Pimax: Two Sides of VRChat
- Skyward Staff
- 9 minutes ago
- 8 min read
Our introduction to Pimax comes in a place where every setting is possible. What better place to start?
Early User Adjustment Period
As Skyward Flight Media starts our collaboration with Pimax utilizing the Pimax Crystal Super Ultrawide (PCS Ultrawide) we immediately slide into the classic adjustment period that comes with any new piece of hardware. Whether it is calibrating a new head tracking software or mapping controls on a brand new throttle quadrant, there are always those initial teething issues. No matter the quality of the device, it is just a natural human part of getting a new product you know? You have to learn it a bit.
Skyward staff member “KOSMOS” is the user of the headset throughout this collab. He has owned a Valve Index with Base Stations since January 2022 and is very much used to everything about it. Adjusting to a different VR headset after so many years has been a notable part of the experience.
It is not that the PCS Ultrawide is too complicated to set up to start playing. Between the instructions provided within the packaging and the all-important Pimax Play software designed to support Pimax virtual reality headsets, installation is about as straightforward as it can get if you follow the prompts.
Pimax Play software screenshots.
For a standard user, they can probably get started playing VR games within 30 minutes of getting the headset plugged in and the installer wizard completing installation. There is little extra adjustment that needs to be done to experience the staggering high-quality display of a Pimax Crystal series headset that cannot be done within the Pimax Play software.
The Challenge of Recording in Ultra Wide
In terms of content creation, there has been one consistent hurdle throughout this process: recording in ultra wide in a way that shows visual clarity and wide field of view (FOV). The Pimax Crystal Super Ultrawide has a 140° horizontal field of view with eye tracking based dynamic foveated rendering. KOSMOS has said multiple times that the headset’s clarity is so good he can read the small text on walls up to twice the distance away from where he normally would.
While the human eye can take all this in and appraise the experience, we were not expecting the process of trying to portray the experience with video recording to be such a hurdle. Even in the most frequently viewed tutorials for recording in wide screen there are mentions of using a multitude of software cobbled together with OBS extensions and what not. That or accepting compromises where a video recording is only done from a single eye for the sake of prioritizing visual fidelity while sacrificing the wide FOV that defines the PCS Ultrawide.
In the year 2026, where wide aspect ratio monitors have existed since the late 2000s, there does not seem to be an easy to use “out of the box” solution for recording in these immersive FOVs. This isn’t even a Pimax specific thing - it seems to be more of a general state of technology around wide screens sort of thing. Both flatscreen and in virtual reality.
Be that as it may, we still wanted to try to capture the FOV first and foremost. We recalled the old ‘Oculus Mirror method’ and set out to reproduce that method. Using the Display VR View function in Steam, we were able to output a standalone window to show as much of the FOV the user sees as possible from both eyes at once. This recording method requires that one eye be the dominant eye for recording.
The media we captured does show a partially unblended area close to the left side of the screen - or near the left eye. Even in this configuration the full 140-degree FOV is not completely captured, but enough of the FOV is made available to more accurately demonstrate just how much the user sees.
Why VRChat?
We immediately loaded up as many games as possible to find the right settings for playing and recording with the PCS Ultrawide. Admittedly, we started to get a bit lost in trying to make some type of elaborate list of ideal settings.
Instead of that, we decided to settle on one title to start with. To familiarize ourselves with the process of making performance related adjustments and figuring out what our minimums and maximums are while learning how to utilize the Pimax Play software.
The most notable part of VRChat as a platform is the overwhelming variety of experiences you can have. While we are known for coverage of VRChat Aviation, we are not always just flying high and fast every time we log on. We spend a decent amount of time on the ground or at sea or in space or in liminal spaces… well you get the idea. We just do not normally talk about them here.
This time around we have decided to choose a mixture of visually stunning “static” worlds with no vehicles and a few flight worlds to introduce ourselves to the new wide FOV while in flight. There are very few places outside of VRChat that you can do this without having to load up a few different games.
Side 1: Fine Tuning in Lavish Landscapes
VRChat is primarily known for its social hub experiences and game worlds. Evenings of chatting up random people from around the planet in The Great Pug or just committing to the latest platform wide viral hit game like FISH! was recently (over 20,000 fish, gotta catch’em all).
Then there are places that, let us call them the “Power Users” of VRChat, go to express themselves. People who invest time and money to create their own custom avatars and or personas to represent themselves as one-of-a-kind individuals. These are often referred to as “Photography Worlds”. Unlike the light weight file size Worlds designed to provide a decent experience that can be accessible on standalone devices like a Meta Quest 3 without PC connection, these worlds prioritize graphics over accessibility and file size. Expect to download hundreds of megabytes just to look good in bespoke scenery!
Between recording in such a wide FOV and the heavy computing load of these worlds at higher graphical settings, there were some that had noticeable hitching even while walking. This gave us a chance to further fine tune things specifically for VRChat. What is not shown in the media above is KOSMOS’ executable of VRChat crashing due to Skyward staff requests to crank up various in-game settings to maximum just to see what would happen. As we said earlier, just trying to find out what our maximum performance settings are. After a restart into VRChat desktop mode to adjust settings to our now established parameters, it was time to get into world hopping to see what the Pimax Crystal Super Ultrawide could really do.
Taking time to walk through Photography worlds with a standard VR headset is one thing, but doing so with the wide FOV changes the experience. Something akin to going from observing a single painting on an easel to viewing an entire section of an art gallery at once with enough clarity to notice all their fine details. Seeing more of the landscape all at once further pulls the experience together.
Side 2: A New View of VRCAviation
From casually buzzing around the newly uploaded and recently updated flight worlds to helping organize flight community wide events like the recent Flight Hop, we do a lot of flying in VRChat. Instead of flying straight into a full instance of player vs. player fire breathers in one of the more popular worlds, we chose to gather the Skyward team together for a few private sessions in other places.
‘KOSMOS’ is one of Skyward’s most consistent airshow pilots since February 2022. He and some of our other staff members have flown airshow routines, timed performances to music and learned how to maximum perform aircraft in as little as one week as a part of the Black Aces demonstration team. Admittedly, it has been a while since we have done some precision flying like that. It was good to get back to the basics. Now with a much wider FOV.
From World War II warbirds to flight sim lite modeled F-14A Tomcats. From spending some quality time with our original design aircraft and worlds to deep space mining operations in an asteroid field.
At the end of our first Pimax focused sessions we asked KOSMOS how he was feeling about his first flights with the ultrawide field of view:
“In VRChat, the wide FOV in turn causes more to be rendered at all times. It can be resource intensive and cause noticeable overall lower FPS while in photography heavy worlds. VRChat is known for being rather resource intensive in general with worlds and loading player avatars. Following the standard practices to manage graphics quality within VRChat per user experience should be followed as always. During the initial testing we intentionally increased graphics settings in VRChat to levels I do not normally use. Adjusting VRChat’s graphics down to my usual setting range recovered some frames."
"Generally the FPS I had flying around VRChat flight worlds were between 30 to 50 frames. There was not enough hitching in most of the places we were flying in to make the experience unusable or enjoyable. During flight the wide FOV was great for monitoring flight instruments and general situational awareness improvements. It got me back into formation flying a bit faster, but I’m still adjusting to the design of the controllers that come with the Pimax headset."
"I’m interested in seeing how the wider FOV will perform in a standard flight simulator that manages graphics resources differently while I am using my physical flight simulation gear with the PCS Ultrawide.“
Next Article: Pure Flight Simulation
The next article in our Pimax collaboration series will focus on a well-known flight simulator focusing on more traditional flight simulation situations where pilotage and situational awareness and key to success. See you in June 2026!
Collaboration and Review Information
Affiliate Links
During the agreed upon review period Pimax has provided Skyward Flight Media with referral links and coupon code.
For the Pimax Website
For the Pimax Crystal Light
For the Pimax Crystal Super
For the Pimax Crystal Super Sony Micro OLED
For the Pimax Dream Air
Discount Code: SKY25 For Dream Air ($25 USD OFF)
Discount Code: SKY For All Headsets (2% OFF) with free $150 Accessories Voucher. Offer ends June 10th, 2026
Pimax Collaboration
Pimax provided Skyward Flight Media with one Pimax Crystal Super Ultrawide virtual reality headset with the intention to create content and review this product. A key part of this agreement is that any content created should be a fair and unbiased representation of the product. See our webpage dedicated to this collaboration for full details, all content and affiliate links.
Reviewer Background
"KOSMOS" is a Skyward FM staff member that has owned or used multiple virtual reality headsets since 2017. These include the Oculus CV1, Oculus Rift S, Meta Quest 2, Bigscreen Beyond 2 and Valve Index. His key PC specs include: Intel i9-14900KF CPU, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 and 64 GB of RAM. Microsoft Windows 11.
Article Format
Skyward FM will write about one game/simulator per Pimax collaboration article. Besides the main focus of the article we will also discuss one or two Pimax hardware or software related points as a part of our long-term use case series.
