Is VR dead?

[RCHeliguy]

FWIW, Varjo has officially released a fix for the red shift with Base 3.10.1 released today.

I've been told that even if I didn't notice any red shift issues that it will dramatically improve clarity. I haven't tried it yet.

They had already done a great job with distortions.

Better late than never, right @gamma123152 ?

 

[gamma123152]

FWIW, Varjo has officially released a fix for the red shift with Base 3.10.1 released today.

I've been told that even if I didn't notice any red shift issues that it will dramatically improve clarity. I haven't tried it yet.

They had already done a great job with distortions.

Better late than never, right @gamma123152 ?

View attachment 675569

Agree! Probably because of my comment from yesterday

 

[RCHeliguy]

Agree! Probably because of my comment from yesterday

Now make another comment about the motion blur

I rarely notice it, but that's an instance of getting used to something.

 

[RCHeliguy]

If you look at this image on a virtual desktop with the Crystal can you tell me what you see?

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bernhardberger/RedShiftTester/main/Patterns/redshift_triangle.png

 

[RCHeliguy]

Using that image I adjusted the default offset from -0.4 to -0.45 i to -0.5 before I had a perfectly flat image.

Then I played some SteamVR games. Damn they are sharp!
Of course the amount the headset moves because of weight is more noticeable.

It's always the weakest link that you notice.

So I can definitely see how weight and motion of the headset impacts the resolution you can see in game.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Pimax is pushing my buttons again. They wrote a hatchet job comparison between the Crystal and the BSB. As usual it has BS logic, misinformation and of course omissions of anything positive about the BSB. Are there no adults working over there?

I guess that means that they are worried about the BSB, so that makes me smile a little.

Sorry, but Pimax just can't seem to stop doing things that piss me off. So why the hatred? Because they can't act like a respectable company!

 

[metalnwood]

Pimax is pushing my buttons again. They wrote a hatchet job comparison between the Crystal and the BSB. As usual it has BS logic, misinformation and of course omissions of anything positive about the BSB. Are there no adults working over there?

I guess that means that they are worried about the BSB, so that makes me smile a little.

Sorry, but Pimax just can't seem to stop doing things that piss me off. So why the hatred? Because they can't act like a respectable company!

Is this satire?

 

[RCHeliguy]

Is this satire?

I was thinking more of a whodunit, murder mystery.

 

[RCHeliguy]

 

[gamma123152]

Small Pimax Crystal update:

This has not much to do with sim racing, but I got the Index controllers working flawlessly together with the Crystal. Perfect tracking with the lighthouses and the Crystal! Yes it's possible now. As good as on the Index itself. How? Tundra dongle, light houses, index controllers, Pimax Crystal and:

https://github.com/Dextroo/OpenVR-SpaceCalibrator-PimaxCrystalFix

The tracking of the Index controllers are perfect with this method, not a single stutter or loss of tracking. The headset was also flawless regarding tracking for ~2 hours non stop playing of Half Life Alyx. It's absolutely amazing with the Pimax Crystal and local dimming on extreme.

And I want to add that I had zero issues with the Crystal wobbling on my head or something, no issues with the weight at all during this HLA session. So it's now a perfect HMD for the HLA type of roomscale games too. It's more comfortable during HLA then my Reverb G2 was.

@RCHeliguy
"If you look at this image on a virtual desktop with the Crystal can you tell me what you see?"
The Crystal don't have virtual desktop and I don't have it installed currently..

 

[RCHeliguy]

There is no way to stop a headset from moving on your face. I tightened much lighter headsets down to uncomfortable pressure and they still move. That's physics.

Since we get used to this and adapt my thought is that when a BSB feels more natural and provides a better experience, some of that is unconscious. It "feels" more realistic even if we didn't realize our previous headset was moving.

Of course @metalnwood made an observation that F1 drivers are regularly shaken around pretty well and they are also looking through a helmet screen. So I'm sure just like driving at night in the rain, our brain does a great job putting bits of pieces together to help us get where we are going.

But @gamma123152 if you are happy with your Crystal and feel it is the perfect headset for you, that's great! I hope you enjoy it for a long time!

With regard to that image. It seems that Pimax has found a good average value for their color shift compensation. Most people see little CA or red shift. I was curious how close it was for your IPD and eyes specifically since it does appear to be a variable thing. But I can understand that if you are happy, why look for something that may show something is just a little off especially if you don't notice it. Seriously, I can't imagine I would make the effort to look if it were me.

 

[Leynad777]

There is no way to stop a headset from moving on your face. I tightened much lighter headsets down to uncomfortable pressure and they still move. That's physics.

The sweetspot is usually bigger than the headset-movement and you can just simulate the difference by pressing the headset to your head with your hands versus not doing it, which doesn't seem significant here. I have no trouble with my 8KX regarding micro-movements I get from the GS-5 and especially shakers, but it was a problem with the HTC Cosmos before because it got more triggered by vibrations. The far lighter Pico 4 can even get more blurry than the 8KX on bumpy tracks and seems more a motion-sensitivity issue than about weight inertia. People with smaller heads might also have more problems with headset movement if the face cover doesn't sit tight enough on the sides. Usually people don't move their head in VR that fast and if so, a higher Hz-rate seems also important. The Crystal works with 120 Hz even some people struggle to get more than 90 Hz out of it, which is probably due to 3rd party software interfering.

 

[RCHeliguy]

The sweetspot is usually bigger than the headset-movement and you can just simulate the difference by pressing the headset to your head with your hands versus not doing it, which doesn't seem significant here. I have no trouble with my 8KX regarding micro-movements I get from the GS-5 and especially shakers, but it was a problem with the HTC Cosmos before because it got more triggered by vibrations. The far lighter Pico 4 can even get more blurry than the 8KX on bumpy tracks and seems more a motion-sensitivity issue than about weight inertia. People with smaller heads might also have more problems with headset movement if the face cover doesn't sit tight enough on the sides. Usually people don't move their head in VR that fast and if so, a higher Hz-rate seems also important. The Crystal works with 120 Hz even some people struggle to get more than 90 Hz out of it, which is probably due to 3rd party software interfering.

Absolutely. I wasn't suggesting everyone gets knocked out of their sweet spot.

That wasn't the main point of the video.

 

[mechsicko]

These days the term 'sweet spot' has narrowed to mean how much of the screen you can still see sharply when moving your eyes from center without moving your head.

The term for how big or small the physical position is where the hmd is properly situated on your head for optimal viewing is referred to as 'eye box'

 

[RCHeliguy]

Get off my lawn you young whipper snapper...

I'll try to remember eye box going forward. I still see people using sweet spot in some reviews, but I guess they haven't kept up either.

 

[Leynad777]

Absolutely. I wasn't suggesting everyone gets knocked out of their sweet spot.

That wasn't the main point of the video.

Sweetspot or eyebox wasn't my main point either, just that the weight inertia with a comfortable proper seated headset is usually not an issue, but my rig doesn't shake me around that much either. I also doubt that the too small FOV and not that great e2e-quality of the BSB can be compensated by it's little weight, while some people don't even like it's comfort that allegedly feels like very small diving googles.

I was using my Pico 4 exclusively for a few weeks and thanks to this facial interface with integrated airflow plus cotton-'socks' from VR-cover the comfort is just amazing. The new Virtual Desktop version now supports up to 400 MBit streaming in H.264+ mode, that's 180 GB per hour and so compression-artifacts are a non-issue certainly by now. Plugged into a proper power-supply there is 0 battery drain and probably 2 hours without a cable isn't that bad either. But today I switched back to the 8KX and despite the pixel-density is lower and I clearly prefer the Pico in desktop-mode, the FOV even on 'small' is just far beyond the Pico 4 and what you would get with a helmet. So I switch back to the 8KX because a proper FOV is just so awesome in sim-racing and flight-simming as well.

The Crystal has the same hFOV than the Pico 4, but significantly lower vFOV, so I'm not sure if this 'king of clarity' is really that much better. YouTubers are just the modern salesmen, so the new stuff they sale must be always far better than the stuff they sold in the past even if the downsides of the new stuff is obvious. IMO both the BSB and the Crystal don't provide enough benefits to buy them if you own already a decent headset and in case you don't need the extra clarity of a Crystal or the form-factor of a BSB while dealing with obvious disadvantages.

 

[gamma123152]

It's now clear how Somnium comes up with the higher FoV compared to the Crystal while also having aspherical lenses:
Somnium has has only a 65% stereo overlap.

Here is the Crystal measured with the same IPD and measuring method. Serious difference in FoV but 15% difference in stereo overlap is also huge.

I had to return the Aero because of it's stereo overlap, it gave me a black spot between my eyes. So if I must chose between a low stereo overlap or a lower FoV then it would definitely be a lower FoV. Simply because of what I experienced with the Aero.

I expect that the new upcoming "wide FoV" Crystal lenses will have the same trade off: lower stereo overlap for more FoV. I think that a lot of Crystal users will initially be excited for the higher FoV lenses, but once they receive them, they will probably go back to the current glass lenses, simply because of the better stereo overlap/eye comfort.

 

[RCHeliguy]

That tool should really should show total overlap degrees rather than a percentage.

If you compare the actual stereo overlap area shown in those graphs, both headsets are actually pretty close.

.82 * 105 = 86.1 degrees
.65 x 130 = 84.5 degrees

That percentage will only look worse for wider FOV headsets and that isn't representative of the binocular experience you get.

My guess is that we are unlikely to see a headset with more than 90 degrees of binocular overlap any time in the near future. For a headset with an actual 180H FOV that would only measure as a 50% overlap and yet it would be better stereo imaging than we have with any headset today.

According to wikipedia
" humans have a maximum horizontal field of view of approximately 190 degrees with two eyes, approximately 120 degrees of which makes up the binocular field of view (seen by both eyes) flanked by two uniocular fields (seen by only one eye) of approximately 40 degrees."

So an IDEAL headset with the full visual range of our eyes would have a 63% overlap.
120/190

 

[RCHeliguy]

Just for comparison, this is a measurement of an Aero by Bernard Berger on top.
Below that is another Crystal scan.

So for these examples

Aero .6749 x 112 = 75.58 degrees
Crystal .7304 x 104 = 75.9616 degrees.

That shows the deviation that different people get with the same headsets.
The Aero scan is at the upper range of what I've seen for it and the Pimax scan is at the lower range of what I've seen for it.

I'm not using these as a straight comparison because they are different people. You really need to compare the values for the exact same person for these to mean anything. But it will also depend on how well a particular person fits a generic facial interface and their face shape and how far back their eyes are.

FWIW, I don't see a black spot between my eyes with the Aero, but that is my personal experience.

 

[gamma123152]

For those that care, this is what the Crystal is shipping with for FOV.

View attachment 669254

I'll leave the recent comment by a VR headset reviewer as a thumbnail.

I have contact with Omni, he made those measurements with the poly lenses since that were the only lenses that he had at that time.

There is a huge difference between the glass lenses and the poly lenses. I couldn't live with the poly lenses too, I and a friend of me had a lot of focal issues with those lenses maybe because of that lower stereo overlap but surely also because of other issues(focal distance/blur spots). So the shown 73 percent overlap is with poly and 80 percent with the glass lenses for about the same iPd. Which also feels quite accurate to my observations.

So the measured stereo overlap that's shown here is inaccurate for the current lens version(glass), the poly lenses were temporarary.

For the rest you made a correct observation! Maybe we can get away with a bit lower stereo overlap once the FoV increases, we will see. Let's hope that it's not such a big issue as I suspected and that there's not to much distortion involved, the 8Kx and XTAL were both high FoV headsets but in the outer edges they simply had to much distortion. The shown prototype of the wide FoV lens of the Pimax Crystal was also less nice then the current low FoV lenses, according to the testers. So it's not a easy thing; good visual comfort and high FoV and high clarity/low distortion/good overlap.