Eye strain / possible projection issue?

Hi guys.

I’ve had my 5k+ for a few days now and while i’ve only really had limited experience (I don’t have controllers, lighthouses and i’ve only been able to run elite dangerous and google earth) i’m getting a bit of eye strain from it and i doubt i’d be able to play comfortably for any extended amount of time. While its taken me some time to put my finger on it, i think there is a projection issue which is making it a strain to comprehend far distances.

From my experience, i think its best demonstrated with google earth. I’ve been watching each of the demo tours with the Oculus CV1 and then comparing with the 5k+. While everything feels natural and comfortable with the CV1, with the 5k+ close objects / terrain is fine but as the terrain moves into the distance it becomes what i can only really describe as less convincing. I think the strain is the mind fighting to make sense of the perspective.

Is anyone else experiencing this issue? I’m hoping to get comments from people who can compare with either the vive or CV1. I can recall during development a few people reported projection issues but these were fixed with a firmware update so i’m hoping its something that can be configured.

Cheers.

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Im getting a similar experience. No matter what I do, it always looks like I’m viewing the world three my wife’s glasses

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Do you know your IPD (inter pupillary distance) and have you dialed it in?

I’ve felt eye strain, but only when my IPD was way off. My self-measured IPD is 63 mm. The headset value which works best for me is 65 mm (determined by experimentation).

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Yeah its about 63. I came to this value using the rifts in built configuration tool (the green lines) and have had no problems with it with about a year of use. Using the mirror method i get 64 so i think its fair to say this value is OK. On the Pimax though, i find the setting that gives me the clearest view is on the lowest IPD which is about 60.

I’ve tried repositioning my face up and down, in and out along the range of IPD settings without much luck.

@neal_white_iii, i’m assuming you aren’t experiencing this strange perspective and everything feels comfortable and quite natural to you? Can you compare this to a different HMD?

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I am not getting eye strain per se, but rather it’s very difficult to get both eyes sharp and in focus. One eye always seems to be out if I do the close one eye and look.

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OP, if you search “Eye Strain” you can find a few topics where people have discussed this and some suggestions.

Here is one:
https://community.openmr.ai/t/what-causes-eye-strain/14488?u=manzilla

Personally, I had eye strain originally because I was putting my headset too high on my head. I also had a hard time adjusting the IPD because my optometrist measured IPD didn’t work.

When I put the headset so low that my nose is touching the fabric I was able to use my measured IPD of 62 without any strain. I also found that a larger range of IPDs were clear. Also, once it was set right I could start to notice distortion when moving my head if I changed the IPD by even 0.5mm. (So 62.5 has different distorting from 62) So the headset seems to be fairly sensitive to a correct IPD compared to something like my Vive that I had previously.

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I have the same problem with IPD. I am a veteran VR enthusiast. Have Rift, GO, Psvr, Lenovo, and Vive. Except Lenovo never had similar problem. WMR has fixed lenses (except Odyssey) and fixed IPD is 64, you have a slider on software. I was having similar eye strain with lenovo but was succesful to minimize it. The problem was my IPD which is 62.

I believe same goes with Pimax. Its lowest reported 59.7 is not real life IPD, as lenses probably support minimum 64 or so but reports like that. Maybe be I am wrong but pimax should definitely put a IPD slider on software. Also a better picture profile as well for lower IPDs and green lines or similar tool for user to align theşr IPD perfectly.

I really want to like Pimax, drivers now although not perfect works quite ok, washed colors are acceptable, however IPD adjustment is the biggest concern.

I hope their are aware of this problem, and at least offer a better solution or many people will start selling their headset, and so many new comers will hesitate to invest.

This is not an issue like comfort and can’t be corrected with facepads, etc. I just hope this is not due to angled screens and/or lenses. If so, they may offer a lens upgrade for smaller IPDs (although 62 is not a small IPD).

C’mon Pimax do something about this.

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This is unfortunately an extremely tricky thing because not everyone is experiencing this problem. Some people have no eye strain. I have used mine for up to 3 hours at time with complete comfort. I hope that they look into something like maybe coming up with different selectable distortion profiles but I fear that they are going to have a nearly impossible time getting this to the point where everyone can have the same great experience because of individual face shapes and the fact that the physical makeup of the headset makes it extremely sensitive to face differences. Maybe when the eye tracking system comes out they can come up with a system similar to what StarVR was doing which apparently worked very well.

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I’ve no prior VR experience (but lot of 3D-vision/glasses) and no eye strain problem with 5k+. Also image can be sharp but positioning head is critical.

IPD also important but I can actually use IPD in various settings (~6mm interval around 64mm) and no problem (maybe trained by 3D vision where I used many different convergence settings, I remember it was very difficult there at first but got used to it).

It seems like you need lower IPD than Pimax supports. Afaik, there isn’t any solution right now. Perhaps they could display the images even closer (like most WMR headsets do as they have no HW IPD adjustment) but it would cost some clarity and require SW solution in PiTool.

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Something @noro mentioned about symetry might be on the mark. We may need a software offset to adjust eye ipd differemce.

Ie someone might have am ipd of 64 but left eye might be 31.0 & right 33.0

Same here with my 8K, no eyestrain problem at all, and I’ve watched several full length feature movies (2+ hours) with it.

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You do get use to it, at first I got bad eyestrain, now how ever I can play 2-3 hrs no problem, but when I take off the HMD my eye dont seam right and take a couple of minuets to readjust.
@Heliosurge you have the 5k+ as well, could you test by looking at some thing straight ahead , dont take your eyes of of it then close one eye then to make shore its in focus, then DONT move your head check your othere eyes focus.

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To be honest not sure if I would observe it as even moving ipd adjustment wheel my eyes generally keep focus.

A friend of mine has a much narrow face & ipd. On his psvr I don’t need to adjust ipd. But will give it a shot.

The 8k may give less eyestrain though due to more pixels in height & width.

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FWIW I find pimax basically unusable due to this issue as do many others. RIP if you have a low IPD, Pimax don’t give a damn it seems.

Have you tried replacing default.jpeg with this one?

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I am trying this, did my best as instructed but it never shows up. Once I put back the original jpg it immediately appears. I am on Beta Pitool, maybe that related?

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Possibly. After replacing jpeg you need to restart pitool & services.

May need to even replace while pitool exited & killed.

No but, while that may help others set IPD more accurately, it wont help those whose IPD is out of the range supported by the headset.

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I even restarted my comp. But maybe I should try to replace this alignment jpeg when I kill anything with Pitool.

Still weird when I put the original back when pitool is on, hmd shows directly the original pimax logo jpg.

This is what I am afraid of…

Maybe we can tinker some others things deep down on the code.

I wish Pimax at least showed us where can be play with some numbers on the code if this issue can be corrected with software though an IPD slider would really help a lot.

If it is all about lenses, than a replacment would be the best solution.

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