I'm definitely interested in the wider FOV. Please keep us updated as things progress. Hopefully they can find a sweet spot for the overlap. A shame they have to sacrifice it at all, to get wider FOV.
It's great to hear the horizontal is, sounding to me, a significant improvement and now the vertical doesn't sound like it's a significant loss either. I haven't been particularly observant of (or experienced) low stereo overlap though. CA doesn't bother me either, and I never noticed it until I started looking for it based on other's comments about it. At least with the 35 ppd, I only see CA at the edge of the Steam menu or with the Vive thin face pad that you recommended at the edges of the screen. I really want to compare my Q3 FOV with these wider FOV lenses.
"Significant" might be a little too strong a word, though I've also used things like the 8KX so I am a bit spoiled there and have high standards, but I'd definitely say noticeable. Between that and the diagonal increase with MOSTLY the same vertical, the FoV shape has a really nice feel to it vs something like helmet vision of narrow vertical with wide horizontal. If you're not bothered by low stereo overlap, then yeah you'll probably like these, because that's the big trade off. The CA honestly isn't THAT bad. I don't really notice it at all in the center and there's only a few worst case scenarios(Like that test HMD environment) where it sticks out like a sore thumb to me, even when looking for it. Some people are just lucky with the exact right fit and I'm one of them too. Hope they'll go on sale in the not too distant future(With eye tracking) so people can try them!
Provided you're in the supported range, should be minimally. The lenses and screen move with your IPD so results should end up fairly similar. May see slight variance depending on your overall faceshape though, which can be kind of independent from your IPD. But you should not expect high overlap out of the wFoV lenses, unless Pimax manages to make notable improvements with the redesigned ones.
Hi By any chance did you remove the face gasket and check the fov - apparently someone mentioned it’s close to pimax 5k medium fov or 20% better than with the gasket on and even with the gasket on it’s on a par with an index when the lenses are closest to the eyes - but a lot of people are saying different things though so am not too sure ?🤔
That won't matter here. The rendered FoV is quite small compared to Pimax's other HMDs. The 5kS has a rendered FoV of about 140 degrees at normal, which is vastly bigger than the Index. It can go up to 160. There physically isn't much more FoV there, I'm already getting about the max, since there's a little variance depending on exactly how the app measures it and places the markers vs rendered.
@@Omniwhatever thanks for the reply and you obviously know your stuff Sometimes though even though a vr headset is rendered at a certain fov value that doesn’t always equate to how the big fov actually looks when you physically put the headset on - so other than the rendered fov - what I was referring to in the comment is how big the fov would actually physically look with the gasket on vs off when you compare it to say the index/pimax ? Yeah I know it won’t be the true fov increase that’s being rendered but a zoomed in image as your eyes will be closer to the lenses but what I want to know is how much of the peripheral view is black bordering and the only things I can go off as a reference is a valve index I have already . So from what sone people were saying with quest 3 the fov seems to be on par with the index with lenses closest to eyes but when facepad removed it’s supposed to be something like 20% bigger than that even and soneone said it roughly on a par with the pimax 5k super medium fov ( bot rendered but in terms of the amount you can see even though it may not be a true fov increase ) ?
@@paulnicolas172 No, that's simply wrong. You can't get more than is physically rendered. You cannot divorce "Perceived" FoV from "Rendered" like that. Because the lenses are a physically inpassable barrier that you cannot overcome. If somebody is getting much larger FoV on the Index with the Quest 3 than their methodology is wrong and bad. The Quest 3's FoV is only around 110 or so, Pimax's 5kS is 140. You're not actually getting more FoV and it's not even increasing your perceived FoV because you can't get closer than the lenses allow. You may have an unfortunate faceshape that is not getting all the FoV the HMD provides at stock, but you can't invent more that doesn't exist. Getting your eyes closer to the screen doesn't work how you think it does because of how the lenses are designed to focus the image and you can't go past them.
@@Omniwhatever Okay fair enough and am corrected and thanks for that insight . Yes I think your right in that face shape must come into it as the someone who told me it was bigger had a large ipd of 71 Do you personally think then the perceived fov of the quest 3 then is similar to the index with the facepad on and does it make any difference to the perceived fov when it’s removed ?
@@paulnicolas172 I don't have a Quest 3 so can't personally comment. Most of the measurements I've seen place it around 110 horizontal/100~ vertical best case and when using reliable methods. Which lines up with the rendered being around 108/99, I think. And that means it's about the same as the Index horizontally, but noticeably smaller vertically, assuming you're getting the most out of both at least.
In the FOV test, are you supposed to focus on the center dot and watch the markers with your peripheral vision? I get very different values doing that opposed to looking at the edge markers directly.
WIMFOV specifically says to focus on the center until the marker disappears, would assume TestHMD 1.2 is the same. I haven't really had my numbers change much doing either one, but I seem to have a good faceshape for most VR headsets since my results typically end up pretty high.
That number doesn't mean what you think it means. WIMFOV lists the stereo overlap as a % of the entire image. Two headsets could have the same stereo overlap of 80 dergees, but if one has 180 degrees FoV while the other has 100, the latter will be listed as having much higher % of stereo overlap. The Somnium, at least if their numbers do end up holding true with third party testing, had about 88 degrees of overlap from my memory while the Pimax Crystal with the wFOV lens only had 74 by my test, lot lower. Somnium is using a stacked lens design, vs a single lens of the Crystal, for greater magnification, which is likely how they came up with the FoV. That'll come with its own trade offs in theory, but will have to see how it's managed.
@@Omniwhatever Ok, so the number is percentages of the field of view.. makes sense. Kinda curious about the dual lens setup, as you cant really do much with 2 lenses. Index used two lenses to have less of a severe fresnel lens. They basically instead of using a 40mm fresnel, they used an 80mm fresnel and an 80mm spherical lens. But overall just stacking two positive lenses does nothing that a single positive element of equivalent magnification would not do.
I don't really know how these fov tests work; do we know for sure that those extra 10 degrees replace the black that I see in my Crystal on the edges or could it just be that the world is shrunk to fit the exact same region of my vision?
Yes, easily. The physically rendered FoV changed and if that's all they were doing they would not need to create an entirely new lens for it. NOT doing that while still making sure everything looks correct was the whole point of creating another lens and why this took so long. Your world scale does not exactly =/= your FoV too, those can be two different things. And no manufacturer would be dumb enough to actually do that with how VR works. And if that's not good enough the fact the stereo overlap changed almost 1:1 for more horizontal FoV is further evidence. You reduce the stereo overlap, you could make the horizontal FoV wider doing that. The simplest way to explain that, and this is really oversimplying things, is just imagine a venn diagram. You pull the circles apart you're reducing the area where they overlap, but you're getting an overall wider area.
I like the current 35ppd FOV, and i see a lot of tradeoffs here, stereo overlap, chromatic aberration, less clarity vertically, only for a few extra degrees of FOV. I ordered the 42 ppd and was wondering if I did the right thing, i wanted those for virtual screen 3d gaming and media playback to be as "crystal" ;) clear as possible, i don't know yet if they are worth it but it's clear that wide fov lenses are not a miracle that suddenly gives much better fov for free, so i'm happy with my decision... for now.
Personally, I didn't notice the vertical clarity fall off and the overall clarity feels fairly similar, but will have to see how they update the distortion profile by release. I think there's an audience for it, but it'll probably be a smaller group as is. The loss of stereo overlap is a pretty big change for sure. That's THE trade off.
@@Omniwhatever Mostly because MRTV mentioned it, maybe it was with a previous update, hopefully Pimax keeps improving it and perhaps losing a few FOV degrees will find a sweet spot of better FOV without sacrifices, right now i'm not too sure of this approach.
Potentially, it could. In practice it generally shouldn't result in much a difference for something where the lenses and screens properly move with your IPD, like the Crystal. If there is a difference it'll not be too significant. Forgot to mention it in the video, but right now the IPD requires a +5~ offset to be "right", I had to set mine to 72mm because my "correct" IPD was wrong, this is something Pimax has informed a few reviewers of so it's expected behavior right now. But it should be corrected by the time of the consumer release. I'll be sure to see if that might be effecting the IPD at all when they do fix that.
It sounds like subjectively with stereo overlap, there's maybe a threshold which if crossed, is unacceptable. But I might still get these lenses cause I originally planned to get an Aero but then cancelled and the way I see it is, 'if the stereo overlap was good enough while it absolutely outclasses the Aero in horizontal and vertical, then it's a win in my book'. But honestly, this review and my own experience makes me feel like the stock lenses are pretty damn good for what they are.
Everyone's different and that's why VR can be such a tricky thing. There's a lot of stuff which people are generally sensitive too, but the DEGREE of sensitivity can vary a lot from person to person. Some people find reprojection of any kind utterly unacceptable, where as other people might not notice any difference. As another example.
That's totally understandable, I'm just saying, it's interesting how in your perception that with binocular overlap there's a specific line that once crossed you find unacceptable. I wonder if you can do more tests to find the exact line and why that might be.
I'm definitely interested in the wider FOV. Please keep us updated as things progress. Hopefully they can find a sweet spot for the overlap. A shame they have to sacrifice it at all, to get wider FOV.
Thank you for this video and all others.
Please stay as critical, as thorough and as unbiased as you are. Cheers 🍻
Thanks for your preview! 🤞they will improve things before the release.
It's great to hear the horizontal is, sounding to me, a significant improvement and now the vertical doesn't sound like it's a significant loss either. I haven't been particularly observant of (or experienced) low stereo overlap though. CA doesn't bother me either, and I never noticed it until I started looking for it based on other's comments about it. At least with the 35 ppd, I only see CA at the edge of the Steam menu or with the Vive thin face pad that you recommended at the edges of the screen. I really want to compare my Q3 FOV with these wider FOV lenses.
"Significant" might be a little too strong a word, though I've also used things like the 8KX so I am a bit spoiled there and have high standards, but I'd definitely say noticeable. Between that and the diagonal increase with MOSTLY the same vertical, the FoV shape has a really nice feel to it vs something like helmet vision of narrow vertical with wide horizontal.
If you're not bothered by low stereo overlap, then yeah you'll probably like these, because that's the big trade off. The CA honestly isn't THAT bad. I don't really notice it at all in the center and there's only a few worst case scenarios(Like that test HMD environment) where it sticks out like a sore thumb to me, even when looking for it. Some people are just lucky with the exact right fit and I'm one of them too.
Hope they'll go on sale in the not too distant future(With eye tracking) so people can try them!
How will your ipd affect the binocular overlap of the new lenses for instance I have a 58 mm ipd
Provided you're in the supported range, should be minimally. The lenses and screen move with your IPD so results should end up fairly similar. May see slight variance depending on your overall faceshape though, which can be kind of independent from your IPD. But you should not expect high overlap out of the wFoV lenses, unless Pimax manages to make notable improvements with the redesigned ones.
Hi
By any chance did you remove the face gasket and check the fov - apparently someone mentioned it’s close to pimax 5k medium fov or 20% better than with the gasket on and even with the gasket on it’s on a par with an index when the lenses are closest to the eyes - but a lot of people are saying different things though so am not too sure ?🤔
That won't matter here. The rendered FoV is quite small compared to Pimax's other HMDs. The 5kS has a rendered FoV of about 140 degrees at normal, which is vastly bigger than the Index. It can go up to 160. There physically isn't much more FoV there, I'm already getting about the max, since there's a little variance depending on exactly how the app measures it and places the markers vs rendered.
@@Omniwhatever
thanks for the reply and you obviously know your stuff
Sometimes though even though a vr headset is rendered at a certain fov value that doesn’t always equate to how the big fov actually looks when you physically put the headset on - so other than the rendered fov - what I was referring to in the comment is how big the fov would actually physically look with the gasket on vs off when you compare it to say the index/pimax ? Yeah I know it won’t be the true fov increase that’s being rendered but a zoomed in image as your eyes will be closer to the lenses but what I want to know is how much of the peripheral view is black bordering and the only things I can go off as a reference is a valve index I have already . So from what sone people were saying with quest 3 the fov seems to be on par with the index with lenses closest to eyes but when facepad removed it’s supposed to be something like 20% bigger than that even and soneone said it roughly on a par with the pimax 5k super medium fov ( bot rendered but in terms of the amount you can see even though it may not be a true fov increase ) ?
@@paulnicolas172 No, that's simply wrong. You can't get more than is physically rendered. You cannot divorce "Perceived" FoV from "Rendered" like that. Because the lenses are a physically inpassable barrier that you cannot overcome. If somebody is getting much larger FoV on the Index with the Quest 3 than their methodology is wrong and bad. The Quest 3's FoV is only around 110 or so, Pimax's 5kS is 140.
You're not actually getting more FoV and it's not even increasing your perceived FoV because you can't get closer than the lenses allow. You may have an unfortunate faceshape that is not getting all the FoV the HMD provides at stock, but you can't invent more that doesn't exist. Getting your eyes closer to the screen doesn't work how you think it does because of how the lenses are designed to focus the image and you can't go past them.
@@Omniwhatever Okay fair enough and am corrected and thanks for that insight .
Yes I think your right in that face shape must come into it as the someone who told me it was bigger had a large ipd of 71
Do you personally think then the perceived fov of the quest 3 then is similar to the index with the facepad on and does it make any difference to the perceived fov when it’s removed ?
@@paulnicolas172 I don't have a Quest 3 so can't personally comment.
Most of the measurements I've seen place it around 110 horizontal/100~ vertical best case and when using reliable methods. Which lines up with the rendered being around 108/99, I think. And that means it's about the same as the Index horizontally, but noticeably smaller vertically, assuming you're getting the most out of both at least.
In the FOV test, are you supposed to focus on the center dot and watch the markers with your peripheral vision? I get very different values doing that opposed to looking at the edge markers directly.
WIMFOV specifically says to focus on the center until the marker disappears, would assume TestHMD 1.2 is the same. I haven't really had my numbers change much doing either one, but I seem to have a good faceshape for most VR headsets since my results typically end up pretty high.
On the Somnium VR1 the binocular overlap was 61% based on one tweet they had posted with winfov results.
Its probably hard to increase FOV with square panels without sacrificing overlap.
Mistake, it was 65.11% overlap on VR1.
That number doesn't mean what you think it means. WIMFOV lists the stereo overlap as a % of the entire image. Two headsets could have the same stereo overlap of 80 dergees, but if one has 180 degrees FoV while the other has 100, the latter will be listed as having much higher % of stereo overlap.
The Somnium, at least if their numbers do end up holding true with third party testing, had about 88 degrees of overlap from my memory while the Pimax Crystal with the wFOV lens only had 74 by my test, lot lower. Somnium is using a stacked lens design, vs a single lens of the Crystal, for greater magnification, which is likely how they came up with the FoV. That'll come with its own trade offs in theory, but will have to see how it's managed.
@@Omniwhatever Ok, so the number is percentages of the field of view.. makes sense. Kinda curious about the dual lens setup, as you cant really do much with 2 lenses. Index used two lenses to have less of a severe fresnel lens. They basically instead of using a 40mm fresnel, they used an 80mm fresnel and an 80mm spherical lens. But overall just stacking two positive lenses does nothing that a single positive element of equivalent magnification would not do.
@@Omniwhatever are those lenses even out? i want to buy a new hmd in the next month but iam not sure what really
I think you also have the samsung faceplate. How are the wvof lenses behaving with that?
Samtung faceplate??? Do you mean the lighthouse?
I mean rhe samsung oddesey vr cover. I use it so I can wear glasses. I loose a bit of vof so maybe the wide lenses can solve that.
@@frozenmoment63 I don't use that, sorry. The wFoV actually has slightly less vFoV so I wouldn't expect it to solve your issues.
I don't really know how these fov tests work; do we know for sure that those extra 10 degrees replace the black that I see in my Crystal on the edges or could it just be that the world is shrunk to fit the exact same region of my vision?
Yes, easily. The physically rendered FoV changed and if that's all they were doing they would not need to create an entirely new lens for it. NOT doing that while still making sure everything looks correct was the whole point of creating another lens and why this took so long. Your world scale does not exactly =/= your FoV too, those can be two different things. And no manufacturer would be dumb enough to actually do that with how VR works.
And if that's not good enough the fact the stereo overlap changed almost 1:1 for more horizontal FoV is further evidence. You reduce the stereo overlap, you could make the horizontal FoV wider doing that. The simplest way to explain that, and this is really oversimplying things, is just imagine a venn diagram. You pull the circles apart you're reducing the area where they overlap, but you're getting an overall wider area.
@@Omniwhatever Thanks!
Nothing to see with the wide fov lenses but have you got a advice for a diy fan to avoid the fog?
I don't got much advice there, sorry.
To avoid fogging, I leave my headset on to "warm up" for about 10-15 and usually it's good after that.
@@Omniwhatever Thanks for the tip, good idea!
I like the current 35ppd FOV, and i see a lot of tradeoffs here, stereo overlap, chromatic aberration, less clarity vertically, only for a few extra degrees of FOV. I ordered the 42 ppd and was wondering if I did the right thing, i wanted those for virtual screen 3d gaming and media playback to be as "crystal" ;) clear as possible, i don't know yet if they are worth it but it's clear that wide fov lenses are not a miracle that suddenly gives much better fov for free, so i'm happy with my decision... for now.
Personally, I didn't notice the vertical clarity fall off and the overall clarity feels fairly similar, but will have to see how they update the distortion profile by release. I think there's an audience for it, but it'll probably be a smaller group as is. The loss of stereo overlap is a pretty big change for sure. That's THE trade off.
@@Omniwhatever Mostly because MRTV mentioned it, maybe it was with a previous update, hopefully Pimax keeps improving it and perhaps losing a few FOV degrees will find a sweet spot of better FOV without sacrifices, right now i'm not too sure of this approach.
Does lower or higher IPD factor into the overlap. Ie I have a lower IPD, wondering if I’d notice it more or less
Potentially, it could. In practice it generally shouldn't result in much a difference for something where the lenses and screens properly move with your IPD, like the Crystal. If there is a difference it'll not be too significant.
Forgot to mention it in the video, but right now the IPD requires a +5~ offset to be "right", I had to set mine to 72mm because my "correct" IPD was wrong, this is something Pimax has informed a few reviewers of so it's expected behavior right now. But it should be corrected by the time of the consumer release. I'll be sure to see if that might be effecting the IPD at all when they do fix that.
Thanks ! And appreciate the review
It sounds like subjectively with stereo overlap, there's maybe a threshold which if crossed, is unacceptable. But I might still get these lenses cause I originally planned to get an Aero but then cancelled and the way I see it is, 'if the stereo overlap was good enough while it absolutely outclasses the Aero in horizontal and vertical, then it's a win in my book'.
But honestly, this review and my own experience makes me feel like the stock lenses are pretty damn good for what they are.
Everyone's different and that's why VR can be such a tricky thing. There's a lot of stuff which people are generally sensitive too, but the DEGREE of sensitivity can vary a lot from person to person. Some people find reprojection of any kind utterly unacceptable, where as other people might not notice any difference. As another example.
That's totally understandable, I'm just saying, it's interesting how in your perception that with binocular overlap there's a specific line that once crossed you find unacceptable. I wonder if you can do more tests to find the exact line and why that might be.
ill be back in 10 years when vr has gotten somewhere and is affordable for me.
if world isnt doomed by then
😂