Best Pimax VR Settings for Assetto Corsa in 2026

Assetto Corsa is the sim that taught most of us what VR sim racing could feel like, and it’s also the one with the most peculiar Pimax pipeline in 2026. AC was built on DirectX 11 and shipped with OpenVR as its native VR API back in 2014. It has no idea OpenXR exists. Pimax Play 2.0 is an OpenXR runtime. So to get the modern Pimax stack rendering AC at all, you have to slip OpenComposite in between – a translator that pretends to be OpenVR to AC, then converts every call into OpenXR for Pimax Play. The pipeline reads AC → OpenComposite → Pimax Play 2.0 → headset, and once it’s set up correctly the Crystal Light and Crystal Super deliver some of the cleanest, most immersive VR in any sim. Get it wrong and AC opens as a 2D window on the monitor.

The other thing that makes AC’s Pimax setup distinct: AC has no native foveated rendering. iRacing has Multi-View Projection. AC Evo has it. AC does not. That changes the Pimax-side configuration in an important way. In iRacing I turn Pimax Play 2.0’s Quad Views off because the game handles foveation natively. In AC, Pimax Play 2.0’s Quad Views is doing all the work, so it stays on. The two setups are functionally inverse. If you’ve come here from my Pimax + iRacing settings guide and you assume the same dialed-in recipe transfers, you’ll end up with a soft image and a frustrated afternoon.

Quick Navigation
Jump directly to what you’re looking for:
The OpenComposite hop – why AC needs it | Pimax Play 2.0 settings for AC | Content Manager and CSP VR tweaks | In-game AC settings by GPU tier | Pure, weather, and the post-processing call | The FPS cap on AC | Common mistakes | Sources

---

The OpenComposite hop – why AC needs it

AC is a 2014 game with a 2014 VR API. When OpenXR replaced OpenVR as the open standard for VR rendering, Kunos never went back and rewrote AC’s renderer to support the new API natively. They didn’t need to: Content Manager, Custom Shaders Patch, and the community kept AC alive at the same time Kunos was building AC Evo on a modern engine. So AC stayed on OpenVR, and OpenVR’s reference implementation (SteamVR) became the path of least resistance for VR users until the OpenXR runtimes from Pimax, Meta and Varjo started outperforming SteamVR on their own hardware.

OpenComposite is the missing piece. It’s a tiny middleware layer that ships as a single DLL. You drop it into the AC install folder, and from that point on AC’s calls to OpenVR get silently redirected to whatever OpenXR runtime your system is using. For Pimax kit in 2026 that’s Pimax Play 2.0. The performance gain over SteamVR is real – usually 10-20% on a Crystal Light, more on a Crystal Super where SteamVR’s compositor was bottlenecking the higher pixel count anyway. The setup is a five-minute job once you know what you’re doing, and the result is a Pimax stack rendering AC with no SteamVR overhead.

The OpenComposite install in five steps:

• Download the latest OpenComposite DLL from the znixian OpenOVR GitLab. Get the AC-specific build if it’s listed (called “OpenComposite-ACC” in older docs but the same DLL works for AC).
• Close AC and Content Manager.
• Drop the OpenComposite DLL into AC’s root folder, replacing the existing openvr_api.dll. Back up the original first if you’re paranoid – I’ve never needed to roll back, but the file is tiny. The drag-drop pattern is the same shape as installing Content Manager itself, shown below:
• Open Pimax Play 2.0, switch the OpenXR runtime to Pimax OpenXR (General tab, runtime dropdown). This is the single most missed step – skip it and AC opens as a 2D window on the monitor.
• Launch AC through Content Manager with VR enabled in Settings → Assetto Corsa → Video → Rendering Mode → OpenVR.

If everything’s right, AC boots into VR through OpenComposite → Pimax Play 2.0’s OpenXR runtime. The first frame is the moment of truth. If you see VR, you’re done. If you see the AC menu on the desktop, the OpenXR runtime isn’t set to Pimax in Pimax Play. Five times out of ten that’s the issue, and the fix is the dropdown.

Pimax Play 2.0 settings for AC

Caveat first: Pimax Play 2.0 is in Open Beta as of late April 2026, not stable release. The current stable branch is 1.43.9. I run the 2.0 Open Beta for the native Quad Views path baked into the client, and that’s what every Pimax-side setting below assumes. Stable 1.43.9 still works in 2026 – you just lose the in-client Quad Views toggle and lean on a higher render resolution instead. The performance trade is real on Tier 2 and below GPUs, less so on a 4090 or 5090 where you have headroom to brute-force the pixels.

The Pimax Play 2.0 settings I run for AC, with the deltas from my iRacing config flagged because they’re the surprising ones:

• OpenXR Runtime: Pimax OpenXR. Set every time after a Pimax Play update – the Open Beta occasionally resets the runtime preference back to SteamVR, which would silently route AC through SteamVR instead and you’d lose the whole point of OpenComposite.
• Refresh rate: 90Hz on RTX 5090/4090, 90Hz on RTX 5080/4080/4070 Ti, 72Hz on RTX 4070 and below. AC’s grids are smaller than iRacing’s so 90Hz holds on tighter hardware than you’d expect, but I still drop to 72Hz on a 4070 for the headroom.
• Render resolution: 1.0 on RTX 5090/4090. 0.85 with 0.25 sharpening on Tier 2. 0.70-0.75 on Tier 3. Same scale as iRacing.
• Quad Views: ON. This is the AC-specific call and the inverse of my iRacing config. AC has no native foveated rendering, so Pimax Play 2.0’s Quad Views does all the foveation work. Leave it on. In iRacing the rule is the opposite – turn this off so iRacing’s MVP isn’t fighting it. AC and iRacing are mirror images here.
• Eye-tracking on Crystal Super: ON when Quad Views is on. Pimax Play 2.0 handles the eye-tracked DFR at the runtime level, so AC doesn’t need to know anything about eye tracking – the focal point follows your gaze and the periphery dims down. On the Crystal Light (no eye tracking hardware) Quad Views runs as fixed foveated rendering with a central high-res zone.
• Smart Smoothing: Off. Same as iRacing. Ghosting on the trackside barriers at speed. Always off for racing.
• Brightness: 80% daytime, 65-70% for night races in AC’s modded night driving mods.
• Auto IPD: Off, physical slider only. Crystal Light has only the slider anyway, and on the Crystal Super the auto IPD has a habit of drifting over a session.

NVIDIA Control Panel for AC, same as my iRacing rig: Power Management to Prefer Maximum Performance, VSync off, VR Pre-Rendered Frames to 1, Shader Cache 10GB, Image Sharpening 0.25. AC’s shaders are far more compact than iRacing’s so the Shader Cache fills up slowly, but it’s the same hygiene.

Content Manager and CSP VR tweaks

Content Manager is where AC is actually configured. The stock AC launcher is functionally dead for VR users – Content Manager replaced it years ago and the community settled on it as the standard. Custom Shaders Patch (CSP) is the rendering enhancement layer on top, and it’s what makes AC competitive with newer sims visually in 2026.

The settings inside Content Manager that matter most for Pimax:

• Settings → Assetto Corsa → Video: Rendering Mode to OpenVR (OpenComposite intercepts this and translates to OpenXR). Pixel Density at 1.0 – the Pimax-side render resolution handles the up-scaling, double-applying it here clips frame time badly.
• Settings → Custom Shaders Patch → VR Tweaks: Single Pass Stereo ON. This is the most useful single CSP toggle for VR performance. It tells AC to render both eyes in one pass instead of two, which roughly halves the GPU load for shader-heavy scenes. Eats 10-30% of the per-frame time depending on the track. The CSP extension list (where VR Tweaks lives in the left nav) is shown below:
• Settings → Custom Shaders Patch → General Patch Settings → Apply VR look-around fix: ON. Eliminates the “world tilts when you look” judder that AC’s original VR implementation shipped with.
• Settings → Custom Shaders Patch → Particles FX: Smoke ON, Sparks ON, Tyre dirt ON. These barely cost performance on modern Pimax-feeding hardware and they add a lot to the immersion at the apex of a Spa Eau Rouge in the wet.
• Settings → Drive → Soft Lock: ON. Content Manager applies the per-car steering rotation automatically. Set your wheelbase software to its absolute maximum (900° on a Fanatec CSL DD, 1080° on a Logitech G29, 2520° on a Simucube) and AC will dynamically apply the right per-car bump stop. Cleaner than guessing.

One trap worth flagging because I fell into it: CSP gets updated regularly, and the VR Tweaks layout shifts between versions. If Single Pass Stereo is greyed out or missing in your CSP install, you’re either on an old version or you’re missing a CSP dependency. Update CSP through Content Manager’s Patch Updates panel and the toggle reappears. The available-versions list is on the right of the same panel:

In-game AC settings by GPU tier

AC’s in-game graphics settings (Settings → Video) are doing less work than iRacing’s once Pimax Play 2.0’s Quad Views is doing the foveation. The aim here is to tune the centre of the image – peripheral detail is handled at the Pimax runtime level. For the cross-sim version of these numbers including the AC Evo, LMU and iRacing per-GPU recipes, my Pimax Crystal settings sorted by GPU reference is the master list, and it feeds the interactive Pimax Settings Tool on this site.

RTX 5090 / RTX 4090 (Tier 1)

Maximum everything inside AC’s video settings. Anti-Aliasing to 8x, Shadows High, Smoke Generation High, Effects Quality High. World Detail and Cubemap Resolution at maximum. AC’s old renderer means even a 5090 has cycles to spare here – the bottleneck is the Pimax-side pixel count, not AC’s draw calls. With the Crystal Super at 50 PPD and Quad Views eye-tracked DFR on, I’m holding a locked 90 FPS at Spa in heavy rain with a 24-car grid.

RTX 5080 / 4080 / 4070 Ti (Tier 2)

AA at 4x, Shadows Medium, Cubemap Resolution Medium, Effects Quality Medium. This is the tier where the Crystal Light is the sweet spot – a Crystal Super at 50 PPD on a 4080 starts to push the GPU into the dirt at the start of a wet Nordschleife stint. Pixel Density stays at 1.0, the Pimax-side render resolution drops to 0.85 with 0.25 sharpening. Mirror resolution Medium – high-resolution mirrors carry a roughly 10 FPS cost on this tier in AC, less than iRacing’s mirror cost but still real.

RTX 4070 / 4060 Ti (Tier 3)

AA at 2x, Shadows Low, Smoke Generation Low. Drop refresh to 72Hz at the Pimax-side, Pixel Density to 0.85 (AC’s PD is more forgiving than iRacing’s). Disable Mirrors. Cubemap Resolution Low. The Crystal Super isn’t really viable at this tier – the Crystal Light is what you want. With Quad Views fixed foveated rendering doing the periphery, even a 4070 can hold 72Hz at most tracks. Imola, Brands Hatch, Donington – all fine. Spa in heavy rain at the start of a grid is the stress test, and that’s where a 4070 will start to drop frames.

Pure, weather, and the post-processing call

Pure replaced Sol as the weather and post-processing standard in 2025. If you’re on Sol still, it works fine for VR but you’re missing the polished volumetric clouds, the better night lighting, and the cleaner shader stack Pure ships with. Pure is a graphics-only mod – it doesn’t touch physics or force feedback. So if you’re a Pure user wondering whether it changes the Pimax-side configuration, the answer is no. The graphics pipeline downstream of Pure is still OpenComposite → Pimax Play 2.0 OpenXR, untouched.

The Pure VR-specific setting that matters: enable VR-friendly tone mapping in the Pure config (Settings → Custom Shaders Patch → Weather FX → Pure → Tone Mapping). This avoids the high-contrast crushing that Pure’s monitor-tuned tone map can produce on the Crystal Super’s OLED. On Crystal Light QLED it’s less obvious but still worth enabling.

Beyond Pure, the two settings I always check before a session are weather complexity and dynamic shadows. Heavy rain at the Nürburgring with full volumetric particles and dynamic shadows is the GPU stress test. If your session is dry and you’ve got headroom, push to medium-high. If it’s wet, dial weather complexity back one notch. AC’s wet-weather rendering through Pure is genuinely beautiful in VR, but it’s also the most expensive setting in the chain.

The FPS cap on AC

AC’s frame timing through OpenComposite is generally cleaner than iRacing’s, mostly because the engine is simpler and doesn’t have iRacing’s volumetric sky to render. So the FPS cap call shifts a little in AC’s favour.

Cap at 87 FPS on a Crystal Light or Crystal Super running 90Hz – three frames below the headset refresh rate so the compositor has breathing room. This is where I tend to land for races on the Crystal Light. The three frames you’re giving up are imperceptible. The frame time consistency you’re gaining is not.

Cap at 90 FPS exactly on a 4090 or 5090 with Crystal Super. The headroom on Tier 1 GPUs means the GPU rarely drops below refresh anyway, so the safety margin matters less.

Uncapped is not advisable in AC. The OpenComposite translation layer introduces enough variability that an uncapped frame rate will swing dramatically and the compositor reprojection starts kicking in unpredictably. Always cap.

Cap is set in Content Manager → Settings → Custom Shaders Patch → General Patch Settings → FPS limiter. Some users prefer to use Pimax Play 2.0’s frame limiter instead – either works, the in-CSP one tends to be slightly more responsive.

Common Pimax + AC mistakes

Five issues show up in the AC + Pimax community threads with enough frequency to deserve their own callout. All five are avoidable.

• Skipping OpenComposite entirely and running through SteamVR. AC + SteamVR + Pimax works, but you’re paying 10-20% performance for nothing. The SteamVR compositor is bottlenecking the higher pixel density on Crystal Super in particular. Install OpenComposite. Five-minute job, immediate gain.
• Pimax Play 2.0’s Quad Views OFF in AC. This is the iRacing setting transferred wrongly. AC has no native foveation, so turning Quad Views off in AC leaves you rendering full resolution across the entire eye. On a Crystal Super the GPU cost is brutal. Turn Quad Views ON for AC. The inverse of the iRacing rule.
• Pixel Density double-applied. Setting Content Manager → Video Pixel Density above 1.0 AND raising the Pimax Play 2.0 render resolution above 1.0 stacks the up-scaling. Frame times collapse. Pick one – the Pimax-side resolution is the one to use, leave Content Manager’s PD at 1.0.
• CSP Single Pass Stereo OFF. Costs you 10-30% of the per-frame budget for no good reason. Always on for VR.
• Running an old OpenComposite DLL. znixian’s OpenOVR repo updates regularly and the older builds occasionally have compatibility issues with current Pimax Play. Refresh the DLL every few months. The file is tiny.

The one mistake I keep making myself is leaving the rendering mode in Content Manager set to “Triple Screen” from a wheel-test session, then wondering why AC opens flat on the monitor next time I want a VR session. The fix is a habit: every time you change Content Manager’s rendering mode for any reason, set it back to OpenVR before closing. Discipline.

Pimax $25 discount: use code SIMRACINGCOCKPIT at checkout on pimax.com for $25 off any Crystal Light, Crystal Super or Dream Air.

---

Sources and credits

The OpenComposite install procedure and CSP VR settings come from three places: the znixian OpenOVR documentation, the Custom Shaders Patch Discord (specifically the #vr channel and ilja’s release notes for the 2025-2026 builds), and a handful of recent Pimax + AC settings videos worth watching end-to-end.

• Pimax Crystal AC settings community video roundup – the recurring threads on the OpenComposite + Pimax Play 2.0 pipeline. The shared baseline lines up with the per-tier recipes above.
• znixian OpenOVR GitLab – the canonical OpenComposite repository, with the DLL builds and the per-game compatibility notes.
• acstuff.club / Custom Shaders Patch – the home of CSP, where ilja and the rest of the team keep the VR Tweaks layer alive and updated. The 0.2 series CSP builds in 2026 are where Single Pass Stereo became the default-on toggle for VR.

Wider SRC reference points worth pairing with this guide: my interactive Pimax Settings Tool generates the recommended settings for your exact headset + GPU + sim combination; the sister Best Pimax VR Settings for iRacing covers the inverse-foveation-call version of this guide; the Best Pimax VR Settings for AC Evo guide is the modern-engine sibling (AC Evo runs native OpenXR, so no OpenComposite hop required); and the recently rebuilt Best VR Headsets for Sim Racing buyer’s guide is the place to start if you’re choosing between Crystal Light, Crystal Super, and the Dream Air. The headset-agnostic AC VR settings guide covers the same configuration for non-Pimax headsets (Quest 3, Beyond 2, PSVR2, Somnium).

AC’s renderer is stable – the configuration above has held since CSP 0.2.0 in late 2025. When CSP 0.3 lands or Pimax Play 2.0 graduates from Open Beta to stable, I’ll come back to this page and update.