How To Make Your Pimax Image/Picture/Screen Clear/Crisp (Increase Clarity)

Pimax Play Discussion
165

Hey mate, you bought the 8k-X again? Haha, nice!

My take on getting the best image quality

  1. Forget about trying to get the 8k-X close to your IPD. That’s only something relevant with normal headsets, not with Pimax headsets :slight_smile: What you see is NOT what you get with Pimax, so just forget that. Panels are most likely misplaced and the whole Pimax IPD system just makes no sense. So it’s really irrelevant what your IPD is, you should not even try to match that with Pimax, it’s useless.
  2. Your first objective should be to maximize clear vision over your FoV. That’s what you do with the hardware slider. Just increase/decrease it and notice what it does to the clear part of your FoV. Alternate between looking through your left, right eye, and both eyes, until you get a good sense what the best position is for maximum clearness. The goal is to position the lenses so that they’re in the middle of your irises, so the fuzzy part at the edges should be equally far left/right from each iris. If you play long enough with this you should get a good idea where that is.
  3. Once you’ve found that, then the 2nd objective is to minimize eye strain and maximize 3d effect, which seem two sides of the same coin (you’ll achieve both at the same time). This is done with the software settings. I see 2 ways to do that which both can work complementary:

3A) In the real world, alternate looking through your right and left eye. Look at an object several meters away and notice how this object ‘jumps’ left/right but potentially also up/down when looking through your diffferent eyes. It’s my theory that you need to simulate this in VR too. Now do the same in VR, look at an object that’s the same distance as the object that you were looking at in the real world and adjust the software sliders. You’ll see that the sliders increase/decrease the different position when looking through your left or right eye so make it so the distance is simulated in VR

3B) a different way is to, in VR, focus on an object in the far distance and then look at a straight line and see what happens when you change the settings. In your ‘double vision’ you will see a 2nd line that gets closer/further to the first line. You need to line them up

Now when you’ve found a good setting, you might need to finetune it: Go play a while and see if you get eyestrain. It should at least be better than before, so more time playing without eye strain. What I did next is I changed one of the settings slightly and then the next day played again and see if this improved my playing time without eye strain. I repeated this process over a few days and then ended up with a setting that seems to give me no eye strain at all anymore

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166

Thx @Djonko ,

Yea bought it again to try the 90hz… lol

This unit is better then my old 8kx,it needs a totaly different ipd and the mura is less too…
Still not the sharpness and clear picture as the hp reverb g2…But i can live with it now i think…

Thx for the tips! Cant wait till you got your varjo 3 and share your impressions…

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It’s quite nice eh! I’m sensitive to hz, to me the difference between 72 and 90 really is huge. It’s still not perfect though, but oh well, which headset is …

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Its indeed better then before,and i got a better pimax 8kx sample now…
Still no hp reverb g2 clarity…But better then my old pimax 8kx and the 90hz does feel ALOT better now…

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169

Like literally what the method I posted does- just way more complicated… and IPD is very relevant.

Doing the real world/object comparison only works if ALL of the games have exactly the same world scale size. I know, because the minute I went from Alyx to NMS and then to Sunshine, every one of them was off and I had to readjust.

That’s why I added the bars in the middle in graduated sizes.

But if you really want to fiddle with it hard and soft IPD adjustments every time you load up a different game… /shrug

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170

I really would like to try your method with the picture you posted. Where do I put the picture ? also when viewing the picture do I adjust the software ipd in PE or pitools. I’m new to Vr. I had the quest 2 and my 5 year old son claimed it as his. I was in microcenter and spur of the moment I bought the 8kx. I haven’t played yet because one of the base stations were broken and I should be receiving a replacement by tuesday, but in the mean time I could really zero in my IPD. I noticed what most people noticed. My left eye sharp and right eye blurry. IDP wheel turned all the way down. If I move my headset to the left a tiny bit the right gets sharp and the left eye is blurry. Also on PE when I open a desktop window I can not read anything from my desktop, its all burry. So when I’m looking at the image and I’m making adjustment is it on PE or pitools. If it’s pitools I have to keep taking the headset off ?

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171

How is that relevant? I have IPD 69.5 but use about 64 on Pimax. So what I mean, forget about the Pimax IPD number. I’ve long had this idea that I somehow had to be close to my real IPD, like in every other headset. But with Pimax that’s not the case, that’s what I meant.

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172

Take the image you downloaded and place it in your Pimax directory. This will likely be:
C>Program FIles>Pimax>Runtime>Resource. Either rename the existing file (if you want to keep it) or just overwrite it.

You’ll have to adjust the values in PiTool to use my image, as you can’t load it in PE.
There’s also the fact that PE shows the exact reverse of PiTool’s settings (+ becomes -, ect.) which is confusing as hell.

To do this, go into PiTool, boot your HMD up and under the “Settings” tab, look for where it says “Home” on the bottom. Tick the “close” option. This will prevent PiHome and PE from loading and will allow you to see the static image.

Before we proceed here we’re going to assume the following:

That you have either the DAS or the Pimax version of the audio strap installed.
(Would also strongly recommend a 7oz. counterweight on the back of the DAS to balance the weight of the HMD. Yeah, I know it seems weird to ADD weight to make something more comfortable. But, here we are.)
That you have the VR comfort kit and/or aftermarket face gaskets (ie: VR Cover) installed.
That you have already adjusted these to find the proper fit, angle and placement on your face for comfort and the clearest image. One of the most common signs that you have NOT gotten the HMD to fit properly is that ‘one eye blur’ that you’re talking about. This is caused by your nose not being centered between the lenses and the HMD likely being positioned too high on your face. The VR comfort kit makes this easy to adjust thanks to the rubber ‘nose guard’ thing. Move the HMD itself (NOT THE IPD WHEEL) and find the ‘sweet spot’ to where both sides are the same ‘clearness’ even if it’s not sharp yet.

Why is this all necessary? Because there’s so many damn factors that play into this. The size of your head, the shape of your face, the thickness of the foam… on and on. This is also why it’s almost impossible to get a ‘universal setting’ for all users. Everyone’s face/head/eyes/eye spacing/near and far IPD is different.

So assuming that you have already taken care of the above:

Now comes the irritating part.

Put on your HMD and follow my instructions in the post above to adjust your Hard and Soft IPDs.

TRY NOT TO REMOVE OR ALTER THE FIT OF YOUR HEADSET WHILE DOING THIS.

Let me say that again:
TRY NOT TO REMOVE OR ALTER THE FIT OF YOUR HEADSET WHILE DOING THIS.

You’ll need to click on the sliders in PiTool in order to adjust the values. Or, you can Tab between them via keyboard, but you still need to click on one to adjust. Do this, and DON’T USE THE MOUSE to adjust the sliders. Use your arrow keys on the keyboard. You’ll have to do this by feel (of the arrow keys).

Follow the steps and when you’re done, you should be dialed in with a nice clear view, a nice sharp picture (how sharp depend on the resolution you set in either PiTool or PE. Profiles are fun!) and most importantly, properly adjusted 3d stereo. You’ll know it when you see it in game.

A very long explanation of what is actually a simple process, once you know all the steps. Yes, it’s a PITA, but it’s worth it.

To clear up the text in PE, you’ll have to go to the “Common” setting and set it to 1.0 (high) or 1.25 (very high). Save the profile, apply the changes and I recommend restarting PE. When it comes back up, the text should be a hell of a lot clearer.

Hope that helps and good luck! Let us know how it turns out.

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173

This likely depends on physiological factors and maybe in cases like yours how near the max physical or minimum IPD on the mechanical adjustment range.

Depending on the individual the method of setting ipd seems to work differently.

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174

Wow, thanks for the full explanation , So just to be sure, I have to leave the headset on the whole time while I’m making adjustments on pitool that’s on my pc monitor ? If that’s the case it sounds hard, lol. Either way when I finally sit down and do I will definitely post my results. Thanks a million

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175

Yup, you’ll have to do it by touch with the helmet on.

It’s not that bad, just use TAB to move between the sliders.
TAB to move forward, I think CTRL+TAB to move back?

Standard keyboard shortcuts.

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Thanks again. I may cheat and have my girlfriend do the clicking, HAHAHAHA. She gonna be mad if I’m there a long time. I’ll just tell her that now she knows how I felt when we used to go out shopping.

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177

Was messing around with it for an hour yesterday, I place the unit dead center with my nose. I called my eye doctor to get my IPD he said it is 30-30 so it’s 60. I’m nearsighted fyi. Hardware ipd at the lowest gave my the best visual. Both eyes have the same slight fuzzy or slight blurry when i’m looking dead center. If I look slightly to the right with only my eyes not my head everything is super clear and if I look slightly to the left with only my eyes not my head everything is super clear. Only when I look dead center it’s not so clear.
So I started messing around with the software offset looking at your picture. I started with my left eye. No matter what I did image still looked the same. No better change in clarity on the left eye so I didn’t bother with the right eye. One thing I have to say that without me touching anything on the software offset that picture looks 3d. the lines pop out and long blue boxes look 3d. The only issue is that it’s not crisp dead center everything else is.
After that i said screw it let me start pavlov. I went to the shooting range and dead center not crisp but everything else sharp. After a while I was looking at the 4 screws on the table legs and noticed wow that looks pretty clear because it was dead center. So I closed my right eye then my left looking at the object and it got a little blurry again. I’m guessing my eyes adjusted to it and made it sharper but when I closed each eye separate it went back to the way before. Also I was in the shooting range for about 45 minutes. When I took off my headset I had no eye strain and my eyes adjusted to the real world instant. I’m guessing the sweet spot on the lenses are just a tad apart for my eyes and i’m at the end of the wheel. Software is only moving the image around but not the lenses. I think I read something about that’s how pimax made it. not sure. It was a post from someone that starts with an R. Maybe I’m doing something wrong but moving the offset on my left eye didn’t make the picture sharper that’s why I didn’t bother with the right. I just found it weird that after awhile in pavlov dead center looked pretty sharp then when I closed each eye separately it readjusted to the slight blur. Sorry this was long

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178

Yeah, sounds like you need to tinker with the angle of the HMD/thickness of the face foams. You can use double sided velcro or other ways to shim it up. Take your hand and tilt it up down and see if it changes anything. If the settings work as is for you, go for it! There’s so many variables.

I know I had to run my settings literally 13 times before I convinced myself they were right, because mine are +.4 and -1.1 L/R eye; a huge difference. I raised the vertical equally to +4.5 to raise the picture to be more in line with my center line of vision.

I’d run both eyes to be thorough, but like I said, it if works without eyestrain, do it.
Pimax is a picky beast, that’s for certain.

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179

I’m definitely going to try again and see the other eye. I did the Velcro thing on the cheek part it was better that way before I even posted my first post. Now im thinking to try it off just to make sure it’s better with the strips. Your right about it being picky. Hopefully I can get it better. Thanks for all your help.

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180

Anytime.
You’ll get it there, and when you do it’s worth it.

FWIW, if you haven’t added the counterweight yet, you should give it a try. It’s quite a difference when it’s balanced properly. :+1:

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181

the steamvr.vrsettings did more harm than good. I reverted to my orig. settings

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I dont get it.
where do I save it to?

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C>Program FIles>Pimax>Runtime>Resource
Posts above outline the process.

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I still dont get it. How do I load the picture? The description jumps from the setup of the headset directly to changing the IPD values but I still do not know how to display the picture in the first playe :-))