Findings, Optimized 1.5x Total SR 75Hz - DCS World, Elite Dangerous - Pimax Vision 8kX, 8k+ (Upscaled), 5k+

But you have huge RAM if I remember correctly (64GB?). So if it is memory leak you will experience it much later.

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Good point, you are correct, I probably would not notice such a memory leak… which is part of the reason I have 64GB RAM. :smiley:

I also have my pagefile disabled though.

IIRC, I have not seen unreasonable memory consumption, but I will definitely keep a closer watch on this in the future.

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Have been testing 60Hz mode for a while now. Generally, quite usable, if not almost equally smooth.

Most notably, Elite Dangerous is now running at ~1.5x Total SR, and >55FPS (nominally, still quite usable 45FPS in station). This is close enough to 60Hz that some users may find it justifiable to disable Smart Smoothing, without reducing resolution to ~1.25x. I had not expected that to be the case on current hardware.

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Never enable VSync in DCS World with VR. Does nothing useful, but when minimized, this setting causes massive lag, possibly (though not confirmed by testing to failure) to the point of crashing position tracking altogether for the headset.

Since most users probably don’t know how to minimize DCS World anyway, this will not affect them, but I am documenting it here now in case it explains other related problems.

On the bright side…
Showing the mirror view in DCS World through an OVRDrop overlay, with the 8kX in 60Hz mode, looks ludicrously slick. This, I would think, has to be due to the exact match of 60Hz monitor refresh, 60Hz screen capture, and 60Hz VR refresh rate…

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Would you say it’s possible to use ED in 60Hz mode at 1.25x without too much reprojection?

In empty space, maybe planetary surfaces and asteroid belts, but not inside stations, with Smart Smoothing disabled (very much an edge use case), probably.

However, reducing to 1.0x (native) resolution on the 8kX with Smart Smoothing disabled is a better tradeoff to make (more reduction of load). Overall clarity is still much better than an 8+ at any resolution. Overlays can be kept at 1.25x, without any double framing, which is nice for desk work. Single-frame latency is basically guaranteed at that point, which may be helpful for the most intense scenarios.

About 25% faster GPUs (either next generation or sub-zero cooled), or parallel projections turned off, should be able to handle this, in theory. In practice, I suspect any ongoing GPU hardware improvements will be offset by increasingly inefficient software…

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Have you done any experimenting with the new GPU catalyst? Using it I’ve raised my DCS performance from 14 to 30 up to a solid 60 with the 5k+

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Using which feature ?

I usually get 90% or greater GPU utilization on workloads that are at risk of double framing. So, GPU catalyst, from what I have read, is unlikely to do me many favors, especially with something I have tested as thoroughly as DCS World.

Also, the version of PiTool which offers GPU catalyst would not run the Alyx mode features with this NOT FINAL 8kX unless it was put into scaler mode, which I have no obvious reason to prioritize further testing of. Since I have all the test impressions I need from the scaler, Alyx runs as expected without this, and this is something I would definitely expect Pimax to change before the 8kX ships anyway.

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Hey brother, lately I’ve been doing the thing with the new pitool where I can just launch dcs directly though pitool and avoid steam vr completely.
It seems to have make the game less… ā€œblurryā€? And a little bit higher performance, you should check it out.

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Sounds like you are using DCS World through the Oculus Runtime, I assume you have it installed?

The big disadvantage is that Oculus Dash does not seem to work with Pimax, so there is no way to get a desktop overlay when running DCS World this way. For my flight sim use cases, that is crippling, and fortunately, I still have sufficient CPU/GPU to run DCS World through SteamVR.

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I don’t think I’m using occulus runtime? I don’t believe I have any occulus software installed on my pc.
I just saw DCS appear in my games list in pitool clicked launch, and unlike before it actually worked lol.

I’ll check when I get home, but I don’t believe I have any oculus software installed.

Then are you sure SteamVR is not running? See if you can get DCS World working in a Pimax headset, with neither any Steam, SteamVR, Oculus, or similar binaries showing as running programs in task manager.

If DCS World is now able to work directly through PiTool, that would be nearly revolutionary. But I would not be too surprised either - both Pimax and Eagle Dynamics have strong incentives to eliminate the middleware.

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You can start it from PiTool, but for me it launches SteamVR in the background (and in the HMD), then the DCS logo on the Monitor appears and after a bit the DCS Logo in steam VR and then the Game itself goes ā€œliveā€. Most likely just the effect of the settings (Common, DCS Specific in PiTool and Steam VR Common and DCS Specific ? Maybe with an update of one of the other or both?)

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which Pitool are you using please?

1.0.1.254_alpha

The only other PiTool versions I consider ā€˜certified’ are 1.0.1.197_R244 and 1.0.1.144 . I must have had problems with some of the other versions like .253 .

you must be fortunate to be able to run that.
32Gb of ram and that version crashes after 50mins. so not much good for iracing.

I dont understand why they can’t address the memory leak, as it runs the best out of all the pitool versions I have tried.

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As a software engineer, I can say that it’s extremely unlikely that Pimax developers would revert back to an earlier version, so that memleak won’t be fixed (in an older code base).

What we need is a stable and fast new version, preferably with the Backlight Brightness option re-enabled.

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I don’t have that problem. Nor do I observe exceptional memory usage from PiTool either. My RAM is 64GB, pagefile 4-84GB.

I do have lockups if the headset has been in standby for a few minutes, or possibly after the headset has been running for 10 hours straight.

Probably the real difference for me is that I almost always power on the VR workstation just before doing VR stuff, and do not have anything not related to VR installed. Because I use a Linux workstation for everything else.

I’m only going by what has been stated ( memory leak?)
I’m not going to question if that is the actual fault.
But on a normal system, I have the same issue as reported by others, 45-60 mins lights out…

Really bad for my irating…:frowning:

Cant see you having much fun with your settings for the other versions of pitool tbh,
you’ll be lucky to get full gpu utilization…

Maybe you can open a line of communication with your contacts and test the more ā€œstable betaā€ (not alpha) versions of the pitool and possibly give an opinion of your findings.
Its seems people are having pitool gpu utilization issues.

squeaky wheel so to speak.

As for usage , My rig is the same.
Race sim only…gets turned on to race and thats it. :slight_smile: and its had a few upgrades since this photo, so its a serious ā€œPlay Hobbieā€

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