Pimax Crystal’s flawless rendering enhanced my PC VR system

Image: Mixed

An upcoming Pimax Crystal software update will enable improved eye tracking and rendering hardware, unlocking higher resolutions even on my aging PC VR system.

The Pimax Crystal has impressive specs, most notably a super sharp display, which compares favorably with Varjo’s Aero while coming in at a significantly lower price. However, some of Crystal’s best features aren’t available at launch.

The latest update will be rolling out to everyone soon, adding support for Crystal’s eye tracking hardware. That unlocks the avatar animation and final rendering. The standalone mode is still a work in progress, but we already know of some titles launching with Crystal’s standalone mode.

VRChat avatar animation

With eye tracking enabled, I was able to animate my VRChat avatar with natural eye movements while wearing the Pimax Crystal. Realistic eye movements can make a big difference in social apps.

A group of VRChat avatars pose for the camera. | Image: VRChat

Flickers are also detected and reflected in VR, so I can blink, pretend to fall asleep with my eyes lowered, and close my eyes as if sleeping or meditating. Extended avatar control is very useful and allows for more natural communication.

The only downside is that everyone I interact with benefits from this upgrade, while I’m just looking at other people’s simulated eye movements. That means we need more devices with eye tracking hardware.

The foveated rendering is impressive

Perfect rendering had a greater impact on my PC VR experience. I prefer VR gaming to VRChat but rely on a three year old computer and GPU. My system worked fine using AirLink with the Meta Quest 2 and Quest Pro, but the Pimax Crystal has much greater graphics potential.

With an 11th Gen Intel Core i5-11400 and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, my games performed best at moderate resolutions. When I first tested the Pimax Crystal, I had to reduce the resolution significantly to avoid overloading my GPU, which reduces frame rates and can cause stuttering.

Crystal is capable of displaying 2880×2880 pixels per eye. It’s sharper than the Varjo Aero. However, if my GPU can’t process many pixels fast enough, I can also use a more affordable VR headset. That’s where improved rendering saves time and enables higher resolutions without needing to buy a new GPU.

The fovea, located in the center of the retina at the back of our eyes, contains more cells responsible for vision. Perfect rendering takes advantage of that design, maximizing resolution where I look while reducing quality in my peripheral vision.

Pimax Crystal has three options for display finish: minimum, balanced and maximum. I selected the maximum level and also set the render resolution to maximum.

I enabled Pimax Crystal’s Eye Tracking feature and set Render Quality and Foveated to maximum.

In SteamVR, this equates to a rendering resolution of 4312×5100 pixels per eye. The results are extremely sharp. Eye tracking samples 120 times per second, so it adjusted quickly as my eyes moved, and I couldn’t detect any loss of quality at the edges.

Frame rates are good and stable, with no change in rendering settings or game quality. I tried many different games, including Half-Life: Alyx, Propagation VR, and Star Wars: Droid Repair Bay. Everything works and runs well despite my old computer.

Pimax has shared a sample of customer reports, who have noted the results of using foveated rendering (FR) on various games and GPUs.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti:

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti:

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090:

Pimax Crystal’s flawless rendering improves frame rates by approximately 30% on most Nvidia GPUs across a variety of games, bringing high-resolution graphics to more people without the need for upscaling to a more powerful PC VR system.

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