57ppd Crystal Super Feedback

[ldwater]

Hey,

Feeding back on the 57ppd Crystal super incase its helpful for anyone else considering the purchase.

TLDR: Eye strain, sweet spot is tiny and for me a backwards step from the OG crystal.

 

First impressions is that the headset is nice, slightly smaller than the OG crystal but also the cable is a bit shorter meaning my setup had to change a bit to make it all fit.

The install was straight forward and since I already had Pimax Play installed the whole process was pretty seemless, firmware upgrade and off I went.

Unfortunately that is pretty much where the good stuff ends.

Immediately as the headset is on my eyes hurt.  Spent a good few hours trying to fiddle with the IPD, left and right configuration but could never find a comfortable configuration.

The image quality was nice but I saw a shimmer, like a flowing water effect over the viewing area.  Tried both the OG quadviews & the Pimax Quadviews and the shimmer was on both, but less on the Pimax QV.

Turns out the default sharpness was set to 6 (and I wasn't aware of that default) and removing it (set it to zero) removed this shimmer entirely.

The brightness was also a bit too much for me.  Even when I reduced the brightness to 50% & local dimming night ops didn't seem pitch black, and even worse I saw a weird purple hase while looking around.

My biggest issue was the sweetspot was tiny.  So looking straight ahead was great, but as soon as you look away from the sweet spot the image is blurred or distorted) 

In normal flight I would keep my head looking straight and 'peek' at my gauges, MDFs etc with my eyes, and even with quadviews (both types) looking away from the sweetspot was so distorted or poor quality that it was a deal killer for me.

I also preordered the super (14/08/25) and didn't get any pre-order bonus (Dmas headphones?) as I was expecting.  Not a huge deal for me personally because I wasn't going to use them anyway.

 

I've raised my return request (20th October 10:00) but not heard anything back and the ticket is 'waiting customer support'.

I'll caveat this by saying that the 50ppd engine could be completely fine or that MY 57ppd engine was defective in someway (the QA document showing all passes is included), but as I had no means of verifying what I should expect or create a comparison.  I read that for the 57ppd the IPD is even more important but without anyway of knowing what I need, and leaving the auto IPD to do its thing still resulted in instant eye strain.

There is a very good chance I was wrong to select the 57ppd engine and I'd be happy to try the 50ppd engine, but at the moment I'd got an expensive door stop back its original box sitting behind me

FYI @Calvin.Pimax

[Peedee]

5 hours ago, ldwater said:

Hey,

Feeding back on the 57ppd Crystal super incase its helpful for anyone else considering the purchase.

TLDR: Eye strain, sweet spot is tiny and for me a backwards step from the OG crystal.

 

First impressions is that the headset is nice, slightly smaller than the OG crystal but also the cable is a bit shorter meaning my setup had to change a bit to make it all fit.

The install was straight forward and since I already had Pimax Play installed the whole process was pretty seemless, firmware upgrade and off I went.

Unfortunately that is pretty much where the good stuff ends.

Immediately as the headset is on my eyes hurt.  Spent a good few hours trying to fiddle with the IPD, left and right configuration but could never find a comfortable configuration.

The image quality was nice but I saw a shimmer, like a flowing water effect over the viewing area.  Tried both the OG quadviews & the Pimax Quadviews and the shimmer was on both, but less on the Pimax QV.

Turns out the default sharpness was set to 6 (and I wasn't aware of that default) and removing it (set it to zero) removed this shimmer entirely.

The brightness was also a bit too much for me.  Even when I reduced the brightness to 50% & local dimming night ops didn't seem pitch black, and even worse I saw a weird purple hase while looking around.

My biggest issue was the sweetspot was tiny.  So looking straight ahead was great, but as soon as you look away from the sweet spot the image is blurred or distorted) 

In normal flight I would keep my head looking straight and 'peek' at my gauges, MDFs etc with my eyes, and even with quadviews (both types) looking away from the sweetspot was so distorted or poor quality that it was a deal killer for me.

I also preordered the super (14/08/25) and didn't get any pre-order bonus (Dmas headphones?) as I was expecting.  Not a huge deal for me personally because I wasn't going to use them anyway.

 

I've raised my return request (20th October 10:00) but not heard anything back and the ticket is 'waiting customer support'.

I'll caveat this by saying that the 50ppd engine could be completely fine or that MY 57ppd engine was defective in someway (the QA document showing all passes is included), but as I had no means of verifying what I should expect or create a comparison.  I read that for the 57ppd the IPD is even more important but without anyway of knowing what I need, and leaving the auto IPD to do its thing still resulted in instant eye strain.

There is a very good chance I was wrong to select the 57ppd engine and I'd be happy to try the 50ppd engine, but at the moment I'd got an expensive door stop back its original box sitting behind me

FYI @Calvin.Pimax

The tests I have seen mentioned that the sweetspot and edge to edge clarity was smaller on the 57ppd Crystal Super than on the 50ppd Crystal Super. I have the 50ppd Crystal Super and also still have my Crystal OG. Both the field of view, sweetspot and edge to edge clarity is better on my Super than on my Crystal OG.

So - your observations seem to fit with what I have read and seen in reviews about the 57ppd. Personally, the 57ppd does not make much sense to me. Much smaller field of view, smaller sweet spot, the 57ppd is only in the center and so on... When you get to 50ppd, like on the first Crystal Super (that I have), I thin that any ppd value above that gives diminishing returns, and not worth sacrificing the nice field of view and edge to edge clarity of the Super 50ppd.

The OG is still a nice headset. (The only thing I hold against the OG Crystal is the battery). But my Super 50ppd is a real step up in all areas. 

As for the night missions - I haven't spend much time in that. But the Crystal Super (at least the 50ppd - but I think the 57ppd has the same panels) can show nice dark areas. So, it's a DCS problem I think. I have played other games, like Skyrim VR modded with a light mod that makes the nights and caves truly dark -unless there's a light source, and it's dark... and when there are torches and lights in the caves and such, those lights fit in real good I think. In DCS you have to lower the gamma, and in Pimax Play you have to find the place where you adjust the brightness for right and left eye separately, and turn that down to -1 or -2 - for both eyes of course.  The overall brightness slider I haven't really done so much with, if I remember correctly. 

Don't trust the auto IPD. On my Super I get the best results when setting the IPD about a 1 or 2 above what the headset thinks. But that would be different from person to person I think.

Hope you can return your headset without any problems. 

[Calvin.Pimax]

18 hours ago, ldwater said:

Hey,

Feeding back on the 57ppd Crystal super incase its helpful for anyone else considering the purchase.

TLDR: Eye strain, sweet spot is tiny and for me a backwards step from the OG crystal.

 

First impressions is that the headset is nice, slightly smaller than the OG crystal but also the cable is a bit shorter meaning my setup had to change a bit to make it all fit.

The install was straight forward and since I already had Pimax Play installed the whole process was pretty seemless, firmware upgrade and off I went.

Unfortunately that is pretty much where the good stuff ends.

Immediately as the headset is on my eyes hurt.  Spent a good few hours trying to fiddle with the IPD, left and right configuration but could never find a comfortable configuration.

The image quality was nice but I saw a shimmer, like a flowing water effect over the viewing area.  Tried both the OG quadviews & the Pimax Quadviews and the shimmer was on both, but less on the Pimax QV.

Turns out the default sharpness was set to 6 (and I wasn't aware of that default) and removing it (set it to zero) removed this shimmer entirely.

The brightness was also a bit too much for me.  Even when I reduced the brightness to 50% & local dimming night ops didn't seem pitch black, and even worse I saw a weird purple hase while looking around.

My biggest issue was the sweetspot was tiny.  So looking straight ahead was great, but as soon as you look away from the sweet spot the image is blurred or distorted) 

In normal flight I would keep my head looking straight and 'peek' at my gauges, MDFs etc with my eyes, and even with quadviews (both types) looking away from the sweetspot was so distorted or poor quality that it was a deal killer for me.

I also preordered the super (14/08/25) and didn't get any pre-order bonus (Dmas headphones?) as I was expecting.  Not a huge deal for me personally because I wasn't going to use them anyway.

 

I've raised my return request (20th October 10:00) but not heard anything back and the ticket is 'waiting customer support'.

I'll caveat this by saying that the 50ppd engine could be completely fine or that MY 57ppd engine was defective in someway (the QA document showing all passes is included), but as I had no means of verifying what I should expect or create a comparison.  I read that for the 57ppd the IPD is even more important but without anyway of knowing what I need, and leaving the auto IPD to do its thing still resulted in instant eye strain.

There is a very good chance I was wrong to select the 57ppd engine and I'd be happy to try the 50ppd engine, but at the moment I'd got an expensive door stop back its original box sitting behind me

FYI @Calvin.Pimax

Sorry to hear that the 57PPD didn’t meet your expectations. Could you please share the ticket number with me? I’ll review it with the support team and urge them to assist further with the return or optical engine replacement.

[MichaelJWP15]

I'm in a similar position. Just got my 57ppd Crystal Super as an upgrade to my OG Crystal which I've been very happy with. I changed to the 57ppd as I'd read it would be better for flightsimmers which is most of my VR play.

Sadly the sweet spot issue is also a dealbreaker for me, glancing out of the spot its not only out of focus but also shows chromatic aberration. This is of fundamental importance for scanning instruments. I'm going to do some more research, play with the IPD but otherwise I'll open a ticket to try and go back to a 50ppd optical engine.

Lastly, I was also very disappointed not to receive the DMAS headphones I was promised with my pre-order.

Edited Wednesday at 08:51 AM by MichaelJWP15

[ldwater]

2 hours ago, Calvin.Pimax said:

Sorry to hear that the 57PPD didn’t meet your expectations. Could you please share the ticket number with me? I’ll review it with the support team and urge them to assist further with the return or optical engine replacement.

Thanks for the assistance.  I've messaged you directly with the info.  Let me know if you need anything else.

[Katmandu]

I am actually in the other boat, I'm in the trial period with the Ultrawide and thinking of switching to the 57ppd. I want more clarity (distance is still blurry, eg 100, 200, 300m markers in racing games; distant hills and villages in DCS too), the 134deg FOV does not feel that wide after all, and 57ppd uses a different distortion profile to the 50ppd that results in 30% fewer pixels rendered and thus 30% more FPS: 

@7:31

 

My UW has good enough sweetspot after the nightmare sweetspot that was PSVR2, but it also has CA fringing just like the OP's 57ppd, and some mura (this I'm not sure if it's borderline ok or borderline fail on my UW). The colours are washed out even during day time as well.

Edited Wednesday at 10:13 PM by Katmandu

[Peedee]

14 hours ago, Katmandu said:

I am actually in the other boat, I'm in the trial period with the Ultrawide and thinking of switching to the 57ppd. I want more clarity (distance is still blurry, eg 100, 200, 300m markers in racing games; distant hills and villages in DCS too), the 134deg FOV does not feel that wide after all, and 57ppd uses a different distortion profile to the 50ppd that results in 30% fewer pixels rendered and thus 30% more FPS: 

@7:31

 

My UW has good enough sweetspot after the nightmare sweetspot that was PSVR2, but it also has CA fringing just like the OP's 57ppd, and some mura (this I'm not sure if it's borderline ok or borderline fail on my UW). The colours are washed out even during day time as well.

I think this is interesting… The Ultrawide Super is supposed to be 50PPD just like the normal Super. If you feel that the 50PPD version don´t give you enough clarity I don´t think the 57ppd will be much different for you. I have the normal Super - 50PPD. And it´s amazingly clear and sharp. Yes, also in the distance. In racing games too.

About washed out colors.. In DCS try lowering gamma to 1.6 ish or thereabouts. And in Pimax Play lower brightness for both Left and Right eye to -1 (or -2). That fixed it for me. 

[Katmandu]

8 hours ago, Peedee said:

And it´s amazingly clear and sharp. Yes, also in the distance. In racing games too.

Relative to other VR headsets - perhaps, but relative to RL there is still a fair way to go. Certainly as far as 50ppd goes. I cannot read the top section in the text reading tests in the ROG Fov test in Steam Vr for example.

 

8 hours ago, Peedee said:

About washed out colors.. In DCS try lowering gamma to 1.6 ish or thereabouts. And in Pimax Play lower brightness for both Left and Right eye to -1 (or -2).

I've got it at 1.6 and tried it even lower, also my general brightness slider for both eyes is set to 90%, and I've tried it with 80 and lower... The screens get dimmer, but the colours are still muted. Not so noticeable on the desert maps, but Caucasus is obviously off and looking bland green. My QLED monitor is much more vivid.

But another big selling point for the 57ppd is the distortion profile with much fewer pixels. 50ppd Ultrawide has 6080x7152=43.5Million pixels per eye, 86Million altogether. 57ppd has 4348x4588 = 20Million pixels per eye, 40Million altogether. Steam VR 100% resolution (See the official pimax vid above). A crazy difference! My 9800x3d and 5090 struggle with Super Ultrawide in  DCS when flying through the weeds in Caucasus, even with quad views and DLSS. 

Edited Thursday at 09:10 PM by Katmandu

[Peedee]

8 hours ago, Katmandu said:

Relative to other VR headsets - perhaps, but relative to RL there is still a fair way to go. Certainly as far as 50ppd goes. I cannot read the top section in the text reading tests in the ROG Fov test in Steam Vr for example.

 

I've got it at 1.6 and tried it even lower, also my general brightness slider for both eyes is set to 90%, and I've tried it with 80 and lower... The screens get dimmer, but the colours are still muted. Not so noticeable on the desert maps, but Caucasus is obviously off and looking bland green. My QLED monitor is much more vivid.

But another big selling point for the 57ppd is the distortion profile with much fewer pixels. 50ppd Ultrawide has 6080x7152=43.5Million pixels per eye, 86Million altogether. 57ppd has 4348x4588 = 20Million pixels per eye, 40Million altogether. Steam VR 100% resolution (See the official pimax vid above). A crazy difference! My 9800x3d and 5090 struggle with Super Ultrawide in  DCS when flying through the weeds in Caucasus, even with quad views and DLSS. 

Good point about the render resolution! 

The general brightness slider I haven´t done much with. Think I have it at 99% or something.  But the sliders for left and right eye brightness helped me. I reduced them to -1 (or was it -2? I don´t remember, Ím not in front of my PC right now). Do you experience the same washed out colors in other VR games with your headset? I had the most trouble with DCS.