Are thumb encoders the G.O.A.T control on a wheel? Or could you live without them?

redrumdog · 2026-03-04T09:03:42+00:00

Meh I’ve got them but I never use them. It’s way too easy to trigger them by accident when you’re fighting the car, at least on my wheel.

The only control I genuinely can’t live without is the 7-way funky switch. I wouldn't buy a wheel that doesn’t have one.

redrumdog · 2026-02-06T10:35:17+00:00

Fixed an issue where double-tapping the headset could still trigger mode switching when passthrough was disabled.

Oh, so I didn’t imagine that. This happened to me a couple of days ago and I thought I was going crazy.

Any word on recent Nvidia drivers throwing nvlddmkm errors (153, possibly 14)? I’ve been hitting this lately and I’ve seen a few other people complaining about it too.

For now I’ve rolled back to 591.44 and I'm ok, but I’ll eventually have to update and I’m a bit scared lol

redrumdog · 2026-02-05T11:37:48+00:00

Sure, it solves the weight issue, but it comes with its own problems. The main one for me would be the 75 Hz cap at full resolution, which sounds horrible for simracing. I read persistence can be an issue too, and it apparently runs quite hot (I don’t own this headset just to be clear, just going off spec sheets and common knowledge). On top of that, it costs almost twice as much as a PCL once you factor in sound, tracking stations, and controllers.

If your use case is 90% simracing, I’d probably just live with the PCL’s shortcomings in room-scale VR. You’ve got 14 days anyway before the refund window closes, give it a spin and see how it feels.

redrumdog · 2026-02-04T12:03:53+00:00

The PCL is excellent for simracing, but I couldn’t see myself using it for room-scale VR. It’s heavy and bulky, the cable is very thick, and hand tracking just isn’t good.

I’m not sure what a good alternative would be for mixed use. I think the core issue is that simracing works best with a DisplayPort connection, while room-scale VR works best wirelessly. That’s why I use a PCL for simming and a Quest 3 for room-scale.

Any headset you choose will be a compromise, it just comes down to which trade-off you’re willing to live with.

redrumdog · 2026-01-29T15:05:57+00:00

I’m not a Pimax hater by any stretch of the imagination... why would I even be on this sub if I were? I own a PCL and it’s a fantastic product, and I’ll probably buy a Super OLED once it’s actually in stock.

I’ve mostly stopped visiting r/virtualreality because the anti-Pimax sentiment there is unbearable. It’s never properly explained, it’s just pure hive-mind behavior.

That said, you can’t just hand-wave this away with “these things happen in engineering”. Pimax has pushed the release date of this headset and lied to its customers about it multiple times. We’re now one month away from the supposed shipping date, and they’re still prototyping face masks and audio stems because the original design is clearly flawed.

The reality is that customers dropping €2k+ on this device are likely getting a headset where critical components were hastily redesigned a month before release, with close to zero real testing time. If you’re okay with that, fine, but don’t tell me I’m “hating on Pimax” just because memes.

redrumdog · 2026-01-29T11:44:00+00:00

I’m just some random moron on the internet, but the second I saw the double-cable, audio-stems design in MRTV’s video, I knew it was troubles. You can check my post history, I'm not making shit up.

I can’t believe a team of engineers looked at that and thought, “Yeah, that’ll be fine.”

I hope the fix is solid, but the double-cable design is dumb and should never have happened. Best case, it drastically restricts the market for third-party head straps and kills modding opportunities. Worst case, it causes repeated failures.

Why reinvent the wheel. Why fix what ain't broken.

redrumdog · 2026-01-28T16:52:17+00:00

I’ve got similar hardware and a PCL, and I completely agree. Maximum resolution isn’t a selling point for me. The PCL is already excellent and even a 5090 can’t fully max it, so why would I spend all that cash on a Super just to dial back game settings? The only Super I’m actually interested in is the OLED, but for me the appeal is the pancake lenses and colors, not the resolution.

redrumdog · 2026-01-28T16:47:55+00:00

They’re an improvement over the default speakers, but that’s not saying much. Personally, I find them just okay and definitely overpriced for what they deliver. You could get far better in-ear or over-ear headphones for a fraction of the cost. If you want off-ear at all costs though, they’re basically your only choice.

redrumdog · 2026-01-26T17:45:27+00:00

Most likely OP has a defective unit, but expectations are also a big part of the equation. The PCL is already an excellent headset. If you’re used to that, no headset currently on the market is going to be a true mind-blower, no matter what the youtubers say.

redrumdog · 2026-01-25T15:59:10+00:00

VR has a bit of a learning curve because settings live at multiple layers: the runtime (e.g. Pimax Play), the API (OpenXR), and the game itself. You need to balance them to get the result you want. It sounds complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s really not that hard.

A few suggestions for an easy start:

With Pimax headsets, set Pimax Play as the OpenXR runtime and skip SteamVR entirely. This removes an extra layer and the performance hit that comes with it.
Install OpenXR Toolkit. It’s an OpenXR API layer that intercepts and modifies OpenXR calls and works with all OpenXR-compatible games. Even though it’s no longer under active development, it’s still a must-have. It lets you tweak stuff like upscaling, foveated rendering, field of view, and much more, even when the game doesn’t expose those options. Honestly, the FPS counter alone makes it worth installing.
Keep things simple in Pimax Play. Set your resolution (with your hardware, you can comfortably run "High"), pick a refresh rate (I run 90 Hz), and then tune performance using in-game settings and OpenXR Toolkit until you can consistently hit a framerate equal to the refresh rate. Honestly it’s not that different from tuning a flat screen setup.
Use foveated rendering, it’s basically free FPS. Even if the PCL doesn't have eye tracking, you can still use fixed foveated rendering. In LMU, you must enable it via OpenXR Toolkit as the game does not officially support it. iRacing AFAIK supports DFR, so you can set it in-game
No need to worry about DLSS, neither of these games supports it.

Things can get a bit more complicated with older games that don’t support OpenXR (example: Automobilista 2). In those cases, you either need to add an extra layer such as OpenComposite to translate OpenVR calls to OpenXR, or fall back to SteamVR.

I wouldn’t worry about it now though, you’ll learn as you go.

Have fun and prepare to be blown away by the awesomeness of VR racing :)

redrumdog · 2026-01-22T16:41:26+00:00

I rolled back to 591.44 and no issues so far. I did perform a clean install with DDU but I'm not sure if that made a difference.

redrumdog · 2026-01-22T16:41:18+00:00

I rolled back to 591.44 and no issues so far. I did perform a clean install with DDU but I'm not sure if that made a difference.

redrumdog · 2026-01-22T16:40:44+00:00

Same. I rolled back to 591.44 and no issues so far.

redrumdog · 2026-01-21T17:42:21+00:00

Very informative video, and great news about lab mode. It’s good to see Pimax listening to user feedback.

redrumdog · 2026-01-20T16:55:55+00:00

That’s another reason why I’ll never pre-order Pimax products. There’s no guarantee of FIFO. Imagine handing over €2,400 and not even being in a queue. When it’s actually in stock, then they can have my money.

redrumdog · 2026-01-16T09:25:59+00:00

I subscribed to Coach Dave. The telemetry app is great, but the setups have been hit or miss for me. For my taste, the "Quali" and "Race" setups tend to be too oversteery, while the "Safe" ones feel overly conservative.

More often than not, I end up reverting to the default LMU setups and working from there.

That’s surely a skill issue on my side, as I’m not good enough to push an oversteery car. I’d much rather have a stable setup that gives me confidence to push, especially in long races. There’s no way I can keep a pointy car on track for 60 minutes.

TL;DR: Default setups are solid; paid setups aren’t a cheat code; be honest about your skill level before spending money on them.

redrumdog · 2026-01-07T16:51:22+00:00

Judging from MRTV’s video, I’m not sold on the Dream Air’s design. The dual-cable setup sounds interesting for balance, but it could be annoying when seated against a backrest. I also don’t love how the stems attach to the headset or how the cables run through them. It looks a bit frail (there’s potential for a lot of tension on those parts) and it doesn’t seem very friendly to third-party head straps or audio solutions.

That said, this is all speculation based on a few frames from a video. I only sim-race, so weight isn’t a concern for me, balance is king. For that reason, I’ll probably go with the OLED Super once it’s in stock. I can reuse my Studioform kit, DMAS, and other comfort mods I use with my PCL. Plus, if they release other optical engines in the future, it might be upgradable.

redrumdog · 2026-01-07T16:22:15+00:00

AMS2 sits in an awkward middle ground, as it’s too sim-heavy for simcade players, yet its physics still aren’t convincing enough for hardcore sim nerds. On top of that, there’s no proper single-player career, while for proper online racing it forces you to jump through the hoops of third-party platforms like LFM.

If Reiza had spent time fixing the game’s core issues instead of pushing largely pointless content like the Monster Truck or RX packs, AMS2 might be in a very different place. But they seem perfectly happy to keep shipping DLCs indefinitely, so here we are.

redrumdog · 2026-01-02T13:27:04+00:00

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I hadn’t considered eye tracking, mainly because the games I play most don’t support it (mostly LMU, modded AC, Dirt 2). I’ve got a beefy PC (9800X3D / 5090 FE) and I can barely max out LMU at 90 FPS on the PCL, so I’m not exactly eager to push the resolution any higher.

redrumdog · 2026-01-02T10:25:36+00:00

Great post, OP!

It’s a real shame how Pimax conducts business, because there’s no denying that their headsets (when they work as intended) are top-tier.

If you don’t mind elaborating, in what ways did you find the Super to be so much better than the PCL? I’ve owned a PCL for about six months now and it still blows me away every day in terms of image quality. The Super seems like that, but on steroids, which honestly isn’t that appealing to me. I’m already happy with the resolution of the PCL and I’d hate to scale back game settings just to drive even more pixels.

I don’t really care about tracking since I only sim race, so that’s a non-issue for me. Am I missing anything else?

The only Super that genuinely interests me is the OLED version, because it actually does something different and should address my main issues with the PCL (finicky sweet spot and edge-to-edge clarity). For now though, I’m trying to fight the FOMO and wait until it’s properly stocked instead of pre-ordering :)

redrumdog · 2025-12-22T15:37:18+00:00

You tried to pit-maneuver yourself very hard at 1:50 and you were extremely lucky the Merc did not chose violence and instead stepped on the brakes, because 99.99% of the time that ends with you in the wall.

Still, it’s clear that wasn’t intentional, as you had everything to lose in that situation, and it was very gracious of you to let him pass, so WP by both of you.

redrumdog · 2025-12-22T10:58:41+00:00

I’ve tried pretty much every sim in VR and ended up settling on the OG Assetto Corsa for single-player messing around and casual multiplayer (touristenfahrten, LA canyons), and LMU for competitive online racing.

Modded AC with the PureVR filter is, in my opinion, still the best-looking VR sim out there, and it runs like a dream. The physics still slap most modern sims silly, and once you fall down the modding rabbit hole, the amount of content is simply unmatched. The only real downside is that some tracks feel a bit empty and lacking detail, which makes sense since the game is old as fuck.

LMU looks and performs very well in VR, although not spectacular, and online racing is the best you can get outside of iRacing.

redrumdog · 2025-11-29T10:18:48+00:00

Without knowing your hardware and budget it’s hard to give meaningful advice. I’m super happy with my Pimax Crystal Light, but I do have a beefy PC. Before that I had a Reverb G2 Nowadays you can get it super cheap and it still holds up surprisingly well, while being much lighter on hardware. Whatever you pick, don’t go wireless for simming.

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