Sideslip

So I've been smashing my head against the wall with DCS trying to get Gsync to work properly. I've finally 100% confirmed to have it working. As such I am also able to confirm that at least in my case with 390.77 drivers and a 1080 that if you alt-tab out of DCS, when you go back Gsync will not be working. But if you do the alt-enter thing as bell_rj originally suggested, it will start working again. Very odd considering I'm using the "windowed and fullscreen" option for Gsync. I've also 100% confirmed that if DCS is not set to run in full screen (unchecked in settings) Gsync will not be working. As soon as you alt-enter to full screen it will work again. Maybe it's a problem on ED's end but knowing Nvidia and Microsoft drivers... I don't think so. 2 steps forward and 1 step back should be their motto. Also, my monitor display's "Gsync Mode" in it's on-screen display but that doesn't mean it's actually working. All it means is that it's enabled. You have to use the Mk1 eyeball to test it (or possibly 3rd party programs).

You can still use vsync if you like, just only through the NCP and keep it off through in-game settings. Also to get the task bar visible after alt-tab you can just hit the "windows key" and it should pop up.

No it's not that old, but it's also not very high performance. It is similar to the GTX970, which is almost 4 years old and wasn't the top of the line at the time. http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-970-vs-AMD-RX-580/2577vs3923 You seem to be ignoring the fact that you are running almost 4k of resolution on a card that isn't expected to be able to do so well. And as stated above, a desert map with no trees is not the same thing as the Caucasus map. Have you set trees to 0%? There may have been some small changes to NTTR too. And no it's not supposed to be the same engine. 2.5 has new effects that didn't exist in 2.2. Also, the 280X is the minimum requirement for 2.5 and the 580 is only 50% faster. That would mean you could expect good performance at a typical 1080p resolution being 50% above the MINIMUM. By simple math, you'd be bellow the minimum to run even just 2 1080p screens with that card. Resolution and GPU power scale almost perfectly together.

You can also try the latest Nvidia driver if you are running a 1080, but as far as I can tell it doesn't fix anything. At least not in DCS. FPS still skyrockets to 200 when I tab out even though it should be restricted to 100 and it doesn't seem like Gsync turns back on when returning. Edit: Actually I take back that last part about Gsync not turning back on with the new drivers. After further testing it is hard to conclude either way, but at least in the Heaven Benchmark it seems to re-enable it's self. However, the wonky Vsync is still there. https://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/130633

Another thing I suspect is that the reason using alt-enter to get your framerate back after alt-tabbing is that switching out of DCS puts it in windowed mode and upon returning to the game it stays that way. Hitting alt-enter simply puts it back to full screen. Upon returning to fullscreen vsync goes back to normal (still at the loss of G-sync in my case). It's odd that this also switches it back to normal vsync from the fast sync it was using in windowed mode if G-sync was not used. And again using G-sync in "fullscreen and windowed" seems to avoid this problem, though it may be staying in windowed mode with G-Sync disabled, which seems to be unavoidable in any case. I don't know if it is the same way for you, but when I alt-tab DCS remains visible in front of the desktop, that's why I think it is switched to windowed-fullscreen.

I hate to break it to you, but you are probably out of luck. You're running a 6 year old video card to drive almost 4K resolution. It's likely your system just can't handle the newer graphics in 2.5. I used to use two 7950s in crossfire so I know for a fact your GPU is about 1/4 as powerful as 1080. I wouldn't expect very good performance at 4k with a 1080... 40-60 fps is actually not bad, which leads me to believe you've already lowered all the settings possible. Maybe they have more optimizations to do that will help, but at some point they have to stop supporting old hardware to be able to optimize performance on new hardware. Not that DCS has been known to be buttery smooth. Unless your signature is way out of date?

What "cockpit display" setting are you using? "1024 each frame" as far as I understand it is like running another monitor and is more resolution than you need unless you like to zoom in full screen on it. Try dropping it to 512. Same thing as mirrors only more demanding. Also, how can you stand to play at 35 fps? I'd turn off MSAA in a heartbeat with that kind of performance. Do you really feel you need it at 4k?

Would be more helpful if you listed your GPU type and usage before/after. If you are getting 60fps with 99% usage on a 970 at 4K than dropping to 40 is really not that surprising. If you are going from 40% to 99% on a 1080ti and 1080p than yeah that is a problem. Not surprising to lose a couple FPS when creating ~120 smoke effects. 500U should probably be similar I think with ~58 bomblets each.

Nvidia? Gsync? Windows 10? I know in EVERY game I have, not only DCS, if I alt-tab Vsync and Gsync gets wonky. Latest drivers (only updated because that problem started), seems to have started after Fall Creator's Update but not sure. - If Vsync is set to on in Nvidia Control Pannel (NCP) and I tab out and back, it will still be synced but it is now using "fast sync" (unlimited fps with no tearing, can tell by perfect micro stutter once per second when limited to 99/100fps or 101/100fps but not 100/100) - If Vsync is on in DCS (and NCP) then when I alt-tab again vsync is still on, but is now stuck at half-refresh (50fps in my case) - If I am using Gsync set to "full screen only", the same thing happens as above but I no longer have Gsync. - If I am using Gsync set to "fullscreen and windowed" then Gsync continues to work as before... however, about 50% of the time DCS would drop to 25fps with 8% and 10% CPU and GPU usage respectively (unless it is in the background, then it runs normally). This does not happen in all games, but it does in a few. - In games that allow changing of settings on the fly, enabling and disabling Vsync seems to reset everything back to normal without the need to restart the program. This all applies to DCS 1.5, but considering it happens in everything I have it's safe to say it will happen in 2.5. As you notice the stutter after coming back in, if you have a Gsync monitor that would explain it as you will certainly notice the difference from the loss. If you use Vsync and are normally capped at the monitor refresh rate, again that would explain the stutter due to the change to fast sync (from exceeding the refresh). Make sure Vsync is disabled in DCS and that shouldn't happen (as much). You are being forced into double buffered Vsync which means if you can't get your monitor's refresh rate 100% of the time, it will keep you at half-refresh. Note that it is not only DCS, as I get the same behavior with the Heaven 4.0 benchmark program as well. Make sure everything you run has Vsync off in it's settings and use NCP to turn it on. At least that way if you alt-tab you won't have low fps (but you will get some micro-stutter unless you use a frame limiter like RivaTuner).

I'll try to keep this short. TLDR; I'd go with 4K for something of that size. I can't stand less than 100hz anymore, but your options are limited when going big. The more real life FOV you want your screen to take up, the higher the resolution you want. If you are gaming on a 20inch screen, 4K is honestly stupid unless you have your face so close to the screen that if you don't need glasses now, you will soon. At normal viewing distances talking 16:9 only, up to 24 inches 1080p is fine (27 is borderline but reasonable), 24 to 40 inches 1440p is good, 40 inches + you want 4k. Now if we were talking TVs where you are siting across the room, until you hit 50 inches it really makes no difference. As far as performance goes, 4K (meaningless number, it's 8,294,400 pixels or 8MP) is the same number of pixels as 4 X 1080p screens. Most 4k screens top out at 60hz meaning if your GPU could run that it could theoretically also handle 1080p at 240hz or 1440p at 120hz. BUT... that does not mean your CPU can. DCS in particular is very CPU limited in the sense that with 8 logical cores I will at most see 24% usage (typically 12-18%), in other words about 1-1.5 cores normally with the rare 2 cores usage. This means FPS is heavily dependent on instructions per clock (combination of architecture and clock speed). Just because your monitor and GPU can handle 120hz doesn't mean you will ever get it. More likely you will be stuck in the 80fps range with 70% GPU usage. This might change in the future, I know they mentioned Vulkan but what real world gains we will get from that remains to be seen. Also, TVs are notorious for being misleading with refresh rate. Some advertise 120hz or more, but can't accept more than 60hz input. All they do is use interpolation to make additional frames that are a blend between two. Some don't even do that, but instead use a strobe to make motion "look" like 120hz which can actually make it look worse (anything your eye isn't following will look like choppy jumps in your peripheral vision instead of the more realistic blur). Be careful with TV marketing. If you have a choice, make sure to get a gsync or freesync capable display depending on your GPU. The effect of screen tearing is worse the lower the refresh rate, even if you don't see the tear vsync will look much much smoother. BUT... vsync at fps that don't divide the refresh rate evenly (15/30/60/120 etc) will tend to stutter. You will find that the difference a variable refresh rate display makes is well worth it. 55fps with gsync will never feel as good as a steady 120hz, but it feels way better than without. Really on a 120hz screen 90fps would feel worse than 60 if you don't have gsync/freesync, This idea of it being harder to spot targets with higher resolution... well that's a little debatable. This is more an issue that ED has to address at some point (and has been making improvements) regarding lowest LOD models. It used to be terrible, but it has gotten a lot better in the last year with a lot of room for improvement. This should be less of a problem when using a very large screen (like you want to do) that takes up a large amount of real world FOV. So long as the game's FOV is kept to reasonable levels you will actually see everything bigger (than someone on a smaller screen) and thus have an easier time of spotting targets at realistic ranges. I know the distance that the full 3D model is rendered has been increased in the last year and so this idea of hunting for a one pixel spec should be irrelevant. IRL I can spot a 737 at about 4 to 5 miles under normal conditions if the lighting is right (landing light off), unless it's at the absolute perfect angle with the sun, then maybe I'll see it 15 miles out. Looking at the shadowed side against a bright white cloud layer is different. A 737 is a much bigger plane than an F-15 or SU-27, so I think a lot of people just don't realize that it's hard to spot a dark spec 10 miles away against tree/city cluttered terrain. So I really don't think hunting for 1 pixel specs is a good excuse to lower the visual quality for everything else. Also consider what you will be using the screen for. Is this just to play DCS and only DCS, or will you be doing other things with it. So much for keeping it short :doh:

rrohde is pretty stellar with customer service it seems. He got back to me on a Saturday the day before Christmas Eve regarding an e-mail I had sent the night before. No problem recommending people buy from his site.

Also, no offense, but why would you use Vaseline, lip-balm and cooking oil when you can just buy grease at the hardware store? It's like buying knifes and getting quarter from the bank to turn a screw so you don't have to buy a screwdriver.

I would still prefer to use a grease personally. Also, doesn't PTFE have a bad reputation for coming off cookware easily? I used to have a couple non-stick frying pans. Would never buy another one again. They wear out so fast even when using plastic or wooden utensils. I can't imagine it would last long as a lubricant between two rubbing parts. Sometimes the quick and easy way is not the best solution.

WD40 is about the last thing you want to use. It's not a lubricant. Was the first thing I tried and a couple days later the thing was like a rock. I had to take it apart and lube it all up. The worst part was the piece that the gimbal rotates in, where some of the WD40 ran down the shaft. Not sure how to describe it, but basically it has to turn line 10-15 degrees when you move the joystick to the corners. I couldn't take it apart so I had to spend about 30 minutes trying to work grease into there. The brand WD40 makes other products like 3 in 1 and silicon grease in spray cans. Honestly I would use grease from a tube or can. The spray can stuff is not thick enough. I used some joystick specific grease, can't remember what it's called anymore. It was clear/white. The part that causes the most sticktion is the collar under the spring which provides the centering. There is too much play which means it sits at an angle on the shaft depending on which way you move the stick. You can lube it up, but make sure to remove any excess as it will also cause sticktion. I also would not recommend using any stronger than the 2 lightest springs as they make the problem worse. I'm not sure what you are talking about by replacing the collar with a custom spring. It's the collar that centers the stick. If you somehow want to put springs on the individual axes in the base then you don't need to remove the collar at all, just remove the spring.

One more tip for the OP. First you should try the 3 monitor option in DCS to see if the result and performance is acceptable to you. Otherwise, I assume like most people you have your 3 monitors angled towards you \ __ /. You can increase your FOV to see more of the cockpit and place your monitors flat __ __ __ or even turned slightly AWAY from you and move them closer (probably no more than 2 feet away) with the 1 monitor option in DCS. This will reduce the distortion seen on the side monitors because you are seeing them the way the game is rendering them (it basically thinks they are 10ft to your left and right). I hope your screens are IPS as I think that might look pretty bad on a TN panel.

Yes, that is correct and I believe is the explanation the OP was looking for. A wide FOV like he has with triple monitor but with more visibility vertically, not just a "big cockpit" requires editing the FOV. Which he can achieve with any setup by adjusting the horizontal FOV until he gets what he wants vertically.

Uhhh sure... I understand plenty. I'd rather not spread false information. That is not how it works in DCS. Your horizontal FOV is always whatever you have set. 1 monitor or 17 in a line and your horizontal FOV will always remain whatever you set it to.

:lol:

I don't know what the first two responders were smoking but the FOV has nothing to do with aspect ratio. I personally think 21:9 is the sweet spot for aspect ratios since our vision is more horizontal than vertical, but the FOV you see isn't determined by that. So what I gather you're trying to ask is "can I use a single big monitor and have just as wide a view as my triple screen setup, but also see more of the cockpit/gauges without more distortion"? TLDR: A 16:9 4K will change the ratio, but you can set the FOV to whatever you want. 1) The horizontal FOV is set in one of the config files and you can set it to almost anything you want. Due to the way GPUs draw a scene, as you approach 180 degrees the sides of the image stretch to infinity. So that is why making your FOV larger to see more vertically of the cockpit makes it even more distorted. 2) There is a way around this by changing it to 3 monitors in DCS settings. This will render 3 different views which each stretch as they independently approach 180 degrees, but you only need 120 degrees each to get a full 360 FOV. The downside is it costs a lot of GPU power to do that, so it comes at a loss of FPS. 3) The reason you see "bigger cockpits" on bigger monitors is simply that people haven't changed the FOV. The FOV you want to use depends a lot on the distance you sit from the screen. If you get a 50inch screen to play DCS but sit 10ft away, it just looks like a 24inch and using a wide FOV will make it hard to see anything. The size of the screen means absolutely nothing regarding how much you see, how the FOV is set is what determines it. So if you get a big 16:9 and want to see more than a bigger cockpit, then just increase the FOV. 4) The ratio of how much horizontal to vertical FOV you have is quite simply the aspect ratio. You have 3 X 16:9 screens so you see 48:9 or 16:3 (too wide in my opinion). For the same FOV that you are using now with your triple monitors you will see 3 times as much vertically with a 16:9. You will likely find that to be too much so you might want to lower the horizontal FOV. A 21:9 (or 7:3) will give you a little more than twice as much horizontal view as vertical which is a good compromise, but monitors of that aspect are fewer and more expensive and also available in limited sizes. I think Samsung makes a super ultrawide which is basically two 16:9 screens glued together (32:9). 5) The FOV of DCS does not change automatically, so if the default is 80 degrees and you change from 16:9 to 21:9 you will actually see the same horizontally and less vertically. Likewise if you replace a 1080p 24 inch monitor with a 50 inch 4K TV, DCS doesn't know that and still uses the same FOV (bigger cockpit). You need to change the FOV yourself. 6) If you double the FOV (manually) on a 4K screen you will get the same # of pixels to degrees as a 1080P screen but naturally have twice the vertical and horizontal view. Again, distortion becomes a problem (80 X 2 = 160) but it would mean that if your screen was physically twice as big, the center would look almost EXACTLY like it did before on the smaller screen, but with 50% more view in each direction. 7) Again the ratio of horizontal to vertical pixels (which is the aspect ratio) determines the ratio of horizontal to vertical FOV. Stupidly named 4K (3840 X 2160) is the same ratio as 1080P (1920X1080) and thus doesn't change anything other than the number of pixels per degree. If you want to use a really wide FOV on a really big 16:9 screen than you want to use 4K so that you can maintain or improve the resolution of for example the cockpit instruments. That is not a problem for a triple monitor setup because you've already tripled the resolution (5760 horizontal > 4K) for what would likely be less than double the FOV. 8 ) Games in which you cannot change your FOV (FPS shooters) are often fixed at a certain vertical FOV so a 21:9 screen will see the same vertically but more horizontally than a 16:9 . Some older games or RTSs might use a fixed horizontal FOV in which case you see less vertically and the same horizontally. None of that matters for DCS because the FOV can be set to anything you like < 180 degrees.

If you haven't changed many settings and don't want to look for the line in the config file (I don't know where it is), just go to "C/username/savedgames/" and move the DCS folder to the desktop. Next time you start it will create a new folder with everything reset to default. If you just want to fix the resolution, it will be in one of the config files "C/username/savedgames/dcs/config". Usually not hard to find.

When you are having issues like this it is a good idea to hit the "device report" button. It spits out a list of what every single physical button is assigned (ie input 4 ---> logical input 4 as button 4 and logical input 55 as button 14) so that you can see if anything is causing a conflict. Though there are only two pages, physical and logical, there are three levels. Physical input (only 1 per button), logical input (1 for every mode or state of that button), and software action (joystick button #4, shift K, macro etc). It's pretty power software but the UI is very rough, missing a lot of captions, descriptions and tool tips. Also, don't forget that DCS doesn't remove a previous binding. If you assign a function to button 14 and then change it to button 4 without deleting, it will be triggered by both button 4 and 14.

Damnit guys! Now I've got to change my pants. Thanks a lot Are you planning to make the center mount optional? As in still have the center panel attached to the desk without the joystick. Modular so to speak.

Got'cha. But I find if you are consistent and don't over-do it, it can be very manageable. For instance, on my Gladiator all the buttons except eject have the ability for two functions. If I press and release it's 1 button, and if I hold for .4 seconds it's another. I only bind what makes sense like press for engine start and hold for shutdown. So for instance if A-10 has a 3 position speed brake and the throttle switch only has two, then forward would be close, backward is arm and hold back is deploy (I don't know the actual functions). Anyway, it is what it is, but I think you could suitably bind the controls of any real aircraft HOTAS to the throttle as it is. Jack of all trades, master of none.

Thanks for the suggestion, but that's not it. It's a 100hz monitor, and I had a 144hz back in 2012 so making sure the monitor is in fact running at the right refresh rate is second nature. Also this monitor tells you on the main menu the hz and that gysnc is enabled. Believe me, I've tried every setting possible. It's a bug on Nvidia and or Microsoft's drivers. It didn't do this 6 months ago, but then again 6 months ago I was able to use "windowed and fullscreen" gsync without massive performance problems.

Nah. What you really need is a pair of tracked gloves with pressure sensors in the index finger and thumb so that you just reach for the switch, put your fingers together, move the switch or turn the knob, and let go. We can dream can't we? Probably in the next 10 years.