5k+ Impressions

Got my 5K+ a few days ago but tonight is the first chance I had to really use it. I also have a Vive, Rift and Odyssey for comparison.

The 5K+ arrived in good condition with no broken or damaged parts. It doesn’t have any stuck or dead pixels and no back light bleed. The headphone jack is also fine. I installed my DAS on it which works very well.

I did have connection issues when setting the HMD up. PiTool kept indicating that the headset was disconnected. After much trial and error I discovered that the USB controller on my mainboard was apparently overloaded, because when I tried plugging the headset into a dedicated PCI USB card it connected just fine. It does take between 35 to 40 seconds for the headset to be recognized when turning it on though. I wish this was faster and wonder if it is because I am having to use the PCI USB card.

I also had a lot of trouble with SteamVR crashing with a VR Server error. This really had me stumped for a minute because SteamVr worked fine with my Odyssey so I figured it had something to do with the 5k. I eventually discovered that the issue only happened when I connected the Vive controllers. From there I figured out it was the program Natural Locomotion causing the issue. After uninstalling that it worked fine.

The FOV is definitely the star of the show. There is a very dramatic difference, especially when going back to one of the older headsets after using the 5k+ plus. I have played on Normal and Large FOV. There is distortion at the edges but it isn’t too bad and I have already found myself getting used to it such that it isn’t very noticeable when playing.

The clarity is also very nice. I immediately noticed it while in the SteamVR game selection screen. Very crisp text and images. When starting up Skyrim I also noticed it right away and even the distant view looked much clearer and sharper than it had on my Odyssey. This combined with much greater FOV makes for a great experience.

I didn’t see any SDE in Skyrim but I wasn’t looking for it either. I also tried out Big Screen and I did see a little SDE when looking at a movie. The movie still looked great but there was minor SDE. The SDE was still better than what I see on my Odyssey when looking at movies, but the Odyssey’s great black levels really shine when watching movies.

I found the colors to be pretty good. Especially in Robo Recall which is a very colorful game. The blacks are definitely grayish but they are acceptable to me.

Tracking was fine as I expected considering it uses the Vive system.

Overall a very solid HMD and definitely the best one that I have at home. Look forward to trying it in other games now that everything is setup and working well.

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Happy to see you have a DAS attached. Recently I have become a fan of the combo. 5K+ is a solid step above the current headsets, but the head band surely doesn’t look “nextgen”. I have been playing much longer time with the DAS mod.

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what is youre backer number? just so i can know how many people already received it

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Great to hear, so excited that all pre black friday orders will be getting an audio strap. Hope it’s as good as the vive das.

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Mine arrived on Dec 11th. I was backer #63 so my number isn’t a good judge of how many have received because it is much lower than many others who have already gotten theirs. Was a long wait but it was worth it now that it is here.

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give your impressions please after you tried some games…