While DCS runs in the 2D mode, it freezes when loading in the VR mode. This began right after the most recent update. Before then, I had quit using DCS as the frame rates and stuttering made missions impossible to fly. Besides, MSFS and IL-2 still functioned. After doing some research, I decided to try DCS again with a few alterations I found on the web that promised to make the sim flyable again. Then came the update.
When the program began locking up, something it had never done before, I tried various solutions found on the web, none of which worked. Finally I renamed the DCS World file and did a fresh reload of the sim. I verified it was fresh, as there were none of my aircraft or mission add-ons in the directory. Yet the new reload with no alterations had exactly the same problem booting into VR. I have quite a bit invested in DCS, but unlike MSFS2020 and IL-2, have not been able to use it much due to bugs plaguing the program. Where to now?
Well, let's try a rant.
Before I became an “IT” boy, I was a professional pilot/mechanic snowed under with FAA regulations. After eleven years of hanging around hangers with wrenches in my pocket and 2700 hrs in the cockpit, I left aviation because I got tired of the immense complexity involved with modern flight and its constant demands for compliance with mountains of arcane regulations.
I'm a real stick and rudder guy. Much of my time was spent in the cockpit of Grumman's venerable Ag Cat, but I also flew Caribbean cargo runs in C-47s and C-45s before moving on to corporate jets. The last flying I did was as a volunteer, CAP search and rescue pilot in Alaska. I quit flying altogether when the FAA began it's ramp check program where an army of clueless bureaucrats swarmed over airports demanding to see one's papers, with no perfunctory “please” accompanying their demands.
I began my foray into computers in 1978 with a college course on computing that used the Apple II with its Gumby (floppy) disk setup. The first computer I ever owned was a grossly overpriced 8088 machine purchased in 1980, but then to its credit, it never needed more than 256k memory. Back then I thought a 3.5 inch "floppy" disk and a ten megabyte hard drive was advanced technology and hearing a modem "handshake" was music to my ears.
When early flight sims like Red Baron and 1942: The Pacific Air War came out, I was intrigued by the store displays, but not enough to invest time or money into the technology. Besides, aviation was consuming almost all my time, money and energy.
After quitting aviation in disgust, I went on to spend more than twenty years with IT, getting paid to troubleshoot the same kinds of issues I'm now having with flight sims. I worked with robotics, networks and their servers, PCs, mainframes, dedicated word processors as big as a refrigerator, (How many remember those massive, dot matrix printers and their "silencers"?) I worked on countless other computer related machines as well, along with all the software that accompanied them. It got to the point I personally knew many of the guys I worked with at tech support.
I bought the first so-called "smart" phone, before they were given that name, and equipped it with a headset I modified to work with the phone so I was able to talk and work on the systems at the same time. Back in those days, off the shelf, Bluetooth headsets were somewhere in the future. When I quit, I got rid of my smart-ass phone and have not owned one since.
I finally got sick of the hassles involved with troubleshooting, so I left the IT business. Now I find myself paying to troubleshoot issues that are actually worse than the problems I once encountered professionally. I am not happy about the situation.
Around the early part of the 21st century, I decided computer technology had finally advanced enough to try flight simulation. To this end I purchased a gaming machine equipped with a snazzy graphics card and staffed (or is that stuffed?) it with sims like the superb Rise of Flight (RoF), Wings Over Flanders Fields (WOFF, a rather doggy flight sim) and FSX. Then to enhance the simulation, I built a rudimentary simpit with a feed-back flight stick, a throttle quadrant with wonky pots and rudder peddles that looked a like a prize from a box of Cracker Jacks, but with a much higher price.
I "flew" the flat screen for a while, going so far as to buy an over sized, over priced, 72" screen that would provide a life-sized perspective. For a brief moment I was wowed. However, while these sims functioned with very little trouble, I was still sitting in a room that was plainly evident.
This was fine when flying "desk top" simulators like the ATC-610 for instrument training,
but flat screen sims simply did not capture the feeling of actually being in those cockpits where I had spent 2700 hours. So I turned off the computer and went back to doing other things, like building models and creating dioramas with those planes I flew and planes I had always wanted to fly.
I had been following VR development since the early 1990's and knew someday it would develop into a viable technology. A couple of years ago, when VR finally reached the point where the wide FOV Pimax 8KX came on the market, I felt VR technology had finally developed to where it was worth the investment of a rather substantial sum.
To this end, I bought a top of the line gaming set up dedicated solely to sim flying and built a dedicated simpit to use with the sims. I then purchased yet more sims, three to be exact and lots of extra aircraft and other addons to go with them. However, this time I left out X-Plane.
I put it all together, plugged it in, fired it up, installed the sims, went through a brief troubleshooting sequence during the setup and bingo bango! This was it! I was finally back doing what I do best, but this time in the kind of cockpit where I had always longed to be.
Now I could fly like I had always dreamed flying would be in my youth. No licenses, no medicals, no bi-annuals, no check rides, no pre or post-flight requirements, no turbine stink, no flight plans, no radios, no customs declarations, no logbooks, no maintenance or fuel, no waiting at the terminal for the boss's call - no paperwork, no nuthin! Just fire up the machine, pull down the goggles and go flying without having to talk first with a lizard-lipped bureaucrat. Move over Waldo Pepper, 'cause here I come.
Newt: The fun and games are over, Waldo. You guys been scarin' the hell out of people for too long. Flying is getting to be big business, and people gotta figure it's safe. (Unlike the 737 max)
Waldo: You can't wave your papers and ruin our livelihood just like that. (Wanna bet?)
Newt: You meet the requirements in here and you can fly again. But your planes have to be licensed, your pilots licensed. No stunting over congested areas, no wing-walking. It's all in there. When you're ready for inspection, let me know and I'll come back. But until then, you're grounded.
Waldo: Gee, do you think if I study real hard Newt, I might pass? Are you gonna license the clouds and the rain? You gonna put highways in the sky for people to follow?
Newt: Yep. All that, too. Along with airlines and airmail, and there's gonna be big money in it too, if you're smart.
Waldo: Well, I'm no chauffeur, and I'm no mailman. I'm a flyer, Newt.
Newt: I'm afraid not anymore, Waldo. That kind of flying is finished.
Oh Yeah? Now I can fly anytime and anywhere I desire in the kinds of aircraft I always wanted to fly, along with many aircraft I actually flew. Unless of course there is yet another technical issue with which to contend. After a flight, I simply shut down the system and move on to other matters. What more could one ask for? Maybe a program that functions without requiring several hours of troubleshooting prior to flight? My sim rig has a bright red "Remove Technical Issues Before Flight" streamer attached to it.
Every pilot understands why I want to fly, instead of spending my flying time troubleshooting problems that prevent a program from properly executing commands. I note this is an ongoing process that never ends and begins anew with every update. The varying, multiple levels of various programs interacting to enable the sim's functioning makes troubleshooting a far worse nightmare than it was back before the age of Steam, a time when computers still had Diesel Operating Systems.
Today when one goes to troubleshoot a problem, the first step is to figure out (read guess) which program is the problem. Worse, is it a specific program or the interaction between programs creating the problem? Like that old hair dye commercial, no one knows for sure, not even the code cowboys programming the digital nightmares they leave behind for us to unravel. To paraphrase Rodney King's immortal words, why can't all our programs jes get along?
When one researches a problem online, they find a thousand different solutions of which few, if any, work. Thus one must test each solution to see if it resolves the problem. Reboot, reboot, reboot and reboot again. I am astonished at how often I see a screen shot that looks exactly like the menu screen on my computer. Yet, while the screen shot menu looks exactly the same as the one on my computer, the needed click bar or button for assigning the needed function is absent on my menu screen.
This technology is so muddled, one finds themselves spending much of their time trying to figure out why they can't figure out how it works. For this I left careers in aviation and IT, only to find that I now have the worst of both those worlds. Endless troubleshooting and endless time reading reasons why I can't fly. Someday, I would like to try flying DCS again as it seemed to provide excellent flight simulation the few times I tried it.
- The Flying wrench
Was getting 45-90 fps in VR before recent update, now I'm getting 20fps in the WWII campaigns. Program worked fine before the update. Now the sim is unflyable, with fame rates consistently at or below 20fps. Very bad stuttering. When the head is held perfectly still the image is normal. However, the slightest head movement or movement within the program image results in a blurring effect that makes one nauseous. The intro featuring the Jeep driving out to the Spitfire blurrs continuously during the drive. I have the same problem with the other aircraft as well. My system sports an I9 processor, a 3090 GPU, with mass storage and memory numbers close to the national debt. HMD is a Pimax 8KX. My machine is dedicated solely to world war flight simming. I have a rather large investment in DCS and as such am not happy with this sudden, unwelcome turn of events. I spend about half my time flying and the other half researching and repairing various issues with my sims. IL2 seem to be the least troublesome with MSFS2020 leading the disaster pack. This is the first major issue I have experienced with DCS.