We have all seen the youtube videos of the performance enhancements on the 8k and the 5K+ which came with the piplay version 3.1.76. currently i am on your beta releases of pimax, but on the 4k i am on 3.1.75?
In DCS for instance, i struggle to get an fps over 45 (constantly) and thats with some serious tweaking! but from Sweviver’s review of DCS on 3.1.76 that performance jumped on the 8k and the 5k+. imagine what it can do on a 4k, with less strain on the GPU?
are you planning on releasing that piplay to the 4k users as well? i would be keen to try it out on the 4k.
Are you able to comment on the post i made at the top of this thread asking if the piplay 3.1.76 which the testers are using for 5k+ and 8k can be used on the 4k please?
I would very much like to try the added performance tweaks on that piplay version on my 4k?
Thanks for that @Sean.Huang, I am very keen to test this new pitool version as from my understanding from the beta testers there are some significant performance improvements.
I will test it on one of my 1080ti builds.
Can I get a link to the download please?
I will be arriving back home in about 3 hours assuming there are no delays on my flight, are you able to provide the PiTool link please to I can download it tonight to start testing?
Also let me know if I need to uninstall previous piplay
installing it as admin seems to work, will do some testing and benchmarks using it. note i did not uninstall the last piplay version, and it is still installed along side Dr Pi.
there are some pros and cons using the 5K+ and 8k latest pitool 1.0.1.76 driver.
I have been playing on Pitool at render 2.0 and Steamvr at 70% with the latest Nvidia Drivers (GPU is a Aorus GTX1080ti)
Pros:
fps is increased in almost every game i have tried so far…
Alien Isolation, No Limits 2, Elite Dangerous, DCS, Warthunder
…and in some cases i was able to increase the graphics settings in game - especially in No Limits and War thunder!
the focus sweet spot on the 4k is better using this version of the software, before the focus was only in the center and only either directly in front of you, or slightly above the center or slightly below it. now it appears to be all of that area!
i am able to have both the old PiPlay (inc Dr Pi) installed as well as the newer PiTool at the same time
Cons:
The IPD in the pitool is still not allowing ‘RL’ IPD - My IPD in RL is 68.3, but i have the Pimax 4k showing at 59.0 (the last Piplay i had it at 58.3
Ghosting is back … it is a little worse in this version compared to the previous version on PiPlay. only effects bright illuminated areas but it is defiantly noticeable - If @Sean.Huang@Pimax-Support@deletedpimaxrep1 are able to apply a similar anti ghosting algorithm from the last piplay to Pitool then it may help… or we just wait until Pimax are able to implement the hardware/software tweaks they mentioned in one of @deletedpimaxrep1 post to improve ghosting
In the PiTool settings i was able to change the resolution to 25601440 which should restart the HMD and show the nice planet scene which is the Pimax Home screen, but this just went to a black screen? it never re-rendered the home screen, switching back to 19201080 then allowed the home screen to re-appear. Note you can see the ghosting on the home screen easily if looking at the sun above the planet surface!
conclusions…
I was unable to change any settings in Elite Dangerous as i am already running it at max quality, but i did take my ship to the high graphics areas and saw no missed frames or latency issues, which is good!
In No Limits, i was able to change all of the ‘Details’ settings to MAX (previously was Medium for all) and the game still ran fine, albeit at about 43fps, taking off some of the shadows made the game hit 60 and stay there!
DCS - this was always a killer for me (see my thread in Content area) fps in this game previously was around 35max. leaving pitool render at max (2.0) but Lowering the in game pixel render to 1.0 (from 2.0) and then setting all graphics to Med or High got my fps to around 45, that is including the cockpit as 1024 instead of 512
Alien Isolation not a higher FPS as such but the game did appear to be running smoother, this may just be placebo?
War thunder had a fps on start up of about 5fps faster than before, and the additional (slightly larger sweet spot) made the game nicer to play.
unfortunately the ghosting is a real bug bear for me, and i will try tweaking a few of the games to see if i can minimise it, but i think i may keep this pitool version installed for now.
I was wondering if its possible to add a similar ghosting algorithm from the last PiPlay onto the latest PiTool so it can be used on the 4k as well? As there do appear to be some performance improvements on PiTool when using the 4K, but the ghosting is pretty bad overall.
Thought i would post this regarding PiTool .84 (latest version} working with 4k - as i have had some time to test it further…
I mentioned previously that i was getting some better FPS in games when using it and thought that this was to do with the performance improvements they made on this version - mainly for the 5k+ and 8K.
Turns out i was wrong!
After checking i realised that the SDE in this new version is worse than the previous Piplay 3.0.0.85 version and Pitool .76 as well.
After installing the .84 PiTool on one of my test machines running I7 4790 with 24GB DDR3 and a Aorus GTX1080ti (I have 2 of these machines for testing multiple Piplay versions) and the other PC installed with PiPlay 3.0.0.85 it turns out that the render slider on the last 2 Pitool versions does not give the same quality of render to the 4k when maxed out when compared to the Piplay 3.x version?
Yes the slider on Piplay slider goes up to 3 and on the PiTool it goes up to 2, but leaving them both at the top of their render slider and setting steamvr to 100% on both machines, the SDE on the newer Pitool is defiantly worse. especially when reading text or looking at railings or tracks; trees, edges of roads etc.
This is more than likely why i was getting a better FPS on start up… i was not comparing apples to apples as the render slider on the latest Pitool does not go as high as the 4k’s PiPlay, i suspect that the Pitool render maxed which is 2 is equivalent to Piplays slider at 2. so using it on 3, gives a better view in SDE but a slight hit on FPS.
My recommendation is that you stay on 3.0.0.85 if you want to avoid additional SDE in the 4K… hopefully Pimax will address the Ghosting at some point to cater for their existing 4k customers - here’s hoping!
“hopefully Pimax will address the Ghosting at some point to cater for their existing 4k customers”
I sincerely doubt that and do not intend to buy a Pimax in the future. I’ve never felt so abandoned by a brand as it happened to my first HMD…
