I’m in the middle of my 4-weeks Amazon refund period for evaluating the Pico 4 and I still have mixed feelings. Please remember I’m comparing it against a Reverb G2, and my system is a 13900kf/4090/32 GB @ 6400.
Pros:
Once you set it up properly, there’s no way you can go back. FOV is (a little) wider, clarity is much higher over the whole view, comfort (as long as it stays wireless) is great.
Maybe it’s just on my system, but with the Pico 4 I’m almost micro-stutters free and everything seems to move in a more “realistic” way (this could be related to the wider clarity of the view). The G2 has much more stuttering, particularly in the lateral views.
Recording (for those interested - I am) is so much easier and better! (Using OBS).
Cons:
The battery doesn’t last more that 1h45mins with all cranked up. After that, I have to connect a Powerbank (not a big issue).
I’m connected over a 5 GHz WiFi (also if the router has WiFi6 enabled… can’t understand this) - most of the time the connection is OK, but sometimes it drops a few frames. It’s extremely rare (maybe 1-2 times in a 2h flight), but of course it will happen in the worst possible moment.
Sometimes (just one time so far, but in the middle of a long flight) the connection is 100% gone - and when it comes back, you don’t have the plane engines audio anymore (just that - all the other sounds are there).
For what concerns visuals, in the more distant views the clarity is not on par with the G2 (speaking of looking at cities near the horizon). Furthermore, it seems the most distant mountains “flicker” a little. Here I’m still tinkering the options anyway.
Next steps:
a. I will try to connect the Pico 4 using Virtual Desktop AND a cable. This should be possible.
b. I just optimized the home wifi (only the Pico 4 has 5 GHz access now), hoping this will help.
I really want this to work, because the flying experience is really better with the Pico 4 (let me repeat “on my system”).
Should anyone wanna share any comments/tips, please do.
I’ll follow your experiments with great interest
I have bought a Pico 4 just a few days ago and tried it both with the Pico Streamer and Virtual Desktop.
My understanding so far is that Pico Streamer support both the wireless (Wifi) or wired (USB cable) streaming, but Virtual Desktop only supports the wireless connection. Since I use this Pico 4 mainly for simulators, the presence of the cable does not disturb me at all, so the battery life is not a problem in my case.
Also I have found that Virtual Desktop seems to provide greater performance than the Pico Streamer. But my limited hardware (GTX 1070ti) does not allow me to push the tests very far…
Yes I saw the pages mentioning how to enable the “USB tethering”, which basically transforms your USB cable into a fake Wifi/network connection.
I suppose that once that connection is established, the virtual desktop streaming assistant (not the Pico one) should also be able to connect, right ?
I have a G2 and a Quest 2. On the RTX 3080, the G2 had a definite advantage because the compression for the Quest 2 ate a significant part of the card’s power, and in addition, every switch between the monitor and VR ended in frustration - this is the result of the low amount of VRAM. I bought a 4090 and everything improved in terms of Quest 2. However, I only fly on G2 because the image quality beats Quest 2 - and I spent weeks looking for the best settings …
Am using usb c to Ethernet connection with virtual desktop and is working fine. Still need to do some tweaks but today sold my G2 v1 and keeping the PICO.
I have a Pico 4, rtx 3080 and ryzen 5900x. Before that I had Quest 2 and the pico is undoubtedly better. But preferably use Virtual Desktop and ASW(SSW) at 72hz. Then you will get a clear picture and a smooth flying experience.
Personally, I have never had a problem with 72hz. In my opinion there is not much difference with 90. But when I tried 60hz on the Reverb G2 it was really bad, too much flicker.
For me, I find the Pico 4 with it’s standard faceplate to be unbearably painful to wear for long, while the G2 is far more comfortable.
This is I think a result of compression and annoys me greatly, it’s such a pity that Pico did not include a Display Port connection. The very fine details of buildings, photogrammetry ones especially, is just noticeable sharper in the G2 using a 4090 and oversampling.
Right now although I like the pancake lenses of the Pico 4 and the much wider sweet spot, I can’t give up the clarity of the G2 at the higher resolutions you get with a 4090.
At the end of the day, neither headset really cuts the mustard for me and so I’m saving for a Pimax Crystal or, if that proves disappointing in reliable reviews, maybe a Varjo Aero.
I finally gave a try to the “USB tethering” method to get my Pico4 connected to Virtual desktop by wire (Wifi disabled in the headset). Very positive results so far, but I could make only one flight for the moment. I was a bit scared by the seemingly complex procedure to follow, but in reality it was much easier and faster to setup than I expected. In fact I regret I didn’t try it sooner
In the end I’m getting slightly smoother and much more crisp picture. I still have some adjustment to do to the resolution in SteamVR, because it’s still a bit optimistic for my poor old GTX1070ti, but so far the results are very promising. I could do a very enjoyable flight from Concrete to Darrington in the JPL C152 at sunset with real weather, and I was very pleased with the quality I was getting in the headset.
That being said, I could also notice a halo effect on the lenses when approaching the lights of Darrington at night. But I can accept a few downsides to such a great headset. Now if we could just get the hand-recognition system to work in the sim, that would be spectacular
I followed the “old” technique so I had to download a small package which is linked in the description of the video, in order to get the ADB utility (it doesn’t install, it’s just a zip file to unpack anywhere). I also had to create two .BAT files containing the command lines mentioned in the description of the video, so just some copy-paste.
However, that description now contains an update about a new technique with APK files to be put in the headset ? I preferred to go with the old technique instead, because it had been mentioned in other videos as well, so it felt a bit safer, kind of.
Keep us informed about your results
And also, don’t do the same mistake I did: at first I had not watched the video until the end… where he actually explains about why it might not work
It’s all about forcing the virtual Desktop streamer app to restart on the PC, nothing complex, but I had to rewatch the video more seriously and until the end to understand…
