Pico 4: how to set it up for DCS?

[MIghtymoo]

10 hours ago, jungleboy123 said:

I got a RTX 4090 + 5800x3d. I wonder how far i can push the pico?

Tried DCS Liberation - 150mbps HEVC 10 bit and strangely it locked to 90 fps and around 50ms with some limited dips. I had everything maxed out. Did i miss something here or did i just get lucky?

Sorry to disappoint you, but you are running with reprojection (45 fps).

I have a slightly more powerfull CPU and I am able to run stable 72fps on all maps, but with reduced graphics settings (but high resolution 3850x3850). Still looks great...

 

 

Edited September 27, 2023 by MIghtymoo

[jungleboy123]

4 hours ago, MIghtymoo said:

Sorry to disappoint you, but you are running with reprojection (45 fps).

I have a slightly more powerfull CPU and I am able to run stable 72fps on all maps, but with reduced graphics settings (but high resolution 3850x3850). Still looks great...

 

 

 

Thank you. Good to know, i will turn that off and try again.

Did you apply anything to the steam slider to get that 3850x3850 as that's what i have it set to also?

[MIghtymoo]

19 hours ago, jungleboy123 said:

Thank you. Good to know, i will turn that off and try again.

Did you apply anything to the steam slider to get that 3850x3850 as that's what i have it set to also?

Hi,

I use Virtual Desktop and «Godlike» setting.

In SteamVR the custom resolution is 150% (above quoted resolution was approx. based on my memory)

No changes done to resolution in DCS or OXRTK.

I do not recommend pushing for 90fps, as you need to reduce resolution/viewing distance in DCS to much for my taste.

 

 

 

Edited September 28, 2023 by MIghtymoo

[dock999]

On 9/27/2023 at 7:35 PM, Qcumber said:

I had this issue and resolved it by disabling xr-necksafer. It is still an issue. If I have this enabled DCS always crashes when launching a mission. VR necksafer works though. 

ST still runs open VR so will not run OXRTK unless you force it to run in open XR or use OpenComposite. 

In My case even if I disable the XR-necksafer  DCS MT still crashes.   I did some tests and noticed the only way to run DCS MT+PICO4 in my case was the DCS MT had to be run in a NON-openXR environment. The method was to add the command line and launch DCS MT through the VD streamer panel.  then you would find the DCS MT actually ran under Open VR rather than Open XR although the command line indicated "-- force open XR".  But certainly, you will benefit from the toolkit and the necksafer.

Another interesting finding is that by this method, you actually can bypass STEAM VR , so your PICO4 headset enters a VR environment without SteamVR and it runs under open VR. 

Edited September 28, 2023 by dock999

[Qcumber]

7 hours ago, dock999 said:

In My case even if I disable the XR-necksafer

Apologies if you have already done this, but have you made sure that xr necksafer is disabled in steam VR open xr layers? Even if the software is not running, if it's an active layer it will still cause problems. It might be worth disabling all open xr layers and see if MT will run in open xr. 

 

8 hours ago, dock999 said:

Another interesting finding is that by this method, you actually can bypass STEAM VR , so your PICO4 headset enters a VR environment without SteamVR and it runs under open VR. 

Are you sure this is not just running open xr through oculus rather than steam VR as this is another option that some people use. 

[dock999]

On 9/29/2023 at 7:51 PM, Qcumber said:

Apologies if you have already done this, but have you made sure that xr necksafer is disabled in steam VR open xr layers? Even if the software is not running, if it's an active layer it will still cause problems. It might be worth disabling all open xr layers and see if MT will run in open xr. 

 

Are you sure this is not just running open xr through oculus rather than steam VR as this is another option that some people use. 

When I disabled the XR necksafer layer  +- the toolkit, I did notice the  DCS MT crashing decreased.   However, the DCS MT  which was run under OpenXR was unplayable since there were just too many stutters in my case.  For your 2nd question, I can confirm to you that DCS  MT or ST will be run under open VR rather than Open XR if you launch them through the VD panel, that is because the DCS log files indicate this clearly.  By this method, You can bypass Steam VR and launch  DCS in VR directly

Several days ago I had a bit chat with J2-Nobiwan in the message and asked him whether he could write a  program similar to the XR necksafer in an OpenVR version. He said that VRNS was the OpenVR version . I tested it and found it was pretty much workable but the VRNS has to be run with SteamVR.

My conclusion is that Pico4 does not go well with Open XR  in DCS and Pico4 is better to go with OpenVR    Pico4 + VRNS is quite workable under OpenVR in DCS.

[Qcumber]

23 minutes ago, dock999 said:

My conclusion is that Pico4 does not go well with Open XR  in DCS and Pico4 is better to go with OpenVR    Pico4 + VRNS is quite workable under OpenVR in DCS.

Most people can run Pico 4 through VD using open xr and steam VR so it sounds like you have an issue with your setup. Have you tried the VD discord server to see if they can help? 

[Yott]

Hi, guys!

I’ve read this thread and watched all the videos on Youtube, but I still confused with one problem.

 

I have a Pico 4,  i5-12400F, 16Gb RAM and a GeForce 3060 (I know it’s weak for VR). I ran DCS via VD (SteamVR disabled) on minimal settings (all min or off) and got average smoothnessand poor sharpness. But when I tried to raise settings, I got only less performance with no gain to the quality of the picture. 

And the major problem is that terrible pixel ladder on the horisont line, or other thin horizontal lines (see pic). I tried to change quality in VD, pixel density in DCS, start with SteamVR and change resolution through it. But with any notable result. I even tried to connect it with USB. Picture looks poor in any settings. Looks like it is overcompressed. Only MSAA X4 in DCS brings a little result but with great affect to FPS.

For me it looks like the game allways runs on same low and wrong resolution, wich I can’t change. Can anyone help me, how can I get rid of this ladder and put into picture some sharpness (even with FPS loss)?

I’m thinking about to upgrade to 4090, but I’m afraid that I can got the same burry and low res picture on it also.

[Qcumber]

Avoid using SSW as this does not work well with DCS. It is better to lock the frame rate low at about 40fps. Have you tried enabling the snapdragon upscaling feature in VD (which upscales to Utra in the headset) and using steam VR rather than Oculus? Make sure steam is set to 100% scaling and DCS pixel density is 1. Also, try playing with resolution and FSR on openxr toolkit to see if that can help (maybe override res to 2800x2800 and FSR at 80%). Most importantly, see if Quad Views Foveated Rendering can help. This can increase performance by about 20-30%. With all of these tools, you might get something playable. 

[ButchNZ]

Hi Guys, another new Pico 4 owner here.

 I've been streaming DCS over Virtual Desktop, but as yet have been unable to get OpenXR working. I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

 I've been launching DCS the "launch game" option in the taskbar, pointing it at a shortcut which has the following arguments:

"C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\bin-mt\DCS.exe" --force_enable_VR --force_OpenXR

But when SteamVR/DCS launches, the Virtual desktop overlay still shows "Runtime: SteamVR", and performance is pretty poor.

The OpenXR tab in SteamVR settings shows "Current OpenXR runtime: SteamVR", but there are no other options to select,.

Am I missing a step here or something?

I uninstalled SteamVR for a few days and had things running on the Oculus runtime, which actually worked really well and gave me a stable 65-70fps, but then I couldn't seem to get any other VR games going. Also as of this morning, things started going a bit awry with that setup too, and the headset display would freeze after a few minutes while the tracking kept working, as observed on the PC monitor. Frustrating, I'm loving the headset, when it works. Which for me so far is not often. Any assistance greatly appreciated!

 

 

Edited October 3, 2023 by ButchNZ

[ButchNZ]

Hi mate,

Thanks very much. It's taken me a few days to wade through all 19 pages of this thread, and I started before the headset actually arrived so didn't have full context but I thought I'd seen screenshots of the VD overlay saying Runtime:OpenXR. Maybe that was from back before MT/Native OpenXR was implemented. Or possibly I just made it up.

Bit disappointing that the performance is so much worse for me on Steam/OpenXR than Oculus, although that might be down to my Steam SS settings. I want to avoid reprojection if I can, I can live with anything over 50-55ish fps but i find the reprojection artifacts pretty jarring. I was pretty happy with how it was running vs how it looked on the Oculus Runtime, I'm just not sure why it started packing a sad today. Seemed to usually be after I came out of the F10 map I'd get a big drop in FPS and then shortly after the headset would freeze.

Has anyone come up with a better way to force the Oculus runtime than uninstalling SteamVR? I remember there was some talk of messing round with the registry.

Cheers fellas.

[ButchNZ]

Actually I just answered my own question. If you rename the SteamVR folder to something else it can't find it so forces the Oculus runtime.

[MIghtymoo]

DCS 2.9 has been released.

Very excited with the results in VR. Biggest thing for me is that the annoying shimmering has totally been eliminated with DLAA.

I am still experimenting to get the best settings.

My initial settings:

• VD - Godlike
• SteamVR resolution 100% (down from 150%)
• DLAA in-game
• Quad Foveated Rendering

Also updated both VD and Nvidia Graphics Drivers.

Very happy with the visuals now.

What is your new settings and recommendations? 

Edited October 20, 2023 by MIghtymoo

[RealDCSpilot]

First impression is really good!

[Fish]

Not much now on the forums about this headset since the launch of Quest 3. However i believe given the specs of the Q3, its going to behave in a similar way to the Pico 4 for PCVR, and DCS. So I though i'd give my experience with 2.9 and all the new setting options. 

First I'll give a little context. Up to now I have settled (and am very happy) with 72Hz and with a few settings medium, (MSAA 2x, view distance medium), VD in godlike mode, H.264+ codec and SSW off. This gives me sharp pit, objects, and only very occasionally frame drops below 72, (never below 66, and over very densely populated cities). Note this is only on single player and not too many objects on the map. Also note that I'm using Nvidia 537.58 drivers from 10th Oct, as I experienced some poor quality textures and frame rates with 545.84. Render resolution in steam is set to 3270x3270.

So with a pre-recorded scenario, i fired up DCS 2.9, and without changing any of the other in game, or steam VR settings, I did a brief test of each of the new options in turn with 0 and 100% sharpening. My goal was to focus on getting at least as good a quality as I have now, then to establish if I get better FPS with those settings. 

Conclusion .

For the following settings, 

TAA (had not tried this before), DLAA, DLSS, FSR, NIC, (with both 0 and 1.0 sharpening), I get noticeable degradation in quality, with the overall image looking more blurred, or more jagged lines with some shimmering. 

I am getting better performance and image using 90Hz, with SSW from VD (though i don't like using this mode, as i get the ghosting).  

System, 

RTX 4090, intel 13700k, (throttled to 250w), 32gb 3200Mhz DDR4. VD wireless to Wifi 6 router with fairly solid 1200Mb/sec bandwidth. 

Would like to hear others experience. 

[Qcumber]

I am getting amazing results with the Pico 4 and DLSS. About 3 hours of testing. Here are my settings:

VD: godlike, 72hz; 150mbps (Ethernet-usb connection); HEVC 10bit

VDXR (virtual desktop xr to Bypass steam vr; mbuchia app)

QVFR (quad views foveated rendering): 0.5hx0.5v; 1.5 centre, 0.4 edges; 0.2 transition; 0.5 sharpening.

In game: dlss quality; range extreme; shadows low; terrain high; water high; clouds ultra. 

Testing: 

1) f16 free flight over Syria; 50-60fps over cities; 72 FPS and cpu limited at cloud layer. Looks smooth and no shimmer. 

2) K4 over Cairo free flight: 35-50 fps low over the city; 69-70+ high up. Some flickering of buildings when looking sideways but surprisingly smooth compared to how it was before.

3) p47 lagoon patrol Marianas: 60-65 fps flying low over the island; 72 fps and cpu limited for all the combat. This is amazing as previosuly I have found this very intensive even with low settings. 

How does it look? Not quite as crystal sharp as it could be but about 90-95% of ideal. 

 

[Johnny Dioxin]

I'm a bit reluctant to update to 2.9 as it reportedly stops some things from working, but this is encouraging. I don't see any advantage in getting the Quest 3 when I have Pico 4 - rather the opposite.

I just hope I can get back to reasonable start times in VR - it's been taking an age to start the sim in VR even after a clean-up, having run it a couple of times in 2D for settings purposes (this always seems to happen after running in 2D then going back to VR). I gave up in frutsration yesterday. Whilst the sim displays the starting DCS World splash screen my CPU is running at less than 4%, so no wonder it's taking so long to load up.

[MIghtymoo]

46 minutes ago, Johnny Dioxin said:

I'm a bit reluctant to update to 2.9 as it reportedly stops some things from working, but this is encouraging. I don't see any advantage in getting the Quest 3 when I have Pico 4 - rather the opposite.

I just hope I can get back to reasonable start times in VR - it's been taking an age to start the sim in VR even after a clean-up, having run it a couple of times in 2D for settings purposes (this always seems to happen after running in 2D then going back to VR). I gave up in frutsration yesterday. Whilst the sim displays the starting DCS World splash screen my CPU is running at less than 4%, so no wonder it's taking so long to load up.

I have bot measured, but I have an impression that it is faster start-up in 2.9

[Johnny Dioxin]

My normal start-up time is less than 3 minutes, which is fine - same as MSFS, but after running even just once in 2D it always seems to mess up the next VR start. I use 2D if I want to go through my controller settings or take screenshots for a pictorial guide as it's far better on the monitor than in VR.

Edited October 21, 2023 by Johnny Dioxin

[Fish]

3 hours ago, Johnny Dioxin said:

...............I don't see any advantage in getting the Quest 3 when I have Pico 4 - rather the opposite.............

Sebastian of MRTV says Pico for PCVR has slightly better resolution, and much better Binocular overlap than Q3. So agree no point in upgrading for PCVR alone. 

[TED]

Just pulled the trigger yesterday on a Pico 4. I’ve been using a Pimax 8kx for a few months now and there’s a lot of things I like about it but it was a love-hate relationship. The awful comfort and pain in ass setup as well as strange sweet spot and issues with some slight double vision that I could never completely solve, got me looking at the Pico again. Long story short, it looks like the 8kx will be getting a new home. Love the pancake lenses in the pico.
I am really impressed with the Pico. better image than the 8kx, which is something I never would have believed if I hadn’t tried it myself. The lightweight of the pico is such a relief. 
im running godlike, msaa x2, no asw, 0.5:sharpening. Right now using VD but tried SA as well although it seems like the VD gives better results. Force XR. Im using a 5gz Wi-Fi and works great. 
id really like to work out how to use VDXR to bypass steamvr completely but doesn’t seem like this is quite ready yet although seems like it’s coming soon. 

Edited October 21, 2023 by TED

[NAM]

As owner of both Pico 4 and Pimax 8kx.

For me VDXR improvement for pico 4 even more than PimaxXR for 8kx.

Particularly in the racing sim.

Mbucchia the great has done it again.!

[bpremus]

I was using gnirehtet reverse tether with usb cable and remote desktop, but since last update (steam vr or VD or maybe NVidia drivers when you open a steam VR it was just reconnecting. (It is working with wifi).

I tried VDXR (build 0.7) and bypassed steam vr and so far it looks like its working as expected. Now i have to find again good settings for VR spotting, previously it was VD high settings, ~120 bit rate, 100% steam vr resolution, no aa or sharpening would give me ~25nm black dot on horizon, on higher settings the dot is visible at ~10nm gone and its a big issue in mp.  

[TED]

Can anyone help me with how I actually install and setup VDXR? 

I downloaded the github files but seems like it's a closed beta and I can't find an actual installation file.

[NAM]

It is not yet released.. only available in openxr toolkit discord.

You can download the file with the instruction and support from there.

https://discord.gg/WXFshwMnke