Thanks for sharing your results with both the UW and regular 50PPD, the fact that your FOV difference between the two is only 2-4 degrees is quite surprisng and makes me wonder why I even bother with UW, clearly there is lens/profile issues on the UW and to acheive the marketed fov you pretty much have to wear the headset with no gasket, which is not feasible and frankly disheartening.
This is even more clear that when you remove the gasket on the 50PPD, your FOV didnt change, so Pimax I think has the 50PPD locked in while the UW may never achieve what I waited months for.
Now that said am I currently happy with the fov of 124 I am getting in the UW, yes. Would I love more, sure, but will it happen? Why would should I give up stereo overlap in the hopes that maybe a future software fix will give me more FOV. I feel like I should ask Pimax to send me a 50ppd module to a side by side test.
makes me wonder why I even bother with UW, clearly there is lens/profile issues on the UW and to acheive the marketed fov you pretty much have to wear the headset with no gasket, which is not feasible and frankly disheartening
As I demonstrated there are a few factors and I assume they use ideal scenario for specification. It always comes with caveat that it depends on your particular anatomy. Some testers reported values that are not too far from what was advertised, some were not impressed.
When comparing 50ppd and UW we are looking at it from a hindsaight with full knowledge of current state. At certain point of development, the LAB mode may not have worked as expected and physical optical redesign was selected as alternative according to what I remember from Pimax news. Meanwhile the physical variant was not perfect (hence some of my recommendation towards canted design) and some of the issues of the software solution were likely addressed succesfully in the meantime. But it might have not been so clear back then.
Some of the testers were wondering the same and now we understand precisely why. Based on specs I was really into UW. After testing both only the 50ppd makes sense (unless āUW Cantedā like I proposed comes to light), but some still prefer the UW after testing both. Even if likely a minority. Many variables and not everyone conducts their testing and publishes results in such granularity to know for sure what it is for them.
Thats part of the issue though, hindsight shouldnāt be at the consumer level. If Pimax just had the regular 50ppd versions and said āHey we made this ultrawide software version in lab modeā and we tried but didnāt like it, no harm, no foul, I appreciate them pushing the boundaries and giving users something a little extra.
But like you, the specs of the hardware on the UW changed my mind. I was just about to hit go on the regualr 50ppd but the UWās fov sold me more, especially for simracing. So you would expect the hardware to be sorted and not have caveats that are, well you can achieve it only if you donāt wear the gasket (Which to be clear, I can only get to 130 if my eyes are right up against the lenses), or you can get the fov but your IPD has to between X and Y. Then on top of that the different software versions are creating different values for everyone.
Honeslty the first moment I put on the super and loaded into iRacing I was blown away. Coming from a Reverb G2 I finally realized this is what Iāve wanted and if I never checked the FOV I would of said this is great but I probably wouldnāt of know the variations in FOV if it wasnāt for the countless people on reddit, youtube etcā¦ repeating the same thing, that something isnāt right and the FOV is similar or the same as the regular 50ppd.
I really do hope they can fix it on the software side, it seemed like people had better values in 1.41.2 but im guessing they noticed something or warping and modified it to 1.43.1.
Did you test the internal build with the UW? I, like everyone else attracted to the UW FOV because I am a sim racer and need as much FOV as possible and I donāt think 50ppd do it for me. I came from 8KX so I am used to wide FOV.
I got a file from support (pi_server_1764905874743) but the FOV difference might have been 2 degrees, but it introduced some odd warping, I would notice especially in the Pimax galactic home and the stars/nebulas would warp when looking around, felt odd and floating, so I went back to the original file.
If I increased my IPD from my standard 67.2 to 70.2 I could go from 124 to 128 fov, but its still a little shy of the range it should be in on UW.
I will honor Pimaxās wish not to comment on privately given experimental builds publicly. But if you expect HFOV comparable to 8KX mid even high setting, I would wait for the future flight/race sim module that was hinted on the discord. My personal opinion is that UW can only significantly improve HFOV with physical adjustments like canted lens/panels and current implementation would not push pass 50ppd lab mode.
With all itās issues 8KX is still a competent headset if you need high HFOV.
Just to add another datapoint, could be a faceshape thing as Iām certainly getting noticeably more than you stock on everything. Iām getting 129 with the 50PPD and 140 with the lab mode, but using WIMFOV I do not have this problem of losing a bunch of FoV looking toward the edges on the UW. Like, yes thereās a slight reduction but Iāve seen that on every HMD for it to not be worth mentioning and never such a drastic difference like this. Granted, this is using WIMFOV which is a bit more detailed for measuring so itās not just straight horizontal/vertical. That can be 1-2 larger than TestHMD on the horizontal.
Even outside apps which measure specific FoV though, I can hold something on the edge of my vision while looking toward it, then look ahead, and thereās a reduction but itās not that extreme. I get 140 on the UW when looking ahead vs 135 when looking toward the markers. Diagonal does have a slightly more notable reduction of about 5-9 degrees depending on the axis. But aside from the one axis which saw -9 degrees, itās about what Iād expect. Vertical remains unchanged. Havenāt checked the 50PPD doing this, but for what itās worth, again, Iāve never really noticed it to where it felt like a major problem. I have owned an 8KX as well, was my daily driver many years back, but donāt have it at the moment.
I was given the 50ppd to compare side by side and decide to take either or return both. In the end I decided to keep 50ppd and I am awaiting instructions for return of the Super UW module.
Interesting. Hard for me to imagine someone gettting 135 deg focusable HFOV when I get 110 at most by pressing the optical engine without facemask but without tilting it.
Aside of IPD, could you get someone to measure a distance between your eyelid and the root of the nose where it meets forehead?
I am convinced, the distance of eye to lens is also a crucial metric for this:
I have rather narrow head, roughly 60mm IPD (self measure) and deeper seated eyes. The distance from my eyelid to eyebrow where forehead meets root of nose is approx. 2 cm and for my brother that I tested this on as well is about 1.8 cm.
Iām getting a very strange 120 vertical fov, and around 124 horizontal. Very poor performance too considering my system specs (9800x3d/5090/64g ddr5). Wondering if it has something to do with the really high vert fov Iām getting. Shouldnāt my vertical be around 90 to 100, and my horizontal mid 130ās with the ultrawide?
My Mura is a bit quieter. I also noticed, during eye-tracking calibration, that the small circle that used to double when it appeared in the lower left corner of my eye is now normal again.
Furthermore, I donāt know if itās due to the module, but I find it brighter.
Overall, the exchange was a positive experience.
However, my field of view remains at 130Ā°, and I hope your team will be able to create a high-quality distortion profile. Indeed, Iām also seeing image distortions that I never encountered with my previous VR headsets, the Oculus CV1 and the HP Reverb G2.
I received my UW Module yesterday. So far my testing shows:
1/7/2026
PP 1.43.04
TestHMD - H: 108 V: 108
PP 1.41.2 - Put 50ppd module in and select āWide / Lab modeā.
The re-insert the UW module
TestHMD: - H 120 V 118
In this version of Pimax Play when I look at the āOptic Engineā it say āN/Aā when the Ultrawide module is installed.
Really no where near 130 HFOV. Hmm, I guess Iāll open a support ticket.
I have tried the Wide/Lab mode with the 50PPD module but I cannot remove the eye strain with different IPD settings. It is just too uncomfortable to be usable.
Has anyone seen better results using the Pimax Play 2.0 beta and the Ultrawide module? I feel like Iām wasting a lot of time installing/uninstalling various PP versions, with no improved results in the Ultrawide module.
I have not directly compared the before and after installing Pimax Play 2.0 beta, but the last time measureing before I had 132 HFOV and after 136. I donāt remember if there was another version change inbetween though.