The Pimax 8K Virtual Reality Head Mounted Display
A Noob's Eye Review
Who am I?
I'm me, end of story :D
I actually said that in an interview once. For some reason, I did not get the job!
Who I am as far as the Pimax 8K is concerned? Well, I am one of the Kickstarter backers who has recently (a few weeks now) received the HMD (Head Mounted Display). I am also new to SteemIt, and this is my first post :)
I actually pledged for the 8K X (native 4K screens), which will probably not exist for many, many months yet (1 year?). In the meantime, the 8K X backers have been allowed to have one of the existing headsets as a loan. We could choose either the 5K+ (current favourite of the backers) or the 8K. Obviously, I chose the 8K, and that's what this review is about.
If you'd like to see other reviews (5K+ and 8K), then you can find them on the Pimax forum, under the Reviews section at:
http://forum.pimaxvr.com/c/reviews
Keep on reading, we're not done yet. That's it, scroll down :)
What is a VR (Virtual Reality) Headset?
This headset is used to play games, have experiences and view videos in 3D virtual space. It will take you into a world created on your computer. This could be a game where you find yourself flying through space combating aliens or other players, an experience such as wandering around a virtual representation of someone's house, or sitting in a big cinema with a massive screen in front of you, although, in reality, throughout all of this, you are actually at home in your living room.
It looks so SciFi
I absolutely love the look of the latest Pimax HMDs. They are very futuristic, very SciFi, and look pretty cool. They also seem to be very well made and quite robust (a noob's view).
Wearing the headset
I hardly notice it's there, when I wear it, although, it is not as light as its predecessor, the Pimax 4K. It is a lot lighter than the original HTC Vive. I owned both the Pimax 4K and the HTC Vive a year ago.
The Pimax HMDs (5K+ and 8K) come with a 5 metre cable (USB and DP connectors at the end), and a power cable. The power cable plugs into the 5 metre cable at about 50cm from the USB and DP connectors. The DP connector goes to the graphics card.
The head strap
A number of people who have received these headsets seem to have had issues with the head strap that the HMD comes with, but I found, as long as the back part is properly on the crown of the head, the HMD is comfortable and very secure. To ensure this, I just shortened the length of the top strap, until the back part sat snugly on the crown of my head.
Excellent in game!
Note: I am using a GTX 1080Ti graphics card, with an AMD 9590 (8 core) CPU and 16GB of DDR3 XMS3 RAM.
Note 2: Where I talk about the Vive throughout this article, I mean the original Vive. I have not tried the Vive Pro, as yet.
I found the 8K's wide FoV (Field of View) to result in a very immersive experience. Where the 4K and Vive gave you a binocular view of the virtual world, the 8K comes very close to how you see the world naturally. At worst, it is close to what you see when looking through ski googles. It is absolutely amazing! You can see a hell of a lot more, without having to turn your head, compared to the Vive and Pimax 4K. There are 3 settings for the FoV: Small (130 degree, Normal (150 degree), and Large (170 degree). The elsewhere mentioned 200 degree FoV is diagonal, apparently. I tend to use Normal or Large, because Large does not work so well in some games/experiences. 150 degrees is still absolutely awesome. Once you go 150, there's no going back!
The image quality I found to be very good, although, during the first few days, I was very aware of tons upon tons of very tiny dots, but now, my eyes adjust so fast to the screens, I no longer notice them.
All text is very easy to read, although quite fuzzy in appearance. This was very, very nice in Elite Dangerous, being able to read those displays without having to get closer to them.
Reading text with the Pimax 4K was a nightmare for me. I had visual issues that just would not be solved. The Vive on the other hand, was a visual joy for me in game. I could read and see everything perfectly.
The 8K did seem to fair exceptionally well with games and experiences that were created for or at least well optimised for VR, such as Elite Dangerous and Subnautica. These games were amazing, especially Subnautica, in which I could not even see any SDE (Screen Door Effect), and the text was perfectly crisp. Subnautica must have some seriously good game developers.
The cinema in your house
I absolutely love watching videos on my (loan) 8K. I use Bigscreen Beta, and more often than not I have it in the Big Cinema environment. It's freaking great! I have put in a lot of hours in there! Maybe too many :D
Zero sickness (for me)
I have worn this headset for many hours throughout the day, taking biological, drink, and food breaks, of course, and without any ill affects what-so-ever. Unlike with the Vive, which made me ill if I wore that headset for more than 20 minutes. That is the only reason why I sold my Vive in the end, otherwise that HMD was great. Even the weight of the Vive did not bother me!
I am thoroughly enjoying the Pimax 8K, but I would like for the image to be better and the sweet spot (area in the centre of the screen that is in full focus) to be larger. The sweet spot is pretty big (bigger then the 4K and the Vive), but I would like it to be bigger. Of course, foveated rendering would be the ideal fix, where it tracks where the eye is and only the image in that area of the screen is in full focus.
I think the 8K X will provide the image quality I am really looking for, seeing as it will have native 4K screens (1 per eye), whereas the 8K upscales to 4K (yes, per eye. Don't think about it! You'll get a headache). This works amazingly well, but for me, it could be better.
Apparently, the 5K+ has a far better level of clarity than the 8K, but I cannot make any judgements on that, as I do not have that headset and have never tried it. You will have to read the reviews posted on the Pimax forum, to see what receivers of that HMD have to say (see link above).
All in all, I am very impressed with the 8K, and seeing as it never makes me feel ill (Vive made me ill), and I can read all text perfectly (far from it with the 4K), I am very tempted to buy this loaner. I cannot know for sure, that I won't have these issues with other headsets, even the coming 8K X. When I bought the Pimax 4K, and then sold it, because I had visual issues, I wanted so badly for that HMD to work, that I bought it again (yes, I bought 2!). But no joy. Many attempts to fix the issue for me (incl. input by knowledgeable types), came to no avail :( Then the Pimax Kickstarter and the 8K, and joy :D I now need to try out the 5K+!
For more on the Pimax headsets, head over to the Pimax forum. You can also check out 3 of the main testers' YouTube channels, who have posted reviews on the 5K+ and 8K, along with games they played – VoodoDE (Deutsch/some English), MRTV (English / Possibly German too) SweViver (English)
Bye for now, until the next Steemit article or DTube video (the first coming soon). I hope you enjoyed this first post of mine, and if it has motivated you to find out more about VR and the tech involved, then I can consider my job here a success.
Oh, and I am Chucksta over on the Pimax forums.
:D