Got my Pimax 5K+. Time to have some fun! I’ll update this post after setting everything up (that’s going to take time for sure), without vive stuff first, then with bases and controllers… my GPU is also super under spec so will be interesting so see how it works (fails).
Update 1: I’ve installed and started PiTool and connected headset - after a few moments of driver install is showed up in PiTool, “not tracking” as expected as I’ve not put up Vive hardware yet, just the Pimax headset. The headset shows solid gray color. I clicked “Start SteamVR” which launched, but it keeps showing that headset is in standby mode. All I see so far is gray color. Let’s see if I can work this out…
Update 2: the secret was to untick “Turn On Lighthouse Tracking”. Now I see Pimax logo in the headset! Would be smart if devs would auto-untick this when nothing is connected (no LH or controllers).
Update 3: well, SteamVR works! With default “normal” FOV and “1” rendering quality, SteamVR Home gives me (in SteamVR Settings window on monitor) 25ms (red) meaning that framerate is definitely low-ish, however inside the headset it’s not too bad! I noticed a bug immediately - objects at the edge of view disappear in SteamVR Home, it’s very noticeable and silly =) Looks like their (Valve’s) optimization which they did not adapt for varying FOV. Not much else to do here, so I’ll move on to connect Lighthouses and controllers and test room tracking.
Update 4: forgot to mention picture quality - definitely as good as it was during the demo I went to in SF, funny thing is that even if I drop FOV to small and drop rendering quality to 0.5, it’s still comparable to Oculus Rift I had before 
and I recovered quite some FPS. Remember I have a very under specced card - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (fanless version). I wonder how it’s going to work in games…
Update 5: after trying to figure out for half an hour how to connect vive accessories I realized that maybe I need to tick that “Turn On Lighhouse Tracking” back on… Tracking works, didn’t work at first (Lighthouses blue but say “not tracking” and helmet also “not tracking”, but after reboot it works ok). However, now my problem is that controllers are only tracked when connected over USB! Looking for a solution…
Update 6: well, it was easier than I thought, thanks @Heliosurge - I had to use SteamVR’s “pair” workflow to make controllers work wirelessly. Now to test in games… That’s going to take time!
Update 7: so, I realized I have almost nothing installed to test after I sold my Oculus Rift I’ve unsinstalled stuff to gain space on disk %))) What I can say so far by using just SteamVR and Racket Nx - with my GTX 1050 Ti I can use Rendering Quality 0.5 and Small FOV in PiTool, keep auto in Steam and play fine without lag. Of course I get picture sharpness comparable to Oculus Rift or a bit lower (still perfectly useable to my taste). But that’s my non VR-ready videocard, so what else to expect? Setting Large FOV works as well (probably Steam decreases res on it’s side due to auto mode), no lag. Upping Rendering Quality to 1.0 makes Racket Nx a slideshow, probably 15fps or less, unplayable. Going to ask my friends to share a more powerful GPU for tests :).
Now, for the black dot seekers - I couldn’t find them. My eyesight is not perfect but I can see pixels fine if I try hard, but I couldn’t see any darkened pattern, specifically I looked at Pimax logo which shows up as soon as headset starts working.
One important thing I have to figure out how to fix is headset positioning. It’s super important, I’ve read a few topics here about it and possible solutions, and I can confirm that it’s very important as edge “weirdness” (when image closer to left and right sides stretches horizontally, so objects lose their proportions - this also induces VR sickness) is present when eyes are too close to lenses. However, I can’t control how close my eyes are, I only have 1 face pad and no tuning. If I hold the headset and move it a tiny bit away from my face I see immediate improvement in clarity and side issues are gone. A bit more - and sides become blurry. And of course light interference (outside light reflection on lenses) comes in as soon as I move the headset even a bit away, so that’s another problem to fight. This headset has to have hardware for very precise positioning and outside light protection, but it doesn’t have that right now. I’ll see what I can do with a 3D printer I’ve got in the office in the mean time, maybe there’s something to print already in the wild (saw some links here in Directory section).
Update 8: as some experienced users may have known already, I’ve found that PiTool’s “Rendering Quality” does not actually affect performance when SteamVR has Video with “Manual Override” unset. However, setting PiTool RQ below 1 will cause decrease in picture clarity. So I can set PiTool RQ 1 or to 2 and still have my 90 fps because SteamVR auto-adjusts quality and with my gfx card I get roughly 1500x1500 per eye (when Small FOV is used), and a decent clarity still. In order to improve picture I have to enable “Manual Override” in SteamVR or set > 100% in per-app settings. I haven’t tried that yet, will try per-app tuning tomorrow. I think I can bump up to around 175-200% to go from 90fps to ~45fps which should still be ok playable (maybe?), SteamVR says that’ll be around 2100x2100 per eye (for 200% and Small FOV). So apparently I cannot drive the helmet at native res, but even so I can drive it with res above Oculus Rift and have clearer picture without too much stutter. So far I’m quite happy with all my findings, biggest problem is headset positioning as I mentioned earlier.
Update 9 (final): I’ve tried the few games I had, and I also got a GTX 1080 Ti for a day to further test. Main findings - Large FOV is not compatible with many games, they just crash. 1080 Ti is too much power for some games, but absolutely needed for others. With my 1050 Ti I can only reliably play most games on Normal or Small FOV and lowest 0.5 PiTool setting (of course kind of blurry image). What I realized once again is that there’s just not enough good content for VR right now - especially for a picky guy like me with high motion sickness, so I can only tolerate teleports, no smooth motion, and I am not interested in short experiences or bad VR ports - what I really want is large and detailed world to explore which has a great story as well. I’ll put the headset away awaiting the full set to arrive later this year (hopefully) - that is LH 2.0 and Pimax controllers.