nobuttons

I'm not sure for realistic sense of acceleration you need a lot of roll... those simulator rides like Star Tours do a lot with very little. My impression is that in most maneuvers the acceleration is pressing you down into your seat or back into backrest, (kind of like banked turns for cars and trains), so it really wouldn't need much. Sure, a sustained inverted flight won't 'feel right' but that's more of an acrobatic/move moment than something we'd likely feel in most missions. I agree for real good G-feedback you want to combine acceleration direction, with something like a harness or vest that dials in intensity of sensation (and yes I have looked at whether one could retrofit an actual G-suit for that purpose).

The HOTAS wobble on their page looks like they simply velcroed the throttle down for the same of making a video. If you look at the plat itself it looks pretty solid. I was more put off by the fact that the chair position seems to reflect the aircraft attitude rather than the g forces experienced. In some ways I worry this would end up being less "realistic".

I have a Pimax 8K X, and Fixed Foveated Rendering makes a *huge* difference for me. I'll do some benchmarks on it, but it's like +10fps! I'd run it on every game if it didn't produce glitchy rendering artifacts on half of them. I did order an eye tracker to see if it is better, but haven't gotten to try it yet. What I see in FPS VR is that it dramatically lowers GPU load, so yeah not surprising if you are CPU bound that it has no impact. On my rig many of the other recommended tricks have had zero impact on my bechmarks. VR shaders, multithreading, Windows tweaks, non of them produced *any* measurable impact. On the flip side the most impactful DCS settings are shadow quality and MSAA quality for sure! By tuning thooe I feel like I have pretty darn good visual quality while keeping a steady "reprojected or better 75". DCS: Textures & Terrain High, Water & Vis Medium, Heat Blur Low, Shadows Medium, MSAA 2x, DoF OFF, Lens Flare Only, Motion Blur Off, SSAA & SSLR Off, Clutter 170, Trees 66%, Smoke 0, Anisotropic 2x, Terrain Shadows Flat, Cockpit Global Illumination On To be fair I don't have the patience to run a 3 min benchmark between configuration tweaks, so I just use F16, Syria, Cold and Dark Ramp Start as my stable place to grab a 30 second sample for fps VR (which gives me 55fps when I also am running Discord, and Simshaker, and Leapmotion). Also that pesky desire to like actually fly missions keeps getting in the way... I still gotta try the various mixes of Steam, PiTool and DCS resolutions since I've been putting off fussing with that variable

Can your rig handle G2/are you on a budget? If yes, then $600 is an insane value for modern quality seated VR. OR Do you want all kinds of VR and DCS is only one usecase? Consider also Index. There are reasonable reasons why reasonable people might choose one or the other. OR Is money no object and you've already dumped at least $5K into your current PC and probably at least half of that into your HOTAS/simpit? Then consider Pimax 8K X. It's a Lamborghini of headsets (over priced, shitty comfort, broken half the time, requires ridiculous amounts of extra care and love by you, almost never used to it's potential, but OMG when it goes it GOES).

I've never had this problem with my Pimax or my Index. Curious where on your head the back strap is fitting and where on your face the foams are resting? Is it possible a different configuration might work better for your head shape?

I am looking forward to anything that is not standalone... so much extra weight and heat on your face~ I think it's amazing that *everyone* is like "seriously just better Index with 10' more FOV and a bit more resolution is all I want", and every manufacturer (including Valve) is instead like, "Oh, you want brain waves? You want more resolution than a PC can drive? You want more FOV than is practical? Can we compromise on some aspect of image quality and comfort to get that for you? Great, we're on it!"

At first I laughed and assumed you were being snarky... Then I thought hard about this game and I was like, "ohmigoawd what if he's serious?!"

Thank you, yes! That's the kind of education I was hoping for. P.S. When I said 'weapon system' I should have specified I meant (AWG-9+AIM-54) not (F-14+AWG-9+AIM54). One thing I recall, not touched on explicitly here is that the AWG-9+AIM-54 were in development and (relatively mature-ish?) by the beginning of the F-14 design (helping accelerate the F14 program), and they had been planned as the primary weapon system for other aircraft (including the F-111B which would have had more of a dedicated fleet defense/bomber interceptor role) than the F-14?

From my cursory reading I understood that the whole weapon system (radar and missile) was optimized for the threat of ship killing bombers? So maybe it's understandable that usage against fighters was deprioritized, or not even considered? I'd love to learn more about this though, as I am basically ignorant here!

Oh I see, when in Oculus mode it didn't start before. Thanks!

Sorry that this is off topic but I see this idea of not running Steam VR, but still playing DCS in VR mentioned periodically, and though I've tried some Google searches I haven't found anything. Do you have a pointer to where you learned how to do it?

Nice! Yeah counter weights help so much for even super light headsets... I find the adhesive wheel rotation balancing weights to be great for getting counter weights perfect on VR headsets. Really easy to tweak and add and remove weight and distribute just where you want it: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XDG1JJH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?

How would you feel about 160 degree FOV and no SDE? That said I run mine at 120 degree FOV because I prefer 72fps to 15fps in VR...

I only fly Tomcats so take my perspective as one sided... 1. F-14 can BVR. You are gonna be limited to older tech, so if you wanna just casually PvP with folks in the latest shiny stuff that might be frustrating? If you wanna do historical-ish scenarios then you will find that the F-14 is a beast! 2. F-14 consensus is that it is more of demanding learning curve, and requires proper stick and rudder skills. If that sounds fun, you will be rewarded, but will really require an investment in time and good HOTAS. 3. I think folks might have to know more about your shoes! The F14 has a special place in my heart personally, and to really enjoy DCS you really need to love the plane you invest in.

Hey Jay, thanks for doing this! I'd like to participate, but I'm having a couple issues following the instructions properly. I downloaded and installed this mission. It doesn't seem particularly taxing, and the plane just flies out over some burning towns towards the sea, then eventually makes one turn and comes back. 1. The performance seems quite dependent on which way I am looking, am I supposed to just leave the headset looking straight out the front cockpit default view? 2. This is really dull, but if I take the headset off and hit 'VR recenter so I can leave it on the desk during the test... the headset goes idle. Now while that seems to show no change in the 2D preview view, I can see my CPU frame times immediately take a hit if I ever let my headset go 'idle'. What's the methodology? Turn off idle somehow? Keep it on your real head? Let it go idle early and baseline from that? 3. You say the tracks should be 3 minutes, but I have somehow never seen the message to stop the test (and I ran the test at least ten times last night). I've taken to just stopping my recording when fpsVR says it's been 3 mins. Is anyone else seeing this issue? What's the actual timestamp of the expected stop test message? 4. All the charts listing your results are XX,XX. Is that the FPS number? fpsVR for me formats it with a point"." and not a comma ",", but I just want to be sure? Thanks again, looking forward to sharing my data!

Have you tried the 'turn off windows hardware GPU' setting trick? Seems to help a lot of folks with DCS VR crashes (more for folks with the G2 but also folks on Oculus)

I mean... it might be obtainable?

OMG this just bit me in the ass. Spent 45 mins applying new bindings to my new throttle. Went to configure axis. Set up the eft throttle, and bam! It not only locked me out of doing any more axis bindings, but it cleared all my other bindings I had just set! Edit - Open Beta, F14 module Edit 2 - I have a work around, which is to quit steam VR before editing controls... somehow that's made it all stick?

I mean it's totally fair that some folks seem to be fine with G2 controller tracking - "hot garbage" is probably a bit too harsh. My posture is such that I lose tracking frequently enough, and my room is big enough, with enough windows that it means when the controllers are not actively tracking I get the 'hands fly away randomly' issue very frequently. I know a lot of folks have more options to control their room, or are lucky enough to not have issues - but I also know this issue is very very common as well. Comparing them to the Quest 2 or Index tracking robustness and flexibility and they really do feel like a tier below. That said, for me the current G2 deal breaker for DCS is simply performance. I am curious to try some of the suggestions in this thread, as it seems like for some folks their hardware and software configs give them reasonable performance. I still stand by my 'can't recommend for DCS' because there is no clarity or consensus on how/if you will be one of the 'lucky ones' or stuck with something not really playable.

Oh thanks for the link! Sadly my two DCS are friends are XBox generation pilots who are pretty committed to their fly by wire helmet mounted display robo planes... I am .... absolutely still working on the "knowing my plane" part... hopefully that Discord can help with some pointers there too!

Yes please. Where can I sign up?

You get no red frames in Steam VR?

Me too! I'm really curious what causes this and how it can be avoided. In my Index vs G2 vs Pimax head to head yesterday I noticed that the Index basically had almost none of that flicker, while of course the Pimax and G2 are terrible...

Quick update since I promised it here... yesterday I tried a head to head comparison of Index, G2, and Pimax 8KX. TL;DR : If you want the cheapest simplest out of the box option that works *right now* and will give you a near top of the line DCS experience ... get an Index. Index Pro: Easy setup; Great color and contrast; Large 'in focus' area; High enough resolution to read cockpit (with VR texture mods); Low enough resolution to sit solid at 90hz. Index Con: Slightly visible screen door on flat color areas of mid tone; Your effects quality will go up as DCS upgrades or your get better GPUs, but the visual quality is 'done'. G2 Con: Compatibility 'shim' between WMR and SteamVR causes DCS to run at effectively 'half framerate' basically negating the resolution advantage. Unless you are already used to living in 'reprojection land' or can't afford the extra $400 to get an Index I can't in any conscience recommend this. Hand tracking is absolute garbage - for other VR games and will require you keep arms up and forward. This is fine if you only want to play Beat Saber (or just sims), but will totally break the fun for games like Alyx, Boneworks, Pavlov, VR Chat, etc. G2 Pro: Lightest and most comfortable headset ever IMO, even though the strap adjustment is janky; Great visual quality, no screen door; Super cheap; When/if the WMR / Steam VR glitch is fixed should be an amazing seated VR experience for the price... when/if. Pimax 8KX Con: You pay for more headset than any PC can actually drive today. Even after all that, it's a super janky manual hobby (like download command line utilities written in Chinese. manual) to configure the darn thing with absolutely no docs or support, and often requires a reboot when switching games or even making simple setting adjustments. Even after manual tweaking color saturation is washed out. Speaking of hobby, the headset is crazy uncomfortable and unbalanced out of the box. Oh yeah, the default speakers are garbage. Oh, lets not forget that DCS struggles to keep up with this headset. Pimax 8KX Pro: The field of view and the resolution are the best hands down. The hand tracking is amazing, and by far the best, hands down. The cable is the lightest and simplest. When DCS gets more optimized and the next gen of GPUs comes out, this headset will be ready and will really shine. 30 mins with some tire weights and double sided velcro tape and scissors fixes the Pimax comfort - while it's still the heaviest, after adjustment I find it the most comfortable. FWIW I fly DCS in the Pimax on a daily basis because of the rez and hand tracking (come on, I'm a flight simmer in DCS making my own cockpit, of course an overpriced hobbyst headset is going to be my pick).

I had this problem (with an AMD board), but a powered USB hub from Anker fixed the problem. I have both an Index and G2 and have been meaning to do an optimized head to head comparison with DCS for a while, so maybe I will do this weekend. I would guess that if you can get a G2 in stock, it's a better choice because that clarity is going to be really really useful for reading in cockpit controls (and I fly an F14 so lots of gauges to read and buttons to press and HOTAS with little on my HUD), and the inside out tracking is just a bit more stable and smooth than the lighthouse tracking. The G2 controllers are hot garbage, but if you're just focused on DCS then it doesn't matter really. The FOV for the two is effectively the same. Pimax "small" FOV setting is the first meaningful step up in FOV, but sadly anything more than small just destroys DCS in it's current version even with a top end machine. We'll see how that changes come March...