How To Use The Pimax Dream Air To Play iRacing

I’ve previously tested and reviewed the Pimax Crystal Light and Super VR headsets, and have been very impressed. Their performance while sim racing really is above and beyond many other headsets. Now, Pimax have introduced the much more streamline Dream Air.

This newer VR headset is set to take on headsets such as Apple’s Vision Pro, with its incredibly lightweight and slimline design. However, it still packs a mighty punch, and incredible visual clarity thanks to its Micro-OLED displays and 8K resolution.

With this in mind, I’ve been testing the Pimax Dream Air with iRacing, allowing me to create this in-depth set up guide. I’ll run through how to get the Pimax Dream Air set up with iRacing correctly, as well as recommending specific settings to maximise your performance and graphics while sim racing.

How to set up the Pimax Dream Air with your PC

Setting up the Pimax Dream Air with your PC is a relatively straight forward process. You do need to download the Pimax Play app which will be the centralised hub for changing settings and using your VR headset. So do that first before physically connecting your headset.

1. Download Pimax Play from the Pimax website using the link below.
   https://pimax.com/pages/downloads-manuals
2. Follow the simple on screen instructions to install Pimax Play, and complete the installation.
3. Connect the display port connection from the Dream Air to your PC.
4. Connect the USB from your headset to your PC. I’d recommend using a USB 3.0 port, and not using a USB hub as this opens up the potential for some connection issues.
5. Finally, connect the power adapter from the headset to the PC.
6. Ensure your GPU drivers are all up-to-date.

With all of those steps completed, your Pimax headset should start up and be shown in the Pimax Play software. You’ll also see the light on the front of the Dream Air come on.

Inside Pimax Play, you have a range of settings and options that you can change and tinker with. I’ll cover these a little later on in more detail, but the most important setting to change before trying to start iRacing is the IPD adjustment. This sets the distance between the lenses and is crucial to set up correctly.

Adjusting the IPD in Pimax Play

To adjust the IPD in Pimax Play, head into the Device Settings tab from the home screen, then scroll down to the IPD adjustments. You can make any adjustments here by manually entering your IPD. You can measure this manually with a tape measure on your face, or use an app to measure it for you.

Set up eye tracking

Also, before heading into iRacing, it is worth setting up the eye tracking feature in Pimax Play. This can be done by selecting the calibrate button from the device settings, then following the on screen prompts to correctly calbrate.

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This eye tracking will let you use features such as Dynamic Foveated Rendering. This can be used with iRacing and will help improve performance by limiting the resolution of the areas of the display you aren’t looking at.

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How to use the Pimax Dream Air in iRacing

Now, with the Dream Air set up on your PC, its time to boot into iRacing and start joining the two puzzle pieces together. Thankfully, jumping into VR in iRacing is extremely easy. Follow the steps below;

• Ensure Pimax Play has the device settings to use OpenXR Runtime.
• Load the iRacing UI.
• Choose a session you want to join.
• Select the join option to jump into the iRacing session.
  • Choose “Launch in OpenXR” when prompted.
• When iRacing loads, it will load into your VR headset.

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Recommended Pimax Dream Air settings

Within Pimax Play there are a range of settings you can adjust. Some are more crucial than others, but I[‘m going to run through all of the settings below. If you’re in a rush to jump into iRacing, simply copy these settings and you should be good to start racing.

Setting up eye tracking and Dynamic Foveated Rendering

First up, setting up Dynamic Foveated Rendering and eye tracking is one of the most improtant settings. It’ll let you run iRacing at higher graphics settings by helpig performance. Follow the steps below to enable this feature correctly;

1. In Pimax Play, head into the Device Settings, then General. Set the OpenXR Runtime to “Pimax OpenXR.
2. In the Image/Performance tab, set the image quality setting to high.
3. Then, in device, turn on eye tracing, and use the calibration button to correctly calibrate eye tracking.

Recommended Pimax Play settings

Below are the key Pimax Play settings to change. I haven’t included every setting, as many, especially in the Device settings can be left at default or do not affect our sim racing experience.

Device	Refresh Rate	72Hz
Device	Eye Tracking	On
General	OpenXR Runtime	Pimax OpenXR
Image / Performance	Image Quality	High
Image / Performance	Overlay Render Factor	1.0
Image / Performance	Quad View	Off
Image / Performance	Center Rendering	Off
Image / Performance	GPU Upscaling	None
Image / Performance	Sharpness	0

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Recommended iRacing settings

If you aren’t tired of tinkering with settings, that good, because iRacing has even more settings to play around with. Below are my recommended settings in iRacing, that work great with the Pimax Dream Air using my RTX 4090.

Set up Dynamic Foveated Rendering for an FPS boost

One of the key features in iRacing to enable is the eye tracking as this will allow DFR to work. As mentioned earlier, Dynamic Foveated Rendering limits the detail of the graphics in areas where you are not looking. And this will lead to a significant boost in FPS performance.

As long as you ahve followed our instructions in the Pimax Dream Air settings above, there is only one setting you need to change in iRacing, and that is the allow eye tracing setting. Turn this on and DFR will start working right away.

• Allow eye tracing: On (This will correctly enable Dynamic Foveated Rendering)

Recommended iRacing settings for the Pimax Dream Air

Setting	Driving	Replays
Performance	Custom	Custom
World Details
Sky and Clouds	Medium	High
Cars	High	High
Pit Objects	Low	High
Event	Medium	High
Grandstands	Low	High
Crowds	Low	High
Objects	Medium	High
Foliage	Medium	High
Two Pass Trees	On	On
High Quality Trees	On	Inherited
Your Car Details
Steering Wheel	Hands	Hands
Hide Obstructions	None	None
Headlight Details	Medium	—
Cockpit Mirrors Max	0	0
Higher Detail in Mirrors	Off	On
Headlights On Track in Mirrors	On	Inherited
Virtual Mirror	On	—
Virtual Mirror FOV	110	—
Other Cars Detail
Max Cars	20	—
Draw Cars	40/20	40/20
Draw Pits	40/6	40/12
Hide Car Numbers	Off	Inherited
Dynamic LOD
Dynamic LOD Frame Rate Threshold	60	60
Car LOD Behavior	Only Decrease	Only Decrease
World LOD Behavior	Only Decrease	Only Decrease
Image Quality
Shader Quality	Max	—
HDR	On	Inherited
Particles Details	High	High
Full Resolution	On	On
Shadow Maps	On	On
Object Self-Shadowing	On	On
Dynamic Objects	In Main View	In Main View
Night Shadow Maps	On	On
Walls	Off	Off
Shadowmap Filter	PCF4	PCF4
Number of Lights	3	3
Post-Processing Effects
Motion Blur	Off	Off
Car Camera Motion Blur	—	On
Broadcast Camera Motion Blur	—	On
Sharpening	Off	Off
SSAO	Off	Off
Distortion	Off	Off
Heat Haze	Off	Off
Depth Of Field Effect	—	Off
Replay Render Modes	—	Off
Screen Space Reflections	Off	High Rain
Dynamic Cubemaps	0	0
Fixed Cubemaps	0	0
Anti-Aliasing Method	MSAA	—
MSAA Samples	4x	—
MSAA Filter	Sharp	—
Frame Rate
Limit Frame Rate	No Limit	—
Max Frames Per Second	100	—
NVIDIA Reflex	Disabled	—
Max Pre-Rendered Frames	1	—
VR
VR Mode	Foveated
Percentage Resolution To Keep	35%
Inset Size Percentage	40%
Allow Eye Tracking	On
Show Eye Tracking	Off
3D Screen Width	120
3D Screen Depth	70

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Buy the Pimax Dream Air

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• Written by Rich Article updated on July 6, 2026 Tags: Sim Racing How To Guides, Sim Racing Product Guides

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