It’s hard to consider something like this as important in a headset that has edge compression. We know without doubt what we see does not line up with reality.
And yet I find it easier to fall into the VR world in Pimax than in a small FOV headset.
A big part of that is the framing with the wide FOV. Unlike a small FOV headset where your view is always restricted in an unnatural way that reminds you you’re wearing a VR headset, the Pimax for me in 90hz at Normal and Wide has a framing very much like a motorcycle/car helmet. So when I’m in the Pimax it often feels like I’m wearing a helmet. I actually have a dream of a VR helmet and have a rough design imagined. I have even mocked up my 5k+ in my Kali BMX helmet and my son took a picture, we both thought it looked really cool. I’d like a light weight helmet with the Pimax on a visor hinge so it can be lifted out of the way but when it is dropped the helmet blocks off external light. I’d like the helmet to have lots of breathing room and for the helmet to contain the audio solution as well as fans for ventilation.
Now here you have exactly the right idea of what I a m talking about. It does not so much matter the quality of the image all the way at the edges, just so there is light and movement there to see in your peripheral vision and eliminate the “goggles” effect.
This is why I’m saying this is an important thing to find a way to compare headsets before buying!
Also it seems to me you could stretch the “normal” rendered FOV over a little bit more of the display in Pimax to improve this. So your “normal” FOV would maybe be stretched to halfway between where the edges of “normal” end currently and where the “wide” would end if enabled.
I have another question, probably an easier one to answer.
You say there is no “mask” on the normal and small FOV modes on Pimax, and also that it does not stretch these smaller modes to fill the display. Does’t that mean when you set the Pimax to “normal” the left and right edges would be straight lines up and down instead of rounded? I always found that unpleasant and was sure not to tighten the Index to where I started to see straight edges.
Wide and Normal have the superior rounded framing.
Small and Potato has flat clipped sides as well as Normal in 120hz mode. From comments it seems as though 202 headsets seem to have the same FOV in 110hz as 90Hz so perhaps they have superior framing and if so the 202 is a better headset now IMO.
You keep saying masked and that is not happening in the Pimax but you would probably call it that so comments here have been a little misleading perhaps. There is no mask applied, what is happening is an area of the screen is simply not being used so it is black.
Something you are not aware of is how the lens works in Pimax. Depending on the scene in Normal there is sometimes the illusion that Normal has the same wide FOV as Wide as there is some kind of glare in the peripheral vision when looking forward to give the illusion of a wider FOV. It feels very natural and immersive. Howecer in a raceing scene in bright light it very much feels like you are wearing a slightly restrictive racing helmet in Normal and even that disappears just like a real race helmet would.
Well technically it is a mask as in an LCD panel to produce black you must actually block the light. But it is not actually a mask from Pitool as far as I understand. I believe the black area is just an unrendered area that is by default black. The round edge would simply be the edge of the scene. I think it is unfortunate every FOV is not round.
I’m glad I was able to help find the answer you were looking for.
But… Bit of a self-contradiction there. If the image is rounded by the HAM at the edges when it’s not at the edge of the lenses and would otherwise be a straight line, it actually is masking parts of the display that are visible to the user. =P