It's here 5K+, Yea Baby Yea! review included

[stixvr]

My experience with the 5K+

PC specs
I7 4790 4.0G
Zotac 1080Ti
32 DDR3

Ok USA 5K+ backers, man this thing is really cool. For an LCD (or Pimaxs’ version “LPCP”) type HMD, it really outshines the Pimax 4K, its a bit brighter, and after I upgrade to the .95 or .103 I’ll have brightness control so it should be just fine, no ghosting and of course the wide FOV. The FOV is close and not tooooo far off from human FOV. FOV still not there but getting close.

I didnt have any issues at all with setting everything up other than Pimaxs website doesnt have the Pitool download working, WTF,! So I had to comb the forum looking for another link to .91 download, some forum members suggest the .91 seems less buggy at this time.

The .301 with brain warp, Ill wait to make sure everything is working with .91 first before I jump to .301. It took me a few minutes to realize I had to wake up my Vive lighthouses by unplugging them and plugging them back in. After that it was a breeze.

No audio yet though. I can hear clicking in my headphones when the HMD boots up so I think the jacks ok, I just need to further troubleshoot that, probably software related?. Also I have two stereo headphones with two kinds of audio jacks, both for stereo. I shot a pic of them below.

-Dead or pixel issues- None so far, I looked for quite a while in dark scenes for stuck pixels and bright scenes for dead pixels, found none.

-debris or dirt on panels- I looked for dirt specs or debris on LCD panels in bright scenes and found none

-Mic- Havnt checked yet

-Headphone jack issue- see above

-Yellow light edge bleeding- found no light bleeding in dark scenes

-Bad or loose DP/power cable- nope

-Power supply issue- ok for now

-Black dots on red or flesh tones- I looked for them on a red background and on flesh tone background and I saw them but I had to pause the action to see them, and then I had to really focus on them. My take is they might as well not be there because you dont see them during game play or peoples faces as people are in motion. So either I have got a HMD where they are virtually gone or some are making a bigger deal about it, I trust most peoples experiences so i would say i have one that has been tweaked to make the black dots virtually disappear.

-God Rays- They are there but much much less than Vive. And not an issue

-Sweet Spot- Just as good as Pimax 4K

-SDE- Well its pretty much been hammered to death here on the forum so Ill just say its everything you have read here about the 5K+ SDE. Its there, yes, a bit better than Vive Pro, much better than OG Vive, Not quite as good as Pimax 4K

-Distortions in edges- I found some slight distortions on the edges, and objects would just “appear” in the edges in LARGE FOV, Normal FOV I didnt experience the objects “appearing” on the edges. Also just normal blurry edges as with any HMD.

-Distortions in the center- I hear some say that objects that move in front of the view look to be distorted or not geometrically shaped correctly. While I did see this I dont think I would have noticed it unless I was looking for it. And its not an issue for me

-Plastic shell- Plastic shell seems to be solid. Not as flimsy as I was expecting but the headset is still lightweight.

-Headstrap- Its lacking in comfortability but time will tell as i havnt wore it for more than a few minutes at a time. Im hoping it will last until the Pimax deluxe strap comes

I played a bit of The Solus Project and Space Pirate Trainer
The Solus Project is hungry for your GPU. I was able to get around 60fps with Pitool at 1.0 and in game rendering at 70% and all in game settings at Mid. I forgot to see what Steam VR setting were. Had to turn on Parallel Projection with Solus Project.
I was easily able to get 60fps on my Pimax 4K at 160% in game rendering and all in game settings on Ultra.

Hopefully BrainWarp will help some with this.

Anyhow Im ready to play around some more tomorrow

[Flinnt]

The plug on the right looks like your standard stereo plug. The one on left has extra channels to operate volume and track forward/back on the buttons on the earphone cord. It should be designed to still work as normal audio wise in any device but the buttons will only work in devices it is designed for.

[stixvr]

Makes sense, the white one has a volume control , thx!

[cruser_icu]

congrats stixvr
Be careful when upgrading to 103, I had the firmware update get stuck on me, now my 5k+ is bricked and I can’t get any response from Pimax because of the chinese new year.
Enjoy your HMD till the chinese new year is over before trying the 103 update.
If you have firmware 181 you can update to 95 without needing the firmware update.

[Pimel]

Have fun! What was your backer number?

[fishfingers]

I think Pimax should be more clear tbh that updating Pitool might update your firmware as well. I’ve never used an electronic device that updated firmware without asking me or even telling me it’s happening, very dangerous for the end user, for example in our house we have an electric meter that takes pre paid keys. If there’s not enough in, the electric will literally just go off. This never ever happens as we keep plenty of credit in the meter. However if I’m going to update BIOS on a mainboard or something I always check that first.

Also things like antivirus etc could interfere with such things and I would likely be disabling them and other security software to make sure any flashing goes without a hitch.

Non of this can be checked if you install what you think is merely a software update and it auto updates firmware as well, it’s just really bad practice. Needs a popup dialogue asking if you want to go ahead, it’s the simplest thing in the world to implement and may well have saved your HMD being bricked.

[JayBee]

Hi,
Have a look around the forum for @Sjef flashing utility. I can’t remember where it is but tagged him so he might be able to help u unbrick the headset. @Heliosurge tagged for help maybe too.
Cheers
Jb

[vorinami]

Flashing tool found here:
https://community.openmr.ai/t/sjefdeklerks-pimax-flasher-4k-5k-8k/10231?u=vorinami

[Hoochyuk]

Games where thing pop in and out of view on the edges need parrellel projection on to eliminate it,obviously it comes at a cost of having to lower settings

[VR247]

Not 100% positive but I’m pretty sure the additional ring on the headphones is for an inline mic. More intended with use on a phone. Pimax wouldn’t have installed a jack with this option because they have the built in mic. Should still function i believe as well, but may cut out sound to one side.

Oh, congratulations on getting your headset. It was a very exciting time after the long wait.

My biggest complaint at this point would not having saved game profiles. They may not have it yet because it may require restarting steam vr and/or pitool. But they could just put a tab on each game asking if we would like to load profile. Then restart if required.

Enjoy!

[Sjef]

@stixvr

objects would just “appear” in the edges in LARGE FOV,

Select “compatible with Parallel projections” and that problem will be solved.

Normal FOV I didnt experience the objects “appearing” on the edges. Just normal edge distortions as with any HMD.

The Vive Pro does not have any distortions at all.

[Heliosurge]

For headset audio mske sure your output is set to usb audio in Steamvr setting. You might need to choose this in windows audio settings maybe.

[Heliosurge]

Did you try sj’s tool? (Might be the person was trying to help) if you are did you try that button sequence i posted on putting p4k into dfu mode.

[Heliosurge]

That’s neat. I have seen in Woodstock, Ontario they were trialing pay as you go hydro. But hasn’t seemed to move past the test area(bern over 10 years now)

[stixvr]

4723 for the 5K+, 2830 for the 8K, still waiting!

[stixvr]

@Heliosurge

For headset audio mske sure your output is set to usb audio in Steamvr setting. You might need to choose this in windows audio settings maybe.

Very nice, for those who aint smart like I aint… (make sure your HMD is powered up) then just go to the speaker icon in the toolbar, right click Sounds, then under playback, scroll to Speakers, USB audio device and check, this should bring up audio in your 5K+ headset.

[ricknau]

@Heliosurge

For headset audio mske sure your output is set to usb audio in Steamvr setting. You might need to choose this in windows audio settings maybe.

Thanks Helio, couldn’t get any audio from my Vive DAS until I discovered your post.

[Heliosurge]

Community deserves the credit. One user recently discovered windows privacy issue.

Congrats though glad you have it working!

@Davebobman audio fixes

• choose Usb audio in steamvr (mic & Audio headphones)
• Windows Privacy settings
• Windows Audio tray device settings.
• One user used xtra powered hub

[stixvr]

@Sjef

Normal FOV I didnt experience the objects “appearing” on the edges. Just normal edge distortions as with any HMD.

The Vive Pro does not have any distortions at all.

My bad. i meant normal blurring but not distortions on the edges. I edited for future viewers

[Davebobman]

@Heliosurge

Community deserves the credit. One user recently discovered windows privacy issue.

Congrats though glad you have it working!

@Davebobman audio fixes

• choose Usb audio in steamvr (mic & Audio headphones)
• Windows Privacy settings
• Windows Audio tray device settings.
• One user used xtra powered hub

I have always had issues with the audio on the Rift. With a lot of games/apps (especially ones that aren’t on Oculus Home) the audio will switch AWAY from the Rift once I start them. The solution is to switch the audio back using the Windows Sound panel.

Just set the device as “default device” and “default communication device” (a green check will appear on the device icon). However, this can be a bit tedious because you CAN’T pin the sound panel to the taskbar and you have to search for it every time you want to use it.

 

Everything after this point is for ease of use and isn’t strictly necessary

My solution was to set up a batch file that changes the settings. However, I am unaware of how to do this with standard Windows commands but there is a solution. I use NirCmd as it gives you the command nircmd.exe setdefaultsounddevice “DeviceName” Type, where:

• DeviceName is the name of the Device in the sound panel (in quotes)
• Type (0,1, or 2) is the type of default you are trying to set (normal vs communication)

If you want to use NirCmd it will need to be in either you System Path or it should be in the same folder as your batch file. To add it to your system path you need to either put it in a folder that is already on the path or add the folder it is already in to the system path.

After that, you can create your batch file. Now you can change over your audio by double-clicking on the batch file. I made batch files for all the audio devices I actually use and can easily change over between them.

For example, I generally watch videos/etc with my monitor but that creates an echo if I am in a video chat. If I get a call from someone I can quickly switch all my audio over to my headphones before I get into the call.

 

For people that use/want a Stream Deck

You can use the System: Open buttons to open files (including batch files). This can let you do much more complicated things with the Stream Deck (that aren’t streaming related). I set up buttons for each of my audio sources so I can very quickly and easily switch between all my audio outputs without even having to minimize the current application (useful in games).

Note that this won’t always work. Sometimes the Stream Deck can “hang” (you will see the buttons being unresponsive) and some games don’t allow you to change the audio output after starting it (ie HearthStone).