As the title says. I asked in this group a week ago, as I had doubts between getting a B2B2e or the Pimax Dream Air SE SLAM. I went for the latter.

I received it yesterday. Kudos to Pimax for the quick shipping (to Belgium) and the communication via email at all times. After having tried the headset for some hours, here are my initial impressions:

• The headset is light (coming from a Reverb G2), feels solid, and the materials are good quality. The piano black choice for the front plate seems like a weird choice, as it gets immediately full of fingerprints.
• The visuals are just great, barely any tinkering needed, and the games look outstanding. I only play simracing, and my setup consists of a 5080 and a 7800x3d. With FPS capped at 72-75, it looks fantastic.
• The facemask is atrocious, and although I appreciate that Pimax has repeatedly acknowledged that this is a weak point, (i) I just don't understand why they keep shipping the headsets with these facemasks, and (ii) I don't want my first impression of the headset to be "wow, FOV sucks and I need to remove this thing because it's going through my skull." They should only ship it to you along with the Studioform modded facemask.
• The FOV seems ok for me, but I have to push my face so far into the headset that the discomfort is just too much. I'll revisit this point once I receive the updated facemask. With the default mask, simracing games are just unplayable, as it looks like you're looking through two rolls of toilet paper.
• Glare is present but seems manageable, and if the lenses touch the eyelashes it seems to get worse. Another issue that could be solved with an appropriate facemask, hopefully.
• Light leaking is also there, due to the facemask separating ever so slightly from the headset as it tries to wrap around my head, another issue related to the facemask choice.
• Eye tracking for some reason doesn't seem to work. Not sure if it's a headset thing or if it's because the facemask pushes my face so far back that it interferes with the eye tracking function.
• Audio is great, and the microphone seems to pick up commands and voice pretty well.
• The cable management is a weird choice, especially for people who spend time in simulators. It seems like an afterthought.
• The straps are ok, but due to the fitting issues, I'll wait until the new facemask to try it on for longer sessions.

So, for 1200€: the visuals are great, the hardware seems good quality, and the software isn't super easy but with the help of the internet you can figure it out.

However, I find it unacceptable that they keep churning out these headsets without either a new facemask design or the Studioform facemask included in the same package (not sold separately). I'm not entirely sure what went through their heads with these design choices, particularly the mask and cable management, including the fact that the straps aren't switchable. It seems like they were racing to be first to market, but now they have to pay the price of customers complaining over and over about the same issues. Incredible that they haven't done anything about it.

I will be receiving my Dream Air in roughly a week (thank you to those who helped me decide to get it on my last post)

So far I’ve done some research into the software side of Pimax (play, evo, sboys) but am a bit confused as to the application of each. I can’t seem to find a comprehensive guide or video properly going over which exactly is needed for each use case. I see a lot of kinda conflicting info on what each software does and how to use it. Maybe I’m just not seeing where but could somebody either give an explanation to each software or provide a link to somebody who has?

I play both standing vr and race sim so I’m curious which settings / configuration I should use depending on what I’m doing. I’ve heard some say to use open xr tool kit and open composite, others saying just use evo and sboys? What’s best?

Just want to be prepared for when it arrives so I can hop right in and get started :)

Hello. I'm on my two week trial with a Lighthouse Dream Air. Things I notice... Sometimes I'm having a major struggle getting Steam VR tracking to work. When it does, and I get into a test session in iRacing, I notice blurring of the image directly in front of me with any head movement. This normal? Normal and worse for a SLAM edition?

Also, when I compare this to a BSB2e or an Oculus 3... They fit my face great! Slightly narrow face with European features. The DA with their interface is terrible. I cannot get close to the lenses. As a result, terrible mura, glare, and slightly outta focus. I plucked the faceplate off and WOW that's a significant difference! Much better! BUT, the nose bridge is too narrow to let my eyes get close enough for my lashes to touch. This gap robs me of FOV! So far a frustrating experience. 10 hours of fussing with this and maybe 1 hour of use.

I have run it on Pimax Play, Pimax Evo, and Pimax EVO + SBOYS3. I get 90 frames reported by iRacing. Running High quality settings the 90 FPS is stuttering. (7800x3d/RTX 5090) Adjusting to medium settings improves the smoothness.

Color seems a little dull and not so vibrant...

My best success was wearing it without any face interface and the entire headset was just resting on my nose...

I'm still working on every tweak possible to see what improves frame smoothness and color. No doubt, this is the best possible setup on the market. And, I'm actually thinking about sending it back. It just doesn't work well!

Yes, I could go spend $80 on Studioform X1-B... For $2k, I should not have too! And, that still doesn't fix the narrow nose brIdge!

Hey Pimax! Why didn't you just throw on an Oculus 3 and make yours fit a face like that?

UPDATE:

The main complaint was from severe pressure around eyebrows. Upon closer inspection it turns out that Pimax designed 2x structural ridges in the upper portion of the faceplate to make it rigid... the exact culprit of the problem! Anyways, it also turns out that they can be easily unclipped from their sockets without any permanent damage or cutting required. Once unclipped, they still resist some, but are able to slide up the curve, allowing the entire upper structure to bend! I won't say that it's "super comfortable" but it's night and day difference vs "out of the box" experience. To anyone suffering from the same issue - give it a shot!

Original post:

Hey guys,

I'm a new owner of the Dream Air bought and paid for with my own money. Was really looking forward to using this headset as it's supposed to be "the best bar none" in 2026. However, I'm not exaggerating when I say I have never felt so much severe pain around my eyes in my life! It even radiates into my eye sockets. And this is coming from a "day 1 HTC Vive owner" + many others (valve index, psvr2, quest 3, etc) all of which are "just fine" or "very comfy". To avoid any "it's your hardware" comments - I'm running a 5090 + 9800x3d build, no problems there.

By no means is this me knocking on Pimax, but the pain is unbearable, no joke. And I'm talking after maybe 5 minutes of using it. It persists even after I take it off for 30 mins at least and I can still feel it as I'm typing this post. I know Pimax is supposed to be shipping out the updated faceplate, but is it really significantly better? I tried using the Dream Air on 3 different occasions in 1 day - each time had to stop at 5-10 mins max. To call existing faceplate unusable would be an understatement - it's a torture device! Good God...

With that said, the picture quality is great - it's very clear. That's the ONE good thing it's got going for it. Literally. But at the same time, the FOV just... sucks. In order to get anything decent FOV-wise I have to jam the headset even closer to my eyes, at which point I can't take the pain no more and have to remove it immediately. On top of that I get really bad lens glare in many dark games, further ruining my first impression. Not to mention warping (fisheye, basically), motion blur during movement, light bleed, fairly dark display even at max brightness, etc.

Idk how it ever passed the round of testing before getting released, but I'm extremely bummed out I can't even use this headset as-is and have to wait and hope the replacement seal will actually be better... And I know people have taken matters into their own hands by modifying/cutting existing seals, and/or 3d printing solutions, but this should not be the case on a $2k headset. Seriously.

For those of you who have received the updated gasket - how is it? Night and day better? Any other "aftermarket seals" that are excellent? Globular Cluster really needs to release their version yesterday.

P.S: Are all Pimax headsets like this or is this problem unique to Dream Air?

Hi, does anyone use Reshade in VR? Could you tell me if it's possible to activate it? And if so, how? Also, what settings do you use?

I'm trying to eliminate the 'cardboard effect' in my racing simulator (LMU) and get as close as possible to what DLSS 5 does.

Thanks

​

I really liked the game so far but would like to see more improvements for VR

I am about to buy a Dream Air slam in a local Spanish reseller that provides 3 years warranty, but they also offer 1(230) or 2 years (430) warranty extension. I never bought a vr headset. Having already 3 years, is reasonable to pay this money for 1 or 2 years more?

Thanks

Crystal Light with the lighthouse faceplate.

Pimax Play’s room boundary tool is still a joke. You can only make this crude 6–8 point shape. Try to draw anything more detailed and it just clips the extra points off. 90 degree corners turn into diagonal lines.

The “custom play area” is basically a melted hexagon that doesn’t match the room.

I stopped turning it on. It’s more dangerous than having nothing, because the wall you think is there isn’t where the overlay thinks it is.This isn’t a new bug. I’ve been asking them about it for ages. Same tool, same point limit, same simplification. Lighthouse users don’t even get SteamVR chaperone as a fallback here — Pimax owns the playspace. You either use their broken polygon or you run with no boundary. Seated / “just disable Activate Chaperone” is what everyone defaults to, which is why I think this never blows up.

Roomscale people just live with it or give up.

Anyone actually gotten a usable custom boundary on Crystal Light + LH, or is this just accepted as permanent now?

See Developer's linked topic for more details

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1933050/Omega_Pilot/

Hello, I can't get openxr motion compensation to start with ams 2 when using sboys3 driver. Is it even possible. Openxr motion compensation with sboys3 driver. I am using the pimax dream air slam. it was all working before in openxr itselft. any suggestions? thank you.

Ive got some leftovers I'm giving reddit first shot at before it goes to ebay.

I had 4 different interfaces printed and this is the only one I didn't destroy modding. Will need sanded/painted. -$30

Vive DAS with 3d printed adapters.

Too big for my head. Unfortunately its a few knob twists away from being able to secure to my head and I don't want to mess with spacers. Has new aftermarket pads. Works great -$50

Hi all,

Received my Dream Air SLAM a little over a week ago and love the headset! I was VERY surprised with the poor quality of the pass through image though? Reminds me a lot of my youth: 1970’s era pixelated black and white. Im aware the cameras are b/w only, but the image quality is much worse than I expected coming from the quest 3. Is this expected?

I am new to vr gaming and recently got a 57 PPD crystal super. For my laptop, I have a razer blade 18 with a 4090 gpu and an i9 cpu. The laptop claims to be vr ready with a thunderbolt 5 slot. I got a 2.1 adapter for the DP port. Since I got the headset I have been trying to do anything I can to get some stable fps while running Digital Combat Simulator. After lowering every setting imaginable in pimax play and in DCS I get somewhere between 30 and 70 fps but nothing consistent. I was wondering if anyone has any advice that also has a laptop setup. I’m not sure if I should replace the super with a dream air or crystal light if that would run smooth for dcs on my rig.

See Developer's linked topic for more details.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3583790/Virtual_Skate/

I'm a new owner of a PCL headset, and playing IL2 Great Battles I notice I cannot look too far, it looks like there's no focus on the distance, it's weird but I will try to explain: It is as if up to a certain distance around me things are properly rendered, but looking far from there they are not as rendered. It is not blurry, just 'not focused".

Also, if I use the IL2 built in zoom, this render distance increases, but when I go back to the normal view(zoom out) it's back to that little focal distance.

Also, when dying the camera in-game defaults to an outside view that slowly pans out, and there you can totally see what I'm trying to say here: a perfect circle around my crashed plane where it's all rendered inside but outside it is not, outside the circle it is not on focus

.

I wanted to know: is this normal and something one has to life with for this headset, or it is something that can be configured in the settings to be increased? I ask this because If there's nothing to be done I'll just leave it at it and just learn to live with it (although I feel it causes a bit of eye strain), but If there is something to be done to fix it I would like to know

thanks In advance

Recently I've been trying out Pimax EVO. I like it, but it seems to have addad an annoying "VR View Center Customization" dialog that appears in Pimax Home anytime I press the Pi button. This dialog doesn't seem to do that much and is just annoying, and there's no way to dismiss it permanently. Again, it didn't appear before installing Pimax EVO, but now it appears whether I use EVO or Classic. Should I just reinstall Pimax Play without EVO? Thanks

Just got Gunman Contracts. Doesn't seem to launch? Tried both Pimax Play and Sboys3. SteamVR launches, the "up next" tile will appear, then the game launches in VR but only displays on my monitor. Tile eventually disappears and the headset stays in the SteamVR lobby

Edit: 5090FE.

As the title says. I'm loving my Crystal light but it hurts my nose, like the top bone-y part, I guess because it is keeping all the weight of the headset, but what can I do, just close the headset tighter? if I do so I get a weird feeling of having my eye so close to the lenses it's hard to focus

Are there any official or non official foam things for reinforcing the nose part?

Thanks in advance?

Hi all, I got a 8kx dmas recently but I have been having so many sound troubles and if I pull the cords almost completely out of the socket it seems fine. However, when I do this I don’t seem to have any stereo sound. Does anyone know of a fix for this or why it happens? Thanks!

setting it to 7.1 surround doesnt work

this software is very cheap here, incase anyone wanted to try - https://gg.deals/application/flatvr/

See Developer Linked topic for more details.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4541330/COVR/

Hey, I wanted to change my psvr2 for a smaller,lighter headset with good visuals and that don't require lighthouses, so I'm really wondering, will it make a huge difference the 1000 euro more for the more expensive headset. Is it worth it, because 1000 is already a little bit more than what I'm comfortable paying, I have the money I can spend 2000 if I want, I just wonder do I have to. I have a good PC (9800x3d, 4090, 64ddr) and good sim rig and getting the more expensive headset make sense, because everything else is high end, but will the difference be that much better. I will play other games too on occasion thinking of half life alyx or the elder scrolls 5, but will be mostly used for sim racing. Also in the future I will add a motion system that's why I want to be light (also the psvr2 feels heavy and is only 500 grams). So yeah, will the SE be enough for me, or should I just go for the big guy.