Have you ever tried sim racing in VR with eye-tracking?
“I would say if the Super has eye tracking to allow DFR, get it. By only rendering what you’re looking at in full resolution and lowering the resolution towards the edges, you can get high quality, full res, and high fps.”
“Under a month ago, I got the Pimax Super, and after getting everything dialed in, I have to say that iRacing really is such a pleasure to race in. The game’s perspective is perfect, and it makes great use of all that extra FOV. It’s at the point where I can see both side mirrors at the same time!”
"The quality of the cockpits is phenomenal—you really have to see it to believe it. I also enjoy finally being able to see in the distance clearly, something I was not able to do on the Quest 3.”
These aren’t marketing lines, they’re Reddit reviews from real drivers who discovered that for the first time, VR no longer feels like a compromise between image quality and performance. It feels like driving a real car.
What Changed: Precision and Efficiency
So what’s behind this leap? The short answer is eye-tracking and Dynamic Foveated Rendering (DFR), two technologies that, when paired in racing titles and Pimax Crystal Super, unlock a completely new level of realism.
Dynamic Foveated rendering mimics how the human eye works. Your eyes only see the small area you’re focusing on in sharp detail, while your peripheral vision remains softer. DFR brings this biological efficiency into VR. Instead of rendering every pixel in full detail, the headset renders only what you’re directly looking at in high resolution and lowers the detail around it.
This approach saves enormous GPU power. Instead of wasting resources on pixels you aren’t directly observing, DFR reallocates that power to where it truly matters—the apex of the corner, the car ahead, or your braking point. The result: fluid frame rates and crystal-clear visuals without needing an ultra-expensive GPU.
How DFR Works in Racing Simulators
Most racing simulators, such as Assetto Corsa, Automobilista 2, or Le Mans Ultimate, can take advantage of Dynamic Foveated Rendering through Pimax Play, where users can customize Gaze Area Resolution, Peripheral Resolution, and the Gaze Area Size to balance clarity and performance. Even without native DFR integration, this system-level optimization already brings smoother frame rates and sharper cockpit visuals across many titles.
In the 2025 Season 4 update, iRacing stands out as one of the few sims with native DFR support, meaning the rendering is handled directly by the game engine in perfect sync with your eye movements. This deeper integration can deliver an even more seamless and natural experience, especially when paired with the precision of the Crystal Super’s eye tracking.
The Game-Changing Update of iRacing
The impact of eye-tracking in iRacing goes far beyond numbers on a graph — it changes how smooth, stable, and immersive the entire racing experience feels. Here’s a closer look at the tangible improvements players have reported when combining Quad Views with eye-tracking on headsets like the Pimax Crystal Super.
Higher and More Consistent Frame Rates
Across multiple track tests, enabling Quad Views with eye-tracking allows players using the Pimax Crystal Super to maintain a steady ~90 FPS from the very start of a race. Without it, frame rates often drop into the 60 FPS range, especially in complex scenes or crowded grids.
More Efficient GPU Usage
By rendering only the area you’re directly looking at in full resolution while lowering detail in your peripheral vision, the system significantly reduces the GPU’s workload. This means smoother visuals with far less strain on your graphics card.
Lower CPU Overhead
Several users have noted that enabling Dynamic Foveated Rendering (DFR) reduces their in-game “R Meter”, the GPU frame-time indicator, by around 50%, showing how efficiently system resources are being redistributed.
Smoother and More Stable Races
When racing in dense traffic, at night, or in heavy rain, the benefits become even more apparent. Frame drops, stuttering, and input lag are dramatically reduced, resulting in a far more natural and immersive sense of motion.
Lower Hardware Requirements
Perhaps most impressively, even mid-range setups, such as a Ryzen 5800X3D paired with an RTX 3090, have been shown to sustain around 90 FPS with DFR enabled. This means high-end VR performance is no longer exclusive to ultra-expensive rigs.
When a racing simulator truly invests resources into optimizing VR performance, it can deliver a real and noticeable improvement. iRacing’s support for OpenXR and Quad Views sends a clear message: VR is no longer treated as an add-on or a “nice-to-have” feature — VR sim racing is gradually becoming a priority experience that needs to be considered. Hopefully, in the near future, other racing titles will follow this example and push the entire genre forward in their own ways.
The Hardware That Makes It Possible
To take advantage of iRacing’s DFR feature, you need hardware that can track your eyes accurately and quickly. This is where the Pimax Crystal Super stands out.
Unlike most VR headsets that rely on external eye-tracking modules or limited-speed sensors, the Crystal Super integrates its eye-tracking system directly inside the lens housing. Each lens includes 10 infrared LEDs and a 120 Hz tracking camera that captures precise eye movements with minimal delay. This level of accuracy ensures that DFR updates instantly as your gaze shifts, preventing visual lag or pixelated edges that could break immersion.
The design of the headset itself also contributes to this precision. Its aspheric lenses let through nearly all the light from the display panels—about 99%, compared to just 15% in pancake-style lenses—resulting in a brighter, sharper image. Combined with nearly 29 million pixels across a wide field of view, the Crystal Super delivers an image that feels closer to reality than ever before.
More Efficiency Means More Potential
Dynamic Foveated Rendering doesn’t just make racing smoother; it also extends the possibilities for future simulation experiences.
Because DFR reduces GPU strain, you can push other visual settings higher—textures, shadows, reflections—without tanking your frame rate. The freed-up performance headroom also opens the door to higher-resolution headsets, richer environmental effects, and eventually, more advanced physics calculations running alongside the visuals.
For sim racers who crave realism, this means every sense gets more attention. The road texture feels sharper, lighting behaves more naturally, and the car interior looks photo-realistic. The focus area moves precisely with your gaze, giving you an uncanny sense that the virtual cockpit is part of your real environment.
