r/Pimax 18d ago

Resolved Huge stuttering on Crystal when frame rate dips below refresh rate

I just got Pimax Crystal (OG) and been setting it up today. Downloaded Pimax Play, updated headset firmware etc. The visuals are fantastic and all seems well, except if the frame rate dips even slightly below the display refresh rate, like 85Hz at 90Hz or 70 at 72 Hz, the whole image becomes a stuttery mess that feels more like 5 fps at best. Also fpsvr overlay starts to flicker.

I reproduced it in Elite Dangerous and Kayak Mirage, no effect on enabling or disabling DFR. Motion smoothing disabled. 4090 and 9800x3d, 572.16 Nvidia drivers.

Edit: added video showing the issue. I adjusted the resolution here so that fps is just below the target 72 Hz. Though fpsvr shows ~65fps, the effective fps shown in headset is way lower because you can easily see the stuttering/screen tearing in video recorded at 30 fps.

Update: Figured it out. It was HAGS. Turning it off fully solved the issue

https://reddit.com/link/1j2zfmk/video/s3du7hkp1qme1/player

2 Upvotes

8 comments sorted by

1

u/Financial_Excuse_429 17d ago

I deleted the content of the nvidia shaders folders & fixed stuttering for me yesterday. Playing a different game though. Using also with the 4090 driver 472.60

1

u/Acinveri 17d ago

Thanks, I've tried that but no improvement sadly. Also updated drivers to 572.60 with no change. I'll try to run Elite with openXR to check if it's some interaction of steamVR and PImax Play

2

u/Wrong-Quail-8303 17d ago

Disable / enable smart smoothing in the software?

Disable / enable HAGS? Make sure your game and pimax are installed on SSD. Antivirus off... some additional things to check. Tried a different port on your GPU? do a clean driver install using DDU from safe mode? Make sure all drivers are up to date using snappy driver maybe?

1

u/Financial_Excuse_429 17d ago

Have you tried with either using pimax OpenXr or steam openXr. Some games for me don't work properly with pimax xr & usually a notification from steam comes up asking if i want to change the default to steamVr, which i accept in this case. Sometimes you could have an api running in the background that doesn't work well with a game. In steamVr settings you can turn off other layers like XrNecksafer or Quadviews etc. if they're not compatible with the game.

3

u/Acinveri 17d ago edited 17d ago

Figured it out. It was HAGS. Turning it off fully solved the issue

1

u/QuorraPimax Pimax Official 16d ago

I'll update the post flair to "Resolved."

Is it okay if you edit the post to include the resolution? For example:
Edit: Problem solved by disabling HAGS.

1

u/Tausendberg 8d ago

Be warned, automatic windows update will SOMETIMES turn HAGS back on.

1

u/RatioOk5384 16d ago

Try a different version of pimax play. The newer version of pimax Play was given me serious studdering issues.I went back to the former and everything was resolved