90deg vertical!! So it was actually that bad!
I tried it a few weeks ago and I think it was @Djonko that told me it actually was a higher FOV that other headsets. 90 vFOV is not high by any measure (lower than even Quest 2), and the super wide FOV really makes it look much worse vertically. Of course the aero is worst vertically but I seriously couldnât get over how bad the XTAL was, especially for the price. I honestly would take a Quest 2 literally anyday. Absolutely no competition with an 8KX.
Tbf I only tried it twice and for short periods of time but that vertical fov is ridiculous with such a wide FOV, it just makes it look terrible and unimmersive overall.
Anyway, that article wasnât a review. It just listed the stats and said absolutely nothing else. Clearly the person that wrote it (if a person even did, an AI could generate this fairly easily) has never touched the headset as there wasnât a single impression or even a non-stock image.
Edit: This was too harsh lol. My dislike for the headset is completely irrational. I think I was just very excited to try it and get a glimpse into the future and I was really disappointed to see visuals worse than an 8KX with a terrible vFOV. Itâs not as bad as Iâm making it out Iâm sure, and I guess for the intended purpose (like flight training) then itâs a fantastic headset.
Horizontal FoV yes. the 90 VFoV has been a complaint since the first Xtal.
Pimax has higher Vertical FoV but much lower HFoV at 160 for large mide vs 180 of the Xtal hmds.
Yeah and the XTAL doesnât have distortions which is obviously very nice. I will say though, the clarity on the 8KX was quite a bit better and the higher vFOV is much more important than that extra hFOV. I had a non-VR friend try the XTAL and the first thing he mentioned was the vFOV. It is just mind blowing for a product of this price and size but then again, it really is meant to just do that one thing well and it does. So itâs not fair for me to think of it as a gaming headset.
It would be interesting to hear uf @OlivierJT has checked out the Xtal as the pimax hmds were not accurate to what his project.
Hello Heliosurge ^^
Surprised after all these years I am still quoted ^^
Hope all is well for you!
I havenât tried XTal a they are B2B and super pricey, but recently Pimax did a roadshow and came to Paris.
So after the terrible experience I had (unusable HMD due to distortion that made me insta nauseous when turning my head) I wanted to check the Crytal.
Less FOV but zero distortion, so they fixed that. Cool device but way too $$$.
Regarding HMD with Big FOV, I have a StarVR on the way, it will arrive this Friday from Japan.
Itâs 210FOV+Eye tracking, Steam Tracking, but reso is a little low, but itâs an HMD from 2018 if I am correct.
Full RGB AMOLED,1,830 x 1,464 per eye.
Exclusive to LBE (Arcades), price was about +5000$
(StarVR â Products)
Should be definitely interesting, I will do the report on my twitter (OlivierJT_SU)
Hehehe this seems to be the fairest statement in your âreviewâ. Youâre right, youâre completely irrational, you just wanted to hate this headset that you canât afford anyway. Thatâs why you only tried it for a minute and didnât even talk to vrengineers about any of your concerns, you just wanted to be able to dismiss the headset as âterribleâ. It doesnât make any sense at all at to dismiss a vfov thatâs only 10% less than your beloved pimax as âterribleâ to me anyway.
I said itâs higher than the aero and it is. The aeroâs vfov is in the 80-something if I measure it with the fov tool. Donât get me wrong, like I said myself, the xtal has several disadvantages and the pricing is ridiculous. I would therefore never recommend it to anyone, itâs just not worth the ridiculous price. Still, itâs the only headset Iâve been using for the last few months and I own most of them, theyâre all here gathering dust. I prefer it much over your beloved 8kX, even with all the shortcomings it has. Why? Because it just makes me much more believe that what I see is real and thatâs what itâs all about in VR.
To be fair, I also still believe that your headset was misconfigured. For some reason, thatâs really beyond me, VRengineers decreased both the vertical as horizontal FoV in their âdefaultâ settings. You can set it to âcustomâ and then increase both. I think someone had set it to âdefaultâ and yes, in that mode it does feel limited. My first reaction when I put on the XTAL was âdamn Iâm going to send this backâ, I only found out the next day about these settings. I really think they made a bad decision there to decrease the fov in their standard settings. This is an extremely high-end headset, of course people who buy it have the absolute fastest video card and CPU, so just ship it with all settings maxed out as default.
Anyway, not sure if this was your problem, it might be, but still, the way you described everything (only trying it for a brief moment, not even talking to VRengineers at all) just makes me feel you just really wanted to hate it, so not really sure if it were the settings or not.
The StarVR is an AWESOME device, I loved it for what it is. However the resolution is just way too low AND you will get huge eye strain if your IPD deviates too much from the IPD itâs designed for (62 if I remember correctly). But the total lack of distortion over this incredible FoV with those deep OLED colors is just amazing. So yeah, at the same time an awesome device but also something I disliked at the same time for that huge eye strain (no mechanical IPD adjustment) and way too low resolution. Therefore a mindblowing experience IMHO but at the same time also a headset Iâd never recommend to buy.
Quite the contrary though, I was hoping it would be the best headset I ever tried and I couldnât believe how bad it was. Also I never said it was a review lol, I gave some brief impressions and have been quite clear that they are brief impressions and not to be taken as anything more. I also do understand that if someone is saying something you spent over 8k on is terrible then itâs going to be pretty annoying. I get the same feeling sometimes with the 8KX and it cost me 1/8 of that haha.
I did at the time but the person didnât even know that the lenses werenât fresnel so there was no point in trying to talk further. Then, like I said, it was too busy later to get trying again with another staff member (I think there were 2).
I really donât appreciate you making stuff up like this. I never wanted to dismiss it, I went into that event with it being the headset I was most excited to try (tied with the crystal). That probably did make my disappointment more severe but quite the opposite of wanting to hate it. I know I canât afford it, nice of you to use that as a point, but I thought it would be a glimpse into a few years down the road for normal peasants like myself.
Itâs more than 10% less but not by much, more like 13-14%. That said, it felt significantly lower. Again, there must have been something wrong as the vFOV wasnât as noticeably bad on the Aero as the XTAL but that likely is because the super wide FOV of the XTAL exaggerates the short vertical FOV, along with it likely being set up incorrectly (or maybe the vFOV reduced in software as you suggested).
At the end of the day, I went to an event where VRgineers were showing off the XTAL and the experience was terrible. That much is true, and your claim that I went in wanting to dismiss it is ridiculous because I was very excited to try it.
That is likely exactly what happened. Please donât make stuff up like I âwanted to hate this headsetâ.
Iâd love to get trying the XTAL at its full potential as that was what I was hoping for. Ultimately my impression of it is based on what they themselves showed off.
I tried it twice, yes briefly because it was at a tradeshow but enough to get an impression of it (not a review, never claimed that to be the case). And like I said, I tried talking to them but the person was, to put it bluntly, completely clueless.
Itâs annoying because you only tried it for a brief moment, didnt even ask the guy there about the Fov because âhe didnt know about fresnelâ. You just wanted to hate the headset thatâs fine. But your comments make no sense, you dismiss a FoV as terrible when itâs only slightly lower than your beloved Pimax and then go on saying youâd even take the quest over it, haha. Thatâs just completely ridiculous and says more about you than about the headset.
Aah ok 
So itâs a 13-14% range to go from âterribleâ to âawesomeâ? Come on this is just ridiculous and you know it.
I donât care you come up with those ridiculous comments. I am a bit frustrated because I would have loved an honest review to hear from somebody who really took time to try the headset to hear about sharpness on the different lens parts for example. I heard from a fellow xtal user that vrengineers had told him that the focal distance on the headset is much lower than on other headsets and that they can do customization on that. My biggest problem is that the headset is sharp around the edges but right in the middle it loses sharpness, I wonder if that has to do with the really short focal distance. But you only go on about how you hated the âterribleâ Fov, haha and that it was nearly not as sharp as the 8k-X (also nonsense). So yeah, you just wanted to hate it
Vrengineers completely reimburse the headset if you send it back, I know a guy who did so. I didnât send it back, since even with itâs shortcoming itâs better than anything else I own so I still like to use it. And honestly I couldnât care much about the price, I do think itâs ridiculous but luckily Iâm in a position where 8k doesnât matter much. I earn more on an average day so who cares. But I do care about good VR. Iâm surely interested in the Pimax 12K and I HOPE it will beat the Xtal but seeing that they usually make really bad lenses, Iâm still very doubtful that they will produce a better headset. But one can always hope.
I guess any bad experience someone ever has is just because they wanted to have a bad experience. Sorry you wanted to hate my impressions.
Where did you get that from? Can you stop making stuff up? Clearly it must have been running at less than the 90deg that it can do.
Ad hominem, well done! From the experience I had with the headset, yes, the Quest 2 would be a better experience. I love that because I had a bad experience it must be my fault, to the point of ad hominem. It seems very likely the headset was setup terribly, that doesnât change the fact that I had a bad impression at one of their own setups. I guess every bad experience I have ever had is actually me coming in with that intention already, this is a life changing discovery .Thanks, Djonko!
Doesnât it have a lower PPD than the 8K-X? Same resolution panels but much larger hFOV on the XTAL. âNot nearly as sharpâ is probably an exaggeration but it definitely wasnât as sharp. The lenses seemed edge to edge for me, so no sweet spot issue (62 IPD, with glasses). Colours seemed on par with anything else, definitely not bad but not noticeably superior.
Anyway, you could have asked me about my opinions on those things and had a discussion rather than going straight to insults and making stuff up.
Because you said above âSEE ITâs 90 DEGREES SO I WAS RIGHT!!!â so implying that 90 degrees would be 'TERRIBLE!!â and 13% more than that is awesome!!! Thatâs just insane.
eh? the hFov is about the same as the Pimax. But of course itâs a CLEAR hFov while the outer edges of the pimax 8k-X are unusable because of distortion and lens problems. Thatâs why it looks larger on the XTAL. But itâs about the same. If anything, the PPD is higher on the XTAL because of the lower vFov
You only used it for a brief moment, then quickly decided itâs a TERRIBLE headset and didnât even bring up any of the issueâs you experienced because the guy you spoke to âdidnt know about fresnelâ. LOL.
You just seem to want to hate on any headset thatâs not Pimax. Unlike you Iâm not a fanboy of a particular brand, I donât care if the best headset is from Pimax, HTC or Meta. If either one releases a new headset Iâm interested it and if it beats anything else I have, it will become my daily driver. And yes, even the 8k-X was my daily driver for a while, but now it just feels outdated. If I needed to switch back from the XTAL Iâd go back to the Varjo. And only after switching back from that Iâd pick up the 8k-X again.
I thought XTAL was 180 horizontal, while Pimax is more like 150.
Am I expected to go through my entire conversation? I talked for a while about various things. I asked about PPD and he kept thinking I was talking about IPD, after a while of talking about stuff I just stopped. I didnât just ask 1 question and then stop talking entirely lol.
âŚsigh. Okay, first off I never said Pimax vFOV is awesome. I think itâs fine. 90deg is pretty bad imo, but yes not terrible but I was surprised to find out that even at the best settings the vFOV is actually still bad. Again you just keep making stuff up.
I was wrong to say âIt was actually that badâ because it seems like it likely was still lower than 90 due to settings, although perhaps it was set at 90.
Such as? I donât even have a pimax headset at this very moment. I sold off my 8K X recently because Iâm a filthy peasant. My main headset is a Quest 2 currently until something properly good to upgrade to comes along. Iâm hoping for the crystal but not counting on it, maybe the meganex. What other headsets have I hated on? I bought a pico 4 and said it was great, like a few days ago, however I returned it as my face shape really doesnât suit it and I didnât want to mod it with other headsets around the corner. I donât think Iâve ever hated on any other headsets, youâre just jumping to conclusions here.
I donât think Iâve ever been negative towards any headset on here. Why do you keep making stuff up? I had one bad experience with one headset, looking back at my comment here it wasnât even that bad of a comment. I literally only said the vFOV was terrible, which it was when I used it. You even exagerrated my one other point, I said the clarity was âquite a bit betterâ on the 8KX (which I should have said pixel density tbf as the lenses were much clearer on the XTAL) but you turned that into me saying âNot nearly as clearâ.
Anyway, I donât know why this has gotten so confrontational and why youâre going into insults and making stuff up. I even said in my first comment here that I was being ridiculous and too harsh. Letâs leave it at that, this isnât serving any purpose and I have no interest in turning to insulting you. Glad you enjoy the headset.
And yes I agreed to that. Itâs ridiculous indeed. The reviews of the XTAL out there all have been raving, even our own pimaxusa said he liked it and he doesnât say that much about competing headsets! I personally think some of those âravingâ reviews are TOO positive, like said, I see several downsides. But your review is so completely different that it just feels weird. Also very weird you didnt even felt like talking to them because the guy didnt know about fresnel.
Also, if even the Quest 2 would be better why isnât VRengineers bankrupt by now? Obviously they go strong because enough people think itâs just the best headset money can buy. If youâre in such position you can ask ridiculous prices because there are enough people who just want the best out there, regardless of the price.
Again, not a review, it was a brief impression.
Did you miss the part in my last comment? I talked to him for a bit, he was mixing up and misunderstanding multiple things. The fresnel part was just the most ridiculous and by that point I saw no reason to keep asking technical questions because I wouldnât be able to trust any of the answers anyway.
Anyway, take care and merry christmas.
Yes you too, enjoy your quest 2, the best headset out there.
@VR-TECH can likely give you a good evaluation from a DeV point of view. He posted a review awhile back on StarVR One.
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