St4rgun

All right, I checked it out. I switched from SteamVR to OpeXR runtime years ago, and now it seems it was with a good reason. With SteamVR as the default OpenXR runtime the visuals are SO MUCH WORSE (smeared, simply not crisp enough), and the stuttering is massive. I switched off motion smoothing and the resolution scale was custom - 100% in SteamVR. So I immediately switched back to OpenXR and what a difference! With OpenXR set to 120% resolution everything is perfect in the G2, and really smooth. I tested with P51 / Caucasus / Free flight over Poti: after 10-15 seconds I started flying level while looking at the right wing. Looking sideways somehow generates bad stutters in DCS in no more than 5-10 seconds. But in OpenXR it's really minimal while with SteamVR it becomes a total stutterfest when looking sideways at a town or a dense forest. It's really terrible. So thanks again for the suggestion, but I returned to my previous well established settings and still looking for Vulkan.

To be honest, yes, it looks and plays nice. When 45 fps can be kept rock solid, it's 100% stutter free and flawless at 90 Hz refresh rate. It's smooth as silk. But this situation is really rare, there're always some little itty-bitty small hiccups here and there. Really not much, but the feeling is like having a quietly ticking clock is a totally silent room: when you detect it, it ruins the otherwise perfect immersion. What is interesting, that these spikes are simply not shown on DCS's inbuilt frame graph. It shows a smooth flat curve of 45 fps. And the situation depends on a lot of factors (switching to F10 map and back, or simply start DCS on a PC running for hours or start DCS on a freshly rebooted PC etc.) That's why I started thinking about other possbile sources of these weird micro tracking lag spikes or other glithces (don't forget, it's still WMR). The lighting in my room is pretty adequate and even, shadowless for the G2 (at least I hope so). If you have idea for a better and reliable method for recording exact CPU / GPU frametimes which doesn't induce lag spikes please let me know. I hope that Vulkan can finally iron out these glitches to get rid of those spikes once for all. Because if everything works perfectly smooth it's really an amazing experience for me even with 45 fps on this headset.

Connecting to the performance questions: I'm thinking about a possible CPU upgrade from 10700k to 14700k to fit more to my 3090 in VR (G2). Right now the performance is really good, almost every time I can have 45 fps with minor hiccups here and there. But as this upgrade would cost a lot of money and work I'd do it only when it's really neccessary, so I'd prefer to wait for Vulkan to see if it hugely helps in VR with current config. I have no idea how my CPU is a real bottleneck with these resolutions in VR. Dear @BIGNEWY is it possible to have at least some estimate about the Vulkan deployment? Or at least having some preliminary data about the possible performance uplift of Vulkan? As we have about one major patch / 1,5 months rate we could see about 4 more major patches this year. Is is possible that we'll reach to Vulkan in this timeframe to check these initial improvements? I know that in the first big newsletter in January ED mentioned this year as the year of Vulkan, but this happened 3 years ago also. Is is possbile that we're still years away, or this time we're really close?

Hey guys, anything news on this field? Actually the VDI and the HSD displays in the pilot seat and the TID in the RIO seat of the Tomcat in VR showing a very characteristic bug with DLAA: when I TURN my head (instad of PAN) then the displays are more or less stable, but upon PANing the displayed info badly slides and jitters sideways. What's interesting that the ECMD in the RIO seat does NOT showing this bug.

I experienced that the rain and snow performance is hugely related to quality settings of the clouds. I know, that only ULTRA clouds can give perfect results without any aliasing, but with rain in VR it can result a slideshow even on a 3090. That's why I'm strictly using STANDARD clouds, with DLAA they are really nice with very subtle aliasing here and there.

Well, based on the previously said information Vulkan would be more suitable for displaying areas which are densely populated with objects (like trees, houses etc.). This is much more important in VR where the resolution is higher and it's a must to render different views for the eyes. This benchmark is 3 years old, but portrays the overhead differences between DX11 (ST and MT), DX12 and Vulkan APIs. I know, this is not the EDGE engine, but very interesting to see the possibilities on a decent GPU (RTX 3090):

I agree, sorry for the missing information. For everyone interested here they are: I'm playing solely singleplayer, MT with a Reverb G2, so 90 fps would be the best solution. Unfortunately this is rarely (if at all) reachable with my hw and settings. So as I prefer the absolutely smoothest, glitch-free flight I'd rather limit the max fps to 45 (and avoid any motion reprojection) which gives silky smooth and much better experience than having 55-60 fps with hiccups. Technically my system can produce between 30 and 60 fps most of the time, with occassional 90 fps at high altitute depending on the aircraft and map. This is nowhere near "fixed" 90 fps, far from it. Don't get me wrong: the current version with the last Win10 updates runs at 45 fps like a dream, it was never been so good. Kudos to ED! I'm really curious how will Vulkan help by massively reducing the graphics overhead. If only the fixed 45 fps will be achievable anytime, anywhere with any plane without a single micro-stutter then I'll be more than happy. But Vulkan could be (theoretically) give much more boost - at least I hope so.

Well, good for you! I also experienced a fine performance boost (great work, ED!), but it's only enough to have a stable 45 fps at 80% of the time and with most of the planes on the ground as well. So please be careful with those comments without writing the actual configuration and settings (hw, VR headset, resolution etc.) because someone would think that the holy grail has been found with this update. Unfortunately this is not the case, altough I'll expect the stable 90 fps with the new EDGE where Vulkan will kick in, now THAT would be big. But it's the future, hopefully a not so distant future. My config is in the signature.

I have little knowledge on this field, but is it possible right now to set the pre-programmed radio stations of the prop planes in some similar manner (like for P-51, P47 etc.)? I know it's possible in mission editor, but for instant missions it's a guess which radio button configured to what frequency. And as I know it's not configurable on the fly in the rearm and refuel panel, right? If it's correct then wouldn't it be a good idea to be able to?

Ouch! That sounds really bad. I had no idea that such a "short" time is enough to cause a burn in with those displays... In DCS flying 2 hours is nothing. Plus flying the Apache without IHADSS is not the intended use IMHO...

It's an OLED display after all, so I'm not surprised it's prone to burn-in. The G2 is an LCD panel display, so no burn-in is possible there. But shifting the image by 1-2 pixels idea is good, unfortunately there could be areas which are getting permanent exposure even then.

Very good news. I'm only concerned that the team would have enough resources to properly test everything before a new patch. Or will this mean a much sparse patch deployment, like one new patch quarterly?

I sincerely hope that the beginning of this year will be all about Vulkan. As the currect newsletter starts with it as a main topic, not to mention the newsletter e-mail subject also prioritizes this that means something. If the following newsletters will flood us with details about the Vulkan then I really hope that finally we're just months away from deployment. What a great news, very exciting times, thank you ED!

Calculating with the number of patches / year in the past, the time needed from 2.9.2 to reach 3.0 (Vulkan?) could take about a year. So If we are lucky then maybe the core optimization will be somewhat complete with polished MT, Vulkan and optimized VR by the end of 2024 at last. IMHO it could take years from then to arrive to a full blown DC (2025-2026 or later). I really hope that the Vulkan implementation is so special that the dev team dedicated to it doesn't do any other core development (like DC). The performance of DCS right now in VR is very pleasing in the air, if only it colud be possible to have at least 45 fps in all circumstances on all maps even on the ground then I'd be more than happy. It doesn't need a lot to get there, I have high hopes in Vulkan. Thanks for all the developers the hard work in 2023 to finally reach this performance. I wish you all very happy new year!

IMHO as long as we as OB users are lack of a proper ticketing system with detailed info on each issue this whole OB thing is "questionable". Right now it does not matter how good you report any issue even several times: if somehow magaged to reach the "reported" status in the forum there's no further follow ups. I'm literally tired up writing about issues which are several months old. Did it once, twice, third time, fourth time, ... but then simply lost interest when getting no reply, sorry. I don't want to bother the developers anymore. ED works on their own schedule which is normal, but the situation in the past 2 years made me a passive forum reader and an occassional SP player. It's a pity. Wake me up if something changed at the foundations.