Looking to see how this transition went for others.
I had been running the G2 on DLSS Quality with an OpenXR Toolkit resolution of 4676x4582 and was making a consistent and locked 45 fps.
I started off on the Crystal with similar settings, but I wasn’t making the target FPS. I turned on FOV rendering (had been off on the G2). That didn’t help frame rates any. Then I turned on DLSS Performance, that gained perhaps a few FPS. I reduce the resolution down to 3500x4141 and was averaging around 40~43 FPS.
At these settings the Pimax Crystal was looking worse than the G2, at least for cockpit clarity and I was seeing more stutters.
Oddly at any setting the G1000 buttons looked worse even though external views were very good at the higher settings. Taxi signs also didn’t look as crisp.
Pimax settings were set to Render Quality at 1.00, Hidden Area Mask, and other settings were off.
**** The TLDR ****
- The Pimax Crystal is Space Balls huge, very heavy with an odd fit and a sensitive sweet spot.
- I have a narrow head shape (like Bert) so it rocks side to side and my eyes could not stay in the sweet spot.
- I used a combination of the Studioform top comfort strap and the face foam spacer kit. These changed helped a tremendous amount. I’d recommend getting these in advance if you order a Crystal.
- The sim looks stunning although there is some FPS loss. It looks so good I think it’s a good trade off and still feels smooth. If you have an RTX4090, just turn off the FPS counter.
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That sounds about right for my 3080Ti. As long as the 40fps is steady, it should be okay. Oh, btw, did you perform the “reset to defaults” step in OpenXR Toolkit?
I did not do that. I’ll give that a try.
I also just tried every setting on the Pimax settings and nothing made a difference. I did min to max render quality and if anything it got worse (35 fps).
Now it gets even weirder, I turned on TAA and got a performance and clarity bump. 
The frame rate should have gone down, not up.
I’m running a 7950X3D and RTX 4090. On the G2 I was bottoming out at 50FPS with razor sharp clarity and a higher render resolution.
Rest to default, now at a 25 fps. 
Turned TAA off for DLSS Performance and back to 37 FPS with OXRTK reporting 4312x5102 (guess that’s 1.0).
However, it doesn’t look as clear as the G2. It doesn’t make any sense.
Probably the Chromatic Aberration. I ended up returning it. I had a MQ3 and determined that it was the lenses that made all the difference. All that talk about glass being better was fluff. The type of lenses they used cause about 3x as much chromatic aberration and the result is an imprecise visual. I’m serious, I had the MQ3 on with the same resolution running off a different PC with all same settings and it simply looked sharper overall with the MQ3. I initially dismissed the MQ3 as it’s panels are relatively low-res, but you can’t deny what you see.
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Are you using PimaxXR (should produce a couple of FPS more) or SteamVR OpenXR runtime?
You may consider configuring Fixed Foveated Rendering in OpenXR Toolkit, it will match Crystal lenses sharpnes area. Some people like Dynamic Foveated Rendering, I don’t use it due to shimmer at the edges of the resolution rings.
Beware of Clouds ultra setting, eats FPS.
At similar target resolutions DLSS Performance will look less clear than DLSS Quality.
Probably G2 was clear in the centre only due to fresnel lens, while Crystal should be clear in much, much bigger sweet spot (I estimate G2 sweet spot for 20% of the viewable area, and Crystal for 80%). The visual clarity of Crystal is in different league compared to G2, which is now dust collector for me.
With default resolution (4312x5102), DLSS Quality I’m getting 35-45 FPS on Crystal (7800x3D, 4090). TLOD also impacts the FPS, there are tools which automatically manage TLOD and OLOD to keep FPS up.
I’m using PimaxXR.
I have the same issue with FOV rendering, so I had it off on the G2. I didn’t really see it making any difference in performance anyway.
Overall, the difference is strange. It can actually look better overall, but I just can’t seem to resolve the same peak clarity. It’s the difference between seeing the VNV and APR buttons clearly and not being able to make them out without a hard lean in.
Perhaps I just need to accept less performance and center clarity since MS is killing off the G2.
While Dynamic Foveated Rendering (DFR) results (for me) in the shimmer at the edges of the moving (with your gaze) resolution rings, Fixed Foveated Rendering (FFR) is not suffering this issue (rings are stationary). It can give you 3-4 FPS.
Be sure you have Light Shafts off as described in the manual:
Personally I sacrifice a bit of performance and go for DLSS Quality, way clearer vs. DLSS Performance.
I did notice some CA. The off-center issues are different in the Crystal. The G2 has a blur, and the Crystal has a distortion. The Q3 has a way of feeling like you are just looking through an opening rather than lenses. I found the G2’s blur a little more natural than the distortion, but the distortion is minimal.
I’m having major fitment issues too. I can’t get the headset on without it having a side-to-side rocking. I have to clamp down painfully hard on my nose and cheek bones to prevent the rocking. Most of my testing I had to hold the headset in place. I also used a rolled-up towel on top to give some support/lift.
It’s also so freaking massive, the momentum from turning too fast will dislodge the positioning. We are talking Space Balls massive helmet.
I hope the comfort strap will be released soon as the default strap isn’t usable for me.
The other disappointment is the audio quality. I’m also waiting for the upgraded earphones.
The biggest plus so far is the tracking is 10,000x better. None of the micro jitter the G2 does, even with 100% reduction in OXRTK.
Did you get the 15mm face plate? It comes by default with 11mm. There are also new lenses out, but they are in short supply. The headset view changes depending on how close your eyes are to the lenses. With the 11mm, the eyes are much closes to the lenses, so the field of view is better. The 15mm is more comfortable, but being 4mm more away from the lenses creates some fuzziness at the perimeters of the lenses.
I have eye tracking off and auto-ipd off (it remembers the calibration) now too for testing.
Works fine without eye tracking.
The Pimax works better at low resolutions than the G2. I also have a very nice set of Linsoul wired earbuds which I use with the headset. This is a big improvement over the G2. The buildin headphones on the Pimax are ok, but not great.
It had two foam pads it shipped with. I also ordered the 15mm but it looks like the thicker one that was already on the headset?
If I can’t figure out the fit it may be the reason for returning. It just doesn’t fit my head at all. I tried the comfort strap from my G2 but it couldn’t get around the cable connector side. The towel helped some but definitely not a good look.
I think I may have screwed myself over when I hit that super sharp, high frame rate combo on the G2. The taxi signs and G1000 buttons are just so much more clear on the G2. That’s not what I was expecting for nearly 4x the cost.
It’s not like I can improve my hardware any to do better. It’s the top end of what’s available to consumers.
That’s unfortunate. I highly recommend their Discord channel for support. I found mine to be a massive improvement over my old G2.
Had I not recently pushed the G2 on the RTX 4090 with a high render resolution with such good results I would say so.
But I’m really puzzled by the lack of peak clarity. It’s probably straight line clarity, like taxiway signs and Garmin buttons where I notice.
When I’m in the range of 35 FPS the overall quality does look very good. But on the G2 I can hit easy 50s with more sharpness.
The Pimax has some interesting advanced IPD tuning, but I’m not sure how to use it when actually wearing the headset since it is desktop based.
This should not be a surprise if you run G2 with DLSS Quality and Crystal with DLSS performance.
Do you wear glasses normally? Crystal image is focused closer than G2 image, make sure you can sharply see an object which is 1-1.5 m away.
Make sure your lenses are seated properly.
I used G2, now I use Crystal. The first time I donned Crystal it was so much better than G2 (huge sweet spot, FoV, clarity, contrast, brightness, blacks, color intensity etc.) so I knew immediately I will never use G2 again for simming, where I don’t make energetic head movements. We are all different but the quality difference is so big, that I would bet that something might be wrong your Crystal config, if you still find G2 better.
I remember that some setting in SteamVR for G2 resulted in limiting Crystal resolution. Should not be affecting you if you don’t use SteamVR, but I would recommend searching the forums, it was posted several months ago be @mbucchia.
Consider this advice:
Open the file path_to_Steam_installation directory\config\steamvr.vrsettings in Notepad or another text editor and delete the line with the parameter maxRecommendedResolution.
Thanks, that looks like the one I have for the G2 which always worked great.
Apache strap works great for me with Crystal and the Dmas speakers are at the same level as G2 speakers.
I’ve tried all the DLSS versions but they all seem to have the same look with not having a huge impact on frame rates. That might point to it being more optical in nature?
I do have contacts and as a result some difficulty with close up vision. I’ve noticed some issues focusing when I take the Crystal off. Something that doesn’t happen with the G2.
