Gadgetory

hi max then so these guys are actually a pretty new company based out of China and they are making some very bold claims so they boast that their VR headset I've got a prototype of it right here delivers dramatically better field of view and resolution compared to competing solutions from big-name companies like oculus and HTC and they actually flew all the way out to my studio here in Vancouver to have me try it but my BS detector started going off pretty hardcore when I realized that they were calling the two 4k displays one for each i8k that is at best a little misleading but I mean I'm already in at work on my Sunday due to some scheduling challenges so what the hey why don't we check it out my weekend trip to the office by the way is brought to you by tunnel bear the simple VPN that makes it easy to privately and securely browse a more open Internet triangle bear for free at the link below that's tunnel bear comm /l tt well this bag broke okay I guess we don't get another shot at this then so right here in my hands I've got what they're calling emphasis on their calling cuz I don't necessarily agree what they're calling the PI max eight K the resolution that it's running at here is 3840 by 2160 per eye so in order to achieve that well they had to put some pretty different hardware in here although there's really not much point showing it to you because the finished version of the pi max 8k is actually going to have one USB 3 this one has a USB 3 and a USB 2 and it's gonna have a single DisplayPort 1.4 this guy's using dual HDMIs and then because we're using a laptop for the demo an hdmi 2 mini DisplayPort adapter to drive the displays while the displays themselves run at 3840 by 2160 the way that we're actually driving this is with two 2560 by 1440 signals that are being up scaled if you want to run them at native resolution you are actually gonna need a higher end product called the PI max 8k X and you're gonna need a pretty banging computer because running two displays at 4k is not exactly straightforward especially if you factor in that they Qatar run at 90 Hertz if you want the kind of fluidity that well you're gonna want if you are playing games in VR now size-wise this thing is really big it's like kinda chunky looking but the good news is that when you're gaming in VR you're obviously not looking at yourself so all that really means is that you're your wife or your boyfriend or whoever's watching you play the yard gets to watch you look like even more of an idiot but weight-wise it's actually not bad you still got that tether drag but the distribution of weight is actually pretty solid I got to give them credit for that now tracking is handled with these laser trackers along the outside right now they don't look like anything special but this is pretty early going and this is pretty cool so they're gonna ship they have a complete kit that ships with lighthouses but if you already have an HTC vive you can actually use your existing HTC lighthouses and just plug in play and then that's also true of any vive controllers so those are inter compatible with a PI Max headset whether you go with the 8 K the 8 K X or the lower-end 5k now that's not to say that they don't strive to build their own controller so this is actually a prototype version of their controller it seems to bear a lot of resemblance to the HTC controller but check this out somebody dropped it at an earlier demo this whole thing has been fairly well used so hey inter compatibility is still pretty cool the the rep was able to run to the store buy a couple of these and then bring them over here for the demo so experience wise because it uses the lighthouses you can do a seated VR experience or you can do a room scale VR experience the maximum distance is of about the same as the vibe so you can do a play area about well this big I think it's a 5 meter distance between the two lighthouses truthfully I can't say I'm too disappointed that I'm going to be using vibe controllers today this is a prototype but they've got a lot of work to do here so this touch pad has to be matte there's no way that they can ship it with a glossy surface like this and the tactility of the buttons i'll give them credit it's lighter than the vibe controller so that's good but the tactile feel the buttons has a long way to go especially this trigger down here so hopefully these are all things they can get resolved one bonus though is a Type C charging so that's good this is what they're planning to ship but I would consider this to be kind of the base model because part of their whole concept is having a modular design for this product so you could add like a scent module you could add support for prescription built-in lenses you could add fricken what else they got they're claiming that they can do wireless transmission though they sure as heck won't be doing that at full resolution there's there's a cooling fan module planned apparently that would be pretty trippy oh and there it is it is it's running no they weren't kidding about the field of view it's all the way from about I mean I can't see what I'm doing but from about here to about here and then from like here to here and we've got another hilariously yes this thing is definitely a prototype in case you were wondering revelation here the controllers are not running wirelessly yet that will happen this is only prototype 2 I think out of like I think they're gonna do they're planning for prototypes at least before they actually deliver this thing feel like frickin you know I don't know I don't watch movies so I have a hard time doing like movie references ok yes I know I'm mirroring the display I'm gonna try and get away with it steam VR give me a break here ok so man this is gonna be hard to to not walk too far ok I think I need to adjust my interpupillary distance here because this is clearly not correct it's clear that they have some work to do with respect to making the flat displays appear a little bit more natural as you move your head around so right now there's a little bit of waviness as you look from one side to another there's a little bit of distortion and it is a little bit motion sickness inducing but clearly they're not done yet and I will say text is incredibly readable compared to anything that I have tried before all right so let's let's fire up a game shall we why don't we do my first VR game space pirate trainer so this is what I initially set up my first time trying VR in my in my computer room upstairs the night before I had to bring the HTC vive back to the office for loop to do his review this was the game that I played when I set it up in my office upstairs so that's not oh wow I've never seen this interview before what the heck so what it's like armoured until it's like okay oh come on now no I just want the high score on this setup here so that everybody who ever does this demo can know that I was better than that all right so I'm dead so initial impressions I'm gonna try it again in a minute without that secondary screen running because I know that that can affect performance but what I will say right now is that they have got some they have some motion tracking responsiveness stuff to address because as someone who can comfortably play VR for over an hour in games like hollow point running around jumping I've been in for about five minutes so far and I'm already feeling nauseated they're saying that they're planning to ship units early next year I don't think they're gonna hit that target and if they don't hit that target I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing because I would rather that they spend a little bit more time on that with that said they're moving in the right direction in some ways the increased field of view and the increased pixel density makes for a very different experience I was pretty skeptical about 2560 by 1440 upscaled to 4k and for text I don't know what the people talking about how you could use this at the desktop we're talking about like it's clearer but it's obviously up scaled so for text I wouldn't recommend the non X version or I just get the 5k and run that at 5 K natively but in games there is virtually no screen door effect so they're using what they're calling a CL PL display and I don't remember what the CL P stands for but the L at the end is liquid and they're saying that it's competitive with OLED in terms of the pixel response times so that the smearing that you'll see in the image as you move from side to side it is not and I don't know I don't know why they would say that it's a very it's a very strange thing to say because it's common knowledge that an OLED responds instantly well the best you can do gray to gray with an LCD is multiple milliseconds with that said it is better than I thought it would be but right now it's hard for me to say how much of the motion sickness is from that and how much of it is from the actual motion delay when I'm moving around or moving my hands now they told me that they haven't validated space pirate trainer so the next game I'm gonna try is one that I've spent a lot of time with and one that they actually suggested and that is the lab so here in longbow definitely enjoying the increased peripheral vision so like facing this way looking at the gate I can clearly see guys coming down the steps towards the right approach also in a brightly colored scene like this I'm not noticing any difference in pixel response times to nearly the same degree that I did when I was in space pirate trainer where everything that you're looking at is brightly colored objects on a black backdrop which is typically a more difficult scenario so I think I've narrowed down where most of the motion sickness is coming from it seems to be mostly to do with the slight distortion effect of the display because ultimately you're looking at a flat display through a lens that is stretching it out into your peripheral vision but it seems to be coming from the way that the image distorts as I move around particularly when I look up and down now they tell me that the next version is going to have an updated lens so I'm hoping that they can resolve everything that I'm experiencing today but like anything that you'd be backing on Kickstarter based on an early prototype you can't take for granted that anything will be any better than it was when they were initially pitching it I will say this though again the field of view is incredible like I actually feel like I'm standing in a plaza instead of feeling like I'm looking at a three-dimensional plaza that's like through a pair of binoculars in front of me and that effect is really cool so impressions wise guys remember this is based on a pre-production unit so take it for what it is right now they're asking for $4.99 for up IMAX bare-bones on their Kickstarter campaign so by bare-bones I mean it is just the headset and they assume that you already own vibe controllers and vive lighthouses that you'll continue to use then if you want the full package it's $800 for this one with the whole kit or $1,000 for the PI max 8 K X although that one has actually sold out at this time right now even though that is actually quite a bit cheaper than the HTC vive the rift at 400 bucks with sensors and with touch controllers included is a more seamless experience for sure with that said now that I've experienced what a next-gen resolution display is like in VR I would have a very hard time recommending that you buy a current gen VR experience because the increased immersion from the wider field of view and the higher pixel density makes an enormous difference and this was a pretty cool experience even if I do feel a little nauseated right now I wish them the best of luck on the next couple of iterations because I can see they're headed towards something pretty cool here and on the subject of being headed towards something pretty cool whether your device 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