Hi everyone. Well, I got my new Crystal Light two days ago. I have been working to get everything tuned up for the best image quality and performance. I have made some small advances but I am not really doing well. I have watched quite a few You Tube videos about it but they all seem to contradict each other. Plus many of them are not in regards to the flight simulator. I have not been able to get a good image at an FPS much more than 30.

Here's what I am using: 7800X3D CPU, RTX 4090 GPU, 64GB of 6000hz memory.

Especially with the Pimax Play software, I have read so many different opinions on how to set the options. I have tried lots of different ways but don't seem able so far to raise the FPS a bit. I tried 0.5 image quality but that was too extreme. I have been using 0.75 for that setting.

I need all the help I can get. Pimax says on their site to set 120hz and then check Lock Framerate to Half, but I am not generating 60FPS. I am just a bit lost on what to use as a starting point. I have my actual sim settings set the way Mark from Sim Hangar Flight Simulation suggested, but again, while I respect him, I believe he may have been using a Super and maybe even a 5090.

Bottom line: the image I'm getting is very good so far, especially compared to my old Quest 3 image, which actually wasn't bad at all. But I don't want to believe that 30-35 FPS is all I can get with my hardware.

All comments/suggestions/advice greatly appreciated. I need all the help I can get and I know many of you use this headset and don't have 50 series GPU's yet.

Heres how to get the best fps with the pcl.   Use foveated rendering through pimax, not the sim.  Enable smart smoothing through the nvidia app, use dlss, and of couse use the lowest dlss resolution that you can still enjoy.  Use 90 hz refresh (upscale lab gives better perf but its blurry so i dont use it, I prefer to lower the dlss to balanced or performance to get back some perf instead). No vsync locked to half refresh needed. I dont use anyof the motion smoothing options in pimax or msfs either as that robs cpu performance.  With good fps I dont need motion smoothing.  And I hate to say it, but with pmdg and fenix the 4090 wasnt cutting it in 2024. Im sure su4 helped some though. The 5090 gives a good experience,  That extra vram really helps.  

Edited December 27, 2025Dec 27 by Pilot53

I've found that 30 fps (or any fps ) is totally fine IF IT IS SMOOTH.  I never check my frame rate constantly. I try and aim for smoothness on my system (specs below) and usually run TAA for AA.... as raw as possible then tweak from there. Once i got past the 'cant have everything dialed to ultra' thinking (not implying you are) i was fine with the total experience. There's always conflicting views on what to turn off and in what app to do it. I too use Marks settings as a start and then tweak to my system. Seems to work for the most part.

Only thing Ive noticed coming from the 4090 to the 5090, was i can have the render scale to 1 instead of .85 or .90 making the image sharper...

I keep thinking of the level D simulators in real life and their graphics are bodgy compared to what we have - but man are they smooth! That's where the immersion is...

One good thing for me is that I have no idea how to fly a jetliner. Maybe never will. I’m more of a sightseer, currently using a Beachcraft Bonanza G36. I want to learn helicopters. I have the whole cockpit rig for that. I found out that the Openxr toolkit was active and the render resolution was set at 125%. When I set it back to 100 the fps immediately went up. I’m actually getting a pretty good mix of image and performance now but I haven’t flown in any dense areas yet. Thanks for being willing to respond. The tuning continues. 

Just now, Rob G said:

One good thing for me is that I have no idea how to fly a jetliner. Maybe never will. I’m more of a sightseer, currently using a Beachcraft Bonanza G36. I want to learn helicopters. I have the whole cockpit rig for that. I found out that the Openxr toolkit was active and the render resolution was set at 125%. When I set it back to 100 the fps immediately went up. I’m actually getting a pretty good mix of image and performance now but I haven’t flown in any dense areas yet. Thanks for being willing to respond. The tuning continues. 

I’m also waiting on my prescription lenses. I’m wearing my glasses but I’m so scared of one or the other lenses getting scratched. I won’t tighten down the headset for that reason. I’m also waiting on the full Aeroform comfort kit. The default stuff isn’t horrible but it isn’t comfortable either. 

If you can, grab yourself a Lensepen too... brilliant to keep your lenses free form debris and things... polishes them up beautifully... not expensive either

1 hour ago, vonduck said:

If you can, grab yourself a Lensepen too... brilliant to keep your lenses free form debris and things... polishes them up beautifully... not expensive either

Thanks. 

There's some good advice above @Rob G  I'm away from my rig at the moment but the basic advice above is spot on, especially:

- don't chase fps....chase visual sharpness and smoothness.  My rig (4080) gives me pin sharp cockpit and external with super smooth visuals and, from memory, I have it running at 30fps

-  I also use dlss (using dlss swapper and related version tips)

- I have fixed foveated rendering and smart smoothing in pimax play both switched on and render set, from memory, at 0.8

- I think I have another tweak in place for sharpness...I'll check when I'm back near my rig

- you will find prescription lenses a great addition

 

Oh, and the positioning on your head is very important, especially if you have used a Quest or similar.  The Crystal Light sits very low over your head, with the back pad sitting where the back of your skull starts to curve back.  I loosen the back and top straps, lower the headset until the backpad is in the right position, the tighten the back strap first, before the tightening the top strap until the pressure lifts off my nose.

I generally find that this gets the lenses to the correct vertical angle for the clearest image.

I understand this is a flightsim forum so I apologize for asking this question, but, so many of you have Crystal Light headsets I am hoping I can get help. I cannot get steam vr games other than MSFS to play correctly in VR with the crystal light. All different types of issues; sound without images, images without sound, images that look like they are 20 feet in the air, and other things.

In the Pimax Play app I have the Pimax runtime selected. I have tried one or two games with Pimax Play switched to SteamVR but just can't things working yet. 

Any help with using the headset for other than MSFS, with Steam VR games?

Thanks.

Edited December 27, 2025Dec 27 by Rob G

9 hours ago, Rob G said:

I understand this is a flightsim forum so I apologize for asking this question, but, so many of you have Crystal Light headsets I am hoping I can get help. I cannot get steam vr games other than MSFS to play correctly in VR with the crystal light. All different types of issues; sound without images, images without sound, images that look like they are 20 feet in the air, and other things.

In the Pimax Play app I have the Pimax runtime selected. I have tried one or two games with Pimax Play switched to SteamVR but just can't things working yet. 

Any help with using the headset for other than MSFS, with Steam VR games?

Thanks.

If you boot up SteamVR, I think I'm right that Pimax Play automatically chooses Steam VR as its runtime.  You need to leave it as this while you run the Steam Games.  But when you go back to non-steam games, remember to switch back to PimaxXR as the required runtime in Pimax Play.

1 hour ago, AJZip2 said:

If you boot up SteamVR, I think I'm right that Pimax Play automatically chooses Steam VR as its runtime.  You need to leave it as this while you run the Steam Games.  But when you go back to non-steam games, remember to switch back to PimaxXR as the required runtime in Pimax Play.

I opened a chat from inside Pimax Play and asked why I was having so much trouble. They told me to close Pimax Play, go into the registry editor (regedit), and delete this folder:  

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Khronos

They said to then make sure the runtime in Pimax Play was set to the Pimax runtime.

Once I did that and tested again, all the games I tried worked. I didn't try all my games but I am confident.

The only other problem I had was that the perspective was off; by that I mean the floor level in the image was at eye level for me. I asked a second question about that and they pointed me to the room setup function in Pimax Play. After doing that, everything is now perfect!

Waiting very impatiently for my new prescription lenses for the Crystal Light now. They are coming Monday or Tuesday. I am wearing my glasses now and it's ok but I am so scared of having the eyeglass lenses scratch the headset lenses that I am not tightening the headset straps very tight so the headset is very loose, which makes it hard to get centered at the sweet spot.

58 minutes ago, Rob G said:

I opened a chat from inside Pimax Play and asked why I was having so much trouble. They told me to close Pimax Play, go into the registry editor (regedit), and delete this folder:  

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Khronos

They said to then make sure the runtime in Pimax Play was set to the Pimax runtime.

Once I did that and tested again, all the games I tried worked. I didn't try all my games but I am confident.

The only other problem I had was that the perspective was off; by that I mean the floor level in the image was at eye level for me. I asked a second question about that and they pointed me to the room setup function in Pimax Play. After doing that, everything is now perfect!

 

Ah - OK.  They must have made changes in one of the more recent updates of Pimax Play.  All sounds good - and yes, you will be able to do the final tweaks of fit, etc, when you have your prescription lenses.