Steam vr home is as sharp as a tack on my 5k plus...until I enable parallel projections

Pimax 8K Series
1

I have an issue whenever I enable parallel projection, and close steam vr, the next time I open steam vr it appears that someone smeared Vaseline across the screen…it’s a blurry mess. It’s gotten to the point that I stay away from games that require that option, as the downgrade in sharpness is enormous. Does anyone else have that issue?

2

Yep. I look at it as if we’ll atleast I know I have pp on.

1 Like
3

The only game I tried that needed it was Elite and the jaggies were very present. I could not get the quality up, used PiTool at setting 2 and while Steam VR said I was rendering at 20.000 pixels horizontal per eye, no improvement in game. Solid frame rate though.

I come from a Pimax 4K and playing Elite on a 5K+ is a serious downgrade in quality, not sure if I want to play this way. I could hardly make out the shape of a space station.
Unlike in the Pimax 4K which is royalty in my eyes now.

I’m also backing the 8K so I’m super curious to see improvement with Elite

1 Like
4

There’s a max limit of 4096 pixel width in SteamVR, so you weren’t really getting 20K pixels.

Here’s a few things to try: There’s a bug in nVidia drivers; on the nVidia control panel, go to the Adjust desktop size and position. Make sure No scaling is selected. In ED’s graphics options, try increasing the super-sampling. Use Normal FOV, not Large.

I think you’d need an 8KX to see any serious resolution improvement.

5

Well this is the first game I really were disappointed by the resolution of the 5K+. Other games are fine really but I would absolutely recommend the Pimax 4K for Elite. Even with 3dof because there’s no need to stand up

1 Like
6

It sounds like there’s a problem with your setup. Others have said ED is good.

2 Likes
7

Maybe, this is all a first run everywhere so I might need to tweak some.

1 Like
8

Which PiTool version and which Firmware version do you have? I have been using my 5k+ with PP on most of the time (because of ED) and did not notice any obvious degradation. What I found out is:

  1. there is a limit on res, OpenVR advertises to the app, which for Normal FOV seems to be 4096x3499 https://community.openmr.ai/t/elite-dangerous-setup-guide-lets-make-it-dark-again/13334/131

  2. when you turn PP on, PiTool will increase the render target res which it will advertise to OpenVR in order to mitigate the parallel projection transformation artifacts.

    PP on, Pi Tool 1.0, Normal FOV

    ****************************************** Begin GPU speed ******************************************
    MeasureGpuMegaPixelsPerSecond(): Returning 885 MP/sec. Total CPU time 0.10 seconds.
    GPU Vendor: “NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti” GPU Driver: “25.21.14.1771”
    GPU speed from average of 6 median samples: 883
    HMD driver recommended: 3852x3291 90.0Hz HiddenArea(8.73%) = 2082 MP/sec
    Raw ideal render target scale = 0.42
    New render target scale = 0.42 = 2496x2133. Total CPU time 0.10 seconds.
    ******************************************* End GPU speed *******************************************

    PP off, PiTool 1.0, Normal FOV

    ****************************************** Begin GPU speed ******************************************
    MeasureGpuMegaPixelsPerSecond(): Returning 885 MP/sec. Total CPU time 0.10 seconds.
    GPU Vendor: “NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti” GPU Driver: “25.21.14.1771”
    GPU speed from average of 6 median samples: 883
    HMD driver recommended: 3202x2633 90.0Hz HiddenArea(8.73%) = 1385 MP/sec
    Raw ideal render target scale = 0.64
    New render target scale = 0.64 = 2562x2106. Total CPU time 0.10 seconds.
    ******************************************* End GPU speed *******************************************

by factor of 1,5 = (3852x3291) / (3202x2633)

You can check the warped images I took from the rendering pipeline just before they are sent to the HMD here https://community.openmr.ai/t/is-it-best-to-fix-pitool-at-a-certain-resolution-like-1-75-or-2-0-and-change-steamvr-ss-or-the-opposite-or-are-they-interchangeable/14897/28
They are (for my taste) perfectly fine, no blurry mess at all.

I am on PiTool 1.0.1.91 and Firmware 181 + 1080 Ti.

2 Likes
9

I got the same issue when turning on PP - sometimes. My procedure that works, but not all the time:

  • disable PP, open SteamVR and things look crisp, close SteamVR
  • enable PP, open SteamVR and hope it stays crisp

Unfortunately, if it remains blurry, also games (like War Thunder) look blurry. Couldn’t figure out a better way yet…

PiTool V1.0.1.103
Firmware 191

10

PP doesn’t work with the large FOV.

1 Like
11

It is nice though to have a good look around your pilot cabin, or just check the wing mounted weapons, by looking out of the window :wink:

1 Like
12

It’s much nicer to have an incredibly detailed resolution though

1 Like
13

That explains alot! I was wondering why I was still seeing a double image in some games. Thanks for the info.

1 Like
14

I have used Large FOV from day one. If I see a game with double image I turn on pp and it then works fine. Yet you say it doesn’t work with large?

15

The resolution drops dramatically if I enable PP and large FOV.

1 Like
16

Right. I’ve seen this complaint about Large FOV on the forum numerous times. (I can’t test it myself - no headset yet).

17

Oh yeah only played a little but of course do notice the res drop in steam. Just thought that was pp side effect