Call to VR PICO headset users

Hello

been posting on the forum since I got my QUEST2 few months ago.

I have loved VR since Day1 I got the headset but so is now my daughter who is reluctant to share the Q2 to her Dad now.

So the need for investing in a new one has grown in me, fast enough to make the call soon.

I could go the Q2 2nd hand route again as they are dirt cheap here in Japan but I feel adventurous enough to look for another brand and PICO has caught my Simracer attention

I see 2 possible headsets I could buy straight away, the Neo3 link and the Pico4

To summarize high level comparative Pros from what I have read or watched so far

Neo3 Link
PROS
Clarity through DP (no artefact due to video decoding via USB)
Reduced latency
Easier to drive due to lower resolution

Pico4
Lighter
Better resolution (but then more difficult to drive)
wider FOV
More comfortable( really??)
Full RGB passthrough
Better controllers (but who cares in Simracing!)

any real-life user experience of both headsets here that could help me to go into one or the other direction?

thanks a lot

 

I have both and the short answer is: they are pretty much equal.

Had the Pico 4 first. Played it wirelessly and was really surprised by how much better the visuals were than the Quest 2 that I had previously. You do need at least a 3080/4070 or equivalent to run it at Godlike in Visual Desktop though and even then you will struggle to get 90FPS. I'm fine with 45 personally, but many demand 90. Only you will know what works for you. But you will want Godlike if you want to get the most out of the headset.

I wanted to see whether the Pico 3 lived up to the stories of improved clarity, so picked one up secondhand. The improvement is noticeable. The numbers on your dashboard and edges of signs and fences are always a bit sparkly in the P4 due to the compression. That goes away almost entirely in the P3, plus you get the extra performance that goes with the lower resolution, as you have noted. The image is just better and I'm always at 90 FPS (I often drop to 45 on the P4). But it is a relatively subtle improvement. You notice it more in something like Elite Dangerous, where the text and details are significantly clearer.

The lenses in the P3 aren't as good though. You don't get that 'oh wow everything is clear' feeling that you get with the P4. It is clearer when you look at details, yes, but I find that I still battle a bit with blurriness due to small amounts of dirt on the lenses or not having the headset in the perfect position. I do more headset readjustment and lens cleaning in the P3 than the P4 as a result. That said, the P4 lenses do introduce a sort of glare in the middle of your vision, which can be annoying, particularly in night races.

With both headsets you will want to replace the face gaskets. You need to get closer to the lenses. I got a GeekVR one for the P4 and 3D printed one for the P3. After that, the FOV is so similar that it doesn't really make any difference. But whereas the GeekVR (or AMVR) straps give you a halo support, with the P3 I'm still relying on the scub-diving-mask system that it comes with. Plus the P3 is bulkier in front so feels heavier anyway. Personally I prefer the halo with no face cushion, because it takes the pressure off my face and doesn't get as hot. The P3 is perfectly comfortable, but the P4 is effortless to wear.

I love the reliability and simplicity of the P3's Display Port connection. I haven't tried the P4 with ethernet-USB adapter yet. I'm planning that for next week. With wireless, I occassionally get dumped out of races due to some unknown glitch in my router (a dedicated Wifi 6 Asus), which then drops me back into the Pico environment and I have to reach for my controller to get going again. Plus there are more services to start up (a few clicks to launch Visual Desktop) and you end up having to worry about thing like bit rate, latency and whether you are getting the best performance or where issues might be. The P3 is always ready to go.

I'm currently leaning towards the P3 as better for sim racing (and other sims, like Elite and Flight Simulator). Reliability, performance and clarity are important to us! But it's a small enough difference that I don't think you need to worry too much about which you choose. In fact, I've had to put the P4 down for a week because I think then when I go back to it the differences will be more obvious. Swapping between them, there really isn't much in it. For non sim games, the P4 is my preference because of the comfort and lenses.

Best answer: find them secondhand and buy both for the price of a single new one!

Good luck with your decision. Let us know how it goes.

 

thanks a lot for the very exhaustive sharing of your user experience.
I managed to find a Neo3 link 2nd hand for something equivalent to $180 bucks with almost all accessories and the retailer box.
I am asking a question about the lenses condition but I might take the plunge indeed.
thanks again.

PS I could catch my Q2 off my daughter hands tonight but to find out that Meta broke the opencomposite trick with the latest App update so I am forced to run RF2 through STEAMVR, what a significant loss in performance it brings it unbelievable

 

@justposted
voila, I will blame you because I have just ordered the Neo3 hopefully will arrive before the weekend starts for some testing indeed

PS if Black Friday on Amazon Japan gives us some good deal on the PICO4 new, I might take the plunge for the sake of doing some scientific comparison with the NEO3

 

So bought 2nd hand NEO3 LINK for equivalent of $150

it arrived yesterday and its in mint conditions with all accessories.

I had company event last night so did only a quick set-up and tried to run AMS2 but it did crash instantly. will do some troubleshooting this weekend because RF2(yeahhhh!!!!) and ACC worked perfectly fine.

and oh Boy for those who were wondering, the DP is a bless already out of the box without any kind of tuning in Pico app or STEAMVR.

I need to learn a way to bypass the STEAMVR overlay though because perf were ok but not on par with PCVR on my Q2(granted with help of opencomposite and vrperfit all that)

the FOV is not too bad and the IPD as well as sweet spot is good to my eyes.

the only thing is that the faceplate is not comfortable but I was prepared for that reading reviews and forums comments

anyway more testing to come and report here once I tuned a bit the performance in RF2

 

Hurrah! I'm glad you are pleased with it. If you print a face gasket you can use Pico 4 pads/cushions, which are probably more widely available than Pico 3.

Get yourself on the Pico discord here: https://discord.gg/dcuZkVCB then look under General / General Chat / Awesome tips and mods (look for posts by GmoLargey if you can't see it, or try this: https://discord.com/channels/978568111693385738/981233528400404541/990615016023654420). In there you will find useful settings, obviously, including the 1.3x scale profile which is what I run. Looks the same as default to me, but with better performance.

GmoLargey is super helpful on Discord and is the guy who did this Quest 2, Pico 3, Pico 4 comparison, which is worth a watch if you haven't seen it:

I don't think you can bypass the SteamVR overlay. The headset relies on SteamVR. But you can disable Steam Home and run OpenXR Toolkit and/or vrperfit, I believe.

 

I need to check it again, but I think you are bypassing Steams super sampling and resolution override stuff, which usually consumes a lot of performance.

I was just looking for "1.3x scale profile" - but it is hard to find it on the Pico discord - would you be so kind to sum up the options to be set?

 

I have attached the file here. In the set that gmolargey provides (you can ask him in Discord) he also includes 2.0 and higher sets. But they give barely noticeable improvements for less performance, so I don't use them.

 

@justposted
thanks, quite overwhelming support
I confess, maybe that's me being a middle age man but I find Discord messy to find clear easy to reach guides.
I prefer Reddit or of course dedicated Forums for that purpose.

I just posted on reddit to get advice on comfort, Game Launch options and Settings to get the best performances.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PicoXR/comments/17vivbc/new_owner_of_pico_neo3_link_some_help_needed/

Right now I am OKish with my Purchase but these 3 issues needs improvement if I want to keep the headset.I might also take advantage of Black Friday and Amazon 30day return policy to buy a PICO4 for proper back to back comparison

 

Thanks a lot

 

IMHO Discord is more dedicated to chat but not as a documentation system or however you may call portals and forums are like - I could say that 's me because of a little bit more than a middle age guy ;-)

I had the Pico Neo 3 for testing purposes - I think last year. I was a bit disappointed - and I think I have asked a couple of questions concerning the issues here - because first of all I found the connection (link cable) pretty unstable and somewhat tricky; the graphic or visual improvement was not as expected (and I was using an Oculus Rift S).

This year I decided to give the Pico 4 a go and it is different, a lot to me. First of all setting up connection is pretty easy and it is stable, head tracking by the inside/out cams is very good (and I think the Rift S has a also a very good inside/out tracking), graphics are nice and fly screens are noticeable, but barely.

The cons: both headsets are not that comfortable to wear like the Rift S (but I think that is a personal impression) and the Pico 4 still lets through a little light while using (various 3d printing models are around to improve this and FOV, too), but it is not that much and could be turned off by e.g. sticking some cloth around the face palm.

Ok, Pico 4 is a little performance demanding, but using a 3060ti and later on a 3080 I was able to get 90 Hz stable with acceptable settings (no difference to using triple screen, so pretty high).

Some people complain about the battery life during play, but I am using one of them "charge while streaming" cables and it is working as expected (the battery is drowning sometimes, but not that fast - overall the battery is not charging and not discharging while driving rF2).

In comparison to the Pimax 8kx I am using at the moment it is light weight but feels a bit like swimming goggles - but I would say that's a normal impression and the 8kx is heavy, but it is ok to wear it for a longer period of time.

One thing I noticed positively: I had no problems adjusting IPD (on the Pimax this is a mess) and also the in-ear speakers of the Pico 4 are just fine.

I would buy it again and would prefer it over the Neo Link 3.

 

cool, thanks for the detailed feedback I assume you are still running the PICO4 in parallel to the 8kx right?
PICO4 is still on my list so I might give it a try during Black Friday and make a call.

My Q2 is so comfy with the Halo strap I am using right now that this will be a deal breaker in the End if both PICO headsets are so far from what I am experiencing today with my Q2

 

You are welcome.

As I am looking for detailed information on hardware and so on, too, I tend toi write / give information that way ;-)

If it comes to comfort I would say the Pico 3 and 4 are in the lower third of all headsets, but I only know the Pimax ones, Rift S and the Pico 3 and 4.

To me the Rift S was very comfortable to wear, but that does not mean I have problems wearing one of the others - the Pico 4 is lacking certain amount of foam or soft foam to be really nice.

Also I like Pico Streaming Assistant a bit more than Pimax Client, but that's just an app ... on the other side: with the Pico 4 you have to start streaming assistant app in "Pico Home" (or whatever it is called) before you can use it with SteamVR.

 

Sorry - did not read carefully enough.

Yes, I am using them in parallel - while the Pico is connected to an USB3.x port and the Pimax uses a display port I do not need to unplug and plug the headsets / connectors.

There is no special reason for using one or the other from time to time. A combination of both would be fine, let's say a headset with the resolution of the 8kx, being as light as the Pico 4 with the sound of the Pimax and inside/out tracking of the Pico

 

Bought a P4 at Amazon early Black Friday this morning
$270 equivalent in my local currency so can not complain lol)

Will compare to the neo3 and my q2
If it’s not good it’s going back thanks to 30day return policy


I have not spent any time in last week or so on the 2 biggest issues I have with the neo3 being the comfort and fps performance

And sorry Discord is kind of messy to me so I need to find the headspace to look there

 

I have posted some screenshots of my graphics settings over here: #14 I have added two presets for running Pico 4 at 90 Hz at lower and normal / higher settings. I need to post my player.json adjustments, but as far as I remember I have lowered garage detail and details in rear mirror, distance being rendered in rear mirror and done the override texture thing for player and opponent detail.

 

p.s: I have done testing on Nürburgring GP ... wrote some sentences about it in the other thread ... but at normal / default start times, so no raising or going down sun or rain - some people say, that switching screens to headset vertical sync frequency does help a lot and I have read in a couple of posts that using openXR with Nvidia 40xx cards makes performance worse, e.g. #94 - don't know ... they are way too expensive these days

 

Super!

let me swallow all that as part of my back to back comparison

Too many things to do these days so please don’t push me for commitment lol

 

Take your time.

Benchmarking is time consuming - to me because I am checking option by option doing another run. As already stated I am using AI to drive the car ingame and I am not using replay as it is much less performance demanding.

And I do need to do some tests with raising and going down sun and also rain. Need to find some time and patience for it.

So - I am not expecting any report too soon ;-)

Just to mention: I am using AI for driving "my" car ingame as well as I add 10 to 15 AI drivers setting up a short race. If you are a lazy one just search for community server simracingjustfair.org and join instance [KM] - you will find 5 AI by default (you could another 5 by session vote) and AI toggle is also allowed (AI are set to 90%); the race session is about 10 minutes (a mandatory warmup takes place first).

 

I graduated as an Engineer 26yrs ago now so yes I am picky at improving performance since Day1 I started my career in the Automotive industry so this PICO4 will go through an intense DOE (design of experiment for the engineers out there)

One thing I might struggle with is the STEAMVR settings part because with the Q2,I straight away used Opencomposite to use OpenXR runtime and bypass the STEAMVR overhead so all things like resolutions, sampling and what have you have been done within the Meta app(all cranked up to the Max) and ODT as well as some file editing

I guess I am starting on my PICO learning curve so yes, please stay with me if I ask silly questions