Tepnox

I found a way to actually use LOAL the inofficial way with George AI while flying as Pilot (the George AI LOAL mode doesn't work right now, because he is not storing targets and doesn't shoot while in cover) 1. Set George AI Weapon go GUN (so he doesnt lase) (Hellfire weapon for him should be in standard mode LOBL btw) 2. Find the Target by George and select it in a short hop up and descent to cover afterwards 3. Set your Pilot Weapon to Hellfire and use the trajectory you want (LO works great for small obstacles and trees in near front of you) 4. Set TSD Acquisition Source to to a Point or Waypoint near the SA-19 and make sure you are in range of target (ACQ also works when you have an idea where the target is on the map) 5. When ready and aligned, fire your hellfire (or 2 hellfires to make sure the second one hits when the first is engaged by AA) while in cover 6. (takes practice and depending on range to target) Time your hop up and ascend from cover - TOF of the missile should be about 8-10 sec. time left - countdown is on IHADS 7. (hopefully in time) When George automatically reacquired the target visually (check TADS mfd) switch George AI Weapon to Hellfire or Rockets (so he lases continuously) 8. Stay steady and hope for the boom if George doesn't mess up the lasing (you can see the remaining Hellfire TOF now on the TADS mfd) Repeat I tested this with a practice site which was packed with 2xSA-19, 2xSA-8, 1xSA15 and managed to wipe them all out this way. Happy hunting.

Casmo made a perfect video for it. He also states the function on the cyclic grip is still only the down-option and this bothered him in real life as a real Apache pilot. So it works as intended. You should thank Boeing for this design decision ;D

George AI generally has a hard time tracking targets. It looks like, he is not using the ground stabiliziation feature for now. When I play as CPG and use the ground stabiliziation even very rapid movements with the helicopter are possible and I don't lose lock on the target. Let's hope, this gets improved. For now, I would assume George AI is WIP and gets fine tuned.

The every frame option renders 60 fps for the FLIR / TADS / PNVS. It is the smoothest experience you can get (but more gpu-hungry). The normal options without the option "every frame" renders only at 30 fps (or less). This feels slightly sluggish but still ok on the MFD but with IHADS it is very noticeable.

Hi there. It is very important that you restart DCS, when you switch the cockpit display resolution. If you switch from 1024 to 512 and don't restart DCS, you will still see the 1024 result. Generally the cockpit display resolution changes the resolution and readability of you kneepad, the mirror resolution and the live-footage (FLIR-image) on the MFDs. I play in VR and would not recommend to go below 512 resolution. (at 256, the kneepad map charts are nearly unreadable) 512 is perfectly fine but could look relative low-res on mirrors (if you use mirrors at all). Performance wise I would always play without mirrors. And only use the "every frame" option when you have enough graphics power available. Every frame means the refresh rate of the FLIR (and mirrors) runs at 60 fps (wich could be demanding on some hardware). The normal option (without every frame) means the footage on the FLIR (and mirrors) runs at 30 fps and look sometimes sluggish but is decent. Cheers.

You need to have the TADS video active and have to activate "TADS" (push button T6 - top right). Now you will see the same footage like the CPG: George AI only lases actively with rockets or Hellfire in LOBL mode. He does not lase the target with Gun or with Hellfire in LOAL mode (only lasing after launch and when he sees the target).

I am also trying to find a strategy and struggle alot with George AI. I managed to fly myself as CPG and do the LOAL shot (lasing only the last 12 sec) - even then it is quite risky because of the slow flight speed of the hellfire compared to vikhr. I kind of used a LOAL-tactic with the KA-50 on SA-19 quite easily but with the Apache quite hard. Also the Hellifre missiles get often intercepted by SA-8, SA-15 because of the slow flight speed (and fat body?). I hope the George AI will store targets in the future so that we can do decent LOAL shots as pilot (and George lases the target accordingly when pilot is hovering up). Seems like the tactics of a one-man-army-KA50 are not possible with the Apache right now. It's really missing the FCR-feature right now - so we have to wait.

+1

The gun is not wrong, George is. The manual clearly says, when using the gun with TADS it is using improved weapon ballistics calculation and should be more precise. I don't see this is the case when George is on the gun. He must be using it with his helmet-sight and he is not capable to correct following shots in leading the shots like I would do when shooting the gun from the Pilot IHADS. For me in VR, shooting the gun as Pilot is quite precise. You must correct the shooting rounds alot depending on your flight angle because no rangefinding or calculation is done (you can only change the manual range on the WPS page - standard for pilot is 1.500 m - I prefer about 500-700 as my default). I hope the AI gets better with time. The same problem seems to appear with hellfire missiles - George corrects flight deviations very slow on the TADS. When I fly as CPG I can correct this very vell - looks like George doesnt use the stabilization feature with TADS in a practical way for now.

Expect a very weak hover but very agile and stable in-flight characteristics. I own the KA-50 and flew the Huey and Hind in a trial-period. I would say the Apache is on par with the Hind (but with much more technical stuff packed like the enormous amount of sensors and night-flight capabilities). Definately harder to fly than the KA-50. The hover is a weakspot for the Apache - not as forgiving as with the KA-50. But the Hind was similar but more stable in hover-mode. Difficulty would be 7/10 when the KA-50 is a 5/10.

What map did you fly on? Because this is exact the same problem I was having exclusively on Syria map with 32 GB. For some reason when the RAM got stuffed nearly full after some time, I was having many fps drops and lags in VR. After switching to 64 GB no more problem. Temporary fix on 32 GB RAM for me was to reduce the terrain texture quality to low. For unknown reasons this used 10 GB less RAM. DCS stays a mystery.

No need to dial it down. I play in VR and the Rift S is capping at 40 or 80 fps. Generally DCS runs like <profanity> with 80fps because of microstutters and bad frame pacing thanks to the old game engine. DCS behaves quite different when playing in VR in comparison to 2D. It is what it is.

Anything complicated with too many units in the mission will kill your fps. This has always be the same with every module in VR. So in my case, I run simple missions in general with a decent amount of enemy units (nothing too crazy). This problem of too many units on the battlefield is here for ages because of the cpu-bottleneck (single/dual-threaded DCS engine).

Rift S with 1.5 Supersampling @ 40 fps. Rig specs see signature.

Casmo describes this perfectly (the tail unlock) in his video - it has to do with the alignment of the tail wheel and the proper alignment to lock it via a pin:

The KA-50 will always be my one-seat favorite of all times. Hoping for a good BS3-release in the near future. But right now I am riding on the Apache hype train and give this module a chance. Let's see how well it gets supported and fixed by ED the next months.

For me, without FLIR or TADS the module behaves the same gpu-load like with the KA-50. I am using a Rift S @ 40fps with 1.5 Supersampling and MSAA2x. Enabling the FLIR / TADS can eat up to 25 % of my GPU-load on my 3080 Ti. So you basically need alot of headroom in gpu-usage to fly with FLIR / TADS. Otherwise, the fps-drop kicks in. Maybe this can get optimized in the near future, but I think the new FLIR-system eats alot more rendering power.

I am also pretty impressed with this launch. Runs perfectly fine on my rig in VR with Rift S. The monocle is amazingly modeled in VR - you can't compare it to the 2D-version I saw in videos. Clarity and readability of the MFD's is solid. I think I will enjoy the night flight time much more with that chopper.

Works great on my end in VR. When no TADS / PNVS FLIR view active the performance is really similar to the KA-50. But having the TADS / PNVS active eats up to 25 % gpu-usage - but it depends on the rendered scenery. Normally my GPU-load in VR with 40 FPS on Rift S is around 60-70 %. So enough headroom to fly even when TADS / PNVS is active. The trim and rudder is a little bit tricky in low speeds and hovering. But flying more than 40 knots is very stable with the AH-64. Overall pretty impressed with the launch. Looking forward to the upcoming bugfixes and future features.

Looks like the Apache-module alone is: 1.4 GB See ya on the battlefield!

DL-rate is tumbling down alot - now we are in another waiting game ;D

80 Gigs for me, here we go!

My crashes after 2nd load are back for me - despite the prior installation of KB5001391 . Fiddling around with capping FPS and vsync on/off: still consistent crash after 2nd mission load. Back to zero I think - disappointed.

Worked for me as well! No crashing so far after intense testing.

The ALT+TAB only works, when you have another application opened while running DCS (for example the Task Manager, an Explorer Window or opened Web Browser). When you press ALT+TAB in DCS, you should actually see the other window or application that is running and opened. After clicking back into DCS, no more crashes on second loads. So it is necessary you still have another window or application opened in your task bar. Could you try that out?