DCS World Pimax Crystal LIGHT vs EYE TRACKING! Is There REALLY a DIFFERENCE? FPS Comparison Test 

If you found this content useful and would like to support the channel, feel free to buy your Pimax Crystal (Light or standard), through my link here: pimax.com/pages/crystal-light?ref=r2cQAf - Your support is greatly appreciated. Cheers all!

Thanks for the video Steve... isn't it amazing how quickly the motion becomes expected as part of the experience. I had my motion turned off to test some things and it was just weird flying around, banking and not feeling that tilt in my body. So glad you got yours working without too much trouble.

Regardless of the result is really a shame that there aren’t any other sims (racing or flight) supporting quad views. It would put more pressure on hmd manufacturers to include eye tracking or not omit it from software support (psvr2 🤦‍♂️)

Another great video. Cheers. Was holding my breath before watching, since I recently took the plunge and ordered my light. From what I understand, DFR works best with GPU bottlenecked rigs (lower end ones). The 4090 appears to be more CPU bound, and quad views, uses some of those valuable cpu cycles, hence the modest performance boost.

Another great video, I’m amazed by how many you produce while you have a full time job.

Ouch!🙈I play both msfs and dcs and my crystal light is on the way.🤔 Thanks for the video!👍

Just got around to watching this one. Great video. Very informative. Will help folks figure out what to buy

Serious question. I currently have a Rift s, my computer has a Nvidia 3060Ti GPU and an AMD cpu (basic not a fancy one) will this be a worth and worthwhile improvement over the Rift S? Also, does it have hand tracking so i can forego the controllers and use my hands to mess about with the buttons and toggles in MSFS? Interested in this but only real way to get it under a grand is without the hand controllers if i opt for the headphone upgrade instead.

You shouldn't bother with MSAA, use DLAA with no DLSS. It looks much prettier than MSAA and you get better performance

What do you think about the PSVR2 as a replacement for Reverb G2 DCS pilots that has eye tracking for $550? Assuming that even though Sony won't be providing official eye tracking support for it, opensource (eyetrackvr) will.

Thanks for the video! I am disappointed the microphone on the Light is not as good as the standard Crystal. From what I've seen, the standard Crystal has mic quality similar to my Index. I always game with friends, so the mic quality is important to me. I was about the pull the trigger on the Light, but now I'm hesitating.

Thanks for this.. much appreciated! If you fancy a ride out sometime - give me a shout! 👍🏼

Hey guys. New to VR. I am considering the Light. Will my 4080S be sufficient?

Would a 3090 run the crystal light? Before I pull the trigger on buying one.

I notice your mirrors are off. How much of an FPS drop is it with mirrors turned on?

You talked me into buying the pimax Crystal Light, I have sold my Quest 3 and ordered the Pimax today. I cannot wait to try it out myself. I also used your link. Love the videos mate.

Has the Pimax website always said that the 12K would come with standalone mode, even after it not being a thing for Crystal SUPER? (I ask because, previously it seemed like they were going to remove it like with the Crystal SUPER, after they mentioned it in a prior blog post that standalone wasn't coming for it anymore.)

After one of author's videos about eye-tracking benefits (fps wise) of Varjo, I went for Omnicept version of Reverb G2. My fps gains were not so dramatic, but I also believe Crystal (Light) without eyestracking is waste of money. It might not save Super version with it ultra-resolution, but maybe original Crystal with huge price drop or some kind of Crystal Light Max for 1k would be the solution.

What about the crystal light with fixed foveated rendering (as opposed to dfr) with dcs? Also is this with dlss enabled and the multithreading version of dcs?

Love your chair. I have never had a better chair.

thanks Steve❤ was expecting something like this... its not enough for Dcs we need the eye tracking.. imagine if you put bad weather there you killed all the fps but ok Pimax super only for me

I’ve got a 3080ti would that be ok with crystal light fly il2 mainly

Great Video! Is the Crystal light compatible with the Pimax Top Strap?

I have Quest 3 and l must say that the problem is DCS itself not headsets. Microstutter is a pain and caused by software, optimazation not hardware.

Hmmm, this with FOV rendering and some other few tweaks... I'll be happy with Light's :D

Can you test quad views with the crystal light since it’s supported even though it doesn’t have eye tracking?

Please show us the vr1 with dfr and quad view rendering in this game at native resolution+ ultra settings

Did you use Fixed Foveated Rending on the Light though ? Because if not, then it's not a fair comparison isn't it ?

Dfr is a miracle. I run QP on 72hz full refresh 1.3 resolution adjusted quadviews settings and dcs ones, and it is a thing of beauty... smooth sharp fluid. I would never go for interpolation of anything lower than 72 perhaps 60hz is doable but QP doesnt have it

How does the Crystal Light compare to the Varjo Aero?

Dude, i like your content - if you are stress testing DFR dont load a cpu limited map by spawning lots of units. DFR does not scale with cpu bottleneck.

Im on hp reverb g2, using a 4090 and a 78003dx, most of my settings are on hight and performance and also on dlss. Im getting on the ground 45 fps amd in the air between 75 and 90 fps. Only issue i have is that the jets sometimes ghost. Whats tbe best way to get that sorted as its annoying and takes the realism out if it. Thanks

I was really surprised how low your framerates are in DCS with a 4090 GPU! Maybe it's your video recording software causing a memory bottleneck? I use maximum render quality and 120 Hz refresh rate in the Pimax software and I'm getting framerates ranging from the high 70's up to 90 fps on the servers and in single player missions, and I'm only running the 4070ti. Generally, my average fps is in the mid-eighties. All of my graphics settings in DCS are set to HIGH, with the level of detail slider set for max distance. DFR is on. I'm running a year-old i7-13700 CPU with 64 Gb fast DDR5 memory and fast SSD storage. The big DCS core update from a few months ago gave me a huge jump in fps, and when Pimax updated their software around the same time, that bumped up my framerate even more.

I own the standard Crystal , love it. I like Pimax offering cheaper headset for the masses. Would be nice if they had a middle of the road option between light and super that doesn’t require a battery , that said, the current middle of the road (well I should say the top middle of the road lol), is the standard Crystal , with PimaxXR and Quadviews, it’s been amazing Wish they would ship the wider lenses…

Coming from a quest 3. I assume I can set the same resolution of the crystal light as the quest 3 and have way better clarity. 7950x and a 4090. I’ll just set it to hit 90fps in dcs. I did reserve the crystal super anyways.

I received my Crystal Light yesterday. Image quality is insane but I have a very big issue. Tracking is AWFULL. I have many stuters. Sometimes, when I move my head left, the headset move right and is unable to follow my head for a couple of seconds. The center is displaced to the left before coming back normal some seconds later. And this problem repeats every 10 seconds approximately. I managed capturing it on video. This problem is present on MSFS and War Thunder. It is absolutely unplayable as during movement image is blurry and it is very confusing to see the image not following our head movement. But what is surprising, this only happen in the headset. If I watch the monitor, movement seems fluid. Framerate is not a problem as during this issue I have 30-40 fps on MSFS and 60 FPS on War Thunder with my RTX 4070 Ti Super. If this problem cannot be solved, I will have to cancel my order and return the PIMAX Crystal Light. My PICO 4 is less sharper but more stable. Thanks if you have an idea to solve this issue.

What caused the massive difference in frame time spikes between the headsets? As a pure dcs player those spikes in the crystal light clip would be unplayable for extended time! Thanks in advance

This is not a good test for quadviews. It is high altitude over basic terrain. It doesn’t show the kind of gains quadviews can provide. Load up a single player DLC mission such as paradise lost from reflected with low level helicopter flight and rain. I have heard people getting much higher FPS gains with eye tracking, sometimes 50%. Alternatively you could do a larger variety of tests such as on the super carrier deck. I’d be happy to be wrong but please give a more thorough look at eye tracking in a variety of DCS situations, not just easy low load high altitude flight.

5:30 if the jump was from 45 fps to 50...60, it is big even from the numbers alone (up to 25%).

Maybe I'm not understanding things right, but if you're not using reprojection don't you need to try and hit an FPS target at least the same as the refresh of the headset for it to be smooth? I run my Q3 at 72Hz, so since I'm not using reprojection I'm aiming for 72+ in the OpenXR overlay. If it was running at 36FPS it would be awful?

Why are we all saying that MSFS works fine with Pimax light at 45fps, but on the other hand its no good for DCS at 45fps? Ive entered the twilight zone. Nothing ads up.

Summary of video at 1:15: "If you are a DFS pilot you really need eye tracking."

Why didn't you use Quad Views with the Crystal Light? I've had my Crystal Light for a little more than a week, and Quad Views will give to better performance with FFR.

Running the highest resolution you can for your GPU to achieve frames that match the refresh rate of your headset should be the goal. If 72Hz mode than 72FPS is what needs to be the goal. Clouds and viewing distance should be on High or higher if your GPU can handle it. With higher resolutions No or very little antialiasing is necessary. A lot of those other settings like object and ground textures, shadows, blur, can all be set to low or turned off cause they either don’t render at all or make very little difference when you’re flying around. The standard VR setting that DCS puts in is actually a good starting point. From there turn up clouds and distance. If you are CPU bound that’s a good thing cause the end result is visually smoother than being GPU bound from my experiences

Can anyone tell me how to down scale in operxr? Is it just by % and how do you turn off reprojection? Thanks all

Just a FYI. DLAA should actually look and run BETTER than MSAA. It does for me anyway. Great video though. This is exactly what I wanted to see. The Pimax Crystal Light seems like a no brainer decision now for me. It’s nearly $700 less than the Normal crystal and it appears you’re only gaining about 10fps more. $700 for 10fps doesn’t sound like a great value to me. I’m definitely buying the Crystal Light for my DCS setup.

What's the point of buying a headset with such big resolution jut to downgrade it in Open XR toolkit? Thank you for the video.

So l just ordered the Crystal Light yesterday on your recommendation. So now you’re saying I should cancel my order if you fly DCS??? WTF Mate!?

I’m happy because I have a g2 and I get 60 fps with almost everything maxed out with just the shadows off and I have a 4080

Also help if you have 4090 under the hood😁 (3080 here hehe)

Why are you not centered in the cockpit? Seems you are sitting left of center.

The crystal light is still my top choice for DCS due to the price to performance. The crystal is also just too heavy and the framerate boost is not worth the extra 500 pounds and grams!

Deal breaker for me, I've got used to native 80FPS in DCS in my Index. I'll wait till the GFX cards & CPU improve.

👀👀👀👀👀👀 Sorry I am late!

You should have turned on Quadviews with the Crystal Light and examined how the downgrading of the outer region resolution affects the experience given there is no eye-tracking. A lot of DCS users would appreciate that. I have seen it in the original Crystal with the eye-tracking turned off. A lot of users with old G2's and Indexes would like to know if it's worth the upgrade. In my view it would be a yes if you could not afford the original Crystal. However, I think there would be quite a few people looking for your opinion on that. No pressure - great work.

The goal is to have FPS as HMD refresh rate with the better visual/graphic settings. Actualy if you can reach more, max FPS will be refresh rate of HMD. Then CPU and GPU will work less, it will result lower clock, lover voltages, lower temperatures and all will be smooth. With half FPS you will see little jerky cockpit, by time you can get use to it. The outside view is OK. The same is for MSFS but you can not reach HMD fereshrate FPS with acceptable visual/graphic settings). I have 5800X3D, RTX4090,Pimax Crystal set at 72Hz, DFR , QuadViews, very high settings (native resolution ..DLAA..). When use Caucasus map I can reach 90Hz but on others maps it is hard to reach so I have set my Pimax on 72Hz. At MSFS I have locked at 36 FPS (half), DLSS forced to 0.8 ), DLAA , native resolution. All is about trading between FPS and visual quality depending what is more important to you. In practice I'm very satisfied and live in hope that in future will get 72Hz in MSFS.

There are DIY eyetracking out there so it shouldnt be that hard to make this work for all HMD's

Hello… I was never able to make the motion compensation to,work. Follow all your tutorials… and it doesn’t work… actually is even worse!!! Can you make a detail tutorial??? Please!!!!

We need dfr back

♥♥♥♥♥

Any through the lens footage coming up? That will likely make or break this new headset. Pimax are known for ignoring feedback and the horrible inconsistent performance

30% improvement. Same as PSVR2.

Well I will never get into flight SIM's because most of you are using RTX-4090 GFX cards. I would hate to see what I would get with a RTX-3080TI - probably would be terrible. I can't afford upgrading to a new GFX card and would also need a new computer for the larger 4090 card. I will stick with my SIM Racing games, I have no problems fps wise with any of the games.

The truth: Pimax motion reprojection sucks. You said it yourself, you want native frames. Even if you lower the refresh rate to 75hz, you will not get that in native fps without DFR. TL:DR; Crystal light is useless for DCS unless you seriously lower the resolution and the graphics settings, you might as well be in Q3 because openxr down sampling will produce artifacts similar to compression on Q3 or worse.

45 FPS would give me a headache within minutes. Hoping the situation will improve with the RTX 5090 and the crystal super, but till then i'll stay away from VR.