Pimax Crystal Light

[-332FG-Gordon200]

On 11/23/2024 at 1:05 AM, Charlo-VR said:

I am running Pimax Play 1.26.02.01.

Pimax Play is now 1.32.02.01. https://pimax.com/pages/downloads-manuals

[thermoregulator]

On 11/19/2024 at 11:41 PM, thermoregulator said:

Guys, can you play career mode with PCL? Whenever I try to launch career mission, or start a new career with Pimax, game immediately freezes. In 2d, or with Pico 4 ultra is everything ok and career works.

If anyone has same problem, I finally found a solution. If you start the game from "Device settings" in Pimax Play, from the "Games" section in there, where you set the settings for each games separately, career mode works OK. But you have to start it each time exactly from there, starting the game from "My Assets" in Pimax Play does not work.

 

Also, today, after a month of waiting, my replacement left lense finally arrived and the headset is usable.

 

Clarity and resolution is really great in the sweetspot, which is i believe a little larger than sweetspot in  the Reverb G2, but significantly smaller than sweetspot in Pico 4 Ultra. So, spoting and ID-ing is very good unless you are in dogfight. In those situations, moving contacts out of sweetspot are affected by chromatic aberration, blurry and hard to ID.

 

Displays are great (one of them is much more bright than the other in default settings, but you can thankfully adjust that separately in Pimax Play, so it is ok), the headset is very heavy and uncomfy.

 

Otherwise, It is very good headset for simming and seated experience.

[spreckair]

So, I have a Pimax Crystal Light, I-9 14900K, RTX 4080 Super.  My FPS is wildly fluctuating between 90 and 45 during single player missions.  I used to get consistent 90 FPS with my Reverb G2.  I suspect that my settings are rubbish, since I have never truly understood many of them.  Is anyone with similar specs getting consistent high FPS? If so, can you share any setting and ideas on how I can improve my FPS.  Thank you in advance.

[Panzerlang]

Do you have motion-smoothing on (ASW)? That will see FPS halving when it kicks in.

[DBCOOPER011]

1 hour ago, spreckair said:

So, I have a Pimax Crystal Light, I-9 14900K, RTX 4080 Super.  My FPS is wildly fluctuating between 90 and 45 during single player missions.  I used to get consistent 90 FPS with my Reverb G2.  I suspect that my settings are rubbish, since I have never truly understood many of them.  Is anyone with similar specs getting consistent high FPS? If so, can you share any setting and ideas on how I can improve my FPS.  Thank you in advance.

 

As Panzerlag mentioned, you may have smart smoothing on. These are my settings at 72Hz using opencomposite with the OG Crystal. The settings should be close for the Crystal light, if not the same. The render resolution at a 1.0 setting should be around 4300X5100 or so...

 

Also since we cant use FFR/DFR in IL2 at the moment, a 1.0 render resolution is pretty much the max for me and I'm on a 4090. I'm getting about a 10 to 12ms GPU frame time depending upon the map with the settings below..

 

 

Edited January 5 by DBCOOPER011
added info

[spreckair]

@DBCOOPER011 and @Panzerlang  Thank you very much for the quick reply.  I tried your settings and it improved my experience a lot.  Before I was maxing at 90 FPS but had frequent drops to 45 FPS, which really affected the image quality badly.  With the changes, my max FPS dropped to 73 FPS, but it stayed at 73 FPS throughout the entire flights.  I did notice just the slightest stuttering when I rolled my aircraft, but it was so small that it was almost not noticeable and it was livable for now.  I will keep playing around with settings to see if I can raise the max.  Thank you again.

[DBCOOPER011]

10 hours ago, spreckair said:

@DBCOOPER011 and @Panzerlang  Thank you very much for the quick reply.  I tried your settings and it improved my experience a lot.  Before I was maxing at 90 FPS but had frequent drops to 45 FPS, which really affected the image quality badly.  With the changes, my max FPS dropped to 73 FPS, but it stayed at 73 FPS throughout the entire flights.  I did notice just the slightest stuttering when I rolled my aircraft, but it was so small that it was almost not noticeable and it was livable for now.  I will keep playing around with settings to see if I can raise the max.  Thank you again.

 

Not a problem. I would recommend trying the headsets refresh rate at 72Hz if possible. That gives you a bit more FPS headroom to play with in regards to the GPU frametime. Some people report seeing some flickering at 72hz and other don't. 72Hz gives you a GPU frametime limit of around 13.5ms and the 90Hz refresh rate is a little over 11ms. You need to stay under either limit, at either refresh rate, in order to have a smooth gaming experience. I typically try to give a buffer of around 1-2ms below those limits to ensure smooth gameplay.

 

If your using OpenXR w/Opencomposite, the OpenXR Toolkit still works great to monitor exactly what framerate you have while in VR. If your using SteamVR, the FpsVR app works well and there is also a free VR frametime app embedded in SteamVR you can use as well.

 

The biggest GPU frametime killer I've noticed is using MSAA. You really don't need to use any amount of MSAA in the crystal since the resolution is so high. The next is render quality. I start at the 1.00 setting and slowly work my way down if needed. There's a chart somewhere on this forum that breaks down the performance hit each IL2 setting makes.

 

With your equipment, you should be able to match or closely match the performance I have for IL2 with the above settings..

[spreckair]

@DBCOOPER011  Thank you again.  I did try 72Hz and it really stressed my GPU for some reason.  I have been using the Pimax's 90 Hz upscale option, which seems to work well so far.  Also, I haven't been using MSAA, but I did have FXAA on; maybe I will try without it and see what happens.  I am regularly using FpsVR to monitor performance.

 

I have been looking, but I cannot find a definitive guide to all of these options anywhere.  It would be nice if there was an official guide that at least explained each option and its impact.

 

Also, do you know if there are any settings in the Nvidia control panel that I should be aware of?

[Panzerlang]

8 hours ago, spreckair said:

 

 

Also, do you know if there are any settings in the Nvidia control panel that I should be aware of?

I have Latency on Ultra, but that's for DCS (where it is noticeably helpful).

[DBCOOPER011]

I only change low latency to ultra or on, power management to max performance, and vsync to off in hte NVCP. Nothing else seems to do much for me..

 

Additionally, having a good fit/spacing for the headset is important. I use the studioform apache strap with their spacer kit. It took a little bit to get the spacing correct, but the picture quality improved with that and the having the IPD set correctly..

 

https://www.studioformcreative.com/pimax

Edited January 6 by DBCOOPER011
added info

[spreckair]

@Panzerlang @DBCOOPER011  Thank you both for your help.  I made the adjustments to the low latency and vsync in the NVIDIA Control Panel (Power Mgmt was already at max) and my FPS is now at a very steady 90 FPS.  I have never seen the image quality this good.  Awesome help from you--thank you again.

[c19580]

I’ve read that it’s better to adjust contrast and brightness directly in PimaxPlay rather than in OpenXR Toolkit.

 

What contrast and brightness settings are people using in PimaxPlay that have delivered good results?

 

Do you also run OpenToolkit in parallel?

[blitze]

Yes, use PImax Play for contrast, backlight and even general brightness of which you can use the Il2 brightness for in-game tweaking if required.

 

Not sure about the Crystal Series of headsets but I am finding the standalone PimaxXR Control Center v0.4.4 is the better option for my 8K-X  The Pimax Play XR version seems to be slower for me for some reason of which I can't get an answer from Pimax.

[JG1_leeG]

Greetings Pimax Crystal Light gurus. I have an odd problem I need some help with. I’ve recently upgraded from the HP Reverb G2 to the Pimax  Crystal light. The transition went very smoothly with MSFS 2020 and Elite Dangerous working flawlessly. Il2, however, has an issue I can’t sort out.

 

When I launch Il2 in VR, I see the museum screen in the VR headset and can look around, but the game crashes before I get the login screen. Usually. The very few times I have been able to get past the login screen, the VR performance and experience was better than with the Reverb.

 

How do I get Il2 to consistently launch in VR?  Why would it crash prior to the login screen?

 

I use OpenComposite with PimaxPlay to launch Il2 in VR.  I’m running an i7-12700k RTX 4070 system. 

 

Thanks for any help you can give me. 

[[CPT]Crunch]

Make sure quadviews is unchecked.  It will allow you to start the game but will crash when you attempt to get into the cockpit or shortly after.  Quadviews is not supported in Great Battles and causes instability.

[JG1_leeG]

[CPT]Crunch thanks for the reply.  I don’t have quadviews checked. I don’t have any options checked in PimaxPlay. Just 90 hz and medium resolution quality. 

[Panzerlang]

On 2/14/2025 at 8:09 AM, [CPT]Crunch said:

Make sure quadviews is unchecked.  It will allow you to start the game but will crash when you attempt to get into the cockpit or shortly after.  Quadviews is not supported in Great Battles and causes instability.

That made me check my settings. Quadviews was on (for DCS) but IL2 has been running perfectly for me regardless.

That's with the OG Crystal.

Edited February 15 by Panzerlang

[JG1_leeG]

Looking through the FAQs, the only thing that stood out was to set il2.exe to run as administrator.

 

That kinda sorta works.

 

From a cold computer start, Il2 will load to the login screen and launch in VR. Exit Il2 and restart and it crashes before login. Unless I keep the headset actively moving from side to side in the museum hangar.  That seems to keep the focus on VR long enough to load the login screen.  Once I get the login screen I’m good to go.  This works more often than not.

 

Not a very satisfying solution, but I’ll take what I can get. 

[Drum]

Also, make sure your HMD is centered within your play area before loading.

[C6_Zorkaiev]

I have had a Pimax crystal light for two months. I had a 3070 ti.

 

I just bought a rx 9070 xt (asrock amd radeon rx 9070 xt taichi 16 go oc)

First try on Il2 in VR. Initially 10 fps. After several hours of research I understood that it was necessary to disable the Windows setting "Hardware accelerated graphics processor scheduler" (in "Settings / System / Screen / Graphics / Default graphics settings) I don't know why or how but it is essential to do on my config.

 

I went through the configuration possibilities: in fact not much to touch except the optimization of the frequency. I had to touch the colorimetry a little. The gpu climbs to 3200 Mhz without problem while remaining at around fifty degrees. Adrenaline allows you to output a log of all the gpu / cpu parameters.)

No crash observed.

For the results and after searching for the right parameters in Pimax play and il2, with a pimax setting of 72 fps, I manage to maintain 72 fps in il2 on the ground on CombatBox (Bodenplatten card). On Berloga, much less heavy, it holds the 90 fps. The game is fluid without ghosting.

VRAM usage climbs to a little over 11.5 GB (so I have some leeway) for an average consumption of 206 W (with however much higher peaks: 357 W)

I come from a 3070 TI (8 GB VRAM): I was running at about sixty fps with a lower resolution (Render quality in Pimax play at 68% (2932 x 2934) and ghosting problems. Now I am at 75% render quality (resolution of 3234x3236 with a vertical Offset of 1.8)

I have changed the quality a little in il2 while remaining in FXAA x2: setting on quality with visualization at 130 km, detail in x4, cloud on quality, shadow on medium, sharpen etc ...).

Owners of other models (5070 ti, 4080 super) could give parameter in pimax play and il2 for a comparison with fluid game ?

 

Thanks

[Ares63]

I just bought the Cristal Light but is not recognized by IL2 ...what is wrong?
VR flag is set 
it worked with G2 
with DCS it works 
i'm using openXR no steam 
 

[[CPT]Crunch]

Did you create a profile in pimax play and start the game through the profile?  Also get rid of the mixed reality portal.

[ekoksk]

Happy weekend everyone. I am experiencing too much glow on objects and cities with PCL. What setting am I doing wrong? There is no difference from Quest 3 in terms of glow. I have been using it for 3 weeks. At first there was not so much glow. Does the internet connection affect the glow? Another problem is that I use a neck safer. In the game, it suddenly goes from inside to outside and starts watching by itself. And at the most critical point of the dog fight :))

Edited June 7 by ekoksk

[Drum]

Do you have the head centering button for NeckSafer synced with IL-2's centering button?  Also, not sure what you mean by glow, if you mean bloom you can turn that off in your startup.cfg located in: Steam > steamapps > common > IL-2 Sturmovik Battle of Stalingrad > data > by turning it off with a zero (bloom_enabled = 0).  Every time you change the graphic settings in game you'll need to turn the bloom off again.

Edited June 9 by Drum

[c19580]

I hadn’t played for a couple of weeks and when I most recently played, I updated PimaxPlay and NVIDIA drivers. I seem to be struggling even more since the updates with spotting, especially against the ground. It was always a challenge, but now the planes just disappear against the ground and I’m unable to spot anything unless there’s AAA or flak to alert me…

 

has anyone experienced something similar?

[ekoksk]

Happy weekend everyone. I need help with a few things. I still couldn't get a very clear image with my system 5090 78003xd.pcl. I'm coming from Quest 3. It seems like it's a little better. I read everything under the subject title. I'm experiencing a lot of glare in cities and ground targets. How do you make the resolution in messages like 4000 4000 in cl? The native resolution is 4312 5100. I reduce the resolution from openxr. But it always preserves the approximately 700 difference. DRUM, if you're reading the message, I'm entering the graphics in the data file, but I can't see what you're saying. I think my system is sufficient. If you can help me, I'll be very happy.

9 hours ago, c19580 said:

Birkaç haftadır oynamıyordum ve en son oynadığımda PimaxPlay ve NVIDIA sürücülerini güncelledim. Güncellemelerden beri, özellikle yere karşı tespit konusunda daha da fazla zorlanıyor gibiyim. Her zaman bir zorluktu, ancak şimdi uçaklar yere karşı kayboluyor ve beni uyaracak bir AAA veya uçaksavar olmadığı sürece hiçbir şeyi tespit edemiyorum...

 

Benzer bir şey yaşayan var mı?

I'm coming from Quest 3. I have the same problem. It was definitely easier to detect with Q3M. Yes, it was not very distinguishable whether it was a friend or an enemy until you got closer. But you knew there was a plane there. It was very difficult with PCL.

Edited June 15 by ekoksk

[c19580]

7 hours ago, ekoksk said:

Happy weekend everyone. I need help with a few things. I still couldn't get a very clear image with my system 5090 78003xd.pcl. I'm coming from Quest 3. It seems like it's a little better. I read everything under the subject title. I'm experiencing a lot of glare in cities and ground targets. How do you make the resolution in messages like 4000 4000 in cl? The native resolution is 4312 5100. I reduce the resolution from openxr. But it always preserves the approximately 700 difference. DRUM, if you're reading the message, I'm entering the graphics in the data file, but I can't see what you're saying. I think my system is sufficient. If you can help me, I'll be very happy.

I'm coming from Quest 3. I have the same problem. It was definitely easier to detect with Q3M. Yes, it was not very distinguishable whether it was a friend or an enemy until you got closer. But you knew there was a plane there. It was very difficult with PCL.

I find spotting with a PCL impossible unless there’s aaa or flak to alert me of any enemy.

 

perhaps someone has some magic settings recommendations

[[CPT]Crunch]

Try messing with the Sharpening in the Nvidia control panel, under 'image sharpening' the very top setting, also known as NIS.  But when you do this the game must be running or the full setting won't be accessible.  You can check it on the fly and test it live on a running game.  It has a lot to do with spotting.  If your getting a bad Halo glow around your contacts making them invisible as dots switch the sharpening off inside IL-2.

 

You can do this in a quick mission multi fight, spawn in four big aircraft like C-47 and four small fighter size, set them out at 10,000 meters abeam.  When you spawn in use the pause key as you observe them at various distances and adjusting the sharpening live in your Nvidia control panel.  Remember there's two sharpening settings, the in game and control panel, they can and do conflict.

 

Don't forget to apply in control panel to save it or next time you fire up the game it's not set.  Best to do it as the game profile for Battle of Stalingrad already there. 

[Drum]

6 hours ago, c19580 said:

I find spotting with a PCL impossible unless there’s aaa or flak to alert me of any enemy.

 

perhaps someone has some magic settings recommendations

When I turn HDR off in the settings, I can't see aircraft below me either.  I know most guys turn it off, but that also turns off all light reflection on objects making them blend in with the ground at medium+ range.  If you are using HDR, turn off the Bloom in your startup.cfg file and see if that helps.  Also, with the PCL you shouldn't need any AA either.  Basically, use HDR while turning off all filter settings throughout your game, inside & out.

[ekoksk]

On 15.06.2025 at 05:19, c19580 said:

Birkaç haftadır oynamıyordum ve en son oynadığımda PimaxPlay ve NVIDIA sürücülerini güncelledim. Güncellemelerden beri, özellikle yere karşı tespit konusunda daha da fazla zorlanıyor gibiyim. Her zaman bir zorluktu, ancak şimdi uçaklar yere karşı kayboluyor ve beni uyaracak bir AAA veya uçaksavar olmadığı sürece hiçbir şeyi tespit edemiyorum...

 

Benzer bir şey yaşayan var mı?

Hello. bloom_enable = 0 already appears like this for me. I did not understand what you mean by disabling. Sorry for my ignorance. Should I delete enable and write disable?

[ekoksk]

09.06.2025 tarihinde saat 10:37'de Drum şunları söyledi:

NeckSafer için baş merkezleme anahtarı IL-2'nin merkezleme düğmesiyle geliştirildiniz mi? Ayrıca, gloss ile neyi kastettiğinizden emin değilim, Bloom'u kastediyorsanız bunu şu şekilde bulunan startup.cfg'nizden kapatabilirsiniz: Steam > steamapps > common > IL-2 Sturmovik Battle of Stalingrad > data > sıfırla (bloom_enabled = 0) kapatarak. Oyundaki grafik aksamını değiştirdiğinizde çiçeklenmeyi tekrar kapatmanız gerekecek.

Merhaba. bloom_enable = 0 zaten benim için böyle görünüyor. Devre dışı bırakmakla ne demek istediğinizi anlamadım. 

Edited June 16 by ekoksk

[ekoksk]

On 09.06.2025 at 10:37, Drum said:

NeckSafer için baş merkezleme düğmesini IL-2'nin merkezleme düğmesiyle senkronize ettiniz mi? Ayrıca, glow ile neyi kastettiğinizden emin değilim, bloom'u kastediyorsanız bunu şu konumda bulunan startup.cfg'nizden kapatabilirsiniz: Steam > steamapps > common > IL-2 Sturmovik Battle of Stalingrad > data > sıfırla (bloom_enabled = 0) kapatarak. Oyundaki grafik ayarlarını her değiştirdiğinizde bloom'u tekrar kapatmanız gerekecektir.

hello. bloom_enabled = 0 when I say close, should I write disabled? excuse my ignorance

[Drum]

10 hours ago, ekoksk said:

hello. bloom_enabled = 0 when I say close, should I write disabled? excuse my ignorance

Sorry, that's if you have the HDR turned on in the settings, which I personally recommend for better spotting.  Bloom will automatically be turned off when HDR is off.  Don't change the wording either.  🙂

Edited June 17 by Drum

[[CPT]Crunch]

My light shipped 4 August 2024, died 25 June 2025.  Blew out while flying a sortie on the box.  Entered into the twilight zone of Pimax support, least I got me a ticket number so far.  One loud crack over the DMAS and black screens, game was still up and unresponsive, no power on the light.  Next day multimetered the power supply which checked good steady 12.54 volt output, so it's the set.

[firdimigdi]

10 hours ago, [CPT]Crunch said:

My light shipped 4 August 2024, died 25 June 2025.  Blew out while flying a sortie on the box.  Entered into the twilight zone of Pimax support, least I got me a ticket number so far.  One loud crack over the DMAS and black screens, game was still up and unresponsive, no power on the light.  Next day multimetered the power supply which checked good steady 12.54 volt output, so it's the set.

 

At least it had the decency to do so while still under warranty. Best of luck; hope you get it sorted without fuss.

[[CPT]Crunch]

Somehow they were able to determine through the open Pimax Play it's bad, full warranty applies, have to box it up and arrange a pick up window, full replacement.  That was relatively fast, would rather have a repair since the lenses were great on mine, loved them.  Hoping the replacement is as good.  Boxing it up for Shanghai.  No hassle, they honor the warranty.  

 

Flew Friday with the old G-2 standby, it's an OK set but man it's not at the same level of experience.  Hard to pick the scenery apart to navigate, distance visuals just aren't there, spotting below horizon is impossible.  Got that grey fog screen door right on the edge of annoying.   Colors just don't seem right in a G-2, they did name the Crystal pretty good, it's crystal clear compared and gives the impression of a far bigger world with the far views.  Lucky the electronics failed in the window.

[ekoksk]

On 17.06.2025 at 09:09, Drum said:

Üzgünüm, ayarlarda HDR açıksa bu geçerli, ki ben daha iyi tespit için bunu öneririm. HDR kapalıyken Bloom otomatik olarak kapanacaktır. Ayrıca kelimeleri değiştirmeyin.  🙂

 

On 6/17/2025 at 9:09 AM, Drum said:

Sorry, that's if you have the HDR turned on in the settings, which I personally recommend for better spotting.  Bloom will automatically be turned off when HDR is off.  Don't change the wording either.  🙂

Hello. Many things have been resolved partially. But there are a lot of tremors. Do you have any advice?

[ekoksk]

Hello. Many things have been resolved partially. But there are a lot of tremors. Do you have any advice

[Drum]

Hi ekoksk, I don't use the openxr toolkit, so don't know what issues it may have now because of not being updated in a while.  I only drop the openvr_api.dll into the IL-2 directory and play with the game & PCL settings. Regarding tremors do you mean stuttering frame rates?

Edited July 7 by Drum

[ekoksk]

2 hours ago, Drum said:

Hi ekoksk, I don't use the openxr toolkit, so don't know what issues it may have now because of not being updated in a while.  I only drop the openvr_api.dll into the IL-2 directory and play with the game & PCL settings. Regarding tremors do you mean stuttering frame rates?

I use a necksafer. When I look back and turn my head again, there is a shaking in the cockpit. Sometimes it is severe, sometimes less. But it is never stable. Finally, when I turn my head back suddenly during dogfight, it switches to inside-out tracking. I did not set the room limit during the installation. Could this be why?