Is VR dead?

[Rebel_488]

This is def a time to WAIT for any sensible level headed vr fan with deep pockets or not. Exciting times

 

[gamma123152]

This is def a time to WAIT for any sensible level headed vr fan with deep pockets or not. Exciting times

Exactly and not even that long. Once all the launch issues of the Crystal are solved and once it's available at local retailers with proper warranty in all countries(until now it were only a hand full of shops worldwide) then it's an amazing option. It's truly the first VR HMD that offers amazing colors/blacks/resolution with 4K per eyes visuals that are even sharper then a 4K resolution TV without distortion/warping/blur and a normal FoV and stereo overlap in history. So truly a next generation experience. If you hate Pimax as a company (which I can understand based on their company history, but I must say that they have been really helpful to me and offered me good service until now, so my experience is good) then you can wait for the VR1 but since they work together with XTAL for their distortion profile I expect an non optimal distortion profile because the XTAL seemed to suffer from pretty bad distortion I understood from its users (which are not many because of the price of that headset).

 

[RCHeliguy]

Why try to sell me a Crystal when I spend so much of my time in room scale games?

Why would you suggest it when I want high quality hand controllers and even the VR Flight Sim guy said the Crystal's controllers felt flimsey and like they would break if he dropped them.

Why would you suggest that system when you know I want to keep using my Index Controllers.

The Crystal is a very poor match for room scale games. Even some of the sim only guys have said it's heavy. They still haven't even announced when their lighthouse tracking is coming? And then it would require 2 rechargeable batteries. YUCKO!!

That is a cluster f$$k of a design with good displays.

Pimax put out a joke of a video saying that their insde out tracking allowed you to play Beat Saber and that idiot spokesman waved his hands around for a few seconds and called it good. Give me a break!

It is a one trick poney and only viable for sims.

BTW was reading a reddit discussion on Brad's video and most there said that it seems fair and was accurate even if it didn't spend time talking about any of the positives. As they put it, plenty of other videos cover the OMG happy happy dance, so this is also useful.

Brad has stated that he used to spend time trying to say nice things about headsets and he's over it. Now he points out the issues and he listed a number of headsets that he called failures that have been blips that far undersold expectations because they were not very good.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Back to the Apple Vision system.

It's the first to use 4 cameras to track your eyes and it looks at your eye hovering and dilation when you are about to click to improve accuracy when it's watching for finger gestures or just using your eyes.

The cameras and emitters shoot through the lenses instead of around the edges.

It will also have 100% Dynamic foveated rendering support from all applications, which is far better than anything we have in the VR world today.

 

[gamma123152]

Back to the Apple Vision system.

It's the first to use 4 cameras to track your eyes and it looks at your eye hovering and dilation when you are about to click to improve accuracy when it's watching for finger gestures or just using your eyes.

The cameras and emitters shoot through the lenses instead of around the edges.

It will also have 100% Dynamics foveated rendering support from all applications, which is far better than anything we have in the VR world today.

Apple doesn't support sim racing SteamVR/OpenXR to my knowledge?

 

[RCHeliguy]

Apple doesn't support sim racing SteamVR/OpenXR to my knowledge?

It absolutely does not, but it is showcasing what can be done and it is showcasing what a next gen headset can be and the direction many others will take cues from or just copy.

Still pumped that the Valve guys were very excited by the Apple announcement.

 

[gamma123152]

Why try to sell me a Crystal when I spend so much of my time in room scale games?

I reply here about sim racing because this is a sim racing forum.

I didn't know that.. Yes if you play beat saber or other quick head moving games (HLA which is kind of slow moving so this will still be okay btw) then it's indeed better to find a lighter weight device. But tbh I still need to try Kayak Mirage (a game that I enjoyed with my G2+index knuckles) to see if fast moving action is really an issue, I expect it is but I didn't try it yet.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I reply here about sim racing because this is a sim racing forum.

And I now know 2 beta testers who are sim racers and 3 Aero owners (also sim racers) as well as a number of other sim racers who have ordered the BSB. So there will be sim racing feedback on that headest.

Of interest to some is that it will co-exist with triples like an Index or Pico 3, but not an Aero or Pimax.

Would you be surprised to hear that positive comments are coming back for the BSB in a sim racing environment? But I'm sure it's all lies.

 

[gamma123152]

It absolutely does not, but it is showcasing what can be done and it is showcasing what a next gen headset can be and the direction many others will take cues from or just copy.

Still pumped that the Valve guys were very excited by the Apple announcement.

Will take many years, of course the Crystal is also not end game. An end game headset is far away. But before such Apple tech evolves into other brand headsets that support OpenXR we are a couple of years away probably. This since it's proven that VR doesn't move as fast as we all want it to move... but at least it moves. It's not dead at all, that's also something that we can conclude

 

[RCHeliguy]

This is one of those moments where not having any emotional connection with your gear helps.

If I write off my Aero after only 8 months of use for a BSB, no biggie!
If I write off my BSB after only 6 months of use for a new Index as a possible example, no biggie!

I expect all my future headsets will be microOLED + pancake lenses and be reasonably light weight and small. I've pretty well written off the Somnium until they release a newer microOLED pancake lens solution. If the BSB isn't everything I hoped, I'll fall back to my Aero until the next Index or something better is released.

BTW was just playing "In Death" this morning which is an archery game that many inside out tracking systems have problems with and is one I've enjoyed for years now. The Aero is a very comfortable headset, but I would definitely enjoy these games more if I couldn't feel my headset or forgot I was wearing one.

I'm setting up a computer with hand me down parts i9-12900KF, 2080Ti, Index for my daughter for her upcoming birthday. I'm sure she will continue to enjoy it for a while. BTW she loves Beat Saber and her Rift system died recently.

 

[Leynad777]

BTW was just playing "In Death" this morning which is an archery game that many inside out tracking systems have problems with and is one I've enjoyed for years now. The Aero is a very comfortable headset, but I would definitely enjoy these games more if I couldn't feel my headset or forgot I was wearing one.

In Death was one of my first Pico 4 games and can savely say it's not the tracking I'm not great in it. But I was bow shooting for real after a long break and my aim intuition got better. IMO the real hardcore tracking challenge is OhShape on hard and the Pico 4 does a great job, but not perfect. With Beat Saber the controller are in front of the headset, so rather easy to track in comparison.

 

[RCHeliguy]

In Death was one of my first Pico 4 games and can savely say it's not the tracking I'm not great in it. But I was bow shooting for real after a long break and my aim intuition got better. IMO the real hardcore tracking challenge is OhShape on hard and the Pico 4 does a great job, but not perfect. With Beat Saber the controller are in front of the headset, so rather easy to track in comparison.

I used to be ranked in the top 100 players on In Death, but never made it past level 13.

 

[Leynad777]

I used to be ranked in the top 100 players on In Death, but never made it past level 13.

The Quest Pro controllers should provide Lighthouse-accurate tracking and playing such games untethered is a game changer, so IMO not the best reason for a BSB that probably needs three lighthouse boxes to be in the ball-park.

The Crystal wouldn't be an option for me either. Some guy claimed it was supposed to be the 12k and because Pimax couldn't get enough data through the DP they've downsized the displays to the Crystal obviously without changing it's shape and weight. If that's the true reason or not, Pimax IMO can't survive with the likely flopping Crystal and especially Portal. The still missing standalone might not even come true because they realised the shop won't ever be profitable. Can't wait till my ROG Ally arrives, because that's a proper handheld

IMO Pimax will bring a stripped down version of the Crystal soon and that's why they pushed the delivery to announce it sooner. Just tethered, maybe just plastic lenses or both options, probably no eye tracking (who knows it will be ever running on the Crystal) and they need a 5k successor anyway to still provide VR headsets in the mid price range.

 

[ltnordb]

Just a point on vr brightness. I often find my G2 to be annoyingly bright, especially in MSFS. I really wish a brightness slider was a standard feature in VR headset software, and I'd much rather have proper black levels than eye searing brightness.

I generally turn down brightness on any screen, from my phone to my tv to my computers.

 

[RCHeliguy]

The Quest Pro controllers should provide Lighthouse-accurate tracking and playing such games untethered is a game changer, so IMO not the best reason for a BSB that probably needs three lighthouse boxes to be in the ball-park.

There was a video about the BSB a few months ago that mentioned the tracking wasn't up to snuff. And they've changed the hardware that pairs with the Index hand controllers since then. Now it is supposed to be as good as with the Index itself. I should have taken a screen shot of my conversation with the beta tester. He mentioned the technical details about this.

The future is.....

 

[gamma123152]

Just a point on vr brightness. I often find my G2 to be annoyingly bright, especially in MSFS. I really wish a brightness slider was a standard feature in VR headset software, and I'd much rather have proper black levels than eye searing brightness.

I generally turn down brightness on any screen, from my phone to my tv to my computers.

I have the Reverb G2 and it's super dim to me, for that reason it lacks contrast and the colors are faded. Then driving under trees you don't feel any real difference, with the crystal the difference is huge, close to reality what you see when driving under trees. The same for the light differences between sun and overcast and early evening/morning(sun up/down) races, extreme difference, with the G2 it just feels dim. I'm unsure how the brightness of the G2 can be eye searing. The brightness/nits with regular sunlight, even cloudy, outside (so real life) is way way higher then the G2 and still even higher then the Crystal, so imo there's still lot of room for improvement for even brighter displays. Meta has a working prototype I understood with 20.000 nits, that would be blinding imo so I don't know what their goals is with that, but the G2 can really not be eye searing, not even the Crystal is something close to that when looking straight into the sun which is almost #fff, it's super bright in for example AMS2.

 

[RCHeliguy]

The Quest Pro controllers should provide Lighthouse-accurate tracking and playing such games untethered is a game changer, so IMO not the best reason for a BSB that probably needs three lighthouse boxes to be in the ball-park.

The Crystal wouldn't be an option for me either. Some guy claimed it was supposed to be the 12k and because Pimax couldn't get enough data through the DP they've downsized the displays to the Crystal obviously without changing it's shape and weight. If that's the true reason or not, Pimax IMO can't survive with the likely flopping Crystal and especially Portal. The still missing standalone might not even come true because they realised the shop won't ever be profitable. Can't wait till my ROG Ally arrives, because that's a proper handheld

IMO Pimax will bring a stripped down version of the Crystal soon and that's why they pushed the delivery to announce it sooner. Just tethered, maybe just plastic lenses or both options, probably no eye tracking (who knows it will be ever running on the Crystal) and they need a 5k successor anyway to still provide VR headsets in the mid price range.

IMO for Pimax to have thrown a hail mary pass with far too many features for anyone to care about, has significance. When they introduced this thing, I called it a committee headset with everything including the kitchen sink thrown in and a huge mistake.

If they strip it down to something simple like you suggest, it could become a viable product rather than a Frankenstein bolt together monstrosity.

Of course the people wearing a Kg on their head, who have to maintain a charged battery will be pissed if they release the headset they should have without all the excess baggage.

It still all reeks of desperation. I can't imagine all the companies who recently funded this effort are happy. But I also wonder if Pimax had fallen so far behind schedule that they recieved an ultimatum to finish the product and ship or risk having a leadership change. Why else would they ship incomplete units before correct packaging was ready knowing they would need to spend more money shipping final lenses later.

Someone's nuts were in a vice.

 

[RCHeliguy]

And this is the end game.

 

[metalnwood]

I

This is one of those moments where not having any emotional connection with your gear helps.

If I write off my Aero after only 8 months of use for a BSB, no biggie!
If I write off my BSB after only 6 months of use for a new Index as a possible example, no biggie!

I expect all my future headsets will be microOLED + pancake lenses and be reasonably light weight and small. I've pretty well written off the Somnium until they release a newer microOLED pancake lens solution. If the BSB isn't everything I hoped, I'll fall back to my Aero until the next Index or something better is released.

BTW was just playing "In Death" this morning which is an archery game that many inside out tracking systems have problems with and is one I've enjoyed for years now. The Aero is a very comfortable headset, but I would definitely enjoy these games more if I couldn't feel my headset or forgot I was wearing one.

I'm setting up a computer with hand me down parts i9-12900KF, 2080Ti, Index for my daughter for her upcoming birthday. I'm sure she will continue to enjoy it for a while. BTW she loves Beat Saber and her Rift system died recently.

I just did some laps in the new lmp3 at iracing at sebring. It was a lot of fun and I was using my trusty g2.

I was racing with another person here and one thing we both thought from having been reading here is how good the g2 is and that another headset is not going to add much to those moments when you are really focused and everything is flowing. You don't see all the issues so commonly discussed here.

Sure the visual quality is going to better there is no debate, more resolution, better contrast. Great things. It's going to be wow, you are going to notice it for a while and then you are going to take it for granted and the only thing that matters is how much fun you are having for what you got it for - which for the large majority of people here is using in a racing sim.


Games that look terrible that are 30 years old are still a lot of fun because it is the gameplay that makes it fun, not the graphics. Hell, people still read books without pictures.

I think you are missing out not actually using your gear and concentrating more on what you hope is going to make you use it more.

edit. it takes one to know one. at one point during my flight simming days i was always after the next best thing/upgrade change to the point i never used the gear i had which was great gear. Finally i dumped most of it, went simple (vr helped) and got back to the fun that drew me in, in the first place. The sims.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I will never disagree with you about what you feel in game and what you don't notice in the heat of the moment or how racing and racecraft are not all about the toys we play with.

I frequently see an inverse relationship between the money spent and the actual time racing and that definitely matches my personal experience.