There seems to be quite some confusion around Pimax’s support for OpenXR and quad views, along with the use of OpenXR Toolkit.
Users are reporting black screens in the headset in DCS (and also Pavlov) unless they are (re)installing the Quad-Views-Foveated mod (aka “QVFR”). On top of that certain misinformed users are making incorrect claims about “bad support” in Pimax’s OpenXR runtime.
I’m going to clarify the situation. If you are experiencing the black screen issue, your problem is 99% likely to be because you have OpenXR Toolkit enabled. I’ll write it loud and clear: OPENXR TOOLKIT NEVER SUPPORTED QUAD VIEWS. It simply doesn’t. This isn’t a Pimax issue, this is true on all platforms. OpenXR Toolkit only supports stereo rendering.
Some will claim they used OpenXR Toolkit in conjunction with quad views before. Yes, they have, but there is a very important nuance to that statement: they used OpenXR Toolkit with Quad-Views-Foveated, which if installed correctly on your system (order of installation), will cause Quad-Views-Foveated to produce stereo output for OpenXR Toolkit. This is why it worked in this scenario.
However, with quad views support implemented directly inside the OpenXR runtime, doing such “intermediate stereo” step is simply NOT possible. You simply cannot interpose OpenXR Toolkit (and other API layers) between the quad-to-stereo composition and the runtime. This is why re-installing Quad-Views-Foveated allows to use OpenXR Toolkit again, because it forces OpenXR Toolkit to run after the quad-to-stereo composition. (Diagrams below for more details)
The proper solution to this issue is rather to uninstall OpenXR Toolkit, an obsolete piece of software that hasn’t been maintained in 2 years.
Here is a series of diagram explaining in details all of the above:
I never realized it was difficult to follow the directions. That video posted yesterday clarified everything. However, when utilizing the quad view in MSFS I didn’t notice any changes at all other than that I had the settings cranked up with no real degradation. From what I’ve read, the open XR Toolkit is breaking the hook from the pimax client. One thing I would like to see added to the PimaxXR is fps counter so I can see the performance without adding another app into the equation.
As mbucchia explains his OpenXR tool kit only supported stereo views and he had disconnected developing it. Due to retiring from VR development.
Since he was an early pioneer many would continue to want to use his suite of tools. Being open-source though someone could fork OpenXR Toolkit. Until something like that happens. it will remain not useable. Be it for any headset that wishes to use quadview rendering and other advances added to OpenXR that are implemented after the last version of the tool kit.
@calvinyau & @JaapGrolleman Cindy has a great idea of a fairly simple Feature Request. To add an overlay for fps counter toggle in pimax play.
