stefew1966

Comfort Hey Supmua, Yeah, I totally agree. A great headset has to be more than the sum of its parts. The Xtal is nearly there. And for some people, the weight would not be an issue. But for my kids it was. Stefew

Xtal on its way back Hi everybody, I have decided to return the Xtal. It's a great piece of tech but for me it doesn't meet my requirements. I use it for myself but I also use it at my Air Cadet unit for our flight sim program. That means the headset is used by many of my kids. So the main reason why it's going back is comfort. It is just too heavy for small heads. Kids heads to be more precise. I will also say this. Although it's not really bad on my head, when I went back to my old headsets I started noticing the weight a bit more. While for professionals using the Xtal for shorter periods, I started to find the weight objectionable for hour long sittings. But like I said before. The materials are top quality and the picture quality is top notch. But for me, my kids have to be able to use it. So beware of that should you be interested in buying one. Other than that, it's a very good headset. Stefew

Warning lights Hey Gun Jam, Those darn warnings are so small! I cannot read them upright, I have to be inches away to read them or be zoomed in. Even the Xtal has its limits I guess. Stef

About optics for the Xtal Hey all, I exchanged some emails with my optometrist about the Xtal peripheral blur as I was very curious about why that happens. He said it was probably due to something called "induced myopic or hyperopic peripheral blur". Also, the Xtal has a knob on each side to vary the diopter. When I mess with that, I can get the blurry areas clear at the cost of the center now being blurry. Keep in mind that the diopter adjustment is used for people wearing glasses, not to fix that peripheral blur. It probably doesn't help with severe myopia or hyperopia but it probably is useful for mild cases of that. I don't personally need it. I don't know if this kind of info is useful for anybody but I find it very interesting. Stef

Pics Hi Aurelius, I'm in the process of taking pics. Problem is, they look like crap. So I have been experimenting with cameras and cell phone cameras to try and get the best pics I can. Stay tuned. Stef

Blurry center Hi, So I took a look at my other VR headsets and tried the same thing. While maintaining head position on a fixed point I looked with my eyes around the full lens. Far left, right, up and down. I noticed the same thing. It was always blurry. So this is totally normal. I had never noticed before because, let's face it, the consumer grade VR headsets are not as clear. And we tend to move our heads naturally when wearing a headset. Instead of looking around with our eyes when not wearing a headset. Something akin to looking at your rear-view mirror when driving a car. Your head is facing forward and you just take a peak at the mirror by just moving your eyes. I think with the Xtal being so clear I noticed it more because the center of the lens is perfect. So the answer is that it was behaving as expected. I just didn't know that it was. If I had to compare that behavior to something similar, it would be a pair of progressive glasses. There is a part of it that is clear in the middle. The rest of the lens is blurry. And this is by design, or at least it's a limitation of optics. Even after using VR goggles for years I learn something new all the time. Pardon my ignorance. Stef

Share your impressions when you get it I hope you get it soon. It is a great piece of gear. Let me know how you like it once you have it. Stef

Good day folks, Just a short update. Played around in SteamVR settings last night and noticed I was oversampling at 150% when I reported 35 FPS. Once I dialed it back to 100%, with no loss in graphics goodness, I was at 70 FPS. Sweet! Stef

Hey folks, If you are getting an Xtal as I did, can you let me know? I would love to compare notes. I think one other person at least has one on order. Possibly another person as well. PM me if you don't want to share that with everybody else. Thanks Stef

Great first night using the Xtal Hey Madfish, The first night with the Xtal was fantastic! Check out my first impressions post. I put in a few details of what I did and what I think of the Xtal. Stef

Pics My friend Nick and I did take some "through the lens" pics and will be posting them soon along with a couple videos. And the VRGineers call their headset a 5K headset. Same resolution as the Pimax 5K. But the clarity is much better due to native resolution with no upscale and less magnification needed with the better lenses as well. Cheers Stef

Steam and DCS settings and FPS Hey Rage, I will get you that ASAP. Stay tuned. Stef

Res and FOV Der Hirte is correct.

Xtal can be used with Valve Index That is correct, they can be used with the Xtal

It uses Steam VR Hey Nightstorm, It uses Vive Base Stations and Vive Controllers. Steam VR, no WMR needed. To use the controllers you do need the dongles that come with the trackers or an attached Vive minus the video cable. But the USB and power cable on the Vive need to be attached. I much prefer the dongles but I can't buy them without the trackers so for now the Vive will do. I had to get the Steam VR attachment from VRGineers. They make that themselves. Stef

No distortions I only have a couple hours under my belt with it. But so far I can only say that the center is a little blurry. But it could be due to fit on my head and or IPD. Could be that sweet spot I'm just not getting yet due to inexperience with the Xtal. I'll need more time. However, the outside edges look pretty good. Clearer than anything else I have tried so far. And the Valve Index is the one we can't get in Canada easily. Some 3rd parties resell it at a premium.

I wish someone close to my location had one. That way I could compare. I don't think my better half will let me buy one for comparing. ;) Stef

Air-to-air combat Not yet. Will for sure. But I would venture a guess that it will make the job of identifying aircraft a lot easier. I use "another" game for WW1 dog fighting and I can't wait to see how well aircraft recognition works for that.

Clarity Yes it did. And that was the main reason why I got it. All other factors were secondary for me.

Game changer? That's a hard to question to answer. 1) Is it a game changer? Yes it is. 2) Is it just another step on the road to no-SDE. Yes it is. 3) Does it have perfect readability? No it doesn't. A better question would be. Is it worth the money to get that better clarity? Not for most. VR is not reality. I have 25 hours on the Cessna 172. Nothing beats using your own eyes to look at those instruments. So I am a bit spoiled as I have flown a real plane before. And nothing compares. Not even the Xtal. But it was worth it for me. I have always hated the fact I could barely read anything in modern jet cockpits. Now I can. I hope this helps. Stef

I know VRGineers is working on foveated rendering but I don't know if the current iteration of the Xtal could fully support that. It does use auto IPD like you said so we know there is a camera in there somewhere that looks at your eyes. It will be interesting for sure. As for the AR module, I'm not even sure that can be installed on the one I have. The pictures on the web show the front completely cut open to support the AR module. Stef

Honestly I didn't have any reviews to rely on for the VR-1. Plus, like you said, it's not available to consumers. So the Xtal it was. Stef

Good day everybody, Last night my buddy Nick and I went to work on the Xtal. First things first. The clarity is really, really, really good. We started with the F-18 and everything in the cockpit was clear. We then moved on the the F-14 and at one point I ejected just for giggles and I kept watching the cat getting smaller and smaller as it flew away without me. I kept seeing it oscillate up and down and side to side. Nick was watching on my 1440p monitor and I kept telling him, "I can still see the wings" and he would say, "what wings". We were both amazed that I would pick that up and he could not. Anyway I thought it was an interesting anecdote. I was running with graphics set on "high" in DCS. My FPS rarely dipped below 35. Keep in mind, that I didn't optimize for anything. I was running my CPU at 4.8ghz and my 2080ti at stock speed. I will have to play around with settings some more for sure. But the good news is that is felt silky smooth the whole time. In 2 hours we only had one hick up. Like a few jumped frames. But only that one time. So I call that a success as far as smoothness is concerned. The Xtal is built with premium materials and it shows. My face was never soar or even had any marks on it for that matter. And this thing is massive! So if the materials had been cheap I think I would have felt it. It's not objectionably heavy and bulky but it's no Rift. Although it feels heavy it's comfortable. It's good for seated VR but I don't know that it would be practical for long standing sessions. The software was easy to setup. They have something akin to PiTool. It's called VRTool. Very easy to use. We didn't mess with its settings too much as we were just soaking in the visuals. SDE is barely noticeable. You have to look for it. I was watching a video of some comedian performing and I could see pixels on his shirt and skin. But it was a dark environment with very bright lights on the comedian. One comparison I would like to make here is that Xtal would be a jump comparable to the jump we made when we went from low definition to 720p TVs. It's not 4K and it's close to 1080p. But I think we would need retina level stuff to achieve that and no reasonably priced PC in the world would be able to run a sim like DCS with decent FPS with something that would approach 1080p TVs. The auto IPD adjustment is really slick and accurate. Nick has a bit of a fat head compared to my scrawny melon and both of us would get IPD well within tolerances to achieving clarity. I did notice the area over my nose was blurry. I have not noticed this before on the Rift, Vive or Odyssey. But everything is so clear on the Xtal that I could notice this. It wasn't really bad but once I noticed it I couldn't stop messing with the fit to see if it was sweet spot related or something with the IPD. More to come on this later. I will say this though, the extreme left or right are sharp the whole way. Very nice. The vertical field of view is something I noticed to be narrower than usual. But only because Sweviver had mentioned it in his video. Nick had not noticed until I brought it up. It's not a big issue but it's there. The horizontal FOV on the other hand is very cool. I didn't have time to use one of my old VR goggles to see the difference which I'm told is much more noticeable once you go back to narrower FOV. Since the screens are OLEDs the colors were very sharp and vibrant. So, what's the verdict? The jury is still out on a few things like how heavy it is and the cord that is really bulky as well. So I will need to work on fit and come up with something to manage that massive cord. But the visuals are amazing! I will keep at it and post videos and more data as time passes. So stay tuned. Stef

Hey everybody, I received my Xtal today. I will shoot the unboxing video and first impressions video tonight and will post them on Youtube ASAP. I will post the links on the forum. Stay tuned. Stef

Will be sharing lots Hey Weegie, My plan was always to share as much info about it as I can. That's why I posted the fact that my Xtal shipped. I wanted people to know I will be sharing that info and to give everybody a chance to weigh in on things they would like to see. Like through the lens pictures for example. Stef