WipeUout

I have also an 8k+ and absolutely love it. I upgraded from a 5k Super and it was a big improvement. What I like about the 8k+ is the refresh rate of 72hz which is much more easier to achieve FPS above it than 90hz. I do not need to use re-projection (pimax compulsive smooth) and get butter smooth experience. The other great feature is the upscaling which takes much less GPU and CPU power to get the images as the HMD uses a 2.5k signal and bring it to 4k. You will not get as much as clarity as with the reverb G2 but the wide field of view makes a big difference, I would never go back to tunnel vision.

Have you tried different FOV, I use only normal FOV and never had this issue. Also make sure parallel projection is off. You may also try the 3Dmigoto mod (https://forum.dcs.world/topic/207154-3dmigoto-vr-mod-for-dcs-label-masking-color-enhancement-sharpen-fxaa-copypaste-of-radio-msg/) that give you the ability to play with some settings specific to NVGs.

Taxes in the U.S. are different depending in which state you live. They add taxes at checkout after you confirm you address.

If you only play DCS, or racing games such as Assetto corsa or F1 2022, then yes only the HMD is required. I would suggest to get at least one base station to get the 6 degrees of freedom tracking (lighthouse). It is sometime very useful to be able to move your head in the cockpit in the XYZ planes. Without the base station, your head will be fixed in space and you will only be able to swivel (yaw, pitch, rotate) around XYZ axis. But soon, you will want to experiment and explore more VR game and 3D shooters are a blast also. I bought two cheap refurbished HTC controllers on amazon and they work great.

Core clock speed is not core performance. To compare single core performance it is better to use benchmark such as Cinebench. Not regardless, core performance is not equal for all CPUs.

I would have a different opinion on this since I made the move from a 9900k to an 12700kf. CPU frametime dropped significantly and now I can use my 6900X to its full potential. I think that the 4090 offers a great performance leap but you also need to have a top CPU to give it breathing room. Granted that the actual DCS graphic engine using a single core is a serious limiting factor but you can mitigate it and get 100% out of your GPU by running your mission on a dedicated server, having a fast (or hugely cached) single core CPU and being careful with settings that are CPU taxing such as shadows.

Tried that with high settings with my resolution a bit higher with supersampling (3652x3004) and I'm getting 53 average FPS after 3 min but my CPU frametime is about 9 to 10 ms once airborne. Your CPU is bottlenecked and not giving enough breathing room to the 4090 to unleash it full power. I think that the gain is much higher than what is shown, probably in the 60-70% range.

Ok, but how much for a AM5 mobo compared to an LGA1700? Using your ''already paid for'' DDR4 instead of buying new memory will always be cheaper nevertheless.

Memory speed (DDR4 vs DDR5) does not play a significant role in DCS or most games. If you have infinite money, well go for the DDR5 and 13th gen or AM5. If you are looking at a cost effective solution then re-using your RAM is possible with intel 12th and 13th gen. What counts above anything in DCS(VR) is a fast single core speed and fast GPU. DDR5 vs DDR4 will not make a huge difference. With my i7-12700kf I have a CPU frame below 9 ms most of the time. It will jump over 13 ms on loaded supercarrier deck but once I'm airborne, no problem and no re-projection needed!

Going from 25 ms (40 FPS) to 18 ms (56 FPS) GPU frametime is quite impressive, that is a 40% performance increase. Still hard to judge the raw gain since the CPU is completely bottlenecked. We need to see benchmarking where the CPU frame rate stays well below the HMD refresh rate to see the real gain from the GPU.

The AMD X3D is a good solution but the intel 12th gen also with its high single core speed. The LGA1700 mobos are much cheaper and you can get DDR4 version and re-use your memory... And you will be able to upgrade to 13th gen also.

Having any kind of FPS lock or re-projection on will not give actual and accurate performance figures. If you activate re-projection, the CPU frametime will be artificially high and not representative. When you do benchmarking, it is better to let FPS free, set your HMD to the highest refresh rate and do not use re-projection. Get your settings to high quality across the board and make sure your FPS stays below the refresh rate to ensure you get a valid result. You can pump up the supersampling also if settings are not enough to keep your baseline FPS testing bellow the HMD refresh rate. And last but not least, use a track file to have a constant and stable testing environment.

I guess you play pancake. Lots of good point but VR is a different story.

It is not simple. If your CPU is the bottleneck then getting a CPU with a higher single clock speed will help. It will give your GPU some breathing room and you will be able to increase details/quality. Settings also play a role in taxing more or less the CPU along with complexity of the mission (heavy scripting) and amount of action going on, such as the deck of a supercarrier with four catapults working. One thing for sure, if your CPU can't pump the data to the GPU quick enough, then you may have the fastest GPU and it will not help. A low CPU frametime should always be the target to get most out of your GPU. Since I upgraded from a 9900k to a 12700k, my GPU is now the limitation and my CPU frametime is much lower. The 4090 will allow to push details/quality further as long as you have to CPU to give it breathing space. Now can someone get one and tell us how good/bad it is?

Newegg has a few MSRP priced cards. All the unboxing video I saw so far on the 4090 confirmed that the 12 pins cable comes with the GPU. You need to have at least a 1000 watt PSU though and four free VGA power cable from the PSU. These cards can suck up to 650 watts!!

Here's a quick table to show relationship between FPS amd Frame time. Frametime (ms) FPS FPS Frametime (ms) 5 200.0 30 33.3 9 111.1 45 22.2 10 100.0 60 16.7 11 90.9 72 13.9 12 83.3 75 13.3 13 76.9 90 11.1 14 71.4 100 10.0 15 66.7 120 8.3 20 50.0 144 6.9 25 40.0 180 5.6 First two columns show what would be the maximum FPS you can expect from a specific frame time. The next two columns show what is the maximum frametime limit you need to sustain a certain FPS. If your target FPS is 90 or better, then you need to keep your frame time below 11.1.

That Asus monster will not fit in most cases. You can probably overclock the sucker big time compared to the FE.

Your CPU frametime is also affected by graphic settings to a certain extent. Upgrading the GPU will give you breathing room to increase image quality but it will also increase CPU frametime if you bump up those settings. In order to fully appreciate the very high resolution of your HMD at native resolution and refresh rate, a CPU upgrade will be required. When I switched my 9900k for a 12700kf, it was a revelation on how much I was missing because of CPU bottleneck. All of the sudden, I could enjoy complex multiplayer missions and theaters such as Syria with a decent level of details and quality... and without re-projection!

First time I tried the AMD FSR Mod, I was not impressed as the drop in quality was too much and I did not even benchmarked it. I had a second look at AMD FSR mod and found a huge improvement in performance. From my test benchmark track file, I have a gain of 12 FPS which is a lot. This was with the high quality setting of 77%. The only issue is that there is a significant loss in clarity and increase in shimmering. Since I already use Reshade to increase clarity plus 144% resolution in SteamVR, I had the option to pump it up. To compensate, and since I have such a gain in FPS, I used an additional 20% on the SteamVR resolution slider which brought me back to a good clarity level. Alternatively I also tried to increase pixel density by 0.1 but seems that SteamVR is more efficient than DCS pixel density (1.1 PD equates to 121% resolution). Increasing sharpness in Reshade was introducing weird distortions. FPS cost for extra 20% resolution is not much, about 3-4 FPS. Next I applied MSAA 2x to get shimmering back to an acceptable level and it turned out even better than expected. FPS cost for MSAA 2x was about 6-8 FPS. All in all, I was able to increase other settings such as textures to improve even more. Bottom line, with FSR I'm now able to fly MP with max texture quality and reduced shimmering. The clarity is still very good and acceptable. I do not use any re-projection and maintain a steady 72 FPS (my HMD has a 72hz refresh rate) even in Syria with a GPU frametime in the low 12 ms. AMD FSR Mod is worth a try.

Same here, I never experience nausea or eye strain like what they mentioned. I did get dizzy in the first few times but that went away quickly. I found the KDMAS not so bad. Maybe it's because I use it only for comms, my main sound comes from a 5.1 speakers setup. As far as controllers, I use refurbished htc vive which are much cheaper... and work fine. The review is pretty harsh on setup, I did not face that kind of issues. I was pretty much plug and play. Maybe it all depends on what you play. One thing absolutely right : Going back to tunnel vision is not an option once you experience the level of immersion from wide FOV!

CPU frame time is half the problem. Since I upgraded to a 12th gen Intel CPU, my CPU frametime has dropped significantly and is most of the time bellow 9 ms. At that level, it translates to 111 FPS. The CPU will not be a bottleneck until my GPU can reach and surpass 111 FPS. This means that there is a lot of room to improve GPU performance and that is what I am looking for in my next upgrade. My 6900XT can keep a steady 72 FPS and this is what I need as my HMD has a 72Hz refresh rate. But with a 70% boost performance in rasterization (hopefully) with the 4090, this will allow me to push the quality significantly without worrying about the CPU becoming a bottleneck. Fingers crossed. That of course will not solve all situations. Such as a crowded supercarrier deck which is asking a lot from the CPU. But I think that 95% of my flying will be gloriously smooth and beautiful nevertheless.

I came over an interesting analysis : If the 4090 is actually 70% faster, then this is very appealing. And it does not even take into account overclocking which seems to be very doable with the 40 series. For the coming weeks, my dreams will be filled with me flying at wide FOV (instead or the mere ''normal'' 150 degree) over Syria with MSAA on...

Finding the limit is pretty much hardware dependent. The way I do it is increase super sampling until I see no difference in clarity.

Super sampling is an alternative to anti-aliasing but the result depends greatly on the native resolution of your HMD. Lower resolution HMD will still show significant shimmering compared to high resolution HMD when super sampling. the perfect cure to aliasing is infinite resolution but unfortunately, the hardware will never reach this. Your eyes have a resolution of 576k if you consider the full filed of view and that is partially why we do not notice any aliasing when looking at a scene. There are other factors at play but basically high resolution is the cure. Low resolution requires anti-aliasing processing to reduce shimmers and jagged edges. With lower resolution HMD, MSAA will be the better solution to aliasing. Also, super sampling has a limit and if you push it beyond, you will significantly reduce your FPS with no benefit. I would suggest to use 2xMSAA with a bit of super sampling but not by tweaking the DCS PD value as it lacks precision. Setting the PD to 1.1 is equal to 121% super sampling, 1.2 is equal to 144% super sampling, etc... This does not offer much precision compared to SteamVR's "Resolution per eye" slider which has 2% increments. Use super sampling to improve the clarity of the image and let MSAA take care of shimmers.

Already did it and load times were still longer. Yesterday's OB update (DCS 2.7.18.30348) seems to bring back load times to what is was before DCS 2.7.17.29493. I also noticed 0.5 FPS improvement running my test track file (Caucasus with F-18). Not much but it allows to crank a setting up! Increase in performance is always appreciated, thanks!