PiMax VR Group

[LukeB]

Hello,
I'm new to Elite and on the steep learning curve, but enjoying it.

I have a Pimax VR unit and playing with a XBox 360 controller.

Just wondering if there are any other Pimax VR ED players out there and if so would anyone be interested in starting a PiMaxVR ED Group?

Cheers,
Luke
(Australia)

 

[Y2K]

VR on an xbone!? wow let me work that out. xbox one i presume.. so thats 720 i think, twice! - on something that really only just manages it once? the image must be horrendous!

oops! an xbox controller my bad!

 

[CptXabaras]

VR on an xbone!? wow let me work that out. xbox one i presume.. so thats 720 i think, twice! - on something that really only just manages it once? the image must be horrendous!

oops! an xbox controller my bad!

He play with an Xbox controller, not with an Xbox

 

[LukeB]

VR on an xbone!? wow let me work that out. xbox one i presume.. so thats 720 i think, twice! - on something that really only just manages it once? the image must be horrendous!

oops! an xbox controller my bad!

Now the PiMax is not an Oculus or Vive that's true, but it has compatibility with many games designed for both.
In addition it has a 4K screen (that's 2K fer eye) and the picture quality with ED is totally awesome. No screen door what so ever.
At 60 fps it's not as fast as either Oculus or Vive, but I haven't noticed any ghosting or smearing or other ill effects.

Personally, I cannot think of a better VR unit to play ED and at one third the cost of a Vive and half the cost of an Oculus. Well, I'm not complaining.

I think you should expect to see many other Pimax VR users in the ED forum in the future hence my request re a Pimax VR group.

Cheers,
Luke

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

Hello,
I'm new to Elite and on the steep learning curve, but enjoying it.

I have a Pimax VR unit and playing with a XBox 360 controller.

Just wondering if there are any other Pimax VR ED players out there and if so would anyone be interested in starting a PiMaxVR ED Group?

Cheers,
Luke
(Australia)

Hi Luke - how is the PiMax holding up? Can you give us some feedback on the tracking, resolution you see in VR etc?

Most of us in here are on Vive and Rift headsets.

 

[rygBuH]

hi, I also have Pimax 4K and play in ED.
here are my first impressions of these glasses, but in Russian language https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...DK2-HTC-Vive?p=5083317&viewfull=1#post5083317
below is a machine translation

Spoiler

As promised, first impressions Pimax 4K. (yet a bit play, 3-4 hours)
1. Shipping. I ordered from gearbest, the device arrived to me only on January 28. The delay is apparently the clumsy populate the index by the sender. Helmet left China for a week and 3 weeks off our mail, properly trecase the number on the website of the Russian post.
2. Parcel. The packaging is normal, not distasteful, quality materials. Helmet to look at and touch, too, does not give a cheap, plastic nice.
3. Connection and setup Here, the Chinese creation has showed its pedigree Is another story.. full of nuances, especially in the system with 2 graphics cards in SLI and multiple monitors ALREADY connected. Eventually after about 6 hours spent on "work that " with the Main computer using the latest firmware release (which is beta) and deal with 2 modes (Extended and Pimax mode), custom IPD and hidden cut in the box to support HI resolurion in the settings (anyone interested can write in your personal experience, can help to prevent my rake).
4. I myself VR in elite. The first run - "Oh, and where is 4K ??". Off.
Half an hour of picking in the settings, the inclusion of the aforementioned show
The second attempt - Wow!! another thing! Well, this proverbial wow-effect it an Hour and a half stuck just at the station, looking at himself, the station, flying shшps and different cockpits of the ships). The cabin was healthy, although I thought that sitting in cramped quarters . The lack of external tracking as expected - no problem, except that - look back "behind the chair" not polchaetsya (more precisely obtained because the texture of the chair Shine) but it's not really in the game .

In essence, in General, the picture quality at altitude (though had poshamanit with IPD because there is some apparently Chinese millimeters.. because the real value of IPD was uncomfortable, had to be reduced) pixel is not, the text is clear to read the whole. Eyes comfortable given that my eyesight is about -3, the devil-machine as it adjusts the focal length of the lens, ie you can wear without glasses, it is convenient ( although minus the couple more and that's it, the device is already not able to fully adjust, is probably a limit to the adjustment , just approximately in the region of -3).
The tracking is very good, no nausea or similar (and then there were small signs of sickness when riding in the SRV on the surface).
I read about problems with the brightness - I don't know, subjectively did not notice anything, but it seems on the forums there was a fix in the last. firmware possible I have approx.
In General I get a little more experience - describe in detail
Overall summary:
For the money the device quite good, but not recommended for those who are not friends with the computer, for setting-connection may require a different "dances with a tambourine"

 

[LukeB]

Hi Luke - how is the PiMax holding up? Can you give us some feedback on the tracking, resolution you see in VR etc?

Most of us in here are on Vive and Rift headsets.

Hi RedRaven,
Pimax has a number of issues that make it not as user friendly as a Vive or Oculus, but once you work around these (mainly software/firmware stability) it is a very capable unit.
And the Pimax developers are very committed to customer support, so most problems get sorted fairly quickly via their Skype channel.

Both the software and firmware is continuing to be improved with regular upgrades made available.

Certainly none of the issues I have come across have prevented me from watching 360 videos and playing many Vive and Oculus games. ED being one of them.

Display wise, it has a full 4K LCD display, although due to the current HDMI interface version, it cannot handle the full 4K at greater than 30fps. However I don't find this much of an issue because I have it set to 2K (2560 X 1440) which it handles at 60fps.

ED graphics quality is just stunning at 2K and I don't find the 60fps display a problem.

I have found the head tracking to be excellent, however it does suffer from some gyro drift and so display re-centring is necessary from time to time.
I don't find this a real problem, but I would rather that it was improved upon in future firmware releases.

I should imagine that both Vive and Oculus would also have some degree of gyre drift?

Obviously, it's not fully compatible with either Vive or Oculus and does not have any room sensing (although there are third party products that can provide this to a degree), but it is compatible with SteamVR and so there are lots of games that will work with Pimax as long as they don't absolutely require Vive or Oculus hand controllers.

Luckly, most games I want to play will work with XBox controllers and HOTAS units.

I will be upgrading to something like the Saitek X52 as soon as I can get my hands on one, just because I'm so impressed with ED. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Finally, I would probably have purchased either a Vive or Oculus if I could have justified the price here in Australia.
Due to the AU$ being around US$0.75, Oculus costs around AU$1000 and Vive AU$1500 where Pimax 4K cost me just under AU$400 delivered.

I have been interested in VR for a long time and Pimax 4K seemed like an affordable way to get into it.

Depending on what develops in VR/AR during this year, I may still end up purchasing a Vive or Oculus (or other), but for now I'm enjoying ED in Pimax so I don't have any regrets in having purchased it.

Cheers,
Luke

 

[LukeB]

Loved you review.[noob]

Have to agree that you would need to be competent and know your way around a PC to be happy with Pimax 4K at it's current level of software/firmware development, but it isn't really that difficult to get going.

Mine worked out of the box and I didn't need to do anything if all I had wanted to do was watch movies, but I had to do a bit of research and fiddling to find which games worked and which didn't.
Fortunately, the Pimax forum is full of very helpful people.

For me, it is definitely worth the cost.

Cheers,
Luke

 

[rygBuH]

Hi RedRaven,
...
Depending on what develops in VR/AR during this year, I may still end up purchasing a Vive or Oculus (or other), but for now I'm enjoying ED in Pimax so I don't have any regrets in having purchased it.

Cheers,
Luke

I subscribe to every word

 

[vanfanel]

Does pimax have positional tracking? From what I remember it doesn't which would make it a subpar experience. If it does what is it using to accomplish this?

 

[LukeB]

PimaxVR

Does pimax have positional tracking? From what I remember it doesn't which would make it a subpar experience. If it does what is it using to accomplish this?

Unfortunately, unlike Vive and Oculus, it does not have positional tracking. Only head tracking so games are played sitting down (like 99% of all computer games).
However, there are a number of third party systems that can provide room scale tracking. For example this one from NoloVR http://www.nolovr.com/.
NoloVR is working with Pimax to achieve positional tracking for Pimax.

Cheers,
Luke

 

[Red River]

I've got Pimax 4k as well!
the only thing that really bugs me with this hmd is the drift.
without positional tracking SteamVR doesn't know how to keep the device centered.
sometimes it's so bad I have to hit the re center key every few seconds in ED!
other than that it's a great little gadget. can't wait for SteamVR or ED allowing us to set custom resolutions to fully take advantage of Primax 4k max supported resolution potential.

 

[LukeB]

the only thing that really bugs me with this hmd is the drift.
without positional tracking SteamVR doesn't know how to keep the device centered.
sometimes it's so bad I have to hit the re center key every few seconds in ED!

Hi,
Although my Pimax does have some gyro drift, it really isn't all that bad and I recenter about every 10 minutes.
I have the HMD recenter assigned to the pinky trigger on my X52 Pro HOTAS so I don;t have to try to use the keyboard.

I have resolution set to 2k in Piplay and PC moniter and also in the game's graphics setting. I don't really know what the game renders the image to in the HMD but it's very good.

 

[RAJA]

can't wait for SteamVR or ED allowing us to set custom resolutions to fully take advantage of Primax 4k max supported resolution potential.

I've seen no indication that Steam or ED are working on this. Care to share a link?

 

[Iron Body]

I understand there is now an 8k version of the Pimax available which has sorted out many of the problems with the 4k version. Has anyone seen or used an 8k version with ED , and what kind of PC do you need to drive it ?

 

[Red River]

I imagine you'd need at least 1080ti or better for anything above 2k with Pimax or any other VR gaming goggles... there's no indication of anything regarding manual HMD resolution based on the device but it doesn't mean there won't be any in the future especially with more different variants being released.

Hi,
Although my Pimax does have some gyro drift, it really isn't all that bad and I recenter about every 10 minutes.

are you mostly facing north? maybe there's something with my headset?

 

[RAJA]

I understand there is now an 8k version of the Pimax available which has sorted out many of the problems with the 4k version. Has anyone seen or used an 8k version with ED , and what kind of PC do you need to drive it ?

Knowing Pimax, the development system doesn't do the full 4K per eye. That said, with no SLI support for ED VR on the horizon, there is no single card available that will drive even 2X of the Pimax 4K res (which is 2560X at most) to the 60Hz frame rate. These Pimax headsets make a strong case to ED VR SLI, yet with their smallish user base, are unlikely to be deemed important enough for the developers to pay attention.

 

[LukeB]

Hi Sorry for the late reply. I mostly face west (just the way my room is set out).
Also, I'm in Australia, but if anything that would make things worse (only joking)

 

[popuptoaster]

Got mine through the post today, total VR newb but busy installing software and checking tutorials, im sure it'll work at some point, currently just have a wire frame room to look at!

 

[LukeB]

Hi and welcome to the club.
Don't forget to join the Pimax forum. Lot of great info there.
What version firmware/software came with the unit?
Currently latest firmware is 1.0.0.248 and best Piplay is 1.1.92.
This are later Piplay version, but 1.1.92 is the best so far. Read reviews on the forum before updating.

Install Steam and SteamVR and run SteamVR room setup.

The latest Piplay 1.2.53 has better Oculus integration, but the video seems to be not as good as 1.1.92 so I wouldn't got for that just yet.
There will be another update soon.

Well good luck with your new toy.
Happ to help if you get stuck, but again the forum is a good place.

Cheers,
Luke