Pimax Crystal Owners - ARE YOU HAPPY?

[stottyboy]

Hi all,

I had my first chance to get hands on with a Pimax Crystal today. Safe to say, the experience sucked. A friend has it up and running on a 3080. I have a brand new 4070 and I couldn't even get it to connect to the PC. The experience on the 3080 in DCS was weak. Although with a still head, the clarity is impressive, with movement, there is a lot of motion blur and tearing. The left lens also seemed to have a particular clarity issue. Poor manufacturing perhaps? The Auto IPD was also inaccurate. All of this even with all the tech geared towards improving performance on a 3080 with the Crystal.

All in all, it was nothing like the jaw dropping experiences touted on YouTube. It felt really, like a bit of a con. 

I would REALLY like to hear the REAL opinions of others who have purchased this headset.

Have you got it up and running? How does it perform for you? Does the reality match expectation?

[Jimmy8x]

did he at least have it running with dynamic foveated rendering?

[speed-of-heat]

There is a known issue with 3080/3090 gpu and the Crystal, apparently it needs a inline booster for the display port, you c an ask pimax for more information 

[hsth]

I'm running the Crystal on a 3090 with no problems. As far as I know Pimax has mentioned the 3090Ti before as problematic but if that is still true today I don't know. Better ask customer service. Don't expect same day answer but certainly within two days.

On the Pimax website you'll find a complete setup page for the Crystal: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oqa1Wum-TQemxNFSq9ToCIjBM6z5V9rB/edit?_ga=2.260341451.771168226.1694525561-1286048487.1694525561#slide=id.p1 .

[Tusk.V]

I'm loving my Crystal with my 4090. I'm at 90fps on Hornet Free Flight over Syria. It might drop to 86-88 over the bigger city but stays locked everywhere else.

I can't wait for 72hz. That headroom will be very nice and allow me to push the graphics even more.

[dburne]

50 minutes ago, Tusk.V said:

I'm loving my Crystal with my 4090. I'm at 90fps on Hornet Free Flight over Syria. It might drop to 86-88 over the bigger city but stays locked everywhere else.

I can't wait for 72hz. That headroom will be very nice and allow me to push the graphics even more.

DFR?

[Tusk.V]

1 hour ago, dburne said:

DFR?

Yes, DFR. 

[Willie Nelson]

Do we have reason to believe that 72HZ will in fact be smooth? 

[j9murphy]

My crystal sim arrives on Thursday, I should be able to put it through its paces this weekend and report back my experience (coming from G2). I was really on the fence with this purchase, will see if I keep it or not...

Sent from my SM-S918U using Tapatalk

[Hotdognz]

No issues with mine been using it since the first week of release even before DFR, its got the best clarity in DCS of all my VR headsets and the only one I use now, but im on a 4090 with a well oiled PC purley set up as a games machine.

 

[actually_fred]

Coming from a Quest Pro, yes:

For me, Link/Airlink have been great since I first got access to them years ago - until this year. Several mandatory firmware/driver updates this year have made them unusable for me this year (either not working at all, poor framerate, stutters, or needing to downgrade bitrate to the point I can't read A10C MFCDs) and I've had to wait 1-2 months for Meta to push another update fixing things again. Setting up the Crystal was for the first time was weird (bad translations didn't help), the controllers shipped stuck together, the firmware update is jank especially for the controllers ("shake the controllers periodically during the update to prevent them going to sleep"... really?) - but once it works, it just keeps working.

For me, eye tracking and foveated rendering on the Crystal is a *huge* step up from the Quest Pro; this varies from setup to setup and person to person as everyone's perception is different, but dynamic foveated rendering on the quest pro had latency that was extremely noticeable and annoying to me - by comparison, on the crystal, it's so good I had to dig into the logs and enable debugging mode to check it was actually working and I didn't just magically have great quality and framerates by some other means.

The Crystal has slightly better clarity in the center (only really noticeable for MFCD and cockpit text), the clarity goes much further out than the Quest 2, but the lenses aren't as good as the Quest Pro - I get some very noticeable chromatic abberation at the edges.

Hand tracking: I currently have a leap motion 2.0 glued to the Crystal, and there's issues with the current driver + OpenXR support. It's possible to workaround them, and a new fixed version should be out soon. I could have also done this with the quest pro + virtual desktop, but for the crystal this is temporary, assuming they ever restock the Pimax hand tracking module in the USA. It shows up as in stock in their store, but actually isn't: if you enter a USA shipping address on their site, it will say 'no shipping options available', and if you ask them or order from them via another site (e.g. Ali Express), they'll tell you it's out of stock in the USA. As the module is an ultraleap, it will likely have the same driver problems as the glued-on leap motion.

I would prefer a Quest Pro with January 2023's firmware and Link, but I'd prefer a Crystal over the whole experience for this year.

That said, this is a huge 'your mileage may vary' - it seems for both headsets, a reasonable amount of people have a great experience, and a reasonable amount of people have a terrible experience.

Edited October 5, 2023 by actually_fred

[Dentedend10]

17 hours ago, actually_fred said:

Coming from a Quest Pro, yes:

For me, Link/Airlink have been great since I first got access to them years ago - until this year. Several mandatory firmware/driver updates this year have made them unusable for me this year (either not working at all, poor framerate, stutters, or needing to downgrade bitrate to the point I can't read A10C MFCDs) and I've had to wait 1-2 months for Meta to push another update fixing things again. Setting up the Crystal was for the first time was weird (bad translations didn't help), the controllers shipped stuck together, the firmware update is jank especially for the controllers ("shake the controllers periodically during the update to prevent them going to sleep"... really?) - but once it works, it just keeps working.

For me, eye tracking and foveated rendering on the Crystal is a *huge* step up from the Quest Pro; this varies from setup to setup and person to person as everyone's perception is different, but dynamic foveated rendering on the quest pro had latency that was extremely noticeable and annoying to me - by comparison, on the crystal, it's so good I had to dig into the logs and enable debugging mode to check it was actually working and I didn't just magically have great quality and framerates by some other means.

The Crystal has slightly better clarity in the center (only really noticeable for MFCD and cockpit text), the clarity goes much further out than the Quest 2, but the lenses aren't as good as the Quest Pro - I get some very noticeable chromatic abberation at the edges.

Hand tracking: I currently have a leap motion 2.0 glued to the Crystal, and there's issues with the current driver + OpenXR support. It's possible to workaround them, and a new fixed version should be out soon. I could have also done this with the quest pro + virtual desktop, but for the crystal this is temporary, assuming they ever restock the Pimax hand tracking module in the USA. It shows up as in stock in their store, but actually isn't: if you enter a USA shipping address on their site, it will say 'no shipping options available', and if you ask them or order from them via another site (e.g. Ali Express), they'll tell you it's out of stock in the USA. As the module is an ultraleap, it will likely have the same driver problems as the glued-on leap motion.

I would prefer a Quest Pro with January 2023's firmware and Link, but I'd prefer a Crystal over the whole experience for this year.

That said, this is a huge 'your mileage may vary' - it seems for both headsets, a reasonable amount of people have a great experience, and a reasonable amount of people have a terrible experience.

 

Thank you for your detailed comparison. 
I’m currently on a Quest Pro and potentially considering a Crystal for Black Friday.

however, based on your description it might not be what I’m looking for. I’m actually happy with DFR on Quest Pro. What I’m looking for is a WoW effect in clarity and colours. I would like to have less shimmering (due to higher resolution hopefully). Can you comment on these?

[nikoel]

18 hours ago, actually_fred said:

Coming from a Quest Pro, yes:

For me, Link/Airlink have been great since I first got access to them years ago - until this year. Several mandatory firmware/driver updates this year have made them unusable for me this year (either not working at all, poor framerate, stutters, or needing to downgrade bitrate to the point I can't read A10C MFCDs) and I've had to wait 1-2 months for Meta to push another update fixing things again. Setting up the Crystal was for the first time was weird (bad translations didn't help), the controllers shipped stuck together, the firmware update is jank especially for the controllers ("shake the controllers periodically during the update to prevent them going to sleep"... really?) - but once it works, it just keeps working.

For me, eye tracking and foveated rendering on the Crystal is a *huge* step up from the Quest Pro; this varies from setup to setup and person to person as everyone's perception is different, but dynamic foveated rendering on the quest pro had latency that was extremely noticeable and annoying to me - by comparison, on the crystal, it's so good I had to dig into the logs and enable debugging mode to check it was actually working and I didn't just magically have great quality and framerates by some other means.

The Crystal has slightly better clarity in the center (only really noticeable for MFCD and cockpit text), the clarity goes much further out than the Quest 2, but the lenses aren't as good as the Quest Pro - I get some very noticeable chromatic abberation at the edges.

Hand tracking: I currently have a leap motion 2.0 glued to the Crystal, and there's issues with the current driver + OpenXR support. It's possible to workaround them, and a new fixed version should be out soon. I could have also done this with the quest pro + virtual desktop, but for the crystal this is temporary, assuming they ever restock the Pimax hand tracking module in the USA. It shows up as in stock in their store, but actually isn't: if you enter a USA shipping address on their site, it will say 'no shipping options available', and if you ask them or order from them via another site (e.g. Ali Express), they'll tell you it's out of stock in the USA. As the module is an ultraleap, it will likely have the same driver problems as the glued-on leap motion.

I would prefer a Quest Pro with January 2023's firmware and Link, but I'd prefer a Crystal over the whole experience for this year.

That said, this is a huge 'your mileage may vary' - it seems for both headsets, a reasonable amount of people have a great experience, and a reasonable amount of people have a terrible experience.

 

100% agreed. I have been lucky that this has not happened to me, but the forced software update thing is very apple-like

But unlike apple, Meta seems to be okay Beta testing their release candidates on public releases. Trouble is that it not possible to go back to a version that worked. Nvidia often screws driver updates but at least they allow you to screen back to an earlier build

Pimax just releases unfinished products with horrible build quality and QC and blames the consumer for using it wrong

You get screwed either way; chose your dildo

Edited October 6, 2023 by nikoel

[SneakyBastd]

Loving my crystal with 4090 so far. Quad views DFR is fantastic. Running high graphics settings at high framerate. The image is beautiful, deep blacks and good colours with a clean picture. 
It still has some problems though, namely audio delay and mic is basically not working. Both are being worked on by pimax I believe.

Doesn't really bother me much, because a small audio delay in DCS isn't noticeable. It is when watching a movie though.

And I use a modmic 5.0 wireless anyway.

[Nedum]

On 10/5/2023 at 5:06 AM, Willie Nelson said:

Do we have reason to believe that 72HZ will in fact be smooth? 

I don't see why not?

The 72 Hz mode is working well with the other Headsets.

Saw a Beta guy with Project Cars 2 and it was looking good. No stutter, no ghosting.

But as always, it will be less smooth as with higher refresh rates., but better as with MR enabled, if you can nail the 72 Hz for every situation. And for sure not nearly as bad as with a bouncing refresh rate from 90 to 70 (or less) and back again.

 

 

Edited October 6, 2023 by Nedum

[Peedee]

On 10/3/2023 at 11:15 PM, stottyboy said:

Hi all,

I had my first chance to get hands on with a Pimax Crystal today. Safe to say, the experience sucked. A friend has it up and running on a 3080. I have a brand new 4070 and I couldn't even get it to connect to the PC. The experience on the 3080 in DCS was weak. Although with a still head, the clarity is impressive, with movement, there is a lot of motion blur and tearing. The left lens also seemed to have a particular clarity issue. Poor manufacturing perhaps? The Auto IPD was also inaccurate. All of this even with all the tech geared towards improving performance on a 3080 with the Crystal.

All in all, it was nothing like the jaw dropping experiences touted on YouTube. It felt really, like a bit of a con. 

I would REALLY like to hear the REAL opinions of others who have purchased this headset.

Have you got it up and running? How does it perform for you? Does the reality match expectation?

I think a 3080 is too weak for DCS and Crystal Pimax. Just my thought....  Bluring and tearing seem to be a witness of this, that it is too weak.  Also, there seem to be an issue with that headset, if the lefts lens has clarity issue. It is of course not supposed to be like that. Auto IPD on my headsett seems accurate.  

I have had the Crystal for some weeks now, and it totally blows me a away - still... everytime I put the headset on I´m just amazed of how good it is. I have had so many headsets, but this is the first that I truly can say is jaw dropping. I have had since 2017, the HTC Vive, the HTC Vive Pro, Reverb G1, Quest 2, Reverb G2, Pimax 8KX, Pico 4...  But Pimax Crystal is just unreal when it comes to picture quality - the colors, contrast, black level (thanks to local dimming), the clarity of course, the edge to edge clarity - and also the sound quality is top notch with the KDMAS phones that was included in the beginning (now you have to pay extra for them). But it is bulky and heavy - and I think the future of VR is not found in heavy headsets like these. But for now, this is as good as it gets - I think - IF overall picture and sound quality is the first priority. 

I have a RTX 4090, I9 13900K cpu.. So I guess that helps a lot. I have no blurryness when turning my head in DCS, no tearing. 

It was pretty easy to set up. Install Pimax Play, PimaxXR, and Quadview for use with DCS. I also use OpenXR Toolkit to set the exact resolution for the headset. Anyway - just Plug and play - worked the first time I tried. No problems so far. It exceeds my expectations in that way I had read so many bad things about it. People having problems. And of course some people have problems, they might have gotten a faulty headset. But I also think some people just don´t read instructions carefully enough or have too high expectations what their PC can do with such a high resolution headset. 

Edited October 6, 2023 by Peedee

[actually_fred]

10 hours ago, Dentedend10 said:

however, based on your description it might not be what I’m looking for. I’m actually happy with DFR on Quest Pro. What I’m looking for is a WoW effect in clarity and colours. I would like to have less shimmering (due to higher resolution hopefully). Can you comment on these?

Clarity yes, colors no. I never noticed shimmering on either

 

10 hours ago, nikoel said:

But unlike apple, Meta seems to be okay Beta testing their release candidates on public releases. Trouble is that it not possible to go back to a version that worked. Nvidia often screws driver updates but at least they allow you to screen back to an earlier build

 

100%; I'd probably have stuck with the quest pro if I could revert to earlier versions of both the firmware and PC software.

 

On 10/5/2023 at 5:40 AM, actually_fred said:

Hand tracking: I currently have a leap motion 2.0 glued to the Crystal, and there's issues with the current driver + OpenXR support. It's possible to workaround them, and a new fixed version should be out soon.

Quoting myself here - Ultraleap released a new driver yesterday around 5 minutes after I posted that fixes a lot of the previous problems There's still some bugs (which fortunately don't affect PimaxXR users) and things I can improve in HTCC for Ultraleap, which I'd expect to improve both actual leap motion devices and the pimax hand tracking module.

[j9murphy]

Well my DMAS headphones came, but no headset...  They don't put tracking numbers on the website, all it says is order shipped, unfortunately it looks like that didnt include the headset:(  I got a shipping notice in email, but only tracking number.  I guess that hasnt shipped yet, no idea when that might happen.

[Gunfreak]

I love my crystal.

Tho it does make me wish for a 4090, but I still got a year before I've payed off my 3090.

And I'm unsure if the cabinet can take a 4090 and I'm unsure if my 850w PSU is enough.

Pimax is still awesome and I get better performance than with my G2.

The Pimax also really lift up the quality im other sims that don't necessarily can match DCS I'm graphics quality, but the stronger colour and quality really shows and in all 3 flight sims I regularly fly WW2 plane ID is quite a bit better vs G2.

And in HL Alyx it's stunning, I've now played the game with Rift S, Q2, G2 and now the Crystal and this was the first time I just walked around in the beginning, jaws on the floor, lots of very strongly language and adjectives.  We're talking partly photo realism here.

[SneakyBastd]

Gunfreak, 850w is plenty for a 4090. I have 850w myself. Even if it set to 110% power limit it handles it fine. At about 70% power limit you draw 330-340w or so, which is about the same as my 3080 did.

[sze5003]

Thank you for your detailed comparison. 
I’m currently on a Quest Pro and potentially considering a Crystal for Black Friday.
however, based on your description it might not be what I’m looking for. I’m actually happy with DFR on Quest Pro. What I’m looking for is a WoW effect in clarity and colours. I would like to have less shimmering (due to higher resolution hopefully). Can you comment on these?

Funny, I put my G2 up for sale and looking to get a Quest Pro for the time being. Also put my name down for a VR1 but only if it's really good because I don't really have the room setup for base stations.

The Crystal is big and heavy but the only thing keeping me away from it is having to deal with their support and the fact that while many may seem to have no issues, I've read about the chromatic aberration on the lenses and other oddities that are not consistent form device to device so it's very much luck of the draw with what you get. With my luck from the the past stuff usually goes wrong after the return period is done.

I wonder if the clarity issue mentioned above is because the headset wasn't sitting properly on the face..because from what I've seen everyone else says theres clarity everywhere and it's a matter of shifting it to get the sweet spot correct?

[kksnowbear]

12 hours ago, SneakyBastd said:

Gunfreak, 850w is plenty for a 4090.

That's actually not entirely accurate.  In fact, it depends on the model of the GPU, the PSU, and the connection between them (which you don't specify).  The GPU could possibly be power limited in it's  VBIOS, or by the cable connection.  Some 4090s are limited to 450W in their VBIOS, and some cables limit the GPU to 450W... some power supplies, even 1000W units, have shipped with 450W cables.  It just depends.  Your system might be such that 850W is adequate, but that absolutely does not mean all systems can run any 4090 GPU with any 850W PSU.

Factually, a 4090 has been proven to draw 700w by itself, and that's measured at the GPU by accurate equipment, not from software or wall plug monitors which are unable to accurately sample rapid excursions.

Also, all of the big three GPU mfrs in the US (Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte) specifically recommend 1000w PSUs for their top of the line 4090 models.

TBH it makes no sense if you can afford a card like a 4090 to save $50 by cheaping out on the PSU.

(For the record, yes I do own a 4090.)

Edited October 7, 2023 by kksnowbear

[CMDR Shepard]

4090 is way more power efficient than 3090. 4090 can consume a lot but not in DCS. It hardly utilize 340W at full load in VR. In Desktop mode it even worse. I hope Vulkan will optimize the rendering pipeline so we get more efficient usage.

[kksnowbear]

You don't specify where 340w is being measured, or by what means...and "full load in VR" sounds like you mean in-game (i.e., while running DCS) which is not the same thing as "full load" for an entire system, nor necessarily even full load for only the GPU.

Regardless, it's not appropriate to use a figure like average power, or  one game, to properly size a PSU. 

Among other things, regardless of efficiency, the TDP of a 4090 is fully 100w higher than a 3090, and that's per Nvidia specs.

I've measured 658W total system load, albeit with a comparatively unsophisticated measuring device. Again, these devices cannot accurately sample the type of excursions that are documented to occur with a 4090. But if my "basic" device shows 658W, it is entirely likely the max transients are higher. 

And if we're talking about efficiency, you need a PSU with roughly twice the capacity of the typical max load to run at its highest efficiency.  In my case, that works out to over 1200w. 

EDIT: Sorry, don't mean to hijack the thread and this PSU discussion is somewhat off the thread topic.  That said, the question of power supply was raised by someone else, and it does seem prudent to correct inaccurate information.

Edited October 7, 2023 by kksnowbear

[Gunfreak]

15 hours ago, kksnowbear said:

That's actually not entirely accurate.  In fact, it depends on the model of the GPU, the PSU, and the connection between them (which you don't specify).  The GPU could possibly be power limited in it's  VBIOS, or by the cable connection.  Some 4090s are limited to 450W in their VBIOS, and some cables limit the GPU to 450W... some power supplies, even 1000W units, have shipped with 450W cables.  It just depends.  Your system might be such that 850W is adequate, but that absolutely does not mean all systems can run any 4090 GPU with any 850W PSU.

Factually, a 4090 has been proven to draw 700w by itself, and that's measured at the GPU by accurate equipment, not from software or wall plug monitors which are unable to accurately sample rapid excursions.

Also, all of the big three GPU mfrs in the US (Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte) specifically recommend 1000w PSUs for their top of the line 4090 models.

TBH it makes no sense if you can afford a card like a 4090 to save $50 by cheaping out on the PSU.

(For the record, yes I do own a 4090.)

 

But it's so boring changing the PSU!

That's why it took me 2 years to change motherboard to get better cpu, all those little cables that have to be plugged in or out.