Super would be great. As mentioned hdr igloo displays like sourced in the Razer Phone would be a definite win. Even just Hdr compliant panels.
Thank you for pointing this out! I don’t doubt this. My point was just that I would buy a 5K Super if it had the same quality panels as the Artisan in respect to colors, blacks, Mura, SDE. I was hoping it could be same panels but counterargument here was that it could not be as only 1700x1440 resolution. had to clear this up.
That means I still have no answer regarding this. Are there any youtuber reviews in the works? is there any more happening with official Reviewers?
You also did not touch my point why I have now two pairs of base stations…
The main thing about the super was to largely refrain from discussion about it until significant quantities were actually present in the warehouse.
On the lcd we’ll see what we can do about releasing some data on the new panel.
As for reviews we have a list of to-do’s we are nearing completion on that will significantly open that back up again after CES.
On your base stations 2’s, marcin, I, the office and others couldn’t replicate your issue. The fact that 1.0’s work for you and 2’s work poorly really is strange. I switch between them in different locations all the time and no detectable difference. Perhaps one of our tech’s can remote in and troubleshoot for you.
