Is VR dead?

[RCHeliguy]

I would love for the Crystal to deliver. Hopefully their headphones for it are improved.

Two questions:
1. When will they actually start to deliver them?
2. How is the execution quality and comfort?

I'm not sure how I feel about swappable lenses. I would be concerned about them detaching mid game and getting dust behind them.

 

[Rebel_488]

I’m 50/50 excited for the pimax crystal. As said above hopefully it’s the headset that makes me hole again lol

 

[RCHeliguy]

I’m 50/50 excited for the pimax crystal. As said above hopefully it’s the headset that makes me hole again lol

The Quest for VR nirvana is quite a task! LOL.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Is it inside out or still station based tracking?

 

[RCHeliguy]

Is it inside out or still station based tracking?

They are claiming both.

It has inside out tracking, but for the best tracking it's still compatible with base stations.

 

[RCHeliguy]

All this clamoring for the next VR headset seems a bit ironic to me after my recent 13900K & 4090 upgrades. I've had my Valve Index for coming up on 3.5 years and I am finally experiencing nirvana with it across the board with the very last drop of CPU/GPU hardware.

In Dirt Rally 2.0 and DCS I'm running at Ultra graphics settings at 90fps and both titles look excellent at full Ultra. Dirt Rally 2.0 and DCS have never looked so good and I feel like I'm finally seeing what each title is capable of delivering for the first time.

What has shocked me is that there has always been latency in the system that I didn't notice until it was gone. To be fair, iRacing and some other titles have felt pretty immediate for a long time. But Dirt Rally 2.0 and DCS now have a feeling of immediacy that I've never felt before.

In DR2 especially, I feel so connected to the car that I'm accurately feeling my way judging my control inputs much more organically than ever. It's a completely new level of immersion for me. I have never felt so involved. The visceral content jumped through the ceiling. My heart was pounding as I was driving through the courses.

I don't know how to describe that full feeling of oneness with the car, but it's never been like this before.

I'm suddenly a LOT less worried about the next headset that drops. This is also the reason I no longer am even tempted by the Varjo Aero. No matter what headset drops next, it will be another GPU generation before we will be able to drive it like what I'm experiencing now.

I understand that the Aero has some predictive frame generation and other interesting features coming, but I still think that the 4090 will be a requirement for the Aero or Crystal to get them to have reasonable performance and still with graphics settings turned down.

EDIT: Let me add that this is a system wide immediacy. The D-Box, SC2 Pro, G-Belt, and tactile are all in perfect sync. Everything all at once. The you are there feeling has never been stronger.

I've nearly lost all interest in the next headset.

 

[Rebel_488]

I kinda agree. Now I can run big grids on the g2 at 100 res and lots of eye candy I’m pretty happy. I hope the crystal is awesome but I’m not in the market (yet lol!).

 

[RCHeliguy]

Glad that's working well for you!

I've yet to feel right using the G2. I have seen some eye candy with it though. The cockpits in MSFS were very realistic and a couple scenes in racing sims were beautiful.

Unfortunately for every wow that's pretty moment, it's done something wonky. The optics of it still throw me off. I just can't get comfortable with it.

Right now the only thing I'll use it for is my RC Heli sim. For that the resolution in the center is critical and it makes that sim usable in VR.

 

[Spinelli]

All this clamoring for the next VR headset seems a bit ironic to me after my recent 13900K & 4090 upgrades. I've had my Valve Index for coming up on 3.5 years and I am finally experiencing nirvana with it across the board with the very last drop of CPU/GPU hardware.

Well, I guess it all depends on people's expectations, how picky they are, how much they notice / don't notice things, etc.

For me, the Index is incredibly far from nirvana. The only thing it's got going for it is it's fairly high refresh rate. It's visual quality at only around 14 - 15 PPD is barely acceptable for me. That's around the same as the Pimax 5K Super (and, if I'm not mistaken, the 5K and 5K+) and that's the absolute lowest PPD I can tolerate. With a PPD of 14 - 15, I usually run my games at 1.75x Pimax Supersampling (equivalent to 300% SteamVR Supersampling). I refuse to use less than 1.5 Pimax SS (200% SteamVR SS).

Worse than the Index's PPD, though, is the horizontal FOV. I find it's 108 - and the Varjo Aero's 109 - degrees of h.FOV abysmal. If even the Pimax's 2nd largest FOV (called "normal") at 140 degrees h.FOV still bothers me a little and makes me feel like I'm looking through some constricted ski-goggles or something, then 108 degrees makes me feel like I'm looking through some tiny binoculars or a key-hole. Even Pimax's 3rd largest FOV (called "small") is completely unacceptable to me and that's 120 degrees h.FOV and still beats all non-Pimax consumer headsets. Pimax's 4th largest, and smallest, FOV (called "potato") is 100 degrees h.FOV and is such a joke that it blows my mind how anyone can play like that. A FOV that small feels like some sort of alpha, pre- pre- pre- test model yet the HP Reverb G1 and G2 both have a h.FOV of under 100 (96 and 99 respectively).

P.S. I got the h.FOV values from here: https://risa2000.github.io/hmdgdb/ (I've tried most headsets though)

 

[RCHeliguy]

Don't get me wrong. I would love higher resolution and better FOV, and when I can have that without having to turn off all cool stuff I'm enjoying right now, I'll go for it.

The Crystal is at least one maybe two GPU generations from being able to run full tilt. I remember when people were getting the Pimax 8K's and had to suffer horrible fps, turn everything down including resolution and couldn't actually use the wide FOV. The 12K will likely be the exact same thing.

Remember the whole DisplayPort 2.0 thing? Because the cards don't support it, the Crystal requires both compression and likely reprojection to get something that looks decent. They really need DP 2.0 or better.

Tell me how many things you would need to turn off or turn down to get a solid 90fps without reprojection in sim titles?

For the first time ever I'm experiencing all the little effects that I've never seen before.

In DCS I was flying a helicopter and saw all the ultra level lighting effects and shadows across my dash as I turned relative to the sun and it was stunning. They were smooth, not jaggy and looked great.

In Dirt Rally 2.0 having all the ground foliage, trees, textures, particles completely maxed out looks great.

Once the game gets going being able to see all the things the game is capable of rendering is a cool experience and the resolution takes a back seat to having everything the game is capable of showing you on display.

It's possible I'll feel different about this later, but for the first time in the 5 years that I've been using VR, I can actually see all the effects and features every title is capable of displaying. That is glorious even if the resolution isn't as tight.

For my RC Helicopter simulator, I want all the resolution I can get dead center so the G2 works perfectly for that.

So for the moment no thanks, I'm good

 

[RCHeliguy]

I could change my mind, but right now..

I can't imaging going back to the dark ages of VR ever again.

I just reached the magical point of no more futzing with settings!!!!

Just set everything all the way up to 11 and play

Don't make me go back into the darkness after I've seen the light!!!!

When I see the new Pimax headsets, all I think is how many cool things do I need to turn off. How much time will I spend futzing with settings and sliders trying to get it to run at an acceptable frame rate.

Realistically the 4090 is the first GPU that can run the Pimax 8KX well. How long before we hit that point with the Crystal or 12K ?

Sounds like torture!

 

[metalnwood]

I think there are different aspects to simming that make some things take more priority depending on what you are doing.

If you are casually flying or driving then i agree pushing some of the visuals is nice because I am there for a different experience but when I am being competitive, which for me is flying dcs with squadron online or racing online then its quite different.

What I might have noticed and thought was cool in a SP drive about is probably completely unnoticed in a competitive scenario and having had this conversation a number of times with people I get a sense that its the same, the eye candy means less if you are using your sim competitively.

Of course we would all take both if we could.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Right now I'm a LOT faster in my Index than I am in my G2.

So it sounds like the Index is a win win.

What am I missing?

Better effects for improved immersion vs. Better resolution for better immersion.

 

[Mascot]

I'm still rocking the CV1 and ignorance is bliss.

 

[metalnwood]

I'm not saying you aren't faster, I expect you will be as fast with the g2 but I don't encourage you to do that if you are happier in the index, no point.

For you it's a win win but I do think that priorities can be different depending on how you use the Sim and of course we have many people in it for the immersion as well as in it for the competition and I have generally seen priorities for graphics can be different for the different groups

 

[RCHeliguy]

OK, this is something completely unexpected, but....

Remember XTAL ? The XTAL 3 is a 4K per eye piece headset with better optics than either the Aero or anything Pimax has. I was just informed that it runs well on a 2080.

The XTAL 3 is also $4,800 which seems outrageous...

Unless you just spent about $2,000 on a video card and were even entertaining the idea of spending $2,000 on a Aero.

Just saying a headset with a full visual FOV and absolutely ZERO distortion is available right now and doesn't require a 4090 to run well.

Considering everything else being thrown around why not?

Yeah I know the resolution is lacking a bit, but consider the absolute best distortion free optics available...

 

[RCHeliguy]

I'm not saying you aren't faster, I expect you will be as fast with the g2 but I don't encourage you to do that if you are happier in the index, no point.

For you it's a win win but I do think that priorities can be different depending on how you use the Sim and of course we have many people in it for the immersion as well as in it for the competition and I have generally seen priorities for graphics can be different for the different groups

The funny thing about immersion.

Medium graphics and all graphics options looks great and nothing looks out of place to break immersion.

High graphics with graphics options turned down means somethings don't look right and the clearer graphics make it look even more out of place and immersion breaking.

There are thresholds to this.

You need enough of the following to be competitive.

• resolution
• frame rate
• FOV
• effects to not be distracting

Once you get past a threshold for each of these anything past that is purely based on personal preference, but different people will have different thresholds that they are comfortable compensating for.

 

[metalnwood]

The funny thing about immersion.

Medium graphics and all graphics options looks great and nothing looks out of place to break immersion.

High graphics with graphics options turned down means somethings don't look right and the clearer graphics make it look even more out of place and immersion breaking.

There are thresholds to this.

You need enough of the following to be competitive.

• resolution
• frame rate
• FOV
• effects to not be distracting

Once you get past a threshold for each of these anything past that is purely based on personal preference, but different people will have different thresholds that they are comfortable compensating for.

I won't say I am an alien but I am fast and have done it from the dk2 onwards. I don't think anything on the list has been a hindrance since the first headsets

 

[Spinelli]

I don't feel the same way about GPU generation, VR headsets, game's gfx settings because running games at absolute maximum graphics is usually pointless, incredibly inefficient, and more of a "feel good" thing. There are many graphics settings in games that can be lowered without the player ever being able to notice. There are also usually some graphics settings that players can't even notice a difference in side-by-side pictures, let alone while actually playing the game.

I got Dirt 4 running at 60 fps / eye (120 fps total) in Nvidia 3D Vision on 3x 1440p screens - 33% more pixels than a 4K screen - with just a 2080 Ti. I carefully tuned the graphics settings and adjusted the right ones that make basically no difference to image quality.

There are so many gfx settings in games that can be lowered without the player noticing but that can increase framerates. Besides custom-tuning gfx settings, there are also the presets. Most games look almost identical when switching between the 2nd highest gfx preset (let's call this "high") and the highest gfx setting ("maximum", "full", "ultra", "nightmare", "psycho", or whatever the game calls it) yet the highest setting often gives a big, disproportional hit to the framerate.

OK, this is something completely unexpected, but....

Remember XTAL ? The XTAL 3 is a 4K per eye piece headset with better optics than either the Aero or anything Pimax has. I was just informed that it runs well on a 2080.

The XTAL 3 is also $4,800 which seems outrageous...

Unless you just spent about $2,000 on a video card and were even entertaining the idea of spending $2,000 on a Aero.

Just saying a headset with a full visual FOV and absolutely ZERO distortion is available right now and doesn't require a 4090 to run well.

Considering everything else being thrown around why not?

Yeah I know the resolution is lacking a bit, but consider the absolute best distortion free optics available...

Just advertising "4K / eye" doesn't mean much. For example, 4K / eye on a headset with a small FOV will give you better image quality than that same resolution on a headset with a bigger FOV. It's the resulting PPD that matters. That's why the Pimax 8KX @ 4K / eye has around the same PPD (around 22) as the HP Reverb G2 even though the G2 has a lower resolution.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I won't say I am an alien but I am fast and have done it from the dk2 onwards. I don't think anything on the list has been a hindrance since the first headsets

So all arguments reduce to personal preference. Fair enough.