Hi Enthusiasts,
VR arcades are important explorers of immersive experience.
Our current default features of the business version Pimax 8K including 1-2 m and 10m cable options, leather face foam, HMD protecting cover etc.
We would like to learn your suggestions/expectations about the business version, i.e. what works/doesn’t work base on your experiences with VR arcades, for better VR Park experience in the future.
Some of the accessories would be available for consumers as well!
@deletedpimaxrep1 I think this suggestion would be a positive for your approach to business edition hardware, but also for your general consumer HMD.
I know the company does not develop games, but I think it would be a good approach for Pimax as a company to incentivise developers to incorporate explicit multi-GPU support for the software meant to be used on the 8k. NVIDIA has the likes of VRWorks, Pimax should have a means for devs to optimize for unconventional configuations.
With the emphasis on premium clarity and high FOV offered by your HMD, developers need (now more sobthan ever) to have access to all the pixel pushing power they can get, for as little money as possible. Thats especially true for enterprise customers who already have multi gpu rigs.
With memory shortages being what they are, and crypto mining making GPUs more and more expensive, and next gen gpus likely to be offering the usual 20% increase in rendering power, better multi gpu support is going to be an important means of making very high end VR more accesible to more people at lower cost.
As of right now, Nvidia’s next gen GPU is propably going to cost $1000, and cards like the 1080 are still $539 .
Multi GPU (properly optimized) can make lower end cards like the rx 580 suitable to deliver about the same performance as a 1070.
It seems to me that VR will face (or is facing) a bottleneck situation. The displays are getting to be higher in pixel count, higher in refresh rate, etc. but computing is having trouble keeping pace.
Even if you implement eye tracking with perfectly implemented foveated rendering, the returns are about 45% improvement in efficiency. This isnt enough though while GPUs are so expensive relative to the modest increases in performance that we see generation to generation.
Include the eye tracking and hand tracking module on the business version. That way, people could go to vr arcades to try them. It’s very possible that people would buy the modules if they had the chance to test them first.
@deletedpimaxrep1 Just a thought, but maybe have an open source version of Piplay and your display driver (if it is not already) to allow your customers to tailor the HMD to their needs.
It would also undoubtedly help you polish the HMD software at a low cost.
I think you’re underestimating the gains of foveated rendering. Keep in mind this is a 200 degree fov headset, so the gains will be much more. The resolution is also noticeably higher. A 60% performance increase wouldn’t be crazy. It would probably be more. Not to mention there’s room for optimization.
Its not an underestimation, but a conservative one. Foveated rendering will require an optimized piece of software to get good returns anyway, relative to the cost of the tracker, its update rate, and its quality. I was looking at it more from the likely landscape of GPU hardware advancement relative to display tech advancement.
Nvidia puts out expensive cards that are usually only about 20% faster, and they stick to an architecture for a very long time because they have almost no competition.
Vrwerks & liquidvr are more for Dx11 titles. Dx12 & Vulkan take over the Mgpu from what I read up. But yeah premium face foam options should be available for both reg consumers & business alike.
The eye tracker they showed us a picture of is aGlass. It’s well capable of foveated rendering. They even have an official demo you can try. There are shimmering artifacts in the demo, but that’s due to the type of foveated rendering they’re using in the demo. All we need now is optimizations and for developers to implement it into their games.
Business Edition should have a higher premium price for business level Warrenty purposes coversge since it will have heavier usage & businesses will want premium support options (help with sdk etc).
Vulcan’s multi gou implementation and DX12 require dev specific implementation, so thats why I think Pimax should have some means of encouraging devs to do that.
Manufacturers wont streamline good multi gpu because they want the high end SKUs to sell.
Good for games & programs that support it sure.
That’s where they will want devs to utilize their Sdk.
Well, I’m always hoping that someone will make a driver solution so games don’t have to directly support it. Maybe Pimax could be the one 
They need to open source their drivers, firmware, and SDK so we can tinker.
@deletedpimaxrep1, a better question would be: How much time do guys you think you can spend on these businesses? I thought we backers were the first priority, and because of those businisses we got on 2nd place and now we’ll have to wait more for the shipping because you again must moddify the headset…Just give us an update about time of shipping for backers already, we don’t care about any of VR arcades here.
With a business edition, i think the most important thing to have that you do not have now is fast accurate IPD detection.
The headset is very sensitive to having correct IPD to get the best experience. But businesses also dont want to lose time to setting up each headset for each individual user.
If two eye tracking modules could be used to determine IPD , then the dial can be quickly manually turned to the correct setting, giving visual feedback inside the headset.
Hi Xunshu,
The biggest problem I have seen at game conferences and expositions has been calibration of the HMD for first time users. When software developers setup booths we have somewhere between 10-30 stations and maybe 4-6 staff on hand to manage the experience of event goers. Your commercial customers might not be from the same field but if they are using the HMD for public demonstrations they will likely be encountering the same issue we share: demonstration turnaround time of 10-20 minutes. On the showfloor of E3 and Gamescom we get several thousand visitors over the course of 3 days.
If there is any means that PIMAX can provide to speed up calibration process for the HMD for the public this would make managing a booth which demo’s in the VR environment a lot easier. Auto IPD adjustment with supporting software tools would be fantastic (it does not need to be perfect for 15 minutes of viewing). It means a more comfortable experience for users, makes a better first impression on the product being shown and reducing staff headcount requirement for events.
Businesses like Disney are partners.
Just another reason to have the eye tracker on the business version. Automatic ipd adjustment.
Like i care about Disney. Come on now, we just got downrank from 1st priority to the 2nd priority. Stupid businsses. More delays in shipping.