The face cushion should just peel off, it’s velcroed. Or at least all the ones i’ve had on my 5K+s have been.
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Trying different games would at least give an indication on whether this is a game-specific issue or a rather general one.
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Yes, the cushion can be peeled of and swapped - no need to take off the plastic that is holding it (which is supposed to work also). I just did that to replace the original one (about 14mm) with a 6mm one, since I had trouble getting the sweet spot as sweet as on the 5k+. It worked in my case.
This is the cushion taken off:
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Exactly, I can understand that depending on the use case the 5k+ is preferred, but at least the SDE and Immersion provision are better in my experience - worse only the slight softness of the image and maybe the latency in some cases (I did notice after the last update that I can see slight ghosting in special conditions - not sure if it is 260 doing it or I just never noticed it before).
We have the same keyboard!!
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Enthusists Gear 
. Else it most likely would be a razor 
Potatoe is the only FOV I can play Dimension Hunter with good framerate with my 980ti. Even small FOV + heavy downsampling couldn’t give decent framerate with this game.
I think this game was developped for 1st gen FOV and does not support well larger FOV, because the framerate is good at the beginning while climbing in the lift, but as soon as we arrive to the game area the fps drop heavily, excepting in potatoe FOV.
So I’m very happy this mode has been implemented and I hope it will never be removed from pitool.
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You simple use less off the screen when you lower the FOV so you dont get any higher ress, switch back to Normal FOV.
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You are using a 3generation old card on a headset that is what 5-6years newer and wounder why you have a problem.
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Pretty sure the card is not the root cause with this game, it is as powerful as a 1070. No problem with other games with much more complex GFX than this one.
If it really was a GPU power issue, then downsampling would at least improve fps but it doesn’t.
Your 980ti is definitely not as fast as the original stock clocked 1070, especially in anything that uses Vulcan. (it’s like 50% slower in vulcan based games and 10-15% slower in dx12 games). The only area where it’s close is dx11 where it is just 5-7% slower than an original stock 1070.
An improved GPU will improve your experience in VR.
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Not vulkan based games, wolfenstein. One game. The other vulkan game they tested was less than 10% difference. That isnt going to magically solve this guys issue.
The OP has a 2080ti.
If you check I was responding to Neel not the OP. The OP’s issue seems to be performance in a single game.
As for the 980ti somehow not negatively impacting your VR experience - are you serious?
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Smart Smoothing on or off? Even with a 2080 Ti, it is fairly normal to get only 36FPS, relying on Smart Smoothing to maintain a steady 72FPS.
Nonetheless, there are a few things you need to try.
First, ‘overclock’ your 2080 Ti. Just download the program for your GPU, set everything to max, and set core clock to something like 1900MHz or 2000MHz depending on whether it is a pre-binned card. As long as you don’t exceed the maximum voltage for the GPU (which should only be possible with hardware mod these days), there should be no unusual risks of breaking anything. This takes minutes, and typically brings 30% performance benefits.
Second, set SteamVR vertical resolution to 2160v (1.25x the 1440v resolution of the 8k+), and disable any in-app supersampling. Not uncommon to find something like a ridiculous 1.6x default.
Third, I strongly recommend buying FPSVR (only a few dollars). It is the only tool that will give you solid CPU/GPU latency numbers. There is a slim possibility your CPU may be limiting performance.
Indeed, you might not even be able to downsample enough to get a ‘good framerate’ with a 980Ti. Whereas small FOV may reduce GPU load to much less than half. That card is so woefully underpowered for anything Pimax VR, I don’t even plan to run more detailed numeric comparisons. Sell it on eBay for $200-$400 depending on whether it is a higher-frequency binned card.
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Smart smoothing on. I tried overclocking last night, it’s a Gainward and is already clocked higher than reference 2150 GPU 7000 Mem. I managed a small increase 25MHz on the GPU with the voltage cranked up max. So really at the limit as far as GPU is concerned.
I’ll try altering the SteamVR vertical res settings though thanks and I’ll look into FPSVR.
The CPU is set to 3.7GHz boosting to 3.9 and the DDR is running at 3066MHz. It performs favourably compared to similar.
Lastly, is there a specific Pimax config setting especially for HL Alyx?
Wow. At 2150MHz on the GPU, yeah, that’s going to be the limit. You might be able to push the memory to 8150 MHz, or at least 7800MHz, though GPU memory clocks rarely make much of a difference.
FPSVR will at least tell you whether the CPU is a limiting factor. It really shouldn’t be except with some simulation apps (ie. DCS World), but I don’t know about WarThunder, or possibly any software configuration issue that might have been missed. Also, FFR may cost more CPU latency, so since you have a strong GPU, turning it off may be best. In any case, it’s good that you are open to using FPSVR, because all the other tools (including SteamVR Settings performance graph) yield wildly inaccurate results.
Except for the SteamVR vertical res, and an override to disable automatic scaling, not really any Pimax specific config specifically for HL Alyx. You might want to try leaving the automatic scaling not overridden, as HL Alyx normally should run with single-frame latency (full 72Hz no smart smoothing). If that works well, it may be an indicator something specific to your WarThunder setup is misconfigured.
Another great VR game to try is PavlovVR. That should absolutely run smoothly at high resolution.
PiTool versions are one other possible pitfall. Some are known to have substantial performance regressions, or crash from time to time.
For me, PiTool 1.0.1.254_alpha works. Though some others experience crashing with that version, at least it should be capable of the best performance.
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This is one of the most OC 980ti and it is a bit above a stock 1070 in DX11 games. I was not talking about vulkan or dx12 games.
I know the gain I would have by upgrading it, I tried to get a used 1080ti last summer but “the deal just turned bad” (hey, sh*t happens). This is the only reason why I’m still using this 980ti originally bought for the CV1 I had before the 5k+. It was correctly balanced with the CV1, I know it is too short for the 5k+ but still usable, and “usable” for me means steadily matching fps with display refresh, without smart smoothing. Often 72Hz of course, small or normal FOV, but steady 90fps is also doable depending on the game.
This is not true. I do assetto corsa MP races with this card, with a steady 72fps in small fov. When training alone I can do steady 90fps in normal fov or 72fps in large fov. And again I’m talking about true frames, no smart smoothing. It can also handle dirt rally or raceroom (with compromises of course, but it can provide a smooth VR with both, for R3E at least for solo training). IIRC I also tried Pcars2 with it. And of course plenty of light games are working fine, I was testing the index controllers with zombie riot or also eleven table tennis.
I’m used to tweak games to make them run smooth on the 5k+ with this card,without smart smoothing, and monitoring fps with fpsVR (I’m not someone who “feels 40/50fps is smooth”). I think there is something wrong with dimension hunter, at the level I tried to downsample it should have ran better. IIRC heavy DS was not improving fps at all. I have tried a lot to make it run better and only recently I tried potatoe and fps went from pure slideshow to steady matching the display refresh. This is not common behaviour unless FOV above potatoe was creating a huge bottleneck with the 980ti design. It is possible, but I would like to know how this game run from a 1080ti owner.
edit: just found a comment I wrote about this game on a googlesheet dealing with games playability on pimax HMDs: “Low load in menu (cockpit) but heavy CPU load / high CPU frametime once the game starts. Requires smart smoothing to be playable. With 980ti and 5K+: 72Hz, small fov, pitool 1, SteamSS 50%”
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Ah brilliant suggestion I’ll give that a go thanks 
I wasn’t able to push the memory any further than 7000 without errors. But I will give you suggestions a go cheers.
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I consider it absolutely unacceptable to make that tradeoff for GPU/CPU performance reasons.
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And ? This should make it a universal metric ? 
I have backed the pimax for the improved resolution (including RGB panels), for better distance details (mostly for racing sims). The wider fov was just cherry on the cake for me, and even small fov is already wider than 1st gen HMDs.
Of course I’m still pleased when I can use normal fov rather than small but I’m not “that pi$$ed” when I can only use small (or even potatoe for dimension hunter). I would gladly trade any FOV above small (and their heavy side distortion 
) for deep blacks.
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