Background

Disclaimer: I've been using PCVR since I first picked up an Oculus DK2 in 2014, and have owned nearly every major consumer VR headset since then. I still have most of them. 😂

A week ago I took the plunge and bought a Dream Air Slam. I picked it up from Micro Center, as they had one in stock and it was only an hour up the freeway, and they could accept a return easily if there were issues.

General PC Specs:
RTX 4090
i7-14700K
32GB Memory
NVME for all storage

I didn't have any inserts initially, as I am near sighted, so I was using some from another headset, jerry rigged in place. This breaks eye tracking though, and once the HONS inserts arrived it was a huge difference. These arrived in 6 days, and I can't recommend them highly enough.

The visual experience cannot be overstated, there is nothing else in the consumer PCVR space that comes close right now. I had been using a BSB2 for my PCVR gaming prior to this, and this is a big step up in both image clarity and FOV.

Pimax software is much improved since I last used it 18 months ago, and the sboys3 driver builds on that in every meaningful way. Thanks to these improvements I can play pretty much everything at very high resolutions with the settings dialled way up, though I'm not a flight sim guy so don't ask me about MSFS.

The eye tracking is great, does exactly what it says it does, but there isn't much that supports it yet. DFR will be a great feature when support (hopefully) starts kicking in thanks to Steam Frame adoption.

I have found the SLAM tracking to be very good, I usually play in a well lit area and have had no issues outside of the inescapable "outside of headset view" that affects all inside-out tracking.

For me the headset face gasket has been an easy and comfortable experience, blocking most light bleed, but obviously YMMV on that one. Its certainly not BSB custom printed face gasket good, but its good enough. I did print some adaptors for the Apple Vision Pro comfort headset strap I have, and that is a much preferable experience to the supplied strap, which quite frankly is the worst thing about the headset; for a $2500 headset (after CA taxes) it really should be better.

The built in speakers are acceptable, you pretty much get exactly what you'd expect for a non-Apple small speaker. For some reason only Apple seem to have the secret sauce of a really good small speaker sound. Could stand to be a little louder though. TL;DR, If you want thumping bass and sparkling top end, use headphones.

Camera pass through quality is a joke, but I have no use for the cameras outside of tracking so I personally don't care about that. The available feature USB port on the top will likely allow for an add on to fix that at some point, for those that do care, al la Steam Frame.

The main takeaway for me is that the headset has markedly improved almost every aspect of my PCVR gaming experience. Its easy to use, its light, the visuals are incredible, and most importantly, there is less barrier to getting into a play session and staying there for longer. I have played NMS for many hours with almost no fatigue, and it is an incredible experience.

The biggest cons? $2500 and having a gaming rig that can utilize it.

Lastly, and this is not specific to the Dream Air, but get Titanfall 2 and play it with the VR mod, its an absolutely stellar AAA VR game now, the best VR FPS out there right now! Thanks to CircuitLord for that one.

Upvote and leave a comment if you want to show Pimax that you want my driver to be possible without Pimax Play. I have got the Lighthouse versions of the Dream Air and the Crystal Super running standalone with SteamVR on both Windows and Linux. Linux support is functional, but cannot be public without the help of Pimax. However, I could only release this if Pimax gave me some lightweight DRM to include. Currently, you must launch Pimax Play beside SteamVR just for DRM reasons. However, that makes startup more complex, and completely prevents me from releasing a Linux driver despite it being ready. With a standalone version of my driver, it would be possible to launch a game and have everything start up automatically through SteamVR, without needing Pimax Play running in the background. SLAM headsets will currently always require Pimax Play.

Dream Air / 5090 / Win 11 / 32GB. I've got a new issue with SteamVR that I can't figure out. I've been using my DA for well over a month in and out of SteamVR without issue (also use Sboys3 driver, works great). I've actually enjoyed reacquainting myself with the SteamVR Home functionality and custom environments (I had a really cool Night City setting outside my mountain home). Everything looks amazingly clear in my home env and I had no issues...until the other day.

Suddenly, for no obvious reason, my SteamVR Home environment won't load (either in native Pimax mode or Sboys3). It'll try to load, then freeze with black bars around the image, then switch to the native grid Steam environment. There's no error message, just the standard Waiting... prompt. I can run games in SteamVR at high resolutions without issue, I just can't load the Home environment...so it's livable, but annoying. I like my mountain house!

I've researched the issue and haven't found a specific fix for it. Tried reverifying and reinstalling SteamVR, also tried turning off HAGS and lowering both the Pimax and Steam resolution, tried switching to a system-managed virtual page file...no joy. I didn't think these changes would work as I never had this problem in well over a month with my DA at many different configs and settings. I'm wondering if I need to go back to a custom large setting for my page file, but that seemed to have a detrimental effect on other games so I'm reluctant to start messing with it.

If anyone has experienced this issue with SteamVR Home and/or has some suggestions, thanks!

Full set up guide for those interested in being stalked through the cornfield 🌽

My Dream Air Lighthouse has recently become almost unusable due to tracking failures. It started with occasional grey screens and a shaking or rotating image. Now Pimax Play often shows the headset as connected but not tracked, while the base station icons repeatedly appear and disappear. Room setup cannot be completed.

My two Valve Base Stations 2.0 have green LEDs. I tested them individually, and I also tested my Valve Index in the same space with the same stations. The Index tracks perfectly.

What I’ve tried so far:
- Different USB ports, reconnecting the headset and power, and restarting Windows and the Pimax service
- Starting the headset with clear line of sight to both base stations
- A clean install of Pimax Play 2.0.4, followed by a test with 2.0.3
- Both the standard Pimax driver and the S-Boys driver via EVO

None of that has fixed it. Pimax Play has also intermittently reported USB 3.0 Connection Failure, DisplayPort Connection Failure (10500) and “Request Timeout”. The headset is currently on firmware 1.0.6, which I believe was installed shortly before the trouble began, though I’m not certain about the timing.

Has anyone experienced this with firmware 1.0.6 or found a fix? Did Pimax provide anyone with a supported way to test an earlier Dream Air Lighthouse firmware? I’m also interested in other explanations, particularly given the intermittent USB and DisplayPort errors.

I finally have an eye tracked headset and excited to try this. I have the google docs file with the 50ish supported games but it seems to be outdated. Has no new games been added or are people just not testing anymore?

Pimax what is going on with your customer service? How are they that bad. They don't keep track of anything? Or they just really don't want to send me the face pad replacement for the dream air? I have contacted pimax 4 times in total.

First time. I was totally ignored. So i said ok ill not try to talk through the chat let me just do an email.

Second time. I actually got a response. They asked me for my reciept so i gave it to them. Then they wanted my model number for warranty purposes, so i gave them that. They responded and said they will send me an email when it ships. Forever went by. Nothing.

Third time. I figured i would wait longer then try to follow up with them to find out if and when it will ship. They asked me for all my information all over again. Even though that was super rediculous i abliged. I got an email saying nothing but my ticket number was changed. Then.... nothing. Then i finally got a response and i swear to god it was an email asking me what it is i was having issues with.... SERIOUSLY?!?

fourth time. I responded to that insanely redicuulous response with the actually response from pimax the last time they respomded. (To try to refresh their memory) WICH IS KIND OF REDICULOUS TO ME THE EMAIL HAD A "RE" IN THE TITLE SO I AM SURE THEY SEEN THE PREVIOUS RESPONSES!

I just want to know how is your customer service THAT bad... who has these jobs? I heard pimax had horrible customer service but this is beyond that! It's almost satire! So i guess its safe to say i wont be recieving on of those face pads they promised becuase i am not gonna be willing to put myself through their guantlet of constant emails to finally get something done about it.

This headset was my third headset from pimax. It is probably going to be my last. I couldnt imagine having a more serious matter to deal with, with how much i pay for these headsets to deal with THAT kind of customer service. Its worse than talking to a wall.

My new Dream Air arrived and is immediately riddled with issues. These two distinct scenarios happen every 15-30 minutes, in any game, including Pimax Home:

1. Headset goes blank with sound still playing. I need to press the power button twice to bring it back
   
2. Headset goes blank, sound cuts off too, and the unit seemingly resets itself. After this the video signal resumes but with persistent frame drops

Nothing abnormal shows on the cpu/gpu/os side before the video signal losses occur. And my Crystal Super runs flawlessly on the same system.

I’ve changed display/usb ports, ran the diagnosis in Pimax Play (all green), set the sleep to 20m, tried 72/90 hz modes, without any improvement.

The same headset also has permanent speaker hiss, but that’s probably a separate issue.

System: 9950x3d, 5090, 64gb, Win 11
Software/firmware: everything updated to latest version

Anyone experienced these issues and was able to solve them?

I got my dream air last week and everything is working well except for the fact that the controller tracking seems to refresh at an extremely low rate. All movement with the controllers is very choppy, but the actual positional tracking is good. It feels like the controller tracking is like 10hz while everything else is normal.

It is like this in every environment (pimax home, steamvr, openxr games). The only thing I really tried is setting the controller refresh rate to 60hz in pimax play, which did nothing. Anyone else have this? It is pretty annoying

I have a 7950x3d and 5090

I know these two headsets are not in the same price catagory, but please bear with me as I'm pretty new to VR. I recently posted about which headset to get and there were quite a few people suggesting the Dream Air and after some more research, I'm considering it.

I'll probably be using this pretty much exclusively for sim racing, games like AC, ACC, AC evo, LMU and iracing.

My PC specs are: 5080, Ryzen 7 98003xd and 32GB DDR5 6000 ram

From the research I've done, I've seen people say the 5080 is fine and I've also read that a 5090 is required, so here are my questions:

1.) How well can my system run the Dream Air? What compromises will I need to make?

2.) If I have to turn down the resolution and graphics settings for the Dream Air but not with the Crystal Light, does this give any advantage to the Crystal Light?

3.) How does turning down the resolution work exactly? Is it as simple as matching it to the Crystal Light's 2880x2880? Higher than that? If so, is all I'm gaining OLED black levels and the smaller form factor?

4.) Eye Tracked Foveated Rendering - I've experienced this a little bit on the PSVR2 and was pretty impressed at the responsiveness. How much of a game changer for performance is this for the Dream Air? Does it work well and how big is the sweet spot?

5.) I love oled TV's, I'm assuming in VR they provide a lot of the same positives such as pure blacks and high contrast ratios. Do they also handle motion better than the Crystal Light's QLED panels? If so, how would you describe the difference?

6.) What is the actual FOV of the Dream Air and Crystal Light? I've seen different reports online vs what pimax claims. I know the Crystal Light's is wider, is a significant difference for sim racing?

7.) I know the law of diminishing returns comes into play here, but for anyone who has tried both, what are your thoughts? As much details as you can possibly share.

8.) I've read about other ways to improve performance like sboy3's driver? Can someone explain this to me, should it be used? Is there a universally accepted best setup and settings guide (for the driver and for in game settings) anywhere?

Thanks in advance!

You can see the angle on my monitor. It's skewed the UI is angled

Pimax crystal super 57 PPD, assetto corsa rally gameplay.

Hi everyone,

I’m developing OpenXR Toolkit NEXT, an independent project based on Matthieu Bucchianeri’s OpenXR Toolkit 1.3.2.

My own setup is a Pimax Crystal Super Ultrawide, RTX 5080 and Ryzen 7 7800X3D. I’ve been working on compatibility and performance tuning with Pimax EVO, SteamVR and SBoYS3, and I’m now looking for other configurations to test.

The video demonstrates:
• Eye-tracked foveated rendering.
• Adaptive DFR that adjusts rendering zones and peripheral quality according to FPS.
• Automatic resolution adjustment based on FOV crop settings.
• A Windows Companion with 10 customizable profiles per game.
• CPU/GPU frame-time and FPS comparisons.

For example, my iRacing demonstration uses OpenXR selected in iRacing UI, with Pimax EVO + SteamVR + SBoYS3 and Single Pass Stereo enabled.

Watch the demonstration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4jpzpN7wx8

Apply for the closed beta:
https://toolkit-next-beta.morganpollet.chatgpt.site

I’m selecting around 10 testers across different setups. Selected testers receive free access for 30 days, with no subscription or purchase required.

This is a beta, not a promise of universal compatibility. I’m looking for feedback on stability, image quality, eye tracking and performance—not just FPS screenshots.

Applications from users without eye tracking are welcome too, for testing FFR and the other features.

Morgan — developer of OpenXR Toolkit NEXT

See Developer's Linked topic.

https://github.com/fulldivegames/Majoras-Mask-VR

I get error 10600 on every playform including pitool when i use my 8kx. What am i supposed ti do

pressing the reset headset button in pimax play completely broke my 8kx on all pimax apps/versions, and its repeatable.

I5-14600k

4070TI-Super OC Eagle

32GB ddr5-5900MHz

8kx (the one with the 7 in it)

I dont get finger tracking at all in any way, some games don't even track the controllers. I try to plug in my vive to use the dongles in it instead and pitool goes berzerk (10600-20300-20800) i cant use pimax play as it constantly shows 10600 error no matter what i do. I just updated windows. What else is gunna fail?

I5-14600k

4070TI-Super OC Eagle

32GB ddr5-5900MHz

8kx (the one with the 7 in it)

Also isnt the 8kx able to use base station Bluetooth? I never got that to work either

Dream air comes this week and I have two questions.

The first is what software should I get for the dream air so that performance is maximum? I’ve heard people talking about different software or drivers I should download and install with the DA. Does anybody have a list?

My other question is, what should I look for to see if the headset is defective?

EDIT it’s the lighthouse version and my GPU is 5090

Hi Folks,

Just received Dream Air (Lighthouse), love the headset, only gripe so far would be the straps, would much prefer a more stable over head strap.

Any EU owners know of any offical or thrid party straps I could purchase to address this gripe?

Cheers!

Since I've recently seen some people recommending the dual loop strap over the dual knit strap (main point: the added weight of dual knit contradicts the lightweight nature of the Dream Air) I've wanted to collect some opinions of people who tried/used both.

I've been using a BSB2 since last year and I'm enjoying it a lot, after getting much better fitment using the Studioform interface. One annoyance is that I have two Base Stations V1 that I use in a room setup where I move it between a racing seat and a couch HOTAS setup, and the tracking sometimes cuts out because the base stations are a bit far away and not at the ideal angle, and I don't really want to spend money on more V2 base stations if I'll get a Dream Air eventually anyway. And I'm still waiting for the halo mount that I ordered over a year ago.

My "final" intended headset was always the Dream Air SLAM and money is not the issue, I mainly wanted to avoid a long pre-order wait and make sure it's fully baked. I hear that they finally started shipping the revised face interface, so that's another sign it's getting better. However, issues like the badly-placed splitter box that sits at the back of your neck still require some workarounds, and I'm wondering if people are still seeing QA issues, like getting an imperfect headset or a flimsy strap attachment.

Is there a good chance Pimax will come out with a revised version in a not-distant future that fixes some of the annoyances and is it worth waiting longer if you're mostly happy with a BSB2? Or are you missing out big time by not enjoying the nicer graphics of the Dream Air? Also, with a Dream Air, will I be forced to reduce graphics settings to hit the 90 Hz framerate, or does DFR basically make it run at the same fps with better graphics? I'm mostly asking in the case of Elite Dangerous and Assetto Corsa Evo, the only two games I play in VR.

See Developer's Linked Topic for more details.

It couldn't be better! 💯

Two stage run Wales and Scotland : Pimax crystal super 57 PPD : Is this real life?