Morat

Or someone needs to release a game that EVERYONE wants...

I'm disappointed that the main reviewers don't use any VR titles in their benchmarks. VR is the only gaming use case I can see that pushes these super-high end cards. Also, I think VR has suffered from the state of the GPU market. The barrier to VR is high when it comes with requirements for a modern card, and those cards are being scalped, used for mining and are generaly super-expensive. The MSRP of the 40 series is not helping to solve this issue, although I am hopeful for price reductions once the 30 series stock has cleared - especially for the 4080 and 4070 which are ridiculous at the moment. Finally, I'm hoping that the 7900XT is a rasterisation beast. RT, DLSS etc are of absolutely no use to DCS players so a high rasterisation score is all I'm looking for.

Is there any news from HP? They seem to have gone very quiet on the Reverb line recently

One more thing - you need to feather before the engine loses oil pressure. So that's a decision to make early!

That's very interesting - and thank you for taking the time. I don't suppose you have VR? I'd imagine that VR could well show an improvement as it's much more GPU intensive than playing on a monitor. I'm saying it'll be worth the money, but if it's someone else's money it'd fun to find out

There's nothing in my PC that would benefit from $80. Also, it's very easy for DCS to become GPU bound in VR. You have to make a lot of compromises with settings to keep frame rates acceptable. And yes, everyone knows it takes time to produce a custom game engine. What are you actually saying here?

So, which is the Baby Milk factory?

Agreed!

Does that mean you're still using SteamVR?

I'm going with... maybe I'm running a 3080/9700k/Reverb G2 on OpenXR. It's perfectly fine, for me. I guess I'm lucky in my ability to cope with my framerates (which I can't see anymore because I can no longer run FPSVR). DLSS 3.0 is NEVER arriving for DCS. How do I know that? Well, I don't. But it just seems totally unlikely as ED seem to only develop for non-proprietary protocols and DLSS 3.0 is Lovelace only. So that's a huge amount of wasted silicon in the 40 series right there. The tensor cores in my 3080 haven't ever been used AFAIK and I see no need to buy a card with 3x as many in the future. DCS doesn't use DLSS, doesn't use RayTracing - it's pure rasterisation which AMD seem to be catching up on and fast. So, I'm waiting until I see rasterisation results for 4080 vs AMD 7900(xt?) before making a call. EVEN THEN there is the price. F NVidia for selling the 4070 for $900. No way José. So I'm sticking with 3080 unless something magic happens to give a big increase in FPS in VR for DCS on this new gen - and it doesn't cost more than $800 and doesn't burn more than 350W. For those of us who didn't get a 30 series card, there's a ton showing up on EBay right now. I'd get one of those. They're already down to release MSRP and they'll only fall further. There are complete mining rigs on sale in the UK - let alone China. Some smart guy is going to load a container in Shenzen and ship ex-mining cards to the western markets I bet you.

Yes, I would. Cheaper to pay $80 for a new game engine than to buy a new 80 or 90 series card and still be disappointed.

I have printed and built the Spade Grip for the MkIX. It's perfect - absolutely amazing. You need to be careful when doing the printing to make sure everything fits but there's plenty of help and advice available on the discord.

If you're on one engine below 170mph... it's bad news. If you have altitude, dive until you reach 170 and then recover, go to climb power on the good engine and sort your trim out. FEATHER and close the rad on the dead engine. If you're too low, chop the other throttle and you've got a chance to land the right way up. If you try and fly it out from low speed with lots of power - you'll roll, spin and hit the deck nose first. If you spin from higher up (easily done on one engine) remember: Ailerons NEUTRAL and kick full rudder opposite to the spin. If you kick hard and early enough, she'll come right out into a nice smooth dive. Remember 170mph and climb power

It's smooth as butter using the Authentikit Spitfire stick...

I just want some news, I'm sick of barely adequate performance from a 9700k and 3080 when running a Reverb G2 in VR. If ED get it right, they could turn this into _the_ premier VR application for PC.

Will that datalink talk to any other types? Like A10C or Apache?

Sometimes, certainly. Probably most times. But there has to be a point where Paddles looks at some horribly damaged jet and says "Nope". Or so I'd have thought, sounds like I'm wrong!

It's February! I'm very much looking forward to this update, it's the bedrock of the whole experience going forward. The hardware requirements are fierce and upgrades rare and expensive! Good luck ED, I hope all your commits are bug free

Anything that avoids the horrible mission loading screen stutter gets my vote.

Is the likelyhood of repair considered? I mean, if it's physically possible to land a damaged plane but it's not going to fly again - why take a risk instead of just banging out near the helo?

SA map is a day one purchase for me! It's going to be exciting. I might even play as an Argentinian to do Death Star runs on San Carlos water!

IMO 1500 (dollars? Euros?) is ambitious for a VR build but if you have the Quest2 already I can see why it's tempting. The biggest issue is going to be getting hold of a GPU. I'd recommend holding onto the cash until you can find a GPU with an acceptable price. In a sane world you'd walk into a store and buy a 3080 for RRP and build the rest of your system around it. Sadly we left that world far behind VR in DCS is an absolute GPU killer, you'll almost certainly end up GPU constrained no matter what you buy so concentrate here first. IMO, YMMV etc Even if ED manage to release a wonder-patch this year that fixes VR optimisation and allows true multicore, you'll just crank up the settings

Well, at least it's possible! Now it just needs to be affordable, which could be quite a challenge.

https://discord.gg/ES8kHSRB Welcome to the madness

Everyone should try VR if they can. If you don't like it, or can't get on with it then at least you've saved yourself a pile of cash. To do DCS VR properly needs top end EVERYTHING. Let's hope that the new DCS Engine brings meaningful performance upgrades in VR because right now it's marginal - even with my 3080. Don't get me wrong, it's amazing. The sense of being there, of looking out over the wing in 3D and seeing the world swish past is just fantastic. I can read all the gauges, I can spot aircraft far away. I often find it easier to look into weird nooks and crannies in the cockpit in VR than I ever did with head tracking BUT I'm not aware of anyone who is satisfied with the FPS at the high detail levels you need to make it look that good. I'm lucky, I can stand low FPS in VR even down to the low 30s but some people can't and they're unlikely to enjoy extended periods watching the DCS Engine chug away. For contrast, I can run Half Life Alyx at high everything and it's stunning. I can run DCS in flatland 4k no sweat.. but DCS in VR is a monster. Of course, it's not just the PC itself. You'll want everything else. Pedals? pfft, need you ask? You'll definitely need a high end HOTAS to map all the controls. You'll find yourself realising that the next time you have a spare £200 you'll probably spend it on extra Warthog grips so you can get to match the VR cockpit with what you can feel in the 18 and the Tomcat. You might find yourself buying a 3D printer so you can print out the Authentikit warbird controls for the same reason. I know I have. The printer is on order right now... IF you have the system, IF you can live with the performance in DCS then VR flight is just the best Gaming Experience I've ever enjoyed. But If you can bring yourself to fly DCS without VR and you're still happy with the old school, 2D, limited version of DCS then you may just be a very lucky person. Maybe.