Half-Life: Alyx on 8K X

[Cdaked]

4. Do the displays have the same size and shape?

The first option is a well know “yes”; same lenses (and distance to the display, I suppose).

[Possyguset]

I thought I heard or read some were the displays are a bit smaller in the Artisan, witch is why the FOV is a bit smaller .

[Cdaked]

Smaller than the 8KX ones? I think that the displays of the Pimax 8KX are also smaller than the old ones; a 10%, If I’m not mistaken.

[Razorub]

I too played Dactyl Nightmare back in 1991! It was an amazing experience! Does anyone remember Lawnmower Man?

[Yata_PL]

Hallo Sebastian,
Have you tried that json file from Sweviver link to correct distortion ? It’s better exp. now in Alyx ? Please share with us…

[NoamLoop]

He can’t hear us, playing and streaming HL:Alyx with the Vive Cosmos atm. The luxury problem of having too many VR headsets to choose from
(Cosmos subsumption (from the 10 mins I watched): wireless great, FoV a step back from Pimax and Index, controllers not really bad but no Index controllers either)

[risa2000]

@Cdaked

I have no doubt that with 120fps it looks better, but you can always play with the 8KX at 120fps as well.
But it’s strange that the Artisan, unless the size of the screens or the distance to the lenses changes or something else, looks better than with the Pimax 8KX, it wouldn’t make sense. The only explanation, if not, is that the software or hardware is wrong.

If Alyx uses adaptive rendered resolution based on required pixel fillrate and the target refresh rate (which most reports indicate it does), then there it is quite possible to have better image quality on a headset with a smaller resolution, or slower refresh, because both will improve the quality.

Imagine that your pixel fill rate is constant (depending only on your GPU performance). Valve’s implementation chooses such a resolution (and a quality) that it could keep up with the required refresh rate of the headset.

The direct consequence is that you want to run Alyx on slower refresh (if you can accept it), to extend the frame time, or at a smaller resolution, to be able to push smaller number of pixels for one frame (but at a better quality (e.g. better MSAA)).

[Fitzy]

Has anyone found a way around this dynamic resolution shenanigans yet?

[Thall]

When i run it at 120Hz I don’t have an issue. In 90Hz mode it’s like vive resolution, give that a shot. Don’t think anyones found an ini fix yet

[Cdaked]

Sorry, “look better” equals “look better because of less distortions”.

[SweViver]

@Razorub

I have difficulty in trusting the fact the 8KX was laggy or distorted when playing HL:A. I’m not saying Seb’s unit didn’t have the issue. It’s just that after thoroughly testing the 8KX in Orlando and not any seeing issues in multiple games, including Valve’s own Lab, I just don’t think something was set right.

This is exactly my thoughts. Not a single person have seen this, including me, vrgamerdude and Matthew which have spent crazy amount of time using the 8KX until now.

Laggy? Well, on 1080Ti I wouldnt be surprised if Sebastian see framedrops.That could be true
Distorted? I dont think so.

[SweViver]

@mixedrealityTV

Hi @NoamLoop,

it will also depend on the game you play. If you are playing 10 minutes of Aerofly FS2 without really moving your head, you will more likely just experience the beautiful picture and the clarity of the gauges that will blow you away in that moment. You might slowly turn your head to peak out of the window, but that’s it for your head movements. And what you see outside is quite a fair amount of uniform color sky.

Now contrast this with the frantic head movements of a game like Alyx and having hours and hours to A/B compare with all other headsets.

That makes a huge difference.

What really excites me is how Pimax have managed to nearly eradicate all of the distortion with the Artisan.

Bye, Sebastian

1. Have you tried the JSON file I provided in previous post?

2. Apart from Aerofly FS2, we showcased these games (below) on CES, NY and FL roadshows. Some people spent maybe an hour or more playing around, especially on the FL roadshow which was not really overcrowded:

• Boneworks
• Hellsplit Arena
• Pavlov
• Onward
• DCS
• The Lab
• Beat Saber
• Elite Dangerous
• Assetto Corsa
• Project Cars 2
• SteamVR Home environment
  … and others.

3. “Now contrast this with the frantic head movements of a game like Alyx and having hours and hours to A/B compare with all other headsets.”
   .- We have 3 testers including me testing the 8KX and Alyx daily right now, and a team in Shanghai which is evaluating the problem you have mentioned. No one have seen this issue yet. We also have the engineers working on a Alyx-optimized PiTool version. None of them has seen this problem.

4. “What really excites me is how Pimax have managed to nearly eradicate all of the distortion with the Artisan.”
   .- The distortion is in no way better on Artisan than 8KX, its clearly the opposite, which we also got a lot of feedback on during the US roadshow.

[john2910]

i think its possible,

I sold my 8kplus too i had to much distortion,and couldt get close enough to the lenses(maybe sebastian has this problem too?)

I also ordered now the pimax artisan to compare while waiting on my 8kx…
So now still back on my valve index…Wich also had better colors then the 8kplus for me…

[Fabrizio]

Perhaps you have the same issue of Sebastian because you have not waited a final firmware with 110 HZ

[SweViver]

@john2910

I sold my 8kplus too i had to much distortion,and couldt get close enough to the lenses(maybe sebastian has this problem too?)

Interesting. Did you ever try with a thinner face pad (or without) just to see if the distance is the problem?

[Possyguset]

You need to take into account you have, (I believe an IPD of around 70) and some one with a small IPD of 60 ish, mixedrealityTV IPD is 64. and that person needs to know what to look for.

[SweViver]

@Fabrizio

Perhaps you have the same issue of Sebastian because you have not waited a final firmware with 110 HZ

The older 8K+ firmware (even the oldest 75Hz firmware during prototype stage) did not have such distortion issues.

[jojon]

As far as we know, the lens-screen-mounting_angle setup is the exact same in all Pimax headsets (regardless of screen dimensions), so the distortions should be identical, degree-of-FOV for degree-of-FOV, in all of them – at least from a purely physical point of view; It sounds like Pimax are messing back and forth wildly with their software distortion compensation, to the point where people see distortion changing with things that should have zero impact on it, such as choosing different refresh rate options…

Sounds to me like the comfort kit face shrouding is a bad fit for Sebastian’s face, leaving him unable to get to the right distance/height/lateral position/pitch.

[SweViver]

@Possyguset

You need to take into account you have, (I believe an IPD of around 70) and some one with a small IPD of 60 ish, mixedrealityTV IPD is 64. and that person needs to know what to look for.

64 is the most common IPD and basically all headsets are optimized for that IPD. Mine is 69.5. I can run the 8KX on everything from 67 to 71 until I start to see noticeable distortion in the edges, cross-eye effect and somehow odd geometry.

[NoamLoop]

@SweViver @mixedrealityTV
Perhaps it would be good to have a Pimax technician spending some time with Sebastian - e.g. with a camera filming through the lenses and iterating on the problem and ensuring that everything is as good as it gets from Pimax side. (Would be thankful to Sebastian for doing that - it’s of course more than what is usually expected from people doing a… preview. Usually it’s more reporting of the current state, no matter what…)
I believe Sebastian if he says he sees this and it would be good (for Pimax and upcoming 8k-X owners) to understand why.