Haven’t seen any specific mention of this, but as the Crystal seems to be using much the same form factor as their other headsets, which is pretty large, I think you’d be OK. You could always join the Pimax forums on their website and ask them about this.
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Do Pimax headsets use their own proprietry software? Is MSFS as happy flipping into VR mode with a Pimax as it is with an Oculus or G2?
I have to admit that Sebastian’s videos do have me interested, that is seriously impressive performance at that resolution. I remember Steve VRFlightsimguy being impressed at how efficient the Varjo software was, getting higher frames than the G2 at a higher resolution.
It seems like Varjo and Pimax have some super efficient software driving their headsets and the Crystal is starting to look like the holy grail of displays. Local dimming, eye tracking etc.
The video reviews of these headsets need to be extraordinarily well detailed and deep given the non trivial cost, including GPU upgrades to run them. The software and drivers need to be under as much scrutiny as the displays. That’s what was missing for the Varjo, only one reviewer ever mentioned the ‘red shift’ problem caused by one of the panels being inverted for example.
For me, the next year will be either going all in on VR for simming, or going triple screen and a bucket load of peripherals, switches and knobs. Really looking forward to you guys with Crystal pre orders tearing into this thing and posting about it on here!
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Im not saying that WMR is definitely efficient or anything, but the main reason that the Aero gets better performance than the G2 is because the G2 needs to render higher res than the actual panels can display, (to compensate for barrel distortion) compared to the Aero. Which I believe is a side effect of the Fresnel vs aspheric lenses.
Pimax use their own set up software called Pitool (see link below). However they use Steam VR OpenXR runtime for connection to MSFS.
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I don’t get the pre-order, all it is a reservation to be able to order later, when do we actually get to order or pre-order that actual device? How can they be shipping soon if we can’t really order yet?
Don’t be pre ordering a couple of grand headset that works through SteamVR before anyone knows how it performs out in the real world.
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Sucks that the Crystal won’t do 72hz now that 72fps is actually attainable with the right hardware. They did say they will be “evaluating it” but for this price, it should be in there from the beginning. A non-flicker 60hz mode would be great too.
Steve has his first impressions video up
I’m still confused as to whether this is using its own flavour of OpenXR or SteamVR, Steve is saying here that it uses PimaxXR which I assume means that he isn’t using SteamVR?
He’s actually done a fairly thorough video here for a first impression, feels like this is the first real world test with a genuine ‘not an influencer’ commentary.
Seems like the PC headset hardware is still way way ahead of the software and hardware driving it, and the display resolution is the one single hook that would draw you into buying one of these high end headsets.
So is this the actual release unit now? Or is he a beta tester?
Pretty annoying how he doesnt mention his res/DLSS/other settings etc that he used to get such low fps. Or did I miss that?
Also confused by what he means by “all these issues” - all he mentions is low fps and maybe the mura?
Was eager to hear his first impressions. Pretty interesting initial results. Once he has more time to mess with it in depth I’m sure things will start to fall into place a bit more. The G2 is as plug and play as it gets, and even that takes a long time to learn how to get the best out of.
Running TAA at that kind of resolution, I’m not surprised he wasn’t able to push more than 25 fps. Try that on a G2 and you’d get the same result, even on a 4090. Turning off AA entirely isn’t going to help much, still a ton of pixels being rendered. The only way to get decent frames would be to use DLSS balanced or performance. He had the OXR toolkit running as well, but we have no way of knowing yet what his settings in there were regarding scaling and sharpening etc. I didn’t see any evidence of motion smoothing/reprojection going on, not a single artifact, but plenty of judder/blur.
Also, having 137 different icons on the overhead toolbar isn’t helping him out. Each one of them costs a little performance, some more than others, and they really add up. When I fly I disable every single one of them and re-enable only as needed.
Kind of surprised to hear the only improvement in FOV he saw over the Aero was vertical. Wondering what the ultrawide lenses being developed will offer there, and what the clarity difference and perf costs will be.
Hopefully someone can figure out what the voltage and amperage output of the battery is and develop an aftermarket wall socket powered cable that slots into the unit to fool it into thinking a battery is present. I’m not going to have the patience for that battery required PCVR bit. Batteries are a wear item, and will be especially short lived at the number of cycles heavy use will entail on this thing. Dependence on bespoke batteries for a low production run item like this was a terrible idea, and is a recipe for major disappointment a few years down the road when they’re suddenly no longer produced.
Besides, at that price the only time limit on flying should be your bladder. 
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Steve has posted in the youtube comments on that video - he’s seeing 50-60fps using SteamVR.
Sounds like Pimax XR is using too high a resolution.
Regarding the battery situation - I would have assumed there is a charging circuit on board the headset or on board the battery casing? Otherwise you’d be cracking those battery ‘cartridges’ apart in a few years to replace the cells.
The Pimax XR thing is still a mystery to me, is this Open XR or is it another layer of software in front of Open XR?
Looking forward to seeing how much more faffing around and cycles of tweaking and guesswork Pimax are bringing to the party
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@SimonJones7660 Good to hear on the resolution / fps front. I expect a few more such discoveries to pop up soon. There’s probably something set incorrectly in his pitool software, pushing some kind of supersampling, which would explain why he’s seeing much better clarity than on the Aero, even with higher FOV. As far as I know they use the same panels.
On the battery issue, it does have built in charging when the device is plugged in, but via USB, and the charging power is insufficient to fully power the device when in use, so even in PCVR mode the battery will continuously drain, requiring a swap at some point. Apparently it’s due to some Qualcomm requirement for use of their chips, but it’s an utterly ridiculous one if so.
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Similar issue with the Quest Pro, where the battery life is atrocious. They have a couple solutions, via things like KUJECT cables, but I found them to be insufficient and clumsy.
Ultimately, I found this gem (linked below), which provides close to 10 amps of charging that you can confirm via the display, and my QP maintains charge indefinitely during my VR flight sessions.
If I do decide to maintain my Crystal pre-order, which I am very on the fence about considering that it is all but confirmed there will be issues with the Pimax software and I have no faith in their quality control, I am hoping the same solution would keep the battery charged during gameplay.
The FOV part was a standout concern for me. Same as the aero horizontally but bigger vertically? How much bigger though? Big enough to take a risk on a company with a poor reputation/history as opposed to just spending the extra money on an Aero to get a similar FOV?
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OK if he’s doing TAA the low fps is expected, sure
It is an OpenXR replacement especially for WFOV HMDs like the 5k, 8kx to fix missing/wrong things.
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Every headset does this, including the Aero. The Aero’s correct render resolution is 4148 x 3556 per eye, the G2’s correct render resolution is 3124 x 3056. The Pimax Crystal’s render resolution is an eye watering 4350 x 5100 per eye!
I upgraded from my G2 and got a Quest Pro, its render resolution is a relatively tiny 2896 x 2618 per eye. Although it can’t obviously match the clarity of an Aero or Crystal it’s a nice headset to run for a very smooth experience with my 13900K 4090 PC so that I no longer need any motion reprojection and ASW.
The Crystal really needs a 5090 to bring out the best of it in something like Microsoft Flight Simulator, although with a current top end PC it will still likely look much better than my Pro and Reverb G2 even running below its optimum resolution.
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Sure, but I believe the relative discrepancy between render and display resolution was higher on the G2 vs Aero, at least I heard the Aero has better performance than the G2 at comparable resolutions for this reason. Never actually used an Aero.
How are you liking the QPro? Will have one soon. Does the compression bother you? What settings are you running? Any tips? I’m planning to go wired with Bitrate as high as possible without it causing stuttering or extreme latency. So aiming for 960mbps.
I love the Quest Pro, it’s easily my favourite HMD I’ve ever used, a big step up visually from my Vive Pro 2 and Reverb G2 despite the lack of DisplayPort and lower resolution per eye.
I only play PCVR wired, I haven’t been able to get wireless results that satisfy me as I hate compression. Generally, in most titles I cannot see any compression at all. In MSFS however I do get some colour banding in clouds, during the day not too bad, but at night, flying through clouds becomes a bit ugly sometimes.
Regarding bitrate, I can’t get good results at 960 mbps. I get audio cut outs and stutters when I set it at that. I have a 13900K, 4090 build and tried both the official Meta cable and the Kiwi cable but increasing the encode bitrate just gives me audio issues.
I find setting the bitrate to 400 and my refresh rate to 72Hz gives me the best results. Increasing to 90 Hz lowers the visual quality imo as compression becomes a little more noticeable.
I’ve seen many swear by 960 mbps and say they get perfect results at 90Hz 960 mbps but I can’t replicate it.
Interestingly, Norm from Test when reviewing the Bigscreen Beyond stated that even though that headset is DisplayPort, at full resolution it can only output at 75Hz without compression being required. If you want to run that headset at 90 Hz max resolution it needs to compress and upscale the image and he actually preferred to run it at 75Hz for that reason as he said the image quality was better.
In my experience this is even more true with the Quest Pro, as its using USB-C link and relying on the encoding capabilities of the XR2 gen 1+ chip, which according to Carmack can handle up to 500 mbps.
I just find with 400 encode bitrate and 75Hz its a near flawless experience, absolutely smooth and stutter free, but increasing the encode rate and Hz worsens the experience in demanding titles like MSFS, at least for me.
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Thanks! What frame rate are you getting when running 72hz? No MR I presume?
And how good is ASW vs the G2 MR? I can’t stand the latter