Pitool v1.0.1.274 Beta

Well, okay, so for me that means I will stick to my old .270.
I cannot find any benefits in the newer versions, FFR still is broken in Elite:Dangerous and my Truck Sims (probably due to the games having changed their AA technique/mode), and with my high graphic settings I don’t even get beyond stable 60-70 FPS - so why worry about 90 :wink:

Nevertheless keeping an eye on every new version just in case there’s anything worth the upgrade :+1:

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Its nice to have the 75hz option for the more demanding games! It should still be an option too select between 75 and 90hz! i only wish that there was a hz option to save with the game in the pitool experience!

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I’m using 75hz mode still, 90hz is too flaky especially once you add in an extension cable! Pimax, please make sure you keep 75hz mode.

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That varies by user, I would think. Myself, I could not see an appreciable difference from 72 to 120 but sure do at 144 Hhz. I only run 144 Hhz now. Regardless of fps.

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That is only good if it is supported on all GPUs. So no not a good choice as it removes other supported refresh rates. This change would mean anyone using Gtx cards like the 1080ti own a paperweight.

The higher max fps is the performance increase. Your not going to get an equivalent clarity to Native in upscale as you cannot have details that were not rendered due to the lower input res.

90hz is good but for those playing games that can benefit from higher refresh like Fast paced games like Beatsaber and Elvin Tennis. Refresh is more important than higher res.

It is an advertised feature of the headset and should not be removed. Especially as they asked the community before and the vote said to keep it.

Now if pimax could fix there firmware flashing to be stable they could introduce a firmware flash to maintain both features with adding specific extras for each mode. As it seems they didn’t make the flash memory size sufficient when I had talked to @Alex.liu about adding options he had said the space was too limited.

Which is disappointing. Imo these flashable firmwares in future products should use something like a microsd card.

Had valve did this with Lighthouses v2.0 a firmware update could be done simply by loading the sdcard. Flash memory becomes corrupt? Simply buy a new sdcard.

Experimental feature as others have mentioned dp1.4 doesn’t really support it and why ppl have varying results.

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Friend of mine at Bell is an expert in hardware and software. The go to guy in support. He once remarked that the hardware guys blame the software guys and vice versa. I said “so you have nobody to blame but yourself”.

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That is only good if it is supported on all GPUs. So no not a good choice as it removes other supported refresh rates. This change would mean anyone using Gtx cards like the 1080ti own a paperweight.

That is a valid concern. I’m new to Pimax, but I’ll note that Pimax’s website currently explicitly lists the 8KX as only compatible with nVidia and not AMD. It also lists the GPU requirements as 2080 or better. And it lists the frame rate of the 8KX as just 90Hz without mentioning anything else. There is no mention of upscaling mode or any other refresh rates in any of the marketing or other materials on the website.

Your not going to get an equivalent clarity to Native in upscale as you cannot have details that were not rendered due to the lower input res.

I explicitly tested at lower rendering resolutions which I had found to be optimal on the 5K Super. And I found that upscaling mode on the 8KX had substantially worse clarity at the same rendering resolution as native mode even when not exceeding the limitations of the upscaling input resolution. Of course, native mode could push to even higher resolutions and leave upscaling mode clarity even further behind due to the reason you mentioned.

90hz is good but for those playing games that can benefit from higher refresh like Fast paced games like Beatsaber and Elvin Tennis. Refresh is more important than higher res.

Having come from the Valve Index, I do agree with the importance of high FPS. I miss that sweet sweet 144Hz. However the difference between 90Hz and 110Hz given the substantial reduction in clarity for upscaling mode at the same rendering resolution does make the utility of upscaling mode pretty thin. I’m not saying it’s zero, but I can see why Pimax would consider dropping it entirely.

After performing my testing, I decided to abandon using upscaling mode personally even though I do play these kinds of games where higher FPS is a significant benefit. Even though I personally value FPS over clarity, the exchange rate in this case was just too high.

Experimental feature as others have mentioned dp1.4 doesn’t really support it and why ppl have varying results.

The Varjo Aero released recently which runs about the same total resolution as the 8KX but at 90Hz only and doesn’t seem to consider this experimental. I wonder if Pimax is reacting to that? Perhaps something has changed such that 90Hz isn’t considered so experimental anymore.

GTX are Nvidia Cards. 90hz was first found to be working much better on Amd cards vs the Nvidia on release and might still be the case.

So yes Pimax is removing clearly original advertised specs. Originally it was spec’d at 120hz upscale. People whom bought it with upscaled or dual mode as they called it understandably will have reason to claim false advertising. They purchased the 8kX with Upscale as a feature.

Now they could remove the experimental 90hz native as it was not an advertised feature at launch and is still an experimental feature.

Which your missing is upscaled vs native. The 5kS is native. 8kX in upscaled is upscaled. People noticed 1080p looks better on a native 1080p monitor/TV vs 1080p on a 4k monitor.

Upscale mode is not to reduce rendering costs but to give higher refresh for active games that benefit from it.

Simply put pimax should not be downgrading features after releasing the product with features intact.

Well lets be honest games like beatsaber imho do not benefit from the high res clarity. Not really needed. I don’t seem to be refresh sensitive.

Games that benefit from high res clarity use native. Intense action games need high refresh rates for game play in this would need upscale.

Compression DSC. Pimax. Vive Pro2 and Aero are using some of gpu new features to try and exceed limitations. However there are costs involved that may affect quality. Like using Extension cables when bandwidth is already near the edge of dp 1.4 limits.

With pimax it is also experimental as it was not part of the release specs and has not had Wide stability with users. Save Amd camp has had best success with 90hz mode. But of course there are other VR features that Amd still needs catch up on; but they are getting there.

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I can confirm AMD 6900XT 90Hz all the time. Works fantastic.
Oh, now hold on:

Smart Smoothing,
compulsive Smoothing and
SteamVR Motion smoothing
all do not work. They do something, but completely not usable.

I still get 90hz on AMD for everything I play.

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For best results in upscale mode you must set the quality to 1.75. The difference can be rather dramatic. So for the higher refresh mode you need to be able to render that but at the same time have the quality set to that value. It does limit where it is useful but there are certainly games that it is great for such as eleven tennis.

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I reran my eye chart tests with Pitool quality set to 1.75, and the results were the same as my previous testing with quality set to 1.0.

Note that in these tests, I’m adjusting the SteamVR rendering resolution to match between upscaling and native mode before comparing clarity with an eye chart. I run the test at a spread of resolutions for comparison.

The only difference the Pitool quality setting appears to make is what resolution SteamVR considers to be “100% resolution”.

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You are defeating the purpose. Set it to 1.75 and don’t touch SteamVR at all. Most of the rendering happens on the pitool side as it is direct mode. In fact it’s useful to also install the Pimax Experience so it can make all the config adjustments to steamvr for you (and there are quite a few).

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After reverting Pitool from 274 to 273, I have experienced no further BSODs.

I’ve had enough fly time to believe that 274 was the cause at this point. I haven’t changed anything else. The intermittent BSODs started shortly after upgrading to 274 and then ended after reverting back to 273. The frequency of BSODs seemed to increase greatly when playing After the Fall in particular.

The specific error code I was getting was PFN_LIST_CORRUPT. This particular error code, due to its nature, is probably not from the Pimax driver itself, but suggests that the Pimax driver could be causing another driver in the system to crash. Possibly through memory corruption.

Hi guys , can you please help me with this bug in Win 10
i got this bug in both Pi tool version 274 & 275


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Might be related to this?

https://community.openmr.ai/t/about-the-way-to-fix-pitool-interface-transparency-issue/16179

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I checked id but i have still have this bug!

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I think I’ve seen it before but I don’t recall what the fix was (thought it was the one mentioned above).

I’m running Windows 10 and PiTool looks fine.

I’ve had a similar problem with a different app. Notice the FPS and other text (made more visible with a purple background)…

Try turning off whatever app is displaying that FPS info. It is likely to be interfering with PiTool’s text rendering.

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You’re absolutely right… :+1:

I believe I had an issue with CAM.

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