Xtal VR headset

Good afternoon everybody!

I am considering buying the Xtal VR headset. I know, I'm crazy. I know it's expensive.

What I'm after is feedback from anybody else running it with DCS. I watched the SweViver review on it and I was sold. But, I would very much like to know if somebody else has tried it with DCS. I'm really looking for a second opinion.

As I said, I know it's a lot of money. Don't judge me. ;)

Thanks

Stef

Probably the best place to ask is the VR subforum, but I think the answer is no. But SwedeViewer got it running in DCS so presumably you can too.

Probably the best place to ask is the VR subforum, but I think the answer is no. But SwedeViewer got it running in DCS so presumably you can too.

Darn, I was worried I posted in the wrong place. :(

You should wait for the consumer version next year. Much cheaper.

For that time buy O+ on sale for 300$ and sell it after XTAL release.

You will always get 250$ minimum for used O+.

I would wait man. I've spoken to some guys who test a unit for a USAF program and they said clarity was good, but difficult to setup and has problems. Could be a defective unit but at $4K it's just not worth it to a consumer. Those are built for companies with a large budget.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

Don't you just love how everyone just assumes and gives him financial advice? The guy already explained that money isn't the issue. He wants to hear from others who may have had some experience with dcs / xtal. If you don't have a valid response then shut up with your financial advice - that's not what he's asking for.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

let's calm down.

if money was no issue, I'd bet everyone here has ordered a XTAL.

SweViver's clip on YT is the best comercial for it you can imagine.

Not only sharpnes and clarity because of the native resolution support, the lack of zooming lenses, but also that he mentioned he was using an non-ti RTX2080 (with DCS and all other games) is the ultimate argument.

but: money is for most of us the issue.

and yes: I should have **** ** myself, caus I dont have an XTAL. And I'm looking forward to read real experiences with XTAL here.

As I said, I know it's a lot of money. Don't judge me. ;)

I don't judge you, I envy you :(

Mate go for it! I've been on the cusp for a while but need a Guinea pig from the community to validate sweviver.

So entirely selfish motives!

I call dibs on it when you upgrade!

Still a hard decision

Good morning everybody,

Thank you all for your replies. It really helps put it all in perspective. I will say this, if anything, I would love to be a trailblazer for the Xtal and help everybody on the forum by testing and giving feedback.

Even though money is no objection, it would have been nice to get some confirmation from other people on that headset. $9K CAD is still a lot of money if it all winds up being a messy, non workable solution. But if it does everything SweViver says it does, I'm in for a great ride and I can't wait to share my findings with all of you.

Now if only the missus was not so mad at me! ;)

Thanks again

Stef

The cost is one thing but the 2-3 month leadtime is something else too. Can't wait to see your personal review of it though.

Pretty obvious that they're fairly bespoke, which can be both good and bad. Cost and parts availability being the biggest drawbacks. But you'll be getting (at least from all appearances) the best of all the current VR headsets in one package.

I'm in a similar position, considering the XTAL despite very high cost and willing to be a guinea pig. There are a few things making me hesitate:

• Delivery time is 2 months (new batch in July, based on feedback from VRgineers 2 days ago). 2 months is long enough that we will have feedback on all the other new headsets, VR optimisations in DCS (and X-Plane, my other main use). Much less interesting for me to commit to something 2 months from now.
   
  
• A few reports of distorsion issues at the edge of the image that they are confident to solve with software not hardware but would be nice to check.
   
  
• The lack of current use of the eye tracking except for IPD adjustment. This is coming and will be a free upgrade, but it's not yet clear what else needs to happen to actually use this in sims for foveated rendering and the associated performance gains. Does it need NVidia, SteamVR and/or ED to enable it, and does each actor have sufficient incentive to spend resources on this, compared with other uses like checking which part of a BMW I'm looking at in advertising software?
   
  
• The high price is partly because of the high quality hardware, but probably several thousand of that is amortising R&D cost over tiny numbers of units. So I guess there is the possibility of a consumer version that is nearly as good for a substantially lower cost just by enlarging the target market. In other words, this a pretty massive early adopter tax, but you're paying to jump 2-3 years into the future.
  

If this were €3000 I'd have bought already, but nearly €6000 with taxes is a lot of money etc. Given Wags' feedback about readability in the Rift S and the emerging impressive through-the-lens photos for the Reverb, it may be that those are viable (and much cheaper steps) intermediate steps while I wait to see the full potential of XTAL.

I've no doubt that this looks like an excellent headset right now even just with the resolution, FOV and lens quality.

Finally, I'm not sure of the latest official position on the consumer version. Sweviver and chums announced it in December, then VRgineers said at CES that they wouldn't go up against the big guys, and more recently Sweviver is talking about a consumer version like it's a done deal.

In other news, I have just taken the plunge on the Brunner CLS-E force feedback stick, so I'm happy to be the guinea pig on that as DCS support comes (hopefully this year) and will report back.

I´m sure the XTAL will be the best VR Headset on the market in 2019. And also sure it will perfectly run with DCS via SteamVR. No doubts about this... but ...

Money counts for everyone on earth and with this in mind, there should be taken some thoughts into consideration.

The price tag 100% focuses on companies and business not consumer. Middle range companies or big companies may invest into this, cause they could get balance the VAT and push down the annual turnover by new investments. A high price tag could be appreciated for them for the accounting and if they got a business case for the VR headset. Daimler Chrysler or Audi might order some hundreds pieces of the XTAL to equip their branches and provide a nice High End VR gimmick for their customers and special car configuration VR software. Or maybe big architecture office, to provide a first look into their projects, before they get realized.

VRgineers did not financed the XTAL by kickstarter, so they surely are deeply in red numbers, before one piece is sold and need to get out of the red numbers as quick as possible - I do hope their calculation works and they will develope a consumer version of the XTAL within next years, but first they need to get out of the debts, to be liquid to build up a mass production.

Don´t expect wonders of the XTAL. No doubt it is the best you can afford today. Valve with Index started development some years ago, where a wide field of view and the resolution of the XTAL panels were not thinkable. The HP Reverb is a quick shot which simply follows the demand of the consumer market for high resolution and to be the flagship in the Microsoft windows mixed reality portfolio in 2019.

The XTAL is very much comparable to the Pimax: same FOV, same resolution. I would bet, that with the next generation of VR headset, after Index and Reverb, we will see a significantly increase of the Field of View on all new VR devices, maybe next year, I don´t know, but currently the developement is kind of evolution of which the XTAL is most advanced today, but next year maybe standard in the consumer market.

I think the lenses for the XTAL were the most expensive part in production ( the panels are pretty average, I guess ). Producing such customized high quality lenses is expensive. Maybe they used a special liquid glass material like borosilicate instead of silicon quartz. Then there surely will be a lot of waste products to get usable high quality lenses. The lenses of the XTAl must be really phenomenal quality at this price tag... "please God let them have success and make mass production, so I could buy it :)))"

The Eyetracking for IPD adjustment is only a marketing selling point. It will only be used one time and in effect not better than the physical regulator of the first generation of VR headsets.

Foveated rendering, I wouldn´t bet on this. Guess at a time, when foveated rendering would work as intended, there will be enough performance from the graphics adapter or better solution which make Foveated rendering obsolete, but you never know. At today there is not really a use case for Foveated rendering. With the Fixed Foveated rendering of the Pimax, I experienced massive issues on the image quality with DCS.

Honestly, as good as the XTAL is, at this price tag, I would wait and buy any other VR headset to bypass the time until we get the advantages of the XTAL at affordable consumer price tags - I´m sure it won´t be long.

Surely I´m eagerly awaiting your impressions of the XTAL, once you test it with DCS :)))

I agree with all the points Voigt made.

The other thing I would ask myself is where will it be in 2 years? If money is no object then no problem I guess, you just get the next big thing.

The other thing I'd ask about is if they had any plans to improve the panel resolution at some point. At a guess no, but that might be possible and in many ways would probably future-proof the headset since its basically got everything else you could want.

For the dude who felt offended by my letters on his screen, for whatever reason? - I'm so sorry! I hope you are fine.

I think we’re all agreeing. If you can spend the money based on the current product without expectations for the future then it’s fine. But unlike a sim rig or expensive joystick which can last 10 years or more, it’s hard to see something even of this quality being the best for more than 2 years or so until an XTAL2 or a competitor. So having thought about it a lot, I think I will wait for some feedback on the Rift S and the Reverb and get one of those.

I think we’re all agreeing. If you can spend the money based on the current product without expectations for the future then it’s fine. But unlike a sim rig or expensive joystick which can last 10 years or more, it’s hard to see something even of this quality being the best for more than 2 years or so until an XTAL2 or a competitor. So having thought about it a lot, I think I will wait for some feedback on the Rift S and the Reverb and get one of those.

I break it down in cost per year used or hr of DCS played personally. But if cost is no issue for the guy, then it doesn't really matter.

The 3 main reasons why Xtal is superior

Hi all,

Again thank you for all your comments. You guys are a very educated group!

The 3 main reasons that are motivating me to get it are:

1) Great visuals (which permits instrument readability)

2) Wide FOV

3) Great performance

I have not seen any other headset that provides all 3 of those in combination.

Any other headset is an exercise in compromising. Cost aside obviously.

Stef

Sorry 2560x1440 displays don't cut it anymore. I have that in my Pimax 5K+ and the clarity leaves much to be desired. Especially considering those pixels are spread over a wide FoV, definitely not worth the money they are asking. Even if they are RGB OLED panels.

For $599, you can get a headset (HP Reverb) with two million more pixels than the XTAL.

Hi all,

The 3 main reasons that are motivating me to get it are:

 

1) Great visuals (which permits instrument readability)

2) Wide FOV

3) Great performance

Stef

On a paper - yes. For the larger FOV: from my own experience with Pimax - it is there, but all you see there is a blurry mess, basically just light. If you keep looking forward - it adds to immersion, but once your look at the outer areas - omg it is such a mess. The distortion was a big issue for me as well, again - thanks to a larger FOV.

Sorry 2560x1440 displays don't cut it anymore. I have that in my Pimax 5K+ and the clarity leaves much to be desired. Especially considering those pixels are spread over a wide FoV, definitely not worth the money they are asking. Even if they are RGB OLED panels.

 

For $599, you can get a headset (HP Reverb) with two million more pixels than the XTAL.

I think this is kind of the point, assuming sweviver is right. Firstly, you get much more effective resolution due to the more complete panel usage AND you get a lower hardware requirement due to lower need for over sampling for distortion correction.

With the reverb you have to drive those 2m extra pixels and we can reasonably assume that a bunch of them are being wasted to account for distortion correction and masking or whatever it's called. But like I say, that's based on the sweviver comments.

Certainly if it's true, then as a cutting edge product the price is probably reasonable, I just dont want to be the first to test that! But if one or two people confirm and there are no other downsides of stability or comfort etc, then i am piling in without any hesitation.

In Sweviver's video he confirmed what the pimax users said. The gauges look like a blurry mess. But as you can see in the comparison with the same gauge the XTAL is way sharper.

He also mentioned the reasons for this. Lenses, masks, native resolution, OLED (which is not RGB btw.)...

We haven't tested the XTAL yet. We didn't compare it to any pimax. But he did. Let's wait and see what DCS XTAL users will share with us here.

Speculations are the fuel of lots of threads. And they are o.k. Facts are what we are looking for.

Oh the Xtal isn't using the RGB OLED's from the StarVR but uses garbage pentile? I wouldn't touch the Xtal with a ten foot pole, especially at a garbage 70 Hz, let alone for $5K+.

Oh the Xtal isn't using the RGB OLED's from the StarVR but uses garbage pentile? I wouldn't touch the Xtal with a ten foot pole, especially at a garbage 70 Hz, let alone for $5K+.

XTAL has better clarity than anybody else at this point.

And StarVR - while still in the air, only announced to be re-released by Acer - had an RGB-stripe OLED if my memory serves me correctly. Custom made. Also, StarVR used 2x USB-C for connection, so VR SLI was basically a must.

In any case, XTAL will release a consumer version eventually (I guess when they recuperated a large part of their development costs) at a more reasonable price. If it offers the clarity that SweViver has shown in his review vid, then this is the benchmark. Not only for clarity, but also for efficiency, as it achieves that with no Supersampling whatsoever.

Look at this and please tell me how XTAL is garbage (timestamped at relevant point):

Sorry, but in what universe does that not look awesome? And the FPS you get from only having to run DCS at 1440p to get THESE results is garbage? Sorry mate, but you seem to have no idea what magic optics can work. HMDs are not monitors. There are way more variables at work than just resolution and OLED vs LCD.

Don't get me wrong, I'd freakin love to have StarVR rather today than tomorrow, but the XTAL is far from being junk.