Beyond actually is not cheaper aa it is not a complete setup. Sure many may already have IC & LHes but these are still additional costs.
Yes tracking atm seems very hit & miss. Qualcolmm & pimax need to get this working aa well as it is on other xr2 hmds.
Now it would have made sense for pimax to compare with HTC XR Elite and Quest Pro as both hmds have similar features and is cheaper than The Crystal and has a much better formfactor & weight.
This reminds of other companies when a competitor has a product of concern.
I donât consider the Crystal a complete setup either. You need Lighthouses, controllers and the yet-to-be-released faceplate. You cannot compare lighthouse tracking to the terrible Crystal tracking. So with the faceplate, base stations, controllers, Crystal is WAY more money.
the comparision gave me a full dose of pure cringe âsignificant larger FOVâ while i barely get 102 with my eyes touching the lenses on a headset that weights 6x more.
also is beyond even 50 nits?tought bradley measured it at 80 wich is at least usable with OLED perfect contrast.
But it is a complete setup bs Beyond. Unless you donât consider any XR2 hmd a complete setup that comes with controllers. Yes there are tracking issues that many are xping. This is fixable as demonstrated on ither xr2 hmds(Quest, Picis, HTC XR Elite etcâŚ)
Buying any optional alternative tracking FP is a choice. Remember Ridt S had bad tracking in the early days.
That being said Qualcomm & pimax should have had this properly ready at the last launch when the product mostly released.
Even if the Crystal or any hmd came with a NoloVR crapshoot it would still be complete even if the result was not decent.
Now with the possibility to use Earlier pimax hmds and Bigscreen with Amd Apus like the 6800u and the newer 7000 series. Makes a true standalone that can use wonky LHes in a maybe a light house building setup maybe.
Iâll celebrate the day when a majority of independent experienced VR gamers agree that PIMAXâs controller tracking is just as good as LH Base Stations.
If this is not achievable, then yeah, I agree with above sentiments that the Crystal becomes more expensive in order to have a full experience with tracking and stand-alone.
Now making it equivalent? Well no Qualcomm XR2 hmd has that level of tracking due to design. But can be made to be quite decent.
We should give credit where it is due. This is not pimax tracking but Qualcomm right down to the controllers save pimax has added sone extras. Though if not mistaken âsenseâ like with Sword controllers of course is mia.
What we do know is XR2 controller tracking can be fixed in software as demonstrated on other XR2 hmds.
I do stand by with waiting until pimax can make the software and features work at an acceptable level before purchasing. However many have difficulty waiting. lol
(1) Are you saying that one cannot go untethered and play in stand-alone mode with a lighthouse plate/controller tracking?
I mean, I expect to be able to be able to go untethered and have controller tracking and the ability to use a LH system for that (if the built in one isnât adequate enough). Are you saying itâs not possible?
(2) So then if itâs not technically possible to make XR2 controller tracking as good as LH, then it stands to reason that the LH plate and tracking system in Stand-Alone should be a possibility.
(3) It may not be âPimax Trackingâ, but it is Pimax who chose Qualcomm for their design. I donât necessarily give them credit for that design choice if they canât achieve a tracking system at least as good as or even (better?) than other HMDs.
But it sounds like from what Iâm seeing that LH and base stations will always be the superior choice for controller tracking if one wants the highest fidelity and accuracy.
If that is the case, then I expect them to design their HMD with the ability to use the LH Plate for Stand-Alone. Even have that plate be a combo with color pass-thru for AR.
No wireless/untethered is still connected to a SteamVR pc. Standalone uses Android to which so far there is no Android SteamVR LH tracking software. AndroidVR titles would need to rely on Qualcomm XR2 tracking. At least until Valve decides or a 3rdparty creates an Android LH tracking software.
Wireless/untethered yes. But Standalone independent titles without a pc currently no. Lighthouses too are not really meant for on the go as inside out tracking is. The LH FP itself would not really be needed as it has been demonstrated with things like OpenVR Space calibrater and even prior to it. That you could have hybrid tracking. Using Lighthouses to track cintrollers & Trackers while using the Inside Out to track the hmd.
Since pimax controls the software they could make native hybrid tracking. However atm there having basic tracking issues at keast with Controller side which does not instill confidence in there capabilities at this time.
Nor does it instill confidence there having difficulties creating the SteamVR tracking plate. As:
Ppl have been using trackers on n9n SteamVR hmds for years.
They already have a base to design the SteamVR tracking plate based on p2 hmds.
This is why it is sound advice to wait on purchasing a Pimax Crystal until they can minimally get basic features working correctly. Like Controller tracking, Wifi 6e, Eyetracking, Standalone and the simple SteamVR tracking FP.
Hell were still waiting in them to complete and fix issues 9n the P2 models which if history repeats will end up like the P1 series. Half to over slightly half complete
Well this comes down to Qualcomm shouldnât be marketing tracking if they are unwilling to ensure it works well. So yes Qualcomm needa to be invested in there reference designs if they want others to buy into there vr/ar component products.
Ppl have said pimax should stick to hmds and leave controllers to 3rdparties. Well pimax Listened and went with Qualcomm that has been proven to work reasonably well in Meta, Pico & Htc. So voth Qualcomm & pimax need to figure what is going wrong. Now it could be related to poor power management/supply as we know the Crystal is so under powered it needs to use the battery to compensate. If it is power related they may need to revise hardware.
However as sone are having decent xp. Suggests it should ve fixable as long as it is not like the older 8kX models where some have a strange incompatibility with the DMAS. Which is either an assembly issue exposing audio to interference or different parts used.
Either way pimax did not in the 8kX issue investigate it properly and opted to release a revised model with incompatibilities and poor methods to attempt to improve the audio sound. Which is a fail. Crystal they succeeded in fixing the Audio to a point save some are xping audio latency issues. So only a part success so far.
Well your tracking lasers hitting sensors so much less chances of occlusion vs cameras mounted on a hmd to track all possible positions those controllers could be. So needa much better prediction routines. It will cone down to a time when this tech will be good enough for wide majority.
Some of the testers whom have had good xp with controller tracking have said there looking forward to not needing Lighthouses.
A lot will be dependent on tge end user and games they play. The Fact that Quest 2 users still dominate top levels in Beatsaber demonstrates that it can be quite good otherwise only LH users would dominate the top spots.
If by Standalone you mean using Virtual Desktop streaming sure. But that is not really standalone as in non pc versions of games & content.
Yeah. OK. I get it about full stand-alone without PC connection for tracking.
Kinda too bad it couldnât work anyways.
But then again, if the tracking can get good enough that Base Stations arenât needed, then I think Iâll be happy.
Maybe Qualcomm was a good decision, but youâre basically at the whim of what QC can provide and then itâs up to you to integrate it in your design successfully.
If PICO 4 has a good and acceptable implementation of the tracking, then we should expect PIMAX to provide equivalent, no?
I think @Atmos was saying he was happy with the PICO 4 controller tracking, if Iâm not mistaken.
Yep they should be able to remedy tracking to be in par with Pico at least.
However pimax needs to ensure there working closely with Qualcomm and be invested.
The Droolon-pi ET could have been in par with Droolon-F1 but pimax half arsed things. Leaving it to focused person like @guppyexpress to fix it. The sad thing is the ET was supposed to be free for backers and what they released wasnât worth buying even at $100(before backers flipped out they wanted backers to pay $199 and non backers $299).
Problem with any proprietary tracking system is your at the designer/ownerâs whims. Be it SteamVR or Qualcomm etc⌠Ww need more opensource solutions that can be improved abd expanded sponsoring open communal growth.
IMO the shear weight and bulk of the Crystal means itâs basically a simulator siting headset. So on-board tracking and stand alone is worthless for most customers. I tried beat saber and a few other games with it, almost unplayable with the weight and poor tracking. You bend your head down to look at something and it feels like you are going to topple over due to the weight shift. And Iâm 6â4" 220lb. My friend who is also big and has a Crystal says the same thing.
Thanks for your welcome and suggestion of software
I have three base stations (2.0) in my VR room and choice of Index controllers, Pimax Sword controllers
Currently I have two Pimax Crystal and an index headset to play with
Tony aka Skarredghost is a great source of news and interesting reviews. Iâve been collaborating with him since 2018, he has exclusively published 12 of my articles during this time.
Iâve linked my sword controller review from last year below
Hi Rob. Nice review of the Sword Controllers. However as it is with pimax inconsistencies with other User experiences and of course pimaxâs own inconsistencies with providing info.
Pimax dodged several bullets with what they advertised vs what they released.
Sword Controllers do have the Hardware to have cap sense and had promised the Beta Test group would get to preview it. Marcin had even said himself in the early days that the sense function was promising. Beta Testers never were given the preview of the sense driver as promised.
The Triggers on most Swords are overly sensitive and register some movement even when not having a finger on them. 1 user @light reported his were so sensitive he had to have them upside down to not activate. @jamejame she did a great video showing this issue. Beta Testers also reported tye poor triggers and unfortunately majority of feedback was ignored as they had already initiated mass production it seems.
Due to the Sense hardware being present as unused hardware. This has definitely contributed to the excessive price point vs other controllers. @jamejame covered that the Sword controllers have iirc pimax told her twice the number of SteamVR tracking sensors that really donât seem to improve anything and simply causes more power drain with no apparent benefits.
Pimax advertising clearly 2 flavors of sense controllers during the KS and after hmd release to even taking pre-orders was not a good move. Especially when they started changing advertised features. Ie Trackpad Sword was no longer going to have Sense, Then changing Sword back to sense with later deleting 1 button, cancelling Stick Sword Sense. Then Cancelling sense function after stating it would be enabled later.
Pimax did not research Controllers properly thinking it was going to be easy. So they cheaped out with only releasing an expensive reskinned vive wand with some pluses and more minuses. That being said I do like the Sword to a point but would not recommend them as pimax half jobbed them ignoring there own commitments.
Due to pimax not following other vr companies providing valve with code to have there controller drivers available on Steam to install. They made it hard to make anything but a vive wand piggybacked compatible. controller. With no real easy method to create there ic clone.
Reality Controllers simply being XR2 Controllers mades it simple to add to SteamVR as other xr2 hmds already have a base driver support. Though pimax has said the Reality controllers have Sense(whether this will be enabled or not fully remains to be seen). If pimax enables sense on reality then they need to fix Sword Sense function. To which LucidVR creator of Open VR Gloves has made there own Index Open Knuckles Driver complete with Sense driver to map controls to mimic index Controllers functions.
Pimax missed a great opportunity to make a great contribution to SteamVR Controllers options which is very sad. Pimax could have released there own Index Like clone via LucidVR Open Knuckles driver or even used a touch sensor on the Joystick to mimic trackpad much like how Oculus did in the early days before there controllers had direct support.
A controller of interest now long dead but had a great number of buttons and was used in early days waa the Razer Hydra. The SteamVR driver for Hydra could use an update to better use all the inputs as the original simply maps the Hydra as a Vive Wand with a Joystick that in that controller required iirc a button press hold to activate the stick.
I find both IC and the Crippled Sword both have some ergonomic design issues. But that imho is true of all the current controllers IC, Qualcomm and WMR designs.
Pimax overall is a decent company with the pluses luke remote support and as you mentioned telephone support. However there overzealousness making commitments without knowing if they can deliver is something they really need to get a handle on before it potentially costs them largely.
The p1 series was never completed, p2 series is also heading that way as well even though more completed than the p1 series ever was.
Your unfortunately going to have to wait until pimax releases a new firmware currently in testing. Pimax should not have released that last one(s) that messed things up. Poor qc software release.
couple of post up or so OVR Space Calibrator has been patched to work with Crystal. So again we can say the community support is saving pimaxâs bacon.
