RealDCSpilot

@Phantom_Mark 1. get a USB-C 10G cable (USB 3.2 Gen2) / WLAN still needed for the startup copyright protection check of Virtual Desktop 2. Enable Developer Mode: Go to Settings > General > About -> Then scroll down and click 7 times on 'Software Version' 3. install the settings.apk https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PUTpT9boTKssDXQ2qUCLxOKM3LPxQtlA/view 4. Enable USB tethering via the settings app on Pico 4 5. Check Windows network settings for the new ethernet connection and set it to "private" 6. launch Virtual Desktop on Pico 4 and VD Streamer on Windows (WLAN still active on Pico 4 !!) 7. Let VD connect like usual via WLAN, wait a couple of seconds and then switch off WLAN on the Pico 4 VD should now automatically switch to the USB network connection... Steps 1-3/5 only need to be done once.

@propelerIf you want to put it in a shortcut, the line must be "X:\DCS World OpenBeta\bin\DCS.exe" --force_OpenXR The command line option after the quotation marks. You can also make a simple .bat file with: DCS.exe --force_OpenXR

xD yeah, a lot of his "FACTS" do not make sense... Unless he is from the future and already plays DCS with multithreading, DLSS and Vulkan. By the way, you can also use USB-tethering with Virtual Desktop. Works pretty seemlessly and gives constant 1200 Mbps. About OXR Toolkit, yeah. If you still have a cable VR HMD it can help to improve performance. But with a wireless headset, especially fixed foveated rendering seems to degrade compressed streaming quality a lot (also found this by testing MSFS2020 - got 10 fps more but clearly visible compression artifacts in the image center).

@Thinder Man, if you use Virtual Desktop you can NEVER use Pico Streaming Assistant at the same time! VD's compression quality is much better and it also lets you start SteamVR without any problem. It's always Streaming Assistant OR Virtual Desktop. And now, with all your information, it seems that you never run Virtual Desktop properly to be able to tell about the difference. Your settings are also far away from being efficient and your jittery video shows it. MSAA, SSLR and SSAO should be off (MSAA can be traded for Super Sampling)... PD in DCS is also inefficient, it's better to use SteamVR's render resolution setting to tune Super Sampling. Whatever is going on on your system, 130-180 fps in VR (???), should never look this choppy at 00:16:00: Whatever info is shown there in the left corner is not what is really going on.

@HoneyBadger Is your chaperone set to be forced to always on? Why? It should only activate if you come to close to the borders.

@Thinder Sorry, it looks like you are mixing up a couple of things. I was talking about the Windows app OpenXR Toolkit which offers some additional tuning options for the OpenXR pipeline. Running DCS with plain OpenXR and with Virtual Desktop at Godlike preset over SteamVR does not introduce the problem. I also don't get how you use "Streaming Assistant. Steam VR Beta. Virtual Desktop and go." together (?) This can't work, you simply can't use two streaming softwares at the same time. Pico's Streaming Assistant is definitely not on par with Virtual Desktop in the high end settings realm. On my end i already uninstalled OpenXR Toolkit and went back to my prior setup: Virtual Desktop Streamer on Windows, Virtual Desktop running on the Pico 4, then SteamVR and launching DCS via shortcut with "--force_OpenXR". DCS PD setting always at 1.0, but render resolution raised with SteamVR manual setting. I also have no reference about how a RX7900XTX performs with VR and streaming. " I'm not convinced Open XR works for everyone..." So if you are having image quality degradation it's definitely not the recently implemented OpenXR API for DCS.

@HoneyBadger Bind VR re-center in UI Layer to a button .

Whatever will happen, it was already announced a couple months ago:

@PeedeeI use HEVC, SSW always on, 150 Mbps and well - GodLike. Here are the sections of my options.lua: ["VR"] = { ["bloom"] = true, ["box_mouse_cursor"] = true, ["custom_IPD"] = "60", ["custom_IPD_enable"] = false, ["enable"] = true, ["enableHMDMask"] = true, ["hand_controllers"] = false, ["hand_controllers_debug_draw"] = false, ["hand_controllers_joint_throttle"] = false, ["hand_controllers_use_stick"] = true, ["hand_controllers_use_throttle"] = true, ["interaction_with_grip_only"] = false, ["mirror_crop"] = false, ["mirror_source"] = 1, ["mirror_use_DCS_resolution"] = true, ["msaaMaskSize"] = 0.33, ["pixel_density"] = 1, ["pointer_use_type"] = 0, ["prefer_built_in_audio"] = true, ["use_mouse"] = false, ["graphics"] = { ["DOF"] = 0, ["LensEffects"] = 3, ["MSAA"] = 0, ["SSAA"] = 0, ["SSAO"] = 0, ["SSLR"] = 0, ["ScreenshotExt"] = "jpg", ["anisotropy"] = 4, ["aspect"] = 1, ["box_mouse_cursor"] = true, ["chimneySmokeDensity"] = 10, ["civTraffic"] = "", ["clouds"] = 3, ["clutterMaxDistance"] = 690, ["cockpitGI"] = 1, ["defaultFOV"] = 69, ["effects"] = 3, ["flatTerrainShadows"] = 0, ["forestDetailsFactor"] = 1, ["forestDistanceFactor"] = 1, ["fullScreen"] = false, ["heatBlr"] = 1, ["height"] = 1200, ["lights"] = 2, ["messagesFontScale"] = 1, ["motionBlur"] = 0, ["multiMonitorSetup"] = "1camera", ["outputGamma"] = 2.2, ["preloadRadius"] = 150000, ["rainDroplets"] = true, ["scaleGui"] = 1, ["sceneryDetailsFactor"] = 1, ["secondaryShadows"] = 1, ["shadowTree"] = false, ["shadows"] = 4, ["sync"] = false, ["terrainTextures"] = "max", ["textures"] = 2, ["useDeferredShading"] = 1, ["visibRange"] = "Ultra", ["water"] = 2, ["width"] = 1200,

Oh, i didn't mean the expected pixelation of foveated rendering. In the center, which is on full super sampling resolution, the image quality also suffers too due to video stream compression. I guess this is what certain people meant while testing the Pico4 and found it's compression quality not acceptable. If they were using OpenXR toolkit... no wonder. Without any tinkering and plain VD it looks fantastic.

@Peedee Alright, now we are talking. Well, we have almost the same configuration, i can run DCS at 3840x3840 per eye and this should also be possible for you. Try Pico 4 with VD at godlike and SSW always on, force DCS to OpenXR and in SteamVR set SS resolution manually (increase from the godlike preset). Let's see what happens Especially with the new 13XXX CPU series i also recommend Win11 for better CPU handling. Runs like a charm on my end.

Maybe an important info... Just tested OpenXR toolkit with VD streaming on Pico4. While it can help with gaining some more FPS on paper, it also degrades the image quality. This makes sense, because fixed foveated rendering changes how pixels are drawn for each frame drastically and means more workload for encoding and decoding. It shows a lot of compression artifacts, something i hadn't seen before by just using VD at GodLike with SSW enabled.

Yes, with the new version of OpenXR toolkit you can finetune the native OpenXR pipeline and see if it helps you getting a couple more FPS (at least fixed foveated rendering for all supported headsets).

Buying another highres VR HMD will not change your situation. I would consider upgrading your machine instead. A RTX3080, 3090, or 4080/4090 and maybe a new CPU too would open the path for running VD's high quality profiles were compression isn't a problem anymore. Your G2 would also benefit from this. Keep in mind that VR panels always need a higher render resolution than their panel resolution. Both, the G2's and the Pico 4's panels have 2160x2160 pixels per eye and you need to run the game at least at 3120x3120 per eye to meet their target image quality.

Sorry, Open Beta of course...

Since the latest update for DCS this thread might need a little refresh: DCS on native OpenXR runs excellent with Pico 4 over VD with SteamVR. (Currently with custom shortcut and command line parameter-> "--force_OpenXR")

@rosteven1Don't confuse OpenComposite with OpenXR. OpenXR as a VR API is natively built into SteamVR as well. And OpenXR is basically the new standard for every VR runtime. (It already was about time for DCS getting it implemented.)

Don't worry, putting the command line options outside the question marks is fine for making a custom shortcut. The way i wrote it is just the general command line (if you launch DCS from a .bat or simply from cmd.). However, in a couple months we all will never need to look back at this confusion. DCS on OpenXR all the time, plus Vulkan and Multithreading should be the standard way then.

@oldcrusty Please check your terms and context. There is already enough confusion and there is technically no way SteamVR can beat OpenXR. What you mean is OpenComposite or your post wouldn't make any sense. You also can't uninstall OpenXR. OpenXR is a component of SteamVR, it's also a component of OpenComposite in that sense. I can only assume that you actually meant that you were trying to run your G2 over OpenComposite and then compared it to running it with SteamVR. There is still some info missing here, were you running SteamVR with OpenVR or OpenXR? Since the latest hotfix for DCS Open Beta disabled autoswitching to OpenXR, i can only guess the right phrasing of your post should be: "SteamVR with OpenVR beats OpenComposite with OpenXR on my rig" ?? Is that what you wanted to say? For other users it would be more helpful to phrase your VR path correctly (Oculus VR not included): SteamVR -> OpenVR -> DCS (one of the standards before the OpenXR update for DCS) or SteamVR -> OpenXR -> DCS (hotfix after the OpenXR update for DCS, now available through command line parameter "DCS.exe --force_OpenXR") or OpenComposite (with or without the tool kit)-> OpenXR -> OpenVR ->DCS (standard before the OpenXR update for DCS) or OpenComposite (with or without the tool kit)-> OpenXR -> DCS DCS (hotfix after the OpenXR update for DCS, now available through command line parameter "DCS.exe --force_OpenXR") or this is new! Windows Mixed Reality (your G2's native VR runtime) WMR -> OpenXR -> DCS (hotfix after the OpenXR update for DCS, now available through command line parameter "DCS.exe --force_OpenXR") You see, there are these 5 possibilities, but nobody knows exactly what you are trying to say about your findings.

No crashes here with Pico4, VD and OpenXR over SteamVR. Can play for hours and it's running great. Native OpenXR is a great feature for DCS.

You can take full control over the desktop mirror. It's all in the options.lua in the savegame folder. Check the ["graphics"] section and set: ["fullScreen"] = false, ["box_mouse_cursor"] = true, ["height"] = XXX, (in case your desktop resolution is 800x600 set this to 512) ["width"] = XXX, (in case your desktop resolution is 800x600 set this to 512) ["aspect"] = 1, Height and width smaller than desktop resolution will prevent the mouse cursor going outside the game window and accidentally click the taskbar or something else. In my case, my desktop height is 1440 and i run the DCS mirror at 1200x1200. Then check the ["VR"] section and set: ["box_mouse_cursor"] = true, ["mirror_source"] = 1, ["mirror_use_DCS_resolution"] = true,

With VD, choose what's best for you. Using Oculus API or not. After the hotfix from today i simply launch the game with the command line options: --force_enable_VR --force_OpenXR I'm using SteamVR and performance ingame is really good on my end.

@Hunter Joker You could try your old config and it should work like before. I'm keeping the new OpenXR path, it runs really good on my end.

A new hot fix got released with setting everything back, but still leaves OpenXR available via command line start option: DCS.exe --force_enable_VR --force_OpenXR

I really get the frustration, but now is exactly the time we were waiting for all these years... I have no doubt you will come back. And i hope you will have a much better experience.