Interesting, I’ve tried Smart Smoothing for a bit, but didn’t turn that option on - will check tonight. Smart Smoothing didn’t use to work very reliably but I know it’s meant to be fixed in the latest PiPlay.
Silly point, but just to be sure - in game, you do have your graphics settings set to very high / ultra? Ofc Google which ones have the balance between visual impact and FPS, not all need to be Ultra - but with SC, higher settings use more GPU and lower settings use more CPU - so in many cases, higher settings actually = higher FPS.
Yes, settings are Ultra. When set to low or medium, CPU usage spikes.
Again, the poor performance is in cities. In space it’s great. I’m new to the game so have only tried Orville and a space station so not sure what it’s like on planets and other areas.
Can someone please help me play Star Citizen in my Pimax. I have to be missing something, I’ve set openxr to steam/pimax. I’ve tried virtual desktop, ive followed the youtube vidoes. Everytime I try to put the game in the Pimax the game crashes or it all freezes. I have a brand new less than month old pc with rtx 5080 and intel i9. I have everything that should make the game work. But I cannot get it to load and play. I can play flat screen all day. Please someone, I’ve spent probably 30 hours with ChatGPT getting the run around. Please!
I can’t help you, my friend … but I can certainly point you in the right direction. Have you heard about Chachi Sanchez? He is like the “godfather” of VR (that is not working for CIG) … he has been playing VR for many years … and recently switched to Pimax. His Discord is hands down the best place for your pain. The VRse: Chachi’s Official Discord Server ← tell him DaddyTaco said hi
Strictly SteamVR not Pimax OpenXR, EAC doesn’t work with it yet. I’m pretty sure VD OpenXR can’t work with Pimax because it requires the app on the headset as I understand it, this is OK for Meta users but not Pimax.
PiTool - set any SC config you want in Games/Common Settings, it won’t load an SC profile from any exe because of the launcher / EAC in the way
SC is very demanding on both CPU and GPU anyway, let alone VR. Leave SteamVR at custom 100% and turn PiPlay quality down, you didn’t mention which headset. Start low, and work up. Eg my 8KX and 5090, I chose 0.85 and Normal FOV - still uses 99% GPU and 31Gb of VRAM hehe
Have you set any custom settings in user.cfg that may interfere? I do have various VR settings in there now, but if in doubt don’t run a user.cfg to start with. EDIT: Latest launcher auto-detects VR headset + active runtime and will boot into VR mode or not accordingly - but first you must go into the launcher settings and enable VR autodetection for each build you run eg Live, PTU, Tech-Preview etc
Launch order that works for me: 1. Turn on headset 2. Launch PiPlay 3. Connect headset and lighthouses 4. Launch SC Launcher from its normal desktop icon, not within PiPlay or anywhere else. 5. I don’t run SteamVR Home or Pimax Home. 6. In case it’s something else like audio, untick “Make Pimax primary audio device” (or something like that) in PiPlay settings
At what point does it crash / freeze? Do you get to the main menu OK? Does it seem to launch in VR mode correctly (desktop window looks different and should appear in headset too)?
Unlikely to be Nvidia drivers but consider clean reinstall to be sure
Can second Chachi’s Discord, you can get plenty of help there. There’s a dedicated Pimax section too. There is also Silvan-CIG’s Discord with very knowledgeable users, but start with Chachi for the dedicated Pimax help.
I’ve set openxr to steam/pimax. I’ve tried virtual desktop, ive followed the youtube vidoes. Everytime I try to put the game in the Pimax the game crashes or it all freezes.
Alright I have resloved the issue. Finally got in the game and was able to play. The hype is real!
So I found out I was running into a polling issue inside of Corsair hardware. I had to go in and disable CpuldService. From my research it was just in the background causing brief interruptions that VR did not like at all. So essentially it was throttling my CPU. Flat screen games are able to hide these brief interruptions thats why I was able to play Star Citizen in flat mode. Thank you Octofox and Daddy Taco for the responses as well. See you nerds in the Verse!
hey, planning to play star Citizen this week with SC free fly event from, Barcelona, Spain. I get this invitation too to ‘echar un vistazo’ in Chachi’s discord. Thanks!!
I have to say, SteamVR desktop runs like a charm with SC VR to access other apps, browser etc. Requires a controller to press the menu button.
When you do this, SteamVR UI appears and use the controller pointer to press the desktop icon. This brings up your PC desktop unsurprisingly, overlaid over the game. You will see your SC VR monitor window at first.
Alt-tab here to access browser, Spectrum, Discord etc. It’s almost like a mobiglas extension
To return, alt-tab back to game to refocus, and then press the controller menu button again to hide SteamVR.
To repeat, it’s just menu button → Alt-tab to apps → Alt-tab to game → menu button.
I compared this to Pimax desktop, and with the 8KX, SteamVR desktop clarity is considerably better on text etc than Pimax desktop. Perhaps Steam’s curved screen helps, but it’s also a more polished experience generally. Resizing Pimax desktop etc didn’t do anything to improve it.
At some point soon, when EAC doesn’t block Pimax OpenXR, I guess Pimax desktop will be the main option. It’s not as good tbh because of the loss of clarity, but it is usable. Anything that can be done to improve this area will be appreciated (@PimaxQuorra)
I just tried it now that there’s a free play period, but I couldn’t get acceptable performance or quality even using a 5090 and a Ryzen 9 9950X3D.
Having to go through Pimax VR always results in lower performance on my rig, no matter what I try. It happens in every game, but especially in this one, where things are already pushed to the limit.
Hope they add native OpenXR support in the future…
Completely playable with 8KX, there were no startup problems, VR was enabled from the first menu and also from the options, I pulled down the settings and was able to try it out.
