Pimax 8K X My Quick Review

[VR-TECH]

You will like the 8K X. I personally prefer Oled screens but as a whole you will be happy with the purchase

[Djonko]

Nice review, agree to pretty much all you said

[Axacuatl]

Good one, indeed.

I’ll just use this place to dump my observations in here. To give some background, I have had my 8KX for quite a while now, but due to RL stuff I had very limited time to take to VR this summer and autumn. This meant that my first stint with the 8KX, which lasted approx. 2-3 weeks, was mainly occupied with me trying to figure out a setting to get rid off the convergence issue I experienced, without ultimate success. At which stage I then just left it for what it was and didn’t touch if for a couple of months. Some two weeks ago I put my hands on it again. This time I just wanted to check on the performance with a number of games & apps, to see if digging into an improved setting would even make sense from a later reward point of view - what good is it to get them right finally, if I would notice that the 8KX doesn’t perform well enough with my favorite games anyhow ?

So, with this lessened focus on the 8KX’ features, here are my impressions (on top of what I had mentioned at the time, so I won’t repeat all of those):

• picture quality: due to the increased resolution (and my decreasing eye-sight), I am using my reading glasses I use at my PC. This seems to also lessen the convergence issue a bit, though not removing it entirely. I wonder which optical distance the 8KX lenses produce. The picture can be very detailed, but my 2080Ti won’t always allow for the great quality because I might end up with 30 FPS… SDE is mostly gone, but due to my reading glasses I can see the faint pixel pattern, but of course much improved over other currently available headsets (other than Reverb G1/G2). Blacks, Colors are okay for me: nothing to write home about but good enough. Mura is present but not really bad so I can ignore it. I had elaborated on the sweet spot at the time: I see an inner sweet spot of say 30-40° which is 100% sharp; then I see a less sharp area spanning some 100° (incl. the inner sweetspot) of approx. 90% acuity, and then the more pronounced blurring begins. Didn’t see that with the 8K or 5K+, but possibly because they never showed the level of detail the 8KX sports in the inner sweet spot. Annoying thing is that I never can get both eyes to look at the inner sweet spot at the same time - my IPD of 64 may be too low, as the distance between the centers of the lenses in the minimal hardware IPD setting is approx. 67 mm. I am curious to compare it with the G2 when it arrives. I almost expect the G2 to perform better in 2020, but the 8KX has more headroom to improve its picture quality with higher PiTool settings once I get stronger GPUs while the G2 may be nearer to the point of diminishing returns. So the 8KX may score better in a comparison in 1-2 years from now.
  The convergence issue as mentioned remains to a lesser degree - I will often notice it when taking off the headset - my eyes need to adjust from their cross-eyed state they had adopted under the headset. But usually I can enjoy myself in the headset, and forget about it. But it clearly is not ideal. For the record: I tried a number of suggestions, the nut-cracker alignment and the green line tool from Mirage335 which improved things but did not entirely resolve them.

• FoV: obviously Pimax main selling point, and it’s added value ranges from okay, nice to wow, game changer depending on the use case: games like Skyrim, and all kinds of all-encompassing experiences (e.g. Conscious Existence, Edgar Mitchell Experiences, etc.) benefit a lot in terms of immersion; watching movies now is a treat, which wasn’t the case with previous headsets due to their SDE, lack of resolution and narrow FoV. However, for the majority of games it is not that important and I forget about the added FoV rather soon. This also led me to try Small FoV and Potato FoV for a number of games to bring down the GPU demand, and this did not feel like a bigger sacrifice in many of them (which confirms what I have been thinking for a long time now that what we really need is 130-140° horizontally, not more and I’d rather see the pixel wealth be spent within such angle than above 140°). So the question for me will be, is the sacrifice the G2 demands outweighed by its better performance in terms of clarity & SS ?

• audio: the soft headstrap audio was awful, same as Rift S and Quests, just lacking the bass. The KDMAS is rich in its sound, the bass is pronounced. Definitely an improvement. Not sure it is as good or better than the Index solution, but then again, I wasn’t blown away by that one, I actually probably liked the CV1 sound the most. But I am no audio junkie, so I would say the KDMAS it is roughly good enough for me. Let’s see what the DMAS brings along when it arrives.

• comfort: Hmmm. The rigid strap is better than the soft headstrap, for sure - but it still doesn’t sit really well, my head shape doesn’t seem to be right, I suspect this may be a question of Asian vs. European head shapes. So it is good enough for seated or calm standing VR, but not so good for action-packed games. It’s sheer size also makes it less attractive for more active games, it’s quite bulky, isn’t it. The weight is okay though. As I need to wear my reading glasses, it results in them inevitably being pushed into my face just a bit, which is not exactly increasing the comfort. This would be the same with other headsets though - only for those I can buy ready made prescription lenses, for the 8KX I’d have to use their 3d print file and find an optician who provides me with custom-made lenses. I suppose they would be pretty pricey, due to the wide FoV induced size. And if I still had hopes for the eye-tracking to work, that would be a reason to be hesitant too.

• build quality: okay, but not necessarily looking like a device priced at 1,300$. The KDMAS knob is not working very smoothly, so no idea how long it will last.

• ease of use: oh dear Lord, no, I don’t even want to think about it ! But okay, here we are: this is NOT a plug and play device, and then you are even sugar-coating it. The fact that I put it away after wasting the few hours I had over 2-3 weeks just to get the IPD setting right for me, and never quite succeeded, should be a warning to anybody who expects a good experience out of the box. So if you actually have a life, I mean a real life, outside of VR, and that real life is not primarily occupied by you tinkering with any kind of machine, then think twice about getting an 8KX.
  Okay, I will say that the Pimax Experience is a step into the right direction because it makes the handling of the per game settings a whole lot easier to cope with, so that means if you can accept & overcome the fact that your first days or weeks may be frustrating, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

• overall verdict: It’s great for certain use cases, that’s for sure. It won’t be my go-to device for general use, that’s as sure as the first point. Too bulky, it doesn’t encourage me to get in motion with it, and for a range of games I haven’t yet worked out the proper settings, because that can be tedious labor. I like to have a device I can just put on, and it will work, without glitches, work-arounds etc… That is likely the future role of the G2 and I will then sell off the Index (I’ll keep the Rift S for the rare Oculus Home experience and to let my son use it otherwise, and I’ve got a Quest & Quest 2).
  I still have to dig in to the settings for Elite Dangerous, which should become a major use case for me in 2021 again, and if it convinces me and beats the G2 for this purpose, it will be deserving a spot in my line up for that reason alone. Apart from that watching movies in the 8KX is a treat, and I see some potential growth in its performance with future GPUs so will probably hold on to it.
  So, a good headset for a specific audience for specific use cases but not without its flaws.

[jojon]

@VR-TECH

I know of them. What I have in my mind is not being addressed for now. Honestly, I don’t even know if I have a clear idea how to solve what I am thinking of. I have done sketches about hardware approaches to create a more all encompassing FOV not long ago, still not satisfied. Reality is that I am not sure if I have the time or means to prototype.

I will need to dig into optics, and the subject can be a headache

Are we talking novel concepts, or basically tuning of currently dominant solutions? :7

[Troz]

Three things needed to make the 8KX close to a plug and play experience.

1. Better lenses with sweet spot about twice the current area.
2. Convergence wizard (I think some people are getting focus and convergence mixed up and are thinking that with lots of fiddling they can actually fix the focus, which for most people is actually impossible with the current lenses).
3. A set of pre-configured profiles for various games, matched to the user’s CPU and GPU.

I’m hoping that Pimax Experience will eventually deliver #2 and #3.

As for #1, I live in hope that Pimax will redesign the lenses for an 8KX mark 2 and make them available as drop-in replacements (at no more than the cost of manufacture) to existing users.

[VR-TECH]

Well, so far there still limitation on all headsets regarding wide FOV. The problem is that you still feel wearing some sort of mask. StarVR and Pimax do offer a wider FOV but as it their vertical FOV sort of suck.

[VR-TECH]

Pretty good write up!. Good addition!