Pimax Crystal Light

[chiliwili69]

I hate to branch topics but this thread is just for the new Pimax Crystal Light (PCL).

Best way to start with is the new video from the super marketing star Sweviver!

He is quite right at the end when he said that PCL is the only alternative for just PCVR for people with G1/G2, Index, Rifts, Vives and perhaps Q3??

 

[chiliwili69]

Well, yes,  I succumbed to his words. I pre-order. They say first batch End-May-2024, but I will be surprised if it arrives it before September. 

This will be my second experience with Pimax from the 5K+ kickstarter. My only interest is IL-2. Let´s see if it will replace my current Quest3.

[dgiatr]

10 minutes ago, chiliwili69 said:

Well, yes,  I succumbed to his words. I pre-order. They say first batch End-May-2024, but I will be surprised if it arrives it before September. 

This will be my second experience with Pimax from the 5K+ kickstarter. My only interest is IL-2. Let´s see if it will replace my current Quest3.

Yep!

Very interested too...should i expect better colors due to panels technology from G2? 

 

Generally where is it better in comparison to G2 ?

Edited April 19, 2024 by dgiatr

[Aapje]

1 hour ago, chiliwili69 said:

Well, yes,  I succumbed to his words. I pre-order. They say first batch End-May-2024, but I will be surprised if it arrives it before September. 

This will be my second experience with Pimax from the 5K+ kickstarter. My only interest is IL-2. Let´s see if it will replace my current Quest3.

 

Did you preorder with or without local dimming? From reading the local dimming experiences with the Crystal, I'm leaning towards it not being worth the money.

 

It's hard to imagine that it will be a poor buy. The biggest question is the quality of the early headsets, as Pimax likes to sell their products when other companies would still be testing them. Although it being a stripped down Crystal, should mean that it shouldn't have that many issues.

 

@dgiatr

 

Yes, the colors are supposed to be a lot better. You can just read reviews and customer experiences of the regular Crystal on this forum and elsewhere, since it is the same headset, but with some things removed.

 

It does seem really demanding though. You'll probably need at least a 4080 or the equivalent from the upcoming 50-series. I do wonder how good the improved fixed foveated rendering will be.

Edited April 19, 2024 by Aapje

[DBCOOPER011]

46 minutes ago, Aapje said:

It does seem really demanding though. You'll probably need at least a 4080 or the equivalent from the upcoming 50-series. I do wonder how good the improved fixed foveated rendering will be.

 

I installed and ran IL2 with the Pimax Crystal yesterday on my on my 12600KF/4070 computer. I ran it at 72hz using the same settings in IL2 that I use for my 4090 at native resolution (4312x5100), but lowered the resolution in Pimax Play to 3016x3568. That was about the most resolution I could run without going into re-projection and averaged around a 12.7ms GPU frame time on a Rheinland quick mission map. There was no change in the frametime using Steamvr vs Opencomposite. This was w/o FFR as using that and DFR in Pimax Play crashed IL2 sporadically on my other machine..

 

I was kind of surprised how well it looked and ran though..

 

 

[Aapje]

@DBCOOPER011

 

Good to hear. Although:

 

Quote

This was w/o FFR as using that and DFR in Pimax Play crashed IL2 sporadically on my other machine..

 

This kind of stuff is what I fear with Pimax.

[firdimigdi]

1 hour ago, Aapje said:

This kind of stuff is what I fear with Pimax.

It's not Pimax-specific though. FFR/DFR via VRS eventually crashes IL2 on other headsets just the same.

 

Edited April 19, 2024 by firdimigdi

[Aapje]

42 minutes ago, firdimigdi said:

It's not Pimax-specific though. FFR/DFR via VRS eventually crashes IL2 on other headsets just the same.

 

Oh, is this an Nvidia bug then?

[chiliwili69]

On 4/19/2024 at 10:26 AM, dgiatr said:

Generally where is it better in comparison to G2 ?

Advantages:

better panel resolution (9.3 Million pixels vs. 16.6 Million)

A bit more FOV (G2 is H99-V91, vs., PCL is H103-V104). But this depends on face-eye shapes and headset mods.

Better Edge-to-Edge clarity

Better blacks with local dimming

Can run at 72Hz

No WMR ecosystem

It is not discontinued

Option to use basestations

Lenses (G2 is plastic, PCL is glass)

Better inside-out tracking (G2 is 2 cameras, PCL is 4 cameras)

 

Disadvantages:

Bulkier-->more rotational inertia

More weight

Needs more GPU power

worse default audio

Pimax reputation with new products

More expensive

On 4/19/2024 at 12:16 PM, Aapje said:

Did you preorder with or without local dimming?

I took with local dimming. Just to see if it is worth.

On 4/19/2024 at 12:16 PM, Aapje said:

It's hard to imagine that it will be a poor buy.

Basically if it is better than the Quest3 I will sell the Quest3. If not I will sell the Crystal Light. I was not fully convinced with the normal Crystal, but the Crystal Light is closer to what I want (at least on paper). Let´s see.

Edited April 23, 2024 by chiliwili69

[chiliwili69]

8 hours ago, DBCOOPER011 said:

I was kind of surprised how well it looked and ran though..

 

Thanks. That´s nice to hear. But I know that if I like more the Crystal I will need to replace my current 3080 for a 4080/4090 or any new NVIDIA card (4080Ti, 50XX...)

[dgiatr]

1 hour ago, chiliwili69 said:

Advantages:

better panel resolution (9.3 Million pixels vs. 16.6 Million)

A bit more FOV (G2 is H99-V91, vs., PCL is H103-V104). But this depends on face-eye shapes and headset mods.

Better Edge-to-Edge clarity

Better blacks with local dimming

Can run at 72Hz

No WMR ecosystem

It is not discontinued

Option to use basestations

Lenses (G2 is plastic, PCL is glass)

Better inside-out tracking (G2 is 2 cameras, PCL is 4 cameras)

 

Disadvantages:

Bulkier-->more rotational inertia

More weight

Needs more GPU power

worse default audio

Pimax reputation with new products

More expensive

I took with local dimming. Just to see if it is worth.

Basically if it is better than the Quest3 I will sell the Quest3. If not I will sell the Crystal Light. I was not fully convinced with the normal Crystal, but the Crystal Light is closer to what I want (at least on paper). Let´s see.

Thank you Chiliwili69 for your thoughts,  I will follow you closely with your Crystal Light, I think as you say in the papers , this model seems to suits me better as an upgrade from G2.

Since I will not plan on changing the resolution that I will feed my new headset going from G2 to PCL ( about 2600x2600 on open composite, open xr toolkit with CAS sharpening : a good compromise for spotting and idying in multiplayer) what do you think will I have better spotting and idying abilities from G2 to PCL? 

[firdimigdi]

6 hours ago, Aapje said:

 

Oh, is this an Nvidia bug then?

 

No idea, just that it only occurs with IL-2. No other game either native OpenXR or via OpenComposite exhibits this with FFR enabled.

[DBCOOPER011]

6 hours ago, chiliwili69 said:

 

Thanks. That´s nice to hear. But I know that if I like more the Crystal I will need to replace my current 3080 for a 4080/4090 or any new NVIDIA card (4080Ti, 50XX...)

 

The 4070 is about the same as the 3080, it may be enough. I was running both FFR and DFR on my 4070 for quite a while with no problems, only had one CTD. Once I went back to my 7800X3D/4090, I was getting CTD's quite frequently in both FFR and DFR using pimax play. It seems to occur more when the CPU and /or GPU is loaded up with more textures or something, who knows.. Created a ticket with pimax to see if they are aware of it...

Edited April 20, 2024 by DBCOOPER011

[BOO]

Ill be very interested in your opinion on the light too @chiliwili69. Following along.

[E69_Mijas]

El modelo Cristal light no viene con seguimiento ocular y esto se traduce en un rendimiento inferior al del cristal normal.
Tengo un Quest Pro y un 4090 y estoy considerando comprar un Cristal lIght o un super (qled-oled).

 

¿Estoy en lo cierto en mi comentario o el hecho de que no se haga seguimiento ocular tendrá poca o ninguna influencia?

Por cierto, solo uso simuladores il2 big battles y dcs.

[Aapje]

9 hours ago, DBCOOPER011 said:

 

The 4070 is about the same as the 3080, it may be enough.

 

The issue with the 4070 is that it has a much smaller bus, which means that the performance falls of at higher resolutions, like you need for VR. In the Hardware Unboxed testing, it falls below the 3080 10 GB. The 4070 Super is better than the 3080 at 4K in their testing..

 

@E69_Mijas

 

The lack of eye tracking has no effect on IL-2, as there is no support for dynamic foveated rendering in IL-2. Although you never know what the new engine may bring.

 

It will impact the performance in DCS substantially. Since you have a Quest Pro with eye tracking, which is quite good already, I would personally suggest waiting for the reviews after the headsets get delivered to reviewers and consumers.

Edited April 20, 2024 by Aapje

[DBCOOPER011]

12 hours ago, Aapje said:

 

The issue with the 4070 is that it has a much smaller bus, which means that the performance falls of at higher resolutions, like you need for VR. In the Hardware Unboxed testing, it falls below the 3080 10 GB. The 4070 Super is better than the 3080 at 4K in their testing..

 

 

All I know is that this 4070 looks and runs pretty good when set up properly. I can run about 70% of the resolution I normally run on my 4090 in IL2 and it runs smooth and looks almost the same. In DCS w/QVFR, this 4070 looks about 90% as good as my 4090 setup. The settings below run this 12600KF/4070 setup in DCS at a smooth 10-12ms w/o any re-projection. It looks awesome. Thats the only reason I'm hesitant about the crystal lite, it doesn't have eye tracking..

[Charger_]

Do Primax Crystal users upscale from default 2800 x 2800 when flying in IL2?

 

How much of higher resolution is possible with the Crystal light i wonder? And how much does this improve spotting distance than say Reverb G2 and Pico 4 that can be upscaled from 2180 x 2180 to up to 3800 x 3800?

 

This is the thing that will get me to upgrade i suppose. Its hard to gauge i know.

 

 

Edited April 21, 2024 by Charger_

[spreckair]

On 4/19/2024 at 3:18 PM, chiliwili69 said:

Better inside-out tracking (G2 is 2 cameras, PCL is 4 cameras)

Really?  My G2 has four cameras.

[TCW_Brzi_Joe]

On 4/21/2024 at 2:55 AM, Charger_ said:

Do Primax Crystal users upscale from default 2800 x 2800 when flying in IL2?

Yes. Optimal image quality is achieved with 4396*5100 pixels (that is called supersampling 1, or 100%). 

In IL-2 I personally use lower resolution, about 3362*3901. My Nvidia 3090 can handle that with 80-90fps, and I spot better with this resolution.

 

ps; you can upscale any headset as much as your graphic card allows, the only limit is made in stupid steamvr, but you can hack it.

[Charger_]

Cheers for that! Yes thats pretty awesome.

 

How how does that relate to spotting ability? Comparable to flat screen resolution? 1080p? 1440p? 4k? maybe?

[Aapje]

2 hours ago, Charger_ said:

How how does that relate to spotting ability? Comparable to flat screen resolution? 1080p? 1440p? 4k? maybe?

 

TL DR version; It is less than half as good as a typical flat screen.

 

Long version:

 

Your question is pretty meaningless, since the quality of the image on a flat screen is determined by much more than just resolution. The size of the monitor together with the resolution determines PPI (pixels per inch), which actually determines sharpness. A small monitor with a low resolution can be sharper and thus give better spotting ability than a huge monitor with a higher resolution, if the size increase is bigger than the resolution increase.

 

This is actually one major reason why we've been increasing resolution as monitor sizes went up, since you need higher resolution for bigger monitors to keep the same sharpness.

 

But PPI doesn't take into account that viewing distance matters a lot as well. The further you are away from the screen, the sharper things are, although you pay for it in Field of View (FoV) and imperfect eyesight means that we see far away things less sharply.

 

The actual proper calculation is PPD, pixels per degree, which is the actual quality of image that reaches your eye. This is always subjective though, since for both flat screens and VR headsets, people have their eyes at different distances from the screen.

 

The Apple Vision Pro has substantially better PPD than the Crystal, but they still use all kinds of tricks, like showing things much bigger, making lines thicker, etc, to make it seem like it is sharper than it is. They do this because they want to sell it as a headset that can replace your monitor, but the actual quality is not as good as a real monitor. So they fake it.

 

But keep in mind that you have a much better FoV in headsets compared to flat monitors (unless you use an unnatural FoV for the monitor), so you have more spatial awareness and much better immersion compared to a flat monitor, but at the expense of clarity.

 

The holy grail for VR is a headset with a FOV that is so large that you can even see a bit behind you, which human vision allows for, while having immense detail as well. However, this requires either a ridiculously high resolution, or smart tricks like dynamic foveated rendering. Or more realistically, both.

 

And then there are other challenges to make things even better, in ways that flat screens can never hope to achieve. But all of that will take decades of work, at least.

Edited April 23, 2024 by Aapje

[Charger_]

Thanks for the great response, very informative.

[dgiatr]

4 hours ago, Charger_ said:

Cheers for that! Yes thats pretty awesome.

 

How how does that relate to spotting ability? Comparable to flat screen resolution? 1080p? 1440p? 4k? maybe?

Spotting ability especially in il2 sturmovik has to do with with the opposite plane pixel size, which means that the more resolution you have in your monitor or vr for the same monitor or vr screen the less spotting ability you have cause pixel size is smaller, but on the other side with higher resolution you get better idying,  so finally I think it's a compromise between the two of them...

 

As far as comparing g2 vs pimax crystal light at the same resolution both , which of the two would have better spotting and idying ability you think?

2 hours ago, Aapje said:

 

TL DR version; It is less than half as good as a typical flat screen.

 

Long version:

 

Your question is pretty meaningless, since the quality of the image on a flat screen is determined by much more than just resolution. The size of the monitor together with the resolution determines PPI (pixels per inch), which actually determines sharpness. A small monitor with a low resolution can be sharper and thus give better spotting ability than a huge monitor with a higher resolution, if the size increase is bigger than the resolution increase.

 

This is actually one major reason why we've been increasing resolution as monitor sizes went up, since you need higher resolution for bigger monitors to keep the same sharpness.

 

But PPI doesn't take into account that viewing distance matters a lot as well. The further you are away from the screen, the sharper things are, although you pay for it in Field of View (FoV) and imperfect eyesight means that we see far away things less sharply.

 

The actual proper calculation is PPD, pixels per degree, which is the actual quality of image that reaches your eye. This is always subjective though, since for both flat screens and VR headsets, people have their eyes at different distances from the screen.

 

The Apple Vision Pro has substantially better PPD than the Crystal, but they still use all kinds of tricks, like showing things much bigger, making lines thicker, etc, to make it seem like it is sharper than it is. They do this because they want to sell it as a headset that can replace your monitor, but the actual quality is not as good as a real monitor. So they fake it.

 

But keep in mind that you have a much better FoV in headsets compared to flat monitors (unless you use an unnatural FoV for the monitor), so you have more spatial awareness and much better immersion compared to a flat monitor, but at the expense of clarity.

 

The holy grail for VR is a headset with a FOV that is so large that you can even see a bit behind you, which human vision allows for, while having immense detail as well. However, this requires either a ridiculously high resolution, or smart tricks like dynamic foveated rendering. Or more realistically, both.

 

And then there are other challenges to make things even better, in ways that flat screens can never hope to achieve. But all of that will take decades of work, at least.

 

[chiliwili69]

On 4/22/2024 at 6:31 PM, spreckair said:

Really?  My G2 has four cameras.

Yes, you are right. I have corrected above. Thanks.

[chiliwili69]

6 hours ago, dgiatr said:

Spotting ability especially in il2 sturmovik has to do with with the opposite plane pixel size, which means that the more resolution you have in your monitor or vr for the same monitor or vr screen the less spotting ability you have cause pixel size is smaller, but on the other side with higher resolution you get better idying,  so finally I think it's a compromise between the two of them...

 

Yes, this is quite right. You can see that when I was experimenting with the Pico4 versus Index and also wanted to compare with monitor (FullHD and 4K):

You can clearly see that spot is better with a FulHD monitor, but ID is better the 4K.

 

In VR this is more complex since it enters the individual geometry of the panel and lens. I will try to experiment the same with the Light and the Quest3

[dgiatr]

41 minutes ago, chiliwili69 said:

 

Yes, this is quite right. You can see that when I was experimenting with the Pico4 versus Index and also wanted to compare with monitor (FullHD and 4K):

You can clearly see that spot is better with a FulHD monitor, but ID is better the 4K.

 

In VR this is more complex since it enters the individual geometry of the panel and lens. I will try to experiment the same with the Light and the Quest3

Thank you Chiliwili69 that would be very interesting as far as Light is concerned...

[spreckair]

On 4/23/2024 at 9:06 AM, dgiatr said:

The actual proper calculation is PPD, pixels per degree, which is the actual quality of image that reaches your eye. 

This is how I have been thinking about aircraft identity as well.  In my thinking (which is purely laymen's conjecture), in order for a distant aircraft to be identifiable, at minimum it has to be composed of enough small pixels to create its silhouette.  If there are not enough, then you just have the shape of...three, four, five pixels, which cannot create the shape of an aircraft that differentiates it from other aircraft, but instead a blob of an aircraft, which is what I am seeing currently with my G2.  As the aircraft comes closer, i.e. gets bigger, it consists of more pixels, which then begins to form its shape more clearly.  Therefore, in order for distant aircraft to become more identifiable, the pixels need to get much smaller, denser, and therefore numerous, so that they can create a shape with more complexity.

 

Is this right?

 

Will micro-OLED help with this?

[Aapje]

2 hours ago, spreckair said:

Is this right?

 

Will micro-OLED help with this?

 

Yes, that is pretty much correct. Flight simming is particularly demanding for VR, since you want accuracy over large distances. Although you will need a very beefy video card to drive those pixels and even then you need something like dynamic foveated rendering.

 

And there are also other factors that play a role, like efficiency and brightness, which is why it's even better to have micro-LED, so without the O. But that is even more difficult and expensive to make than micro-OLED.

Edited April 26, 2024 by Aapje

[chiliwili69]

Today they opened the orders for the pre-orders.

For Spain (and perhaps all EU) there is 123€ of taxes:

 

I took the "Trial Payment" model since I prefer to test the Crystal Light versus the Quest3, just for IL2.

Shipping is expected in 4 weeks but who knows.

[dgiatr]

4 hours ago, chiliwili69 said:

Today they opened the orders for the pre-orders.

For Spain (and perhaps all EU) there is 123€ of taxes:

 

I took the "Trial Payment" model since I prefer to test the Crystal Light versus the Quest3, just for IL2.

Shipping is expected in 4 weeks but who knows.

123 euros are TOTAL taxes? i mean there is in that amount your country custom taxes since the product comes from a country outside Europe?

 

Edited May 15, 2024 by dgiatr

[DBCOOPER011]

On 5/15/2024 at 12:15 AM, chiliwili69 said:

Today they opened the orders for the pre-orders.

For Spain (and perhaps all EU) there is 123€ of taxes:

 

I took the "Trial Payment" model since I prefer to test the Crystal Light versus the Quest3, just for IL2.

Shipping is expected in 4 weeks but who knows.

 

I hope you like it! I highly recommend getting the studioform apache strap and face foam spacer kit. I used the included 11mm(I believe) face gasket and cut the spacer kit to form my face for a good fit. Your able to space the distance from your eyes to the lenses exactly how you need it, whether you use inserts or not. Its a really good fit for me now and extremely comfortable.

 

https://www.studioformcreative.com/shop

 

 

[chiliwili69]

On 5/15/2024 at 1:11 PM, dgiatr said:

123 euros are TOTAL taxes? i mean there is in that amount your country custom taxes since the product comes from a country outside Europe?

Those 123€ are the 21%VAT tax that we usually pay for every god we buy as an end user for purchases within the EU.

This VAT is also applied to imported gods from other countries outside EU.

The Pimax will reimburse those 123€ to the EU tax agency.

[chiliwili69]

8 hours ago, DBCOOPER011 said:

studioform apache strap and face foam spacer kit

Thank you for this advice. I ordered the apache strap and spacers kit. I want to evaluate the Pimax in the best conditions possible.(since the Quest3 is superconfortable with the DESKTEK QH3 kit)

I also ordered the 100+200 gram counter balance since I think I will need it, even being the light version.

With the Index I made my own counter balance of 170 gram which was very much needed:

 

[Aapje]

27 minutes ago, chiliwili69 said:

Those 123€ are the 21%VAT tax that we usually pay for every god we buy as an end user for purchases within the EU.

This VAT is also applied to imported goods from other countries outside EU.

The Pimax will reimburse those 123€ to the EU tax agency.

 

No, that's not exactly how it works. First of all, VAT differs per EU country. The average is around 20-21%.

 

Secondly, a fraction goes to the EU agency, certainly not all or most of it.

 

And it is possible for non-EU companies to directly ship to EU customers without them having to pay import fees, by prepaying the VAT with the One Stop Shop (OSS). However, it is typically only larger companies that do this, like AliExpress.

[DBCOOPER011]

5 hours ago, chiliwili69 said:

Thank you for this advice. I ordered the apache strap and spacers kit. I want to evaluate the Pimax in the best conditions possible.(since the Quest3 is superconfortable with the DESKTEK QH3 kit)

I also ordered the 100+200 gram counter balance since I think I will need it, even being the light version.

With the Index I made my own counter balance of 170 gram which was very much needed:

 

 

I purchased the counterweight as well, but  dont need it since I prefer using headphones and that adds some counterweight by itself. I noticed a good fit results in a sharper image with less chromatic aberration at the edges. This is how mine is set up so far...

 

[firdimigdi]

18 hours ago, DBCOOPER011 said:

I prefer using headphones

 

I've always wondered what sort of headphones fit over the Crystal with those built-in speakers right in the way - something shaped like DT770s perhaps?

[dgiatr]

On 5/17/2024 at 10:31 AM, chiliwili69 said:

Thank you for this advice. I ordered the apache strap and spacers kit. I want to evaluate the Pimax in the best conditions possible.(since the Quest3 is superconfortable with the DESKTEK QH3 kit)

I also ordered the 100+200 gram counter balance since I think I will need it, even being the light version.

With the Index I made my own counter balance of 170 gram which was very much needed:

 

 

23 hours ago, DBCOOPER011 said:

 

I purchased the counterweight as well, but  dont need it since I prefer using headphones and that adds some counterweight by itself. I noticed a good fit results in a sharper image with less chromatic aberration at the edges. This is how mine is set up so far...

 

 

4 hours ago, firdimigdi said:

 

I've always wondered what sort of headphones fit over the Crystal with those built-in speakers right in the way - something shaped like DT770s perhaps?

Does anybody know if pimax crystal is compatible with Srs (sim racing studio) plus motion compensation software to use them in dof reality motion platforms ?

[DBCOOPER011]

5 hours ago, firdimigdi said:

 

I've always wondered what sort of headphones fit over the Crystal with those built-in speakers right in the way - something shaped like DT770s perhaps?

 

I'm using an old VModa Crossfade headset that fits very well. I tried using my Steelseries arctis 7 on it but it was too tight of a fit. As you see, you pretty much have to take the original headphones off the crystal to get any headset to work. Atleast I had to..

[firdimigdi]

2 hours ago, dgiatr said:

Does anybody know if pimax crystal is compatible with Srs (sim racing studio) plus motion compensation software to use them in dof reality motion platforms ?

 

If I'm not mistaken the overly enthusiastic British youtuber with the silly preview thumbnail expressions uses that combination.