MadKreator

Three aircraft I don’t fly, of course.. you may have to do custom luas…However, as I said, Helios does have exports for f-14, ka-50 and mirage, and lots of others.. you would literally drag the viewports from the “toolbox” onto the correct screen, position and size them to your MIP’s. They all get combined in a single monitor config file, then you just run the helios ”control center” app and select which aircraft you’re in to display the appropriate viewports. Never have to change a thing in dcs or even touch a lua file. Select Helios as your monitor ( and entering the total screenspace resolution), which I assume is done already with the MIP’s and uncheck fullscreen. ….. I don’t know much about setting up the monitor files manually, but if you give helios a shot, hop over to Captnzeen discord channel and DM me or tag me and I can help you get going if you have issues. There’s not really any great instructions to use it lol DCS many indeed call them the same thing when exporting as @No1sonuk said. Or it may know, internally what its supposed to export even though the monitor config says MFD in the title.. Last time I used the dcs MFD config, I only had the 16, 18, a-10, and harrier. All worked no problem with the same config file.

No need to change the lua file. Once you setup exported mfd’s, it will work with all planes that support it. You just need to set the monitor type in settings as lmfd+monitor+rmfd … however some mfds are larger than others.. the a-10 exports are larger than the f-16 so if you’re fitting them inside a set of mfd cougars, you may have to play with the sizes until you find a good compromise. Its good and also bad that it covers every aircraft, good because it’s easiest, bad because you have the least control and have to mess with lua files.. You could also download and use Helios to have ultimate control and export much more than just mfd’s if you want to.

I was just thinking this would be a good addition. Just add a checkbox to the menu to only take fuel, or add a keybind to request fuel only or rearm only.

Displays with different refresh rates seem to mess with helios a bit. Mine is 120 hz main but my helios screen is 60. So fps at 60 seems to run the smoothest. I’ve seen users that have 144hz main monitors and 60hz helios monitor have bigger issues like yours. There’s a lot of information going back and forth between helios and dcs. Neither system is perfect. Now that I’m thinking of it.. does your control center give you a yellow caution running the a-10 profile? Mine started to a couple updates ago and my a-10 gauges are more laggy than other planes now. Mine says its basically trying to read a certain export before the next frame is generated so its causing a little hiccup in the communication. Bluefin has it on his never ending list of things to fix. Every workaround I have still doesn’t smooth out my a-10 profile.

Try turning on v-sync if you haven’t done so… also I get mine to smooth out by capping the fps in nvidia control to 60 fps, then setting the export frequency in helios to 60 or 120 even. I find the only time my gauges are really smooth is if I’m capped at 60 or if I’m hitting over 120 uncapped, anywhere in between they a jumpy but Yours seem unreasonably jumpy, like its only updating a few times a second. Have you tried it with just using the captnzeen profile? Also if you post in captnzeen discord, you will get more help with helios than on here usually. … do you use winwing hardware and the simapp pro app? Just curious, I use some winwing items but for some reason the line of code simapp pro writes in the export file really played hell with my fps and some exports. If you do, try commenting out the winwing line in the export.lua, maybe even moving helios to the first line( i doubt that really matters though). Last thought, are you using the latest helios version and were you using the same version on the laptop when you made the profile? If not it might be worth hopping back into the editor, disable patches. Run a full dcs slow repair, then re-apply the patches, re save the profile

Great job @OnReTech! I think you just set the new standard for DCS maps! Well done!

Thats a great point too! ED has a fine balance to make when deciding on how or what to implement. Having the most cutting edge graphics,the most dynamic, immersive real-time battlefield ever seen would bring all but the highest end systems to a crawl, and probably some of them too. A lot of things happening in the world of dcs affect the pc’s usage more than just some graphics settings that can be turned down or off. MT is a great step in the right direction, as will be vulkan and updated game engine. Hopefully bringing better graphics (if chosen) and functionality but also streamlining things so it is still playable for everyone.

I hope no one honestly does either , but I’ve seen some people throw big enough fits and act like they (ED) just sit around and do nothing all day Rest assured, nothing I said was directed to anyone in this particular thread, or any one person per se, just thoughts

Despite the list of would haves, should haves, could haves, and everyone’s personal laundry list of wishes, DCS is still the most in depth, realistic air combat simulator ever made. The stuff I ( and I’m sure many others) always dreamed about growing up! As far as combat flight sims go anyway. I seriously doubt that anyone on the ED team is sitting around sipping coffee/tea/vodka/beer or whatever, and laughing at the forums thinking “ look at all these suckers, lets have a good laugh and break the game next go round”. Most people have absolutely no clue how much work it takes to make all the aspects of DCS function. Hell, I couldn’t even figure out how to make any thing work in my 1st graders computer programming class.. He literally showed me how to write lines of code to make a dude move through a short maze and move obstacles out of the way. I can’t even fathom the amount of work it would be to code even the basic aerodynamics of an aircraft! No one really knows ED’s timeline, short and long term goals, how or when things should be implemented. I’m sure there’s a method to the madness, so to speak. We would all like everything right now, but I find it best not to dwell on tiny details and enjoy the surprises each update brings, whether its something I really want or not. ED brings more updates and content every few months than some other AAA games do in a lifetime. I personally think that what they do accomplish deserves appreciation, instead of constant complaints about why didn’t this get done, I requested this last week and its not here, f-15..when, and so on… Morning thoughts

100%

I’m from USA but have always been fascinated with that region of the world. The Geography, Music, Culture, History, Mythology etc. DCS wise, the terrain and historical significance of course…and its not another desert map lol

Yes I believe so. OTT calls it something a little different. I will look in the debug tool when running OTT and see how it is configured

I don’t mess with any of them too much lol Bitrate and encoding will probably be based on what your system can handle, mine just happens to work fine on what I set it at, although I’ve seen people say that anything over 350 has minuscule returns. I’ve never used the debug tool but if you can change settings in it, try punching in .8,.8 in the FOV multiplier box.. Thats the only “option” I have set in the oculus tray tool app and the only one I feel really made any difference. I got tired of tweaking settings all the time. In dcs I run the same graphic options I do on 2d screen, except I turn ground shadows off, and set cockpit shadows to med or low those to me seems to be the biggest performance killer for me in vr. People have said as well setting terrain textures to low instead of high can get rid of the random hard fps drops and frame time spikes ( maybe a MT bug) The Oculus Tray Tool really does seem to help though, might install it if the debug tool doesn’t let you change settings. Its a 3rd party app, not an oculus product.. if you haven’t heard of it before. VR can be a royal pain in the butt to get tuned right for each particular system, to say the least.

I have quest 2 and quest pro, I get smoothest play with 90hz and 1.3 multiplier in oculus. In the Oculus tray tool app, I run encode res at “38xx” and bitrate at 500( might need to play with those depending on system), ASW off…but the best settings I’ve done is change the FOV multiplier to .8.. the game is rendering more than the actual fov that you can see through either the quest 2 or pro. Dropping the fov multiplier too low, you will start noticing the cropped image. Saw another post where someone was down at .7 or .75 and said it was still fine. But .8 seemed to really help smooth things out.. idk what it is about the OTT but I get much smoother performance using it. Startup sequence with the quest seems to make a difference too.. start oculus tray tool, then oculus app, then enable the link cable, then open dcs from the desktop ( not through oculus). If i run dcs without the tray tool in MT or ST it gets choppy and stuttery and very inconsistent fps.

Just got a quest Pro and noticed the same thing, MT no left controller

Beautiful! Can’t wait! Thanks for your hard work!

@SkateZilla curious if the new version ( or current for that matter) will have a way to limit fps as an option.(Not sure if that’s even possible straight through dcs or not) In vr I like to have it uncapped in nvidia control so I can get 90 fps, but in 2d I cap it at 60 so my exported gauges using Helios move nice a smooth. Love the current utility, looking forward to the next!

Definitely not opposed to a GOOD spotting system, I was just blown aback by the difference between what I was used to compared to how it was in the low resolution of the quest 2 ( maybe it was because of vr too). Being a game and not real life, there should be some assistance, but I was not thrilled seeing black dots that were significantly larger than the aircraft at distance. Whatever is going on in that video does look good. Not too easy, not too difficult, smooth transitions of the models, good contrast on both, yet not so overdone where you can blatantly see everything right away. I didn’t see the small jet at all on the first watch until it was too late. Thats a very realistic approach. The airliner was very easy to spot against the flat sky, but the private jet was very well camouflaged by ground clutter, when you didn’t know it was there.

I figured that was a bug.. I’m on current open beta and was on MT.. they really should “fix” it better then, whatever they fixed , apparently didn’t work

So I threw on my quest 2 last night for the fun of it and hopped in server ( tbh never used vr for more than free flight) and even the default spotting is ridiculously easy compared to my 5120x1440 monitor… even ground targets have a fat black spot even through cloud cover.. I can 100% see why people are up in arms on the spotting thing if this is what they’re used to! To me it immediately felt too gamey but thats from years of learning to pinpoint microscopic dots on the widescreen lol I’ll admit it was kind of nice but felt too easy. Instead of me making markpoints( guesspoints in my case) preflight, on my tads and searching the area for targets, just glance out the window there’s big black dots all over where other fighters and ground targets are lol just drop bombs through the cloud cover from 15k feet, no need to drop down to the deck to actually find them It really took away the difficulty I’m used to in dcs. If thats how the new” improved” spotting will be on every resolution, I’ll pass

July

Last night playing on a server I noticed a stray t-72 rolling into a friendly base, it was damaged slightly already on its way in , id say 20% or less judging by the health bar in f10, no smoke, it was just cruising around blowing up friendly assets, so I thought it was a prime opportunity to play around. Hopped in an a-10, guns only. Made a couple passes and got its health down to 37% according to the BDA overlay, and it stopped in its tracks with very light new smoke plume… it was winter on caucuses and that tank was very well camouflaged from a visual perspective from the cockpit. It was sitting next to some already destroyed debris with a fully destroyed burning asset not far away. Made a few more passes until I ran out of ammo when I got it to 99% damaged, smoke level didn’t seem to change based on amount of damage from when it started, down to 1% health. Landed and just observed.. it never blew up on its own in the few minutes I sat there, until another player had the same idea as me and he made a few runs at it, killing off that last 1% and it exploded like it should with a large black smoke plume.. I will say the small smoke effect really wasn’t that pronounced, or detracting from any realism in my eyes. It honestly really helped in that situation as that t-72 next to the debris on snowy ground was really really hard to see until I was right on top of it. If it weren’t for that faint smoke plume I would have done a lot of guessing on my flyby’s and probably wasted a lot of ammo. No real point here, just how I observed and felt about it in that situation. It didn’t seem to change density or anything the more it got damaged, just seemed to be an indicator from the point when it was immobilized but not fully destroyed. My personal opinion… it really wasn’t all that bad to each his own of course Now for realism, I can see only having something like that implemented if a certain component was damaged, like fuel tank or engines, but I don’t know if dcs damage models are that in-depth or not, but that would be a cool evolution of this effect.

NineLine said they have an internal solution right now they are tweaking and working out. I’m kind of interested to see what it is.. hopefully you can turn it off too lol I’m not sure I want to see a bunch of random dots flying around on my screen 50 miles away. That’s what radar, link 16 and rwr is for. If you’re an avid a-10 and av8b guy like me, well then you keep flying NOE focus on your target and hope you can fool the enemy, or hope there’s someone doing a good job on CAP Yup I’ve never seen anything of the sort. I always assumed I was either unlucky or just needed to learn how to find enemy aircraft better. I’ve never used vr for a real A/A mission either. Only for some a-10 single player ground strikes just to mess around, or just for free flight. I may have to try it on A/A just to see these mystical dots

I’ll admit I used the dot labels for ground vehicles for a long time, but after playing MP enough without them, it forces you to learn what the vehicles look like and and how to pick out what you’re looking for. Now I don’t care to use any labels/ dots at all. Same idea with some friends I fly RC planes with that are learning. I keep telling them, ditch the safe/ trainer mode as soon as possible or you’ll never get better, always relying on that crutch. You will adapt, you will progress, its amazing what you can train your brain to do when you have no other choice