GeneralDynamics

Thanks hornblower - something else I forgot to mention is that the Cloud II headset does not require any bloated driver software like Logitech or Razer for instance and is plug and play via USB. The USB option utilizes a mini inline sound card so that the headset registers as a separate device from any additional sound devices you might have in your system. That was important to me for VAICOM, because I use my main 7.1 sound card for the main audio in DCS and for general gaming, Realtek onboard sound is used for SimShaker output, and the headset is used for VAICOM radio communications and anything else that should go to the headset in DCS. The inline sound card can be bypassed by unplugging it from the headset and then inserting the 3.5mm headset plug directly into a jack on a sound card or receiver. The Cloud II has virtual 7.1 speaker capability, but only through the inline sound card while using the USB connection. I haven't tested the virtual 7.1 quality or bypassing the inline sound card because I only use the headset for VAICOM (thus far), but the options are supposedly there if you need them.

When I fly the FA-18C I like to make things as realistic as possible, including having the cockpit sound level similar to the actual aircraft, like 80-90 db during flight. I know there's a "Hear like in helmet" option, but I like to actually "feel" the cockpit sound around me via my 7.1 surround receiver while wearing my headset to better simulate what it's like to wear a helmet in the cockpit. Now, if any of you are as crazy as I am in this regard, then you might have noticed that the external noise interferes with speech engine's ability to understand you. That's the issue I had with my old Logitech G35 headset - if I turned up the cockpit sound, the speech engine couldn't recognize a word I said. I recorded the G35 headset mic with Audacity while flying, and I could clearly hear a great deal of background noise even after turning on passive mic noise cancellation. I read some reviews of the HyperX Cloud II headset, and the consensus was that the mic noise cancellation with that model was very good so I gave them a shot. What a difference! Even with the cockpit sound running at 80-90 db as measured on my cell phone app and recording the Cloud II mic while flying, I could barely hear just a hint of a background noise under those conditions during playback and my voice was crystal clear. The speech engine had no difficulty recognizing voice commands in a normal speaking voice. Maybe there are other headsets available with even better mic noise cancellation, but for what I paid for these, they were excellent. I thought I'd pass along my experience in case any of you guys are as silly as I am...

Found disassembly pics here: TM F/A-18C Hornet grip disassembly and OTTO upgrade - Page 3 - Thrustmaster - ED Forums (eagle.ru) I feel a little better about it now

Great, the first TM FA-18C grip I ordered had to be replaced because the buttons were sticking, and now I'm having this issue with the replacement after just a few weeks. So, just to be clear, there are three allen screws holding the the grip handle together, one just behind the paddle switch, another about an inch back and up from that one, and a third screw up by the weapon select switch - is that correct? I'm a little nervous about attempting this because I had a bad experience performing surgery to smooth out the ball and re-grease my old, sticky Warthog base. I can't remember exactly what happened now but I managed to ruin it, had to buy a new one. Hopefully this won't be as tricky...

Got my replacement Thrustmaster FA-18C grip, and I can happily report that it is a vast improvement over the first unit that I ordered. Weapons select left (sidewinders) is still a tad bit difficult to engage, but I suspect that will pass as the stick gets broken in and as I get used to it. Everything else is working fine! Thanks for your input, guys, and I sincerely hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! @oboe, I can confirm that after configuring the first FA-18 grip (that had issues), I was able to pop it out and replace it with my original A-10C grip and all my Hornet mappings for that stick were retained. Likewise after the new FA-18 grip arrived, I removed the A-10C grip and popped in the new FA-18 grip and likewise the mappings for the FA-18 stick were retained. Didn't have to change a thing:-)

Thanks so much for your responses, everyone. I guess I'll return the darn thing because if I break it trying to fix it I'll be out of luck... sigh. Too pricey to risk voiding the warranty at this point. One last question for you - when you received your sticks, were the boxes sealed? Mine was not, i.e. it was packaged with no sealing tape that had to be cut or anything like that. I ask because Amazon is notorious for reselling items that have been returned by others.

Thanks HILOK, yes, I thought the same thing and tried cycling the switch through all the positions continuously for like 5 minutes, plus three hours or so of flying and weapons selection. Doesn't seem to have gotten any better.

Hi all, I was quite excited to finally get a ThrustMaster FA-18C grip for Christmas, but I'm having multiple issues with the weapons select button: 1. Weapons select forward (button 20) sticks and I have to physically move it back to the center position until it clicks back into place. 2. Weapons select left (button 17) is difficult as all heck to engage with just my thumb resting on top of the switch. I find that in order to accurately engage it I need to either jam my thumb between the switch and the stick or use my index finger to push it over to the left. 3. Center downward press (button 7) is spotty as to whether it makes contact or not. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Has anyone else experienced these problems? As much as I hate to, I'm thinking of returning it, but I was also wondering if others have had these issues. Thank you!

FA-18C Early Release Guide, Dec 17 version: Page 65, Audio Tones Master Caution Tone. Whenever the master caution is triggered, the master caution tone will sound. It has a "deele dee" sound. Did you guys mean "deedle dee" sound?

I see the same error during auto-start in the Caucuses cold start instant action mission.

OK, so it appears no one else is running a Helios glass cockpit on a secondary monitor with a 4K TV as primary. Thanks to all of you that had a look at my post. I'll make the purchases and test once I get my hands on a proper 3000 series card and the TV and will report back. Best wishes everyone!

I'm looking into making the leap to a 4K TV with Gsync as my primary monitor, but I need to run Helios on a secondary 1080P touchscreen. Tried this some time ago and ended up returning the TV because of a host of screwy problems with the TV attempting to do weird stuff with scaling due to trying to run two dissimilar displays in extended format. The latest TVs are much more gaming friendly, so I'm curious whether any of you been able to successfully run Helios on a secondary touch screen monitor while using a 4K TV as a primary display? Hoping you guys can save me the headache of purchasing a TV and then having to return it again :doh: Thanks in advance for any assistance!

Well, Max, the bad news is I shut everything down and unplugged my headset to do some other stuff on the PC. Got ready to fly again so I plugged them back in and started everything back up, and everything was all jacked up. Redirection for the headset in DCS was pointing to "default" and Windows had lost all its redirection settings for VA, pointing all the VA output to "default" as well. Reset the Windows and DCS redirection and Windows reverted back to default again after I started VA. Reset it again and it stayed set the second time through. There still seems to be some contention going on. Possibly related, but I haven't the foggiest idea how, my centering key bind for TrackIR was set but no longer working. Restarting TrackIR fixed it, but that's never happened before. Definitely some funky stuff going on under the hood here. The good news is that I know how to get it working now when these issues happen, but it's just a bit of a hassle is all. Sorry my "solution" didn't live up to expectations...

Yes, the headset redirection in DCS works fine, responses from ATC etc.. come in loud and clear along with chatter and command cues from VAICOM.

Hey MAX, I'm inclined to agree, especially since Windows 10 now has its own mechanisms in place to redirect output on a per application basis (Settings->Sound->Advanced sound options). My gut tells me as well that it has something to do with a conflict in that area after I've tried everything I know to get the system back to operational status. Another clue is the fact that my headset was suddenly no longer recognized by Windows when this all began, indicating "something" initially happened in Windows 10 that persists even after reacquiring the connection to the headset. Based on that, I'm not even sure if a re-install of VA and VAICOM will fix it, but I don't know what else to try at this point so I'll give it a shot and cross my fingers. Edit: Right after I wrote this, it got me thinking, maybe trying to beat Windows at its own game was indeed the issue causing the conflict. I turned off ALL redirection in VA and VAICOM, and instead relied solely upon letting Windows redirect the VA output to the headset. BOOM! Working again!

VA Console output and VAICOM log attached illustrating what I described. Commands recognized and acted upon, but no audio command cues, no chatter. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be anything in the VA console output or VAICOM log that would indicate a problem. Edit: Attached files were created with debug on as requested. VA Console.txt VAICOMPRO Log.log

This is my first visit to the VAICOM Pro forum, so I'm hoping you kind folks can help me. Configuration: DCS/FA-18C Helios SSA via onboard Realtek Audio Console TrackIR Logitech G35 headset/Logitech Gaming Software Default audio output, eClaro 7.1 sound card/speakers Default audio input, G35 mic G35 selected as headset in DCS sound settings Chatter redirected to G35 headset in VAICOM Audio Tab I run all non-radio DCS sound to my 7.1 sound system so I can feel and hear the cockpit/world sounds while I have the headset on to simulate actually sitting in the aircraft with a helmet (headset) on. I had VAICOM Pro and all extensions working great and was loving it until last night when I started everything up and then fired up DCS. Here are the problems that seemed to come out of nowhere: 1. Chatter is no longer audible. 2. Audio command cues/beeps no longer audible. 3. Mic switch on/off effect no longer audible. VAICOM commands are recognized and acted upon by VA and responses from ATC, etc.. come through the headset, but no audio cues or chatter present. Even when I start VA, I no longer hear the beep when the profile is initiated at startup. All VAICOM licenses are validated, no error messages apparent in the VA console. I performed a DCS repair, no help. I shut down DCS, cycled chatter redirection to the headset off and back on, shut down and restarted VA, restarted DCS, no help. When this all started, my headset was not recognized by my system for some unknown reason. Unplugging and re-plugging the headset remedied that, but then all these other problems started. I'm hoping I'm just missing something simple being a nube at all this, so I'm attaching screen prints of configuration settings. I REALLY don't want to reinstall/reconfigure all this all over again, but if that's what you guys say I need to do, then I guess I'll have to do it. Any suggestions other than that would be most welcome! Thanks! :smilewink:

Well, I've fiddled and tweaked until I'm blue in the face and I'm still unable to get the current DCS looking realistic/natural. The only thing I can think of at this point is that the DCS team is developing on monitors/TVs that far exceed the technology that my 9 year old 46 inch 1080P TV is capable of. Maybe it's time to upgrade, BUT I've tried before. My problem is that I like using a large display, and large monitors (40+ inches) are prohibitively expensive coupled with the fact that 1080P TVs are pretty much a thing of the past. I don't want to give up Helios because I love my glass cockpit controls, so now in order to upgrade, I'm looking at trying to run DCS on a 4K TV plus running Helios on a second 1080P touch screen. Running DCS smoothly on 4K alone will be a challenge, let alone trying to render an additional 1080P touch screen at the same time. Maybe when the 3080ti cards come out things will change. I guess time will tell:-)

I hadn't changed the gamma since it once looked great before the last several updates, but I'll try fiddling with it both in DCS and also in the monitor and see if I can get it dialed in better.

Current settings attached.

I have new hardware now, need to update my specs as I'm now running an I9-9900K on a Z370 board with my old Titan X. I don't think Gamma was even a thing yet back in 2017. When I try reducing Gamma currently, I get bluish tints in the shadows and other odd color anomalies, but it could very well be my equipment. The settings, however, should be very close to what I had back in 2017. Gamma was at 2.1 in the 2020 photo.

I was watching an A-10C video I had recorded back in May of 2017, and it seemed to me that strictly from an image quality perspective, the 2017 video looked more realistic than what we have today. That's just my own opinion, and before you flame me, yes, I'm fully aware of improvements made to the graphics engine and that 2.5.6 is still a work in progress, yet I found myself longing for the image quality that was available back in the day. I took a screen print from the 2017 video (which had an inset image of me flying with Helios running) and a screen print today from roughly the same location over Nevada. I've attached both, and I'm interested to hear your comments regarding which image looks more realistic. I'm looking for comments and opinions based strictly upon the image quality between those two screen prints. I felt that the 2017 image looked richer and a bit more detailed, while the current 2020 image looks more washed out and and the terrain looks more "cartoonish" for lack of a better word. What are your thoughts? Image on left is 2017 and 2020 is on the right.

I'm seeing weird tree shadows as well but without the banding, and the ground and buildings just generally look washed out. If I try and reduce Gamma, then I get an unnatural blue tint in shadows, especially when looking at the shady side of the aircraft, F-18, in F2 view. I don't remember exactly which update all this started with, but I kept waiting thinking a future update would fix it but that hasn't happened over the last couple updates at least. Tree textures are lost in the shadows, making it appear a forest fire has occurred and all that's left is a black, burned landscape where the trees once were. DCS was looking incredibly realistic before this all began, but because of these issues I've lost all sense of immersion. Log file and track uploaded. Edit: Forgot to mention, I deleted FXO and shaders and ran a complete cleanup. No help. dcs.log Trees.trk

No worries, sir. As I mentioned in my edit, whatever the problem was resolved itself after a restart of SSA. Please stay well and safe, and take care of your family and your business :thumbup:

For those of you that are experiencing clattering issues in ButtKicker transducers, check these guys out: http://earthquakesound.com/index.php/en/home-audio-division/home-products/tactile-transducers I'm running a Q10B 1000W transducer off their XJ-700R amp, and I love it. Works perfectly with SSA. I haven't experienced any clatter even after turning it up until my vision blurs. Yes, it's that strong. My sim equipment is mounted on a platform and casters, and it all probably weighs maybe 200 pounds. The transducer is mounted on the platform, not the seat, and it shakes the whole thing. Call them up and chat with them, they're nice folks. I had ButtKicker setups and experienced quality issues with their amps and equipment, and not only that, they can never seem to keep replacement items in stock and I guess that more than anything prompted me to look elsewhere. Very satisfied with Earthquake equipment.