Quick impressions from Elite. The Yaw VR Game Engine default profile did not play nicely with the set limits; it would basically twitch when I passed over the small range of orientations that were mapped, and what motion there was felt backwards. That has nothing to do with the Pimax, but it’s also a new toy. Bumping up HMD quality factor a few steps in Elite helped quite a lot; text is easier to read than in the 5K+. Blacks look pretty good; it’s obviously backlit, but the lack of competing impressions makes it a background thing, like looking through air. As for the optics, it’s a slightly mixed bag. When looking straight ahead, the distortion profile is excellent. However, when glancing to the side I seem to move my pupil out of the sweet spot, and get edge distortion. Furthermore, it looks like I’m looking past the edge of the lens (!) - there’s a band of clearer display past the milkiness of fresnel ridges. “God ray” effects seem less pronounced, probably largely because there’s not much leakage. Also, the one thing that helps more than having a button to reach Elite’s main menu (“pause”, by default Escape) is knowing where that button is. And my X52 Pro had calibrated center to the wrong position when the Yaw VR was pitched down on boot, quickly resolved by unplugging the HOTAS. I don’t seem consciously disturbed by 75Hz in Elite, but it may well be tiring. And I’m not sure I have quite the right fit with the head strap. Note that some of the distortion effects could well be affected by the use of parallel projections, though I did dare to set it to large field of view.
On the sad side, with Elite’s excellent audio design, it’s immediately obvious that the SMAS audio just isn’t anywhere near good enough. The audio is tinny and easy to pinpoint. It beats not having any earphones, but I am going to upgrade, one way or another.