Personally I’ll get both.
Probably hit Half-Life Alyx again on the Crystal for the detail.
… Hopefully backed by a 4090.
Probably DCS for the 12K for that glorious FOV.
… I hope the Yaw2 releases to me too!
2 Likes
I can’t say 100% i’m getting a Crystal but it is highly likely, and a 4090 (that’s pretty much a cert). I’m not shy in spending that sort of cash on a hmd as i bought an Aero. I’m not sure if i want to be the 1st in queue i.e. to buy without waiting for independent reviews etc, also i’m not sure if i’d only buy it from Amazon…but idk if the Crystal will be available on Amazon from the start? I imagine it will be at some point, just as the 8KX etc was.
1st game for me to play will be msfs, that sim shines in high clarity. then some driving sims like ams2, ac, ets2/ats, alyx wirelessly streamed would be epic, just hope it can stream ok (that’s why i’m thinking of waiting for reviews).
I’m not buying a 12K. I have no trade in hmd and i think it’s going to be too hard to power the 12K with its huge fov, i hope i’m wrong.
Hi,
I will hold off for now and take a good look at the reports from brave first users of the Crystal. I was told that it still needs parallel projection, despite such a small FOV. This is the main reason for my reluctance. It may be even a deal breaker.
Hopefully some youtubers and others will come up with objective reports soon.
hi, who told you that?
1 Like
Hi,
Pimax’s hammerhead_gal did. See below:
hammerhead_galRegular
1
55
As a all-in-one with Inside out tracking ,the controllers will be an standard configuration.
Yes
Yes, parallel projection is also needed
2 Likes
That a real pitty…!!
1 Like
every cantet hmd. The index use it also, but in the background.
No PP is the job of the game devs.
Hi,
I also have a Valve Index, but with it I do not need parallel projection. Don’t really know if the Index uses it in the background, but as far as I can see it has no negative impact on FPS, unlike Pimax.
2 Likes
less degree = lower impact, but yes, it works every time in the background
I just forgot how big the angle was. really small, under 5 degree.
Wonder if there will be less impact on the Crystal when compared to the 8kx, since it has a smaller FOV than even the Index. Should require less degrees, shouldn’t it?
good chance
I am questioning that given the small FOV, are canted displays even necessary with the Crystal?
If the game dev only programs for straight displays, two other viewports must be used and calculated for canted panels. Otherwise shadows and perspectives are wrong. If this make the game dev, this is only a smaller part of the area. PP must rerender booth panels new. Therefore the higher impact. (roughly explained)
With straight panels, 90-100 degrees horizontally makes sense. With wider panels, you get strong edge distortions. Angled panels counteract this somewhat. Light just wants to go straight.
I think the FPS impact of the Crystal is negligible. Look at the effect in the 8kx at Potato FOV with and without PP. 3-4% maybe.
2 Likes
Thanks for the explanation!
I guess in a few weeks or months we will find out a lot more about the Crystal’s performance. Wir werden es ja dann sehen… 
1 Like
You can gain a tiny bit of performance with the Index, for titles that work without PP, by disabling it using the key: "renderCameraMode" : "raw", under "steamvr" : {}", in your steamvr.vrsettings file (default is "parallel").
The advertised horizontal FOV of the Crystal is the same as the the Index, for the default lens, and ten degrees more with the optional wider FOV one. Whether this is true - who knows…
I would assume the software will retain options to render smaller FOVs for the 12k.
How things come out in actual use remains to be seen.
1 Like
The GPU “cost” of parallel projection goes up with the FOV being rendered. The rendering plane takes on the shape of a “butterfly-bowtie”, so at the relatively low FOV of the Crystal it may not be that taxing. Not nil either though, but keep in mind most games do support canted displays now. Naturally, the canted display gives you added FOV, but decreased binocular overlap.
Glad to hear!
Hi @jojon,
I have no performance issues with the Index. It is the 8kx where I have performance problems with X-Plane. So much that I cannot use the 8kx with XP. On the other hand MSFS and DCS work great now with the 8kx thanks to MBuccia’s Pimax XR and Open XR toolkit.
2 Likes
I’m tempted to buy the Crystal only because it’s coming out sooner. And while people here might think that I believe the 12K will release on schedule, I don’t really know. I just don’t believe the people who keep posting that they are absolutely certain the 12K will be very late and will be a piece of junk that doesn’t actually work.
I’ve been spoiled on the 8KX, and I just don’t think I can go back to narrow FOV. And amidst all these rumors of other VR headsets from other companies that are supposedly in the works which are supposed to be amazing, none of them are even rumored to be implementing wide FOV. If anything, they’re going to be even narrower. So I don’t see anything on the horizon that I’m interested in besides the 12K.
I imagine the first “game” I’ll play on it is VRChat. I want to see how much the even wider FOV adds to immersion. My second game will probably whatever VR game I’ve been currently playing at the time. But I’ll definitely want to check out Alyx, too. And other of the more photorealistic titles.
2 Likes
I’m going to trade in my 8KX for the 12k. I’ve had few problems with my 8KX-certainly compared to some poor unfortunates- and I think Pimax has improved in terms of product and service a lot in the last year or so. I use VR exclusively for flight and driving sims, so the Wide FOV is important to me.
Cheers!
3 Likes