Pimax Crystal Light

[Drum]

Try it and let me know,  😉 I know if you save your head position to far back, it'll clip through the seat's headrest and you'll get outside of the cockpit tracking and other issues.  Unfortunately, VR requires a lot of fiddling with the settings.  Make one adjustment at a time only though and see what happens, I know this isn't very helpful but it's the reality of VR right now still.

[Drum]

XRNeckSafer should be loaded first on your load list as well or tracking problems can happen, that's been the cure for many people in the past, myself included.

Edited July 7 by Drum

[[CPT]Crunch]

Replacement on warranty takes about 30 days, received a brand new unit, you also get a 90 day extended warranty if your original remaining time is less than that.  When I plugged it in it had a 15 day trial and a due $258, contacted support and they fixed that, it's gone.  So no cost to you for replacement.  And to boot if you bought one without controllers they send you a full box with, although I never use them.  It has good lenses and I'm happy with them. 

 

Far as tracking hard to see they both came off the same production line, my previous unit had superb tracking, this one I have to tape one of the cameras over to get it stable, jitters like mad when nothing in my use area has changed.  With the tape hack it works like the old unit, guess its a hit and miss with tracking, know someone else who suffers the same issue.

 

Back in the saddle, Pimax does honor their warranty, good job on Pimax. 

[Aapje]

1 hour ago, [CPT]Crunch said:

Back in the saddle, Pimax does honor their warranty, good job on Pimax. 

 

Not so good on QA though, if the replacement unit also has a defect.

[[CPT]Crunch]

Think they're still chasing down a buggy SLAM tracking system, a several Pimax play editions ago no one had problems, now some sets seem overly sensitive and get a wobble going.  Tape over one of the pass through cams and it acts normal for seated simming which is all I do, so good enough for me.  The guy I regularly fly with has had the same issue for months and kept running an old version of Pimax Play until the tape hack.

 

So pretty sure it's a software side issue, and not too worried about it.

[GER_GD]

i have from time to time usb problems and i have the unknown usb device message inside the device manager from win 11....

does anyone of you also have this kind of usb problem?

 

I tried all troubleshooting tips from pimax webside ..no effort ..curios is that the pimax light works with this message,,,

 

greetings

 

GD

[Edbert]

I just got a Crystal Light delivered yesterday, retired my Reverb G2 and was immediately happy with the resolution change, but might have the in-game settings too high since i was getting 45-65 FPS. I did a few minutes of flying around alone and see that it works but could not spend a lot of time to get it setup for actual play. I did see slight stuttering and maybe some clipping. I am hoping there's a document of some kind for recommended settings, do's and dont's, to get in the right zone to allow finer tweaks. I know I have skipped 7 pages of this thread, is there such a thing in one of those posts?

 

I was thrilled to see the Pimax software had found all my supported games, and that I could launch them from there. That is a big deal for me since I want to put my controllers inn a box and forget about them since I only fly and drive. But i was disappointed to see it is not like the Nvidia software that allows me to set the game up in an optimized way with one button press. Surely that is on their list of customer-wants-this features right?

 

My rig is a little aged, just a i5, but one running over 4Ghz without overclocking, 32GB RAM, and a 3090.

[chiliwili69]

A 3090 can not render 44 million pixels at 90Hz (90fps). (custom resolution at 1.0 is 4312x5100 per eye, which is too much for a 3090)

So you can try to use the 72Hz mode of the Pimax Crystal and also reduce the custom resolution to medium (0.75), this should allow you to reduce that slight stuttering you see.

[DBCOOPER011]

2 hours ago, Edbert said:

I just got a Crystal Light delivered yesterday, retired my Reverb G2 and was immediately happy with the resolution change, but might have the in-game settings too high since i was getting 45-65 FPS. I did a few minutes of flying around alone and see that it works but could not spend a lot of time to get it setup for actual play. I did see slight stuttering and maybe some clipping. I am hoping there's a document of some kind for recommended settings, do's and dont's, to get in the right zone to allow finer tweaks. I know I have skipped 7 pages of this thread, is there such a thing in one of those posts?

 

I was thrilled to see the Pimax software had found all my supported games, and that I could launch them from there. That is a big deal for me since I want to put my controllers inn a box and forget about them since I only fly and drive. But i was disappointed to see it is not like the Nvidia software that allows me to set the game up in an optimized way with one button press. Surely that is on their list of customer-wants-this features right?

 

My rig is a little aged, just a i5, but one running over 4Ghz without overclocking, 32GB RAM, and a 3090.

 

I run my OG crystal at 72hz with the attached settings. I would recommend using the GPU upscaling option in pimax play to bump up the fps.

 

Edited September 6 by DBCOOPER011

[chiliwili69]

5 hours ago, DBCOOPER011 said:

I run my OG crystal at 72hz with the attached settings

but you have a 4090. A 3090 has about 40-45% less rendering power.

[DBCOOPER011]

40 minutes ago, chiliwili69 said:

but you have a 4090. A 3090 has about 40-45% less rendering power.

 

The built in upscaler can decrease the gpu frametime quite a bit. Im running a 5090 now and still use 72hz..

 

[Spook109]

Does anyone know of a guide that covers setup and optimization for IL-2? I just got this headset as a replacement for my G2 and I am completely lost. Performance in IL-2 is very poor - I was running the G2 on Ultra settings. Lowering graphics settings doesn't seem to help and I'm getting really bad dragging and stuttering. IL-2 now launches Steam VR - my G2 just opened WMR and didn't interact with Steam. I don't understand why because I selected OpenXR in the Pimax software. DCS won't even launch for me with the Pimax, it hangs on the loading screen.

 

The visuals are great but I'm thinking about returning it for a refund if I can't make some progress with it. I've got another week or so left on the grace period. I have a 5800x3D, 32gb ram and 4080 super.

[chiliwili69]

13 hours ago, Spook109 said:

Lowering graphics settings doesn't seem to help and I'm getting really bad dragging and stuttering

 

It is not a question on the IL-2 graphics settings, the Crystal Light at default resolution (ie Image Quality 1.0 High resolution in Pimax Play and 100% in SteamVR supersampling bar) requires an enourmous amount of pixels to be rendered and most likely your 4080Super can not handle that.

 

You previous G2 headseat at default resolution (100%) was demaning about 19.5 million pixels at 90Hz.

 

But the Crystal Light, at default resolution (ie 4312x5100) is demanding 44 million pixels! which is more than double to waht your G2 was demanding.

 

 

So, just to have all working with the basics I would start by the simplest approach (avoid OpenComposite, or OpenXR Toolkit, or any upscaling techinques, etc).

 

So, just IL-2, SteamVR and Pimax Play software.

 

IL-2 is a game which is implemented using OpenVR, which is the original API of SteamVR. You can bypass SteamVR using OpenComposite but I would leave this for now and would make the basics works. Here you have a "clear" scheme of how things works.

 

To adjust the resolution you have two places, so it is better to touch resolution in just one place, the net effect is exactly the same:

1.- In Pimax Play software: You can adjust the custom resolution to 0.5, 0.7, 1.0  etc.  

2.- In SteamVR slide bar: You can adjust the % slide bar and automatically see the resulting resolution.

 

I would advice you to just leave Image Quality Pimax Play at 1.0 (High or just Cusomize at 1.0) and then just touch the SteamVR %.

 

Just to start witht he same pixels than the G2, you should set the slide bar to 44%, so the resolution is 2660x3383. And run it at 90Hz. So, this should demand your GPU the same load you were using in your G2. And in principle your 4080Super should move that with not problems at all (try that in non AI planes/tanks dense scenarios).

If possible take a look of how much your GPU is loaded (use fpsVR to monitor GPU frametimes or use MSI Afterburner trends).

That 44% resolution will not give you the image quality that the Crystal Light is able to deliver, it will be worse, but you should not have any sttuters at all.

 

Then, once you are in that state, you have three steps to improve image quality/performance (do it in that order):

 

1.- Increase the % in the slide bar of SteamVR (you need to restart SteamVR). In principle your 4080Super could go to about 55-60% at 90Hz

2.- Try the 72Hz mode which demand less for both CPU and GPU, so you can increase more your % to 65%-70%

3.- Then use all the other techniques to increase performance with OpenComposite and OpenXR toolkit software (I am not familiar with)

[Charger_]

On 9/22/2025 at 3:24 AM, chiliwili69 said:

 

It is not a question on the IL-2 graphics settings, the Crystal Light at default resolution (ie Image Quality 1.0 High resolution in Pimax Play and 100% in SteamVR supersampling bar) requires an enourmous amount of pixels to be rendered and most likely your 4080Super can not handle that.

 

You previous G2 headseat at default resolution (100%) was demaning about 19.5 million pixels at 90Hz.

 

But the Crystal Light, at default resolution (ie 4312x5100) is demanding 44 million pixels! which is more than double to waht your G2 was demanding.

 

 

So, just to have all working with the basics I would start by the simplest approach (avoid OpenComposite, or OpenXR Toolkit, or any upscaling techinques, etc).

 

So, just IL-2, SteamVR and Pimax Play software.

 

IL-2 is a game which is implemented using OpenVR, which is the original API of SteamVR. You can bypass SteamVR using OpenComposite but I would leave this for now and would make the basics works. Here you have a "clear" scheme of how things works.

 

To adjust the resolution you have two places, so it is better to touch resolution in just one place, the net effect is exactly the same:

1.- In Pimax Play software: You can adjust the custom resolution to 0.5, 0.7, 1.0  etc.  

2.- In SteamVR slide bar: You can adjust the % slide bar and automatically see the resulting resolution.

 

I would advice you to just leave Image Quality Pimax Play at 1.0 (High or just Cusomize at 1.0) and then just touch the SteamVR %.

 

Just to start witht he same pixels than the G2, you should set the slide bar to 44%, so the resolution is 2660x3383. And run it at 90Hz. So, this should demand your GPU the same load you were using in your G2. And in principle your 4080Super should move that with not problems at all (try that in non AI planes/tanks dense scenarios).

If possible take a look of how much your GPU is loaded (use fpsVR to monitor GPU frametimes or use MSI Afterburner trends).

That 44% resolution will not give you the image quality that the Crystal Light is able to deliver, it will be worse, but you should not have any sttuters at all.

 

Then, once you are in that state, you have three steps to improve image quality/performance (do it in that order):

 

1.- Increase the % in the slide bar of SteamVR (you need to restart SteamVR). In principle your 4080Super could go to about 55-60% at 90Hz

2.- Try the 72Hz mode which demand less for both CPU and GPU, so you can increase more your % to 65%-70%

3.- Then use all the other techniques to increase performance with OpenComposite and OpenXR toolkit software (I am not familiar with)

I have just pulled the trigger on a Crystal light and am waiting for it to arrive.  I have the same specs (5800x3D and 4080) as the guy you were replying too. 

 

I am coming from a Pico4 (great little headset!) 

 

Just wondering, what is your IL2 config file settings that you use? And maybe also Nvidia control panel settings? 

 

Also thanks for all the techy input into VR that you have provided over the years. Its appreciated.

[chiliwili69]

On 10/10/2025 at 9:04 AM, Charger_ said:

Just wondering, what is your IL2 config file settings that you use? And maybe also Nvidia control panel settings

This are my usual settings for NVIDIA, only one option is worth, which is Prefer Maximum performance:

 

For IL-2 settings I typically use these (sometimes I switch from FXAA to MSAA and viceversa, in the BSB2 I noticed I don´t need MSAA as in the Quest3.)

 

In general CPUs can be bottlenecked in dense AI scenarios, so that´s why I unload the options which load CPU (mirrors and other)

To know what graphics options load the CPU you can check this old post (somehow is still valid):

 

The GPU in VR are basically loaded by the rendered resolution and also the MSAA. I think also Clouds details.

 

The Pico4 is as you said a very good Headset, it is a pitty that Pico didn´t continue with the rumored-cancelled Pico5.

[[CPT]Crunch]

Hey Chili, if you fire up IL-2 than open the IL-2 Program Settings for NVIDIA the image sharpening, top of the list, will become active and you can access two sharpening sliders, but only while the game is running.   Once set they'll remain active if you save the setting, but only show up with the game on. 

 

We no longer need them with Pimax sets because it has it's own brand of sharpening, which is even better, built natively into PimaxPlay.  So there's three possible sharpening choices now, the PiPlay, in game, and NVIDIA Control Panel.  

[Charger_]

Unboxed my Crystal Light today and began to fiddle with it.

 

Mine arrived with good lenses and a large sweetspot.

 

Hardware is 5600x3d / 4080

 

I trialled a bunch of settings but in the end have landed on using PimaxVR runtime (using the .dll file method) turning MSAA off, pimax render to custom .92 and quality NIS upscaling. 

 

This is getting 90 FPS and looks fine. Maybe a few jagged edges but not terrible at all.

 

It's better than the Pico 4...but not by a huge amount. I had that headset dialled in. 

 

The display port does reduce compression, especially when lots of planes flying around. 

 

Like all VR I imagine there is plenty of tinkering to go.

[chiliwili69]

20 hours ago, Charger_ said:

It's better than the Pico 4...but not by a huge amount. I had that headset dialled in. 

 

Congrats for your new headset, every headset in the market has thier own pros-cons.

 

Regarding Pico4 has two models, the initial one (I tested it in 2022) using a XR2 Gen1 chip with 150Mbps streaming bandwidth with H265 codec (which is what it matters) and the later one they released (Sep-2024) which has same panel resolution but using the XR2 Gen2 chip with 200Mbps bandwidth with H265 codec.

 

So the images you can get from the Pico4 Ultra are very much the same than what anyone is getting from the Quest3, which is using also XR2 Gen2 chip and almost the same panel resolution. So the images I took from the Cyrstal Light and Quest3 should be very much comparable to the ones I would get if I would compare Pico4 Ultra and Crystal Light.

Yes, they are better but as you say not a huge difference, and at the cost of having to render a huge amount of pixels due to the the high render/panel pixel ratio required by the Crystal Light.

 

Here the links of the tests just for reference: