Everything You Want to Know About Pimax’s 8K and 5K VR Headsets

Image Credit: Pimax

Pimax, the China-based VR manufacturer, made an explosive entrance into the world of virtual reality last year when it announced the world’s first 4k VR Headset. Ever since then, the company has been on a continuous growth trajectory and it seems that there is no stopping them.

Earlier this year, at the CES Expo 2017, the company made its intentions clear to bring their first-of-its-kind 8K VR Headset to market, and now it seems they are all set to deliver on their promise. Pimax only recently launched its Kickstarter campaign and in just a few days it received an overwhelming response and raised four times its target funding amount. In fact, within just two hours of launching its campaign, Pimax had already surpassed its goal.

So before we proceed with discussing its stunning specs and spectacular features, take a look at the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=74&v=gwM9o7mv634

Pimax VR Headset –  Specs and Features

Ok, so the offerings made by Pimax with their new 8K and 5K VR Headsets will completely blow your mind. You name it and you get it! The latest Pimax headsets come with almost every feature including hand tracking, motion tracking, wireless controllers, eye-tracking and a lot more.

To begin with the specs, the Pimax 8K VR headset hosts a stunning 2*3840×2160 pixel resolution with dual LCD panels and an excellent 200 wide-angle field-of-view (FOV) which is pretty close to the natural human FOV of 220 degrees. On the other hand, the Pimax 5K VR Headset comes with dual 2560×1440 OLED panels. I promise you guys that with such high-end resolution you will be having the best time watching high-definition VR porn videos with endless jerking sessions.

Image credit: Pimax

With such stunning resolution and FOV, Pimax has easily managed to overcome VR’s major technological challenges and shortcomings. Both the Pimax VR headsets deliver less than 15ms of latency and have almost eliminated the screen-door-effect (SDE) which means that users will no longer see the fine lines between two pixels. This is a major breakthrough in providing ultra-high-definition immersive VR content.

All the graphics processing in the Pimax VR Headset is done with the GTX 980/1070 or AMD R9 Nano. Moreover, the headset comes with an integrated microphone and 2 x 3.55mm headphone jack to connect external stereo surround earphones.

Using the Brainwrap Technique

For input signals that are less than 8K, Pimax 8K VR Headset comes with a built-in video-processing module that can upscale the input signal to 8K resolution.

Another great thing is that Pimax has incorporated the Brainwrap technique which can render and display images in sequence. This means that initially, one eye will see a 4K image followed by a 4K image for your other eye. However, with a 90Hz refresh rate, the headset can transfer 150-180 frames per second, which causes your brain to think that both your eyes are looking at the same image. The advantage of the Brainwrap technique is that it helps to reduce latency and boost the refresh-rate without putting as much processing pressure on the GPU.

Positional Tracking Feature

Image credit: Pimax

The Pimax 8K VR Headset comes with some mind-boggling tracking features and is the first VR Headset to date to come with both Outside-In and Inside-Out Tacking Features.

• Outside-In Tracking: This is similar to the Oculus Rift and Vive’s tracking features wherein external sensors are placed across the room to perform positional tracking. The outside-in tracking can be implemented either with the company’s own PiTracking Mode or with the SteamVR Compatible Mode. The Steam VR Mode is compatible with all steam accessories and here Pimax has implemented 360-degree positional tracking by using only one base station.
• Inside-Out Tracking: Here the VR Headsets uses its own built-in sensors to measure the 3D space surrounding users and deliver positional tracking.

As per their convenience, users can switch between the above two tracking solutions.

VR Content and Accessories

Image credit: Pimax

As content is the king in VR, Pimax comes with a huge library of mainstream content available today in the market. The Pimax is capable of running 1700+ VR games and videos across three mainstream VR platforms including the Oculus Home, SteamVR, and PiHome (using a third-party tool). Pimax 8K SDK integrates with Unreal Engine and Unity, and also supports C++ API.

The modular design of Pimax 8K VR headsets makes them compatible with a wide range of accessories. This includes traditional accessories, as well as new technologies like eye-tracking, hand motion, inside-out tracking etc. The below videos shows clip-on modules that you need for a futuristic VR experience. This includes a wireless transmitter, scent enabling module, eye-tracking and inside-out hand-tracking, integrated audio and traditional headstrap and a halo-styled headband.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=30&v=iCOsJRopjMc

Conclusion

Looking at all the above offerings, I can say that Pimax is here to rule the VR markets for sure in the coming days. Such a spectacular blend of features both in terms of hardware and software truly beats the might out of any other VR headset available in the market today.

You can book your own Pimax 8k VR headset from their official Kickstarter page. The roll-out of the physical devices is expected to start in January of 2018.