Pimax 5K+ Problem. Any help?

Darkcyde

Darkcyde
Hi everyone,

I've been using my loan 5K+ for ED since I got it, and it was working fine. However, I stopped using it for a few months while I was on the DW2 trip, but kept updating the Pimax software and HMD firmware as and when new ones came out. I've recently tried it again and now I'm getting a strange problem that I can't seem to find any information on, or fixes for.

The problem isn't easy to describe, so please bear with me. For each eye's screen, the image is clear on the edge periphery (so on the outer edge), but as you look closer in towards the centre, the image becomes more 'double', almost like it's being smudged. By about 60% across, it's got to the point where text is unreadable. It's only in the horizontal plane, and I've made sure the lenses are clean and scratch-free. It also doesn't matter where I point my head, the smudge distortion is always on the inside edge of the two screens, nearest to my nose, slowly becoming clearer as you look out towards the periphery of each screen.

I've tried going back a couple of PiTool versions, but no luck. I've tried other Steam VR games and they all look normal. ED is the only thing (that I've found so far) that's doing this. ED looks normal on startup, with the Frontier logo fine, the ED logo fine, and even the parts where it caches the data, all look fine. It only kicks in when it goes to the main menu, and is the same in game too, making ED unplayable for me in VR now. I've even tried turning Parallel Projections off, just to check, and with that off the image is back to being clear across each screen, albeit screwed up because PP is off.

If anyone knows what's going on, and/or has any ideas about how to fix it, then I'd be forever grateful. As it is now, I can't use my Pimax for the one purpose I got it for. :(

Cheers,

Darkcyde.
 

jojon

J
Sounds like something I am very well familiar with seeing, with every Fresnel lens HMD I've got (including) the pk5+, where at some point I seem to get a double image on either side of the "break" between two lens segments toward the periphery -- typically on the holographic representation of a selected entity, in Elite: Dangerous. Possibly more visible here, simply because of us actually looking there in this game, whereas we may otherwise pay less attention to stuff away from the center of the view, combined with the contrast situation...

If this is it, the best I can suggest, is to work on alignment of the HMD with respect to your eyes, trying to get it so that one is quite up close to the lenses, and looking through the centre of the left lens when the left eyeball is swivelled ten degrees to the left, and the right lens when the right eyeball is swivelled ten degrees to the right -- this means a very unfortunate disparity in focus between the eyes, but is a part of the set of tradeoffs inherent to the construction.

It is hard, especially with a wide FOV and canted screens; When one look around, the pupil of the eye moves across the surface of the lens, and you do not only get geometric distortions and blurring from moving out of its sweet spot (an effect often referred to as: "pupil swim"), but will also experience parallax on the segments of the Fresnel lenses, seeing the ridges between rings in one direction edge-on, from one position, so that they become barely noticeable, but creeping toward perpendicular to either side of that (EDIT: ...and least noticeable overall when you are right in the centre, at the right lens-to-eye distance, and looking straight ahead (EDIT2: ...per lens, along its axis, right through its centre, so not possible simultaneously with both eyes, when wearing a headset with canted screens and current optics ( the Valve Index does a good bit better on that account, though)), so that all edges (extended) converge on your pupil, assuming they actually do converge, and are not just collapsed parallel to one another). There is no way you can make current optics look perfect from every point of view, so at some point one just have to bow to the compromises. :7
 
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VR Mr Teatime

VR Mr Teatime
OP - I'm sure you have checked this, but is Parallel Projections Compatibility on in PiTools?

I've found some settings in Pitools don't seem to be persistent e.g. Smart Smoothing keeps setting itself on and for me that results in an odd blurriness, so maybe another thing to check...(I've added turning this off to my "pre-flight checklist".

Hope that helps.
 
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Darkcyde

Darkcyde
Mr Teatime said:
OP - I'm sure you have checked this, but is Parallel Projections Compatibility on in PiTools?

I've found some settings in Pitools don't seem to be persistent e.g. Smart Smoothing keeps setting itself on and for me that results in an odd blurriness, so maybe another thing to check...(I've adding turning this off to my "pre-flight checklist".

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...
Thank you Mr Teatime! It was the damned Smart Smoothing being on. I never thought it would have that kind of effect on the displays. Turned it off and instantly back to totally clear view!

I've spent a couple of hours this evening, uninstalling PiTool, cleaning out any old files, reinstalling older versions, then doing it all over again with the next version of PiTool. I've tried Skyrim VR, SteamVR Home, GizmoVR video Player, all had no problems at all. It wasn't until I re-read you comment on SS that made me think "What if...?". SS as far as I'm aware, isn't supposed to do that kind of blurry thing with the display panels, but now it's something I'll keep in mind.

Thank you both for your helpful suggestions, and Mr Teatime for the fix! :)

o7

Darkcyde
 

jojon

J
Great that you solved it! :)

Parallel projections does increase the required render target bimap size quite drastically, for equivalent quality, so if nothing else, having it on will bring you closer to the point where reprojection kicks in, in the first place... :7

Never used smart smoothing myself - can't stand the visual artifacts - not even with Oculus' supposedly better implementation ("ASW"), which seems just as bad to my eyes. :7
 
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