Pimax 8K-X, RTX2080 and Il2

[blitze]

Well, it arrived.  A few days back but with performances and testing - I had not much time.

 

This sim is so pretty with it. 

Much clearer compared to my 8K

Runs well enough with similar SS resolutions to the 8K but clarity is much improved.

 

Took a bit to sort it out for myself - running Vertical Offset at -1 both eyes made a huge improvement for me as well as getting used to the new strap.  Place HMD to eyes and then drop the rear which is weighted and sits higher than one would have thought.  Don't crank too much tension on the strap and all good.

 

Would like to see Back Light control in PiTool but I run it in 75Hz Native mode.  Really brings the skins and details out.  Been having a ball with dogfights where I am dropping my jaw on my desk at how lovely the skins are of the planes lined up in my sights.

 

I'm still running off internal HMD gyros for tracking as my Base Stations haven't dropped yet but unlike my *k, there is no discernible drift.  I might reposition my center view but only if it was cause I was careless on initial setting.  Also, no casing cracks yet LOL.  No, the casing seems much improved on the 8K.

 

VR has gone 4K native per eye and it is lovely to behold.!??

[chiliwili69]

Good to hear that. It is in fact a huge improve from the 8K, having the same large FOV, you went from 2560Hx1440V per eye (with just 2 subpixels per pixel, so 7.3 Million subpixels ) to 3840Hx2160V per eye (with 3 subpixels per pixel, so 24.8 Million subpixels). 

Clearly the 8KX is where all VR should go in the short-term, but with the price of the Rift-S please!!  ? 

 

When you say same SS resolutions, what do you mean? did you reduce SS to have same pixels than 8K?

[Guest deleted@134347]

the screens are amazing on 8kx, that's for sure. The strap was comfortable as well.

 

too bad it's designed for people with some serious IPD distance.  With my IPD of 65 I couldn't get the lens center to line up with my eyes. At its minimum IPD of 60 (based on screen read out) the lens centers were still much wider than my eyes.  ..    But the screens.. man, I wish I had those in my VivePro...

[GunneryAce]

On 9/8/2020 at 4:33 PM, blitze said:

Place HMD to eyes and then drop the rear which is weighted and sits higher than one would have thought.

@blitze - i started a thread in the pimax forums about this - they changed the hinge from plastic to metal for the pre-orders, and it seems by doing that, they changed how low the back of the strap will go. We've worked together with Teigue to get a new 3d print design, and they have also admitted to the hinge being different and are sending out the plastic replacement hinges if you ask them for it. 

 

I tagged you in another thread, but then saw this one and figured i'll ask you here.

What are you settings in PiTool/SteamVR SS/in-game, if you dont mind me asking?

 

I added this VRem mod, but i havent tried it yet to see what kind of difference it makes.

Using PP sucks because you can clearly see a difference on the 8k x with  PP on or off, and the performance hit with PP is pretty big also. So Im going to try using PP Off and just try to zoom using one eye only i guess. Is there anything else you'd recommend tweaking in VRem or in other settings to make sure it sticks at 75fps and looks great?

[blitze]

Thanks for that - I requested the replacement hinge as I feel the back should sit lower on the head.  Feels at the moment more like you perch it there and not as solid a placement.

 

Yes, PP sucks and for me, when I use zooming - it is cyclops style using corresponding eye to side of plane I am looking out from.

 

For consistent 75fps - and looking great - hmmm RTX 3080

for us current 2x gen RTX users, maybe PiTool 1.25 with SteamVR 50% in both Video and App with 2x FXAA??

I find MSAA at 4x to soften the world too much.

 

I hope they give us backlight control in a PiTool update.  Also think they need to pair down the per eye render target info sent to SteamVR like they did a few revisions back for the 8K

 

Still getting used to the headset and working it out.?

 

Just after answering this, I find

 

"BNP?? π8k(X) Backer

 

I have a program over here that will sets the steamvr.vrsettings in the correct file automatically

maxRecommendedResolution = 16384;
GPUSpeed’s = 2000;
gpuSpeedRenderTargetScale = 1.5m;
allowSupersampleFiltering = false;
supersampleScale = 1;

direct link: https://github.com/craftyinsomniac/WFOVFix/releases/download/v0.1/WFOVFix.exe 15

GitHub 9

Releases · craftyinsomniac/WFOVFix 9

Finds and updates the steamVr.Vrsettings configuration lifting restrictions for users of wide field of view headsets - craftyinsomniac/WFOVFix"

 

from

https://community.openmr.ai/t/how-to-make-your-pimax-image-picture-screen-clear-crisp-increase-clarity/29688/79

 

I tried all recommended settings except for allowSupersampleFiltering=false; (I left taht out of my steamvr.vrsettings file.

Fired up Il2 with PiTool 1.25, SteamVR 50% Vid 50% App and had a much better view over distance. ??

Edited September 13, 2020 by blitze
Discovery for 8K-X users

[GunneryAce]

12 hours ago, blitze said:

Thanks for that - I requested the replacement hinge as I feel the back should sit lower on the head.  Feels at the moment more like you perch it there and not as solid a placement.

 

Yes, PP sucks and for me, when I use zooming - it is cyclops style using corresponding eye to side of plane I am looking out from.

 

For consistent 75fps - and looking great - hmmm RTX 3080

for us current 2x gen RTX users, maybe PiTool 1.25 with SteamVR 50% in both Video and App with 2x FXAA??

I find MSAA at 4x to soften the world too much.

 

I hope they give us backlight control in a PiTool update.  Also think they need to pair down the per eye render target info sent to SteamVR like they did a few revisions back for the 8K

 

Still getting used to the headset and working it out.?

 

Just after answering this, I find

 

"BNP?? π8k(X) Backer

 

I have a program over here that will sets the steamvr.vrsettings in the correct file automatically

maxRecommendedResolution = 16384;
GPUSpeed’s = 2000;
gpuSpeedRenderTargetScale = 1.5m;
allowSupersampleFiltering = false;
supersampleScale = 1;

direct link: https://github.com/craftyinsomniac/WFOVFix/releases/download/v0.1/WFOVFix.exe 15

GitHub 9

Releases · craftyinsomniac/WFOVFix 9

Finds and updates the steamVr.Vrsettings configuration lifting restrictions for users of wide field of view headsets - craftyinsomniac/WFOVFix"

 

from

https://community.openmr.ai/t/how-to-make-your-pimax-image-picture-screen-clear-crisp-increase-clarity/29688/79

 

I tried all recommended settings except for allowSupersampleFiltering=false; (I left taht out of my steamvr.vrsettings file.

Fired up Il2 with PiTool 1.25, SteamVR 50% Vid 50% App and had a much better view over distance. ??

 

So some joe-schmo basically did the pimax experience app himself (the most important part of it) - i cant believe it was that easy to set the file  on every restart. Thanks bud ill check into it!

[blitze]

Finding the main setting that brings the 8K-X to desktop clarity for me is

 

"gpuSpeedRenderTargetScale" : 2.0m,

from the steamvr.vrsettings file - the whole file as given below in my instance.  Try 1.5 or 2.0m for the gpuSpeedRenderTarget Scale. The other modifications as written about on the OpenMR forum don't seem to have that much going for them. Not from my observations anyway.

 

{
   "DesktopUI" : {
      "pairing" : "1533,838,800,600,0",
      "settings_desktop" : "1611,947,800,600,1"
   },
   "GpuSpeed" : {
      "gpuSpeed0" : 1020,
      "gpuSpeed1" : 1025,
      "gpuSpeed2" : 1025,
      "gpuSpeed3" : 1022,
      "gpuSpeed4" : 1023,
      "gpuSpeed5" : 1023,
      "gpuSpeed6" : 1022,
      "gpuSpeed7" : 1022,
      "gpuSpeed8" : 1023,
      "gpuSpeed9" : 1026,
      "gpuSpeedCount" : 10,
      "gpuSpeedDriver" : "27.21.14.5222",
      "gpuSpeedHorsepower" : 1023,
      "gpuSpeedRenderTargetScale" : 2.0m,
      "gpuSpeedVendor" : "NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080",
      "gpuSpeedVersion" : 2
   },
   "LastKnown" : {
      "HMDManufacturer" : "Pimax VR, Inc.",
      "HMDModel" : "Pimax Vision 8K X"
   },
   "collisionBounds" : {
      "CollisionBoundsStyle" : 1
   },
   "steamvr" : {
      "background" : "#FF000000",
      "enableHomeApp" : false,
      "installID" : "4387763737521307439",
      "lastVersionNotice" : "1.9.10",
      "lastVersionNoticeDate" : "1576121020",
      "supersampleScale" : 1
      "maxRecommendedResolution": 8192,
   },
   "userinterface" : {
      "StatusAlwaysOnTop" : false
   }
}

 

[GunneryAce]

3 hours ago, blitze said:

Finding the main setting that brings the 8K-X to desktop clarity for me is

 

"gpuSpeedRenderTargetScale" : 2.0m,

from the steamvr.vrsettings file - the whole file as given below in my instance.  Try 1.5 or 2.0m for the gpuSpeedRenderTarget Scale. The other modifications as written about on the OpenMR forum don't seem to have that much going for them. Not from my observations anyway.

 

{
   "DesktopUI" : {
      "pairing" : "1533,838,800,600,0",
      "settings_desktop" : "1611,947,800,600,1"
   },
   "GpuSpeed" : {
      "gpuSpeed0" : 1020,
      "gpuSpeed1" : 1025,
      "gpuSpeed2" : 1025,
      "gpuSpeed3" : 1022,
      "gpuSpeed4" : 1023,
      "gpuSpeed5" : 1023,
      "gpuSpeed6" : 1022,
      "gpuSpeed7" : 1022,
      "gpuSpeed8" : 1023,
      "gpuSpeed9" : 1026,
      "gpuSpeedCount" : 10,
      "gpuSpeedDriver" : "27.21.14.5222",
      "gpuSpeedHorsepower" : 1023,
      "gpuSpeedRenderTargetScale" : 2.0m,
      "gpuSpeedVendor" : "NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080",
      "gpuSpeedVersion" : 2
   },
   "LastKnown" : {
      "HMDManufacturer" : "Pimax VR, Inc.",
      "HMDModel" : "Pimax Vision 8K X"
   },
   "collisionBounds" : {
      "CollisionBoundsStyle" : 1
   },
   "steamvr" : {
      "background" : "#FF000000",
      "enableHomeApp" : false,
      "installID" : "4387763737521307439",
      "lastVersionNotice" : "1.9.10",
      "lastVersionNoticeDate" : "1576121020",
      "supersampleScale" : 1
      "maxRecommendedResolution": 8192,
   },
   "userinterface" : {
      "StatusAlwaysOnTop" : false
   }
}

 

 

i just checked the file and it does overwrite after some uses of steamVR. So the program has to be rerun every 2 or 3 openings of steamVR

[TCW_Brzi_Joe]

Hey guys, how is spotting with 8KX? With and without PP?

I ask mostly for distant planes / pixel anomalies, and not for huge planes in front of my nose over dark terrain.

Edited September 16, 2020 by Brzi_Joe

[blitze]

@Brzi_Joe What headset are you using at the moment?

 

With the recent discoveries in setting up the 8K-X, image quality over distance is as defined as my 1440p monitor, considering I am using 4K native but taking into account the magnification as the screens are on my face.

 

I tested my 8K with the new steamvr.vrsettings modifications and it makes a big improvement as well.  Not as defined as the 8K-X but a huge improvement on previously.

 

Spotting is as good as a decent monitor with the 8K-X

[Guest deleted@134347]

3 hours ago, Brzi_Joe said:

Hey guys, how is spotting with 8KX? With and without PP?

I ask mostly for distant planes / pixel anomalies, and not for huge planes in front of my nose over dark terrain.

 

I could see distant pixels on 8kx whereas on VivePro they weren't rendered at all... So it's definitely better for distant spotting.

[TCW_Brzi_Joe]

5 hours ago, blitze said:

What headset are you using at the moment?

Pimax 5k+. . I really wanted to buy 8KX a few months ago, but after so many delays, together with recent "banned" vr zoom without pp, I do not know any more.

 

Disney_World gave me an answer I wanted to hear; that distant pixels are more visible. I will probably reconsider my decision after developer solve native zoom for canted displays. Or I will slowly drop out of this game, I will see.

[blitze]

Zoom without PP is ok - just get used to using one eye when you hit the zoom button.  Think of yourself as a Pirate. Arrrrgh ☠️

 

Spotting has been pretty bad in Il2 since just after they did the deferred rendering update in around 4.06

I'm sure they are working to resolve the problem though.

[coconut]

I received mine today, I tried it for a quick flight in IL-2 over Kuban.

 

Positive:

Picture clarity. Smaller pixels, less noticeable screen door effect.

 

Meh:

Lenses and distortion unchanged,  which I'm OK with.

 

Negative:

Comfort. Maybe I'll manage to adjust, but at the moment I'm not pleased. It feels heavy, unstable, presses hard against the face and the nose. The face foam is too thin, my eye lashes brush against the lenses. The nose flaps block the light, which most will like, but I don't. Can't see the desktop any moew, which I had grown used to. I've removed the face foam and replaced with the custom one I had bought on the net for the 5k+. This one gets my eyes further away from the lenses, with increased distortion and decreased FOV. Not a problem for me.

 

Sound: Sounds like a tin can. I have ordered the deluxe sound strap, which isn't ready yet. We'll see if the over-ear speakers sound better when they arrive.

 

Performance: Well, my CPU and GPU are the same, so of course it's the same. Duh!

With that being said, the initial settings had me running a resolution with over 3400 lines. The GPU actually delivered, with reprojection. I've since reduced to a more "native" 2160 lines, which looks noticeably worse. And also reprojects, despite my GPU utilization being 45% and the CPU also meeting the required frame time, most of the time. Something wrong with my setup, maybe. So I might as well go back to supersampling.

 

Overall: Somewhat disappointed. Resolution and FOV are great, but I would have hoped PiMax would have improved on the other aspects, but they haven't. Looking forward to the G2. Maybe I'll eat my words later, but my feeling at the moment is that I'd (reluctantly) trade FOV for Rift CV1 levels of comfort.

[Alonzo]

2 hours ago, coconut said:

I received mine today, I tried it for a quick flight in IL-2 over Kuban.

 

Positive:

Picture clarity. Smaller pixels, less noticeable screen door effect.

 

Overall: Somewhat disappointed. Resolution and FOV are great, but I would have hoped PiMax would have improved on the other aspects, but they haven't. Looking forward to the G2. Maybe I'll eat my words later, but my feeling at the moment is that I'd (reluctantly) trade FOV for Rift CV1 levels of comfort.

 

Wait, is that the 8KX you received? Tons of people have said "no more SDE, can't see the pixels" etc. Is that hyperbole? I trust your judgement since you have tried many many headsets.

 

On my Artisan I ended up setting it to 120hz mode but with smart smoothing off. I found that was better than any other mode (72, 90, 144). You might also play with the upscale mode, I think that gives a higher refresh than the 75hz native mode. I suspect 2160 vertical lines is definitely not enough, depending on if you're using Parallel Projection mode or not. I was running my Artisan at ~2100p with PP off, and that's only a 1600 vertical pixel headset.

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

Hmm Artisan is neither same league nor gen nor class. 

 

Unless you only count the terrific Pimax customer service, huehuehue 

[coconut]

1 hour ago, Alonzo said:

Wait, is that the 8KX you received? Tons of people have said "no more SDE, can't see the pixels" etc. Is that hyperbole? I trust your judgement since you have tried many many headsets.

Yes, the 8KX. Every time someone tells you "no more SDE" I think it's hyperbole. Clear lenses mean you can see the pixels. Don't want to see pixels? Get blurry lenses It will remain that way until pixels are shrunk below the retina's sensitivity.

With that being said, the increased resolution is nice. It's actually relaxing for the eyes, no longer straining to try and fail to see clearly. Clearly an improvement over the 5K+, but there's room for even more improvement in then future.

About my judgement, hmm, this is my third headset, Rift CV1, 5K+ and finally 8KX. Not so many compared to others here. You might have me mixed up with someone else.

1 hour ago, Alonzo said:

On my Artisan I ended up setting it to 120hz mode but with smart smoothing off

On my 5K+ I'm using 120Hz with smart smoothing. I like it, the artefacts are usually small enough to not annoy me, except for the sun glare.

52 minutes ago, SCG_Fenris_Wolf said:

Hmm Artisan is neither same league nor gen nor class. 

Indeed. Maybe my lackluster review sounds gives too negative an impression. And yet, my first impression regarding the negatives remains. I might even be more annoyed by the lack of support for "small" (average, really) IPDs. The clearest area of the lenses is clearly straight ahead at best, or slightly divergent even. Someone with IPD 67 or larger likely won't have this issue.

[Alonzo]

13 minutes ago, coconut said:

I might even be more annoyed by the lack of support for "small" (average, really) IPDs. The clearest area of the lenses is clearly straight ahead at best, or slightly divergent even. Someone with IPD 67 or larger likely won't have this issue.

 

I really wish more people in the Pimax community would state this clearly. There is no argument, the lenses are far apart and are much better for people with wider-set eyes. Lots of people either don't know what to look for or don't know any better, and continue to promote Pimax as the best thing since someone said, "hey, why don't we cut the loaf into pieces before we put it in the bag?"

 

I'm not hating on Pimax here, they're really pushing the envelope on VR tech and that is wonderful to see, but they have downsides too. The wide-IPD-only thing is the major one. I get similar usable FOV on an Index as with Pimax, because I have 62.8mm IPD and so the edges are blurry. Worse, the center stereo overlap is slightly blurry for me on Pimax, which was really odd.

 

(Also yes, I had you mixed up with Chili, sorry for that Coconut. But I respect both your opinions, and Fenris, on all things VR).

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

Please remember though how I recommended you to not get Pimax Artisan or any other Pimax than a 5K+ SN204 at the time we talked - because it was too close to next-gen of 4K headsets already. I recommended to wait for 8KX tests or go the save route with any 4K solution like HP Reverb G2. ?

 

Also, I want to stress that ordering from Pimax' webshop is a lottery for many. Don't buy from them directly, or make sure you can charge back and do so within time when not delivered. Custom process a nightmare too, due to shitty papers. Furthermore, they only give you 1 year of warranty, which is even against European law.

 

Amazon, Alternate, or Immersive Display in Europe are good retailers, and also provide the legal minimum of 2 years responsibility in case something goes kaputt. ?

 

P.S. 8KX should arrive Thursday. I'll make sure to include the IPD difficulty in any test comments I may write... I've really come to hate Pimax as a company. I'll try to leave that sentiment out when reviewing the product.

Edited September 29, 2020 by SCG_Fenris_Wolf

[=ILS=_ppph]

I just received my 8kx today, all I can say is that the screen door effect is not visible and you really have to look hard for it if you can see anything. To me the performance in general is okay, but that is at expense of switching off a lot of features. eg no shadow, no reflection, minimum cloud features etc. It is somewhat holding 75 fps all right, it only dips down to around 65 fps when it is busy ground level dogfight. In general I am happy since my gpu is only 1080 Ti after all. My set up is 9700k@5g with 32g RAM

 

But there is one question bothers me in regards to the VRM usage of the game. Same thought with another post in regards to 10g VRAM of 3080 which I ordered. In order to test the possible maximum VRM usage of this game, I cranked up all the feature of the game(except the mirror feature) and then re enter the WOL.  From the FPSVR, I can see my VRAM was sitting on around 6g at the respawn ground and gradually it would creep up to 9.6g after around 20 mins flight which seems to be dangerously close to the limit of the 10g VRAM of 3080. My question is that is the game really gonna take that much VRAM to run? or just the allocation of the VRAM this game asked for over the time?

 

Thanks in advance.

[dburne]

I run Ultra settings with my Rift S, and took note yesterday after flying a couple of my PWCG campaign missions, my Vram usage was around 9-9.5 GB.

Plus I play other complex games as well, so I will not be going 3080 this series. I will either go 3090 or more likely wait for a higher Vram card than the 3080.

My current 2080 Ti has 11 GB of ram, don't want to go backwards to 10 GB.

 

[Alonzo]

On 9/29/2020 at 6:31 AM, SCG_Fenris_Wolf said:

Please remember though how I recommended you to not get Pimax Artisan or any other Pimax than a 5K+ SN204 at the time we talked - because it was too close to next-gen of 4K headsets already. I recommended to wait for 8KX tests or go the save route with any 4K solution like HP Reverb G2. ?

 

You did, and I was impatient. ? Though to be fair, I got two months of use out of the Artisan, two more months out of the Index, and the 8KX still would not have arrived by now. The Index has probably held its value, so if I switch to a Reverb G2 I'm not losing too much.

[messsucher]

19 minutes ago, Alonzo said:

 

You did, and I was impatient. ? Though to be fair, I got two months of use out of the Artisan, two more months out of the Index, and the 8KX still would not have arrived by now. The Index has probably held its value, so if I switch to a Reverb G2 I'm not losing too much.

 

Second hand Index prices has begun to go down. Not as steep as other brands, but still going down.

[chiliwili69]

15 hours ago, =ILS=_ppph said:

From the FPSVR, I can see my VRAM was sitting on around 6g at the respawn ground and gradually it would creep up to 9.6g after around 20 mins flight which seems to be dangerously close to the limit of the 10g VRAM of 3080. My question is that is the game really gonna take that much VRAM to run? or just the allocation of the VRAM this game asked for over the time?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Thanks for this. I see that MP requires an extra of VRAM (allocation or real usage, we don´t know).

I am only a SP player, so in my case 10Gb is a safe bet even with max settings.

 

On the other hand, I think no CPU+GPU support all max settings yet giving 90fps in all scenarios.

Let us know how what are the settings supported well by the 3080 and then let us know how much memory is allocated. 

13 hours ago, dburne said:

I run Ultra settings with my Rift S, and took note yesterday after flying a couple of my PWCG campaign missions, my Vram usage was around 9-9.5 GB

 

Interesting then. I never used PWGC campaigns. I have to try to measure VRAM with not QMB. Career or Winds of fury (which BTW is very nice).

13 hours ago, dburne said:

I will either go 3090 or more likely wait for a higher Vram card than the 3080.

I am also going to wait a couple of months to see if Navi or the expected 3080 with more VRAM is released.

[No.23_Starling]

Hi all, 

 

I recently upgraded to a 3080 plus an R9 5900x in order to run the Pimax 8K. It's working okish but I'm getting around 50 fps in Il2. I'm not very good with the technicals for setting it up which I think is my problem. Is anyone around today on Discord who knows their stuff and would be willing to give me a hand?

 

Thanks!

[chiliwili69]

On 8/7/2022 at 4:28 PM, US103_Rummell said:

3080 plus an R9 5900x in order to run the Pimax 8K. It's working okish but I'm getting around 50 fps in Il2

 

In IL-2 there are certain setting that load CPU, other load GPU and others load both CPU&GPU.

 

The settings that load GPU are:

%SuperSampling in SteamVR

Cloud detail

MSAA

 

The setting that load CPU are:

All the others

 

For the PiTool settings use just Normal FOV and Render Quality=1  (Render quality is just a equivalent to %SS, so better to set it in one place, is SteamVR).

 

The setting that load CPU and GPU and graphcis presets (LOW, BALANCE, HIGH, ULTRA). Here you can set it to HIGH just to start with.

 

The 5900X is a very good CPU for IL-2, so you will be able to max out all CPU related settings (except mirrors which load CPU a lot)

 

For the GPU and for the Pimax8K you should really decrease the %SS to something like 60%. Then don´t use MSAA and you can put High clouds.

 

The Pimax9K in particular needs a large amount of pixels for 100%SS (34 millions) and this can not be handled by any current GPU today.