I have my 5k+ for over a week now.
Luckely I had no problems with the headset, it just works out of the box.
Installed all the software, started Iracing and… I immediately knew some tuning has to be done.
My older, but well overclocked, i7 4770k had a hard time to keep things on track
The newer RTX2080 was never running near max. I should set some money aside for a new cpu:thinking:
After a week of tuning and finding the right IPD, here are my findings which helped me a lot with performance, the visuals and comfort.
I got really stuck finding the right IPD value. The one I meassured doesn’t seem to work, and my eyes started to get tired after a couple of laps and couldn’t get my vision sharp anymore. Going back and forward doesn’t did the trick, until I read something about the NEAR IPD (approx IPD minus 3mm). WOW, this changed a lot. This should be clearly stated somewhere. Cause this will resolve a lot of problems people have with distortion etc.
I also got stuck in the amount of settings you can change and how it affects each other. Settings in PiTool, SteamVR, nvidia control panel, and Iracing itself. This was a lot of trial and error!!!
To get rid of the wobly pixels in the distance, I used the Nvidia Control Panel setting transparancy aliasing and put it on 2x. Together with some standard AA settings, the transparancy thing was an massive step forward.
Then I saw on the forums that steamVR won’t render higher than 4096px. So I cranked PiTool up to 2.0 and reduced SteamVR to a position where the render per eye is just lower than 4096 px ( around 20% ) and started Iracing. I must say WOW, the clarity where everybody talks about was there. For the first time I enjoyed the graphics coming out of my Pimax. After changing a bit in the render settings I get a stable 72fps, with a good image quality.
But what about the standard face cushion. I started to hate this, it was very uncomfortable on my head. It feels like it was trying to push trough my skin. I read somewhere that the vive cushion would fit, so I toughd, nothing to loose… I ordered the vrcover 16mm for the HTC Vive pro, and installed it yesterday. It fits like a charm. It’s thicker, so my eyelashes don’t touch the lenses anymore, en the fabric is just softer and bigger. There is only a gap by my nose which can be an easy fix.
Brainwarp is still (also with the latest Pitool) not working well in Iracing. When it kicks in I see double. So I left brainwarp off and set the headset to 72FPS. 90FPS is out of reach with my current computer and desired graphic settings.
So it cost me more then a week to get rid of the distortion, all the settings, and did some comfort tricks, but when I joined a race yesterday, I had really consistent lap times and when the two guys in front of me crashed, I drove straight to victory This is my Pimax I dreamed off since last year. Great work !!!
I Know you guys at Pimax had to handle a lot of shit from angry and dissapointed backers here at the forum ( reading here for more than a year ), But I’m glad you guys continued your work and delivered a great headset! Keep up te good work!
For the people which having a hard time for getting the right settings and try to solve the distrortion, I would say, don’t give up, when you find the “sweetspot” and the right settings you, you won’t regret!
Thanks for your impressions.
I’m starting to like the 5k+ as well, after a few days of tuning.
I noticed I’m not much bothered about the geometry distortion anymore, as I was a few days ago, either I got used to it, or the latest Pitool+firmware did something, or both.
But man, just got the worst case of VR sickness I’ve ever had and I have a quite strong stomach.
I think it had to do with the lowish fps ~70 in Arizona and I was running around like crazy.
Gotta start reducing the graphics for the sake of the FPS
Didn’t like the Pitool smoothing option, everything looked and felt weird with that on and also random stuttering.
i used the 2x Transparency AA in NVCPNL for the Rift which really helped with aliasing. But on the 5k+, the effects of bluriness that it introduces is VERY apparent. Turning that option OFF really allows the 5k+ to show its capability in clarity, and improves performance at the same time.
Are you using normal AA in either Nvidia Control Panel or in game?
I just ran some experiments and found Transparency AA at either x2 or x4 sharpened detail nicely but it was very blurry when used in combination with normal AA.
There was some shimmering as per usual with my SteamVR render Target of 2160 on the Vertical. PiTool 1.75 - SteamVR Video 20% - SteamVR App 50%.
The world detail though with Transparency AA on and normal AA off was great. I could spot and track targets at 8km out, I could find my wingman without needing ingame labels. Ground objects were very much more detailed.
I will try x2 and x4 settings tomorrow with a bump of SteamVR App to 100% which will give me a Vertical Render Target of 3055. See how that goes but I think 2160 might be best as I get in the 60’s fps without Smoothing in Il2 on that.
Make my life much easier being able to clearly spot things and differentiate objects from background.
Yup, it blurs the distance objects, but…
As I was racing along a straight, the objects in the far distance, like a white line, flagpole, car or gaurdrail in the distance where to sharp, they were ‘wobbling’ between two or three pixels, which took your attention. With this setting they ‘blur’ more with the other far objects. But this setting could be different for each game.
A big mistake I made in the beginning was that I wanted to get everything as sharp as possible, but in real life, you cannot read a car license plate when its a couple of 100 meters away, or read a billboard at the end of a straight, but you will see it’s global color and shape.
All the other AA settings are in game and in Nvidia control panel, both 8x4, enhance application settings. When I go higher the frames dropped dramatically.
I had the same experience in my first couple of runs. It turned out it was completely solved by finding the right IPD setting, not so much the FPS rate.
Can anyone tell me how to get Alien Isolation to run on the latest Pitool software because I cannot get it to run . Should I try the older Pitool versions ? @Heliosurge
To be honest not that much . When I can get an oculus game to run the visuals are stunning . The blue , subnautica are very impressive . But the two games I wanted to play are a no go . The forest looks awful especially at night and I cannot even get Alien isolation to start . The head strap is completely useless for me because now I have to wear my glasses when on the rift I didn’t . I think the focal distance is a lot closer on the Pimax .
Same here, I’m a bit puzzled. The best experience so far was Luckys tale and that is an Oculus game.
Really felt like I was there in the cartoon world.
Other than that - Serious Sam 3 is OKish, but feels kinda like too sharp and blocky, not very enjoyable, gotta keep on tuning the graphics.
Same with the Arizona sunshine.
Yeah Arizona sunshine looks ok but those damn vive controllers are painful to use use compared to the touch controls. Is there any way to change the angle of the gun ?
The SDE is a bit worse than I had hoped for but still way better than the Oculus . The software needs to get to the stage where you click on a game and go and it’s far from that at the moment .
After changing a bit in the render settings I get a stable 72fps, with a good image quality.
