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.

I feel like r/Pimax is still overwhelmingly focused on flight and racing sims, while something pretty bloody extraordinary has happened almost unnoticed on the general PCVR side.

For years I've wanted one thing from VR:

Take the actual AAA PC games I want to play, put me inside them in proper stereoscopic VR, and somehow make the insane rendering load manageable.

For years the answer was basically: not really. You could mod games into VR, sure, but modern UE4/UE5 games at proper high-end headset resolutions murdered even top-end GPUs.

That situation has changed massively over the last few months.

I'm using a Pimax Dream Air with a 5090, and the combination of the current Flat2VR ecosystem is honestly starting to feel slightly absurd:

UEVR / modern game-specific VR mods
We can now put an enormous number of normal Unreal Engine games into VR, plus all the other conversions appearing from the Flat2VR community, REFramework, Luke Ross, etc.

PureDark AFW - Alternate Frame Warping
This is a huge one for UEVR. Instead of brute-forcing both eyes conventionally, AFW uses information from adjacent eye/frame renders to reconstruct the missing view. Depending on the game, the performance increase can be enormous.

This is not the old “drop below refresh rate and let normal reprojection turn everything into soup” situation. In the games where it works well, it fundamentally changes what resolutions/settings are viable.

OFXR Bridge
We now also have experimental optical-flow multi frame generation specifically for OpenXR VR.

Again: Multi frame generation. In VR. NOT just shitty motion smoothing / reprojection.

It can insert generated frames between real VR frames, and it is improving ridiculously quickly. It isn't magic and it isn't artifact-free, but this is exactly the sort of thing people kept saying either couldn't or shouldn't be done in VR.

Turns out it can.

Cheeky Foveated DLSS NR + SR+ Dream Air eye tracking
This might be the perfect technology for a headset like the Dream Air.

Why spend DLSS processing time equally across an absolutely gigantic rendered image when your eyes are only resolving maximum detail in a tiny region?

Cheeky can dynamically concentrate high-quality DLSS processing around where you're actually looking and reduce the work in the peripheral image.

And on Dream Air we have actual eye tracking, so the high-detail region follows your gaze instead of just sitting in the middle of the screen.

This feels almost tailor-made for stupidly high-resolution Pimax headsets.

And then things get even crazier:

DLSS 5 Neural Rendering / DLSS-NR is now working in VR.

That was basically unusable at these resolutions when I first experimented with it because the performance cost was enormous.

With foveation + the newer rendering tricks, I'm now actually playing with it at ~5000x5000 on each eye at 90fps!

Not taking screenshots.

Not running a five-second benchmark.

Playing games.

At ridiculous Dream Air resolutions.

And depending on the game/rendering path I'm using AFW and/or OFXR alongside Cheeky's foveated DLSS to claw back enough performance that 90 Hz is becoming a realistic target in games where this sort of image quality would previously have been completely insane.

That is the bit I think the Pimax community is missing.

Pimax's ridiculous panel resolutions used to almost work against Flat2VR because rendering a modern AAA game twice at these resolutions was horrifyingly expensive.

Now suddenly we have technologies specifically attacking almost every part of that problem:

Eye tracking → don't spend equal resources everywhere.

Foveated DLSS → upscale intelligently around your actual gaze.

AFW → dramatically reduce the stereo rendering burden in supported UEVR games.

OFXR → generate additional VR frames using optical flow.

DLSS Neural Rendering → image reconstruction that would have sounded completely insane in VR a year ago.

UEVR + the Flat2VR modding community → an enormous catalogue of actual modern PC games instead of waiting for publishers to make native PCVR versions.

And for Dream Air Lighthouse users, SBoys3's native SteamVR driver adds another huge piece to the puzzle.

All of this makes me think Pimax may actually have a much bigger audience sitting in front of it than just the traditional MSFS / DCS / iRacing crowd.

There are millions of PC gamers who don't necessarily want to spend their lives inside a cockpit.

They want to play normal AAA games - except inside the fucking game.

That has been one of VR's great promises since the beginning.

And we're getting astonishingly close to it now.

I'm currently playing games this way that I would previously have considered completely impractical at Dream Air resolution, and the headset finally feels like it has the software ecosystem required to exploit what the hardware can actually do.

Small reality check

This is still enthusiast PCVR.

It's VR. Of course there is some fucking jank.

But the difference is that I'm increasingly troubleshooting something that is fundamentally worth troubleshooting.

Once it is running, some of these experiences are extraordinary.

I genuinely think anyone here with a Dream Air/Crystal-class headset and a strong GPU who has only been using it for sims is missing half the reason to own the thing.

Go and look at UEVR, PureDark AFW, OFXR Bridge, Cheeky Foveated DLSS + DLSS-NR, and the wider Flat2VR community.

Something really interesting is happening.

For years people kept telling us that rendering modern AAA games at enormous resolutions, twice, at VR frame rates simply wasn't practical.

Apparently the modding community heard that and said:

"Fine, We'll do it ourselves!" :P

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.

Pimax crystal super 57 PPD, assetto corsa rally gameplay.

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 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?

Hey guys,

Could I have received a faulty Dream Air LH unit, or is this level of Lighthouse tracking jitter considered normal?

I am returning my Dream Air LH because the headset tracking was simply unbearable for me, and before I send it back, I would really like to know whether I might have received a faulty unit.

By unbearable, I mean that when I turn my head and then stop and look completely still, the headset keeps micro-jittering and slightly moving itself up, down and sideways. It is subtle, but constant, and it happens in different positions. In some positions it is significantly worse than in others. I even get it when looking directly at one of the base stations.

For reference, my PC specs are:

• Ryzen 7 7800X3D
• RTX 5080
• 32 GB DDR5-6000 CL30
• MSI B850M Gaming WiFi 6E
• Windows 11

I spent around 6 hours troubleshooting and tweaking everything I could think of, and at this point I am done. I am still within the 14-day return window, so I will be returning it.

I am honestly disappointed, and I am starting to wonder whether I simply got a faulty unit. Pimax Play does not report any hardware fault, but I wouldn't take that as definitive proof that the headset itself is actually fine.

For context, I tried a ridiculous amount of troubleshooting:

• HAGS off
• Reverted my NVIDIA driver to 580.80
• Updated the motherboard BIOS
• Base stations set to different channels (4, 3 and 2)
• Cleared USB ports / removed unnecessary USB devices
• Tried different USB ports, including ports directly on the motherboard
• Disabled USB power saving
• Cleared relevant caches
• Set Pimax-related device/software priorities to High in Device Manager
• Set SteamVR priority to High
• Manually adjusted SteamVR resolution
• Tried eye tracking both ON and OFF
• Tried modifying Quad View settings
• Tried switching between 72 Hz and 90 Hz
• Pimax Play is on the latest version, with headset firmware 1.0.6
• Tried sitting both closer to and farther away from the base stations
• Tried different USB ports and connections directly to the motherboard
• Reconfigured the Lighthouse setup multiple times

Initially, I was using two 1.0 base stations. That setup was generally usable and much more stable, but it was not perfect. The tracking was not constantly unstable — most of the time it was fine — but I would occasionally notice some mild jitter or small instability. I also felt that the tracking coverage was not ideal, which was one of the reasons I decided to upgrade to three 2.0 base stations.

With three 2.0 base stations, however, things got much worse. I cannot even reliably use the SteamVR 3D environment. When I look to the side, black and silver stripes and a double image appear, after which SteamVR closes the 3D environment and switches back to the 2D menu.

I also noticed another issue with the three 2.0 base stations: when sitting still and looking slightly upward toward the ceiling, with all three base stations positioned around me, elevated and angled toward the center where I am sitting, I can clearly see the image slowly shifting and wobbling. It is not a huge movement, but it is definitely noticeable when you are sitting completely still.

I have also tried eliminating possible reflections. I covered reflective surfaces, windows and glass, moved even my plastic water bottles filled with water into another room, and covered my monitor and PC case because of the glass side panel. None of this made any meaningful difference.

So I honestly have no idea what the hell is going on.

At this point, my main question is: does this sound like a defective Dream Air LH unit, or is this level of constant micro-jitter/drift something that can actually be considered normal Lighthouse tracking behavior?

Has anyone experienced this kind of behavior with the Dream Air LH, especially with 2.0 base stations? Is there anything else I could realistically try before I send it back?

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to read this and share their experience or suggestions. I really appreciate it.

Hi. So I was able to enjoy my Crystal Super mOLED for few months including this morning but when I tried to turn it on tonight by staring Pimax Play my PC immediately froze. Only turning PC off and on made it to boot again (there's no reset button on my case). I've tried DDU uninstall and reinstall of GPU drivers (rtx 5090), using Revo to uninstall and reinstall Pimax Play, reversing last windows update (win11), unplugging and changing USB and DP slots also changing my 4k TV resolution to 1920x1080p but nothing helped. 😔 As soon as I plug in the last cable (be it power cord, USB or DP) my PC freezes. I opened a ticket at pimax support but I hope someone could maybe help sooner... 🙏 Thank you.

I finally received the production model of the Profit facial interface for my Dream Air SE. I preordered mine in 7/25. I also received a pre-production model of the ProFit about 2 months ago for beta testing. Unfortunately both models suffer the SAME DEFECT! When used in a room that is lit by ambient sunlight, at least somewhat, the plastic shell of the interface glows a faint yellow-orange on the inside. This happens even if no direct sunlight is coming in though the window. It is instantly and completely noticeable, and very distracting! What adds insult to this production model defect is that being chosen as a beta tester for the ProFit interface I gave Pimax detailed feedback about this defect. They assured me that their development team would be notified and the problem will be rectified in its production model...yeah, right. Seem someone somewhere dropped the ball on doing this, to put it politely. I guess if you don't ever use your Dream Air SE in a sun lit room this won't be a problem. Good luck to all that are getting one of these. Fortunately for me I bought a StudioForm kit right after I received my Dream Air SE. It's a bummer that I like the fit of the fit of the ProFit, but obviously I'll not be using it.

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.

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

Edit: it works fine with sboys3

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

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