LithiumR

I wish they would model it just so I could take friends and family screaming through the mountains in the backseat while in VR on our second PC haha. I guess I could do that now if I bought a 3rd copy of the Tomcat (I buy 2 of each module... one for me and one for my son) but I'm just not gonna buy it 3 times.

This is how I feel also. I got the P-51 in 2012 and was super excited for DCS WWII development. I thought at the time maybe 2-3 years and DCS WWII would be ready. I bought every WWII module that would come out, partly because I did want it but mostly because I wanted to support WWII development. But fast forward almost 10 years and WWII is still only almost kind of there but not quite in a single theatre. People say that WWII has a small base and therefor a small development team.... but it's only a small base precisely because it's under developed. The market there is HUGE. I do understand ED's position though. I've got nothing but love for ED. But as a customer it's difficult also. For example I would love to invest in the Pacific theatre but if it's 6 months to a year for assets, 3-5 years for a module, and the development team is only big enough to do maybe 2 at a time... or let's be generous and say 5 at a time... we're looking at like 20 years in development haha. Which seems about right with the progress of the current WWII theatre. About 10 more years and it'll be all fleshed out. One problem with such a long development time is the change in technology in that span. The other problem for me with all of this is that I'm getting old! Maybe I will never see it! And with that in mind it's hard to continue to be the customer that buys modules simply to support development when in fact I probably won't live long enough to see it through at the current pace. But that's not really ED's problem haha. Just my problem. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this. I want to be the kind of customer who is reasonable in my expectations... but to say "I'll be happy to fly this after I'm dead" is also not reasonable. So idk... maybe that's just how it is. And none of this is a bash on ED. I think they have done a tremendous job... but it is slow. If I was a gobillionaire I would just give them money for faster development haha. But sadly for them and for me I am not! Oh well... such is life.

It is a HUGE niche. It's only a sliver of DCS players because it's under developed.

Can just do what everyone else does.... give up and check back in a few years to see how it's going haha. I'm kidding... but seriously.

This is how my “squad” did it on GS. We all started together. But it was in a mp environment. Obviously not everyone started together but that was irrelevant. We started together. Mixed airframes was a necessity for taking out objectives. That was before the 18 had a T-pod. A good “squad” could usually take out an objective in about 1-2hrs. I think there were 4 objectives for each side (so 6hrs to win the server). I think what you suggest is good for a group of 4 or so in a locked server playing PvE. Hard to coordinate PvP like that... and to me PvE even with my squad gets stale. AI will never play a strategic chess match like real players will. That’s just my opinion though... there is no wrong way to fly DCS

Growling Sidewinder used to be fun to me because it was always packed but there were objectives. You had specific targets to hit and to defend. So awesome to have a 4 man squad load up 2x A-10’s and 2x18’s (or whatever) and escort them. In the ground pounder roll there was a real sense of vulnerability and dependence and if you were escort a real feeling of responsibility to your team. I think originally that’s what made the GS server so popular. And whatever side won had its music play when all targets destroyed. Not a lot of Sam’s but a lot of resistance from the other team who were actively trying to defend their assets and attack yours also. It was f’n awesome imo. Now it’s just team death match so not as much planning and teamwork going on. Because there are no team goals now hardly anyone in comms. Bummer. I asked GS on discord why and he said it’s because of a bug with ground units lagging the server. Bummer... That server used to be so much fun. I think SOW is starting to get there on the WWII side. Similar setup to what GS used to be. If we had some bombers it would be the absolute awesomeness. Some actual planes with real ground pounding power but vulnerable to fighters. THAT is the setup for tense action packed team based pvp. That’s what most are looking for in DCS mp I think. It is for me anyway.... But I figure that’s at least 10 years down the road. Maybe 15 at DCS development pace haha. I’ll probably be dead by then . I know the skeeter is coming... maybe that will help create escort kind of situations. But with weak/ no splash damage and no fused bombs it’s hard to ground pound effectively in the warbirds. I kind of give up waiting on these things.

Absolutely agree. Paid asset pack is strangling WWII.

And I totally get that. I’m not looking for eye candy as much as I’m looking for less ghosting, less double image, and less flashing/ twitching. Which seems to be common even on the best hardware and subsequently why I’m reluctant to go drop 5k on a new rig. If I’m just going to experience the same performance but with shadows on why bother haha. And I’m not sure if it’s just a hard problem for ED to solve or if they just ignore it. I know there are very simple bug fixes that ED just ignores... maybe because they don’t have the manpower? Or they can’t afford to take focus off of the current “money maker”? The P-51 ram air controls come to mind. Easy easy easy fix... but totally ignored. Not trying to shift focus away from the topic at hand... just an example that makes me wonder, “If Ed doesn’t have the resources to fix 2 lines in a lua file how will they ever be able to optimize?”. It kills my hope. But I digress. 20+ years of simming says DCS probably has not lost me as a customer regardless of my current complaints. Me being out of DCS is most likely temporary. Me voicing any of this is really just hoping it might have some influence on the devs to optimize... for me yes but also because I know I’m not alone and I really want DCS to do well and have a great player base. If I was alone in these issues I probably wouldn’t even bring it up. But if I, as a 10 year customer, am at nearly a breaking point I think that there is little hope of expanding or even holding onto the current player base. Anyway. At this point I’m just rambling. I’m sure ED is doing the best they can.

This is also my point of view explained in an earlier comment. As a long time customer I love DCS. I’m not hating on ED... they have taken on an extremely ambitious project and done well imo. BUT vr has thrown a wrench in the works. For me I don’t want to nor will I go back to 2D and at the same time I don’t think it’s financially possible for ED to focus resources on engine optimization (VR or otherwise) because they continually have to focus on modules to make payroll. Maybe an impossible situation for ED. Maybe ED is waiting for a higher % of VR users before they commit more resources to optimizing it... but if they don’t optimize it there won’t be a higher % of VR users and ultimately I think that will lead to a dwindling player base. There is zero doubt in my mind that that the future (which is now really) of flight summing IS VR. Idk what the answer is.

I somehow end up with vastly different performance with the same settings in the same mission . If I go playing with settings my performance doesn’t always come back when I revert the settings... and that’s made me wonder if there are settings that are changed that aren’t available in the GUI that don’t always get reverted. And consequently I wonder if some people are somehow stuck with these settings and therefor never get the performance others get with even less cutting edge hardware. That’s where I am now... I messed with my settings trying to optimize after update and now I can’t get my old performance back... but honestly I probably could. I’m sure the answer is here in the forums but I’m played out on hours and hours of tweaking. It’s been years now of hours and hours of tweaking and I just don’t want to do it. Is that ED’s fault? No... but maybe. I too am venting a little... which in nearly 10 years of being a customer I have never done in the forums. And I really don’t feel negative towards ED. It’s just frustrating.

I have tried to remain fairly positive about DCS and ED concerning VR (and in general)... but am also arriving in the same place. This actually may be the first criticism I've posted in the forums and I've been a customer since 2011. I also think ED is in an impossible situation with this. I think there is no way to optimize much more for VR without comprimising for 2D players which is the majority. BUT 2D will always be the majority if ED doesn't optimize for VR... which most likely is the future. Not that DCS can't be optimized for VR, but more that it's not financially viable to spend resources there instead of creating new money makers (I think maybe financially they may have no choice in order to just stay afloat). What will happen (is happening) is that VR customers will just go elsewhere or stop flying completely. I still check the DCS forums every few days but I've been flying other VR sims for now even though I DON'T think they are better... but at least they run half decent and my eyes don't hurt from exposure to so much aliasing and double images. I'm extremely tempted to get the mosquito (I own nearly every module and I own every map) but idk what for if I'm not going to fly it due to performance? I'm not sure the lack of performance is worth the trouble anymore. And I'd love to upgrade my rig BUT I constantly see posts of people with top of the line rigs still dealing w/ exactly the same problems. I just don't want to dump 4k or 5k onto a rig for a 5% or 10% improvement. It's just not worth it... and only to end up behind the curve again shortly anyway (if being ahead of the curve can even exist in DCS haha). In short.... I think DCS is almost amazing in VR only if you are able/ willing to dump thousands into a new rig every year and put in the time tweaking to eek out the peformance. And even then you are only ALMOST there. It's subjective. All that said... I do think DCS is awesome. I'm a huge fan, but I don't know if I want to keep "keeping up". And I'd honestly rather fly in what I really consider to be an inferior sim in VR than go back to 2D in DCS. It is what it is though. Could DCS be more optimized for VR? I'm sure it could. Will ED spend resources on that? I doubt it. They've already said it'll just have to be Vulcan (at least that's my impression). But at ED's development pace that might be 10 years from now (or more). That's a long time to wait to get to fly modules I buy now smoothly. And I'm not trying to hate on ED or DCS... it's just the reality of where my mind is with it. I'll probably still upgrade my rig in a year or two but until then I feel like DCS is off the table for me unless some serious optimizations happen for VR. And I hate that but it's just the way it is I guess. And we all make our choices. I chose to compromise the past few years to fly in VR with bad performance with the hopes that it would improve. And at times it has improved!! only for those gains to slowly be taken back. For sure DCS is my favorite thing as far as simming goes... so the situation really sucks. Meh.

Is there a benefit to running Pd .8 with higher ss vs Pd at 1.0 with lower ss?

I’m running 160% (1832x2288) in per app in sp, 150% (1776x2216) in mp with pd @ 1.0. General in steam is at 100%. With shader mods and shared parser I hold 45fps; approx 12ms frametime on cpu; and about 19ms frametime on GPU (depends on server... that’s pretty typical on GS). I also run reshade sharpen filter. It’s okay but I do get the double image if I look at my 3 or 9 and roll.

I’m thinking of upgrading my HMD from the original Odyssey to the Reverb G2 BUT I’m not ready to upgrade my rig yet. My current specs are Intel I7 7820HK at 4.3Ghz, Nvidia 1080, 32Gb ram. I run DCS okay(ish) now on the odyssey. Been running it a couple years with this setup. I’m wondering how the trade off goes between pushing more pixels in the HMD vs being able to run less super sampling. Would I just break even? Net gain? Net loss? If I could just break even and end up with the same quality I have now minus the Odyssey’s SDE I’d be good with that but my fear is ultimately having to dial it down so much that the final image would still be better in the Odyssey. So I guess my question is, Does being able to drop the ss in SVR make up for the load of pushing more pixels? At some point I’ll end up upgrading my rig but that might be a while. I feel like I just built this one only a couple of years ago! DCS is the only thing I run that it can’t keep up with lol (or barely keeps up with). Just curious what everyone thinks. Thanks.

I also am curious about this. Going to check the encyclopedia... brb. There's more in the "pedia"!

Just tried this out... it’s pretty badass. I just set it to auto with only one step. At 120° my view snaps 35° further aft and returns to normal at 50°. I have one button to hold that snap if I need to. I think this was implemented the best possible way it could be in VR. Not jarring or motion sickness inducing in any way for me. Only tried it for a short 5 minute mission where I have an ace spitfire on the tail of my BF-109. With cockpit limitations coming (I’m guessing) this will be handy. Not that I mind the 1:1 but I’m old and have to twist my whole body to check six. To do this I have to lean a bit which often puts me slightly outside the canopy in warbirds. With this app I set my view to snap back at the limit of my neck rotation where normally I have to start twisting/ leaning to get any further. Works awesome!!

This already happens when the game freezes and I damn near fall out of my own brain haha. Extremely disorienting. The cockpit moving with your head is the absolute worst solution available imo. Fade to black or hypoxic effects... fine. Cockpit ever moving with head = NOT OKAY. I don't think ED would ever implement this but just in case... Please ED anything but that! My fear of that is why I commented here in the first place. Terrible idea imo.

This... best solution imo. I fly only in VR the past few years... I'll admit that when I'm cranking my neck around and my head goes outide the canopy it is currently a great view. I don't recenter and do it on purpose ever but with a bandit on your 6 it's hard to just stick your head back in and pretend you didn't see him haha. I also don't think it's that big of an issue for mp. Trackir peeps check 6 easy barely turning thier head and keeping their HOTAS right in front of them, Vr peeps crank their head around uncomfortably far controling hotas that's now behind them/ hard to reach and get outside the cockpit sometimes. Even trade imo (mostly, I'm sure some folks abuse it but i really don't care honestly). But I digress... if it's that big of a problem Knock-Knock is on the right track I think! (Maybe after that's implemented we'll get a server option to force TrackIR into 1:1 tracking hahaha)

Yes. It's seems about right in modern jets but for warbirds it's a little crazy. I ended up turning it off even though I'm a big fan of it in jets. I have no idea if it's realistic in the warbirds though... I know if you are trying to take out a B-17 good luck!! or any dogfight against any warbird for that matter. Wake turbulance throws me around like crazy!

Nevermind... Please delete. I have some maps (Normandy) on another drive that wasn't active. Not a DCS issue haha. I got this campaign and I can't seem to load it into DCS. I can open it in the campaign builder but not actually start it. I tried copying it to my own personal campains to open it from there but it just won't show up when I open the campaign page in DCS to start it. I tried searching the forums but didn't really find anything.

Even in VR on moderate hardware... nice to have a WW2 map that’s not as repetitive as Normandy. And I like the Normandy map... but it just seems to repeat a lot of patterns. Channel map seems more believable. so there’s my positive ED post for the day haha.

Pretty sure the Ram Air has been broken for a while now.... there is a user fix though. I think this is why everyone keeps blowing the engine. Nothing really changed with the engine afaik... it's just that the in cockpit controls are broken. https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3317307/

I’m not using the replay from the server as I don’t have access to that. I’m using the replay recorded in the saved games/DCS/tracks/multiplayer folder.... which if I host a session (not dedicated server) records a track (records a track there regardless of if I’m on my own server or if I’m on a remote server). That’s how I make my own tacview files from multiplayer sessions also.... just let the replay run and then check the tackview folder. Again, idk if it’s recorded differently and therefore accurate or if I’ve just gotten lucky with “hosted” tracks playing better than SP “non hosted” tracks. Edit: I realize I didn’t totally answer your question. Because it’s a replay that’s recorded locally on my end (client) all of the head movements and clickity clicks are there. Even if I host my own local server for myself the .trk file is saved in /multiplayer folder leading me to believe it’s recorded as a MP.trk vs a SP.trk. Hope that helps clarify what I’m trying to explain. And again, idk if MP tracks recorded locally are recorded differently than SP tracks or if it’s just been coincidence that they have been accurate. Example: If I do instant action dogfight the replay is desynced... but if I instead go to multiplayer and create my own server (whatever that button is labeled) and load the same exact instant action .miz the replay is NOT desynced. This is a combination of replay and live recording from GS server easily 2 hours in... replay is perfect. So far replays from PvE servers like Through the inferno with AI also record perfectly. That’s what made me wonder if I hosted my own local server for SP missions if the replays would be just as accurate and so far they are. And perfect replay against AI here... hosted as a MP server instead of as a SP mission. Perfect replay... someone with more .lua knowledge than me could probably verify or disprove this theory that MP.trk’s record differently than SP.trk’s. It makes since though (I think). In a SP replay just inputs are used and the mission isn’t a replay exactly but really “played again”. In MP there has to be some kind of x,y,z coordinates sent to the server and/or other clients so that clients can render objects in the correct place. So maybe MP tracks are recorded with that additional x,y,z info that makes the replays more accurate. But idk... I’m just guessing and might not know what I’m talking about haha.

I've noticed that my MP tracks play fine. SP tracks often desync so I've started hosting my own missions as MP even though I fly them as SP and I haven't had any desync issues. I have no idea if this is a thing or I'm just getting lucky. I noticed though that my replays from GS and other servers always seemed to be fine but even a simple 1v1 in SP desynced after just a few moves. That's what put me on to this. YMMV