Pico 4: how to set it up for DCS?

[Johnny Dioxin]

I didn't think of trying 72hz - that's actually a good idea - and pretty obvious - shows how much I'm slowing down as I age!

I get excellent performance with Pico 4, at 45fps with SSW forced on all the time. yet in my Index (which used to have not as good performance even at 60fps, as well as lesser clarity, of course) I'm getting a solid 120fps.

But the quality has dropped - especially since the last big stable update and I'm talking about terrain/foliage quality. I never have grass on. Trying 72hz makes sense, but I've not had to do any testing and adjusting for so long now, I can't remember what to fiddle with for better terrain graphics without killing the performance. Seems I'll have to put aside a couple of days for testing VR - such a shame as I had really thought those days were over now for me in this sim.

At least ACM is still awesome with my headset Was flying over Caucasus yesterday in my Hornet and thanking the simming Gods that I wasn't on an A/G mission, cos spotting ground targets would have been a nightmare.

[MIghtymoo]

6 hours ago, Johnny Dioxin said:

I didn't think of trying 72hz - that's actually a good idea - and pretty obvious - shows how much I'm slowing down as I age!

I get excellent performance with Pico 4, at 45fps with SSW forced on all the time. yet in my Index (which used to have not as good performance even at 60fps, as well as lesser clarity, of course) I'm getting a solid 120fps.

But the quality has dropped - especially since the last big stable update and I'm talking about terrain/foliage quality. I never have grass on. Trying 72hz makes sense, but I've not had to do any testing and adjusting for so long now, I can't remember what to fiddle with for better terrain graphics without killing the performance. Seems I'll have to put aside a couple of days for testing VR - such a shame as I had really thought those days were over now for me in this sim.

At least ACM is still awesome with my headset Was flying over Caucasus yesterday in my Hornet and thanking the simming Gods that I wasn't on an A/G mission, cos spotting ground targets would have been a nightmare.

Tip regarding the four top right sliders.

Turn on the fps-counter. 

Fly over some nice scenery.

Put game on active pause and adjust the above sliders in real-time. You will see changes visually as you slide them left and right. Fps counter also changes real-time…

I use South Atlantic map (demanding map) for this and slide the 4 sliders untill I am happy with the visuals and get above 72 fps. 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by MIghtymoo

[Qcumber]

10 hours ago, Johnny Dioxin said:

I didn't think of trying 72hz - that's actually a good idea - and pretty obvious - shows how much I'm slowing down as I age!

I get excellent performance with Pico 4, at 45fps with SSW

72 Hz is a lot better. I tried 90 Hz again today and it looks really "fuzzy" compared with 72Hz. Not sure why.

I also tried locking fps at 50Hz and 60Hz without SSW and it is actually quite smooth and the GPU usage drops by about 20-30%. It makes sense but I've not tried it before.

[MIghtymoo]

3 minutes ago, Qcumber said:

72 Hz is a lot better. I tried 90 Hz again today and it looks really "fuzzy" compared with 72Hz. Not sure why.

I also tried locking fps at 50Hz and 60Hz without SSW and it is actually quite smooth and the GPU usage drops by about 20-30%. It makes sense but I've not tried it before.

Interesting. How do you lock at e.g 60 fps? No screen tearing?

[Qcumber]

6 minutes ago, MIghtymoo said:

Interesting. How do you lock at e.g 60 fps? No screen tearing?

I just used OXRTK. It just seemed to work. Previously I have locked the fps when I use SSW but not otherwise. Originally I had planned to use Turbo mode, which causes severe stuttering unless I lock at 72Hz, and tried lower, but it was still casing landscape stuttering on movement, so I disabled Turbo mode. It was much smoother. No screen tearing.

[mrsylvestre]

13 hours ago, Qcumber said:

72 Hz is a lot better. I tried 90 Hz again today and it looks really "fuzzy" compared with 72Hz. Not sure why.

Interesting. Perhaps the reason for that could be related to the bitrate used for encoding? Assuming that the same bitrate was used, say 100 Mbits/s, each second the 100 Mbits are used to encode 72 images or 90 images. Hence less "Mbits/image" in the latter case which I imagine does affect image quality. Just an hypothesis, though.

Regarding locking framerate below refresh rate (e.g. lock @ 60fps with the headset @ 72Hz), I am curious about what exactly happens in that case. Do we get to see some frames twice, reducing the display rate to 36Hz for a few of frames? Following that logic, could we try setting the headset @ 90Hz with framerate locked @ 45 fps to get true 45 fps without retroprojection (and no ghosting)? I'll try that for science

[Qcumber]

2 hours ago, mrsylvestre said:

Following that logic, could we try setting the headset @ 90Hz with framerate locked @ 45 fps to get true 45 fps without retroprojection (and no ghosting)? I'll try that for science

I've tried that and the logic is sound but I find that the game latency goes up, as does the decoding latency. Even though GPU usage is reduced to about 60%. One thing I haven't tried is limiting frame rate on NVIDIA control panel as well as with OXRTK. Not sure if it would make much difference. 

[Qcumber]

I have tried this again and 90hz locked to 45 fps without SSW actually works quite well. Game latency goes up but overall latency is about 50ms so not too bad. Terrain is quite smooth. Ghosting is evident but acceptable. My biggest issue is a black mask in the corner when turning my head very quickly. 

[mrsylvestre]

Tried it also and... on my system it's not really better than aiming for 72 fps native.

It gives less additional headroom than I hoped for higher graphics settings in DCS or for increased resolution in VD/SteamVR. There are no hard stutters and it is free from the infamous "horizon ghosting" at 3 or 9 o'clock in a roll that I can see with retroprojection but in warbirds dogfights over the Channel map (my usual test), it definitely feels just a bit less smooth when going for the kill. Image quality also seems lower to me (perhaps the video stream is still optimized for 90 fps?). I'll keep my native 72 hz settings (until the next experiment ).

On a related note, there has been an update of quadviews some time ago that I missed (1.0.1 -> 1.1.0). The new default settings work well on the Pico 4 (turbo mode is now turned off for steamVR headsets). I found that my custom settings were not really necessary anymore.

[Qcumber]

24 minutes ago, mrsylvestre said:

I'll keep my native 72 hz settings (until the next experiment

I've just reached the same conclusion. 72 hz is better overall and you can still easily tweak to 45 fps limit on the fly so it's a win-win. 

25 minutes ago, mrsylvestre said:

On a related note, there has been an update of quadviews some time ago that I missed (1.0.1 -> 1.1.0)

I'm not sure if I have that update. I'll check. 

[MIghtymoo]

22 hours ago, Qcumber said:

I just used OXRTK. It just seemed to work. Previously I have locked the fps when I use SSW but not otherwise. Originally I had planned to use Turbo mode, which causes severe stuttering unless I lock at 72Hz, and tried lower, but it was still casing landscape stuttering on movement, so I disabled Turbo mode. It was much smoother. No screen tearing.

Not recommended 

Followed your instructions and changed only the value in OXRTK from OFF to 60. Restarted DCS and tried. Severe choppiness. Totally unplayable. When I turned the setting off again, the gameplay continued to have stutters about every second regardless of what I did.

After an hour of trying to get back to my smooth 72Hz settings I decided to select a restore point for Windows. Then everything got back to normal.

Now I am settling on the 72 true fps with middle of the road graphics settings, foveated rendering and 3500x3500 resolution (to reduce aliasing). 
When I have a quantum CPU and a RXT 6090 I hopefully can run everything on HIGH with stable 72 fps in any scenario/mission  

[Qcumber]

42 minutes ago, MIghtymoo said:

Not recommended 

Followed your instructions and changed only the value in OXRTK from OFF to 60. Restarted DCS and tried. Severe choppiness. Totally unplayable. When I turned the setting off again, the gameplay continued to have stutters about every second regardless of what I did.

After an hour of trying to get back to my smooth 72Hz settings I decided to select a restore point for Windows. Then everything got back to normal.

Now I am settling on the 72 true fps with middle of the road graphics settings, foveated rendering and 3500x3500 resolution (to reduce aliasing). 
When I have a quantum CPU and a RXT 6090 I hopefully can run everything on HIGH with stable 72 fps in any scenario/mission  

Sorry to cause the headaches! It seems to work for me.  

Does 3500x3500 make much difference to aliasing? 

Edit: I just tried to run a mission and exactly what you described happened to me. Completely unplayable. I rebooted and it's working fine again. Weird! 

Edited September 3, 2023 by Qcumber

[MIghtymoo]

35 minutes ago, Qcumber said:

Sorry to cause the headaches! It seems to work for me.  

Does 3500x3500 make much difference to aliasing? 

Edit: I just tried to run a mission and exactly what you described happened to me. Completely unplayable. I rebooted and it's working fine again. Weird! 

 

No worries.

3500x3500 is how high I seem to be able to push it. Ultra mode in VD and move the resolution slider in SteamVR to mentioned resolution. No override in OXRTK.

[wormeaten]

On 9/1/2023 at 6:39 AM, 2circle said:

Question for the group…I just received my Pico 4 and live in the US.  I can’t purchase the VD app in the Pico headset and can’t find it in the App Store.  Does anyone have a workaround for those of us that would like to stream DCS from PC onto the Pico 4?  Thanks in advance!

I think you buying in Pico store true mobile app on your mobile phone on your Pico account.
I'm not sure about web Pico store where you are logging in on your Pico account as well. Just check it out.
Or is just need to register payment method on your Pico account and then will be able to purchase even direct true Pico 4 its self.

I don't remember now but some of this is correct for sure.

 

[2circle]

44 minutes ago, wormeaten said:

I think you buying in Pico store true mobile app on your mobile phone on your Pico account.
I'm not sure about web Pico store where you are logging in on your Pico account as well. Just check it out.
Or is just need to register payment method on your Pico account and then will be able to purchase even direct true Pico 4 its self.

I don't remember now but some of this is correct for sure.

 

Thanks Wormeaten, I found a video online on how to get it.  Pretty complicated actually.  

[Danzig]

allt his tweaking and hit and miss in VR is annoying. 
I hope the next pico  will have a Cable connection and some better " space warp" technology in it that deals with the Black mask and ghosting a bit better.

[MIghtymoo]

On 9/3/2023 at 9:45 PM, MIghtymoo said:

No worries.

3500x3500 is how high I seem to be able to push it. Ultra mode in VD and move the resolution slider in SteamVR to mentioned resolution. No override in OXRTK.

After upgrading CPU from 11600k to 13900k I am able to get stable 72fps in Godlike mode (3850x3850) even in the Apache in Marianas. Huge improvement in performance.

Graphics settings are medium level, but still looks great.

 

[gkgyedu]

I have Pico 4 but I cant to run the MT version in VR mode, I am however,  able to run the single thread in VR mode. I have added --force_enable_VR to the shortcut target and it shows one eye view on the computer screen but shows no video on the headset. I am running it through Streaming Assistant and SteamVR. Is there something I am missing?

[Qcumber]

2 minutes ago, gkgyedu said:

I have Pico 4 but I cant to run the MT version in VR mode, I am however,  able to run the single thread in VR mode. I have added --force_enable_VR to the shortcut target and it shows one eye view on the computer screen but shows no video on the headset. I am running it through Streaming Assistant and SteamVR. Is there something I am missing?

Streaming assistant is very hit and miss. Have you tried using virtual desktop? This is much better. You should be able to run this in MT. 

https://www.vrdesktop.net/

[gkgyedu]

2 minutes ago, Qcumber said:

Streaming assistant is very hit and miss. Have you tried using virtual desktop? This is much better. You should be able to run this in MT. 

https://www.vrdesktop.net/

The reason why I cant use Virtual Desktop now is that I only have a 2.4Ghz Wifi router. That is what I got from my ISP, so I run DCS with wired VR and not Wireless. I believe I cannot run Virtual Desktop with a wired connection, or am I wrong?

[mrsylvestre]

Sadly, Virtual Desktop through USB is a no go (there are a couple of software hacks that make it somewhat possible with IP over USB but always at the cost of stability issues). Virtual Desktop through wired ethernet-over-USB is possible and reported as reliable but you will need an ethernet to USB adapter cable and to connect that one and your PC to a router by cable. Usually not worth the trouble unless you also want to power the Pico 4 that way for longer gameplay, but then you also need a suitable USB power supply (your PC USB ports won't deliver enough power) and an USB/Ethernet adapter that has an extra input for that too.

Unless the Pico 4 is the only wifi peripheral in your home and you are gaming next to your ISP box, the "proper" way to use VD is to have a not-too-expensive dedicated wifi 6 router on top of or next to your PC. The PC is wired to a LAN port on the dedicated router, the router is wired through its WAN port to your ISP router (VD's annoying software license check requires the headset to have internet access). The PICO 4 connects to the dedicated wifi network of the dedicated router wirelessly and is granted exclusive access, ensuring a stable connection.

There is no image quality penalty for using (good) wifi rather than some wired connection as the effective bandwidth of both exceed the Pico's max streaming rate.

[Qcumber]

3 hours ago, gkgyedu said:

The reason why I cant use Virtual Desktop now is that I only have a 2.4Ghz Wifi router. That is what I got from my ISP, so I run DCS with wired VR and not Wireless. I believe I cannot run Virtual Desktop with a wired connection, or am I wrong?

I bought a WiFi 6 router for £40 from Amazon and a powered usb-ethernet adaptor for £20 plus some cat 6 cables. WiFi can be problematic due to channel interference and I have found that the Ethernet connection is most reliable. If you don't want to spend any extra, then USB tether through SA is the only way. I've not managed to get this working so can't really offer any help other than are you using a USB 3 cable and port? 

[jungleboy123]

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?

[dock999]

12 hours ago, Qcumber said:

Streaming assistant is very hit and miss. Have you tried using virtual desktop? This is much better. You should be able to run this in MT. 

https://www.vrdesktop.net/

No, not in my case.  Pico 4 +  VD can launch DCS MT  in VR indeed . But when you try to load missions , DCS crashes.  I still can not figure out what the reason is. No issue with DCS ST. However, ST in Steam will not let you use the toolkit and necksafer.

[Qcumber]

7 hours ago, dock999 said:

No, not in my case.  Pico 4 +  VD can launch DCS MT  in VR indeed . But when you try to load missions , DCS crashes.  I still can not figure out what the reason is. No issue with DCS ST. However, ST in Steam will not let you use the toolkit and necksafer.

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.