Pico 4: how to set it up for DCS?

[WolfCat]

Hi Qcumber, thank you, but finding graphics settings was not the question. I have a setting for VR. The question is the bad performance that seems to be inherited form other session.

[Qcumber]

4 minutes ago, WolfCat said:

Hi Qcumber, thank you, but finding graphics settings was not the question. I have a setting for VR. The question is the bad performance that seems to be inherited form other session.

It sounds like your settings are at the edge of what your system can handle so that with a simple map and less demanding aircraft you can manage 36 fps which reprojected to 72. If I understand this right, then when you use another map with a more demanding aircraft your fps drops below 36fps and so your system cannot maintain reprojection at 72. If I have this wrong then sorry for my misunderstanding. It might be worth trying lower settings to see if you get the same problem. 

[MIghtymoo]

1 hour ago, WolfCat said:

Performance "leak" / "inherited" bad performance ?

Tried DLSS with my Pico 4. I used the pretty high graphics settings that I have for flatscreen, not my VR settings for this try
(I hate that I have to reload the game when switching some settings -- and many times, from MT, it reloads the ST version, not the MT version!).
Ka-50 III, Caucasus, free-flight. Was blown away how smooth that was in Godlike (well, for 72 Hz with reprojection, that is). Played around for maybe 15 minutes. Then I tried Mi-24 because previously it was a massive no-go for me in VR, having around 20 FPS and stuttering. Wanted to see how it improved.
Well, it didnt. Still the stutterfest in Caucasus free flight.

PROBLEM:
After that, i tried Ka-50, same stutterfest, where before it was smoooooooooth.
Then tried Mig-29, because they arent the resource hogs. Caucasus free flight. Smooth.
Then tried ka-50 again. Stutterfest.
Then Mig-29 again. Now stutterfest. Game restart did not help.
This "leak" or "inheritance" is old problem, sometimes not even computer restart helps. I tried to search a lot about this. This doesnt seem to be vmemory leak, allocated ram was lower than the budget (in DCS builtin performance monitor) all the time, except for the Mi-24.

QUESTIONS:
Does this issue exist for others?
How do i search for or report this, what keywords should i use? (I dont want to duplicate reports if someone already reported this)
Why does DCS report my vRAM budget mostly at 6500MB (very rarely at 7200MB) when i have 8192 MB?

I know my rig is not optimal (see below), but that should not be the issue here, as the game was running well.

 

Turn on the "Advanced FPS" in OpenXRToolkit and check your CPU and GPU frame times. 

Your CPU is relatively old/slow, so I suspect there may be some CPU issues with the more CPU intensive KA-50 (compared to the F3C Mig-29)

[zaelu]

A small-big discovery I made today... 

After having HAGS OFF since like... forever... because it was known to be a performance problem etc I turned it ON because I saw in a youtube (vrsim guy iirc) that sometimes it makes the micro-stutters disappear and... it did.

From this:
null
to this (the second image is a capture from a video recording so is way worse quality wise but the graph is visible)


Also I tested the "Low Latency" Settings in nv control panel and with it ON or set to ULTRA the "feel" was not as smooth as with it on OFF, However it was the only thing that Pushed the graph to finally show "GPU BOUND" instead of CPU BOUND" as seen in 3rd picture where you can see it's now green gpu bound. However, I prefer it on OFF.


Now if only my GPU would have been a 5080....

PS Oh and the "pre-render 3 frames in VR" setting in nvcp also did nothing, added a very slight increase in latency but no improvements. So I'll keep it on 1 frame (default).

Edited October 31, 2023 by zaelu

[wormeaten]

10 hours ago, zaelu said:

A small-big discovery I made today... 

After having HAGS OFF since like... forever... because it was known to be a performance problem etc I turned it ON because I saw in a youtube (vrsim guy iirc) that sometimes it makes the micro-stutters disappear and... it did.

From this:
null
to this (the second image is a capture from a video recording so is way worse quality wise but the graph is visible)


Also I tested the "Low Latency" Settings in nv control panel and with it ON or set to ULTRA the "feel" was not as smooth as with it on OFF, However it was the only thing that Pushed the graph to finally show "GPU BOUND" instead of CPU BOUND" as seen in 3rd picture where you can see it's now green gpu bound. However, I prefer it on OFF.


Now if only my GPU would have been a 5080....

PS Oh and the "pre-render 3 frames in VR" setting in nvcp also did nothing, added a very slight increase in latency but no improvements. So I'll keep it on 1 frame (default).

 

As I can see from screenshot's you are using WiFi 5. From my experience with Pico 4 most of the problem coming from too high Bitrate for connection speed.
If you are using WiFi where speed fluctuating Reduce Bitrate or use Automatic bitrate.
Automatic bitrate will use this 400Mbps as cap bitrate when the connection speed can handle it. When speed is drooping automatically Bitrate according to Speed to keep smooth transfer of picture.

Otherwise you should find sweet spot for your Bitrate and connection speed manually. Sometime stuttering is caused not by GPU or CPU but because not balanced Bitrate/connection speed.

[Johnny Dioxin]

On 10/30/2023 at 2:15 AM, Greeble said:

Do any of you pico users still use 2080ti? because i can't find a setting combo that isn't blurry, to super blurry. Unless i run it in Goodllike, and then it's a slideshow.

 

I did until January this year - was fine for me, using Virtual Desktop (866Mbps). At the time I used the medium setting in VD. High textures and high terrain... hang on - looky here - these were my settings...

 

**NOTE: this was with 2.8

 

 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Johnny Dioxin

[Danzig]

Ticking this gave me a  smoother experience. 

before the tomcat cockpit gave me some jiggerish 56 fps.  now 72 fps just by klicking this box. Maybe worth a try.

[zaelu]

On 11/1/2023 at 9:56 AM, wormeaten said:

As I can see from screenshot's you are using WiFi 5. From my experience with Pico 4 most of the problem coming from too high Bitrate for connection speed.
If you are using WiFi where speed fluctuating Reduce Bitrate or use Automatic bitrate.
Automatic bitrate will use this 400Mbps as cap bitrate when the connection speed can handle it. When speed is drooping automatically Bitrate according to Speed to keep smooth transfer of picture.

Otherwise you should find sweet spot for your Bitrate and connection speed manually. Sometime stuttering is caused not by GPU or CPU but because not balanced Bitrate/connection speed.

There is no problem with my network. As you can see I have under 10ms and wifi 5 is easy able to keep 400mbs. Also Pico4 is not really able to use Wifi6 because it doesn't know 6a and 6 is not really that much better.

[Qcumber]

9 hours ago, zaelu said:

There is no problem with my network. As you can see I have under 10ms and wifi 5 is easy able to keep 400mbs. Also Pico4 is not really able to use Wifi6 because it doesn't know 6a and 6 is not really that much better.

Have you tried using 72 Hz instead of 90? Most people err on this setting for the Pico 4 as it has lower game latency. 

I also find that HEVC 10 bit at 150 Mbps is better than h-264+. 

[MIghtymoo]

10 hours ago, zaelu said:

There is no problem with my network. As you can see I have under 10ms and wifi 5 is easy able to keep 400mbs. Also Pico4 is not really able to use Wifi6 because it doesn't know 6a and 6 is not really that much better.

I am running with a 1200 Mbps connection to my Pico 4 with a WIFI6e router.
Still running 5 Ghz band (not to be confused with 6Ghz band).

[zaelu]

14 hours ago, Qcumber said:

Have you tried using 72 Hz instead of 90? Most people err on this setting for the Pico 4 as it has lower game latency. 

I also find that HEVC 10 bit at 150 Mbps is better than h-264+. 

No, I don't like 72Hz.

[Markoni]

Hi guys. Will 5800x, 3080, 64 gb ram be enough for pico 4 VR in DCS?

[Qcumber]

1 hour ago, zaelu said:

No, I don't like 72Hz.

Fair enough. I would get on better with 90 Hz if SSW was better on VD. I keep trying but I get really bad black borders when moving my head at anything less than about 60 fps, even with reprojection. I find that aiming for 72 fps without SSW is the best option for me.

[RealDCSpilot]

VDXR integrated in Virtual Desktop is officially released now! You can now run DCS with the Pico 4 without SteamVR but in native OpenXR. This should also come with a little performance increase for everyone.
Simply choose VDXR in the options of VD streamer on desktop and then launch the DCS.exe (multi-threading version).

Edited November 7, 2023 by RealDCSpilot

[SilentOtto]

On 11/6/2023 at 11:07 PM, Markoni said:

Hi guys. Will 5800x, 3080, 64 gb ram be enough for pico 4 VR in DCS?

Yes. I have 5700X, 3070, 64 and it works smooth. But forget about graphic "God Mode". But game looks really cool! I'am pos suprised.

Edited November 8, 2023 by SilentOtto

[MIghtymoo]

I have had issues running Virtual Desktop in VDXR mode without severe stuttering. Had to use SteamVR.

With the release of 1.29.8 version all is smooth.

Finally got rid of SteamVR  

[Qcumber]

I have noticed that VD SSW is working a lot better since the DCS 2.9 update. There has also been an update to VD (1.29.9) which improves SSW for Q headsets. The Devs say that there has been no change to Pico though. Has anyone else noticed an improvement?

The changes I am seeing are:

1) Everything is a perfectly smooth at 45/90 and surprisingly smooth at below 45. Much better than how it used to be. 

2) The black mask effect when moving your head is a lot less noticeable. 

3) The odd shimmering when rolling the plane is still there but maybe a bit less noticeable. I should stress this is different to the regular ghosting of fast moving objects and does not occur with oculus ASW. 

Overall this is a much better experience and I can now run at high and maxed out settings and only drop below 45 above big cities like Cairo and London. Even then it's a good experience, especially as I can set the landscape range to Extreme. 

[MIghtymoo]

Interesting, will be testing later.

[Lange_666]

4 hours ago, Qcumber said:

3) The odd shimmering when rolling the plane is still there but maybe a bit less noticeable. I should stress this is different to the regular ghosting of fast moving objects and does not occur with oculus ASW.

I wonder if the same effect (odd shimmering/ghosting when rolling the plane on distant objects) is also there on Q2/Q3/Q-Pro headsets (it's not there on a Rift-S but that has a Display Port) because it's the main reason why i returned the Pico 4.

[Qcumber]

3 hours ago, Lange_666 said:

I wonder if the same effect (odd shimmering/ghosting when rolling the plane on distant objects) is also there on Q2/Q3/Q-Pro headsets (it's not there on a Rift-S but that has a Display Port) because it's the main reason why i returned the Pico 4.

That's a good point. It might be worth a new thread. 

[zaelu]

On 11/17/2023 at 2:45 PM, Lange_666 said:

I wonder if the same effect (odd shimmering/ghosting when rolling the plane on distant objects) is also there on Q2/Q3/Q-Pro headsets (it's not there on a Rift-S but that has a Display Port) because it's the main reason why i returned the Pico 4.

Have you tried turning HAGS on?

[Lange_666]

Yep, did that back then without success.

[apelsin44ek]

Is it possible to have acceptable fps (at least 30) w/o VD?

Right now I have 1-3 fps in single player on A-10CII. Currently I have RTX 3070 8Gb, 16 Gb RAM and AMD Ryzen 7 5800X. 

I have no idea what is happening, w/o VR I have never ask any questions about fps, it is just high enough in all situations. 

But in VR it is not possible to play, unless I put resolution to the lowest settings possible when I could not read any words in the cockpit.

P.S. Buying VD not possible due lack of the access to the Pico store.

[Vector1]

Hi you can access Pico store by changing country in your Pico account, I'm in Australia , I set my Pico account to United Kingdom , don't have access in Australia yet , could buy Virtual Desktop this way, over a year ago , also Virtual Desktop has VDXR setting that allows you to bypass SteamVR.

[NAM]

I bought Pico 4 more than a year ago.. No problem registered my own address here in Australia. Have no problem purchased Virtual Desktop as well as dozen games from Pico store..

Great all round headset.

Edited December 3, 2023 by NAM