Wolf8312

We do have to be patient. VR itself is basically a beta experience. Its wonderful but man its frustrating, and not least because nothing ever remains static. You can be happy one day and the next an update comes out and its back to square one. You'll be much happier accepting it for what it is, using the mission editor. Also try to get into helicopters if you haven't, as that aspect of the sim (with the right lighting/gamma/time) is basically perfect for me. Luckily for me I love helicopter flying more than anything. Trees sometimes look awful (seem to look worse when there a only a few of them) but they sometimes look fantastic (forests) and that's true of the game in general, there are actual places that look awful, and others that look great. Nevada is ugly as sin in some places, and at some times in the day, but I just fly around the city. I think you'll be much happier in VR/DCS if you forget the MP for the moment or the main game, and either make your own missions or customize existing ones. Yes lights have major problems and I fly night alot in VR as nothing can get close to the realism of VR combined with night flying! Sadly DCS/VR is at present more demanding than the present technology can keep up with.

4xMSSA PD-0 For myself in the open beta performance has never been better at least doing what I used to do which is mainly flying round in helicopters blowing things up. In the Viggen over vegas, and elsewhere, has never been smoother, and there is no ghosting in Vegas looking to one side. In a helicopter with the right time of day, it looks fricking fantastic and I really am grateful to be able to have such an experience in VR! Blows me away! However, and someone tell me if this is just me, but at night, or with street lighting activated from a high distance (in planes then) something is badly wrong with the street lights. I get to a certain level and the lights seem to fuse together into a shimmering grid of graphical corruption and it looks god damned awful especially over the Caucasus. Is there a fix for this or does the lighting just still have major problems? So as primarily a helicopter sim I couldn't be happier but as/if there is something wrong with DS, have the devs not taken a big gamble removing us the option to turn it off? Hopefully its indicative of their full confidence in solving the problem!

To be honest Caucasus map has major problems now in VR. Trees look gnarly, lighting is just broken from a certain height (honestly it is like a shimmering square grid of graphical corruption) and rivers and lakes are shimmering in a terrible manner that is really hard to look at. Clouds are just popping in and out as well. Honestly I've never seen the game look as bad as it does in VR at the moment. Wonder if I am doing something wrong but I deleted all the metashaders and FXO folders. I'm guessing this shimmering all boils down to lighting and reflections as well. I hope the devs have a fix up their sleeves because if not then rather than only allowing us to use DS, I have to wonder if it might not be better that they do away with DS all together. Or at least think twice about removing the option. Dont know why they would remove such an option when DS is having so many problems. Anyone else finding the same? Load up Viggen rocket attack instant action mission to see what I mean and maybe tell me if its just me? Bombings in the Viggen still seem to flash(large FPS drops) in the VIVE too. Thankfully I mostly fly helicopters and low down the game still looks great and performance is really good too. But up high in a jet in VR yikes!

Must say though, only flew around Vegas with a few ground targets, but in VR it seemed smoother than it ever has been even when looking to the side (no ghosting). Always forget what a fantastic experience jets are in VR over Vegas! Haven't checked to see if large bombings still cause huge fps drops in the Viggen yet, but credit where its due, things seem to be improving. Not sure why they would remove the option though. I guess it just makes things easier for them to focus all their efforts on one mode if that's the right word.

Thats what I mean, many VR users didnt use Defered shading for that very reason, as in VR no MSSA looks horrible.

Is performance improved in VR with it on though? Just thinking about those playing in VR with less powerful systems?

I get good performance on my vive with 4x MSSA and 1.3 PD. But to be honest that is on helicopters and on missions I have created with very few assets loaded in. Viggen is unplayable. Bombings and just bombs, lag the game into steam VR loading screens still, and campaigns are best avoided due to the same overall problem and performance. It's still a great experience that I enjoy immensely, but DCS now has major competition from the other sim in which no content is off limits, and every mission and campaign is open to the player and performs very well. A combat flight sim in VR in which FPS tanks durring bombings has really got serious problems.... Sad thing but I dont think DCS as a whole experience is really quite ready for VR yet. What I mean is the VR performace demands exceed the reach of even the most powerful of computers, and I never feel like putting myself through the dissapointment of even trying a campaign. Too much of the game is off limits due to poor performance. I really hope I will be proven wrong, but I just get the feeling that as these problems still persist in the release version, they wont be fixed at least for a long time. God I hope I'm wrong!

From above vegas in a jet (release version) it looks worse than it ever has due to this effect, almost a grid or matrix of these lines. And of course crashes or bombs in the viggen still seem to lag the game causing flashes back out into the steam background loading bay. Really hoped these things would be fixed for the release as they mean using the viggen for a campaign in VR is not really feasible.

Hard to describe what I mean but I'm finding that lighting from the headlights is creating a horrible graphical shimmering or smearing were the lights all kind of blend together and look rather as if they are all connected into a square. In short lights don't look too good! Anyone else experiencing this?

Wait if I have been playing the beta do I just update it normally (in my case using the update tool) or do I need to download it separately from the website. Might be a stupid question but mine still says its in beta but with no updates available.

Not sure if it's related but are the any plans to fix the bombings so certain bombings (with Viggen especially) dont lag the game out hard with massive FPS drops? Kinda a killer for VR which is why I tend to stick to helicopters!

Get the Gazelle man thank me later!

Yeah thats the problem switching back and forth is a pain!

Well I wouldnt say of course! I've gone back to DS because the trees still look funky, and theres so much about DS that I love. But I am rather torn, both have their pros and cons! I hate how puny the tracers and explosions are with DS off, flying into those dust clouds and the scattered remains of your fallen foe is pretty hard to substitute for a lame wisp of grey smoke!

I think I have isolated the problem and it was me! Or at least I think so as the last update was fine.

Wait you dont find MSSA and deffered shading combined to be a performance hit?

So have you made a decision?

I dont think you'll see much of a difference either way, but I would go with the I7 simply because with VR especially you never know what the future is going to bring. You gotta figure that sometime down the line somebodys going to make use of all those cores/threads! But seriously sometime in the future a whole new flight sim may be released and you've got to figure that such developers would be smart enough to make use of as many cores as possible. And also I know we all love DCS and flight sims but surely there are some other games you would like to play lol! Not that I play any of them myself but I mean to get round to it one day!

Very happy with performance in DCS at the moment, either with or without DS but to be honest having turned it off despite losing some very cool effects I think on balance VR is perhaps better without it. Performance is better, and although the colors are duller, over vegas at least things don't look quite so cartoonish and the cockpits are way better. Of course things like the explosions, tracers, glass interiors of the cockpits, and lighting are sadly missed but I'm thinking that on balance especially due to performance and it being more hassle, we're probably better off without deffered shading for the time being. Still havent checked the Cacausus and the trees yet though, so this opinion is liable to change. What do you guys think? On or off?

Yeah the bad thing about VR is that it does somewhat limit your options. 2D you can dip into or indeed play at 30 fps and theres no problem. VR such drops would be gamebreaking, so in a massive flight sim like DCS it does mean there are going to be more missions and aspects of the game off limits to you. Some missions play like pants on the highest of gaming rigs. That can be a bit annoying if you want to play through a campaign, but there is always the mission editor. Very few people can switch to VR and switch back again though, once you try it, it's like going back to cofee after methamphetamine (or so I imagine!)

Its every module, every time the game is updated. Where do I find the logs?

Ok no buildings, but I am getting seriously fed up with having to re-submit every CD key for every module I own, every time there is a god damned update, and even sometimes (in Nevada's case) after I restart a mission! I mean I own these modules, and I am constantly asked (from the same computer) to verify proof of ownership! They should be linked to my account surely!

I'm hoping next gen will be better both resolution and performance wise! What about the odyssey do the better visuals drive up performance demands?

DCS at present is in a big transition stage. PD on its own without MSSA will look pretty bad. All of us VR users are tinkering with settings (VR and game) and endlessly searching for a trade-off between visuals and performance. Most people use 1.2 PD and 2x MSSA. Personally I use 1.0 PD and 4x MSSA because I really dont like distant jaggies. DCS itself at the moment also looks downright horrible at many different times of day, or night, especially in VR and these settings also need to be tinkered with via the mission editor. I play mostly at early morning where it looks very realistic IMO. Welcome to 1st gen VR where you'll spend more of your time messing about with the settings than you will playing the games themselves. VR 1st gen will never be perfect visual quality wise. But forget the graphics, load up your Gazelle and go and blow up some targets! I would never go back to 2D for the sake of resolution. VR actually puts you in the cockpit whereas 2D you will always be only an observer looking at and manipulating an AC on a screen. At the end of the day I fly VR because I want to simulate the sensation of flying, which is only possible in VR. I think presently though DCS multiplayer will be an exercise in frustration. We're all hoping the game will be vastly improved performance wise when it's released. VR and the various headsets are not all to blame DCS 2.5 is a bit of a mess at the moment. You need to spend a long time messing with the settings of both the headset and the game/sim itself. It's a little too quick to give the headset a fair review, give it a chance!

Well in game I sometimes land on something soft! A tree might break my fall or something, and I will at least survive. Not sure how realistic it is but I think it's pretty accurate because I have heard people survive after falling out of planes and having tree branches and things break their fall. So I guess when people sign up for chopper training they do so knowing that helicopters are far more dangerous than jets or planes! I'm surprised modern helicopters don't have some sort of eject trapdoor though, but it would probably like you say just crash people into the helicopter itself and any eject mechanism would probably just splatter people into the ground. Still I'd rather be in a KA-50 with an eject option, and take my chances with the rotor blades!