Pico 4: how to set it up for DCS?

[dureiken]

Hi guys

 

just received my pico4, bought Virtual desktop as you adviced. I don't achieve to launch openXR with FS2020, DCS. HUD always says OpenVR and I don't have OXRTK working

Maybe it's my WMR of my G2 (unplugged) which makes things bugged ?

Can't achieve to work with opencomposite too, but seems normal

 

Edit : OK it works, had to add --force_openXR to shortcut. But it still launch steamVR.

Seems to work fine in ST, but crashes when I launch a fly in MT.

@RealDCSpilot could you finally post your nvidia,VD,Steam,OXRTK settings would be awesome !

 

Thanks for your help

Edited March 28, 2023 by dureiken

[Peedee]

On 3/28/2023 at 10:40 AM, dureiken said:

Hi guys

 

just received my pico4, bought Virtual desktop as you adviced. I don't achieve to launch openXR with FS2020, DCS. HUD always says OpenVR and I don't have OXRTK working

Maybe it's my WMR of my G2 (unplugged) which makes things bugged ?

Can't achieve to work with opencomposite too, but seems normal

 

Edit : OK it works, had to add --force_openXR to shortcut. But it still launch steamVR.

 

That is normal when using OpenXR with the Pico4. 

[Qcumber]

On 3/28/2023 at 9:40 AM, dureiken said:

Hi guys

 

just received my pico4, bought Virtual desktop as you adviced. I don't achieve to launch openXR with FS2020, DCS. HUD always says OpenVR and I don't have OXRTK working

Maybe it's my WMR of my G2 (unplugged) which makes things bugged ?

Can't achieve to work with opencomposite too, but seems normal

 

Edit : OK it works, had to add --force_openXR to shortcut. But it still launch steamVR.

Seems to work fine in ST, but crashes when I launch a fly in MT.

@RealDCSpilot could you finally post your nvidia,VD,Steam,OXRTK settings would be awesome !

 

Thanks for your help

 

I am getting the same issue. It runs in ST but crashes every time in MT. Have you managed to find a solution? 

[dureiken]

4 hours ago, Qcumber said:

I am getting the same issue. It runs in ST but crashes every time in MT. Have you managed to find a solution? 

No I don't

[Qcumber]

I have managed to get MT running. I disabled openxr toolkit, reset virtual desktop to standard settings, set steam VR to 100% scaling and turned all steam video settings off. So far it has started in MT every time using "force_VR" and "force_openxr". I still get some crashes but only when trying to load a mission and only with the spitfire. I have since increased VD settings and it still works. 

[Kiwi_Viper]

are you guys running open composite ? i have it set use that and the toolkit and pico work perfectly, runs virtual desktop better with wireless than tethered with steamvr set to 150% its averaging 90 fps easy smooth as silk, and set pixel density to 1.5 - 1.6

its best I've seen dcs look, for me st and mt work the same no difference except bombs and explosions don't affect frame rates what so ever 

[Qcumber]

15 minutes ago, Kiwi_Viper said:

are you guys running open composite ? i have it set use that and the toolkit and pico work perfectly, runs virtual desktop better with wireless than tethered with steamvr set to 150% its averaging 90 fps easy smooth as silk, and set pixel density to 1.5 - 1.6

its best I've seen dcs look, for me st and mt work the same no difference except bombs and explosions don't affect frame rates what so ever 

I didn't think open composite was needed as DCS now runs native openxr. I'll give it a go and see if it changes anything. 

[Kiwi_Viper]

was the only way i got dcs to work with the pico, we shouldnt probaby need it but it works here , oh dont use the virtual deskyop off steam i had to get the one from pico store its made for it.

[TED]

Anyone tried pico 4 with amd 6900xt?

Cpu is an amd 5800 x3d. My g2 is starting to get tired and needs to be replaced soon. Many people are saying it needs to be a 4090 gpu but I'm wondering how it will compare if set up and tuned right, too the g2. I get excellent performance with the g2 now. All settings pretty maxed except no msaa. openxr and fsr gives me solid 60fps although I lock it at 46fps through chill and uts very smooth.

I'd really like to get the pico to work if it's possible with the current setup.

[OperatorPuski]

If I could chime in on this topic for those that may be on the fence or possibly thinking about ditching on the Pico4 and selling or returning it.  Currently have a G2 v2.

Picked up a Pico4 a week ago.  Watched every video and connected it wirelessly with Virtual Desktop just like all the videos said to.  I'm on a 5950x, 128gb ram, 4090 and have Wifi 6 in the same room. Basically 1200mb up and down no drops on the LAN.  Computer hooked in to gig ethernet directly, (side note, my internet service is actually DSL because I live in a rural area and only get 10mb/s internet downloads)  But latency is where this is all at obviously with the headset on wifi.

Fired up the Pico4, connected to wifi, enabled everything in the headset, updated and loaded up everything and just used the headset for a while.  It ran fantastic, looks fantastic.

Configured VD, got all the firewall stuff ironed out, and that runs excellent.  Showing over 135-145 streaming bit rate, godlike, H264, Automatic Motion smoothing in VD, Sharpness at 75, the headset is locked around 900 - 1000mb/s. no dips or drops.  I can't emphasize how well everything looks and runs in VD so far... I can run in a virtual environment and look at a big screen in front of me and my desktop runs as if I am on the monitor and not the headset.  No felt latency. 

Good to move on to trying DCS now right?  Here's where things get a little squirrely

Fire up Steam from within VD like it says to do.  Steam loads up, and shows the headset at 10ms latency.  within the Steam house it looks fantastic and smooth.  I am running 150% render resolution there and there is no option for steam motion smoothing anymore.  Probably because that is being controlled on the VD side.   in Microsoft OpenXR Tools the render resolution is also set at 150%.

Time to fire up DCS in m-t.  From what I understand DCS has native OpenXR support so I was wondering how this will go but everyone says DCS will run in OpenXR through SteamVR.  If this is the case then when DCS loads I should be able to call up OpenXR Toolkit.  So the game loads and I couldn't have been more disappointed at what I thought I saw.  25 frames and so stuttery and laggy that I almost got sick or fear of having a seizure.  I came from a G2 that never dropped below 75 fps with everything dialed up to this?  My first thought was I just wasted $500 and I'm going to send it back because I did EVERYTHING I was suppose to and I am locked at 25 frames?  No way!

I watched every video I can find and all these videos are claiming great frames and buttery smoothness with DCS and MSFS.  So, I decided simply because the headset looks and runs so good outside of DCS that I will use up my entire return window trying to figure it out before giving up on it.  

To make this short story long I found the culprit to be in a very unlikely of spots.  It was within OpenXR Toolkit.   The setting for Shaking Reduction I had set for the G2 at -45% which was to help soften some of the jitters in the headset and when recording video.  My settings for everything else were CAS, Override resolution to 2160 x 2160.  No Turbo Mode,  Motion Smoothing is no longer available to choose but when it was there is was always OFF.  Framerate is locked at 92 and for some reason the option to turn off Framerate lock is gone so I have to go with what I had set for the G2.  I turned the Shaking reduction to 0% and immediately the stuttering and shaking went away and my framerates ramped up to 45fps on the DCS home screen.  Looks like the headset motion smoothing setting kicked in.  Time to turn that off and see what this does.

With 1 setting and turning off motion smoothing  I go from getting ready to return it to I can't believe how nice it looks and runs between 75 - 90fps on any multiplayer map.  Even on the deck of the carrier at night.  A sweet spot that compared to the G2 for me is 5 times larger all around with a slightly larger FOV.  I can move my eyes up and down and side to side and basically see everything clearly inside the cockpit.  If I need to glance over to the RWR, or the fuel, or whatever I can do it with my eyes and not my head now.

The colors, brightness, sharpness so far imo aren't as good as in the sweet spot on the G2 but I haven't got around to trying to tweak those yet.  Basically inside of DCS the Pico4 in comparison to the G2 looks a little more dull in color and brightness but I think that can be adjusted some.  

I am by no means an expert on how to do this and what you are using as a setup will probably make things different in your situation but I can sum it up in a few basic points...

--Latency is first and foremost.  Get that as low as you can by any means, Cable or Wireless.  Try to achieve less than 15ms steady

--Get your computer hooked up to a Gigabit Ethernet cable from your router,  using wifi to the headset, get on Wifi 6 802.11ax or whatever bandwidth gets up gig speeds up and down

--Dial in the Virtual desktop settings and Steam VR settings

--Then get inside DCS and play around with what works for you in OpenXR Toolkit.  In my opinion you will absolutely need Toolkit to make this run well.

--Start with motion smoothing in VD set to Auto and then experiment with turning it off.  Some people like it on or Auto and locked at 45 but I tend to have it off if the frames stay above 75.

I hope this sheds some light on those of you who are kinda of new to this and trying to make all this work inside of DCS.  What I can tell you is dollar for dollar the Pico 4 is every bit as good as the G2 and in some ways better.  It just goes about things in a different way.  That's how the VR world is right now.  There are no set industry standards for how to get from A to B.  Kinda like Betamax and VHS.  BlueRay vs HD-DVD, Cassette Tape vs CD (well, CD was the clear choice there lol).  Eventually a standard will emerge and there will be plenty of times you will spend more time tweaking the headsets than actually playing the game you are trying to tweak them for.

Welcome to my VR world. lol  Hope some of this helps.

Edited April 9, 2023 by OperatorPuski

[Kiwi_Viper]

you dont need open xr tools it and the toolkit mess with the visuals, i dumped both and its locked on 45fps with asw on auto so its really 90fps, i run the graphics in dcs fairly high and use godmode in VD its brilliant no stutters what so ever smooth as silk and i was surprised how much better than my G2 the Pico is.

turn your speeds all the way up in VD for mbps bandwidth, luckily my router is opnly about 2 meters away but its way fast enough. i was getting wiers wobby stuff then a figured out it was the openxr toolkit doing it so disabled it and fixed.

the other thing i did was turn pixel density in dcs vr settings up to 1.6 going to see how high i can take it, attached screenshot of settings

[Peedee]

On 4/9/2023 at 7:33 PM, OperatorPuski said:

 

--Then get inside DCS and play around with what works for you in OpenXR Toolkit.  In my opinion you will absolutely need Toolkit to make this run well.

--Start with motion smoothing in VD set to Auto and then experiment with turning it off.  Some people like it on or Auto and locked at 45 but I tend to have it off if the frames stay above 75.

My experience with open XR toolkit and Pico 4 is quite opposite. I used Open XR toolkit with my Reverb G2. But disabled it for the Pico 4. Not needed at all. It doesn’t add anything but potential complications on my PC. On a less powerful PCs it might come in handy, yes. But now I am more happy without it. 

[VirusAM]

Guys, 

I think I need a bit of help. I retried the Pico 4 again (an offer on Amazon) deciding to give more time to sort problems out this time.

I have big issues with it and I tried multiple things.

1) I tried with Wifi with a dedicated router I use near my PC. It is cabled at 1gbit/s to the main router. PC connected via cable and Pico 4 with this Wifi (dedicated to the Pico, no other devices connected). It is an old Fritzbox 3590 I already had  ( I don't want to spend money on a wifi 6 router only  for this). Connection is reported to 866mbit/s in Virtual Desktop . In DCS performance is good with VD ULTRA settings (72fps fixed in basic instant action missions) but the visuals are quite blurry (hud and mfds) and above all there is an huge laggy mess, every movement is not smoothed and the visuals are very strange, like stuttering but not due to DCS low performance (as said 72fps fixed)

I tried also the Pico streaming assistant in Wifi mode and the results are the same.

2) I tried with USB cable using reverse tethering and DCS didn't start in the headset as every 3/4 seconds virtual desktop disconnected.

3) I tried with usb c ethernet adapter, and I have the same results as 1) but with less laggy movements.

 

Is there some Virtual Desktop or SteamVR setting do I need to change to improve my  experience?

Is there an easy and reliable way to use the Pico 4 with usb C connection directly to the PC?

Also in many videos I see a performance overlay in Virtual Desktop. How to enable it?I cannot find any way.

If I cannot find a way to solve my issues I think I will abandon VR for the good  and go to a big screen like the LG GR95QE

Thanks

 

Edited April 13, 2023 by VirusAM

[ironhard]

On 3/24/2023 at 10:00 PM, yolandabecool said:

Yep, still BSODs sometimes.

You either can use ethernet to usb-c to avoid usb tethering and BSODs with full VD functional, or gnirehtet instead of usb tethering, but you'll have to disable sound streaming via VD and use external PC headhones because when sound is enabled it reconnects every 5-10 seconds for some reason.

Sorry asking this, may be a stupid question, but are those BSOD actual Windows BSODs?

[Qcumber]

2 hours ago, VirusAM said:

I think I need a bit of help. I retried the Pico 4 again (an offer on Amazon) deciding to give more time to sort problems out this time

I had the same issue and it turned out to be openxr toolkit "shaking reduction". Also check that steam VR is at 100% scaling and remove/disable any mods. If you continue to have issues I would advise contacting VD support through discord. There is a dedicated Pico channel and they respond very quickly. 

[VirusAM]

3 hours ago, Qcumber said:

I had the same issue and it turned out to be openxr toolkit "shaking reduction". Also check that steam VR is at 100% scaling and remove/disable any mods. If you continue to have issues I would advise contacting VD support through discord. There is a dedicated Pico channel and they respond very quickly. 

I don't use shaking reduction from openxr toolkit.

This evening I will have more time to do some more testing

[SebastianR]

You can try streaming assistant via usb but you need disable openxr. I'm using ALVR via usb and works better than streaming assistant and Virtual Desktop

[VirusAM]

You can try streaming assistant via usb but you need disable openxr. I'm using ALVR via usb and works better than streaming assistant and Virtual Desktop

What is alvr?
Anyway I solved the blurriness issue and it was my fault, I had an old setting in SteamVR for DCS.exe at 50% (for the reverb g2).
But the lag issue is still there also trying streaming assistant with USB.
I also tried other VR games and the experience is very pleasant (VTOL VR and half life Alyx) so the issue could be DCS related.
Again it is not an fps issue those are ok

[SebastianR]

Are you using streaming assistant with openxr toolkit enable?

[VirusAM]

Are you using streaming assistant with openxr toolkit enable?

I tried also the ST version of DCS which doesn't use openxr

[DB 605]

I have exactly same problem as VirusAM. No matter what i do, it's always laggy/stuttery in DCS, even with low settings. Both il2 and fs 2020 runs nice and smooth but no joy with dcs. My 'puter is i7-11700k/RTX 3090/32gb ram, i believe it should be enough for decent performance with medium/high settings? With old rifth dcs was smooth with almost all settings maxed out.

[VirusAM]

I have exactly same problem as VirusAM. No matter what i do, it's always laggy/stuttery in DCS, even with low settings. Both il2 and fs 2020 runs nice and smooth but no joy with dcs. My 'puter is i7-11700k/RTX 3090/32gb ram, i believe it should be enough for decent performance with medium/high settings? With old rifth dcs was smooth with almost all settings maxed out.

Yeah today I did ton of testing and nothing seems to work

[Qcumber]

Definitely worse. It won't run at all if I force openxr. MT starts but always crashes in mission load, even without forcing openxr. 

[SebastianR]

You can try streaming assistant but with stopped Virtual desktop service (if you got installed it) and again, disable openxr toolkit. the "crazy" stuttering in my case was the fps counter overlay of toolkit

[SebastianR]

https://forum.dcs.world/topic/323864-pico-4-overlays-lag/#comment-5197075