dlder

Now that I have the Crystal, I've decided to tip my toe into the whole VR thing and although the visuals are not on par with 2D (which will probably always look sharper & clearer), the immersion is off the charts, especially with spotting and the... "closeness" to the controls and the cockpit, which is excellent! But: I've tried using the controllers and even though the tracking especially to the side isn't good enough, the main problem is: switching from Hotas to a controller takes time, you have to find them on the desk and is just a major pain in the a$$. Also, if you're using the controllers to directly manipulate the switches, it is just way too imprecise!? Like actuating a specific button is kinda luck? -> this means you'll kinda have to use it with the "pointer" and thus it works exactly as the mouse, which is easier and more precise to use. So, I've mostly used the mouse so far and... it works pretty well. But it's only for my right hand, so I can't toggle anything with my left (sure, I could just attach another mouse, but have you tried using your "other hand" with a mouse? It's sooooo bad^^). Here are my thoughts (I don't have any of that hardware, so couldn't try it as of yet) and would like to ask your opinions or even better your findings with hardware you've tried: Handtracking would eliminate the need to grab a controller/mouse (which you first have to find when in VR^^) but has the same problem of being imprecise when directly manipulating controls? so has to be used with pointer? which brings us to "ring mice" "button box" on every index finger to accentuate controls, which you point to via handtracking seems like a VERY good idea! The problem is there's practically nothing you can buy PoinCtrl has it's own tracking (which I guess doesn't need to be used) and is more or less unavailable there is a Bluetooth version you can make yourself (Hackster.io or Instructables.com), but I wouldn't know how, nor do I know how good it actually works. Looks like the best PoinCtrl alternative though! then there is Vanzy; which is only a Kickstarter product and seemingly unavailable. With JoyToKey I'm sure one could remap the buttons to what you need. I'd hope. the only other alternative I've found: Aibyks Multifunctional Bluetooth Ring on Amazon (or other, less trustworthy places^^). Don't know how usable that would be, but I'd try it first, seeing the price and all that haven't found any other so far... Haptic Feedback Gloves no cheap options yet available only bulky gloves priced at 4.000€ and more would probably have the same issue as only Handtracking though, right? Like accidentally actuating controls in the cockpit and being imprecise when trying to toggle a switch? So, I don't know how right I'm with my conclusion being: you either use the mouse or handtracking with pointer or even more precise: handtracking with ring-mouse What do you use? What did you try and what's your conclusion? There are some sick setups out there, so there must be a "solution" to this problem (and I don't mean a 1:1 recreation of the cockpit^^). Thanks for your time and hoping for some great tips! Cheers!

This. 100% ack! That's why "made for VR" games can be soooo good (especially of course FPS).

PointCTRL would be an option, but alas, no haptic feedback; it would be fantastic if you could actually "feel" the buttons and switches you press And yeah, the wait time... Unreal(tm)^^

I totally agree! This has been a more of an academic question in the end, because you can't do anything about it, other then lowering the pixel density (not really viable) or upsampling (which is better, but still not that great). I just was baffled by, why the 4090 wouldn't perform as well as expected; well, I didn't expect such a large amount of pixels to be rendered tbh And although playing in VR is very cool indeed, I'm still not sure I'll switch to it. 1) the graphics in 2D are still better -> there isn't any pixelated shimmer from medium to long distance. It would need a way higher resolution to combat that... so, 6090 maybe? 2) using the mouse and not your hands/fingers to actuate buttons is viable and better then using the controllers, but using physical buttons (UFC, MFDs) is just way better -> as long as you cannot reliably use 2 haptic feedback gloves (and from what I hear, this works still wonky at best) or you can use the cameras to bring your physical controls into DCS (which would pose another problem, because nobody has a 1:1 replica of all the planes at home), physical buttons are still best

I'm new to VR in DCS too (also the Pimax Crystal) and THAT was also my issue; I wanted it to work like TrackIR. -> fortunately, that's possible with this awesome tool: [Open]XrNeckSafer It's an OpenXR tool that needs to be running. Don't worry about all the features; just set the re-center button and use auto-rotation (you have to find the values that you like, just like with TrackIR). I use smooth rotation, which does feel a bit weird but is imho better then the step-rotation.

That's what I always thought to be true. Super Sampling in VR means a Pixel Density of over 1 (= 100%). But as I don't do that and I still have an extremely high resolution, this really has to be the barrel distortion. Really? I haven't yet had the time to research barrel distortion, but that sounds... unlikely. The only thing that nVidia was/is working on was called "MVR" - Multi-View Rendering, but no game every utilized that feature. https://developer.nvidia.com/vrworks/graphics/multiview Nope, nowhere is it set beyond 1 or 100% pixel density. That is exactly my point: where is this resolution coming from. I'm gonna try my luck on the official Pimax Discord. Again, thank you all for your valued input! It's quite interesting to see how this all is working (this is not just for DCS; it's VR in general).

Wait... what? But that would double the amount of calculated pixels?! That sounds... excessive. 4k-UHD is "3840 x 2160", meaning a meager 8.29 MP. PimaxXR says 4.312 x 5.102. If this is the value per eye, that would mean it's not 21.99 MP (seems with 20.98MP I've miscalculated the last time), but double that? So 44 MP? That would be more then 8K-UHD (7.680x4.320 = 33.18 MP)...

That it is; I'm still using the mouse to adjust controls, as the controllers don't work very well. That's probably partly because controllers are a bit weird and cumbersome in DCS anyway, and partly because the controllers and the tracking is pretty garbage (I've only used the original Vive 1 wands).

Thanks for confirming that this is a "normal" issue^^ Thanks, good to know! Nope; these numbers - Render Target / Pixel Density - do not correlate with the resolution of the displays. I still have to find out, how: Render Target = 1 = 4.312 x 5.102 correlate with: Display Resolution = 5.760 x 2.880 I've tried a Render Target of 0.75, which would only be 12,37 MP -> the FPS were of course fantastic. But the picture quality isn't what I like about this HMD: "Crystal" clear picture^^ -> If you have a lower one, then you are probably using "balanced" in the Pimax-Client too... not "maximum", which would be Render Target of "1" Well, of course one can lower the number of calculated Pixel; I just don't see the point. Why buy a high resolution HMD if you are not rendering 100% of those pixels; UpSampling like NIS (which OpenXR can do) is possible and not as bad as just lowering the resolution, but it's still not DLSS, which imho might be up to par quality wise to 100% resolution. AWESOME, thank you! I hope that will explain what's happening I just now from testing that lower then 100% isn't an option. It's like in 2D, but even more apparent, because the displays are right infront of your eyes. So 100% resolution + 2xMSAA is the least one can use. One can only hope, but testing with FFR makes me believe differently. You just can't set the quality so low that you'll gain like 20% FPS or the visuals will be greatly degraded! -> so I doubt it will be a game changer. Yes, everyone hypes about the newest and greatest tech / feature, and Hope Dies Last, but I'm not too optimistic. Good thing I bought the 4090 which is way, way too expansive (still), but with these many pixels to be rendered, I doubt that any type of optimization will substantially improve performance. I've tried a lot. I will try more (from the videos that were suggested). I'm now playing with "High" graphics settings and have 40 (ground) to 90fps 4000ft and up (on Caucasus though^^) Custom2.lua

I've just now catched that: why is your resolution so low? (11.8 Megapixel) PimaxXR for me shows "4.312 x 5.102" (20.98 MP), which is also weird and not the native resolution of "5.760 x 2.880" (15.82 MP). -> this means I'm currently rendering double the amount of pixels... why?

So, did some more testing: Oh, first things first: whenever I change something in the Pimax-Client, or when OpenXR-TK tells me to, I restart DCS. So pretty much every test was a new game start. -> graphical glitches (like lightning flashes) with Pimax "SmartSmoothing"; at least in DCS (I've created a video showing that: -> Pimax FFR (fixed foveated rendering) doesn't really change anything either? Neither visually, nor performance wise What is Minimum and Maximum anyway? "min" is about 0.5 fps slower -> "Hidden Area Mask" area mask isn't doing anything either; it seems to me, with the exception of FFR, that the Pimax-Client settings are only for SteamVR? -> OpenXR TurboMode doesn't do anything -> NIS 75% is a huge performance gain of course; DLSS would be much preferred though. But when enabling NIS, why is it saying 100% resolution is "4312x5102"? The HMD has "5.760 x 2.880"! -> FFR works; but the performance gain isn't all that great

Hm... OpenXR Tool Kit can capture performance data? I guess I've overlooked that bit; gonna try that next. Hz / Fps: the only correlation between those two are, if you are using VSync (or FPS limiter in accordance to GSync best-practice). I do (that's probably why my max FPS are 91), but I have a frame limiter at 77fps, but that doesn't take effect in VR, so I didn't even think about deactivating Gsync, as that is also very much monitor dependent, BUT: because of that I have Vsync turned on "globally". Now, I don't know if the nVidia DCS profile is actually being used in every instance - this being beta-multithreading exe - so I can't be sure. Long story short: the "max" fps might not be correct, but that really is besides the point anyway, because I don't really care about getting more then 90 fps if all I'm getting is 27 at Marianas^^ -> I now know, that this is really an unusual case and most seem to get their performance from Caucasus or some lighter maps like Nevada / Syria (sand maps). That's exactly why I used your track file; to be on the same playing field. Pixel Density: I use 1.0 in DCS (and everywhere, as already stated), because this is effectively supersampling and much more power-hungry then MSAA with MultiSampling Transparency AntiAliasing (which is what I use). To get about the same level of AntiAliasing you'd have to use something like 125% SS (at least), which takes more FPS then MSAA. Tacview: is imho a crucial program to review ones performance; but it's running only on my Stable install anyway which I don't use for this threads benchmarking (to again be comparable to you and most every other people). This install is also clean, so no mods. Also, after comparing the performance with your trackfile and the exact same settings, both Stable and Beta performance are about the same (1-2 fps difference). I still have to watch your video, but with the big things out of the way - like VBS (virtualization based security, which basically activates Hyperthreading, which means your Windows installation will be running virtualized on a hypervisor) - I don't think any "Windows Hacks" which have been around since Win 98 will be of any measurable help^^ Thanks for the video anyway; maybe I actually will learn something new^^ So, what does that leave me with: I could try a fresh Windows install, but from all the things I know, that probably won't help (I might do it on a test-SSD, just to make sure) to not play Marianas, as the performance in Caucasus is "good enough" wait for dynamic foveated rendering wait for DLSS (or use NIS) I'll continue my testing in a more "practical" matter (doing missions) and will report back on my findings and hopefully my then-final-settings.

Sorry, can't find any option in Afterburner

I guess I could also just for the sake of it post my options: options.lua options_vrdcs.lua

I'll do another run including the frame times (gotta check Afterburner on how to do that^^). -> please note if you use mirrors or not; I didn't check it and default DCS settings seem to disable them. I've since enabled the mirrors again for VR High (which is everything maxed) @BIGNEWY Quick question: are we sure that "msaaMaskSize" is doing anything? I've run it with 4xMSAA (just to max out the GPU usage and thus the potential performance gain) and it doesn't do a lot; 0.5 fps seems more like a benchmark tolerance 02-08-2023, 14:14:54 DCS.exe benchmark completed, 3378 frames rendered in 107.797 s dcs beta MT "vr high", 4xMSAA, 1.0 MsaaMask Average framerate : 31.3 FPS Minimum framerate : 22.7 FPS Maximum framerate : 36.2 FPS 1% low framerate : 22.4 FPS 0.1% low framerate : 22.3 FPS 02-08-2023, 14:19:00 DCS.exe benchmark completed, 3349 frames rendered in 108.937 s dcs beta MT "vr high", 4xMSAA, 0.1 MsaaMask Average framerate : 30.7 FPS Minimum framerate : 4.9 FPS Maximum framerate : 35.8 FPS 1% low framerate : 22.4 FPS 0.1% low framerate : 1.2 FPS

didn't really change much: 02-08-2023, 13:20:11 DCS.exe benchmark completed, 4746 frames rendered in 106.937 s dcs beta MT "vr high" Average framerate : 44.3 FPS Minimum framerate : 32.6 FPS Maximum framerate : 50.4 FPS 1% low framerate : 29.9 FPS 0.1% low framerate : 29.8 FPS 02-08-2023, 13:27:19 DCS.exe benchmark completed, 4904 frames rendered in 109.454 s dcs beta MT "vr high"+optimized nvidia settings Average framerate : 44.8 FPS Minimum framerate : 0.8 FPS Maximum framerate : 52.1 FPS 1% low framerate : 0.8 FPS 0.1% low framerate : 0.8 FPS

Will try! So, I've now tested with a "clean" Beta install (non-steam) and comparing 1:1 to my steam-stable version. Doesn't seem much difference: (all without Mirrors) 02-08-2023, 11:38:27 DCS.exe benchmark completed, 9535 frames rendered in 109.438 s dcs beta MT "default dcs vr settings" (no mirrors) Average framerate : 87.1 FPS Minimum framerate : 3.9 FPS Maximum framerate : 91.2 FPS 1% low framerate : 44.2 FPS 0.1% low framerate : 1.0 FPS 02-08-2023, 12:06:04 DCS.exe benchmark completed, 4855 frames rendered in 108.641 s dcs beta MT "all maximum w/o motion blur" (no mirrors) -> does Beta currently have a problem with MotionBlur? I figured that out through trial&error, that if this is activated, the screen is blank and only blurry MFD-green-text is visible... Average framerate : 44.6 FPS Minimum framerate : 9.9 FPS Maximum framerate : 52.4 FPS 1% low framerate : 29.8 FPS 0.1% low framerate : 1.2 FPS 02-08-2023, 12:22:08 DCS.exe benchmark completed, 4675 frames rendered in 107.313 s dcs stable mt "2d w/o motion blur" (no mirrors) Average framerate : 43.5 FPS Minimum framerate : 32.6 FPS Maximum framerate : 50.4 FPS 1% low framerate : 29.8 FPS 0.1% low framerate : 4.6 FPS 02-08-2023, 13:05:30 DCS.exe benchmark completed, 9311 frames rendered in 109.672 s dcs stable mt "default dcs vr settings" (no mirrors) Average framerate : 84.8 FPS Minimum framerate : 0.4 FPS Maximum framerate : 90.5 FPS 1% low framerate : 0.4 FPS 0.1% low framerate : 0.4 FPS I've also tested my Marianas flight and it too is the same FPS. So it doesn't seem to be a problem with Tacview or Texture-Mods. Just for comparison's sake, I'll keep using your Track file in DCS beta.

Thanks all! I'll do some more testing; I'm thinking about doing a clean Windows install on a different SSD (don't wanna ruin my current installation^^), but I doubt it would help (only if something critical is out of tune with Windows - Settings). I'll try Caucassus next; I wanted to use Marianas because if it runs here (those trees are very taxing for whatever reason), then it will run Caucasus and all the other maps too. Just for completeness sake, here are my settings: nVidia Pimax (needs to be open for the headset to start?) OpenXR (not much to set up)null

Thanks for True; the resolution is different, but the amount of pixels is apparently the same. Really weird. Yes, as I've stated in my post, I have it set to 100% everywhere. Maybe some Upsampling can work, but if it's not dynamic foveated rendering, then it's a pretty big clarity loss. Can I ask: does your Crystal support eye-tracking & auto-ipd? I don't see those options in the Pimax app anywhere... (as can be seen here: https://github.com/mbucchia/Quad-Views-Foveated/wiki/Pimax-Crystal) The biggest problem I have: even if I fine-tune the graphics and nVidia driver settings, nothing get's me to that level: Sure, I don't know his Pixel Density setting in every middle-wear, but lowering that is like a last-ditch effort. And the 4090 can handle the amount of pixels; in 2D. But that shouldn't make that much different then in VR, one would think.

Hi, I've literally tried every setting in DCS (Stable, MT) so far and checked it in a 1500ft flight over Marianas. I'm running OpenXR + PimaxXR and DCS forced to OpenXR. I've set pixel density in PimaxPlay, OpenXR and DCS all to 1.0. Here are my specs: Here are my findings: So, with that out of the way: how is that possible? From 66 to 20 FPS? There are dozens of posts of people running an older i5 with an 1060ti playing in VR... I just don't get how!? Do you have any tips on what else I could check? "Windows Game Mode" is on (should help with Win-AntiVirus which isn't power hungry in the first place) "Windows Graphics preference for DCS" is set to High performance "Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling" = on Thanks for "hearing me out"^^ I'm truly baffled tbh. I've only tried "Serious Sam VR" (SteamVR, not OpenXR) and it ran flawlessly with max settings. Sure, that's an older title (to be fair: so is DCS), but it shows, that there doesn't seem to be anything "generally wrong" with drivers, APIs and such. DCS Settings for VR.pdf Custom2.lua Custom3.lua Custom1.lua

The fuselage tank can hold 85ga of fuel and the gauge goes up to 85 What I am not sure about: are the right/left wing fuel gauges non-linear? Because the 75ga is pretty much at the maximum on those gauges, even though it holds 92 gallons: null So ist the very last, 100% mark actually 92 gallons? Or is 75 not gallons, but the percentage (what I doubt)? I just can't find that answer in either the DCS manual, nor Army FlightOps, nor Dr. Google... Cheers!

Ok... small update: I'm mildly optimistic that it works, just the way I've configured in the VPC Config. Seems I just had to restart DCS: null I'm gonna continue to configure this Hotas, but I might just finally have figured out how to do it... (fingers crossed) Thanks anyway

I've been playing around with those stupid 4-way HATs that Virpil uses for literally hours now. If used as default, you only have 4 physical and thus 4 logical buttons. Diagonal are just 2 directional keys combined; that doesn't work in DCS. There is NO WAY to set them to 8-way; you can use "Toggles Decoding" to create 4 virtual buttons for the diagonal, which does work somewhat (you get a new logical button which can be assigned in DCS), but because both the directional keys + the diagonal key get activated, it can happen that DCS doesn't activate the diagonal, but one of the directional keys. Very frustrating that. So, the only other way I thought might be possible: create a POV; it doesn't use buttons and thus there is no... "cross talk" between the directional and diagonal keys. The problem here though is: DCS doesn't see POVs? Windows does: But I can find now way to bind the POV to anything... null Any idea what could be wrong? Or does anyone know how to use a Virpil 4-physical-button-HAT as a 8-button-HAT? Thanks, dlder PS: for completeness sakes, here's the Virpil forum post: https://forum.virpil.com/index.php?/topic/16977-hatspovs-with-8-buttons/

just to add my 2c: I've always been playing at native resolution (3440x1440) and the highest graphical setting. I NEED to use barebones labels and or finding targets is impossible! Not all pixels are the same; clearly. PPI of displays just changes things and having a higher density / smaller pixels is visually better. But not in DCS, where you get punished for going beyond 19", 1280x1024 it seems. That may not have been a problem in 2008, but it is now!

What you're doing is an awesome idea! Especially the liveries; nobody needs dozens of GB just for that. The F-14 alone has 11.5GB of liveries...; the F-1 has 7.1GB. AH-64 are 5.1GB, etc, etc. I hope you'll downsize all of the default ones. Cheers!