The Varjo Aero – a brief review from a G2 zealot

[speed-of-heat]

TLDR – It is still worth it, I would recommend it, it is a significant upgrade for G2 owners with sufficient hardware to drive it. I would also not pay too much attention to the fact that I have written as much bad/ugly as I have "Good", the Good's more than make up for any inconveniences 

The Good

A lot has been said about, the colours and clarity so I won’t refresh them here, except in summary, it is very very good, and the best of what you have read elsewhere is true. I will add that the new “dots" work perfectly.

What I wasn’t expecting was the improvement in motion smoothing, and whilst these still have artefacts they are massively improved, I mean fractional with much smoother transitions between 90/45/30. When set to automatic, this is just the best of all world’s.

What floored me though, was latency, either I have become a much better pilot (of course I am the best virtual fighter pilot who has ever sat in an arm chair) or the latency is just revolutionary, for example I always struggled with the tomcat holding it on speed in the pattern, my movements on the throttle always felt… “Jagged” not any more… This for me more than the edge to edge clarity(also I can read the warning lights on the tomcat) is a huge upgrade.

I always thought the tracking in the G2 was OK, the tracking in the Aero is again a massive leap forwards, I have two tracking stations, though in practice I only needed one, on two poles and is spot on, no shaking or jerking.

The native software is good, simple to use, the installation very straightforward, as is Varjo Foveated by mbucchiea, once you understand what’s going on (you need to read).

XrNeckSafer still works and is in my opinion essential.

I was pleasantly surprised by the included in ear headphones, with built in microphone, the are comfortable and work well, the sound quality is good enough for me.

The Bad

OK, the elephant in the room, vertical FOV… Sigh… I miss my vertical FOV, it does make a difference… But it’s more psychological than real. Whilst in a knife fight, you could maintain eye contact with a target in your peripheral vision at the top or glance down at the bottom to instruments in the G2, at best in G2 you would have gotten an ‘impression’ of something.  Whereas with the Aero you can actually see, what is there, clearly, albeit in a smaller space. I am currently playing with XrNeckSafer to see if I can use some of the vertical options available to improve my experience.

Reds, the native red colour experience is bad, it is like an extra third dimension, there is a fix for this available here, with a password of 5bXDBm4h4O, which you can load a batch file to fix or the GUI available here.

Power Up, there is no power button for the headset, and if you leave it powered on when the software loads from boot, it forces you to power down the headset and restart it. I have installed 3 smart plugs connected to Alexa to switch on and off the headset and trackers.

It’s different, lots of delta and unlearning from WMR and the G2, we can put this into the “toughen up buttercup” class and move on.

The white square, the way the Aero works is there is a square in the middle has a higher pixel density than the periphery, this square moves with your eyes meaning where ever you look is perfectly clear, however in some lighting conditions (snow or cloud) this square is quite visible, my understanding is this is a DCS only problem. I have yet to find a fix for it.

I had purchased my hardware optimised for single threaded performance, (12700k) to use the eye tracking features (Varjo Foveated) you need to make sure you have enough CPU headroom, I moved most of the Varjo Processes over to the efficiency cores which were largely unused keeping only varjo base and any process that was defaulting as High CPU priority on the performance cores.  I am using performance lasso for this.

Whilst the inbox headphones are fine, I do miss the convenience of my G2’s, but to be honest it is a truly minor issue.

The Ugly

For me the worst thing is the comfort, the G2 fit my head like a glove, this was luck of facial geometry, I was not so lucky here, and I was in a lot of discomfort in dogfights looking up and the left and right, this problem was “fixed” by replacing the native pad with a small 10mm foam pad for the G2, which also pushed my eyelashes back from my lenses (I use the inserts from vropticians as I need corrective lenses).

[mmike87]

I'm also a recent convert, and agree with your assessment. In regards to the vertical FOV ... I really only notice because the DFR is so good. I can't see the transition between the hi and low res areas myself. With the G2 I was so used to moving my whole head, so the FOV was never an issue.

Particularly, I'd like more vertical FOV to improve my ability to glance down at the instruments and MFDs just with my eyes. I can do so somewhat ... But to get to the AMPCD on the 18 I still need to move my head to get down that far.

For audio, I am using FIFINE "Studio Monitor" headphones ($30) that have a removable cable, and a short, coiled, angled wire, both from Amazon. The combo works great.

I also had CTDT on DCS start 50% of the time, even after building a whole new system with the G2. I've not had a single crash with the Aero that was not related to a mod.

Definitely invest the $35 in the comfort kit with the strap and counter weights. I could wear it all day.

Overall, I'm very pleased. Not perfect, but very good 

 

[speed-of-heat]

14 minutes ago, mmike87 said:

Definitely invest the $35 in the comfort kit with the strap and counter weights. I could wear it all day.

What comfort kit is that?

[mmike87]

1 hour ago, speed-of-heat said:

What comfort kit is that?

https://www.studioformcreative.com/product-page/varjo-vr-3-xr-3-counter-balance-comfort-kit-200-gram-7oz

 

[speed-of-heat]

3 minutes ago, mmike87 said:

https://www.studioformcreative.com/product-page/varjo-vr-3-xr-3-counter-balance-comfort-kit-200-gram-7oz

 

Thanks I will see if I can get it in the UK 

Ah they are closed for Christmas

[speed-of-heat]

Making the Bad Less Bad

One of the things that has worked really well for me is the use of XR NeckSafer to compensate for the reduced vertical FOV here are my settings if they help:

I am using the smooth settings to just give me a little more rotation as I start to look in the vertical, the  setting is unchanged from my G2 in the horizontal.

 

Edited December 23, 2023 by speed-of-heat

[freehand]

Are the issues related to DCS only ? regarding the red & blur nonsense.  

 

Edited December 24, 2023 by freehand

[A.F.]

I like the off-ear speakers on the G+2. That way I can hear my voice through my ears.
If I need headphones (Aero) then I also need a microphone that transmits my voice to the headphones.
How do you do that and is there any latency?

[speed-of-heat]

If you connect through th 3.5mm jack there is no latency...

3 hours ago, freehand said:

Are the issues related to DCS only ? regarding the red & blur nonsense.  

 

 

I suspect the red issue is generic. Blur is a function of cpu load as that is what typically causes the game to drop below 90hz.  As I said it is still much better than the G2.

[freehand]

40 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

If you connect through th 3.5mm jack there is no latency...

I suspect the red issue is generic. Blur is a function of cpu load as that is what typically causes the game to drop below 90hz.  As I said it is still much better than the G2.

That is good enough for me.