VISION 8KX and 120Hz upscale mode

I think I should announce this in advance, before people start to get worried.

The VISION 8KX units which are currently shipped have a firmware with native 75Hz mode, and an upscale 90Hz mode. Do no worry though, as we are internally testing and confirming higher and lower refresh rates for the upscale mode as well, and a firmware will be available soon for you all, which will automatically update through PiTool.

The main reason is that we are still fine-tuning the 120Hz mode. Currently we have a stable 118Hz upscale mode in one of the internal firmware versions, which works stable and Im testing it myself. We aim of course to reach a stable 120Hz and that is our main goal. Although, there is a potential risk that 120Hz might take more time to finalize than we expected, and therefore there is also a risk you might get a 118hz update at first, while we keep improving the 120Hz mode.

Just have this in mind, and please understand the whole process is not just about increasing refresh rate numbers or changing the timings. The team, including panel vendors are working on this together.

So, lets be patient for a few days more or a week or so, and once we feel satisfied with the 118Hz version, your 8KX will automatically update, and have it available. Once the 120hz is as stable, we will of course replace the 118hz mode with 120hz. The standard (currently available) 90Hz and probably also 72Hz upscale mode will of course be available as well.

Thanks for your understanding

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Hi Martin, if you already think 118hz mode is potentially stable, surely you have something like 110-115 working, why not publish 110hz now and then keep working on the 110+120 one in the background, I’m sure people would be happy with 110hz as a stop gap?

But thanks for getting out in front of this one.

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I agree, but I also think since we promised 120Hz already before CES, the customers deserve something that is at least very close to 120Hz, like 118, and release it while we keep working on 120. There might be a 110Hz mode added for 8KX as well, which shouldn’t be that hard to accomplish, as the 8K+ already uses it.

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What is the theoretical bandwith that you would need for one cable to push 120hz at native 4k . Would displayport 2.0 be enough in 3 years ?

And I dont think 120hz is possible on the 8k X without ghosting . We already have ghosting on the 8k Plus with 110hz when moving the head fast . Since 8k X got the same Panel as the 8k+ … well there is that …

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Native 4K 120Hz should theoretically be possible with two DP1.4 cables. Maybe something for the not-so-far-away future, who knows. But Im not sure about the DP2.0 interface though.

Yes there is still some slight ghosting in 110Hz mode on 8K+ and we are also doing our best to eliminate it on the 118/120Hz 8KX upscale mode. Its in progress and we have a dedicated team working on this. We have not forgotten the 8K+. The beauty is that both headsets share the same panels, so once we have a totally ghosting-free solution for the highest refreshrates, it will be applied to both 8K+ and 8KX.

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Hi Swe,

As @geoffvader said, thanks for getting ahead of this before the usual crowd finds their next fictional axe to grind.

Personally I‘m not particularly keen on running the 8KX in upscale mode although I absolutely do appreciate the inclusion of an upscaler in that model as a performance fallback.

Is there any news or work being done on pushing the native refresh rate beyond the current 75hz?

From my admittedly limited technical understanding, the 8KX is already using digital signal compression in native mode and 80hz ought to fit just about into the bandwidth budget.

There is of course the issue of signal degradation due to the cable which is why I was wondering if the announced optical cables are sending the USB signal only via the optical cable or if this was also the case for the DisplayPort cable. Because although the optical cables have definite downsides such as being more prone to breaking, they allow for virtually no signal degradation whatsoever.

@SweViver

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Martin, can Pimax add 48/50Hz? It can be useful to watch PAL movie and run extremely heavy apps. I believe technically is is not a problem and will not take a lot of effort.

I asked many times a 60 hz mode without DSC

Many would like to play DCS at 48/50/55/58 hz without DSC

the frequency that engineers could make

DSC = Display Stream Compression

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Does Pimax use any compression? I am pretty sure it is always uncompressed stream for any framerate.

they’re using dsc for native mode at least, if i recall correct.

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Theoretically with wireless adapter 8KX can do 120 HZ in native mode, right? So better put more efforts to develop wireless rather then playing with different cables…

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That Bandwith though.

Native? Remember, this are 75Hz Panels. 120Hz is hard overdrive.
But 90Hz would be fine.

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Well, and still they’re telling us that they’re aiming for 120Hz upscaled (meaning the panels will run 120Hz).

Are You sure it’s 75Hz panels?

I was under the impression that the 75Hz refresh rate used when running native resolution was due to bandwidth limit imposed by the cables?

:upside_down_face:

https://community.openmr.ai/t/8kx-screens-same-as-8k/28908/16?u=drwilken

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Cool haven’t though of that yet! Apparently 802.11ay can reach up to 176Gbit/s, which should be enough… So the gen1 8kX might allow more than anticipated.

If the panels can be driven at 120 Hz in upscale mode then they seem conceptually be able to run at these frequencies at 4k, right?

Questiion is how to get the image signal into the HMD… The DP port might restrict us to DP 1.4 rates again. So another hardware revision might still be necessary?

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We will see… I’m not impressed by the 110Hz today… some ghosting on the same panels.

Sweviver has tell, this are the same panels as in the 4K XTAL. This panels has regular 75Hz. You can this overdrive without problems to 90Hz., more is experimentell

But he wrote also, the Panel manufacturer works with Pimax to make more Hz possible.

Edit: it’s people screaming for more frequency. more, more, more…
let’s forget about physical facts. If it doesn’t work, then it’s suddenly Pimax’s fault.

I find 90 Hz perfectly fine.

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My thought exactly. If it’s a hard limit I don’t see how the wireless solution can overcome it.

If not, I guess they could do some kind of overclock since they’re in control of all the devices (transmitter → receiver → headset)?

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Everyone wants 120hz. Everyone doesn’t realise that pretty much no game will run at stable 120hz at high quality.

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there are two great marketing problems…
if pimax renamed two things, there would be less trouble.

FOV Large(experimentell)*
120Hz (experimentell)*
*it is not guarantee, this modes will work for every person properly

(Some people does not realize, Normal FoV is Normal, Large is an Extra.)
Some people have no problem, to see a little ghosting)

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I would actually put it the other way round as “normal” utilizes less of the panel than “large”.

Originally, there wasn’t supposed to be anything but “large” (which one could argue would then be “normal”)… :grin:

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