DCS tested with the Pimax Crystal

[dburne]

2 hours ago, Callsign.Vega said:

Returned the Crystal and await the Bigscreen Beyond. But DCS external world looks pretty terrible in VR even with the Crystal and top settings, so going back to flat screen with a 65" 4K OLED and GrassMonkey. Not to mention the poor FOV in VR. The 3D feeling of being "in the cockpit" isn't worth all the negatives for me versus the comfort and clarity of 2D.  

Having to look down in the cockpit so much, the Crystal was just a neck killer. And I already have a worn out neck after a career as a Army helicopter pilot. 

 

 

Ok so probably stupid question on my part, if you determined VR is not for you why get the Bigscreen Beyond?

[lax22]

40 minutes ago, mbucchia said:

AFAICT it works if you are using SteamVR OpenXR. 

It can work with PimaxXR but for now you need to use "Compulsive Smoothing" aka lock the framerate. There are otherwise issues with dynamic framerate scaling.

So it's usable IMO. If I remember correctly, this is also how Varjo motion smoothing works (like you can only do motion smoothing with v-sync enabled to half or lower).

Thanks for the information!

I do have a Crystal on order and should have it within 2-3 weeks so I guess I'm gonna find out.

With my current Reverb G2, DCS works really well with 45fps and OpenXR motion smoothing, so hopefully I can find a similar solution for the Crystal.

[winghunter]

 

[Callsign.Vega]

3 hours ago, dburne said:

 

Ok so probably stupid question on my part, if you determined VR is not for you why get the Bigscreen Beyond?

I still play a few room-scale VR games. And plus it literally being 1/10th the weight of the Crystal, should be much easier on my neck for that. 

Edited July 7, 2023 by Callsign.Vega

[winghunter]

You wont need MR with a 4090

 

[winghunter]

 

[BazzaLB]

On 7/8/2023 at 2:50 AM, winghunter said:

 

Flies over ocean.. gets 90fps.. news at 9. Honestly, I dont know how anyone watches this guy and takes his stuff seriously

[Gorn557]

12 minutes ago, BazzaLB said:

Flies over ocean.. gets 90fps.. news at 9. Honestly, I dont know how anyone watches this guy and takes his stuff seriously

I unsubscribed from him for exactly this reason, endless videos breathlessly proclaiming "PIMAX IS TEH FUTURE" until you find out he's using special beta software given to him by the company and he never shows his settings or does any kind of meaningful, systematic benchmarking. 

[mbucchia]

25 minutes ago, Gorn557 said:

he's using special beta software given to him by the company

He is using special beta software given to him by me.

Quad views DFR is the bomb, ask almost any DCS user with an Aero or a Quest Pro. He is testing the Crystal version of that same DFR software which has a proven track record of doing a pretty good job.

Agreed on the lack of precise benchmark though (side-by-side comparisons like Lukas has done for Quest Pro would have looked great). That said I can tell you first hand, the gains and performance are great with the eye tracking and foveated rendering on Crystal.

[BazzaLB]

8 minutes ago, mbucchia said:

He is using special beta software given to him by me.

Quad views DFR is the bomb, ask almost any DCS user with an Aero or a Quest Pro. He is testing the Crystal version of that same DFR software which has a proven track record of doing a pretty good job.

Agreed on the lack of precise benchmark though (side-by-side comparisons like Lukas has done for Quest Pro would have looked great). That said I can tell you first hand, the gains and performance are great with the eye tracking and foveated rendering on Crystal.

I don't doubt that, but his scenarios are typically the least performance impact scenarios you can imagine. Hey, why not fly over marianas or Beirut in Syria. I guess because he doesnt own them? Just trying to put his 90fps test into some context. Not calling the work effort you have done and its performance gains into question. Apologies if thats how it came across. Just wish someone else was available to demonstrate them in a way they deserve. 

Edited July 10, 2023 by BazzaLB

[mbucchia]

17 minutes ago, BazzaLB said:

I don't doubt that, but his scenarios are typically the least performance impact scenarios you can imagine. Hey, why not fly over marianas or Beirut in Syria. I guess because he doesnt own them? Just trying to put his 90fps test into some context. Not calling the work effort you have done and its performance gains into question. Apologies if thats how it came across. Just wish someone else was available to demonstrate them in a way they deserve. 

 

Lol no that didn't offend me or nothing, just wanted to point out the nuance about the beta software in question.

I think his point there is that he is running at something like 4k x 4k per eye and hitting 90 FPS, but surely this doesn't look like the most scenery you've ever seen lol.

I'm sure there will be more benchmarks and demos once both Pimax and my software roll out.

[Willie Nelson]

Nobody to date has shown DCS with any form of motion smoothing/smart smoothing which is what I am looking to see before pulling the trigger on what could be potentially a great headset. 

It will not be great however if you need a 4090 realistically to get it to a sufficiently smooth performance because that, essentially doubles the price of the headset, at least in Australia.

Maybe it will be worth getting both but right now, I have a 3080ti and I do belive there is at least a chance that between Pimax and mbuccia and his DFR, we might see a 3080ti putting out a decent perfomance without a 4090 being necessary. Matt has worked miracles with my G2 and OpenXR as is. I'm happy to wait in the mean time.

 

 

[mbucchia]

21 minutes ago, Willie Nelson said:

Nobody to date has shown DCS with any form of motion smoothing/smart smoothing which is what I am looking to see before pulling the trigger on what could be potentially a great headset. 

It will not be great however if you need a 4090 realistically to get it to a sufficiently smooth performance because that, essentially doubles the price of the headset, at least in Australia.

Maybe it will be worth getting both but right now, I have a 3080ti and I do belive there is at least a chance that between Pimax and mbuccia and his DFR, we might see a 3080ti putting out a decent perfomance without a 4090 being necessary. Matt has worked miracles with my G2 and OpenXR as is. I'm happy to wait in the mean time.

 

 

Smart smoothing works as far as I can tell, but "how well it works" from my experience is very subjective and every individual has their own opinion... I don't think you can know for sure if it is acceptable to your standard unless you try it

[Willie Nelson]

1 hour ago, mbucchia said:

Smart smoothing works as far as I can tell, but "how well it works" from my experience is very subjective and every individual has their own opinion... I don't think you can know for sure if it is acceptable to your standard unless you try it

Maybe smart smoothing is different, I defer to your knowledge but I know that your OpenXR Toolkit interface has some artefacts with motion reprojection on my G2 but it works very very well otherwise even at 1/3 rate and I’m not sure that’s simply a subjective view.

There’s not many of us getting around without 4090’s that are not using repro. It’s been a great success. I look forward to the day when it’s not required but I suspect that day is a long way off. 

Fast jet simming needs smooth performance/ high frame rate and when I’ve tried it off it just doesn’t pass muster. 

[BazzaLB]

58 minutes ago, Willie Nelson said:

Maybe smart smoothing is different, I defer to your knowledge but I know that your OpenXR Toolkit interface has some artefacts with motion reprojection on my G2 but it works very very well otherwise even at 1/3 rate and I’m not sure that’s simply a subjective view.

There’s not many of us getting around without 4090’s that are not using repro. It’s been a great success. I look forward to the day when it’s not required but I suspect that day is a long way off. 

Fast jet simming needs smooth performance/ high frame rate and when I’ve tried it off it just doesn’t pass muster. 

I have a 4090 and I still use Motion Smoothing in DCS (SteamVR settings) at 45fps. I cant stand the slightest frame rate variation in VR. If the frame rate goes from 90fps to 80 and between, it looks very stuttery to me even though its still a reasonably high frame rate.

I'd rather fly with higher settings (MSAAx4 etc) with Motion smoothing at a fixed rate than lower settings that sometimes dip (you know, over places that aren't open ocean LOL).

[winghunter]

 

[muzica9]

It has been 3 days since I received my Pimax crystal.

The good: excellent image quality, great colors, and a very light optical cable. That is all.

The bad: 

- facial foams (both of them) do not fill your face; there is a big gap on both sides; moving your head around breaks your sweetspot.

-lens have visible sweetspot and is very weird, moving your head you can clearly see the difference in plane sims

- lens distortion on sides but very visible on the bottom of the lens in menus and plane sims

- ghosting on the edges when moving your head left or right

- 30-40% less fps/performance than HP G2 in plane sims with high end pc with RTX 4090. even with lowered resolution, even if i set similar resolution as HP G2 in Open XR Toolkit

-dmas is not bad, but i still think HP G2 speakers are better

-tracking in dim light is better for the HP G2

- Controllers are a joke

-power  hub in the package is junk

- overall build quality doesn't justify the 1900 euro product

-you can see led light from the power button in the helmet

-Pimax Client/ Pi server eat 10-13% cpu usage and 5-10% gpu usage even on standby, even with helmet powered off.

If they don't release eye tracking and DFR in 10 days to recover some of the performance, i will return it. I hate to be an early adopter, especially when i read now that they plan to make changes to the design to fix the problems with comfort.

Edited July 21, 2023 by muzica9

[lax22]

4 hours ago, muzica9 said:

It has been 3 days since I received my Pimax crystal.

The good: excellent image quality, great colors, and a very light optical cable. That is all.

The bad: 

- facial foams (both of them) do not fill your face; there is a big gap on both sides; moving your head around breaks your sweetspot.

-lens have visible sweetspot and is very weird, moving your head you can clearly see the difference in plane sims

- lens distortion on sides but very visible on the bottom of the lens in menus and plane sims

- ghosting on the edges when moving your head left or right

- 30-40% less fps/performance than HP G2 in plane sims with high end pc with RTX 4090. even with lowered resolution, even if i set similar resolution as HP G2 in Open XR Toolkit

-dmas is not bad, but i still think HP G2 speakers are better

-tracking in dim light is better for the HP G2

- Controllers are a joke

-power  hub in the package is junk

- overall build quality doesn't justify the 1900 euro product

-you can see led light from the power button in the helmet

-Pimax Client/ Pi server eat 10-13% cpu usage and 5-10% gpu usage even on standby, even with helmet powered off.

If they don't release eye tracking and DFR in 10 days to recover some of the performance, i will return it. I hate to be an early adopter, especially when i read now that they plan to make changes to the design to fix the problems with comfort.

 

I have my Crystal for two days now and regarding the comfort of the headset I have the same experience as you.

Both face masks that come with the headset are way too thin for me. I get the best results if I put them both on top of each other.

My previous G2 I could wear for hours without any issues, in the Pimax the pressure it puts on your forehead makes it really uncomfortable after an hour or so.

 

I put in an order for the Apache head strap for the Pimax and hope that this will improve things…

[Gorn557]

5 hours ago, muzica9 said:

It has been 3 days since I received my Pimax crystal.

The good: excellent image quality, great colors, and a very light optical cable. That is all.

The bad: 

- facial foams (both of them) do not fill your face; there is a big gap on both sides; moving your head around breaks your sweetspot.

-lens have visible sweetspot and is very weird, moving your head you can clearly see the difference in plane sims

- lens distortion on sides but very visible on the bottom of the lens in menus and plane sims

- ghosting on the edges when moving your head left or right

- 30-40% less fps/performance than HP G2 in plane sims with high end pc with RTX 4090. even with lowered resolution, even if i set similar resolution as HP G2 in Open XR Toolkit

-dmas is not bad, but i still think HP G2 speakers are better

-tracking in dim light is better for the HP G2

- Controllers are a joke

-power  hub in the package is junk

- overall build quality doesn't justify the 1900 euro product

-you can see led light from the power button in the helmet

-Pimax Client/ Pi server eat 10-13% cpu usage and 5-10% gpu usage even on standby, even with helmet powered off.

If they don't release eye tracking and DFR in 10 days to recover some of the performance, i will return it. I hate to be an early adopter, especially when i read now that they plan to make changes to the design to fix the problems with comfort.

 

It's amazing how almost 3 years later no one has released anything that is definitively superior to the G2, which wasn't some sort of flagship premium product, and which HP has totally abandoned. 

[muzica9]

1 hour ago, lax22 said:

I have my Crystal for two days now and regarding the comfort of the headset I have the same experience as you.

Both face masks that come with the headset are way too thin for me. I get the best results if I put them both on top of each other.

My previous G2 I could wear for hours without any issues, in the Pimax the pressure it puts on your forehead makes it really uncomfortable after an hour or so.

 

I put in an order for the Apache head strap for the Pimax and hope that this will improve things…

how do you make it stay toghether?

any link for the  Apache head strap ?

  

51 minutes ago, Gorn557 said:

It's amazing how almost 3 years later no one has released anything that is definitively superior to the G2, which wasn't some sort of flagship premium product, and which HP has totally abandoned. 

yeah. basicaly we need something similar to G2 with pancake lens. Built in tracking, good audio solution, no battery, no standalone, just PCVR. That is why Aero is not an option for me.

Edited July 21, 2023 by muzica9

[lax22]

2 minutes ago, muzica9 said:

how do you make it stay toghether?

any link for the  Apache head strap ?

Here is the link:

https://www.studioformcreative.com/product-page/pimax-crystal-apache-comfort-strap
 

Regarding the face masks: I just put a couple of thin strings around them so they stay together. (I cut the strings from one of the 100 Covid masks I still had laying around

50 minutes ago, Gorn557 said:

It's amazing how almost 3 years later no one has released anything that is definitively superior to the G2, which wasn't some sort of flagship premium product, and which HP has totally abandoned. 

Well the picture in the Crystal is amazing and way superior to the G2 (almost looked like a different sim to me), but the greatest picture doesn’t do you any good if you have to think more about how uncomfortable the headset is rather than what an awesome picture you’re looking at.

[Gorn557]

15 minutes ago, lax22 said:

Here is the link:

https://www.studioformcreative.com/product-page/pimax-crystal-apache-comfort-strap
 

Regarding the face masks: I just put a couple of thin strings around them so they stay together. (I cut the strings from one of the 100 Covid masks I still had laying around

Well the picture in the Crystal is amazing and way superior to the G2 (almost looked like a different sim to me), but the greatest picture doesn’t do you any good if you have to think more about how uncomfortable the headset is rather than what an awesome picture you’re looking at.

Or if you're chugging along with a 4090 at 20 fps with comparable settings to what gets you a solid 90 fps in the G2 at the same resolution. 

[dburne]

2 hours ago, Gorn557 said:

It's amazing how almost 3 years later no one has released anything that is definitively superior to the G2, which wasn't some sort of flagship premium product, and which HP has totally abandoned. 

 

That is very subjective. IMHO my Aero is far superior to my Reverb G2.

[mbucchia]

40 minutes ago, dburne said:

 

That is very subjective. IMHO my Aero is far superior to my Reverb G2.

I think they meant "for the price"

G2 is outdated and quality/features from Aero/Crystal certainly beat it, but they are also 4-5x the price tag

[lax22]

2 hours ago, Gorn557 said:

Or if you're chugging along with a 4090 at 20 fps with comparable settings to what gets you a solid 90 fps in the G2 at the same resolution. 

I haven't had any performance issues with the Crystal so far. In fact performance is way better than I expected it to be.

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by lax22