Hi,
Has anyone tried their Pimax headset with XP11.50 with Vulkan?
My experience with my Pimax5k+ was a bit disappointing. Did not get the expected performance jump like I did with my Valve Index. Could this be a Pitool issue? Or do Pimax headsets simply not work with Vulkan in X-Plane? @SweViver
Hi @SweViver, @PimaxQuorra, @PimaxUSA
Tried again in Vulkan with X-Plane 11.50b6. Absolutely no gain in Vulkan. The fps are identical whether in OpenGL or in Vulkan with my Pimax5k+.
In my Valve Index I had an fps jump of more than 20fps when using Vulkan in X-Plane 11.50b6.
Is the Pimax not compatible with Vulkan? Will I have to retire my Pimax 5k+ and cancel my order for the Pimax 8k X ?
Would appreciate a comment about this from any of the persons mentioned above, or anyone else.
Thank you!
Ive been using the vulkan beta since it came out. Naturally as its a beta there are still lots of issues including system hangs and crashes. However I have noticed a decent improvement when it is working. I can’t claim to see a massive frame-rate improvememt but it runs much smoother and with very little stuttering.
There’s no doubt that the Pimax headsets stretch our systems to the limit and I find that they are particularly hard on the CPU. If you have FPSVR you could compare your cpu usage when using the valve v Pimax. Even with vulkan, the CPU is still a bottleneck for me with a Ryzen 2700x and RTX2080Ti because of its low single core speed. This will always hold back my GPU on CPU intensive games like Xplane. This is probably exagerated if the Pimax adds to the CPU load.
That said, I am getting FPS in the 30’s with Skymaxx Pro, Traffic Global and a number of other plugins running at the same time. I couldnt do this before vulkan. I might not always have enough frames for brainwarp to kick in, but without the stutters i find it very playable.
Just another quick point. I am one of the unlucky ones who has struggled with stutters on Pitool versions since 144.
I am now using 258 albeit with the catalyst very low (sometimes 0) on most games.
Yet somehow I am able to max the catalyst to 10 on this game. This does give me a few extra frames.
It can be difficult enough finding the right settings within individual games without the added complication of having to spend hours messing with Pitool settings too. Its even worse when running a beta version because you are never sure what caused the issue.
Maybe one day Pimax will introduce optimised setting for games that just work! (for now I would settle for a Pitool that just works)
Hi @scud68,
Thank you for your input!
Could I suggest that you load a standard situation in clear weather with a default aircraft in Vulkan, using your Pimax headset… Note your fps.
Then load the exact same situation again, but this time load it with OpenGL. Check if there is any difference in fps.
I used the default C-172 at KSEA rwy 16L and got 38 - 40 fps with my 5k+ in both Vulkan and OpenGL.
With my Valve Index I got 58 -60 fps in Vulkan, and 36 - 38 fps in OpenGL.
Would be very interested to hear about your results.
Thanks,
Werner
I loaded the Cirrus Vision SF50 at EINN (default scenery & airport) with clear weather (albeit with Skymaxx) and got 49 in openGL and 53 in Vulkan.
I turned Brainwarp off as I normally set it to 72hz so it would have maxed at 36 in both.
Its not a huge gain but can make all the difference in VR as you know.
The main benefits I find is that the plugins are less taxing allowing me to up the realism a little and there are noticebly less stutters and a smoother experience.
Pitool 1.5
Steam SS @ 35% (3464 x 2960)
objects low
reflection minimal
visual effect s medium
textures maximum
AA 2x (I prefer 4x and it works fine with default stuff, but as I like to add a lot of plugins I have found 2x works better and looks ok)
It might not be everyones preference in the settings but works well for me
Interesting. My tests were with a second vanilla installation, specifically for XP11.50.
Pitool 1.0
SteamVR @ 150%
Objects High
Textures High
AA FXAA
Thats a huge increase on your index. I do think that Pimax are struggling to optimise their headsets. There is a massive diffence in performance between diffent pitools and even users with similar set-ups are getting very differnt results.
It brings me back to what I said initially though. I think the extra field of view increases cpu (and gpu) usage massively. In a game which is still very much cpu limited (even with vulkan) I think it might hold back the GPU from benefiting as much as it does on other headsets.
The good news is that the developers have repeatedly said that they are concentrating on getting the beta working without crashing before working on performance optimisations. They claim to have a good few things lined up
Both headsets have quite similar fps in OpenGL though. But only the Index has a gain in Vulkan.
This leads me to believe that the Pimax is not ready for Vulkan at this time. Hence my initial address to the powers of Pimax for their comments.
I will be interested to see their response. If they give one. A few more frames would be massive in this game.
Would love to hear from them. Maybe @SweViver will experiment a bit with XP11.50 and let us know.
The problem with that for me was he has a 9900k over-clocked to about 5.2ghz. I was never able to get the results he did. Pimax have been saying for a while they would work with developers to optimise the setting for each game but it has all gone quiet.
Its not like they have to do 1000’s of games. Nearly all the talk on the forum is about a handful of games that most of us play. They could start with those.
My rig is quite a few notches below that.
i7 8700k @ 4,9 GHz
32GB RAM
GTX1080 ti
Your processer is pretty decent though and should perform better that mine. Have you overclocked it?
MIne is
Ryxen 2700x (4.2Ghz)
32gb RAM
RTX 2080Ti
Yes, it is a bit overclocked @ 4.9 GHZ Core Voltage @ 1.25V.
Standard out of the box is 3.7 GHz. Turboboost is 4.7 GHz.
looking at the specs there shouldnt be a huge difference in performance. I dont think in this game that my CPU can give enough for my GPU to show the benefit.
My Fps went from 31 to 32 with the beta 6. Im so pissed off .I waited for xplane 11 Vulkan 1 year , And now all the headsets are smooth but the pimax is not optimised . Bravo Pimax
Hi,
Let’s see what Pimax will say about this. Hopefully they will soon come up with an explanation, or better yet a solution.
As long as Pimax headsets for X-Plane 11.5x require the activation of parallel projection, the expected performance gain by the Vulkan engine can hardly be determined. X-Plane with Vulkan runs a bit smoother, but the potential of powerful VR hardware will never be exploited by using the parallel projection “compatibility mode”.
Ben Supnik comments on the required parallel projection for Pimax headsets:
Non-parallel projection must exist in TWO places:
When I last looked, SteamVR didn’t have API support for canting, and we talk to the PiMax through SteamVR.
So if there is a SteamVR update that addresses this, I can look at that and I do not need any help from the PiMax guys.
If there is no SteamVR support for this but PiMax has their own SDK, that is not useful right now - we’re really tight on graphics dev resources and we don’t have time to pursue a 3rd, 4th, 5th native VR API.
In order to use X-Plane without parallel projection, an adjustment in Pitool or API support for canting in SteamVR is necessary. For “native support” and a similar performance as with the Valve Index.
@PimaxQuorra
It would be very gratifying if the software development at Pimax could occasionally ensure that parallel projection and the associated loss of performance will no longer be necessary in the near future.
Of course it is great if you can see more details and no screendoor effect with the Pimax 8KX e.g. in flight simulators. But if performance is permanently reduced due to the need for parallel projection (regardless of powerful hardware and compared to leading headsets from other manufacturers) this would be a fundamental disadvantage.