I've got a Valve Index and trying to get the fit and settings right. PC is running a 5950x and a 3090.

The image I see in the headset and on my screen seems like they have been smoothed, even when very close. I have tried to change things inside steamvr: higher sampling, lower refresh, turned off motion smoothing, etc., but haven't found anything that makes much difference.

Is the testhmd itself using lower resolution?

Does the pixel density setting matter? I noticed that if I lower it things get really jagged. But when I increase it I haven't noticed any sharpening.

I found something similar. On a Quest 2 (tethered) I was able to see the text quite clearly from 5m (Snellen Test), but on a Vive Pro 2 it looked somewhat less clear (even with Vive Console's "Ultra" settings). Adjusting the Pixel Density in the app seemed to improve things somewhat, but not as much as I'd expect. (also why does it show 1.0% -- shouldn't that be 1.0x? A 1.5 percent change would be pretty insignificant, but the performance definitely drops as you crank this up, e.g. to 2.0, so I suspect it's actually a pixel density multiplier, not a percentage).