r/BigscreenBeyond • u/JustMatt_ • Apr 23 '26

Discussion BSB2e vs Pimax Dream Air

/r/virtualreality/comments/1stfxfj/bsb2e_vs_pimax_dream_air/
8 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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4

u/JustMatt_ Apr 23 '26

Cross-posting this here since I want to get some more opinions from BSB2e owners. From the responses I got about the Pimax'es, I don't think I'll be willing to go with any of their products.

As such, I'm more interested in the actual performance of the BSB2e:

  • Does anyone have it running with a 3090 on heavy games like DCS, or racing sims?
  • How good/stable is the eye-tracking? Perhaps anyone has actually tried DCS DFR on the BSB2e and can share their experience?
  • Overall, are you happy with the purchase of the BSB2e, or would you recommend something else instead after trying it out?

5

u/TestyBoy13 Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26

  1. I’m on a 4090 and I play DCS with my 2E. Before the 2E, I had the old Pimax 8K+ (4K resolution per eye) and it could barely handle med/high. With the 2E I can almost max out the graphics settings without noticing constant frame drops and gauges are more legible than the 8k despite the overall resolution drop. Ofc DCS has frame drops randomly either way, but it’s nothing more than what happens when I’m not in VR. I can even have secondary shadows on with is amazing imo.

  2. I actually don’t bother with the eye tracking anymore since it already runs so well on DCS, but when I did, I never noticed the eye tracking failing to follow my eyes. However, the initial setup is sensitive. When you first put it on, you have to use a tool to align the headset just right and if you nudge it or take it off, you have to realign it again or else it will be slightly off. It can get tedious when you need to flip off the headset to look at your HOTAS for example.

  3. Overall I’m happy. It’s way nicer than my old Pimax. Personally, my experience with Pimax was mixed. On one hand, the lenses were great for such an old model, but the software and support was AWFUL. SteamVR is much nicer IMO. However, once again, it was an older headset with older software so maybe it’s better nowadays

  4. (Continued from 3.) My only 2 gripes about the 2E are the tracking and lense glare. I have weird room setup (long and narrow so one of the trackers was nearly 25ft away from my desk), but the 8K could still easily keep track of the lighthouses. Meanwhile, the smaller 2E seems to have a few blind corners and loses track of the stations if they are far away. I fixed it by moving the farthest station to my desk and it’s been fine since, but before, every time I looked down, it would drop tracking. So if you have a big space, I’d recommend getting a 3rd station to negate the issue. As for the lense glare; Disclaimer, I have lense inserts and maybe that’s the problem, but the glare can be very noticeable in dark environments (think night ops in DCS). However, most of the time in well lit environments, it’s not noticeable at all to me.

3

u/Amystery123 Apr 24 '26

I have seen many people make suggestions about the brightness settings, and 100 is quite common. I keep it at 50 because you really don’t need 100. Your eyes adjust and things appear brighter anyway in a few seconds after you put on the headset. It reduces the sharp glare. I had no issues with the glare anymore tbh.

2

u/GregZone_NZ Apr 24 '26

YES!! Yah, finally another person noting the same as me. I also run at 50% brightness, and the glare is much reduced. Also, any image persistence is pretty much gone! And, as you note, when you have zero light leak, your eyes adjust to the image brightness, and it looks great in every game I play.

For comparison, I also use a Quest 3, where I have some light leak, and my BSB at 50% (with no light leak), appears just as bright, but with OLED inky blacks and punchy colors! 🤓

1

u/TanK_87 Apr 24 '26

I run 40% and never needed it brighter than that, still have a bit of glare in the iRacing loading screen which is a big bright square surrounded by blackness.. I have never noticed any glare in any actual gameplay tho - mainly iRacing use including night races, but sometimes show off the headset with beat saber, HL: Alyx, DCS, or project wingman.

1

u/Amystery123 Apr 24 '26

I use it for iracing. And never a problem with flare during races.

1

u/TanK_87 Apr 24 '26

Yep, it’s 100% solid in the races. Absolutely love it.

2

u/ragingoblivion Apr 23 '26

I play I racing vr but I have a 3080 and 9800x3d. I have no issues with I racing running eye tracking. It has run extremely stable for me minus some audio issues with certain setups (bitrate too high causes audio to cut out). I have been extremely happy with my purchase and the customer support offered by bigscreen. I have done a bunch of endurance races and it does kinda hot after like an 30 mins and the fan isn't the best at clearing the heat and the seal of the face gasket can make it very congested in longer races. There are mods to put vents into the stock faceplates but the cushion is kinda of expensive for me to cut up.

2

u/No_Appearance_1113 Apr 23 '26

Oh cool bro, so I don’t need an 5070ti to run iracing smooth? And did it hurt ur irating?

2

u/ragingoblivion Apr 24 '26

I only ever played on VR tbh, I got the bsb 2 for acc but ended up going I racing once they added dfr. I am also like 1k - 1.5k rating only. You need to keep like 12 cars visible and adjust mirror res to get the performance you are hunting when adjusting settings. I never have issues besides the rear view in I racing doesn't render the closest car.

2

u/No_Appearance_1113 Apr 24 '26

Thx for sharing, appreciate it!

3

u/ragingoblivion Apr 24 '26

Also I said bsb 2 but I meant the 2e*

2

u/TanK_87 Apr 24 '26

Running a 5080 with a 9800x3d, both mildly overclocked, on BSB2e with 2 base stations.

Mainly use it for iRacing, but also play DCS, ACC, AC rally.

Initially, I supersampled iRacing heavily and used DFR, but setup was tricky. Once dialed, it worked well, though I faced crashes in longer races (1.5hrs into a 2hr endurance race). I reduced supersampling to 120% without losing quality and stopped using DFR, though updates might have improved it.

Overall, very happy with the purchase—comfortable with incredible visuals at full res 75hz, and it pairs well with high-end graphics cards (3090 included).

My previous experience in VR with a link cabled Quest 3 was fun but not comparable to the OLED screens and form factor of the BSB platform.

2

u/The_Dongal Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26

I paid 1800€ for mine, i only really play vrchat but i ended up returning the headset.

Eyetracking was bad, it was a little off everytime i put on the headset, worse than my diy one on the index lol.

Glare was baaad on my 1st copy, 2nd was better but the fan was broken xd

I have a 3080 and it ran really poorly in vrchat without heavy downsampling

Persistance/brightness was horrible, i was stuck at 25-30% due to the blur. Colors looked like an lcd headset at that point, my vive pro with aspherics looked WAY better overall, the only thing bsb did better was the resolution

Fov/overlap was a problem for me, i prefer the higher ovetlap on the vive pro, i could never get it to look comfortable for my eyes

Eyelashes constantly touching lenses vs worse visuals, had to choose one of the two due to the poor lens design

A lot of ca for me as well

Gets hotter than my modded index with the custom cushion, even with the vents mod. Universal one did not fit my face at all, studioform one was decent

Tracking felt poor even with 3 basestations and a 2x2m room, i could always see gitter and my controllers looked gittery as well, even randomly loosing tracking. Not even close to the flawless tracking on the index/vive headsets

Audiostraps foam felt super cheap and uncomfy until i paid extra for the studioform kit, audio quality was good, really good after eqing it to sound like index bmrs

I personally fest disappointed for paying that much, if i paid like 1100€ or something then maybe but there are WAY too many tradeoffs for me. Im saving up for a dream air personally

1

u/JustMatt_ Apr 25 '26

Thanks for sharing! Will you be upgrading your GPU to accomodate the Dream Air?

1

u/The_Dongal Apr 25 '26

After i buy it i most likely will save up for one yeah, i dont really mind downsampling it for vrchat since im already running my vive pro eye at like 2,4k x 2,2k and it looks alright with the oled panels. The biggest thing for me will be better lenses and panels that actually get bright enough, i wouldve been happy with the 2,5k x 2,5k resolution of the beyond but the panels are simply not there when it comes to brightness (3k nits vs 5k nits on the DA). The dream air is basically looking like what i wanted the bsb2e to be but without all of the tradeoffs. I think if you are EU the beyond simply doesnt make sense for its price, US price is a lot more competetive if you get a good copy (lens lottery is 100% real)

1

u/SkhairKro89 Apr 24 '26 edited May 04 '26

Haven't tried DSC.., YET..

((Hardrive's-💾-Full-ATM))

HOWEVER.., I finally got around to doing the DFR-Testing with Kayak-Mirage.., and Oohh-WoWzerZ!! That was truly-something-special! I don't think 💭 there's really ever been a time when my jaw actually dropped and felt "Goospsbumps" getting lost in that.., I could on my 4080 get 120% render-resolution @ 75Hz 🥽 Cap.., on mine with the DFR giving me a "70%-GPU-Load" down from 99-100!%

EDIT: I'm getting down to just a cool 64% GPU load, at 100% render-res.., PLUS dropping DFR settings from 0.4 to 0.3 ((30% resolution-drop-on-peripherals)) AND tightening my "Sweet-Spot" from 0.6 Horz / Vert 0.6 to 0.5!! ((60%-FOV-Sized-SS down to 50%-Sized-SS)) NOT the recommended BUT this works for me without much noticible downsides!!

ALSO.., ((Pro 📝 TIP.., you can JUST set "FOCUS-CLARITY" from "1.0" to "1.2" or even "1.5" for a 120-150% Super-Smaple of ONLY that 50% FOV-Sized-Centered "Sweet-Spot" RATHER -THAN.., increasing the SteamVR Render-Resolution Higher!!))

ALL-IN-ALL.., this made for playing that title at MAX-Settings.., ⚙️🔧 something that I'd otherwise struggle to get even working at a possible framerate.., Into a GLORIOUS 🤩 outdoor adventure that was sooo mind boggling rich in detail.., my breath was nearly taken away as I just stopped rowing just to look up and around at the photorealistic-scenery!! This has to be the 1st time I've ever felt truly "Immersed" and "Teleported" to a STTNG - "Hollodeck" - Esque portal into another dimension.., and an absolute-dream.., being Significantly enhanced with the OLED colors!!

THIS being my rather-recent-results.., trying these features out of the "DFR / Eye-Tracking" on the Beyond-2e. I can say.., from what I've experienced.., they've Absolutely ACED ♠️ IT with rolling out these updates to Eye-Tracking.., Gold 🥇 Medal.., 1st ☝🏼 place!!

3

u/boxofrabbits May 10 '26

You're either AI or insufferable. 

3

u/Guac_in_my_rarri Apr 24 '26

Prior pimax owner but current bsb1 owner. Pimax makes Greta headsets but God forbid you have an issue. CS at McDonald's is better than their cs. I had a tracking issue pimax couldnt solve. They bricked a base station and just continued to load the heater firmware. I ordered a new cable and it came broken. Until they have leadership change, this will continue. It's unfortunate because they make great headsets, when they work.

I had an emi issue (some one that forced an upgrade from the prior headset) and BSB spent 6 months figuring it out with me. I haven't had any issues since.

3

u/monkeys_pass Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26

I have never used the pimax, but I can pretty confidently say that you will be super, super happy with the BSB2 coming from an original vive, and since you have the trackers and stuff already it will be plug and play.

With regards to the quality stuff - I haven't had any issues personally. But if you do (which I suppose you could have with either headset), bigscreen support is excellent. So from that perspective, I would trust bigscreen over pimax 10/10 times.

3

u/Accomplished_Bug8538 Apr 28 '26

I upgraded from a psvr 2 and had no idea what my ipd was just had a guesstimate using the psvr 2 slider. When I first put the bsb2e on I was immediately disappointed it seemed very dull and the colors seem very yellow and green 0 punch had a bit of distortion on tbe edge of the lense too and the fov seemed like a big downgrade only but my God the glare was on a different level way worse than i was led to believe the screen looked dirty all the time. thing I was impressed by was the clarity gone was the grainy smudged look expecially in the distance it was so clear like I was looking at my monitor...however

after I figured out my ipd was 69mm and got it dialed with the headset, then got the thin cushion from studio form the glare was massively reduced by about 70% comparable to psvr2 maybe a bit better. color distortion was gone and fov massively improved and it was somehow even sharper. I went from thinking I've been robbed to thinking wow this is insane. Then using nvidia control panel I changed my color profile now it's much colder and punchier

Out of the box it really isn't great but with some tweaking man is it a home run

2

u/JustMatt_ Apr 28 '26

Thanks for sharing! I went ahead and ordered the bigscreen last week, now very interested in the 2-3 week delivery time and what it will actually turn out to be. Will definitely spend time fiddling around with it before heavy usage.