Pimax Crystal - orders open

I imagine so.

Great question. I donā€™t own a headset with either so I can only speak from what others have said. Iā€™m still using fresnel lenses with my trusty G2.

Both offer a better experience over fresnel lenses with minimal god rays and much better sweetspot. Pancake lenses donā€™t suffer distortions you can get on the side of aspheric lenses, so pancake can give you edge to edge clarity. Pancake also take up less space and are lighter but on the downside they are less efficient at retaining light so tend not to be as bright and Iā€™ve yet to see a pancake lens which can offer a decent FoV like the Index or greater.

For me itā€™s still a mixed bag, but both offer a great experience, so I wouldnā€™t use either of these as a deciding factor when purchasing a new headset, so long as itā€™s not fresnel , thatā€™s probably good enough for me, but if you had to push me for a decision I would favour the pancake lenses.

Thats a pity, i would push the button on the Crystal if it was clear - I got rid of my G2 because the instruments were very hard to read.

Wow Pimax is still going strong.

So what are you using now thatā€™s better? Aero? :smiley:

Nothing - i sent the G2 back and fitted triple monitors instead, its not the same but very good still. I would love to go VR again but would need to know 100% what the instruments looked like before i buy.

Itā€™s possible that the G1000 model is using too low resolution textures and fonts for VR. I will admit that I make sure my seat position is as far forward as possible (usually where the eyepoint positioner in some aircraft (airliners) is calibrated). Some aircraft instrument panels are quite clear and others are not.

Just learned the Crystal will start shipping this month, also understand if one signs up today, expect delivery by March. WOW. Weā€™ll see how it goes. At present I am using G2 with new home built computer, works great. Good luck VR fans!!!

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I am very interested as well, but given their reputation I will not touch it until there are at least three reviews up from reputable reviewers.

Not a very thorough review but you get to see the box!

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ā€¦so where is Crystal now ???

Reviewers have had them for up to a couple of weeks. Seems to be a nda/embargo before they can release their reviews. Iā€™m expecting those to come out very soon with a launch date early March.

Having owned the Aero for 9 months now I can say unequivocally that it is extremely sharp particularly if you have a video card that can push 39ppd. I expect the Crystal will be just as good or better. For reference, when sitting in the captainā€™s seat of the Cessna Citation Longitude, I can read the text labels for the circuit breakers on the far right side of the cockpit next to the first officerā€™s seat.

Other bits of resolvable detail include the tiny triangles next to the cabin altitude and ISA temperature and being able to easily read the PRESS DIR and PUSH STD labels on the panel above the main MFD.

From the default head position, there is not a single bit of text on any glass panel that is difficult to read - that includes the panels on the first officerā€™s side.

The only caveat is that pink text is less sharp than other colors. I assume because the lenses bend red light more than green or blue.

Hope this helps.

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Thanks, that does help.

I tried the Pico4 recently, I was amazed at what a low budget VR could achieve - the quality was there but the GPU cost was way too high as you have to push it way up in oversampling to get the display clear but then FPS tanks to about 2fps and the VR itself is clearly not happy, I sent it back.

I will hold off my VR search now as clearly the 3080ti is totally unsuitable for running at high quality and reasonable FPS. But its still very reassuring that the quality is actually out there.

Is the red text issue caused by the fact they have inverted one of the panels in the Aero - this gives a known issue with red-shift in VR?

Actually thatā€™s news to me. Iā€™ll have to do some research but you may very well be on to something.

As for performance, I have to say having moved to the 4090 from a 3090 (non Ti), the 4090 is the first graphics card that is able to extract maximum detail from the Aero while sustaining 40ish FPS with high quality settings.

You could certainly get by with the 3080Ti, but you would need to sacrifice MSFS graphics quality settings to achieve enjoyable framerates.

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I just read a Crystal ā€œfirst impressionā€ from January where the author said it had a nice clear image but that there was a really irritating motion blur whenever head movement occurs. Anyone know whether this had been fixed? Would be an absolute deal breaker.

I just looked at their website and I canā€™t say I find the following very reassuring when it comes to an overall eye for quality :smiley:

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Blimey. How many headsets has he got behind him?!