Pimax 5k+ received! Early experience (Spamenigma)

[spamenigma]

This was suggested in another topic and thought it was a good idea to document my experience and answer any questions from a backer perspective.

I’m backer #6 in the UK and today after a bit of confusion on the shipping tracking I received an email giving me a DPD tracking number. A couple of hours later the item arrived:

So got a few jobs out the way ready to experience the pimax unboxing for myself and take a few pics along the way.

This didn’t quite go to plan as I quickly managed to drop my Samsung S9+ phone… $&@%!!!

So after getting over that shock I continued to unbox and hope the Pimax experience will cheer me up again

Had a quick look at all the items and set about putting together:

First slight hurdle was the head strap, the sides are obvious and easy to fit, the top part took a little bit of manipulation of the end of the strap to feed it through the top slot. It’s not the best angle to do this but with some fiddling it’s now through and fitted.

Next step, plug it in and see if it works!!

I have 3 displays and for speed I’ve just unplugged one of the side displays from its DP port and will sort out connecting via HDMI or onboard DP, no big deal. Plugged the HMD DP, USB and power in and can see a green light next to the power button so a good start!?

I then checked the pitool software which I pre-installed a couple of days ago:

OK, so tried quitting and re-opening pitool… same! So clicked the Diagnose(10500)

This provided this screen

I recall my AV (symantec endpoint protection cloud version) moaning about one of the files which I permitted at the time, so will try a reinstall and see where I end up… TBC!

[spamenigma]

Well my AV complained and blocked another file:

So I restored that too and ran the install manually

Still showing as disconnected… then I saw @yanfeng 's comment on here and so I pushed the connector and it moved in a bit:

Suddenly PiTool came to life and went through a quick installing process!

And its alive!!!

To be continued… and thanks @yanfeng

[spamenigma]

The next scenario I encountered was trying to get it tracked by the lighthouses. The continued to say disconnected and I wondered if I was going to need my vive link box connecting?!

So I tried a few things and clicked reboot HMD

It disconnected and stayed disconnected! I tried powering it off/on, quitting and opening PiTool, disconnecting and reconnecting the cable HMD side, and after disconnecting the USB on PC side it came back online… (will keep an eye on that).

Still no lighthouse tracking, I unchecked and checked the ‘turn on lighthouse tracking’ option, closed and opened SteamVR, ran through room setup process… but still no joy… so went with the #1 option we all know… reboot the pc!

Sure enough this did the trick and the lighthouses show as ‘ready’ in PiTool. I then spotted the option ‘pair controller’ that wasn’t there before.

I followed that process and sure enough was able to add the controllers one at a time.

So now in the SteamVR home screen and ready to start experimenting with games!

to be continued…

[spamenigma]

So I decided on one final step before getting into any games, and that was to deal with the PiTool Version I’d installed a couple of days previous. It was version 1.0.1.84

…and following watching SweVivers vid last night ( Pimax - We Have A Problem! Update fail, crashes & no motion smoothing? - YouTube ) I was aware of the potential issues with this version and the suggestion to downgrade to 1.0.1.76.

So I downloaded the earlier version, ran through the installer, dealt with the now expected AV red flags and got that part done. However, the HMD was not being detected. It was via USB but not via DP. I tried numerous things again… disconnecting/reconnecting cables, powering off/on HMD and PC, more disconnecting and reconnecting cables but no luck.

I upgraded back to .84 and it instantly worked, downgraded and failed. So maybe it’s a firmware thing although it’s said to be working for SweViver I’ve decided for now to upgrade back to .84 and all working again.

Time to try some games!!!

First pick… Elite Dangerous.

I had initially seen SteamVR home working so was surprised to see ED show a problem when it started up, the L/R eye view was massively out of alignment! Not just a bit… I decided to come back to this later! (EDIT: SOLVED: Check ‘Compat with Parallel projections’ option in PiTool… thanks @Zerenoth)

So I then briefly tested BigScreen, The Lab and Star Trek Bridge Crew. All for a quick look first impression, nothing more. No messing with settings yet and this isn’t a review, just a quick first impression.

All of these titles appeared to run fine straight off. When in steamvr home… I first looked at SDE and Colours. The SDE is visible as we all expected, but its a nice SDE, unobtrusive fine mesh. The colours looked a little washed out but I wasn’t going to get hung up on that just yet.

In Bigscreen I didn’t try any vids/movies, just a quick look inside a theatre and the view of my floating replicated desktop displays. Such a vast difference in quality already, text much more visible (again sort of expected but nice to see for myself) than previous experiences on my Rift and Vive. I had a quick look around and thought to myself what distortion?

The Lab looked awesome, colours better than in the home view I was in but this is where I started to understand the distortion a lot better and could see the effect when moving my head around. Anything with a verticle flat edge you could start to see lean a little as it gets to the edge of the view, probably not an issue once used to it but obviously more playing needed

I quickly ran bridge crew. The colours looked nice in there and it was at that point I looked at the black levels and thought… that looks fine! I get that they are better when contrasting against other colours but so far even in the dark theatre in big screen I didn’t have an issue with blacks.

I didn’t see any performance issues, I’m running an 8700K, 32GB, GTX 1080 (Asus strix), but I wasn’t looking for them or at any stats, I’ll do that later (got plenty of games to throw at this yet!), I just glanced a few times at the steamvr perf bar and all seemed good.

Overall I’m massively impressed, I know the software is still work in progress and I’m sure issues will crop up (such as finding out what’s going on with Elite Dangerous (EDIT: SOLVED: Check ‘Compat with Parallel projections’ option in PiTool)). But I love how clear it is, how much more detail can be seen, the image looks a lot cleaner and I’m sure there is more to be improved upon.

I like what I’ve seen and will report back more as I spend more time with it but for now I’m pleased!

[MoreTrife]

Excited for you! Thanks for updates!

EDIT: and sorry about the phone

[Sjef]

Thanks for doing this! Yeah always disable your AV when installing pimax. Too bad they still haven’t fixed that.

[yanfeng]

@spamenigma Check if the plug is firmly inserted into the headset. It can get loose during transportation, as is the case of mine.

[Heliosurge]

Reinstall as Admin. I only use Windows Defender & had no issues with install.

On the 8k I did however was not able to downgrade to 76 after it updated to 84.

Norton has often been a pain.

[spamenigma]

So far so good… things starting to work…update above

[Mr_Teatime]

Straight into Elite Dangerous I see - good man

[Serinity]

Ooooooo. I believe this is the first 5k+ delivery. Make sure you’re on .76.

Edit: You must detail your VERY initial reaction to looking in the headset.

[spamenigma]

Haha soon! The image on there is what looks to be a pimax default environment on a rocky planet.

[john2910]

cool, i like to read how you like it …

what did you had before?

and indeed use pitool .76

[spamenigma]

I have the Vive and Rift (both since their launches in April 2016), the rift I got free for being an Oculus backer (dk1) but even though I knew I was getting that I still wanted the Vive more, I knew lighthouse tracking was going to be awesome and obviously the rift didn’t have controllers at the time.

[Serinity]

Spill the beans, cat.

[spamenigma]

Well I’ve got a bit further and think I’m finally ready to start playing… updated above

[Serinity]

Where?

Edit: refresh did it lol

[spamenigma]

Edited 3rd post above.

[Strydr]

As one of many hanging on your every post: thanks, it’s much appreciated!!!

[yanfeng]

@spamenigma You are welcome, but this “loose plug” thing could happen quite frequently so this should be notified to all. @Pimax-Support @deletedpimaxrep1