VoodooDE - 8kx Review

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A little review? Remind me to pack a lunch and a sleeping back if you ever do a BIG review. :slight_smile:
Nicely done tho’, you covered all the bases, pros and cons and I think in a very fair way.

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At 1.25x playback speed his voice sounds the same but faster.

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So , after all the super negative reviews lately . FOV wins in the end.

Also very interesting is the fact that he acquired his headset, not from Pimax but from a customer.

Remember when I was saying that Pimax is officially on shelves but not handing out review units to the big guys.

I wondered why guys like @Tyrielwood didn’t go through back channels to get ā€œthe scoopā€ like they used to.

There really is no reason more reviews couldn’t be out. If they would get creative about getting their hands on one.

I mean the headset itself is great and you would think it would be worth it even to buy it for yourself.

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I guess the answer is that it is considered to be a niche headset for the die-hards & tinkerers, but not for the greater population of VR users.

And I have to admit while the 8KX has finally grown on me to some extent, having managed to reduce (yet not fully resolve) the convergence issues I have, the effort it took to get there, and the friction of use with the different factors of SteamVR, PiTool etc. to take into account do not make it a headset I would easily recommend to friends.

So I might come to the conclusion that I prefer e.g. the G2 (with a FoV mod) and even may sell my 8KX off (though I am leaning towards keeping it for the use cases which do profit a lot form the wider FoV). The G2 at this stage is not yet the killer headset either, but just as I gave the 8KX time I will need to do the same with the G2 too.

However, coming back to the 8KX: it is a difficult beast to me, to be honest. On the one hand it is ground-breaking by offering high-resolution picture absent of SDE with a FoV at the same time, potentially modular with eye- and hand-tracking (if/when they work as desired). But on the other hand it has some flaws, for me the convergence issue could only be limited yet not resolved, and it feels a wee bit clunky on my head due to its sheer size and slightly loose fit. And I e.g. still need to figure out if the 3D effect is as good for me as with other headsets.

At the end I would prefer to have one headset for every use, and possibly will take some compromise into account when making my choice.

So now consider the view of somebody who is not as invested into VR as I am, has not bonded emotionally with this KS campaign for 4 years but just is looking for a good VR experience. If I were a Youtuber, addressing the mainstream VR user market, I would not go an extra mile to get the 8KX as it is clearly not going to be the choice these average Joe users will go for. And you’d risk getting angry reactions from users who purchase an 8KX after your review because they want the best experience, but then find out that it is oh so burdensome to get there, and for some it won’t even ever be such a good experience due to individual issues like e.g. the convergence, or distortions some are very sensitive to, etc…

I can see why the reviewers are not super keen to put out a review - it is a complex headset, and the viewers may have very different experiences with it. To a certain degree it is unrewarding for a Youtuber, I guess. No matter what he says, he will get flak for it from some group of users out there. I think Thomas did a decent job in reflecting this in his review.

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They are waiting to iron out as many kinks as they can before sending to reviewers to try ensure good press.

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Speaking of Tyrielwood : he told me 2 days ago that he is posting something really special today on his channel, perhabs an xtal , star vr one or my guess is pimax 8k X ( most likely)

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Unfortunately I don’t think I will be able to push the video today at the end :S but it’s not the 8k X.

But to answer @drowhunter, the reason is very easy to explain, I can’t justify the cost :slight_smile:
luckily we have Thomas with his awesome review :slight_smile:

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Well, if you can get your hands on one, it would be nice to see a review of the new 5K Super.
I’ve been thinking about buying that one for Sim racing- if I enjoy sim racing as much as I hope I will!
Cheers

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I totally agree.

Wanna bet that thrillseeker doesn’t include a Pimax in his round up.

What’s sad is the Vive Cosmos is in this list.

Someone close to Tyriel Lend him your 8kX :slight_smile:
I need those epic TTL videos.

Heavy weight showdown between 8kX and G2.
:smiley:

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Umm, don’t you actually have them both yourself? Nothing that Tyriel could show would be more effective for you than your in person experience with them! :slight_smile: TTL videos are fine but I’d much rather be able to try it for myself

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Haha yeah @drowhunter has the G2 now for 2 weeks (or so he says) but he refuses to test it and then asks others to review? Haha, not sure what to think about that but it’s at least a bit weird :slight_smile:

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Sometimes you have to give a headset a bit of time. The 8KX has grown on me. The G2 needs a mod to the FoV to make sense; I modded it according to MRTVā€˜s suggestion today (with a Vive VRCover foam & velcro) and the FoV now is acceptable. However, in order to appreciate the high resolution, I need to wear my glasses (just like the 8KX) and that is uncomfortable with this mod. So I will have to wait & see if some kind of prescription lens mod (like VROptiker, etc.) provides a comfortable solution for the FoV mod.

If that works out I would probably consider the G2 as having the upperside just a bit; but itā€˜s a close race! Depending on your personal preferences and use cases it could swing to either side.

But only time will tell - it would be unfair to come to a conclusion after 1,2 days. Then I would have blasted both the 8KX and the G2…

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I don’t know; Seems like a bit of a lose-lose situation, kind of worth sparing oneself…
Possible outcomes:

  • Just: ā€œMehā€, in general - not much difference to speak of.
  • Disappointment with either device.
  • Frustration over not being able to combine the pros of both, without any of the glaring cons of either.

Can’t win. :stuck_out_tongue:

For my own part; I guess I could write a little follow-up regarding my 8kX experience, now that some pairs of weak reading glasses I had ordered have arrived: :7

So, with +0.75 reading glasses, I first thought they didn’t help any at all - even just made things even worse; But after much fiddling, including breaking off the nose-rests, so that I can stuff the things right into my eye sockets, they do.

There is a tiny spot, where I can line up the glasses and the HMD, where focussing is considerably more comfortable than unassisted (…although I now seem prone to get a mild headache). At this point, the whole: ā€œat least one eye sees object X in some degree of focusā€, thing really does work pretty well for me; The eye with the better focus balances for the other, without nearly as much binocular rivalry discomfort as before; And in the overlapping (stereo) area, my ability to resolve detail is greater than what I can make out with either eye alone, as it should be.

Don’t get me wrong: The radius in tolerable focus is still not noteably better than with my original Vive and RiftCV1, and the tiny spot seen right through the centre of each lens still has absolutely superior sharpness to its surroundings just a degree or two away, but I can now use the device, and consider making it my daily driver, replacing the Index. The latter still ā€œfeelsā€ larger FOV in a way, since more of it is ā€œusefulā€ FOV, but the 8kX is now tolerable to the point its resolution advantage weighs heavy in its cup on the scales.

I do find dealing with glasses inside the HMD a major hassle, though, and would like to express my sympathy to all who have to wear the bastards in daily life.

It’s not just the matter of getting them to stay put, not rub against the HMD lenses, nor your eyeballs/-lashes, and their limiting your FOV; But they also add more surfaces that inevitably fog up, and most importantly: Enlarges the view, so that it is no longer geometrically veritic - the whole view now appears too big, and compressed on the z axis, particularly bad with things far away, which appear way too close – I feel I would need an adjusted distortion profile, to take the added optical elements into account. (It is possible to ameliorate the depth issue with some stereo separation offset, but that does not make things smaller on screen, and just makes the discrepancy that much ā€œweirderā€.)

I am quite convinced it should be possible to grind a pair of progressive lenses, that mitigates the field-curvature-to-screen discrepancy, to a quite satisfying degree, but that’s beyond me. :7

( I also have to reiterate that I just can’t understand what those are smoking, who self-contradictingly claim they get both a sharp view, and zero-ish screen door effect. The SDE just about jumped out at me, even before I took glasses into the HMD, and now it is sharp and crisp as hell. (I, for one, take the SDE as a positive indication of sharpness though, and not just a downside - I guess some just see blur as a good thing, however bizarre that sounds to me.)).

I still find things much too dim. I know several users reduce screen brigthness, and find the default too strong and stinging their eyes, but for me, I have to use 100%, and +2 contrast (and -2 brightness), to make things barely acceptably bright, and colours not muddy, and there, alas, the brights crush badly to white. :confused:

On the other hand - it seems the extra contrast is what makes planet textures pop so beautifully to me in Elite Dangerous, with the 8kX - not just the resolution, so there’s a sliver lining to every cloud. :7

About reprojection… If I stress my system toward low frame rates, it would seem SteamVR on the Index, set to 80Hz refresh rate, produces much smoother output than piserver does to the 75Hz 8kX, at same low frame rate numbers – hell, even when making the target frame rate, I seem to get more stutter, and judder, and lag with the 8kX – I recall something about piserver streaming low IMU data rates?

( …As for motion vector extrapolation: I have yet to encounter any implementation of such, that is not a terrible juddery, ghosting, smearing mess, between Oculus, SteamVR, and PiServer. I’ll admit I haven’t tried the WMR version, but the assurances I hear from its fans, regarding the matter, ring only too similar to the same I’ve previously had from Oculus fans, ever since the first ASW (…and ATW before that, too, for that matter))

So… Glasses… Have any glasses wearer been trying the eye-tracking module?

Seems to me there is not room for glasses and the eyetracker, unless one increase eye relief too much, moving way out of the sweet spot, and every aspect of the view suffering for it…?
Do the lenses of the glasses interfere with the tracking?
Do the lenses of the glasses interfere with the tracking when pressed up all the way to the vitally important reflective screen on the eye tracker?
Was the tracker not supposed to serve as mount for supplemental lenses? -How is that meant to work, exactly?

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Yeah it will definitely come down to your own preference and experience with the headset. If you don’t have any eye strain at all, nor any optical problems with the 8k-X and don’t mind too much about the colors and slight SDE, you’ll probably end up with the X as the winner. But if you want absolute clarity, best colors and no SDE at all, plus you can live with the smaller FoV, then the G2 will be your best choice.

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I guess this is a typical ā€œone too many headset syndromeā€. Basically, after trying so many headsets you realize that none is perfect and you have to choose the lesser evil (so to speak). Now you get yet another headset and it seems that the necessity to choose just gets harder from N degrees of freedom to N+1. Weaker souls get eventually overwhelmed and need external support. I believe @drowhunter might be at the brink of it.

This is strange. FWIW I am wearing concave glasses (as I am shortsighted), and things typically look a bit smaller in them than when looking at them without glasses. They look more smaller further I put the glasses. I would guess that convex glasses (for reading) might exhibit a similar behavior (i.e. changing the perceived object size with the distance from the eyes), and as you seem to be using them in less conformant manner

you may just face the optics. When wearing the glasses without the headset, do you also perceive the size/depth discrepancy?

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Oh yes - as one would, as you intimate, expect with convex lenses. Got a bunch of different strength reading glasses for trying out, and for stuffing my head differently close up to things; Each diopter makes things appear that much bigger, as does pulling the glasses away from my eyes. :7

I’m giving it some time to properly compare them. I just value @Tyrielwood opinion and I know that if he reviews it well then alot of people will see it.

My word means nothing to anyone… I’m nobody. :slight_smile:

You are half correct. Truth is the timing of the HP arriving is really bad right now as I’ve been hit with ā€œcrunchā€ before the holidays with work.

I’ve had it for a week now and haven’t even had more than an an hour to play with it yet.

I also finally built my 5800X machine and realized that the 465X case from corsair is too tiny for me needs so i am returning it and replacing it with a 680X.

I will be getting some serious eyes on this week for sure

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