I finally got the 5K+ HMD last night. Setup was not to difficult. I tried most of my VR games with .91 and .103 PiTool version. I do not have a base station at home All my experience were just using the HMD.
My rig
AMD Threadripper 1950x
EVGA 1080Ti FTW2
32GB RAM
WD Gold 12 TB HD
Let’s start with the didn’t work :
Chronos : This was an oculus home exclusive. There is a DRM when you start the game. It’s asking to check that the HMD or Sensor is connected. The worst part if the menu and the 3D is actually working behind the error message. I can’t get pass this error message.
The Climb : Another Oculus home store exclusive. It was given me a similar error that I had pending hardware notification. When I looked at oculus home. It was obviously complaining that the HMD and Sensor was not connected. Duh ! You cannot get pass this error. Pressing ok closes the applications.
American Truck Simulator : Everything starts fine until you click drive. My saved game was in the middle of the night. It was pitch dark. I couldn’t see anything. Anything else like menu has the perfect level of brightness. It just in-game that the brightness was beyond dark. When you put the light on, you can barely see the switches on the dashboard. The mirror are actually a little brighter than what I am seeing through the windshield. I need to retry in day-time.
Games that actually worked
Apollo 11 VR : Work right out of the game. No issue whatsoever
Adrift VR : I had 0 issue with this game as well.
SteamVR Media player : Works like a charm. I only watch 2D video. I thought the video quality was outstanding. I didn’t notice any SDE with the screen size at about 1.4x
Dolphin VR : To my surprise. My dolphin VR emulator worked fairly well. I was able to try a few GC game in VR like Zelda WindWaker and Metroid Prime.
Skyrim VR : Works surprisingly well but you can tell the game wasn’t design for the FOV. I had to lookup to see the compass or look down to see subtitle at the bottom. #FirstWorldProblem.
Project Cars 2 : My favorite experience of the night by far. The extra FOV makes a world of difference. I did a 7 lap races. I finished 3rd. I want to continue further but I wanted to try other games.
Elite Dangerous : I booted the game for 5 minutes. I was in the port. It was amazing how I could read the text clearly. It’s all I only wanted in Elite Dangerous. I will play a lot more of it going forward.
Just a note on the strap and the overall comfort of the HMD. I have a very small IPD. I had to set the HMD at the lowest value 59.7mm. The edge of both screen was lying on the bridge of my nose. I wish Pimax offered a bigger foam. Mine needs thickness at the bottom. I had very little to no eyestrain. I didn’t feel any motion sickness at all and that with no playing any VR in the past 6 months. Either I didn’t lose my VR legs or the wider FOV makes it all go away.
From this point forward, I think it’s clear that I will look for SteamVR compatible games instead of Oculus. I will look for a used base station until Pimax ships mine.
