No VR in Pimax - Nothing

[Captain Orso]

I have one of the very first commercial copies of Oculus Rift CV1 and have been using it for nearly 10 years. I finally got up the courage and cash to go to something where I can read instruments without using full-zoom AND leaning into the instrument panel.

Pimax Crystal Super

All day long I've been trying to get it to play with DCS. No luck. DCS starts, but only in monitor mode, whether I start through Pimax Play, or disktop links with "J:\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\bin\DCS.exe" -force_enable_VR -force_OpenXR or any combination. DCS starts, but only in monitor mode.

My disappointment is immense.

It must be a ME problem, because I can find no thread here with similar issues.

Can anybody help me (I've already been through therapy, so let's let that aside for now).

[Roadhouse]

I had an issue where meta had installed some virtual display or some dopey thing that needed to be removed in order for the output to be sent to the Pimax. Take a look in device manager and you may see a meta display that should be disabled or deleted. I struggled for hours with this until I used Pimax Play "Troubleshooting" under "General"

 

Hit start and under "Video Card Driver" if it says anything other than "Nvidia"... that's the problem. At least it was for me. 

[Ollie]

I had a similar issue when I first tried to use my PCL. It turned out that the headset didn't like to compete for DP access on the GPU card when loading DCS. I had two monitors connected, so after disconnecting one, the PCL worked fine. Then I was using an RTX 3080, but now an RTX 5090, but still only use one 5090 DP for Pimax and one for one of the monitors, while using the onboard graphics for the second monitor. Also, try lowering all your DCS settings to base line first. Further, If you have OpenXr Toolkit installed that may be a problem too. If you have, then untick DCS in the toolkit companion. If you have OpenXR layers, you can move OXRTK down the priorities and re-tick DCS in the companion if you still want to use the tookit.

May not help, but hope something here may point you in a useful direction.

[Captain Orso]

Many thanks for the replies!!

I think I was not clear in my description. The HMD displays. When I start Pimax Play and put the HMD on, I get a weird outer space planet displayed. I have to press the menu button on one of the controllers to get some rudimentary control bar, where I can then pick a "window" to look at. OMG so clunky.

Under device => general, when I did the first setup it only said SteamVR. Now it had the option of OpenXR/PimaxVR so I selected that and tried to start DCS.

NOW I GOT DCS in VR!! but OMFG it is so clunky wand wrong. It keeps flashing like it were changing from DCS to another window and back randomly. I thought Oculus was a task to get used to but this is literally 10x worse, and I'm not exaggerating. It's like I went to a cheap, off-brand gas station to buy SW from a rack and grabbed something from China, and..... ohhhhhhhh, this is bad. If I didn't know better, I'd say I'd been scammed. I mean literally, like one of those videos you see on YT where some schmuck ordered a super-cheap SSD and they sent him a cheap SSD box filled with sand and dirt, only this is NOT CHEAP 

I think I saw a video somewhere, where they guy mentioned something about the DCS menu flashing and a setting that might fix that *sigh* maybe it's good I haven't put my Oculus Rift CV1 away yet 

[leonsilver]

I had a similar problem. The solution was to turn off (I'm sure I did NOT turn on) this crap in SteamVR.

 

[Dawgboy]

I'm deliberately not installing SteamVR, trying to keep my VR pipeline less complex for troubleshooting, etc.  What are the must-have capabilities of SteamVR?

[Captain Orso]

Short update

Yesterday I was trying to follow Tally Mouse guide to set things up

which is a task in itself.

Today I found this

Pimax Crystal Super: DCS Ultimate Settings Guide

which seems to be Tally Mouse's guide in written form.

Anyway, after re-asserting that I want to use OpenXR and not SteamVR--how I would go back to SteamVR is not apparent, because there is no option to choose (typical Pimax, I guess)--

I got DCS to start through Pimax Play, and I could see that it was running, but it wouldn't swap the display over to DCS. I remember in Oculus at the very beginning, when my PC was rather weak-kneed, when DCS started, the HMD went black for a while, until DCS was up and running, so I was hopping this was a similar situation, but I waited a couple of minutes and then checked the MS Task Manager. DCS and the Pimax task were both on very high power consumption, but neither was very high in CPU or GPU usage, which is very weird to me. What was Pimax doing, sending my power back to China?

I'm going to try to undo all the stuff I did yesterday, which for me is like petting a porcupine against the grain. We'll see what happens.

16 minutes ago, Dawgboy said:

I'm deliberately not installing SteamVR, trying to keep my VR pipeline less complex for troubleshooting, etc.  What are the must-have capabilities of SteamVR?

None that I know of, but I have SteamVR because of Half-Life Alyx, so there's that...

Edited November 2 by Captain Orso

[sleighzy]

On 11/3/2025 at 2:37 AM, Captain Orso said:

Anyway, after re-asserting that I want to use OpenXR and not SteamVR--how I would go back to SteamVR is not apparent, because there is no option to choose (typical Pimax, I guess)--

SteamVR has an OpenXR runtime, so it would still be OpenXR. However, don't use SteamVR for Pimax headsets.

[Captain Orso]

1 hour ago, sleighzy said:

SteamVR has an OpenXR runtime, so it would still be OpenXR. However, don't use SteamVR for Pimax headsets.

No, I'm not intending to do that. I was just commenting on the quality of the SW.

[Calvin.Pimax]

Are you able to run DCS properly with the Crystal Super?

If you want to switch the runtime back to **SteamVR OpenXR**, just click **“Set SteamVR as OpenXR runtime”**, and you’ll be able to switch back.

If DCS isn’t displaying in the headset, do you have the **OXR Toolkit** installed? If so, try uninstalling it and see if that helps.
 

[Captain Orso]

I meticulously undid everything I did through Tally Mouse's video and tried DCS. DCS started, but it was terrible. Then I followed just the list on the Pimax site derived from TM's video, and it runs well now. 

Pimax Play is still one of the klunkiest, must flawed SW I've had to deal with in years. 

[Dawgboy]

14 hours ago, Captain Orso said:

Pimax Play is still one of the klunkiest, must flawed SW I've had to deal with in years. 

Agreed.  I'm hoping improving software and firmware will reach parity with the hardware's FULL potential, including usability features working.  For example, I'd like PP to automatically apply the "per game" settings to the headset when I run each sim from its native launcher, similar to the way NVIDIA control panel, etc., applies per game settings for the GPU when I run DCS, BMS, MSFS.  

[Captain Orso]

I feel PP is like walking a tight-rope in gusting winds. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.

In Oculus, it didn't matter how you started DCS, when it wad up and running, it took center stage. Oculus Home, or Meta Garbage-Dump, or whatever they changed the name to, went into the back ground never to bee seen again, until you quite DCS or switched out with the Oculus button. At one point the Oculus button stopped working, but they eventually fixed that too, and I was a happy-camper... except of the Rift CV1 resolution and screen-door affect.

With PP, half of the time I start DCS through PP and PP can't figure out how to bring it to the front, and it NEVER does it automatically, and most of the time, when it finally has brought DCS to the front it throws PP on the desktop in front off DCS so that when I try to click something with the mouse, nothing happens!! It's like the mouse buttons were dead. The pointer-dot moves normally, but button clicks don't go through.

You have to switch to PP desktop view, and lower the PP app on the desktop so that DCS is in the front, where it belongs, swap back to DCS in VR and now I can click things.

FFS these are simple rudimentary things that should have been caught on day two of development.

[Peedee]

2 hours ago, Captain Orso said:

I feel PP is like walking a tight-rope in gusting winds. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.

In Oculus, it didn't matter how you started DCS, when it wad up and running, it took center stage. Oculus Home, or Meta Garbage-Dump, or whatever they changed the name to, went into the back ground never to bee seen again, until you quite DCS or switched out with the Oculus button. At one point the Oculus button stopped working, but they eventually fixed that too, and I was a happy-camper... except of the Rift CV1 resolution and screen-door affect.

With PP, half of the time I start DCS through PP and PP can't figure out how to bring it to the front, and it NEVER does it automatically, and most of the time, when it finally has brought DCS to the front it throws PP on the desktop in front off DCS so that when I try to click something with the mouse, nothing happens!! It's like the mouse buttons were dead. The pointer-dot moves normally, but button clicks don't go through.

You have to switch to PP desktop view, and lower the PP app on the desktop so that DCS is in the front, where it belongs, swap back to DCS in VR and now I can click things.

FFS these are simple rudimentary things that should have been caught on day two of development.

I don't get it. Pimax Play starts up with my PC, and then my Crystal Super boots.  Nothing to do there.

And then I launch DCS through its own launcher, and voila I am in DCS VR. I never see or use PP unless I ALT-TAB out of DCS and find it on the Windows TaskBar and reopen it from there.

Are you sure you are not over complicating things? 

[Captain Orso]

I don't start PP at PC startup. Why would I? I don't live in PP. I only need it when I want to use it and don't want it robbing my resources when I don't need it.

When I want to use Pimax to fly DCS I start PP, I put the HMD on, start the right-hand controller through pressing the Pimax button on it. open the PP display in VR by pressing the Pimax button gain, select the My Assets menu, scroll down to DCS, and click Start. After a minute or so, I see a faded display of the DCS display that looks like DCS is running somewhere way back in the distance. It never pops into the foreground like it did in Oculus. I press the Pimax button again to bring DCS to the foreground. Now it looks just like it did in Oculus. Only now I can click where I want to with the mouse and nothing happens. Moving the mouse moves the pointer accordingly, but I can click nothing.

So I open PP in VR again, clock on the desktop button to open the desktop and see that on the desktop PP is in the foreground in front of DCS. So I use the hand controller to lower the PP window on the desktop so that DCS is now in the foreground, press the Pimax button to switch back to DCS and I am in DCS and can now click the menu, and everything I should be able to click.

I'm not doing anything but starting PP and DCS the way any sane person would.

BTW Pimax themselves say to start DCS through the My Assets selection, otherwise PP might not recognize that it was started.

With Oculus I started Oculus Home/Meta thingy to get the HMD to work. Then I started the VR desktop and started DCS over the VR desktop, just like I would when playing DCS without VR, and it always worked. I never had to do anything weird.

Also, in Oculus, if was in DCS, the used the mini-controller Oculus button to swap from DCS to the VR Desktop, if I opened a window and left it open and then used the Oculus button to swap back to DCS, if I tried to use the mouse, I was blocked by whatever window I left open in the foreground. This seems to be a logic situation, the same as in native windows, clicking somewhere within the desktop area affected the window under the pointer at the time of clicking. The difference is that in VR there are windows that you only see on your desktop monitor and other that you can see only correctly in the HMD, but logically there is still always only one in the foreground.

So the issue is that PP doesn't bring DCS to the foreground by itself, and when the use brings it to the foreground, PP throws itself into the foreground in front of DCS again.

That all is just crappy programming and piss-poor quality control.

[Calvin.Pimax]

I’d suggest an easier method — open Pimax Play, connect your headset, click on the DCS icon, launch the game, and you should enter VR directly.

In your case, try re-importing DCS into Pimax Play → My Assets.

Also, before starting the game, you can set up the room settings or use Recenter in VR once the game is launched.

[Peedee]

7 hours ago, Captain Orso said:

I don't start PP at PC startup. Why would I? I don't live in PP. I only need it when I want to use it and don't want it robbing my resources when I don't need it.

When I want to use Pimax to fly DCS I start PP, I put the HMD on, start the right-hand controller through pressing the Pimax button on it. open the PP display in VR by pressing the Pimax button gain, select the My Assets menu, scroll down to DCS, and click Start. After a minute or so, I see a faded display of the DCS display that looks like DCS is running somewhere way back in the distance. It never pops into the foreground like it did in Oculus. I press the Pimax button again to bring DCS to the foreground. Now it looks just like it did in Oculus. Only now I can click where I want to with the mouse and nothing happens. Moving the mouse moves the pointer accordingly, but I can click nothing.

So I open PP in VR again, clock on the desktop button to open the desktop and see that on the desktop PP is in the foreground in front of DCS. So I use the hand controller to lower the PP window on the desktop so that DCS is now in the foreground, press the Pimax button to switch back to DCS and I am in DCS and can now click the menu, and everything I should be able to click.

I'm not doing anything but starting PP and DCS the way any sane person would.

BTW Pimax themselves say to start DCS through the My Assets selection, otherwise PP might not recognize that it was started.

With Oculus I started Oculus Home/Meta thingy to get the HMD to work. Then I started the VR desktop and started DCS over the VR desktop, just like I would when playing DCS without VR, and it always worked. I never had to do anything weird.

Also, in Oculus, if was in DCS, the used the mini-controller Oculus button to swap from DCS to the VR Desktop, if I opened a window and left it open and then used the Oculus button to swap back to DCS, if I tried to use the mouse, I was blocked by whatever window I left open in the foreground. This seems to be a logic situation, the same as in native windows, clicking somewhere within the desktop area affected the window under the pointer at the time of clicking. The difference is that in VR there are windows that you only see on your desktop monitor and other that you can see only correctly in the HMD, but logically there is still always only one in the foreground.

So the issue is that PP doesn't bring DCS to the foreground by itself, and when the use brings it to the foreground, PP throws itself into the foreground in front of DCS again.

That all is just crappy programming and piss-poor quality control.

Still too many steps that you don’t need. Ok, let’s say I don’t start PP with Windows. So here is what I do:

1. I double click the PP icon on my desktop. Short peek inside the headset just to check that the displays are on. 

2. Double click the DCS icon on my desktop. Then click the Launch icon inside DCS launcher. See DCS starting on the windows screen.

3. And now I put my Crystal Super headset on. 
And Voila - it just works. 
 

 

[Dawgboy]

5 hours ago, Peedee said:

Still too many steps that you don’t need. Ok, let’s say I don’t start PP with Windows. So here is what I do:

1. I double click the PP icon on my desktop. Short peek inside the headset just to check that the displays are on. 

2. Double click the DCS icon on my desktop. Then click the Launch icon inside DCS launcher. See DCS starting on the windows screen.

3. And now I put my Crystal Super headset on. 
And Voila - it just works. 
 

 

This is what I do; however, as @Captain Orso said, even Pimax says to launch DCS via the My Assets-created DCS icon to ensure PP applies the per-game settings to DCS, in this case.  My suggestion is for Pimax to fix PP so it reliably detects the sim when running, apply the per-game settings, even if I have to make PP aware of the sim executable.  Again, per-game settings should be applied automatically and reliably if I start with the native DCS Windows icon.  

Edited 17 hours ago by Dawgboy

[Captain Orso]

12 hours ago, Calvin.Pimax said:

I’d suggest an easier method —

I'm all ear

12 hours ago, Calvin.Pimax said:

open Pimax Play,

I do this

12 hours ago, Calvin.Pimax said:

connect your headset

My headset is always connected. I only plug in the power adapter to the UPB/DP cable tree.

12 hours ago, Calvin.Pimax said:

click on the DCS icon

Which one? Pimax says to start DCS through Pimax Play -> My Assets -> DCS, because PP otherwise might not notice that DCS was started, so I only start DCS like this.

12 hours ago, Calvin.Pimax said:

launch the game

As stated, I do this per the above.

12 hours ago, Calvin.Pimax said:

and you should enter VR directly.

I'm in VR from the moment PP is started, the HMD is booted and PP connects to it, and I put it on, I'm in VR.

What you seem to mean, is that once DCS starts I "should" be in DCS in VR. As I clearly stated, this doesn't happen, because PP doesn't swap the foreground process from PP to DCS.

12 hours ago, Calvin.Pimax said:

In your case, try re-importing DCS into Pimax Play → My Assets.

You are just grasping at straws. The entry in My Assets is just a formatted set of lines in PP's config.json file pointing to the DCS.exe file we give it, if it isn't found on its own.

You can delete and re-implement it a million times, and it's still just a link to the DCS.exe.

12 hours ago, Calvin.Pimax said:

Also, before starting the game, you can set up the room settings or use Recenter in VR once the game is launched.

I have that turned off through PIMAX -> Device settings -> Advanced -> [ ] Activate Chaperone {check removed}

It has nothing to do with re-centering. It has to do with PP throwing other windows into the foreground, when DCS is supposed to be in the foreground exclusively.

[Nedum]

On 11/1/2025 at 7:20 PM, Captain Orso said:

I have one of the very first commercial copies of Oculus Rift CV1 and have been using it for nearly 10 years. I finally got up the courage and cash to go to something where I can read instruments without using full-zoom AND leaning into the instrument panel.

Pimax Crystal Super

All day long I've been trying to get it to play with DCS. No luck. DCS starts, but only in monitor mode, whether I start through Pimax Play, or disktop links with "J:\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\bin\DCS.exe" -force_enable_VR -force_OpenXR or any combination. DCS starts, but only in monitor mode.

My disappointment is immense.

It must be a ME problem, because I can find no thread here with similar issues.

Can anybody help me (I've already been through therapy, so let's let that aside for now).

Is there y reason for that you are not sharing any screenshots?

1. There is no need anymore to force anything for DCS.

2. Did you ever uninstall every old VR stuff?

3. What's your OS?

After several years of using old stuff, people forget that sometimes there are hidden settings which will even stay, after a software was uninstalled.

Looks like you are running in a conflict with the setting of your old VR-System. 

Without a screenshot, it didn't happen!  

[Captain Orso]

11 hours ago, Peedee said:

Still too many steps that you don’t need.

Do tell. Please inform me, as to which steps are unnecessary.

11 hours ago, Peedee said:

Ok, let’s say I don’t start PP with Windows.

I know I don't.

11 hours ago, Peedee said:

So here is what I do:

11 hours ago, Peedee said:

1. I double click the PP icon on my desktop.

Sounds familiar

11 hours ago, Peedee said:

Short peek inside the headset just to check that the displays are on. 

I PP you see the status of the HMD. I never put it on until it says that the display is started, which is the last step in the start-up.

11 hours ago, Peedee said:

2. Double click the DCS icon on my desktop.

You are not supposed to use the Windows Desktop icon to start DCS, because PP can otherwise PP might not recognize that DCS is running.

11 hours ago, Peedee said:

Then click the Launch icon inside DCS launcher. See DCS starting on the windows screen.

I have the Launcher turned off. I starte DCS directly.

But regardless of that, following your instructions, I start PP, get the HMD up and running. Put it one to confirm that it is functioning. Takt it off again, and double-click DCS on the desktop to start it up. I put the HMD on and wait... and wait and wait and wait... and then I wait some more.

After about a minute, I press the front-left input button on the HMD because I'm bored and want to see if something happens. The screen flashes a little near the bottom, and is no longer absolute black, but has a tiny bit of typical QLED bleed through, but still no DCS.

HMD off and check the disktop. DCS is definitely running, but the window is black, where usually at this point the menu is. HMD on again and I press the Pimax button, and bingo DCS is in the foreground, clear as day. So, still no change from what I described yesterday.

11 hours ago, Peedee said:

3. And now I put my Crystal Super headset on. 
And Voila - it just works. 

Maybe for you, but not for me... <sigh>

7 hours ago, Dawgboy said:

This is what I do; however, as @Captain Orso said, even Pimax says to launch DCS via the My Assets-created DCS icon to ensure PP applies the per-game settings to DCS, in this case.  My suggestion is for Pimax to fix PP so it reliably detects the sim when running, apply the per-game settings, even if I have to make PP aware of the sim executable.  Again, per-game settings should be applied automatically and reliably if I start with the native DCS Windows icon.  

I agree. It just requires some competent programing. I'm still waiting on that, and probably will be for the next years, if my general experience over the last decade means anything.

[Captain Orso]

51 minutes ago, Nedum said:

Is there y reason for that you are not sharing any screenshots?

I suppose I could try to capture some, but screenshots are static, and the discovery is dynamic. It's the transition, or lack of a transition from one state to another. It's a little like complaining to my landlord that I have no power in the apartment, and he say, how does that look, so I send him a completely black picture with the comment, this is how it looks.

51 minutes ago, Nedum said:

1. There is no need anymore to force anything for DCS.

I never said anything about "forcing" anything. I explained how I constantly have to bring DCS to the foreground.

51 minutes ago, Nedum said:

2. Did you ever uninstall every old VR stuff?

No. It's not running. Even the services are set to delayed start, so they don't start until Meta Home is started.

51 minutes ago, Nedum said:

3. What's your OS?

Windows 10 Pro 64bit.

51 minutes ago, Nedum said:

After several years of using old stuff, people forget that sometimes there are hidden settings which will even stay, after a software was uninstalled.

Although true, it is absolutely vague and useless. You could just a well claim ghosts or the CIA is meddling with my PC.

51 minutes ago, Nedum said:

Looks like you are running in a conflict with the setting of your old VR-System.

It works perfectly with Oculus, but I've taken Oculus down. The HMD is packed up and put away. The software is still installed, but not event he services are started.

So, I checked the services. One is 'manual' and the other 'delayed', which I was explained means, it doesn't starte unless nudged from the outside. like if Oculus Home is started, it checks if the service is running, and if not, it starts the service.

I've now set both to 'disabled' and will restart my system to get a 'clean start' - no pun intended.

I'll report in a minute or four.

---

[Back after restart]

Everything is as it was before.

I tried taking some screenshots. You can screenshot the desktop, but not what is in VR, other than in DCS, you can use the DCS screenshot facility to make screenshots, but only when DCS is up and running and in foreground, so it completely defeats the situation.

If you know of some app or a method for taking screenshots from within the HMD, I'd be glad to learn that and give it a try.

51 minutes ago, Nedum said:

Without a screenshot, it didn't happen!  

Show me how you make screenshots from what you seen in VR. The ball is in your court.

Edited 10 hours ago by Captain Orso