This is a review of Pimax Crystal Light after spending 7 Weeks With it as of writing. I tried almost everything with this headset from Games to Porn, so you can have a better decision in case you're interested in buying one. Hopefully this review can be helpful to you.
This is a PCVR ONLY headset, it can't be operated in standalone mode like the Quest 2/ 3. And you need a high end PC to run it to its full potential. Also, it can't be operated wirelessly by official or unofficial methods as of writing.
Pimax Crystal Light Specifications and Price:
Release Date: May/ 14/ 2024.
Screen type: 2 QLED with Mini LED Backlight for local dimming (The unit I ordered) There's another version without local dimming coming soon at 699 USD price as of writing.
Subpixel Layout: RGB stripe.
Resolution: 2880 x 2880 per eye (5760x 2880 Total).
Lens type: Aspheric made of glass.
Pixel Per Degree: 35 PPD.
Refresh rates: Variable @60Hz/ 72Hz/ 90Hz/ 120Hz.
IPD: Manually Adjustable from 58 to 72 mm.
Horizontal FOV: 115°
Vertical FOV: 105°
Diagonal FOV: 130°
Adjustable Diopter/ Eye relief: Not available.
Chipset: Pimax PCVR Engine Dual Processor. Responsible for image processing and tracking.
Headset Tracking: The default is 6DoF Inside-Out Tracking. And can be Outside-in with "Lighthouse Faceplate" add-on and "Base Stations" (both sold separately).
Body Tracking: Not available, but if you have the Lighthouse Faceplate add-on and Base Stations you can buy and use Vive trackers for full body tracking.
Hand Tracking: Not available, and you can't use the "Hand Tracking Module" add-on because the Crystal Light doesn't have a USB-C port on the bottom.
Finger Tracking: Partial finger and thumb tracking via the controllers capacitive sensors.
Face Tracking: Not available, but you can buy and use the "Vive Face Tracker" via your PC if you design and 3D print a mounting unit for the Crystal Light.
Eye Tracking: Not available, so you can't use dynamic foveated rendering.
Foveated Rendering: Fixed foveated rendering at version 2.0 as of writing.
Audio: 2 microphones and integrated audio upgradable to DMAS over-ear headphones (sold separately).
Controllers: 2 Ringed controllers with haptic feedback and built-in rechargeable batteries via USB-C port with about 20 Hours battery life (Not compatible with Lighthouse tracking if you used the Lighthouse Faceplate add-on).
PC connectivity: Requires 1 DisplayPort version 1.4a or newer and 1 USB 3.0 port or newer.
PC operating system: at least Windows 10 64-bit version or Windows 11 as of writing.
Expansion ports:
3.5mm jack.
WiFi: Not available.
Bluetooth: Not available.
USB: There are no extra USB ports on the headset itself.
Headset weight: 815 grams.
One controller weight: 126 grams.
Material: Plastic with foam facial interface.
Head strap: Hard padded retractable strap.
Colors: Comes in black color only.
Total price: 887 USD as of writing.
Warranty: 12 months.
Website: https://pimax.com/pages/crystal-light
Included in the Box:
Crystal Light Headset.
2 Ringed controllers.
DisplayPort cable with 4.5 meters length.
Power adapter.
Service card (for customer support).
Apps Required:
Pimax Play. https://pimax.com/pages/downloads-manuals
SteamVR.
PC Requirements:
https://pimax.com/blogs/crystal-light-tutorials/pc-requirements-for-the-pimax-crystal-light
My PC Specifications:
CPU: Intel Core i9-14900K.
GPU: RTX 4080.
RAM: 32BG DDR5 2800 Mhz.
OS: Windows 11 Pro 24H2.
Let me start with this, when it comes to gaming and videos, the visuals of this headset are out of this world if you have a powerful PC capable to deliver all these 16.5 megapixels to the headset at least with 60FPS.
The colors are punchy and vivid, the contrast and black levels are surprisingly very good! Way superior than Quest 3 for example. I imagined if these screens are Mico-OLED and with even higher resolution, damn! And the overall build quality of this headset "feels" good.
This headset is truly a VR Powerhouse, which is my only favorite category currently when it comes to the whole Extended reality (XR) umbrella.
But to leave no stone unturned, I also tested "Stereoscopic" and "Flat" for both gaming and videos for anyone interested, although both of them are not my cup of tea (more on that later).
Games Experiences:
Do you play flat games on 4K 43-inch LED Monitor or TV? With the Pimax Crystal Light (the QLED with Mini LED version) you'll see the same visual quality but on very large screen or in immersive 3D. It's really that good, without any exaggeration. As a Quest 3 owner, the visuals are not even close, it's such an amazing experience.
The ease of use of this headset is very good, plug it to the PC and it connects immediately, very practical and works well with any game. Even with very demanding titles if you have a high end PC.
If you have a mid range PC, you still got very nice options in the "Pimax Play" Software like "Fixed Foveated Rendering", in my tests it helped with performance a lot without sacrificing image quality that much outside of the center area where you looking in most games. You can turn it off too.
You also have "Upscale Mode" which helps with performance very well too and without sacrificing the image quality that much, it's really that great, you can also not use it if you want, in addition, you can adjust the render quality.
I also want to mention that you can even adjust the local dimming using the Pimax Play software, which is very helpful for games that's too dark by design like horror or space games, these types of games can be too dark and some details can’t be seen, due to the dimming zones and black crush.
As for comfort, I'll include it under the gaming experience, because VR gaming has the most activity and it's the most taxing on your eyes and your head compared to any other lighter activities like watching VR videos for example.
So, unlike other reviewers whom wearing the headset for 2 minutes and tell you, oh! This is very comfortable, or using it for 30 minutes watching videos or playing Beat Saber and tell you the same thing.
I call this nonsense! You really want to inform people how comfortable a VR headset is? You have to use it for a long time with heavy activity which is mostly related to various VR games and you should inform them about both the eyes and the head comfort.
Eyes comfort. The eye strain is very minimum to non-existence because of how much the visuals are clean even after using it for more than 5 hours straight which is nuts! Compared to Quest 3, it's not the case at all. When I use the Quest 3 for just 2 hours straight, I start to feel uncomfortable and starts to feel eye strain, not just because of the cleaner visuals as I mentioned previously, but because of the Crystal Light glass aspheric lenses which are way superior than Quest 3 plastic pancake lenses in terms of clarity and a larger sweet spot.
The Pimax Crystal Light binocular overlap in particular, is way better than Quest 3 which I always found uncomfortable and causes eye fatigue to me at least with my IPD (68mm) And the FOV is phenomenal compared to Quest 3 which is not only more immersive, but also make your eyes more relaxed and focused.
Head comfort. This could be subjective depending on many factors like physical strength and age, for example, as for me, at 25 years old in a good shape thankfully, I found it to be ok and comfortable "IF" you used it in setting or even standing position.
In terms of weight, you'll still feel the weight of this headset, but it's very balanced all over your head unlike the Quest 3 which I always found uncomfortable and front heavy. The head strap and the fabric foam facial interface are really soft and feels pretty comfortable on the face and does very well in blocking out any external light.
But I still prefer silicone face interface since I'm a very active guy and sweat a lot when gaming. This is why I ordered the "Pimax Crystal Light Leather Foam Upgrade Kit" to replace all the fabric foam in the headset. So instead of washing the fabric foam every time and wait for them to dry, I just use antibacterial wipes to clean the leather now, which is more practical for everyday use. And now it's perfectly fine for me.
VR Games: Finally, gone the days of Quests encoding and decoding crap that eats my PC performance like crazy with all this latency and awful visual artifacts just to run any demanding PC games decently with high quality graphics and frame rates, I have to deal with this garbage since my first day in VR on January 2021 with Quest 2 till February 2025 with Quest 3. That's like 4 years in prison, and I'm finally free! This is like a dream come true for me!
Although I tried many VR games with it, some are active and requires mobility, some are passive and requires sitting. I'll just share my experience with the passive games that require sitting, because when it comes to action games that require mobility, my experience will be different than yours for sure depending on many factors like physical strength and age in addition to the actual setup itself and the cable management (more on that later).
So, I choose a very demanding title for VR, because if this worked for you very good, everything else will run great in highest settings and very high frame rates not less than 90FPS if you have similar PC specs to mine. Also, this game can give you a clearer idea of how much the headset is good in terms of sharpness and overall visual quality.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MFS2020). Actually, I wanted to share my experience with the newer MFS2024, but it's still a buggy mess, so until Microsoft fixes it and patch it, it will not represent a true test result as of writing, unlike the way more stable MFS2020, so I'll stick with it for my test. In the game, I set everything to ultra setting with DLSS 4.0, I also turned off motion blur because I personally don't like it. In the Pimax Play software, I set the refresh rate to 90Hz and quality is set to Balance, I left the rest of the settings at default.
The game runs very smooth, I have a minimum stable 45 FPS almost everywhere even when flying over cities with crowded buildings and skyscrapers which needs so much rendering. Of course I can have more frames by lowering the settings, but I prefer this absolutely stunning visual quality over higher frame rates.
For me, a minimum of 45 FPS is ok for a game that doesn't require fast movement in VR at least with my tests like MFS2020, because, although I'm "flying" I just move forward slowly and enjoying the gorgeous scenery below me, especially when flying at sunset and at night times, damn how much I love this, especially with this headset's local dimming! Rest assured, you are getting a headset that can put you in the cockpit of a plane! Everything looks clear and crisp, from the small screens to the tiniest texts without exhausting your eyes trying to read them.
Other titles I played: Assetto Corsa, Digital Combat Simulator, Half-Life: Alyx, Metro Awakening, Alien: Rogue Incursion, and many others, All looks and play great with super graphics fidelity and very high frame rates. In addition to these native VR titles, I modded some flat games to VR using PrayDog's UEVR Injector like Silent Hill 2 Remake which is now ten times scarier in VR, damn!
Stereoscopic Games: These are games that don't have 180° FOV (Hemisphere) or 360° FOV (Sphere) in other words, you're not "Enveloped" inside a 3D environment, you're just looking at a 3D Flat screen, I mean it's like the regular flat screen, but with "depth" only. Anyway, these were a bit complicated to run in VR unlike what I thought, because these games come in many different tech. For example, some require the discontinued Nvidia 3D Vision.
Some uses Anaglyph 3D...etc... After some search, I found a software called "vorpx" which can allow you to play some stereoscopic games on a large flat screen with depth via SteamVR with perfect projection and without any visual artifacts. Luckily I already have a compatible stereoscopic game (for my surprise!) with vorpx, and it was "Alice: Madness Returns".
Alice: Madness Returns. You can play the game either by using motion controllers or by gamepad. I played it with a gamepad since it's better for both stereoscopic and flat screen games. And damn how much I wished this game was built from the ground up for VR. It's so beautiful on this massive screen and the 3D depth is jaw dropping and give this game a new life, so to speak, it's just absolutely gorgeous!
Seeing all these beautiful environments this sharp and with depth, It's like the first time I play it! It's totally different, literally! You can play the game in many modes using the vorpx software, even moving the in-game camera with your head via the headset tracking. Anyway, there's many tweaks you can do, but overall, it was an incredible new experience for me and worthy of time, money and hustle to see it. I'll play the entire game using the Crystal Light just to "live" in these beautiful worlds again.
Flat Games: The easiest games to run, really, there's nothing to write home about. Just grab a gamepad, run any regular flat game and enjoy high resolutions in high frame rates with stunning graphics fidelity on a massive screen. I played mostly "Resident Evil 2 Remake" and it was really great, but for the sake of it I wanted to go crazy and try so many things. I ended up playing even classic/ retro games like, Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara, MARVEL vs. CAPCOM Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, and oh boy, the scale of the world and characters on a massive screen are crazy! It's second to none, especially with such high visuals.
At first, I wanted to put the headset under so many tests, but I ended up playing these games, because of how much they look beautiful at that scale, which totally revoked my "both of them are not my cup of tea" statement. lol!
Actually, I'm now more excited about the upcoming Valve Deckard hybrid VR headset, Valve is right! And I'm now convinced about their headset hybrid design, I want to expand my VR world with stereoscopic and flat too.
Porn Experiences:
VR Porn: Life is just so beautiful, let me start with this. Finally seeing my favorites 8K resolution high bitrate scenes this clean, clear, and with this vivid colors, contrasts and black depth playing this smoothly and with instant skipping between different parts of the video is stunning!
Finally no more compression artifacts garbage like on Quest 2 and 3. Finally no more awful tilted screen-door effect of the Quest 3. Actually I can't see any screen-door effect with the Crystal Light unless I have to put the word "screen-door effect" in my mind and search hard for it with my eyes.
It's literally that good, and that applies to all the games I played as well. It's pretty much nonexistent, and I couldn't see any space between pixels. I was pretty much lost inside of the headset for the majority of the time I was watching videos or playing games that I didn’t even think about the screen-door effect until I wrote this review. lol!
Stereoscopic Porn: Called many names nowadays, but I'll stick with the old gold and accurate name, the "Stereoscopic". I watched some of the newly introduced Stereoscopic videos here on SLR, and although they are at 2K and can top to 4K max resolution.
They were pretty sharp! Even on the largest virtual screen size possible to my surprise, and yes, the depth is very clear, very noticeable and perfectly done. I also watched both formats of the Stereoscopic videos (Side By Side and Top Bottom) from other sources, and both worked perfectly fine in terms of accurate projection and depth.
I really liked some of these vintage films like "Adam and 6 Eves 3D from 1962" despite its dumb story, but seeing these hot topless beauties with depth, damn!
Flat Porn: Just like the flat games, it's seamless to run even with highest resolutions available. Personally, I had the thought of "What does it look like when guys in the 70's and 80's were watching porn on these large screens in cinemas?" So, I wanted to replicate that experience and started watching classic/ vintage erotica and porn, and I had a blast doing so!
Seeing all these beauties on a massive screen fixed on my ceiling while I'm lying down on my bed was incredible and almost impossible or at least very hard to replicate in real life using real massive high resolution screens at that position, well, unless you tilt yourself instead of the screen. Anyway, it was a great experience and made me think a lot about the current awful state of porn compared to this beautiful era of classic/ vintage porn films.
Crappy Experiences:
The monthly payment system: If you choose it and you miss a payment, the Pimax Play software will stop working until you complete the payment. In other words, the headset will turn to a brick collecting dust until you pay the last penny, and you're stuck for 24 months with this situation. Luckily, I don't have to deal with this as I choose to pay a one time payment of total price. And I personally don't recommend anyone to choose the monthly payment system. This is why I have to mention it here.
Pimax Play Software: Although it's very good itself in terms of settings and options, it takes a lot of time to update even for some minor updates which is awful. It basically installs itself again with every update, in other words, the update overwrites the whole software instead of just replace the outdated parts, to put it simply. Personally, I wish everything can be done through hardware and SteamVR only without the need for any more software to do so.
Lying Down Mode: Pimax Play software allows you to enable "Recline Mode" AKA "Lying Down Mode". Just lie down in bed, enable Recline Mode and it will automatically adjust the VR display content to adapt it to your perspective and posture, and the tracking for this use case. It works perfectly fine in terms of software and hardware. What's crappy about it is how much uncomfortable it is with this bulky, heavy headset, the most thing annoyed me is the pressure on the back of my head against the pillow because of the hard strap and its knob despite all the padded foam.
So What I ended up doing is opening the strap all the way up and let the headset just "rest" on my face which of course made me lose the function of the integrated audio since it's not positioned at my ears anymore. So I just plugged 3.5mm earbuds with short cord design to the headset for this use scenario which is mostly for watching videos and porn. Still I have the issue of that weight on my face, but I got used to it for lighter sections like 1 or 2 hours max. Thankfully my nose is not that big, otherwise this headset will crush it too in that position. But overall it's still awful as of writing and I need to find better solutions for it.
Very large and bulky and looks ridiculous: You still have to deal with this large form factor of a VR headset, it certainly limits your mobility in gaming that need active and fast movements because of the bulky form factor alone "even" if it was wireless which it's not of course. Also, I really don't like its design, at least with that large wide front, you'll look like a freaking "Hammerhead shark" while you're wearing it. Jeez!
DisplayPort cable will limit your mobility: Large form factor is not your only problem when it comes to action games, but the cable as well. So I ended up using a VR Pulley System from KIWI design and now it's perfectly fine for me when playing active games. But still, I have to mention that awful experience.
AR, MR and Passthrough: Although they are not and will NEVER be my cup of tea "Unlike Flat and Stereoscopic games and videos change of heart", yes I'm certain about this, because of how many times I tried them and didn't like them at all and this is why I bought this headset in the first place previously knowing I can't use them. But to make this review fair and complete, because everyone is different and I know there's whom like AR, MR and Passthrough, so I have to include them in my review, and no better place to mention them than under crappy experiences.
Because the Pimax Crystal Light CAN'T do any AR or MR or even acceptable PT Videos. The Passthrough is a blurry black and white image. The headset just uses the tracking cameras for Passthrough similar to Quest 2. So DON'T ever think about buying this headset for even PT videos if you're into this stuff. In the end, it isn’t meant to be a mixed reality headset.
Mediocre Tracking: I had some issues with it at first, then a firmware update came out and fixed it for me, also I had to use the Pimax Play software to correctly select my "room lighting frequency", this is very important to maintain robust tracking to the headset, it's either 50Hz or 60Hz depending where you live, it's the frequency of the AC power in your house. Example, the mains power in the UK is 50Hz, whereas in other places like the US it's 60Hz instead.
You also need that to prevent any flickering issues. Just look through, Passthrough, if the lights in your room are flickering change the Hz. Overall, the tracking is not the best like Quest 3 for example, but not that bad for the degree that's unusable or annoying. It's "ok" and recovers very fast and does the job at least for me.
And that's it! Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this humble review and found it useful, even if you're not interested in this headset. And yes, I know I talked about gaming way more than Porn on a porn dedicated forum, but you know gaming is more complicated than videos, even the VR ones, so I hope you understand that. Also, some folks here are into gaming too, so, yeah.
Anyway, please feel free to ask me about anything I did or didn't cover here, and I wish you'll always have a great day!
Best Regards.
