Tinkickef

This is the third one that has failed. The first two started with PC restarting and failing to post at random times and rapidly got worse until the PC would not POST at all. This time random crashes maybe once a week after 15 mins or so during a tomcat mission. This deteriorated into going black screen after 5 mins with same mission. Other less demanding missions unaffected. After a day or so the black screen is after two minutes and all missions are affected. The PC does not shut down, audio is still on and the diagnostic LEDs on my motherboard say AO which means all OK with that. I have to manually reset the PC and it boots normally. Until I go into DCS and black screen again. I notice that the card now idles at 45C where before it was around 28C and just putting on Reverb makes the temp rocket up to 60C, albeit no crash. This with fans set to and running 100%. New symptom appeared. Lighting is often upside down. Moonlight illuminates the underside of the aircraft instead of the top. First two failures were on an old rig, this build is maybe six months old. Only commonality other than card is that both rigs are fitted with EVGA Supernova 850G3 PSUs. Supposedly a decent power supply and plenty watts for the rig. Never had a card fail previous to the RTX. Of course latest driver reinstalled clean and DCS repaired many times, fxo and metashaders deleted. Am I just unlucky or is something killing the cards? I can't imagine two separate and fairly new power supplies both being faulty... and yes I have twin cables going to the GPU, not one with a splitter. This card lasted 7 months, previous ones lasted 3 months each. Last RMA took nearly 3 months. Bit fed up at the moment.:mad:

Had the time to have a good look at what is happening. I believe it is a hardware problem as the time before crash to black screen is getting less and less and is also now affecting other aircraft and maps. The new mission with the F14 alone made no difference. I started watching the gpu temps more carefully and noted that where it would idle at ambient temperature before, now it idles at 45C. Just putting on Reverb and firing up WMR into cliff house brings the temp up to between 56 and 60C very quickly even with fans at 100% and both definitely running. No dust as intake air is filtered and it happens even with the side door open. A new odd symptom that sometimes happens on loading the original mission is that the lighting is "upside down". That is that the moonlight appears to be shining up from the ground, illuminating the underside of the aircraft instead of the top... Not always, but very often.. maybe 50% of the time. I have repaired DCS, done clean reinstalls of the latest Nvidia driver, all to no avail. Only conclusion is GPU failing. I have started the RMA process so it looks like no DCS over Xmas.....

Will do. Thanks Mike.

Thanks Mike. Nothing changed in the mission which has so far been fine. I do monitor GPU temps normally (usually runs around 75 degrees). Unfortunately due to the driver crash I have to reboot to see the screen and by the time I get to see the temp monitor the GPU has cooled down. In event viewer all there is is the usual "kernel power" issue that is a very regular event logged on this PC and also just as regular on my previous one. It does not seem to ever have affected anything and there is no commonality in hardware between each PC other than the GPU which I removed from my old rig and put in the new one. The GPU failures (VRAM crapping out) all happened on my old rig, no probs with it since it came back from ASUS repair shop and got installed into my new rig. Historically, the symptoms of failure were seeing hundreds of diamond shaped artefacts appearing on screen before going BSOD during the boot process. Not seeing any of that here. As you say, I do not think it is the F14 as it stands, but as a result of one of the updates that is affecting the F14 only. Can't think of any mission parameters have been changed. I will try removing some of the parked aircraft on the ramp as I do tend to heavily populate my air bases with static objects for realism.

A very odd one. Unfortunately due to not using PC during the week, it is one of those scenarios where the PC went through multiple updates by DCS, Steam and windoze at the same time. Since these updates when using the F14, cold start on the apron at AlDhafra, I can start her up, get Taxy permission and move out of the slot to the main taxiway, maybe about five mins into the mission. Then the GPU driver crashes to black screen on both Reverb and monitor. I thought it was my 2080TI failing yet again, but on reboot everything was fine. Started mission again, driver crashed within a few metres of taxiway as before. Tried a different mission with the Huey, no crash after 30 mins of zipping around the Khasab rooftops looking for insurgents. Went back to the original mission (PG, AlDhafra, nightime, full moon) and substituted F14 for Hornet. No crash, was able to Taxy to runway. Back to mission editor, put Tomcat back in mission, fired her up and taxied away from stand. Instant black screen again as the driver crashed. Still hear audio but nothing else working, cutting the throttles does not shut down the engines. This is a well used mission without any previous problems until the recent updates. Of course fxo and metashader files were deleted straight after the update, the Nvidia driver was updated last week. Asus GPU tweak 2 in standard gaming mode preset as always. Anyone else had this or have any ideas? System specs in Sig.

Concur.

We are a week into November. Anyone had any indication of shipping yet?

Welcome to the club. Using buttkicker is a bit like VR, if you don't use it there will always be something lacking ever after. Had to put my chair on rubber mounts though, buttkicker is very noisy on wooden floorboards.

Try alt enter to go full screen.

Double click the jester wheel. Select in visual range radar. Select drop tanks. Boom they are gone after a quip from jester. Master must be on first.

You state you came to DCS to learn the F14. I can only restate what others have already said. The Tomcat is absolutely worth the money. I have many modules in DCS. I fly the Tomcat more than any other, it knocked my first love, the Hog out of the arena. It knocked my second love, the Hornet out of the arena. The only one that is still a serious contender is the Huey in the flight hours stakes and that is only because it is a classic rotorwing. The other stuff never sees the light of day anymore.

Just noticed since this weeks update, but may have been there earlier as I have not modified a mission for a week or two. PG map / open mission. I have a Huey mission based at Khasab and wanted to modify it by adding some ground units. You can choose the units and place them, but trying to click the dropboxes in the waypoint panel freezes the game and they don't respond. For instance, you cannot use the dropbox to allow ground units to use "on road" rather than the default off road. Also placing AI aircraft on the ramp and trying to select them to "start from ramp" does the same. Nothing responds and the sound goes off. Using another drop box from another GUI panel such as altering the unit quantities or unit type restores the functionality and the audio comes back. Tried deleting the metashader/fx files ect and then doing a repair without success.

Number one rule in aviation. Never ever trust a fuel gauge.

IIRC from my studies getting my ICC to skipper my now ex boat anywhere in the world, COLREGS had a nav light specification for all vessels. Since aircraft nav light colours and viewable angles exactly copy marine lights, it would be pretty easy to allow that the viewing distances spec would be the same. So the reds and greens and white stern light.... I recall smaller vessels less than 50 metres but above 10 metres, had to display lights that were clearly discernable and colour divisible at a distance of two miles. Larger commercial boats three miles. Anti collision light - masthead light on a boat. Smaller vessel three miles, larger vessel six miles. Long time since I had to study that but I think it is correct. Since aircraft are well above the horizon at six miles, it may be that the lights may need to be brighter. No.point having bright lights on a boat if they are below the horizon.

Just finished a mission (VR), shut down the Cat and punched out to have a look round. I walked round the aircraft and stuck my head in the gear wells. The pipework and mechanisms are highly impressive in their detail, but what got me was when I stuck my head in one of the engine inlet ducts...…. Yup, a good way down the duct I was staring at the fan blades. all present and correct in full detail....and not only that, they were wind milling in the breeze! All that was lacking was the tinkling of the compressor blades. I was impressed as all hell. It was a shame I had to punch out on the ramp to see it. All this detail means it should be appreciated more and is crying out for the ability to conduct walk arounds, climb the ladder to enter the cockpit and settle in, and also to be able to egress the aircraft. I know this is not an easy thing to do, Iron Mike once detailed how hard it is just putting a pilot body in there, but it certainly needs the tech developing "in quiet moments" in time for VR to become completely mainstream. Imaging walking out to the ramp with your friends, finding your allotted aircraft tail number, doing a walkround then climbing in..... unreal. Edit: Need to have a word with the crew chief. The creep marks are missing from the tyres.

I went from CV1 to Reverb. Essentially the headsets look very similar, however I found Rift to be slightly more comfortable. Screen door to all intents and purposes is gone - unless you deliberately look for it. Resolution. In cockpit resolution is far better than Rift, but the effect is not too different to what you are used to overall. Rift was pretty good close in. You can see finer details such as the Tomcat emergency hydraulic on, hi and lo flags just by leaning forward a few inches from your normal seated position. Seeing those tiny flags is pretty amazing. If you fly at sunset or sunrise, the Reverb does not suffer the terrible sky banding that plagued the Rift and the number of stars visible at night is astounding. Where the Reverb really scores is in the middle distance. You can see wingman ect clearly and not just as a grey blob. Audio. The headphones are not as good as those on the Rift and make the headset feel slightly clunky. I removed mine and use an in ear solution. The headset is far more comfortable now and sound is great. Setting up. Reverb is very definitely not plug and play. You will have to tweak all the settings to get the best out of it. The software feels clunky until you get used to it. My first gen Reverb now I got everything dialled in is just like a Hi Res CV1, but it did not happen overnight.

Good news. Let's hope we are not disappointed yet again. No idea why they go cold on us. A simple " We have nothing to report yet guys, the factory is still ironing out some problems and have not given us a timeline as to when they will be resolved". That or a variation on the theme, put on their blog every couple of weeks would have been reassuring. Going cold like they did, conjures up visions of an empty, dusty office with a few bits of paper and a telephone sat on the carpet in the middle of the floor, where a desk used to be.

Was going to put this on the replay track fix thread in the main forum, but it's better here. I did a sample cold start, Taxy to runway, take off, then reviewed the track recording from the RIO seat. The aircraft did not make it to runway.....but there was an improvement over previous attempts. However I did notice the long standing track replay, RIO Cockpit Bug is still present. When replaying a track file, all or most of the RIO switch panels vanish, leaving empty cabinets with a few wiring harnesses. Displays float in mid air..... It's as if certain aspects of the Cat are not getting recorded in the track file. One can only admire bundles of grey wires for so long, impressive as the depth of detail in the 3D model is.

Will you fix the open canopy sound volume on the A while you are at it? It would be a real shame not to be able to enjoy those shrieking engines when taxying. The canopy closing and the external sounds getting progressively blocked out when it closes and seals has a huge effect on immersion in VR. Far more so than you would expect.. It ramps up the feeling of closed cockpit confinement that you strived for when putting the scratches / fogging / raindrops on the canopy plexiglass. Oh and tell Jester to keep his hands off the canopy switch during cold starts. :) I prefer the idea of climbing out rather than ejecting through the canopy if we have an engine catch fire. Jester closing the canopy unasked is really annoying. The poor canopy rarely gets the chance to lock before its heading back up again. This really breaks immersion. It may be part of a real life checklist, but it would be nice for the crew to instigate it at their leisure. In my case, at the runway hold short line. Looking forward to the A model. Great work.

Whoa there kimosavi. I just flew a Huey mission and it played back perfect, despite flying 5 ft above above any and all terrain. After that I flew a short mission in PG, cold start, taxi to runway with the Cat. Take off and land. Then replayed the track from the RIO seat. I made one 90 degree turn with success, I made another 90 degree turn with success (better than ever before with the Cat), but it soon became apparent that it wandered away from the Taxy line quite quickly and ended up in the sand.

I don't think anyone is really complaining on this thread. It is more of a wishful thinking type of stance. We all know that these things take time, we all know that when ED changes something in DCS World parameters, then HB have to play catch up and alter their own parameters. We all know that this fire fighting is what is taking up much of their time. Then this is compounded by everyone having their own wishlist of features that is often unique to themselves and in very different parts of the flight regime. For instance you want TWS Auto as you value the combat. I value basic flight handling in VR, so I want to see external sound getting louder when the canopy is raised and a pilot body in cockpit. We all see our pet mods as important and easily achievable - I mean how hard can it be to install a pilot body and tweak open cockpit external sounds when other modules already do it? It is actually very difficult. So HB is in a difficult position, you cannot please everyone when everyone flies the Cat for different reasons. I guess we just have to stay patient and try not to vocalist our disappointment upon reading the latest changelog and finding our pet feature still has not been addressed. HB are walking a proverbial tightrope and have made it halfway across. Other third parties have already fallen off and gone splat. Let's not be the wind that pulls them in different directions. :)

Indeed. I was one of the very first on here to have the Reverb drop on my doorstep. I think there were just three of us at the time with them all arriving within a day or so. I think mine arrived on June 6th. It had initial cable problems, but I came up with the cable mod and a slight modification to that mod a week or so later. Problems vanished. At time of this post, I have no problems at all with my Reverb. It just works reliably. I occasionally get software glitches as some update or other breaks something but that happens to every headset. I doubt that the failure and return rate of the initial batch is anywhere close to general perceptions. It's just that the returnees tend to get vocalised more.

I don't know the relevant laws in your particular country, but since I contacted Realtus and got no reply, nor goods supplied within a reasonable timeframe, here in the UK I can make a claim to my credit card company under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.

Exactly. Everyone can accept delays due to unforseen circumstances. That's if they are kept in the loop with fairly regular updates. However, to be enthusiastically parted from your money, to not receive your order, to send emails regarding your order to "customer services" without any response and not even see any updates on a regular blog on their sometimes inoperative website...... IMO, it all shouts "scammer". If I wanted to destroy a new company, this is exactly how I would go about it. They must have a self destructive personality. Certainly they cannot think this is a good way to run a business.

Looking past my personal feelings, you are probably right. At least Jabbers is giving some warning to prospective "customers" that is not available unless you look for it. I wish I knew more before I ordered it. I have buttkicker gamer 2, but it is very noisy, despite my chair being seated on metalastic mountings; yet I can't really do without it. I tried ordering Andre's Jetseat, but they were out of stock and then came across Realteus. I failed to do my due diligence and am stuck in limbo with no communication from Realteus whatsoever and even the website disappears from time to time. I really do not understand why they can't even answer a simple email from concerned customers. All it needed was a simple explanation just like Jabbers was lucky enough to receive. But for ordinary non high profile customers they don't even bother replying.