Is VR dead?

[blekenbleu]

Pimax cutting corners to save money on presentations isn't a great sign.

Perhaps it is; their Wikipedia page is all about technology and products.
Those in Shanghai may not care to waste cash on "authentic" front men,
concentrating instead on hammering out products that seemingly have found satisfied customers.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Maybe they will figure out that talking heads suck and go with star wars receding text

they may be aliens...

That might make a good meme starting with a picture of their spokesman.

 

[metalnwood]

That might make a good meme starting with a picture of their spokesman.

singing Road to nowhere

 

[Mascot]

Perhaps it is; their Wikipedia page is all about technology and products.
Those in Shanghai may not care to waste cash on "authentic" front men,
concentrating instead on hammering out products that seemingly have found satisfied customers.

You might well be right.
Can't remember hearing about many satisfied Pimax customers though. Ownership seems to be a gothic horror show of failed promises, missed deadlines and radio silence from CS. But hey, maybe the dissatisfied customers are the ones most vocal. That's usually the case with these things. As a card-carrying VR disciple I sincerely hope Pimax have turned the corner and can now be a trusted, dependable vendor. Time will tell, I guess. It's not like Oculus/Meta are saints and angels or anything.

 

[blekenbleu]

a good meme starting with a picture of their spokesman.

"Resident Alien" and "Men in Black" flashbacks

 

[Deleted member 197115]

"Resident Alien" and "Men in Black" flashbacks

More like "Herbalife Salesman Returns"

 

[RCHeliguy]

Words and poor presentations don't change people's perceptions. Actions do.

Sliding release dates from 3rd qtr through sometime in 2023 ( so far) seems to be in keeping with the Pimax of old.

Maybe they are just trying to string along a chunk more people to pre-order early and then wait a year or so to get their product.

 

[Spinelli]

If it wasn't for Pimax, I'd still be using triples w/ Nvidia 3D Vision. Every other headset is terrible in my opinion. I couldn't care less if they said a headset would be released X month but it actually comes out Y month. OK, well I care because I want to buy and enjoy the product as soon as possible but, besides that, I couldn't care less. If the product is awesome then who cares if it comes out in, let's say, Feb instead of Oct. I've been racing sims for about 20 years, what the hell's a few months? I can still race on my previous Pimax headset and/or monitor while I wait a few extra months for an incredible product to be released.

It seems people are hating on Pimax because they are such a small company yet absolutely obliterating every other VR company/headset when it comes to high-end VR and pushing VR tech. Instead of getting praised for their passion in pushing VR tech for all of us VR lovers, haters have to try and look for something to nit-pick about them.

 

[Mascot]

If it wasn't for Pimax, I'd still be using triples w/ Nvidia 3D Vision. Every other headset is terrible in my opinion. I couldn't care less if they said a headset would be released X month but it actually comes out Y month. OK, well I care because I want to buy and enjoy the product as soon as possible but, besides that, I couldn't care less. If the product is awesome then who cares if it comes out in, let's say, Feb instead of Oct. I've been racing sims for about 20 years, what the hell's a few months? I can still race on my previous Pimax headset and/or monitor while I wait a few extra months for an incredible product to be released.

It seems people are hating on Pimax because they are such a small company yet absolutely obliterating every other VR company/headset when it comes to high-end VR and pushing VR tech. Instead of getting praised for their passion in pushing VR tech for all of us VR lovers, haters have to try and look for something to nit-pick about them.

Who here is 'hating on Pimax'..?
If ANY tech firm released such cringeworthy promo material then they'd be fair game for a bit of ribbing. MS or Apple would be getting sniggers just the same, probably even more so. Pimax's size has nothing to do with it... but maybe their track record does? No idea, I've never owned one - but I know a few people who have, and they didn't seem to enjoy the experience very much.
Pimax are making some encouraging noises about recognising their previous deficiencies and will hopefully improve the consumer experience. It's what we all want, isn't it? This isn't brand fanboyism like Sega vs Nintendo, or even blinkered sizeism like you suggest. If Pimax do better then we all win in the long term.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Looks like HP is dumping inventory, BUT the G2 is on sale for $299.99

https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-reverb-g2-virtual-reality-headset

 

[markie44]

Looks like HP is dumping inventory, BUT the G2 is on sale for $299.99

https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-reverb-g2-virtual-reality-headset

That's a steal. Its still the equivalent of over $800 (at todays rate) here in the UK.

https://www.hp.com/gb-en/shop/product.aspx?id=1N0T5AA&opt=ABU&sel=ACC

Shame the 4090 is a little bit more than that...

 

[R8pilot]

When I first built my sim rig, I was intending it to be VR-centric, and ordered a G2.

Then came WMR - wow, what an embarrassing pile of ****. That, more than anything else, turned me off to VR, to the point that I haven't touched it for the past year.

I'm more of a linux person, and I cringe when I have to deal with Windows. My only use for it is for sim racing, I don't understand what's under the hood, and when there's a problem I am just as likely to mess something up as to fix it.

Now I hear lots of chatter about OpenXR. Is it friendly enough for a Windows-phobic no-nothing to give installing and using it a try?

I'm on W10, with a G2 and an Nvidia card.

Thanks.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I currently have W10, a G2 and Nvidia card. OpenXR is actually something you can download through Steam. Once installed it actually shows up as an option under the iRacing options. There is a toolkit for it that allows you to configure things like fixed foveated rendering.

OpenXR is actually more of the base that SteamVR is built on without a chunk of overhead so it runs more efficiently.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

When I first built my sim rig, I was intending it to be VR-centric, and ordered a G2.

Then came WMR - wow, what an embarrassing pile of ****. That, more than anything else, turned me off to VR, to the point that I haven't touched it for the past year.

I'm more of a linux person, and I cringe when I have to deal with Windows. My only use for it is for sim racing, I don't understand what's under the hood, and when there's a problem I am just as likely to mess something up as to fix it.

Now I hear lots of chatter about OpenXR. Is it friendly enough for a Windows-phobic no-nothing to give installing and using it a try?

I'm on W10, with a G2 and an Nvidia card.

Thanks.

There was a useful post a little while back outlining the steps to make it run.

 

[R8pilot]

Thanks RCHeliguy and Andrew. I hadn't known it was on steam, and that sounds very promising. I'll give it a try!

Thanks again.

 

[metalnwood]

When I first built my sim rig, I was intending it to be VR-centric, and ordered a G2.

Then came WMR - wow, what an embarrassing pile of ****. That, more than anything else, turned me off to VR, to the point that I haven't touched it for the past year.

I'm more of a linux person, and I cringe when I have to deal with Windows. My only use for it is for sim racing, I don't understand what's under the hood, and when there's a problem I am just as likely to mess something up as to fix it.

Now I hear lots of chatter about OpenXR. Is it friendly enough for a Windows-phobic no-nothing to give installing and using it a try?

I'm on W10, with a G2 and an Nvidia card.

Thanks.

My simrig is also my only windows machine, then linux all over the place! (not arch btw)

I have found WMR quite simple and with openxr toolkit and opencomposite it has become much slimmer to use.. You have to install both but they are in the background and you never see them. SteamVR is not required for anything I use any longer and the performance with the fix foveated rendering is really helping performance on my g2/3080

 

[gamma123152]

Thanks RCHeliguy and Andrew. I hadn't known it was on steam, and that sounds very promising. I'll give it a try!

Thanks again.

Sorry but I think that RCHeliguy is wrong here.

I never heard of downloading OpenXR on steam? SteamVR has a OpenXR mode that you can enable under the advanced/developer settings. But that doesn't fully bypass SteamVR, it's only there to solve specific compatibility issues, it doesn't bring the performance gains so it shouldn't be used if OpenComposite/OpenXR toolkit are available and for that you indeed need the OpenXR developer tools from the Microsoft Store.

The link that Andrew provided here is 100% correct and that's the way to go and all the extra info you need could be found on the OpenXR toolkit homepage. He has a great FAQ/guides/compatibility lists etc. just read it all(especially the part about fixed foveated rendering, that's where you get the big boost with the G2), the guy behind this is one of the best guys that Microsoft has. He does this in his free time, but from what I understood he also works on OpenXR itself. The work that he has done for the VR community is amazing.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Sorry but I think that RCHeliguy is wrong here.

you indeed need the OpenXR developer tools from the Microsoft Store.

My bad. I forgot that I actually used the Microsoft Store to download that.

I did install a few other tools in addition.

 

[Spinelli]

From someone who recently tried a pre-production Pimax Crystal at the recent Pimax show in Germany:

I had opportunity to play around with 4 Crystal units at roadshow in Berlin. Very good overall experience, this has a huge potential new VR clarity standard.

Quality is breathtaking.

My VR background: Index, Reverb G1 and G2, 8KX. Some experience with other HMDs (from one hour to few days of use) with following: VP2, VF3, Aero, Quest 2. IPD 71 with slight horizontal and vertical misalignment.

During testing, only 35 PPD lenses were used (42 PPD also available!).

Spent a few hours discussing and testing the units. Very good overall experience.

- Horizontal FOV is a little bit higher than Aero

- Vertical FOV is significantly better than Aero. I tried both, one after another (they had an Aero for testing), but it's hard to tell how big the difference is without measuring it. With the Pimax Crystal, after pushing the facial interface there is a potential for further FOV increase with custom covers or even 3D printed gaskets

- Clarity is comparable or even higher than Aero

- Blacks look much, much better than any VR headset I've ever seen

- Local dimming looks amazing. There was a presentation where local dimming was disabled and then re-enabled via the Pimax Experience menu with a black background. Amazing!

- Edge to edge clarity: comparable or the same as Aero (huge)

Chromatic aberration: not an issue

- distortions: not an issue. I deliberately tried the background with parallel and perpendicular lines (like "#") and distortions were a little bit seen, but only if you really look for them hard. Not seen during text reading, not even worth mentioning for games. Just to be clear, I also didn't have any serious chromatic aberration or distortions with Aero whatsoever so it may be an individual thing.

- Colors are absolutely great

- sweet spot is similar or same as with Aero (huge)


The person mentioned some issues with eye calibration and with some glitches on some PCs but not on others indicating software compatibility issues but that's software stuff, I wanted to focus on the actual headset itself, particularly the screens and lenses.

 

[Mascot]

From someone who recently tried a pre-production Pimax Crystal at the recent Pimax show in Germany:

I had opportunity to play around with 4 Crystal units at roadshow in Berlin. Very good overall experience, this has a huge potential new VR clarity standard.

Quality is breathtaking.

My VR background: Index, Reverb G1 and G2, 8KX. Some experience with other HMDs (from one hour to few days of use) with following: VP2, VF3, Aero, Quest 2. IPD 71 with slight horizontal and vertical misalignment.

During testing, only 35 PPD lenses were used (42 PPD also available!).

Spent a few hours discussing and testing the units. Very good overall experience.

- Horizontal FOV is a little bit higher than Aero

- Vertical FOV is significantly better than Aero. I tried both, one after another (they had an Aero for testing), but it's hard to tell how big the difference is without measuring it. With the Pimax Crystal, after pushing the facial interface there is a potential for further FOV increase with custom covers or even 3D printed gaskets

- Clarity is comparable or even higher than Aero

- Blacks look much, much better than any VR headset I've ever seen

- Local dimming looks amazing. There was a presentation where local dimming was disabled and then re-enabled via the Pimax Experience menu with a black background. Amazing!

- Edge to edge clarity: comparable or the same as Aero (huge)

Chromatic aberration: not an issue

- distortions: not an issue. I deliberately tried the background with parallel and perpendicular lines (like "#") and distortions were a little bit seen, but only if you really look for them hard. Not seen during text reading, not even worth mentioning for games. Just to be clear, I also didn't have any serious chromatic aberration or distortions with Aero whatsoever so it may be an individual thing.

- Colors are absolutely great

- sweet spot is similar or same as with Aero (huge)


The person mentioned some issues with eye calibration and with some glitches on some PCs but not on others indicating software compatibility issues but that's software stuff, I wanted to focus on the actual headset itself, particularly the screens and lenses.

Very encouraging and nicely detailed report - thanks @Spinelli.
Sounds like Pimax might have a good product on their hands with the Crystal. They now need to up their marketing game to do it justice, and stop shooting themselves in the feet with shoddy and comedic homebrew tech presentations.
Is the Pimax show touring anywhere else?