8K-X Impression [Review]

Thats why Im doing the VR Experience :slight_smile:
All Im saying is that is a shame that we need to manually config things to even bring the potential out of a high-resolution headset. Putting ridiculous limitations on scaling and resolution inside SteamVR is just, in my opinion, a shady way to cripple high-end headsets. Oh and meanwhile optimize for their own hardware… what does it really tell you? :slight_smile:

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It’s always a waiting game, I’ve been waiting for this or that to happen it seems forever. People where to landscape my yard months ago still the same dirt clodded weed infested lot.

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Thank you for the review and comparison to other headsets.
I had the 5k+ and now own a Odyssey+ so it’s very helpful that you have compared it.

I have ordered the 8kX two days ago and after reading several first impressions I think I have made a good decision.

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Have you tried doing this with 1080ti? Should i consider it as very low and being not able go above 4k?

I have tried step by step.

  1. edited both configs
  • D:\Games\Steam\config\steamvr.vrsettings (this one changes values with each restart)
  • C:\Users\nothi\AppData\Local\openvr\steamvr.vrsettings
  1. disabled advanced settings
  2. edited gpu speed values to 2000

No changes :frowning:


image

No matter what i do, the game launches in same resolution. Changing supersamling in pitool has no affect too. The only changes im being able to do - changing FoV or decreasing resolution below 4k. Going above has no impact on my frame rates or picture quality.

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It’s not ridiculous for early VR headsets, but Valve should update the default to something reasonable for current headsets. I’m sure they will, once they release the Index v2.

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The default settings are the worst settings? Is that new news? I’ve only ever used defaults, but now I’m worried I’m using an inferior product. I’ll have to check once my replacement cable arrives (still stuck in Shanghai… sigh).

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Just out of curiosity, what happened to the include file (default.vrsettings) which was in ā€œpath to program filesā€\Steam\steamapps\common\SteamVR\drivers\aapvr\resources\settings ?

A very long time ago, that contained the maxRecommendedResolution and AFAIR it also worked? Isn’t it ā€œallowedā€ to override like that any longer?

I noticed (just checked now) that the aapvr directory doesn’t even exist in SteamVR any longer (I probably wiped and re-installed SteamVR at some point - and a newer PiTool install apparently didn’t place the file there).

10000% agree with you. Many times i’ve seen Pimax employees (to not name any) bring down users by saying stuff like this and don’t provide any clear solutions.

Im a Software Engineer and i am sometimes having issues with trying to tweak the settings for optimal performance. This is in my opinion the biggest issue with Pimax. Glad to hear that the new environment is supposed to fix this, but ill wait until i see it before i believe it.

I am one of the backer that did the upgrade program for the 8KX and i am a bit scared that i’llhave to do a lot of tweaking for each games in order to really enjoy it. We need profiles quickly (optimized by pimax). I spend a lot of time working and dont feel like spending a few hours trying to tweak things in order to enjoy the little time i have left for VR.

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Basically it works out of the box, looks great, and decreasing settings is something we always do in all games by purpose. This time it struggles to not to decrease or optimize, but improve picture quality beyond its limits, which isnt really necessary, which isnt really possible for every card, but out of the curiosy im trying to figure out why this happens so far. Dont worry, i think you will be happy with 8kx and you wont need to spend lots of time configuring it - unless you really want to.

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I stopped tweaking and just started playing a long time ago on my 5K+ due to the exact same reason as @SlickRick… :wink:

What I settled on was:

  • 144Hz/120Hz (for a long while stayed on 120Hz, but now I’m always using 144Hz)
  • Normal FOV
  • Fixed Foveated Rendering - Close (Off)
  • Smart Smoothing On
  • Hidden Area Mask On
  • SteamVR SS 100% (fixed)
  • PiTool Render Quality 1.0
  • PP on/off depending on game (this is the only setting I change per game - not even using profiles - just before starting a game)

The rest is done in-game (just like I would if I was playing on a monitor).

Every now and then I try FFR again to see if it’s improved enough (visually) to be used, but I mostly just keep it off as it seem like yet another setting that doesn’t always just work and may even make a game unplayable.

I, for one, am welcoming Pimax VR Experience with wide open FOV (or semi wide = normal) as I just don’t want to spend the time I have without the kids on tweaking and not playing

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These two comments illustrate the issue - one of them is an issue with the SteamVR default settings, the other one with the PiTool default settings (can we agree that Pimax is a little bit responsible for their own PiTool default settings then…?).

As a user, I donā€˜t care who ultimately is responsible for the issue, but I care to get a great device I can manage to put to work. And Pimax as the manufacturer of the 8KX should have the greatest motivation to give me such an experience, and help me to achieve it.

As you may have noticed, I have been around for quite some time and have read the forum. But I am surely not the tech savviest kind of user, and the fact that I had no eorking base stations for a year meant that I used non-Pimax headsets in that time and didnā€˜t carefully read nor apply the various tweaks & work-arounds which have been suggested in the forum since the 8K & 5K+ were shipped.

So I find it impossible to remember all of them, and no chance I could dig through all of the mega-threads here to find that information now.

How on earth is an even less experienced Pimax customer supposed to deal with it then ?

So yes, you efforts to create the new PE is absolutely key to help Pimax even dream of getting out of its super-niche of tinker-friendly PC wizards who spend 2h per day on this forum.

And as long as it is unreleased or in beta status, may I suggest you send all 8KX owners a beginnerā€˜s guide highlighting briefly the most essential tweaks required to make for a good performance of the 8KX?
The issue with refering to the beta is that some users will think that they donā€˜t want to be exposed to a beta because that would mean a buggy, incomplete performance. So for these customers it would make sense to have issued this guide so they wonā€˜t get frustrated in the coming 2-3 months until the PE tool is available as final release version.

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+2 contrast ?? No no no NO :grin: that won’t do, makes the image look washed out and diminishes the small differences in color gradients ) shades
Each to his (or her) own :smile:
@SweViver please take me and another on this forum up on our offer on display calibration testing / collaboration.

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I think it really depends on the app or game or specifically what hmd you are using along with personal preference, i still remember at the very early stages people were afraid that the displays wouldn’t be bright enough and then when i got my first Pimax i felt blinded by the brightness so glad that they now offer us a way to reduce and experiment with our personal preferences. In my Skyrim Vr settings topic i shown that i’m using -3 contrast and +3 in brightness for me looks really pretty nice in the 8kX, but as i learned before when i think it just couldn’t look any better i find ways to improve that and am astonished all over again.

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Maybe it’s born out of the need to limit the average dumb user from starting up his Index and pulling the slider to max to ā€œget the best graphics broā€. And then complain about how the game runs on 10fps and he puked into his girlfriend’s lap for an hour. :grin:

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Regardless if the maxrecommendedresolution issue is Valve’s fault it’s Pimax’s problem and it needs to be auto fixed for all users. It’s your customers who will have the negative experience. Most of whom won’t even know what the problem is.

Pimax, is there perhaps a way to permanently fix it via your communication channel with Valve?

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The last time I had helped someone with this via Teamviewer it had turned out he missed step 0.:

  1. Turn SteamVR off.
  2. Go to C :\Program Files (x86)\Steam\config\steamvr.vrsettings
  3. backup steamvr.vrsettings , then open it with Notepad++.
  4. Scroll down, set ā€œmaxRecommendedResolutionā€ : 16384,
  5. Do not touch anything else. Save and exit. Start SteamVR, go to settings, set up the Supersampling to a vertical resolution of around 2300.
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Didnt worked for me :frowning:

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Guys. We can discuss this all night but there is simply no time enough, especially if you want me to have a proper version of VR Experience ready for you this month.

I gave you the correct steamvr.vrsettings values to play around with. This WILL make sure you get the full potential of your 8KX or whatever high-res VR headset. For any person who can open a file with Notepad, its a 30 second task.

For the people who are not able to open a file with Notepad and do the above, yes there will be a VR Experience available soon, doing this for you automatically.

As for the question why Pimax have not implemented the SteamVR tweaks into PiTool, well I have no answer to that. Because I have no idea. I pushed for this already back in the 5K+ days. Nearly 2 years ago. Its simply not on my table, and I cant edit and compile PiTool myself.

For what it is, if you have an 8KX, do these simple tweaks mentioned above and you will get the most potential out of your 8KX - and I take for granted that you have at least a 1080Ti or better, because if you dont, there is simply no point pushing the resolution and scaling that high. It will just be painful and unplayable anyway.

Yes, there will be videos made about this. It should have been done long ago maybe. On the other hand, I could have done 100 tweaking videos at this point during the last months. But dont you think its better I put my time to create the VR Experience, so we simply dont need these videos to even exist? Not every Pimax user is in this forum, but not every Pimax user is on YouTube either. A VR Experience software, built in into the main PiTool installation and running automatically, will solve this problem better than anything else.

Theres just one single problem. The VR Experience is NOT ready to be released yet.

It will be released for everyone in July, thats for sure, but not today. So please give me some more time. Im working on it more or less every day. Im doing my best and I hardly sleep because of this ,so could your PLEASE just let me finish what needs to be finished, without making a big sh*tstorm about what Pimax should or should not have done years ago? That kind of discussion simply wont help anyone.

Thank you

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I can just tell you, our of my own experience, that messing with the default SteamVR config file is probably the reason you cant get it working now. I suggest you simply uninstall SteamVR, remove all these files, install SteamVR again and apply the tweaks.

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Its already clean installed. This is exactly the reason to wonder for me, as i didnt know its locked by default. I was always thinking that defaults are unlocked. Dont worry about that, i dont want to borther you much with that.

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