Comparison of different VR solutions - pros and cons of different devices

[swaaye]

MRTV interviewed the Pimax CEO about the Crystal and a little about the 12K. I'd like to hear thoughts on this but I think he seemed pretty open.

MRTV Sebastian plays Elite on the Crystal and seems to put any concerns about contrast ratio to rest.

Pimax Portal. A sort of Nintendo Switch with optional VR capabilities and a 4K local dimming LCD that provides visuals between Quest 2 and Pico 4. I think it runs Android so maybe you can run any old app on it. Nvidia should have made a Shield like this.... well except maybe Nintendo wouldn't like that ha.

 

[pjbliverpool]

MRTV interviewed the Pimax CEO about the Crystal and a little about the 12K. I'd like to hear thoughts on this but I think he seemed pretty open.

I watched a good chunk of this the other day and tbh, I came away from it less confident in the Crystal than I went in. There seemed to be a lot of "oh yes we'll get that working" from the CEO without any specific substance behind the claims.

One thing that particularly bothered me was the eye tracked foveated rendering question which went something like:

MRTV: So can you get this working on all games?
Pimax: Yes absolutely, we're working on that
MRTV: And you're sure it will work for all games without specific dev input?
Pimax: Of course, it works on PSVR2 so it should work for us.....

Except, as far as I understand it, it literally doesn't work that way for PSVR2 and devs actually have to implement it into the game, making special accommodation for it in said game.

There's also the fact that it launches to the early adopters in April with half the features not working and at one point he pretty much refers to them as beta testers. Yeah, not filled with confidence. I hope I'm wrong though. Final release version reviews will tell, but I certainly wouldn't be pre-ordering, not even with the decent audio solution "incentive".

On a plus note, I was impressed that they'll offer a second battery free of charge.

 

[pjbliverpool]

MRTV Sebastian plays Elite on the Crystal and seems to put any concerns about contrast ratio to rest.

This looks really promising from a contrast/bloom perspective. I can't help but feel Pimax's problem is consistently with over promising. If they simply said, "this will give you the best visual experience in VR bar none, and we may have additional features to announce in the future", I'm sure it would go down much better. I'm not sure how great an idea it is to launch with so many features still being developed.

 

[swaaye]

I thought the interview was fairly straightforward with the CEO somewhat reserved (all of the Pimax people seem that way). There's a language and culture barrier going on for sure. We also don't know how technical the guy actually is. We'll see what happens.

I keep hearing people say they overpromise. I don't really listen to any of the hype. I just look for these first hand tests of hardware (or games) and go from there.

It will be interesting if it ships in April and what state it is in at that point. Can't wait for reviews. Preordering is always nutty but man with this it's a new level of wishful thinking.

 

[GhostofWar]

Here's another look at the bigscreen hmd.