My Xtal has finally shipped!

:lol: I did not mean in that sense, I meant that VR is a scam economically, who sells will gain years before giving us a decent vr and when we have it then the games will become heavier and we will be at the same point

:thumbup:

Statements like this are always made by people who have never tried VR. The HP Reverb gives us incredible visual clarity, and the performance on the same GPU and CPU has actually increased because we no longer have to use super-sampling or increased PD factors in DCS.

 

The only "scam" here is just like Wormeaten said. It fools you into believing you're actually sitting in a cockpit, when you're not.

Actually, guys, I think I know what is Falcon want to say and I agree with him.

Back in days Enthusiast was those people who are buying BestBuy hardware to get the best performances per dollar. Today modern marketing using this term to describe people who will buy best possible no matter on price maybe not even best performances but the most expensive product which is marketing as best even when they are not just to justify a high price.

We see this in any aspect not just in VR. For example GPU market and increasing prices without real justified cause.

3 years ago I was talking about the way how Rift should look like and will be more affordable with even better performances. I was insulted by some people who talked about how I don't have a clue what I'm talking about. And look today, 3 years after Rift-S is exactly like I was talking CV1 should look like to be cheaper and more affordable.

Falcon is talking about that milking strategy most of the developers leading today on the market. If we are talking for today's VR HMD only Rift-S and Reverb are justified their prices. All other HMD are overpriced and not worth it.

XTAL is a different story. XTAL is still a prototype and it is not in mass production to be cheaper and I could understand those who will buy even for 5000$ is you can afford it. XTALL is still not a consumer product and when it reaches that status will be more affordable.

About Rift-S, in my opinion, it is not perfect. I will do it a little bit different today. My version of Rift-S 2 will have the same level of clarity but 125 horizontal FOV without much-increasing production cost compared with today's Rift-S. Such Rift-S 2 shouldn't cost more than 500 to 550$ but that is a different story.

Let's stay on this and stop the debate about it and stay focused on feedback about XTAL which I'm excited about. :thumbup:

You enjoy the vr, but the markets see you as chickens to be plucked, better instead make the market understand that we don't want to hang between 500-1000 bucks every year for 5 years waiting for screens and technologies present today. The only way is the critique and the signature to use the best technologies, even if we buy it the anyway.

Then for some comments ... no one here argues that vr is the future and that it is beautiful, I only make considerations based on money and the way things started and going too slowly. At this point it is better to buy xtal.

Without even knowing anything about how the xtal would even run the games?

That kind of money?

Pretty sure I will be able to upgrade my headset a few times over the next few years for less than it cost.

Yikes.

If i had the money, I'd get one as well. Looks great. Looks like you'd get a sore neck, but it looks great :)

The cost is an obvious issue but the quality of VR experience has simply got to be the best of anything possible right now. Very much looking forward to the review...

Without even knowing anything about how the xtal would even run the games?

Checkout SweVivers video on Youtube about it.

Edit: As already posted:

Just watching this video again I see: The XTAL should perform like 40 to 50% better than the Pimax counterpart, although they have the same resolution on paper. Maybe this is what Falcon meant with everything besides XTAL being a "scam". It performs better and has a lot better visual clarity. If you reduce the additional features the 5000€ XTAL version has, and after some polishing from the engineers side, the price might come down to 3000 or so, which "makes it even more justifiable to buy".

Checkout SweVivers video on Youtube about it.

 

Edit: As already posted:

Just watching this video again I see: The XTAL should perform like 40 to 50% better than the Pimax counterpart, although they have the same resolution on paper. Maybe this is what Falcon meant with everything besides XTAL being a "scam". It performs better and has a lot better visual clarity. If you reduce the additional features the 5000€ XTAL version has, and after some polishing from the engineers side, the price might come down to 3000 or so, which "makes it even more justifiable to buy".

I paid roughly 1/10 the cost of an Xtal for a Reverb and although I got a much smaller FOV, the horizontal and vertical resolution are fantastic in that space. I also have MUCH better performance in DCS than I had on my CV1. I don't have any personal experience with the Pimax, so I can't comment on how it compares with the Reverb, except that it costs more. I have heard from people who have tried the Pimax that it does have performance issues, so I guess I would consider that a "scam". But, I also don't know what configuration settings the people who reviewed the Pimax headsets are using. The Xtal has a lot of impressive technology built into it, which seems to include all of the things that other VR developers have only had in prototypes. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. I find my poor man's version of it, the Reverb, to be acceptable for the price. One thing that would concern me about the Xtal is all of the moving parts that have to all work in unison to give you basic functionality. When they all fly in formation, I'm sure it will be like a dream come true. But, if they don't, due to some bugged release of drivers (which we all know NEVER happens), you have a much more expensive paperweight for a couple of weeks while they fix the driver bug. It seems a lot like a helicopter in that sense. As long as all of those moving parts keep flying in formation, you'll be just fine.

That being said, if everybody sat on their money with the Xtal and waited for the price to come down, or waited for the ultimate Holy Grail of HMDs (which is what the Xtal looks like it has the potential to be) there wouldn't be much reason for them to some day develop VR for the consumer market at a more affordable price. Its too rich for my blood, but I salute the OP for his pioneering spirit. I'm sure he'll be very happy with it from everything that has been published. The rest of us who are buying into the cheaper, consumer products are keeping that advancing as well. As others have already said, if everybody had a "its not ready yet" attitude, it would never be ready, because there would be no reason for developers to keep working on it for the consumer market. I look at this like investing. Although we may not necessarily be seeing a physical dividend, the money we invest in these products will eventually make them better and cheaper, which is money in the bank. The more of us there are that do this, the quicker that will happen.

"No bucks, no Buck Rodgers." :D

Speaking of xtal we can see that it is not so much the resolution but how the lenses are designed,

in few words less deformation of the lenses= clearer image. Surely having good lenses makes the cost go up a lot, especially if they remove chromatic aberration.

I would like the next hmd to be similar to xtal, made intelligently and with little deformation of the lenses and the image, a screen with nice colors and foveated rendering.

The problem with good optics is they cost alot. I would say most of the hmds on the market the lenses cost under 100 bucks.

Checkout SweVivers video on Youtube about it.

 

Edit: As already posted:

Just watching this video again I see: The XTAL should perform like 40 to 50% better than the Pimax counterpart, although they have the same resolution on paper. Maybe this is what Falcon meant with everything besides XTAL being a "scam". It performs better and has a lot better visual clarity. If you reduce the additional features the 5000€ XTAL version has, and after some polishing from the engineers side, the price might come down to 3000 or so, which "makes it even more justifiable to buy".

don't trust these claims. not saying that this is a bad headset, only that this video holds absolutely no real information and should be regarded as a marketing piece, especially since the youtuber is somehow affiliated with the developers of the xtal.

40%-50% performance gains seem exagerated, if you think it through.

it might still be a superb headset though. looking forward to reading the first reviews!

Hmm something's wrong, this review is taking to long.

I think stefew1966 has been taken captive by mighty Lord Immersion and is stuck forever now in a virtual cockpit :fear:

Hmm something's wrong, this review is taking to long.

I think stefew1966 has been taken captive by mighty Lord Immersion and is stuck forever now in a virtual cockpit :fear:

That's how they get ya. :ufo:

don't trust these claims. not saying that this is a bad headset, only that this video holds absolutely no real information and should be regarded as a marketing piece, especially since the youtuber is somehow affiliated with the developers of the xtal.

 

40%-50% performance gains seem exagerated, if you think it through.

it might still be a superb headset though. looking forward to reading the first reviews!

Do you think I'm an idiot? 1) He doesn't come across as somebody lovingly fooling his viewers base 2) He explained well and why the XTAL is better in terms of performance and visual clarity, it sounds logical to me 3) He also included a scene with SteamVR for example, where the XTAL is recognized with a native 1440P resolution. Which the Pimax is clearly not. It's simple math to estimate the performance gain you would have from owning a XTAL, the Pimax is rendered at a roughly 50% higher resolution. Even if it's only 30% that's still huge and noticeable ingame, be sure.

I'm the last guy you'll find to believe everything people claim on the internet but in this case, how he explained it and underlined it with his videos you can see there must be something right to the XTAL - or better put: wrong with the Pimax. There is a reason this thing is so expensive, kudos to the developers to be able to build something like this.

Do you think I'm an idiot? 1) He doesn't come across as somebody lovingly fooling his viewers base 2) He explained well and why the XTAL is better in terms of performance and visual clarity, it sounds logical to me 3) He also included a scene with SteamVR for example, where the XTAL is recognized with a native 1440P resolution. Which the Pimax is clearly not. It's simple math to estimate the performance gain you would have from owning a XTAL, the Pimax is rendered at a roughly 50% higher resolution. Even if it's only 30% that's still huge and noticeable ingame, be sure.

 

I'm the last guy you'll find to believe everything people claim on the internet but in this case, how he explained it and underlined it with his videos you can see there must be something right to the XTAL - or better put: wrong with the Pimax. There is a reason this thing is so expensive, kudos to the developers to be able to build something like this.

first of all, i didn't want to imply and hopefully did not imply that you were an idiot.

i am however still very sceptical of this video. for me the youtuber comes across as somebody who would not necessarily fool his audience but would happilly fool himself. you may call it authentic, i think he comes across as gullible. also - as far as i know - he is affiliated with the developers of the headset, so all his xtal content must be seen under this premise.

his technical explanations are also lacking and in parts misleading and wrong. the general concept however is valid and i don't disagree with the idea of the xtal giving more clarity while effectively pushing less pixels.

about the proclaimed performance gains, i must admit, that i might have been wrong. if you compare it to the pimax devices only (like you did), i find the 40%-50% gain "reasonable", but this is because pimax are notorious for wasting all the rendered pixels.

if you compare "actual rendered resolution / percieved clarity" to the rift s and index, i would still not expect the xtal to be that much better.

I hope stefew1966 has a good lens for taking pictures, there isn't much on the net.

Pictures

I hope stefew1966 has a good lens for taking pictures, there isn't much on the wet.

 

Uhm, I wasn't planing on taking pics of the image as I find them very suggestive. However if it's something people are interested in I can take pics using my macro lens on my SLR camera. That might work better than say, the camera on a cell phone.

Uhm, I wasn't planing on taking pics of the image as I find them very suggestive. However if it's something people are interested in I can take pics using my macro lens on my SLR camera. That might work better than say, the camera on a cell phone.

you'd only need a macro lens, if you wanted to take a picture of the rear lens element. since the image is projected in front of the HMD, you should find that a normal lens works as good as any "macro" type lens.

ps: looking forward to reading about your opinion on the headset!

I’m very interested in hearing how well the entire setup works, including tracking, motion smoothing, the FPS you get compared to other devices.

As much info as possible will be shared

I’m very interested in hearing how well the entire setup works, including tracking, motion smoothing, the FPS you get compared to other devices.

My plan is to share as much info as possible. I plan to put that thing through its paces.

Good luck with the testing. The XTAL is the current holy grail of the VR headset. You’re very lucky to be able to afford one. Keep us posted.

Good luck with the testing. The XTAL is the current holy grail of the VR headset. You’re very lucky to be able to afford one. Keep us posted.

+1

Looking forward to getting some insights into this HMD.

Would be interesting to know, if VRzoom works properly with the canted displays of the XTAL.

In anyway this piece must be a blast.

Try to fly NOE along the shorelines - it´s so much fun with a wide FOV :)))

Reading the entire discussion, i would say to stefew1966; congratulations for your new headset.

If i only had the moneys i would buy it for sure.

I hope it will give you the best VR experience you've ever had and i wish you hours and hours of fun and immersion with that "jewel" and our beloved DCS.

For comparison, you just need to take pictures under the same conditions even with the mobile phone.

Reading the entire discussion, i would say to stefew1966; congratulations for your new headset.

If i only had the moneys i would buy it for sure.

I hope it will give you the best VR experience you've ever had and i wish you hours and hours of fun and immersion with that "jewel" and our beloved DCS.

Seconded Lucky guy, it astonishes me that some come on and (try) to pour cold water on your choice for whatever reason (some of which are so wrong it's funny)

Should you choose to share some of your findings I'd appreciate it but either way enjoy