Pimax 5K+ spotted after a 16 month hiberation.... First impressions

[anton_Chez]

Well, it's here. The Pimax 5K+ headset I backed on Kickstarter in October 2017 has finally made it from the depths of hell and everywhere else in between to my house in Australia. What a ride it's been.

To start, the box is fairly nice, nothing too fancy but definitely of Rift quality, nothing flimsy or cheap. The smell is actually like a brand new paid of shoes! I'd say that's the padding. Anyway who cares about the box, hey?

Upon fitting the strap, I was horrified at the comfort. Only after I messed around with it a little bit did I feel I could actually make it work. It's not as intuitive as the Rift but it's workable for me at least. One thing that's immediately struck me is I've nearly got my nose poking through the lenses from the inside out. My face is literally ON the lenses. We are going to have to order custom cushions. It's insane that they've left this unaddressed. I think additional face cushions are a stretch goal reward but I've not see them being any different to the standard one. We need thicker pads, Pimax. I have a small face and a not so overly large nose and I'm struggling. If it turns out my IPD is able to have the lenses moved to the outside of the headset I might just get away with it.

The strap does tighten on your face pretty well. I did not expect that based on other feedback. It's not ski mask type like the Rift but it does have the ability to stick to my face and feel pressure so there's some modular possibilities there especially for larger faces that won't need to tighten the straps as much. Between the side and top strap you should be able to get the HMD sitting nice and flat on your face without any tilting at least while sitting down.

I've yet to power it on so I'll go and do that now. One thing you'll notice is you need an additional power point for this. It comes with an external power source that plugs into the PC side of the cable. It isn't recognised by the PC unless you power it on.

 

[RobertR1]

One case where FOV does get sacrificed is in rF2. Because of the necessity of Parallel Projections being enabled, it makes the headset render like 50% more pixels than it should. It also looks horrible when using smoothing, so there goes the option of cranking SS up super high and running 45hz. The only way I've found to get a satisfactory experience in rF2 is putting the FOV to small, running 64hz with NO smoothing and putting the slider at the highest value I can maintain 60-64hz. Doing that I noticed a massive improvement in image quality and the FOV is still miles ahead of what I am used to. The lenses themselves are HUGE and the way it limits the FOV when using small (and even normal) is not as restrictive as when looking into the Rift.

I'm holding off on rf2 because of that and the horrors of the UI that is supposed to get overhauled.

Hope both align and I can jump in.

 

[anton_Chez]

They can fix it and not require the PP to be on, so I've heard. The UI is annoying but not game breaking for me. It's still a great sim but that PP really shows when comparing to the other titles. I have to resub to iRacing, I think that has the best VR of all the sims overall.

 

[EsxPaul]

If you are someone who only uses vr exclusively for Sims and nothing else, can you buy just the pimax headset only or does it have to have some kind of base stations to work?

 

[Mr Latte]

Thanks for comments guys, I'm not at the point where I am a dedicated Sim Racer or even a hardcore gamer. Yet, I do however like to experience things with good hardware even if the amount of playtime I would use such for is going to be more for casual gaming and entertainment.

At this point in time, I don't see good value with a Primax and costly 2080Ti combo, thats a lot of moneys worth. Not to say it isn't enjoyable but it's not what I see (yet) as good enough when taking onboard many video reviews and users feedback. So personally, not quite enough at this time to entice me to want such at the current costs involved.

The HP model and Valve Index could be interesting but yes having excellent software and controls seems crucial as well.

 

[anton_Chez]

You don't need a base station. Robert is getting on fine without one. I did go and get one but more because I use motion and it was a little distracting with my head moving. But it works without one. How well it works will depend on the user.

 

[Tim Palmgren]

I wouldn't consider using the Pimax in 3DOF mode without a base station, most of them are prone to drifting over time so factor in the cost of 1 x Lighthouse if you are looking at buying one.

Separate to that fact my 5k+ is performing great for simracing. Wouldn't dream of going back. AC with full Shader/Sol runs pretty great on Med FOV. RF2 is a little more hungry due to parallel projections but one o the things I note with Pimax is that you can quite happily drive at 60-70FPS (set at 90hz) and no motion smoothing, whereas with the Vive that is a horrible experience, I don't know why exactly that is but lower framerates are much more tolerable. Also the new beta controls for brightness and contrast do wonders for the picture, it is still an LCD but those black levels are FAR better.

 

[anton_Chez]

I was so surprised to find out how well the Pimax handles lower frame rates, not locked to one of the 3 hz options. Another positive thing about it. Like you Tim I HATED running anything but 90hz on the Rift and any drops were intolerable. ASW was OK but not as good as smoothing we have now. rF2 is a pain to get right but I think I have sorted it out with some testing.

Don't use Large FOV on it, for a number of reasons. One, you need the pixels more than the FOV as PP eats your performance. Two, I think it's a little buggy with PP and also if you enable smoothing. For me, the best image quality and overall experience come from using Small / Normal FOV and either 45hz with a tonne of pixels (as much as you can handle) or, 64hz non smoothed, again with as many pixels as you can handle. Large FOV with smoothing at 45hz just didn't look great in motion. Then I re read notes I had written and my best experience and image quality came from using SMALL FOV and jamming the slider up with 45hz smoothing. It's annoying once you've gotten used to the large FOV but for the overall experience, I notice far less the smaller FOV and much more the poor image and blurring while in motion.

 

[RobertR1]

There seem to be guys coming up with PP workarounds on the official forums so hopefully one of those is applicable to RF2 also.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Is this right?

Small = ~ 125 degrees
Medium = ~150 degrees
Large = 170+ degrees.​

And Normal = Medium?

So when you are saying small it's still wider than the typical 110 degrees in other headsets.
Medium at ~150 degrees still seems like a pretty big step up. I was hoping to see a 140-145 become the next headset standard.

 

[anton_Chez]

That's pretty much what it is, yes. Small FOV is still significantly better than the Rift. In numbers it might not be that much, but the feeling I get with it is SO much less feeling like you're boxed in and a lot more natural.

I'll have to have a look at that Robert, that's interesting. If we can get rid of it it will be so much better.

 

[Dan Costa]

 

[Deleted member 197115]

@Dan Costa, great video, thanks for posting.
Yeah, 5k+ seems to be the sharpest, 8K had some weird screen door effect in Assetto Corsa.
But look at Odyssey+, holding up so well, for me personally not sure if moderate increase in sharpness warrants the expensive upgrade, esp. considering other issues around Pimax, unless you really need that FOV.
Will be interesting to see how new 2160x2160 WMR HMDs from HP and Acer fare.

 

[anton_Chez]

Not sure what the O+ has in terms of options, FOV etc, but I think you're selling the Pimax a little short there, mate. It's actually a significant step forward in more than one area. Plus, you get to steer away from WMR which has also had its fair share of issues, from what I've read. Everyone wants to wait for these new unreleased headsets but fails to realise that the things that make the Pimax hard to jump into (cost, graphics power required, etc) are only going to get worse. I don't understand how people think that a new generation of headsets is going to come down in price while packing in higher res screens.

I mean a regular old Vive goes for over a thousand bucks here in Aus. I know you get the kit which you need to add at least some of the things to a Pimax order but still. Once you use one, I think it will be very clear that this is the next generation.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I don't understand how people think that a new generation of headsets is going to come down in price while packing in higher res screens.

Me neither, but I am prepared.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Speaking of HMDs ecosystems.
As of today there are three:
- Walled Garden Oculus who doesn't want anyone in their space
- Open SteamVR that also supports WMR and Oculus via OpenVR drivers
- WMR - practically non existent, low on content and almost fully relying on SteamVR.

Where does it put Pimax, is it primarily SteamVR headset?

 

[RCHeliguy]

I would argue that the Pimax is in the FAR better ecosystem then WMR. It is in the same eco system as the Vive / Vive Pro / Valve Index / upcoming StarVR One ( maybe ). It is the only completely open high end system out there.

WMR currently locks ALL of it's headsets into poor hand controllers with mediocre hand tracking for those of us that care.

As you said Oculus is a closed system.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

That's the deal with Microsoft, think they did a great disservice to their partners by not updating WMR spec, essentially locking them into existing design. Perhaps it has more partnership friendly policies and lower royalties to keep all these manufacturers with WMR. (lucky us, sim racing does not depend on controllers tracking)
Plus Steam financial wealth is almost entirely based on online game store revenue that does not look that future proof at the moment, while MS has huge backing budget .
Guess what we see now from HP and Acer is mid gen refresh and if MS stays committed to VR, some improvements in controllers tracking area, either via additional cameras or better out of sight tracking algorithms will be coming. Or it will vanish completely out of PC scene following Oculus.
I am not super hopeful for Valve Index, almost guarantee it will just match Vive Pro/Odyssey resolution with some anti SDE tech to justify ridiculous asking price.
That might leave us with Pimax like run out of a garage companies for anything remotely high end. The problem is, you cannot really innovate at that level, only build up on something, just pushing it to and over the limit with dubious reliability, quality, and support.

 

[RCHeliguy]

This market is in it's infancy and all of this hardware is pretty well disposable. There is no point worrying about which direction the wind will blow. None of us can know. As long as you can find something that works for you, all is right with the world.

What we have seen is encouraging. Pimax and StarVR have increased FOV and larger increases in resolution are coming. Samsung has their curved panel patent suggesting an increase in FOV is coming at some point likely with a big jump in resolution. Google announced a 20Mp panel a while back. Who knows what to expect next? All we know is that it will continue to improve.

What we see on this thread is that people are using the Pimax to take them to the next level. This is all great progress and they are enjoying this right now. We can each pick our time to jump.

 

[Tim Palmgren]

@RCHeliguy The Small view in Pimax is @125 deg, but bear in mind that all of the Pimax degrees are quoted there as HORIZONTAL not diagonal, the effective FOV in Oculus is 90 horizontal, the 110 that Oculus quote is actually the diagonal. So even the small FOV in Pimax is still a massive difference from the Oculus since it is another whole 35 extra horizontal degrees

The Pimax 'Large' FOV initially caught flack for quoting a diagonal 200 deg FOV figure and so they reverted to these horizontal FOV numbers but ironically it means that you have to double check that the other headset figures are also quoted diagonal or horizontal to be able to compare them.

 

[anton_Chez]

This explains perfectly why even Small FOV looks a hundred times better than the Rift. You won't believe it until you use it. It's SO much more natural to look through.