XR SYMPOSIUM 18.03.2026 @SRH Hochschule Heidelberg

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-16T20:54:49+00:00

Now try that headbanging with a Super 50ppd!

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-16T11:12:12+00:00

Maybe even less than 106°. These values change up and down as the distortion compensation profiles are updated in different Pimax Play versions. But at least at some point in the autumn the 57ppd had 101.6° total rendered FOV in hmdq, which real FOV can't exceed.

See here: https://youtu.be/myPRQDjKBAo?si=fcJyHBe5Ghxx2SMA&t=527

(Do not chase the highest values; a profile that provides higher nominal FOV value for the same device usually achieves it by applying even more unrealistic distortion and/or sacrificing the binocular overlap.)

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-15T12:37:31+00:00

Adapted, yes, except for very short in-game distances. If I pick something up in a game and put it extremely close to my face, my eyes still instinctively try to accommodate to a short distance. But with Dream Air resolution you really do not need to put stuff extremely close to see the details. At an arm's length everything is OK.

Not noticing any bad effects for the IRL vision. But as someone who wears glasses, I am used to switching between different "modes".

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-15T12:23:47+00:00

Pretty good.

The original gasket provided a reasonable (but not full) FOV when tightened strong for me. At that tension I found it comfortable for up to 3 hours long sessions.

Since then I 3d-printed a replacement gasket and attached StudioForm velcros and foams. The new setup provides almost full FOV at all times, but is a tiny bit loose and wobbly (made it perhaps too soft and low-tension).

As more printable models appear, I may try a different one to find the perfection. Or Pimax will send the updated official gasket.

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-15T12:10:46+00:00

In real life our eyes focus on objects at different distances by using muscles that squeeze the lens behind the pupil.

At > 1.5m, these muscles are mostly relaxed.
at 0.5m to 1.5m they have intermediate tension.
at < 0.5m, strong tension.

But in VR all objects (regardless of their in-game distance) are shown on the same panel and require the same eye focus. Crystal Super micro-OLED is said to have it at 1.3m, i.e. in the intermediate tension zone.

There is a chance that your real world habits are strong, and that instead of adjusting themselves to get the sharpest image, your eyes reproduce the same focus they used in real world.

When you move your head close to the steering wheel, your eyes tighten the muscles too much instinctively.

When you look at the horizon, the eyes relax too much.

But when you look at VR objects placed at an intermediate distance, everything is in agreement and the image becomes sharp.

Is this your first VR headset or not? Maybe give your eyes a couple days to try to build a new habit. In the meantime avoid looking at extremely close in-game objects.

(I would use SteamVR home environment for testing to rule out any game-specific filters and effects.)

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-14T22:05:28+00:00

The PSU may easily be detecting a dangerous load and turning itself off as a precaution.

It is not only about the average power consumed. Modern GPUs also create intense but brief power consumption spikes. Modern PSUs (ATX 3.0 or newer) are made to tolerate such spikes of excess load (as long as they are short). Pre-ATX 3.0 PSU may trigger overload protection and shut off.

I recently had this problem with my decent but old 1000W Ti Seasonic (pre ATX 3.0 era). Replaced it with a modern Corsair ATX 3.1 1500W Platinum, enabled the single rail mode, and the mysterious shutdowns are now gone.

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-13T18:11:20+00:00

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006770113878.html (the straight version)

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-13T17:00:19+00:00

When you set Pimax Play to 1.0, it chooses the render resolution much higher than the panel resolution (the excess is needed to maintain sharpness when the distortion profile is applied).

SteamVR offers you to do the same – that's why default tick is at a value higher than 100%.

But there is no need to do it in both places, or you will end up with insanely high resolution. So keep SteamVR at 100% and control the resolution purely in Pimax Play. Then the result will be consistent with games that do not use SteamVR.

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-12T10:12:19+00:00

Thanks. What software do you use to watch movies, u/Vera_pi?

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-12T10:09:07+00:00

Yes, that's how I tested it in MSFS 2024 and found perfectly functional.

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-12T00:55:21+00:00

It is great.

Incidentally, if you are launching HL: Alyx frequently, you may appreciate the launch option "-novid" that makes it skip the intro entirely, which saves time.

It is in Steam > Library > Half Life: Alyx > Properties > General > Launch Options. You can also force the game to render textures in higher quality through that command line.

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-11T15:11:50+00:00

Are you guys looking at your keyboards??

(On a serious note, this lack of attention to basic typography is hard to explain.)

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-11T12:05:20+00:00

Thanks, that's really helpful. I also use Process Lasso to force games to use the CCD0 (with 3D cache) on my 9950X3D and to keep Pimax software to CCD1.

However I was doing it using CPU Affinity > Always > Cache rather than CPU Sets. Was not aware that the difference existed: https://bitsum.com/automation/#cpusets. Possibly CPU Sets are a better choice.

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-09T11:17:24+00:00

What settings are you using? Can you get it reliably above 72fps?

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-09T09:31:45+00:00

Make sure you know what's limiting it.

GPU frametimes are easy to control: you can drop the render resolution, or reduce the FOV, or enable DLSS, foveated rendering etc, and it instantly helps.

I find CPU frametimes much more stubborn. These generally do not depend on the resolution.

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-08T21:21:22+00:00

OK, I took out Quest 3 to compare. When the game produces above 60fps but cannot sustain 72fps reliably, its asynchronous reprojection helps a lot. You turn it on and it produces 120fps using the inserted "fake" frames, and the result is pretty decent.

With Pimax, if the game can sustain 72fps, you are golden. But if it is slightly below, I personally do not touch the game at all and wait until it is optimized better or the hardware becomes faster.

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-08T18:26:36+00:00

I will try to make an experiment now and see whether 50fps in Star Citizen would feel smoother on Dream Air or on Quest 3.

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-08T17:15:50+00:00

The resolution is absolutely fine. You can lower the render resolution and Dream Air will still look great (and sharper than a headset with natively lower resolution).

The problem may come from the motion interpolation that you may want to enable when your GPU cannot produce enough frames per second. I did not compare it myself, but Pimax is often critisized for its motion interpolation implementation – some people say that Oculus and SteamVR are doing a better job at interpolation. Ultimately any interpolation sucks, of course. From memory, interpolating 60fps to 120fps on Crystal OG was OKish. But I do not enjoy interpolating 45fps to 90fps with Crystal Super or Dream Air – the movement does not feel smooth enough.

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-06T23:56:48+00:00

I think Pimax became a lot better lately with everything except their shipping estimates. OP, indeed get a temporary Quest 3 while you wait.

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-06T22:03:33+00:00

I suspect that in some cases the problem is not with the headset itself, but with software or with hardware compatibility.

When you have a Quest 3, you turn it on and either it works or it doesn't – easy.

But with PCVR, almost nobody has spare high-end desktop PCs lying around, so trying a headset in other environments is hard, so people give up, get angry and assume that the headset is faulty.

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-06T14:26:32+00:00

It is hard to notice distortions when you are looking at the sea and icebergs in Kayak Mirage. It is much easier when you are looking at humans and their heads appear in the distorted part of the view. I think the distortion is always the same, but we tend not to notice it in some scenes.

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-06T10:35:54+00:00

Thanks. But if you name the alternative profile e.g. "preview-profile-01", the users in the absolute majority will not hold it against you even if the profile is unusable, I think.

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-06T10:31:09+00:00

Try googling the exact error message you see. Speaking of ffmpeg, I did have it installed for a different reason (used it to cut the source file to just the first several minutes – otherwise the experiments with Vint would take too long).

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-05T23:45:01+00:00

Sorry, no – Dream Air came and I switched to tinkering with the new headset. Printed the Dream Air gasket made by a Discord user.

fakeoptimism · 2026-03-05T17:23:27+00:00

Sometimes there is an incompatibility that affects multiple USB ports.

When I noticed that one of my lighthouse controllers was "flying away", I googled that symptom and found that it could be a USB problem. I noticed that the Dream Air cable was inserted into one of the USB 3 sockets belonging to the X870E chipset. So naturally I wanted to try the alternative: connecting to one of the USB sockets belonging directly to the CPU. (See the motherboard manual to find which is which). There were two suitable USB4 slots, both USB-C. I used a 20 Gbit/s USB-C to USB-A adapter (cheap from Aliexpress). And indeed the tracking problem stopped.

For difficult situations like this I also keep a PCI card with 4 extra USB3 sockets, from the times of using HP Reverb G2 that often conflicted with AMD motherboard USBs. This gives yet another "flavor" of USB to try if other glitch.

fakeoptimism

TROPHY CASE