St4rgun

Try force DX11 in Steam, worth a try.

I think you misunderstood me: I said if you want to REALLY LEARN how to fly helos, then you'll need those hardware. I mean learn to be able to fly IRL. I spent countless hours in Arma and BF:BC back in the day flying helos with keyboard and mouse, I loved that. You can learn and fly with a cheap twist stick (I used Logitech X-56 before) and it will be fun, but it can be a stress also (for your mind and wrist equally).

Maybe I sounded a bit harsh on the preorder thing, it was not against the helos, but the unoptimized software in VR (for the Hind specifically on my existing hardware). But on the helicopter topics: I started with Ka-50 flying in 2D back then. When I switched to VR I flew fixed wing only and then came to the same curiosity that you have. Then I bought the Huey but tried only once, then bought the Mi8 without flying. I pre-ordered the Hind because of the coolness factor then tried it 2-3 times and horrifyed by the VRS deaths. I was unable to fly it. Then came the breakthrough: I bought the "Oilfield" campaign for the Mi8 and started to INVEST hours, days, weeks into learning how to fly a Mi8. Right now I'm still very beginner with 46 flight hours and 200 landings with the Mi8 but I can confidently fly day and night, land at airfield and terrain or even at a sea oilrig platform without sweating buckets. After this work I jumped back in the Huey and the Hind and voilá! I can fly them also well. ED's try for free method is the second best after sliced bread. And the most important thig for last: to be able to REALLY learn to fly these choppers you'd need a decent stick (preferably with extension), throttle and PEDALS. You can try without these with a simple yaw rotating stick but it will never be the same. That is good for Ka-50 (and probably will be for an Apache), but for the others it's just not enough.

Based on my experience with pre-ordering the Hind and then seeing the performance I decinded to NEVER pre-order anything. The try for free program is best for this (it was not available at the time Hind came out).

It would be really nice but I doubt that they will alocate resources to solve this problem while working on the new graphic engine. A lot of the really heavy aliasing caused be improper handling of semi-transparent textures which CAN caused by the deferred shading method. So who knows if it can be eliminated in the framework of the current graphic engine. Maybe yes, but I feel no. The real cure will be the next grapic engine. What is more than suspicious that this issue is still with us since introduction of the new clouds months ago.

The MultiCore development report contained some long anticipated information about the future of core engine changes, I highy apprechiate it. May I ask that... after this first report can we expect a regular status update (i.e. on a monthly basis) on this topic (multicore + Vulkan)? what is the deployment plan, shall we wait for a full 3.0.0 total engine change, or parts of the new technology will be "tested", or injected in the EDGE 2.7 as well (to achieve some of the gains even with the current graphic engine)? Little off topic: the last Open Beta patch (2.7.7.14727) introduced some high quality visual changes (general lighting, water shader etc.), but they are NOT mentioned in the Changelog. If possible please tell about them in there also, they really deserve it! Well done, ED.

Try to freshly reboot your PC AFTER starting WMR (headset) and BEFORE starting DCS.

Try the fresh restarted PC method before starting DCS up.

Don't forget the following: I only fly offline SteamVR is forced to DX11 I'm using OpenVR FSR no MSAA I ALWAYS fresh reboot my PC before starting DCS. If I don't do that then the head movement can badly stutter.

Okay, I would be proud if I could reach the mighty 45 fps with this 1070.... Sometimes I can reach it up high at altitude, but normally I have 22-23 fps on the ground at airports and 30-33 fps airborne. The latter is perfectly fine (for me at last) with motion smooting, because the head movement NEVER stutters. No more motion sickness and nausea or headache... BTW at 22 fps the head movement is still silky smooth, only the world movement is worse at close distances. Before this patch these settings were also smooth, but now the visuals are much better with the same settings. I suppose they changed the lighting and a lot of shaders now, and some LOD loading as well. For me this looks much better now.

Just tested several "instant action" missions with aircrafts / helis with my Reverb G2 in VR with the following settings: OpenVR FSR ("renderScale": 0.75, "sharpness": 0.75, "radius": 0.5), DCS no MSAA, PD 1.0 SteamVR beta (forced DX11, resolution per eye 120%, motion smoothing ON) 10700k 32 GB with only GTX 1070 (!). The results in short: BEST visuals to date. I have no idea why ED doesn't say anything about shader fine tuning in the release notes, but the lighting, the overall athmosphere rendering and the clarity are way better. Even in the menus the text are totally different. If this quality will be at least this good then I'll wait for the Vulkan engine remake much more patiently. Edit: specification detailed

Shimmering of the object edges caused by the current VR implementation in DCS, it is the same regardless of the headset type. Yes, the image of the sim in 2D and VR totally different right now because of this phenomenon. Cannot be resolved by user settings, it will need the major graphic engine update which is underway. Flickering during the loading screens was somewhat similar with my old CV1, but my G2 with WMR it's heavier. It could be some kind of SteamVR/WMR/DCS thing. One more VR specific issue is some kind of very annoying heavy stuttering during head movement, which can be also SteamVR / DCS related. For me the perfect solution to restart my PC before starting DCS in VR. When I use DCS with a newly restarted machine then the stutters never happen. Beside of these quirks I had ZERO other issues with my G2, it works perfectly even with my current GTX 1070 (!).

Thank You for this report on Multicore development: Unfortunately it's impossible for us to figure out even a ballpark for a possible ETA because we don't have the neccessary information of the complexity of the already completed and the remaining tasks. But we can try to make an "educated guess". If I take into account the fact, that Vulkan will not come in 2021 according to the devs I suppose that the soonest real ETA would be at least half a year, but realistically more than that, maybe a whole year. Which is unfortunate, but this is life. If this assumption is far from reality then I'll be pleased to get corrected by the devs.

Sure, thanks. Corrected.

While we are waiting I went through the history of this topic. It was very interesting to see the timeline. For a quick summary here is a short list: 28. November 2017. - Wags, A letter from Eagle Dynamics: "We are also developing our engine to take advantage of the Vulcan API to further improve game performance." 29. December 2017. - Czich, DCS World Newsletter: "We and our partners plan even bigger and better things for 2018 to include: ... working on improvements to clouds, explosions with improved proximity damage, virtual reality, spotting system, network play, Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR), air-to-air missiles, and performance optimization with the inclusion of the Vulkan API" 9. August 2018. - Wags, comment: "Base programming and testing should be finished next month. We'll then work on transferring our shaders to the new API. This is a very new technology for us, and it is quite possible that we will run into unforeseen issues during that phase. DCS World uses many complicated shaders that may not necessarily play nice with the Vulkan API." 11. January 2019. - Czich, DCS World Newsletter: "In parallel to all the above, the team continues to work on the foundation items of DCS World like air and ground artificial intelligence, performance optimization, more detailed damage models for all unit types, Vulkan implementation, improved VR optimization and improved Touch Controller support, aircraft wake turbulence." 28. October 2019. - BIGNEWY, comment: "Vulkan API is a high priority for the team, we do not have any time line yet however. When we get closer to implementing we will share more information." 17. January 2020. - BIGNEWY, comment: "No 2.5.6 will not have vulkan, we will announce vulkan when it is ready dont worry." 21. July 2020. - NineLine, comment: "Vulkan is part of a larger Graphics Engine rebuild, yes it will take time." 18. October 2020. - NineLine, comment: "We should also understand that Vulkan is part of a larger update to the Graphics engine, Vulkan alone will not be a magic cure all, but part of the mix to make things better, thanks!" 8. January 2021. - DCS World Newsletter: "...kindly understand that the dates are our best estimates as of writing this letter and may move around a bit as time goes by... Vulkan API and Multi-threading - With the integration of these libraries, DCS will benefit from improved performance throughout, including in virtual reality. This has been a substantial task to develop and integrate into our codebase, but we are nearing the end of this journey, and expect it to be available in the 3rd quarter of this year." 9. March 2021. - BIGNEWY, comment: "Planned for around 3rd quarter, if we need more time we will take it, but work is progressing well." 1. October 2021. - BIGNEWY, comment: "Hello all, work is progressing with vulkan but we are not ready to share any news yet. Thank you for your patience." 5. October 2021. - Czich, comment on the russian thread: "Vulkan is under development. Not this year." 7. October 2021. - BIGNEWY, comment: "Vulkan and multicore are huge tasks, we shared our plans at the beginning of the year with you all but they were not set in stone, if we need more time for a project we will take it. Vulkan and multicore can not be rushed it is that simple. As we have already stated as soon as we have something to share we will share it." Seeing 4 years of hard work now I'm even more curious what approximate percentage the progress is now? Is it somewhere 95-98% (as I hope), or less? It's rather mysterious... What happened in the last years? Something major point of focus has to be changed to have such a huge reschedule compared to the original plans. Now I understand why no one try to write any official approximate deployment date. Let's chime in again a monthly basis. Good luck. Edit: 1. date correction, 2. inserted 5. October 2021. comment

1. I hope no one tries to rush the devs. Quality is more important. 2. Consider the pay option for the Vulkan migration, if that helps to allocate resources. 3. For anyone who is involved in communication with the community this article is really interesting to read, and adapt: https://www.psychologyofgames.com/2019/10/loading-when-were-willing-to-wait/ 4. Unforutantely with total lack of technical "sneak peek" info on the Vulkan migration the topic can't be "railed" more on technical questions. I hope this will change in the future.

It's not only about Vulkan. I have a strange feeling (maybe I'm wrong) that the introduced new features like the new clouds' heavy aliasing is still with us, and stay with us along with many shimmering and aliasing of transparent textures because the developers run into some serious limitations with the current engine (i.e. deferred shading constraints). During switching to Vulkan maybe they will have the possibility to solve these issues all originated from the anti-aliasing problems by switching back to forward rendering and applying MSAA, but I don't have any info on that. If that is the case then they won't allocate development resources to iron these issues out one by one somehow when the new engine can eliminate them in a whole. So the Vulkan development will theoretically could help highy raising the visual quality in VR, that's why we are waiting for it so much. At least we hope for that. But we'll wait as long as we have to, just being sad to know that it won't happen this year. Maybe next year will be luckier for us.

You were a little bit faster than me, I just found also this info. Thanks for every development effort. Community managers: please in the future let us know if there is such information. Thank you.

I'm really sorry that in the past this negative communication happened, but I wasn't involved in that. On my behalf I highly respect the ED developers being an engineer myself, but at the same time being curious about the progress, that's all. For me (as other people) the linked psychology works: Check this out: https://www.psychologyofgames.com/2019/10/loading-when-were-willing-to-wait/ We'll be more than happy for any tiny bit of new information on this topic, not only the 100% readiness if meaningful for us. I don't want to urge the developers (plus they qon't care If I do ), just take their time. But please try to figure out SOME way to involve the community more into this project to engage them even more. Thank you all for all your efforts and hard work on this marvellous piece of software!

Silver_Dragon, please. No one ever upset here about if the date "may move around a bit", that's life. What is the problem is the lack of new communication, just read the conversation before. That's it.

I promise this will be my last argument on this topic. Check this out: https://www.psychologyofgames.com/2019/10/loading-when-were-willing-to-wait/ The most important part: And this one: Thanks for every info from the devs. If possible.

As I understand this full engine migration task is the biggest of all the work for ED, much bigger than making a new module. That is right. The problem is that at the current business model the DCS World product is FREE, while the modules are not. For ED it's much more profitable to make the modules for selling them $50-$80 each than spending countless man-hours on the migration of the "free" engine. It is more than understandable. But personally I've spent around $1000 for 20 different modules during the past years. Not calculating the HW costs (VR headset, PC hardware, hotas etc). For me it would be an absolute feasible solution to PAY for the Vulkan migration at least the same price as for a new module ($50-$100). If that would help that process to avoid the "neverending" status, then let it be. Everyone will benefit from the migration, regardless of the modules they have and the applied technology being VR or 2D. Don't get me wrong I'm also happy for a new module like the Apache, but that's "only" another one module in my list. But Vulkan would change the feel of ALL my modules.

Actually ED shared progress on this topic at the very moment they announced it can be expected in Q3 2021. Right now the "we are not ready to share any news yet" standrard reply template IS the biggest news: it means it's not ready, because Q3 is over. The community never wanted to write the ETA for the devs, it would be insane. They're just asking for rough estimates. Sometimes ED gives estimates, sometimes they misses them. But it's always much better to correct yourself and give a new estimate according to your best actual knowledge on the topic. Not an exact date, but a ballpark. Why? Because it's the polite way if the community asks for it. I'm sure, that responsible people like us who are working as developers themselves on different projects in the world won't be upset if a deadline is missed and should be corrected. But the radio silence and lack of communication is never a good path.

Well, at least we can hopefully erase the last option from my previous list. Unfortunatelly not too many of other options got harmed during BN-s answer... It is still mysterious why there is no development reports on this topic like for the modules (i.e. AH-64D) about the progress. Strange. This could be some form NDA or something. Anyway, if the team is "not ready to share any news yet" then we only left with the hope for the next big update. Then the next one. And so on.