Peedee

Ok, so you have not had it for so long then, but I understand your frustration. I´ve been into VR since 2017, and even then it took me some time to get best out of Pimax Crystal. I have had the original Pimax Crystal with eyetracking since september 2023 and got a Crystal Light on wednesday this week in addition. So now I got both. Hopefully, we can help you getting a good result with your Crystal Light. About Quadviews, I think many of us using Quadviews here have been using it for some time, from before it was a part of Pimax Play. And then the OpenXR support for the headset itself was also controlled from an external app. And back then there were very thourough and detailed instructions on how to install Quadviews on your PC and how to set up corretly. It was a separate thing from Pimax Play... and yep.. anway - if you didn´t follow those long instructions exactly it wouldn´t work. And some people of course then didn´t think it did much. But it does when set up correctly. For you (and other new users) there´s a new situation. OpenXR support is directly controlled in the Pimax Play app, and you can also choose to activate Quadviews in Pimax Play. That sounds like a good thing, right? Only thing is, there is very little control over how YOU want to use Quadviews in Pimax Play. Back when we did this in an external installation we controlled it with either editing and long config file with lots of values, or using an external app that changed all those values for us. You could adjust a lot things which we now don´t have any control over in Pimax Play. I know this is not helping you much. I have not had time to test the implementation of Quadviews in Pimax Play yet. I just recently upgraded my Pimax Play to that version which implements and controls Quadviews. But it seems very limited in its settings for quadviews, but we can hope this will get improved. As to why you don´t see any difference, I don´t know. If it is working you are supposed to get better frames per second in the game. And yes, as I understand it, the Crystal Light should support Quadviews, but since Crystal Light does not have eye tracking, the degradation of the image quality will be visible on the outer areas of your image. And the more aggresive settings you are using to push up your frame rate, the more visible the degradation will be and covering a larger area too. For units with eye tracking, you can be really aggressive with the Quadview settings (which again, the Pimax Play version of Quadviews implementation really don´t give all that control over) without seeing the degradation of the image clarity simply because your eyes are not looking at it, t- he high quality area of the image follows your eyes. Of course, if you go nuts with your settings (which we could do earlier when it was outside of Pimax Play) then you would start seeing the degradation on the outer areas even with eye tracking. But, it is amazing how much you can reduce outer area quality without seeing it, and gaining lots for fps. That´s why we love it, and that is why I hope Pimax wil upgrade their Pimax Play app to let us have more control of Quadviews settings, so we can dial it in correctly for our own eyes. I think people can have very different tolerances for what is both acceptable and what they simply don´t see. This long answer didn´t help you anything. I guess.. Oh, another thing - the Game itself must support Quadviews or else it doesn´t work! I only know of DCS and Pavlov that support Quadviews. And you need to actually be inside DCS flying to see the effect. Microsoft Flightsimulator and most other games out there does not. support it. Some people doesn´t know this and complain it doesn´t work in their games. It is simply because their game doesn´t support it. Recently an important to the community and well known VR Flightsim youtuber, who mostly fly Microsoft Flightsimulator, did a VR "best settings" video for the new Microsoft Flightsimulator 2024, and suggested turning on Quadviews in Pimax Play, but he didn´t think it gave so many more fps.... no <profanity> Sherlock... Microsoft Flightsimulator 2020 and 2024 doesn´t support or use quadviews so it gave zero effect Keep on experimenting... It should be playable with reasonable framerates and fluidity with the Pimax Crystal and still give you a clear image. I have yet to Play DCS since I updated Pimax Play to the version that controls Quadviews, so I don´t know how well it works now. I have been busy with MSFS2020...ehhhm.. soryy. Hopefully, sometime during the weekend it will test DCS again. Maybe I can get some ideas. My suggestion is still to stick with 72hz/fps mode in Pimax Play. It is easer to reach and therefore keep the game smooth. 72hz smooth is better than 90hz and stuttering because your system never reach 90fps. Do not use 90hz upscale mode. Then you render the image in 2160x2160 per eye it becomes upscaled - which degrades the image too much in your case. It is for those with lower end graphic cards. The full render resolution of the Crystal and Crystal Light actually is 4300x5100 ish.. per eye. You can choose in Pimax Play to lower the resolution, to .85 or something and experiment from there. That is way higher than 90hz upscale. But still lessens the effort for your systems and gives you a bette balance of image clarity and fps. So play around with that slider a bit. I think you have to restart DCS for everytime you change it though.

How long time have you had your Crystal Light? With a 4090 and a decent CPU this will for sure work out with the Crystal Light. Be patient.

Ok guys, here´s a short first impression of my Pimax Crystal Light that I got today. I ordered on Saturday from a Norwegian webstore and it was in my hands already today, Wednesday. Ok, so you know where I am coming from. I already own a Pimax Crystal (the original, with batteries, eye tracking and DMAS headphones) and have been using it for... 14 months or so I think. I have been very happy with it! My only big issue has been the batteries. Also, it is a bit heavy and wobbly. So, why order a Crystal Light? Well, I wanted something less heavy and wobbly, and with no batteries. I am missing out on the eye tracking and therefore also how good DCS can look with Quadviews and eyetracking running... Most games don´t support Quadviews, and in MSFS 2020 and 2024, I have tried with eyetracking, foveated rendering through OpenXR Toolkit and all kinds of combinations ... with my setup in those two flight simulators - I gain at the most 6 fps. Usually between 3-5. For those games, I can easly adjust others settings just a tiny bit down and get those FPS back if needed. Now, on to my first impression. First the good news... Oh my oh my! I think I just won in the Pimax lottery when it comes to visuals! No offence Calvin and Pimax, but there have been a few people complaining about the lenses. My lenses look really good. That is my first impression... they look by a noticeble margin better than the lenses in my original Pimax Crystal! My original Crystal has a fair bit of chrommatic abberation, meaning sharp edges has some color fringing along/around them. This reduces clarity of course, and once you notice it, it is a bit.. irritating. My original Crystal was still the sharpest headset I have used (until now) so I stayed with it because I knew it would take some to replace the lenses, and I could also risk getting even worse lenses or headset. Also, after I while, for most of the time I didn´t think about it and enjoyed my headset. That was until today - and here´s the bad news... when I saw how good my new Pimax Light lenses were then I realized how "bad" my orginal Crystal lenses were. When I sit in a plane and look down on a runway, on the thick white marking lines that goes down the runway, with my old original Pimax Crystal, there´s color fringing along the edges of the lines. Even on the center line. Easy to see, but I forgotten about it for a long time like I said. But now when I see those lines are just pure white all the way like they should, also along the edges, on my new Crystal Light...I will be hard to unsee it on my old vanilla Crystal. Why the bad news? Well, because my plan is to keep my old eye tracking Crystal and use it for DCS because of Quadviews/eye tracking. And to use new Crystal Light for everything else. I will probably still stick to this plan. So it´s a luxury problem really. I am really happy my new Crystal Light is so sharp and without chromattic abberation! Ok, when I opened the box with the Crystal light box I noticed that only the left lens had the thin plastic lens protector film over it. The right lens did not have that. I found it eventually on the bottom of the box. Luckily I could not see any scratches on the lens. Setting up the Crystal Light was very easy for me since I already have the latest Pimax Play version installed, and I am very familiar with the Pimax Play app. I plugged everything in, and updated the firmware. The sound quality was far from what I get from the DMAS I have on my original Crystal, but that was expected. I will find a solution for that. Another thing - it seemed like the local dimming - or the panels themselves, were better. That is surprising, it is supposed to be the same panels, right? The Crystal and the Crystal Light? I have edited the profile.json file (or whatever it is called) for my original Crystal to get the blackest nights I can when flying. But this Crystal Light, out of the box is better. No idea why. Maybe the lenses come into play again? Not sure how, but maybe good lenses give less light bouncing around reducing contrast.. The Crystal Light is way more comfortable to wear than my orginal Crystal. And less wobbly, just like I hoped for. And I am so happy that it doesn´t use batteries. I ordered the version without hand controllers so no I have no idea how the controller tracking is. Head tracking seems good so far. Cant´t say I have noticed any errors. So, for now, very happy with my new headset. I have only used for a couple of hours. But it seems really good so far!!

With that PC, try set render quality High in Pimax Play and 72hz. 90 hz upscale isn’t that using a very low resolution and upscale it? Not sure how 90hz upscale works exactly.. And then using in addition low resolution of 0.75 render quality makes it worse again? It might be that you are feeding a low quality image? I got a Crystal and Quadviews works fine. Hud and mfd, tgp are clear and easy to read. But I will also get a Crystal Light in a few days so I can check out more what works then with the Light. i got a 4090 like you, and i9 13900k. Even without eye tracking on the Crystal Light I don’t think you need such a low resolution in Pimax Play.

Thanks, where is this file located normally?

Thanks Calvin. That clears things up:)

I probably should have googled this myself. Actually I did, but it just made me more confused. My search gave me a link to Pimax: https://pimax.com/pages/pimax-crystal-light-setup-quick-guide And under point 5 it says: 5. Connect my Pimax Device The default page is shown below. Click on the guidance and follow the instructions until the connection is complete. If you don’t have the base station select the 9-axis sensor in tracking mode, which can be used to watch movies or experience racing, flight simulation, and other games. Please note: if you are mainly into Sims then you can use 3DoF mode. However many simmers will recommend having at least 1 Lighthouse due to the ability of lean. Without a lighthouse you cannot lean forward, backwards or left and right. This last part confuses me, to me it seems that it is possible to not use a Lighthouse, but it is recommended to have at least one. So, I certainly need to lean when simming! - so if I order a Crystal Light I need a lighthouse to get the full funcionality?

Maybe you will get it to work. But it will not give you a fair impression of what flight sim/DCS is in VR, and neither will it give you an impression of what the Quest 3 can do. Personally I would not bother with that laptop.

Ok,thanks. But still - everything is working so good as it is now so I will not upgrade headset or Pimaxplay until I must do it PimaxXR is set for OpenXR. I never use SteamVR for anything, so that means I don’t need to even click/start the PimaxXR app after starting Windows. My Quadview settings is set too. So, all I have to do when I want to play DCS is to press the power button on the headset and then launch DCS. Easy peasy. I can understand that maybe for new users that having to deal with three different apps seem confusing, so therefore the new PimaxPlay is better. But I have had this headset for over a year, and since everything is set I have a very easy startup procedure for DCS Turn headset on and launch DCS .

Thanks Calvin, guess I´ll keep my old firmware and old Pimax Play as it is for now

I have not updated my headset or Pimax Play for quite some time, so I am on Crystal Headset (not Light) FIRMWARE 1.3.0_au0531 and PIMAX PLAY 1.25.01.01. I use the "external" PimaxXR app to control OpenXR settings, I have Quadviews installed and use the Quadview companion app to adjust Quadview settings. It´s very stable, frame rate is good, Eyetracking working as expected, everything is smooth and everything looks good. I don´t think I will do any upgrades for a while until it all settles a bit. . I started another thread in this part of the forum if I should upgrade anything or not, but I think I have gotten my answers here - as long as this "old" solution works as expected

Thanks, but would the “Quadview companion” app still work if I want to use my own settings?

Hello everybody! I got my Pimax Crystal (not light) over a year ago, in September 2023. And I have been very happy with it. I started using VR in 2017, HTC Vive, Vive Pro, HP Reverb, Reverb G2, Quest 2, Quest 3, Pico 4 ... But the Crystal - oh my frigging G when it comes to PC VR flight simming and car games. There have been a few bumps on the road along the way, but some time ago I got setup for DCS that was very stable and frame rate wise, and also graphic quality wise. And since then I have not dared to upgrade neither the Pimax Play Software or the Crystal firmware. Sorry Pimax, but --- from what I am reading on the forums and facebook - quite some people are struggeling. I am on HEADSET FIRMWARE 1.3.0_au0531 and PIMAX PLAY 1.25.01.01 And I use PimaxXR app and have Quadview installed and use the Quadview companion app to set my QuadView settings. And everything is beautiful and fluid... BUT since I have been on a vactation I have not tested the latest version(s) of DCS. Now, I understand with the latest Pimax software/firmware I don´t need PimaxXR anymore - though it never has much of a problem to me. Also, I understand that I can activate Quadviews in the latest Pimax Play. But - how to adjust the Quadview settings? I would probably stille need the Quadview companion app (or go adjust some. ini/.config file)?? Also, what might break during an upgrade process? Do I gain anything besides putting Quadviews and PimaxXr into Pimax Play app itself?

Very interesting! Before I got my Pimax Crystal I really enjoyed my Pico 4. Light weight and I preferred the pan cake lenses over the fresnel lenses of my Reverb G2. I got a PSVR2 headset, and I have used it with my PS5 of course. I’m not going to buy the adapter because I am so happy with my Pimax Crystal. But it’s good to hear that the PSVR2 is working good in a PCVR setup. It is a very comfortable headset to wear.

Pico 4 has better lenses. PSVR2 will not support eyetracking on PC. I can not understand that PSVR2 is an upgrade from Pico4 unless you really really want Oled panels. If you already own a PSVR2 for your PS5 then absolutely it is a cheap option. But If you already have a Pico4 then I wouldnt buy a PSVR2 unless you plan to use it on your PS5 too.

I have never gotten my Nextlevel HF8 to work in any game. I got it early after relase. I have not tried to make it work for a long time though... has the software been updated to something useable?

Good to hear! I have only tested it with the F-16C, so... think I have to try with the spitfire too. I have many modules, but I really only fly the F-16 Ok, I have only tested with the F-16 module. I guess that if you come from an advanced app like the Simshaker then it's easier to find faults in SimHaptic. I have never experienced Simhaker with its addon for DCS, so I can not make that comparison. But coming from the official Buttkicker software, this new SimHaptic software is huge improvement Hopefully they'll continue to improve SimHaptic. The DCS support just came a few days ago, and Simshakers with addon has been out for quite a while

SimHaptic from rkApps now supports DCS! And I am very impressed. I have a Buttkicker Gamer Pro bass shaker, which comes with an amplifier which also works as an external soundcard when connected to the PC with USB. And until now I have only been using Buttkickers own official Hapticonnect app - which supports DCS. But I think it is not very good. Few effects, and some of them are not even working. And you really can't adjust anything besides volume. So I have been looking for a different solution. I know some of you are using the Simshaker software and been happy with that. I downloaded that program, but I never got it to work like it should. Turned out I had to buy an extra plugin from another company which there were no available valid payment options for when I checked it out. This might be solved now, I don't know. Anyway, I decided to just stay with the official Hapticonnect for Buttkicker instead. It worked, but very limited. Anyway, Simhaptic has a trial version on their web page, I think it is fully functional except that it stops working after 7 days. And I am happy to say it worked "right out of the box"... Very easy. Downloaded it, installed it, started it, in the SimHaptic app chose my Buttkicker as the sound card to use, fired up DCS, hopped into my F-16 cockpit - and voila! I had to lower the volume for many of the effects, and I guess this will depend upon which kind of bass shaker or buttkicker you are using. But - there are so many different effects for each thing happening with the airplane! Compared to the official Buttkicker software it is pretty incredible! Wow! I can not compare it to the Simshaker solution since I never got it to work and never bought the addon plugin for it either. But is a very easy solution and installation for Buttkicker Gamer Pro/Buttkicker Game Plus users. For people with other bass shakers, SimHaptic needs a soundcard for itself, an external USB one would work fine I think. You can not use an Y splitter from the soundcard you are using for other things.

Same her, after Quadviews I don't use OXRTK to anything. I9 13900K and RTX 4090

Sorry to hear you experience with Crystal. I don't doubt your experience. So... I tend to think you got a faulty headset. Because - Can people's headshape, eyes and vision really be so different that a VR headset model is totally failing on "all" factors for some, but are loved by others? I mean, if it is not the headset you have, and not mine, say - they are equal, then surely it must be those other factors , headshape, eyes/vision...But then again, how is that possible. So.. faulty headset perhaps. Distortion? Super accurate to find the sweet spot? Losing depth perception? How can all this be so problematic without the headset being faulty? It's frigging expensive product. The sound quality - mine came shipped with DMAS and is really good. No audio lag here. The DMAS will be an upgrade for you... but - I reallt think you should either try to return it and get your money back (perhaps too late) or get them to send you a replacement. Especially since your wife has the same experience. I loved my Reverb G2, but is not used anymore. It was first replace by Pico 4 with its pan cake lenses (Pico 4 quite similar to Quest 3 except Pico 4 is lighter and more comfortable - but somewhat better lenses on Quest 3 though) Quest 3 has a lot going for it, but it is uncomfortable to wear, the field of view is too small, and for me it is not clear enough/sharp enough when compared to my Pimax Crystal. Also - when I got my Pico to replace my G2 I was not that impressed first. That was because of the Reverb G2 settings "bug": If you have had G2 before on the same system, then you are probably victim of the known resolution bug where you are stuck at max 3240x3240 or something like that, which was suitable for G2 perhaps but not Crystal. Even if you set resolution at Max in Pimax Play app (which would be 4500x5100 or something like that) you still only get 3240x3240, and that is also so even if you manually higher in SteamVR . The error is in a file called “steamvr.vrsettings”, normally located: c:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\config\steamvr.vrsettings In there find the line ‘maxRecommendedResolution" = 3240 And change that to…. Dunno, much much higher. If you don’t see much difference then…… check your eyes - or there is something wrong with your Crystal Be aware, that bug might reset it back to 3240 later some has reported. It’s not Pimax fault but SteamVR I guess. Not sure if that could be the solution to your problems, but 3240x3240 would make Crystal resolution too small to for correct barrel distortion I would think.

Go for Pico 4, but use Virtual Desktop if you can. I would suggest Virtual Desktop also with Quest 3, but I recommend the Pico4 for PCVR/DCS/MSFS2020 and Car sims. Reason - you get same visual quality as the Quest 3. I think actually a little bit better quality on the Pico4 because of the way the panels are angeled on the Quest 3 - the screen door effect is easier to see there. And the Pico4 is much lighter, way more comfortable to use for extended periods of time. Much better weight distribution. The Quest 3 is front heavy, the Pico 4 is not. I get noticebly better Field of View on the Pico 4. I also get a bit more glare in the Quest 3. And the price difference is big, at least in my country. The Pico 4 is way cheaper, half the price. I have the Quest 2, Quest 3 and Pico 4 - and a Reverb G2 (not in use anymore), Pimax 8KX (not in use any more) and Pimax Crystal. Yeah, I know, I probably should sell some of them... But anyway - for use with DCS I would rank them 1. Pimax Crystal, 2. Pico 4. 3. Quest 3. 4. Reverb G2, 5. Pimax 8KX, 6. Quest 2. The 8KX has great FOV, but I never reached the level of clarity in the center of view that I would like to read instrument panels and so on... could be my sample of 8KX that are not very good. Don't know. For DCS my daily driver is now of course the Pimax Crystal, but... the Pico 4 is pretty dang good if set up correctly - and it is more comfortable than the Pimax Crystal too.

I think that the smartest thing might be to wait and see the reviews first.. I'd like to (pre)order a Pimax Super... but buying from the first batch of Pimax headsets? Not sure if even I dare that, and I'm very postive to Pimax...:) I will for sure buy a RTX 5090 as soon as they come.

Yes, the resolution on those headsets are lower to start with. Ok, so, if you have a Reverb G2 now, you don't have dynamic foveated rendering. And the new Crystal Light will be in the same situation. What resolution are you running your G2 at now? The full resolution on the Crystal will be higher, yes. But - two solutions to consider... first off - me, I run my crystal at 72fps. (You get used to that quite fast! 60fps is too low. But 72fps i just fine for me in sims). That gives me quite a number of extra fps. Also, it is quite possible to run the Crystal at somewhat lower than the full 100% resolution (which honestly is quite high it is corrected for distortions and such) and still get a better picture than G2. First off, the panels are better, the optics are better, so you get better contrast, much increased number of pixels gives higher pinsel density, and therefore even less screen door effect. The lenses gives you a bigger sweetspot and edge to edge clarity. And you get at bigger FOV too! My G2 has some mura/dirty screen effect. On my Crystal I see none. When I first got my Crystal, the perfomance both in DCS and the headset itself, (no quadviews and no dynamic foveated rendering working) was way worse than now. But still it was a big improvement over my G2. Now of course, all those features are working, but I still run my headset at 72fps because I like improved eye candy over 90 fps now that I am used to it. Also Crystal is claiming improved fixed foveated rendering coming to the Crystal Light... but I guess we have to wait and see about that. Maybe they will sell a eyetracking module for the Crystal Light later? They did that with the 8KX, but not sure how well that one worked. EDIT: Not needing windows mixed reality stuff gives better performance with the crystal. Though I am not sure how much of an impact that has.

That's sad to hear. You might be loosing out on a very good headset. No eyetracking doesn't seem to bother Pico 4, Quest 2, Quest 3, Valve Index and HP Reverb G2 owners... Because it is a cost thing. To get premium features it seems we have to pay premium prices... for now at least. This is supposed to be a cheaper Crystal whereyou get the good Qled panels, good aspherical lenses, and a pure PC VR wired connection, no battery worries or compression artifacts A much improved Reverb G2 For 699 dollars. What you gain on from the the Quest and Pico headsets are much higher resolution/PPD, wired PCVR with displayport connection, No batteries. Also since I own Quest 2, Quest 3 and Reverb G2 too, I can say that the Crystal (and also the coming Crystal light) has better FOV than them. If you opt in for the local dimming version (though 200 dollars extra for that is a bummer), then you get deeper blacks and better colors too. So basicly, if I didn't own the Crystal, I'd happy to replace my G2 with a Crystal Light for that extra resolution and wider FOV - and keep the display port cable. And of course since I primarily use my headset for simming, I the Quest/Pico headsets I have doesn't compete since they lack display port I think for 699 dollars this sounds like a very good option for simmers. The local dimming - it's the same you see on modern Qled TV's where the backlight behind the pixels can be turned on or off in different zones, meaning you get better blacks and contrast ratio. The more zones the better. And they have increased to number of local dimming zone a lot from my Crystal But, of course, it's not OLED where individual pixels can be switched on and off Eye tracking is a very nice thing. But when I use my Pico4 or Quest 3 I don't think about it. What I do think about when doing PCVR with those headsets (which I still sometimes do), is the compression artifacts and lag. Though I have to admit, this has gotten much better since the start. But I still worry a bit about battery life on them- which I admittedly also do when using my Pimax Crystal - which is why I am considering the new Pimax Crystal Super too

Pimax Crystal Light was announced today! - a Crystal with no stand alone features, pure PCVR solution with DisplayPort cable. No batteries of course. - 250g less weight in the front. 60g less in the back. Great! - New kind of headstrap, looks nice actually. - no eyetracking module 699 US dollars with no local dimming, 899 US dollars for a version with local dimming.