Thinder

Hi Kya! I've had some experience of flying in my time with some terrific instructors, one thing I know for sure, if you want to be good at it, you'll gain a lot by taking an exam for a starter grand and fly gliders first. It will give you an expended sense of air and make a more natural and instinctive pilot when you get into powered aircraft. Flight simulation if fun but it doesn't give you any of that, air is a natural element, it is alive and interact with us in a permanent way, not in simulations, since gliders are taking full advantage of the element they are in my opinion, the best way to start. Have fun and fly safe.

Capacity and latency. As opposed to the "specialist" I've been testing Ryzens with Cl16 and Cl14 back to back, it works even better with 5800X 3D cache, and I got results to show for my money. Test at 4K MSAA X 2 with only 32GB of Cl14, 5600X (Cl 14 3200MHz) vs 5800X 3D 32GB of Cl 14 3600 MHz same GPU (1080Ti), both GPU and CPU were boosted in the case of the 5600X, if 18.91% gain in graphics Score doesn't hit a nerves with you, you can keep buying Cl16 and overclocking your rigs for lower results. And something else, with a 4 X 1 kit like the G.skill you got 4 banks which is also the CPU controller's maximum, and the advantage is interleaving, which means the CPU can manage data a lot more efficiently, the 2 X 1 kit he propose isn't anywhere near what the Ryzens 3/3D needs to be optimized.

Yeah, right. You're the specialist of the B.die here. For a start the reason why I optimized my system is precisely for NOT overclocking it, not my RAM, nor my CPU nor my GPU and the gain is well above any gain I would have experienced by overclocking anything. Second, comparing a Cl16 kit to a B.die Cl14 just shows how little you comprehend the whole thing, I'd like to see you playing at 4K with this kit for a laugh... In your fantasy world a 3600MHz kit will be for overclocking a Ryzen 3/3D, when in reality those CPUs controller doesn't take higher frequencies, I strongly suggest you study the subject in much deeper depth before posting this kind of misinformation...

It's not the speed of the Cl14 which makes the difference but the latency. The only Cl14 chips are made of B.die which is a much more stable material and allow for a much wider range of timings, it was designed first for O.C and used by both Intel and AMD players alike when their CPUs couldn't run at 3200MHz yet, the timings allowed them to do that. The CPU controllers are limited in terms of frequency and number of ranks, if one CPU is used out of those limits it hits a bottleneck under load, and throttle down and this would happen with the 5800X 3D with a Cl16 kit as well, the cache didn't change the controller limits or remove the RAM/CPU bottleneck, it just allows for a much more efficient management of the data. The Cl16 RAM kits doesn't remove this bottleneck, it doesn't have the right timings, the Cl14 does and under load, be it at 4K, the CPU controller can keep all channels open and bandwidth isn't lowered. Lower latency is precisely what the Ryzen 3 and 3D were designed for, the difference between the two is that the 3D makes a much better use of Cl14 RAM kits thanks to its cache, and I tested both a 5600X and my actual 5800X 3D back to back with only one difference: The 5600X was boosted with Ryzen Master and was running on 3200Mhz Cl14 while my 5800X 3D was not boosted and ran on a 3600 Mhz kit, the 5600X also clocks faster at 3.7GHz/4.6GHz vs 3.4GHz/4.5GHz for the 5800X 3D. Here is the result of a test with 3DMark Pro at 4K MSAA X 2, it is obvious that the GPU (same 1080Ti for both except boosted with Afterburner for the 5600X) gain a huge amount of speed, 18.91%, the CPU also ran faster at 14.34%, that's what you'll lose at 4K with a Cl16 kit. The controller of both those CPUs wouldn't take 3600Mhz with a Cl16 kit, when I tried to O.C my Cl16 Crucial to 3600MHz, I instantaneously lost just above 1% running the exact same test, I never use another test or (Fire strike) or settings (4K MSAA X 2), simply because I don't play at lower resolutions. Well, I'm not, the gain in CPU speed under load already make sure I don't even have a bottleneck with my RX 7900 XTX, in fact, I even gain a bit and the GPU itself does too, so giving credit for an increase in performances in gaming to the cache of the 5800X 3D alone is plain wrong, in fact, there are games where there is no gain at all or where it even loses to a 7 5800X. In passing, the 7 5800X3D is 3.8% faster in multithreading than the 7 5800X, so I don't anticipate much trouble with my rig's performances, this is what optimization does for a PC.

I wouldn't advise the Pico4 with your system specs, especially after DCS last update, first it is heavier than your actual headset when it comes to what is demands from your PC, then now we experience a loss of performances when not crashes and other issues like it, people are working hard to try to sort them out but it's far from being ideal, we need a DCS update that works. I guess a second hand Reverb G2 would do you just fine until the Pico support is sorted, and in my opinion it will take some time.

The 1080Ti is a great card, it is limited by today's standards but was no doubt the best of its time, I used mine for two years and with some RAM/CPU optimization with my 5600X I was able to run DCS in VR at higher resolutions and still experience a smooth game. It's not all in the GPU performance, there is a RAM/CPU bottleneck and under load it forces the CPU controller to throttle down, this limits all channels including GPU, at the end of the day, I gain more bounding my 5600X to a Cl14 B.die kit than any O.C I could have thrown at my 1080Ti. I sold it to CEX for £150, after two years of service, it have been boosted with Afterburner but never O.Ced, I didn't need it since I had the performance I needed thanks to the RAM.

This leaves us with the little matter of the price...

it's good that people voice their concern over this update because from my PoV it was rushed out and does affect some of us negatively, everyone can see what my system could do in VR and I guaranty you that despite what those who don't know the Pico4 headset can say about it, the image quality was really good. I'm not saying some of the update wasn't needed for some other players far from it but blaming the issue on completely wrongly assumed defects of my headset is not helping anyone, certainly not the developers who needs to know exactly what is going on in order to correct it. So I'll reiterate, I was able to run DCS in VR with nearly all DCS settings maxed-out, I have NO flickering, NO fogging, NO crashes and the quality of the image was improving, the only DCS setting I dialed down once a bit was Pixel density and it was getting better and better. It is not down to Pico to correct something that was done by DCS developers and their headset is not at fault, true, the app support is not great but it worked perfectly and I see no reason to bow down to the opinions of those who apparently chose to ignore the issue and point fingers anywhere else but the roots. There are 4 videos dedicated to setting up my rig, with 3 different aircrafts (Mirage F1, Mirage 2000 and F-15), on 3 different maps, I had no trouble running those missions at all, and today, when I experience all the defects that prevent me to play it or even use my mouse, the replays shows nothing of the sort, so clearly it is not coming from my rig. Good thing I optimized my system first, now there is no excuse for blaming it or my headset.

I'm not using my Pico Wirelessy for a starter, but USB 3.2 which is way faster and immune from issues known for Wi-Fi, that's one of the assumption made by people who doesn't know the Pico4, between this and the quality of its optics it's not helping to deflect the problem this last update have caused. I'm looking into it, but again, little done for AMD users and Pico users are just left stranded, I'll lose the F1 EE in the process, didn't I pay for this module? This is getting on my nerves already. I've been supporting DCS through the purchase of modules even when I was skinned, built a 2 grand + PC for it and I don't think all of this knee jerking about a DCS update is helping developers or users, they have an issue why does anyone just keep pointing fingers everywhere else but at it?... I wrote a ticket to support to ask them what's the best way to roll back to the previous version meanwhile I'm trying diverse solutions/settings to recover what this update have lost me, and again it's NOT my gear not my headset, they worked great before and according to the replays, they still do. Lenses, standalone, wireless and what more, you guys get it all wrong. Right. So DCS relase an update that messes up a headset setting and it's the headset manufacturer which has to fix it? I tell you what, you guys need to get a tranquilizer shot and booster because you're really out of your depth right now, I'm down with your B.S.

Good suggestion, I might well try this one... I was pretty simple to use before the update. Well, unless you suggest I'm lying about the videos I posted, all those assumptions about Pico4 not working in DCS are wrong, and I had a G2 before, it packed up, with the money of the refund I bought my first set of Cl14 RAM, a rather good trade if you ask me, and btw, HP killed the G2, it's over. Again, it's not the headset, it's the apps, deny it at your perils because if no one is looking at the issues and stays in this state of denial, we're all gonna be in trouble sooner than later. And I'm not blaming players for asking for support, what I'm saying is once again it comes incomplete, we have support for NVidia but no news of what can be done for AMD, so we'll wait, same for the Headset support, I wouldn't mind that, except that this update messes up my settings big time.

For the time being, I'm unable to get rid of this System-to-VR headset bottleneck, and this update wasn't supposed to provide us with this result but an improvement. I have figured out, (thanks to replays), that the issue comes from what data is sent to the headset, certainly not the system performances, it's all down to apps making a mess of it all, the system performs flawlessly especially after I solved the PCI-E1 issue, it is now faster and works smoother, it was the case before and is still the case today now that it is fine tuned. = System: PASS. In the last video I posted, the clarity of the Pico was very good, for those who forgot or doesn't know, it has a resolution of 2.160 X 2.160 per eyes and a refresh rate of 90Hz, you might have noticed that I conduct my tests at three levels and I need to see where I'm going, I was then able to see the electric lines and the level of details was very good. This was even before I thought of tuning DCS settings to make it even more stable, image quality still could have improved, and I was paying a particular attention on the details on the side of the PoV, no frame loss, flickering or anything else, just a clear image. = Pico: PASS. I'm not expecting much from the new game engine, it is not my primary concern, it can become one if it causes performances to go down like is the case for VR apps. My RAM/CPU bounding are optimized and I have ordered a RAM upgrade (same Cl14 B.die but 64GB instead of 32GB) and this should help dealing with whatever Developers throw at us in terms of multithreading, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is 3.8% faster in multithreading than the 7 5800X. So it's not gonna be much of an issue unless we have a major Cluster-U-know-what coming with it, which is, from my PoV what happened with the VR update. All the goodies in the pipeline are no consolation to me after loosing what I was able to get from my rig, this is what have to be sorted and integration of support for more headset is certainly needed but more to the point, performances have to be there. I don't know if Open XR support was necessary, perhaps for other users, but I would advise developers to give us the option to turn it OFF completely for the next update, it's not my job to figure out how to do it and right now, I just can't use my gear in VR.

So, further tests to report: With the line: --force_enable_VR --force_OpenXR, Open XR runtime and toolkit, I experience the same flickering in a cold start (Mirage F1 EE) than without the line, Open XR runtime and toolkit. just moving my head causes flicker. It is impossible to get a stable game without lowering DCS settings to <> a third to an half of what I was capable of running it with some time ago. I'm still trying to figure out which one of those apps is creating this bottleneck but it is there and when you think that I spent 2 grands in this system to play DCS in VR at 4K, you have an idea of how I appreciate this little exercise, one thing for sure, Pico won't start without Steam VR and the game without Virtual Desktop, I have contacted Pico to let them know this was potentially a cause for errors and issues. My rig, including the Pico worked well before and haven't changed, the image in both VR and replays allowed me to optimize my system settings AND DCS, now it's not only touch and go it is also a lot lower in terms of performances and quality and it's not coming from my side... Previously when I was trying to figure a way to get my VR to work I had a "it's not us ask the other guys" kind of reply from Steam, and until I decided to switch to Steam VR Beta the problem wasn't solved, I just hope that we don't embark in the same routine and that this situation improve, we need to accept that this solution is not perfect. From my PoV, the whole procedure is way too complex, adding to risks of error and reducing the potential of player's rigs.... Time to edit it, this is the third rig setting VR replay and the last with good settings (28.01). Check out the image quality...

I don't need to read it anywhere, I figured the settings for myself without those "options" and tweaking, from my PoV it's a step backward, not progress. I had high DCS settings, good VR visuals, NO crashes, NO flickering, NO fogging and used VR to optimize my system, as I mentioned, with DCS settings all maxed out to explore my PC potential. Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XTX Nitro+ Vapor-X 24GB GDDR6 first run. Here you go. That's how I ran DCS before and your options just doesn't allow me to reproduce those settings and get DCS to work, if I try, the game won't even start. So I am reporting the issue from my first post in this topic, don't blame my headset, its lenses or anything else, it worked before and it should still work today, and if there weren't issues with those new things people wouldn't report them and being in need of lengthy explanation. Just in passing, I got the best result since I started testing my rig after deleting half of the line "--force_enable_VR"...

Seriously? So you are telling me that since the DCS update, there have been no loss right? Wrong. I started testing VR settings before the update and now can't even get close to those settings in DCS, denying that there is an issue is not going to make things moving forward, my system have been optimized, I got the results I wanted, not I can't have them back. This one takes the Guiness record year 2023, so according to you, not being able to reproduce the settings I used before is just a fruit of my imagination and bad lenses, just that you know I played DCS with every single settings maxed out to test my system potential, I did it time and time again, recorded videos and uploaded them. I know exactly what is going on and your explanation doesn't make any sense, not saying DCS is responsible but the key date is the update, the issue is the number of apps we need to have running to get results we could have before with twice less of them, now I just CAT fly low level with those settings because I can't see where I'm going, as simple as that. >>> You call that the equivalent of clicking on a launch icon? I call that unfinished, yet another app, like you guys seems to love to multiply them, sorry, and we shouldn't have to fiddle with lines in folders. I can't help it if you can't see the difference but I certainly can, after multiple blue screens, O.S recoveries, reinstall, crashes and yet still not able to come anywhere close to the settings I played with before. Not taking it, mate.

So what is actually done for AMD users? I won't mention Pico's, but here is the score, my system is way better than what I can see in my headset without flickering or crashes and it's coming from the number of apps and tweacking we have to do to get the VR going in this game, it's way too complexe, and as a result we're wasting a lot of our PC real potentials. Now, if my replays are right, the amount of details, image quality and stability of the refresh is way higher than what I see in my headset, there is a huge bottleneck somewhere between Streaming Assistant, Steam VR Beta, Virtual Desktop, and Open XR, that's 4 apps and probably two too many, not to mention that AMD's Adrenalin can also launch and monitor the game. All we need is a single button with two options: Launch game. VR or 2D, the rest are performances anchors.

There are stuff you really can't go around and buy average quality, the PSU is one of them.

I do have a huge amount of flickering, it's unplayable, the game start with the cockpit view from inside the seat, the mouse cursor is barely usable to a point where I have to use the desktop manager to stop the game. So, we need half a dozen apps to play this game in VR when it should be simple: Go to desktop Icon, click launch, click option start in VR get Pico Streaming Assistant without Steam or another app making a mess of it and yeah, I forgot, there is yet another potential source of interference: AMD Software Adrenalin has its own Gaming options with Launch. So unless the whole process is simplified with less risks of errors due to different apps trying to take over, people will experience issues, I already notified Pico of it... Crashes, low performances and image quality with a £2000+ system, I'm not too happy of this situation, just a reminded; VR headset developers are well aware of it, they know that big corporations such as Microsoft and Steam are trying to dominate and that's one of the reason we're in this shr!te, Pico have relied on other devs for their headset and it's a mistake.

Bounding a Ryzen 7 5800 X 3D with DDR4 3600 32GB, unless it's a Corsair or GSkill B.die Cl14 make sure you have a bottleneck of hell, there is a lot to gain with this CPU by giving it the right RAM kit, especially in VR and 4K. Your 5800 X 3D controller is limited to 3200Nhz, 4 ranks, if you're using a 3600Mhz and/or more than 4 ranks, you're well over the limit of what it can manage and it throttles down as early as you hit a load bump, that's why I never use anything lower than 4K for my tests, it's where the real stuff starts to show. Here is the difference between the 5600X + 32GB Cl14 3200Mhz and the 5800 X 3D with32GB Cl14 3600 MHz, the RAM extra 400MHz makes little difference, especially because the 5600X runs faster than the 5800 X 3D and can be boosted, the difference is in the 5800 X 3D cache, it was designed for taking advantage of low latency, all AMD Ryzen 3D are... Recovering of the bottleneck at 4K (gain) keep all your channels open, that's + 18.91% in GPU performances, and 14.09% in CPU performances over a non-3D CPU, if your RAM is Cl16 or else, no B.die, it means you're overclocking your GPU for nothing, but the fact that you're able to run it at 3600 MHz suggest it might be a B.die kit so the problem can be elsewhere. Personally, I'm much more for optimization than Over-Clocking, getting rid of bottlenecks often do a lot more for your PC than O.C, and you keep the manufacturer warranty, with AMD GPUs there is SmartAccess Memory, the performance gain is far from being negligible, there should be something equivalent for your GPU, check BIOS settings. If your RAM kit is no B.die you created a bottleneck for your all system, fitting "faster RAM" to an AMD CPU is a myth, (must be so for Intel too, controllers works the same way with similar limits), the day I tried to O.C my Crucial "Gaming" 3200MHz kit, I instanly lost over 1% performance at 4K, it just doesn't work that way, you need the right timings.

We have very similar Performance/Tuning settings, the performance hit I experience is mainly in the Pico's view, because the replays doesn't reflect this at all, no fogging, cycling of image clarity and much higher details levels... I also used Anti-Lag and Image sharpening and plays with the Pixel Density in DCS, which seems to affect the FPS the most of all settings. >>> As I expected, the FPS recorded for Steam is mediocre, while the GPU is refreshing properly, there is a clear bottleneck there with this App, it seems to be limiting the quality and smoothness of what I get in the Pico, I'm gonna try to set up Afterburner overlay in game so I can check the FPS...

We can try, it would be interesting to know if AMD drivers can be at the root of the issues or contribute to them, or not, but from my experience, my system has way more potential than I can use right now, I saw what it could do even so it lasted only one day before DCS update, btw I have figured Steam VR is more stable when selected as default. No. DCS is my only game at the moment, before I start installing more than the strict minimum I need to sort out system, O.S and apps. A couple of days ago I still had my GPU running on CPI_E2 in degraded mode because the CPI_E1 slot wouldn't recognize the card, BIOS settings sorted this one out but I needed the help of MSI support. Write your detailed specs in your signature, this way it is easier for people to figure a possible solution to your problems.

Not working equally well for Intel and Zen4 which cannot take full advantage of their Cache, all Ryzen architectures are designed for lower latency, higher frequency is all very well but if they are pushing it so high, the reason is not performance, it is because their chips cannot be stable at lower Cl, as simple as that, no matter what they come up with as selling arguments. Why do you think AMD actually increases the size of their Zen4 cache when a Cl14 kit allows for an improvement of 18.91% in graphics and 14.09% in CPU performance at 4K over the 5600X with the Zen3 3D, you really think they didn't test them, don't know about it and just follow a gut instinct with a conceptual design which they are not sure how it works? They completely departed from the previous AMD way of providing players with something they can handle easily like the 5600X, is cheap, performant and added tons of features and increased frequencies to compete with Intel, only because they know damned well they can't rely on the RAM manufacturers to keep up right now... So RAM manufacturers can try to sell me 6000 Mhz all they want, I still will wait until they stop taking people for guinea pig with budgets that serve only their R&D momentum and come up with a die as good at those speed as B.die Cl14 is at 3600Mhz, that would be Cl 24 maximum, Cl28 for a 7200 Mhz and we're years away from this happening. Feel free to contribute to their commercial race with your dosh, they won't have mine right now.

I was a firm advocate of "not needing more than 32GB", but to be honest I have been running out of RAM for some apps like video editing and I never really asked myself what all the extra apps needed to run a headset were using as RAM, so since I had (yet another) back payment, I decided to upgrade. IN: Ordered G.SKILL TridentZ RGB Series 64GB (4 x 16GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR4 3600 (PC4 28800) Desktop Memory Model F4-3600C14Q-64GTZRA. -£572.39 OUT: EVGA GeForce® GTX 1080 Ti sold to CEX. +£150. I can expect <> the same amount from my actual RAM kit resell to CEX when I'll have received the new one. Estimated cost: £272 for 64GB of Cl14 RAM. Also I still have to get rid of two PSU (Corsair RM750 and RM850) I will sell through EBay, I should be able to get yet another £150 for them. Trading your old gear after upgrade when in good condition can reduce the cost considerably and make some skinned players happy.

I was unable to reproduce those settings and performance since the DCS update, so all I got left for my trouble are those videos and one even better of the best run I had with this rig. There seems to be also a driver issue with AMD, possible loss of performances after a while, don't really know where it comes from but basically, I recovered the PCI_E1 slot with some help from MSI tech support and ran a test with it, since I lost in frame rate and 3DMark score using the very same settings, no clue why. My guess would be file corruption and/or virtual memory starting to be cluttered after Windows have been running for a while (5.5GB right now), I'll check my O.S settings to make sure it cleans temps in a regular basis and short intervals. The thing is, I know the real potential of this PC but can't get the performances in both testing and DCS more than once, mainly after a change of gear setting like the PCI slots or a fresh O.S install. I got no reply from Sapphire, AMD or Pico on the subject. On a positive note, it's still early day for those 7900 and I know AMD aren't staying idle with drivers development, in theory, if they don't fo@ck this up, it only can get better. To reply to your question more specifically, I have no idea what reproduction is, I start with Open XR tool, then Pico's Streaming Assistant, at which point Steam VR kicks-in, then I open Virtual Desktop. That's a lot of peripheral apps for a headset...