I just got a PymaxCrystalLight and will get a Quest3 tomorrow and will then decide which one to keep, coming from an HP Reverb G2. 

Quest 3 users:

1) is a link cable recommended for the Quest 3 for higher data rates over wireless connection? I don't plan to move around, will mostly be sitting in the VR cockpit, no golfing or Half life Alyx.

2) does the link cable actually transmit video data or is it only a battery charger? 

3) I plan to also get the BOBOVR M3 Pro Strap with additional battery and a separate 5 meter link cable from Syntech or Cabletex to charge battery during game play. is that a good idea?

I appreciate your tips and recommendations.

.................

I have now installed the PimaxCrystalLight and SteamVR: the SteamVR demo scene is visible in the headset, but when I turn VR on in MSFS2024, I get this failure message: "No headset detected"

Note: I have not yet purchased the Pimax software, shouldn't I still be able to use the Pimax as shown for the next 14 Days without purchase?

up until today, I was using WMR with my HP Reverb in MSFS. I do have SteamVR installed.

Edited January 29, 20251 yr by turbomax

For Pimax CL, you don't need SteamVR, just use the Pimax OpenXR runtime in PimaxPlay, works well. 

 

4 hours ago, turbomax said:

Quest 3 users:

1) is a link cable recommended for the Quest 3 for higher data rates over wireless connection? I don't plan to move around, will mostly be sitting in the VR cockpit, no golfing or Half life Alyx.

2) does the link cable actually transmit video data or is it only a battery charger? 

3) I plan to also get the BOBOVR M3 Pro Strap with additional battery and a separate 5 meter link cable from Syntech or Cabletex to charge battery during game play. is that a good idea?

I appreciate your tips and recommendations.

Link cable works for both streaming and battery charging (but appears not sufficient to keep the battery from being drained when in use). The problem with using link cable for streaming is that the Meta/Oculus windows app is an absolute train wreck - a clear sign that Meta doesn't care about PC users at all. So I would stick with the third party app Virtual Desktop, much simple and reliable, and the image quality is about as good as streaming gets. 

I have this BOBOVR M3 Pro Strap or sth very similar. I love it, making the Q3 much easier to put on and sit comfortably. 

For MSFS2020/2024, Q3 is no comparison to PCL, unless you got a bad sample of PCL. 

5 hours ago, turbomax said:

1) is a link cable recommended for the Quest 3 for higher data rates over wireless connection? I don't plan to move around, will mostly be sitting in the VR cockpit, no golfing or Half life Alyx.

From my understanding it's not actually a proper link cable, there's still encoding and decoding involved, compared to an actual DisplayPort cable that goes directly into your GPU which at that point has little to no latency.

This is why majority of the time, it is genuinely no better than just going wireless (pending you have a proper wifi setup for it)

5 hours ago, turbomax said:

3) I plan to also get the BOBOVR M3 Pro Strap with additional battery and a separate 5 meter link cable from Syntech or Cabletex to charge battery during game play. is that a good idea?

I have the M3 Pro, however I'd suggest just getting the S3 Pro, I believe the battery is more or less doubled and the amperage is higher so that it actually charges the Q3 rather than retaining it's battery percentage. You can't use the link cable and the M3 Pro, there's only one USB-C port on the Q3 and one or the other will occupy it. However, for me, once I take off and I'm in cruise, I take the headset off and just plug it in, so I never have it on during the whole flight.

PCL on paper is a lot better in terms of resolution than the Q3 there's no question there, not to mention the PCL uses QLED so you'll have much better blacks and color reproduction than the Q3. So visually you will probably see a downgrade. For me personally wireless VR is a gamechanger (if you have the right wifi setup). It's a lot more flexible even for simming, but then again I also play room VR games as-well so YMMV.

 

3 hours ago, FlyIce said:

For Pimax CL, you don't need SteamVR, just use the Pimax OpenXR runtime in PimaxPlay, works well. 

thanks very much FlyIce. that did the trick. a lot more complicated setup than that WMR plug'n play was.

what a revelation compared to my HP Reverb G2. I am blown away by this fantastic graphic quality improvement and much better field of view, and thanks to no more Fresnel lenses, no more chromatic aberration!

now have to check how to increase the new lower fps, perhaps even may have to upgrade to 5090 and next gen AMD 9950x3D, I was hoping I could avoid all that for the time being. will this never end. 😄

but in return for all those $$ spent on MSFS, at least we are getting fantastic unprecedented visual quality.

only 39 fps now where I had previously 45-55 fps with HP G2:

 

chromatic aberration caused by Fresnel lenses:

Edited January 29, 20251 yr by turbomax

1 hour ago, turbomax said:

thanks very much FlyIce. that did the trick. a lot more complicated setup than that WMR plug'n play was.

what a revelation compared to my HP Reverb G2. I am blown away by this fantastic graphic quality improvement and much better field of view, and thanks to no more Fresnel lenses, no more chromatic aberration!

now have to check how to increase the new lower fps, perhaps even may have to upgrade to 5090 and next gen AMD 9950x3D, I was hoping I could avoid all that for the time being. will this never end. 😄

but in return for all those $$ spent on MSFS, at least we are getting fantastic unprecedented visual quality.

only 39 fps now where I had previously 45-55 fps with HP G2:

 

 

chromatic aberration caused by Fresnel lenses:

 

 

Just so you know, MS2020 is the better option now for VR.  The PCL really shines with 2020 just remember the high visual settings you used with the G2 is no longer needed with the PCL.  You can have lower settings and still get good performance.  Looks up 'VR Flightsim Guys' tutorial on dialing in the PCL. I'm actually waiting on him and other VR enthusiast to give MS2024 the green light before I dive in.

18 minutes ago, Dillon said:

MS2020 is the better option now for VR. 

too late 😁, I haven't touched MSFS 2020 for various reasons ever since last november 19th.

"You can have lower settings and still get good performance."

yes true, will have to find a new good compromise. Unless they can come up with more aggressive DLSS (AI based, enhanced, and even higher super resolution since no FrameGeneration in VR) I don't see how we can use higher VR resolutions at acceptable fps, higher than the new Pimax any time soon. and honestly, I don't think I'd need that. the ball is now back again in the CPU/GPU developers field.

waiting for the first RTX 5090 Pimax VR reviews.

I was originally going with the quest 3 but the usual suspects changed my mind and I got the Crystal Light instead. My experience is, if you are a busy person (I am), the two weeks is not long enough to get to the CL sweet spot for your hardware. It took me more like a month but I'm very happy with it. I settled on running it at full resolution and tuned to about 40fps which I think is 80 in the headset at 90hz upscale (lab) and I run it a full resolution. I may be getting a 5080 at least very soon.

13 minutes ago, turbomax said:

too late 😁, I haven't touched MSFS 2020 for various reasons ever since last november 19th.

To each his own!💯

After spending a couple months after first getting my headset (headset arrived last September) of trial and error and finally getting the headset to perform and look it's best I can't go back no matter if the sim is a newer version.😁

1 hour ago, FBW737 said:

I may be getting a 5080 at least very soon.

I would rather say "a 5090 at least" 😄

anything below a 5090 won't really make big enough of a difference in VR (since no FrameGen). I expect pure raster performance increase going from a  4090 to 5090  to be only some 20% fps increase. 5080 won't even outperform a 4090.

2024 beta SU1, DLSS4 and the new Nvidia driver are fantastic.

Edited January 30, 20251 yr by turbomax

5 hours ago, Dillon said:

MS2020 is the better option now for VR.

not compared to MSFS 2024 SU1 beta, at least not for me.

My Pimax Crystal Light settings in the Pimax Play app: (You can see my hardware in sig below). I'm getting in the high 40s fps down low and on runway and more up high in the air.

DEVICE Refresh Mode 90 Upscale (Lab): This is frame generation! It increases fps a lot.

GAMES  Render Quality Medium. Fixed Foviated Rendering: OFF (unchecked)

Smart Smoothing:ON  LOCK HALF FRAMERATE OFF  HIDDEN AREA MASK On

GENERAL Firmware 1.0.14 OPEN RUNTIME Pimax Open VR     HOME Default

ADVANCED Don't change the sliders except if instructed by an expert !   Passthrough ON (this allows seeing the keyboard and controllers with shortcut keys ON and OFF)

VR settings in 2024:

DLSS Performance (I never use TAA in VR, kills my framerates. I might if I had like a 4090)

Render Preset: Medium (but Off Screen Terrain Precaching on Ultra, I always set this to Ultra)

 

 

LOL, for the first 2 days I had PCL, I forgot to remove the plastic film on the lenses. But it still looked way better than my old Reverb G2. I sold the G2 on Ebay. It sold in 2 minutes 😞 I could asked for more money than $200.

11 minutes ago, Fielder said:

My Pimax Crystal Light settings in the Pimax Play app:

you mean here? the most right "DEVICE Refresh Mode 90 Upscale (Lab): "

Edited February 1, 20251 yr by turbomax

Yes, I'm sorry it is Refresh Rate, not refresh mode, its in your picture. 90 Hz is not re-projection (pseudo frame generation). But 90HZ Upscale (Lab) is. Its a big fps boost.