How to exceed the maximum resolution of 4096px imposed by SteamVR

Pimax 8K Series
22

Thanks @tristanc. This is great!

I just run the test and can confirm the value works as expected. I set it to 8192 and then set PiTool to 2.0 and HMD to “Large FOV” thus making the driver to advertise

HMD driver recommended: 8535x5267 90.0Hz HiddenArea(3.49%) = 7809 MP/sec

and then verified that the OpenVR has capped it according to the new settings and advertised to the application 8192x5055.

If anyone does not know (it has already been reported here), the settings values are also accessible from the “dev console” which is running at http://127.0.0.1:8998/console/index.html.

You can read or set the values from there by using settings command, list gives the other commands. The disadvantage is that the SteamVR has to be running. The advantage is that you get an immediate acknowledgment that the value has been (correctly) updated, you do not need to search the right file, and it looks more tidy.

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23

Great news ! It is confirmed then.

Will try it home tonight.

Did you noticed the increased clarity ?

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24

Thank you so much for sharing your experience.

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25

works for me too, heres how i tested it with iracing:

large fov+parallel projections and render scale in iracing set to 50%.
steam at 5011x2373 looked reaaaaaaaaaaaaaly bad like 360p or something :rofl:
changed steamvr slider to maxvalue of 15538x7359 and it looked exactly the same

then i changed the maxresolution in the webconsole from 4096 to 40000 and it really changed after that

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26

How to use it with the “dev console” added to the first entry, thanks.

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27

does this “stick” if you close steamVR and launch again or do you need to enter maxresolution in the webconsole again?

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28

yea it sticks…

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29

Is this for vertical or horizontal resolution?

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30

I tried this hack myself. Now with Pitool still set at 1.0 my frames dropped from 90 to 25 in most apps. But god it’s looks sharp! So reducing Steam down to 30% brought the FPS back up to 90 and it still looks fantastic.

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31

What did you set maxresolution to?

32

Is Pimax going to explain us one day what is the different between Pitool pixel percent and SteamVR SS?

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33

The 8192 recommended.

Other things I tried was the Nvidia Funhouse now works.

The combination of Nvidia driver, new Pitool and upping the maxrender resolution has this headset now looking eye popping! In a good way lol

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34

As an aside: In the “power” section of that default settings file, you will find “autoLaunchSteamVROnButtonPress”, which you can set to false, if you are having issues with SteamVR launching prematurely. (Used to be selectable on the control panel setting, but I have not managed to find it there recently.)

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35

Is it me or have Valve changed the menu system for SteamVR? All tiles now.

36

Yes. They also changed the SS menu.

Now there´s only one option and slider to gauge the SS, which don´t show the % anymore :face_with_monocle:

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37

Can someone explain why mine DOES go above 4096 resolution in steamvr without doing this editing?

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38

Steamvr shows higher but that config restricts it to a max value while not letting you know.

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39

Ohh ok, so above a certain SS, you wont see any noticeable improvement in resolution right?

But if you do the edit mentioned here, you WILL start seeing a difference as you go really high on SS…correct?

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40

From my understanding yes.

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41

I can confirm that PiTool value does change the recommended render target resolution the driver reports to OpenVR. The value itself factors the dimensions of the render target. So if PiTool at 1.0 recommends resolution X*Y, then PiTool at 1.5 recommends (1.5*X)*(1.5*Y), which means actually 2.25*X*Y pixels.

SteamVR SS factors the overall pixel count, so if the driver suggests X*Y to OpenVR and you set SteamVR to 1.5 the overall pixel count will be 1.5*X*Y or the resolution dimensions will be (sqrt(1.5)*X)*(sqrt(1.5)*Y).

So you see that while each uses different formula they both combined directly impact the pixel count (or the dimensions) of the recommended render target resolution. which is finally recommended to the app (which may choose to use it or not).

On the side note, another factor which impacts the recommended render target resolution by the headset driver is FOV (Small, Normal, Large) setting in PiTool.

8 Likes