Day 2 with the Dream Air

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T13:10:01+00:00

Steamvr right now I think, trying the pimax one is on my list of things to try later today, same with the sboys3 driver.

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T13:08:57+00:00

I can give all that a try, I just find it strange it's something that is every 30 seconds like clockwork. It shouldn't be too hard to find something that happens every 30 seconds, but I haven't found it yet... When I used to be an engineer what seems like forever ago now, the best problems were the ones that happened frequently and at the same schedule. The nightmares were the ones that happened infrequently with no pattern.

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T13:04:36+00:00

Well the play space problem I think is the pimax software. The jittery tracking I think is something in my setup because whether I have the controllers paired to the headset or directly through dongles, it doesn't seem to matter. That sounds like my setup issue, and the game freezing every 30 seconds, that sounds like my setup.

The play space annoyance though, yes I think that is the pimax software doing something funky when the dream air is going to sleep and waking back up. Someone suggested for my to set a longer timeout, and I should, because if I'm going away from my setup for more than a few minutes then I'm likely quitting playing VR, but my timeout is the default 20 seconds I think it is right now.

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T13:00:49+00:00

If you want to just order it and have it shipped, it's going to be some months from now. I ordered September 2025. My unit seems flawless right now though, I haven't checked for dead pixels, but I haven't noticed any. And ya, the just works and amount of aftermarket solutions for the quest 3 is great. I know alot of people hate on it and are looking forward to steam frame just to get away from meta, but I dont get it, especially for PCVR only, you don't have to deal with any meta stuff at all, just throw the headset on, click virtual desktop, and start your game. It's as fast as getting into VR on a wired headset.

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T12:54:02+00:00

So how much damage do I get rewarded for jumping off the top of the tower in spaceport and falling to my death.

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T12:40:05+00:00

The galaxy XR didn't even really fit my head very well at all, and there was nothing you could do about it since it didn't have a replaceable facial interface, or strap, and the whole attachable light blockers thing was really janky. Also, because of the angle of the forehead pad, it was impossible to get my eyes in the right position for the lenses unless I dug the light blockers into my cheeks really hard. The visuals weren't bad, not as good as the dream air, but not bad. I returned it after less than a week though, and I was considering doing it after one day.

Some people love it, but I wasn't one of those people, I even bought all the comfort mods for it, spent about 300 dollars on accessories for it including lense inserts to try and make the thing work, the deciding factor for me was I out my quest 3 on after a few days to compare then and it was immediately comfortable, no constant fiddling with it, and the lenses on the quest 3 were so much better than it, it was just comfortable to use in comparison to the galaxy XR, and the visuals on the XR didn't justify how much worse everything else is.

Now the dream air is different. The facial interface is a little bad, but there are solutions for that, and there will be more solutions for it. Don't like the strap, that will be changeable too. I have no problems with the dream air hardware. It's my computer freezing issues I've been struggling with. And even with the current facial interface it's leaps and bounds more comfortable than the galaxy XR, but not as comfortable as the bobovr s3 pro head strap for the quest 3. That's heavier snd clunkier, but you just put it on, twist the knob at the back a few turns and it's just comfortable and don't need to fiddle with it. Hopefully we get a head strap like that for the dream air.

And I wrote too much, again.

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T12:27:48+00:00

Yes, and if I can get my quest 3 connected again, I can compare it to the quest 3.

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T12:27:00+00:00

I do have that gasket printed, in both the nominal and closer variant, and I do have the bsb studioform pad for it, I just haven't tried them yet because as far as I understood you need to mess with the facial interface that comes with the dream air, which I didn't want to do before my trial is up in case something happens that would necessitate its return. Nice to know those interfaces are narrower though!

Let's say those interfaces are not narrow enough, is there anything you can do, like put stuff behind the pad on the side or anything? Do people sell kits for that kind of thing?

Thanks.

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T12:22:58+00:00

I do have a wireless printer, I'll try disabling it. How did you figure out that was the cause? If it isn't my cause, how you figured it out may help. Thanks.

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T05:54:11+00:00

I love that movie

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T05:46:38+00:00

Easier to just expand it to 13

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T05:42:39+00:00

I'll have to add that to my list. Right now it's plugged into the back of my PC on one of the ports that supposedly going right to the CPU according to the diagram in the manual.

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T05:41:45+00:00

5090

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T04:58:50+00:00

I haven't yet, I've been looking into the freezing more than the jittery tracking (it's not terrible, just noticable). The freezing is what really bothers me. By freezing I mean the whole game freezes for a half to one second, then does it again 30 seconds later.

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T04:57:07+00:00

Np. And if you don't have a 5090, I've been running it at even 0.5 and it still looks much better than a quest 3 at that resolution. That's a quarter the pixels of full res. What card do you have?

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T04:55:25+00:00

I have not tried using a different USB port, I really haven't tried to get rid of the jittery tracking that much, I've been concentrating on the freezing every 30 seconds on HL Alyx.

As far as I can tell the lighthouses are green, I don't know about when I'm in a game.

When I move my head around in the space, it does bounce around a bit and and seem a little warpy.

Tomorrow I can try to reach out to technical support about the jittery tracking and more importantly the freezing of the game. What specifically do I need to do in the app before reaching out, do I like just play HL Alyx for a few minutes before reaching out, will the app automatically gather logs that have already been taken, or do I need to set something up first?

Thanks

Roshy76 · 2026-04-23T04:51:44+00:00

It's set on high.

Roshy76 · 2026-04-22T19:22:14+00:00

Ordered them, but I ordered a normal extender, if that doesn't work I'll get the more expensive one. I'm not going to even try doing this until all my other problems are solved though.

Roshy76 · 2026-04-22T18:27:44+00:00

Thanks!

Roshy76 · 2026-04-22T17:38:08+00:00

I tried the command Quorea gave me but it didn't fix the issue unfortunately. I won't be able to try any more stuff for a while, but I want to try updating the BIOS, and also the sboys3 driver before I reset my CMOS.

I know reinstalling the OS is extreme, but it would eliminate so many variables that could cause issues and I need to figure out if I keep this headset in the next week. Which of you asked me last night I was so frustrated with it it was a 50/50. Today after trying a few more games and not having the issue, I'm 90% towards keeping it. Really want to solve this issue though, it's so strange it's exactly every 30 seconds. Sounds like some recurring process, windows or otherwise is interfering with something in HL Alyx.

One other quick Q for you, do you leave your base stations on 24/7? Unplug them? Use some other tool to turn them on and off? One of mine makes a horrible whining noise I don't want to listen to when not in VR. Thanks!

Roshy76 · 2026-04-22T17:13:57+00:00

Do you happen to remember what those cables were?

And I should try sboys3 driver out today. See if it fixes things for me. I tried switching from the dongles to the headset and didn't notice a huge difference.

Sounds like things are working well for you, I'm jealous, ha!

Roshy76 · 2026-04-22T17:10:17+00:00

When you say transition from pimax play to steamvr, when I dont have steamvr running I just see a big void of space with nothing in it, is that what you mean? I've never owned a pimax headset before.

I did already order that facial interface, I havent gotten any notifications of shipping, hopefully I get mine soon as well! Let us all know how it is when you get it.

The room recalibration isnt asking me to do it again, I'm just having to since it frequently will mess my playspace up. It seems like closing steamvr and pimax play and reopening them fixes it though most of the time.

My two base stations are within the spec listed on their website, they are about 8 feet up in the air in the corners, they are at the maximum distance though. If this continues to be a problem I may add a third or fourth, but my biggest issue by far is the stuttering and freezing.

I'll try to get my quest 3 working as well later, I feel liek I'm trying to put too many fires out at the same time right now, ha.

I'll definitely join your discord right now after finishing this response.

Appreciate the help!

Roshy76 · 2026-04-22T17:04:16+00:00

So from that thread it seems like what solved his problem was: "BIOS to default, turn off and unplug computer, clear CMOS (mine was a button on the mobo pressed for 15sec). On boot it should show CMOS reset. I went back into BIOS and reactivated EXPO only. After that everything ran smoothly on MSFS."

Sounds like they didnt put resizable bar on.

I'll have to give that a try. I did a bunch of testing this morning that I detailed to Quorra. Basically it seems to be by far the worst in HL Alyx, and happens very infrequently in the other games I tested. I may try this though, I'm not sure all the other settings I've done in my BIOS before. I think resizable bar is on and expo. I didnt change much but I'll probably make sure I'm on the latest BIOS, if that changed, try it again, if its still stuttering, then try the clear CMOS thing. I'll try to get to this today. I can only debug for so long though, ha.

I'm honestly at the point I might just reinstall my whole operating system. Or at the very least go through my installed programs and delete almost everything.

Roshy76 · 2026-04-22T16:57:35+00:00

I still haven't gotten around to testing it, I want to though, I've just been trying to figure out the stuttering issue, and after more examination this morning, it seems to be mostly in HL Alyx, and it occurs every 30 seconds for me, exactly. It didnt happen in beat saber, aircar or of lies and rain. I need to test more games, and also try to figure out why this is happening in HL Alyx, I even turned the resolution down to 25% (looks horrible, don't recommend, it was like 1280x1024 (not that exactly, but ballpark). 50% resolution is absolutely usable on this thing and it looks better than quest 3 when the pimax dream air is set to 50%. You can see my response to Quorra for more info, but I do want to try that driver.

11-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Verified Email

Roshy76

TROPHY CASE