Hippo

Another vote for the Quest Pro from me. I don't know where you are but at this price it's an absolute bargain.

I've been having variations on this issue for months now. It's doing my head in. I've just updated my original post: Common factor 13900k / 14900k ?

Back in October when I first posted about this, I tried using Virtual Desktop instead of Oculus and at the time it seemed as if VD didn't have the issue. Because of <reasons> I shortly afterwards took a break from DCS, until now. I've been using the Apache with VD for over a week, and I'm now getting a very similar issue again. Start up DCS and (around 75% of the time) the PC will lock up, in DCS I will either see a black screen, or when I get to the main menu pauses that last 1-2 seconds during which the PC is unresponsive. As suggested above (thanks to all replies) I can eventually get back control by alt-tabbing out and turning off affinity for core 9 (first core = core 0) in task manager. The issue only appears to manifest in the interface screens (never in cockpit) Sorry to sound like a bit of a git, but this is really an extremely frustrating issue, which I'm rather surprised isn't affecting more people. I'm as sure as I can be it's not my PC, I don't get issues with any other games or software, just DCS. Looking at the replies on here, it seems that all who have also seen the issue seem to have i9-13900k CPUs. Have DCS testers checked if they can duplicate this issue with this CPU? It seems to me that all is not quite right with multithreaded DCS.

Thank you for bringing up @recoilfx 's (and recoilfx for making it) comment. I did some more (quick and limited) testing and perhaps the increase in performance from QVFR wasn't as great as I first thought. I tested with DLAA + QVFR, DLAA only, and MSAAx4 only, with these settings and mission (up to end of first turn) and see the results below. Only with QVFR can I maintain 72 fps throughout. The GPU util is visibly lower with QVFR, but not by as much as I was expecting. I can't hit 72 fps at all with MSAAx4. CPU core 28 (and perhaps 11 and 12) is visibly busier with QVFR. Core 9 or 10 is usually the main(? most busy) core. There is no shimmering with DLAA, whereas it is quite visible and distracting with MSAA, including flickering ground shadows. @recoilfx I'd be interested if you could point me to a mission and settings where you see worse performance with QVFR vs no QVFR.

IMHO - the shimmering is worse with MSAA. I was using MSAAx4 + QVFR and was aware of shimmering in the peripheral area, which goes away entirely if I use DLAA. I found the shimmering too distracting with MSAAx4 so was using a larger focus area to migitate this somewhat, leading to only a modest performance improvement. With DLAA I have reduced the focus region to 0.25, a reduction in pixel count of ~75%, and a very significant performance improvement. As to that last sentence. Ahem. I wrote that after very limited testing. I would say that the DLAA visuals aren't quite as crisp, and there is artifacting/ smearing with certain fast motion (e.g. aircraft flybys can leave trails). Still, I am so far very pleased with the performance / quality I am getting with DLAA + QVFR and it is what I am using.

Anyone know what these mean in practice, if anything? P.S. Any news on when the marshal to parking is coming?

What sort of performance are you hoping for? Personally I can't be doing with ASW (whose artifacting I find to be worse than what I'm seeing with DLAA), and aim for native 72 fps. Here's what I'm currently using and I'm very happy with the quality/performance I've been seeing. I was using MSAAx4. The thing with DLAA is that when combined with foveated rendering, there is no shimmering so I can greatly reduce the foveated area for a huge performance improvement. I'm using PD 1.0 and mirrors on (have mostly been testing with the F-18). I'm not doing anything else with e.g. Oculus Debug Tool / OpenXR Toolkit. My quad views foveated config file # # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE! # INSTEAD, CREATE A NEW FILE `settings.cfg` UNDER `%LocalAppData%\Quad-Views-Foveated` # # Common settings for all headsets (unless overriden below). smoothen_focus_view_edges=0.2 sharpen_focus_view=0.7 turbo_mode=1 # Fixed Foveated rendering settings for fallback when eye tracker is not available. horizontal_fixed_section=0.5 vertical_fixed_section=0.45 [Oculus] peripheral_multiplier=0.4 focus_multiplier=1.1 horizontal_focus_section=0.25 vertical_focus_section=0.25 #vertical_focus_offset=0.28 turbo_mode=0 debug_eye_gaze=0 debug_focus_view=0 [Varjo] horizontal_focus_section=0.29 vertical_focus_section=0.33 # Turbo mode is incompatible with Varjo's deferred swapchain release. Use OpenXR Toolkit Turbo instead. turbo_mode=0 [PimaxXR] # Dynamic Foveated Rendering settings (for Crystal) horizontal_focus_section=0.33 vertical_focus_section=0.31 [Windows Mixed Reality] peripheral_multiplier=0.4 focus_multiplier=1.1 # Dynamic Foveated Rendering settings (for G2 Omnicept Edition) horizontal_focus_section=0.3 vertical_focus_section=0.3 vertical_focus_offset=0.04 [SteamVR] # Turbo Mode causes unexplained errors with SteamVR. turbo_mode=0 I notice we have very similar setups, and I'd be interested to see what you think. I have attached a mission which you might want to try, it puts you in an F-18 low over Dubai with A/P and A/T set so you can just sit back and let the a/c fly the route. I can hold 72 fps which I didn't think I'd be able to achieve at this level of quality. If you can achive this sort of performance with better visuals pls let me know. benchmark_01.miz

I have posted a request for this to be investigated in the wish list forum. I suggest others do the same or bump the post to high heaven.

@mbucchia 's quad views dynamic foveated rendering is a fantastic enhancement for getting extra performance in VR. Unfortunately, the foveated region can sometimes be seen distinctly from the peripheral region, as if it has a slightly different shading, somewhat taking away from its effectiveness. According to the developer this should be fixable by ED. Please could someone take a look into this? The issue can be seen in the images. A square with what appears to be a light grey outline in the centre of the 1st image. A fairly distinctive square around the sun in the 2nd.

Having a bit of a nightmare with this atm, where I have now had the system stall in the main interface, and whilst waiting for a mission to load. In each case it was taking so long that I had to kill the process. It looks like one of the cores is being hammered at 100% by the dcs process, notice how it's hopping back and forth between cores 9 and 10. Also attaching a log.dcs.log

And yet another log, where the game loaded up correctly - and quickly. Also please note that it has sometimes loaded into the main interface normally and then I get the hourglass making the game unusable - although I don't think I've seen this with 2.9 (so far). Responded before your I saw your response above. Will try the above. When you say "first load" is this after a version update? Or following a reboot? dcs.log

Thanks for responding so quickly. Windows desktop resolution = 3840 x2160 Oculus App VR rendering resolution = 5408 x 2736 (1.3x) @ 72 Hz Resolution in DCS config screen = 3440 x 1440 (this might seem strange, but I recently upgraded my monitor and didn't bother to change this - my old monitor res). I've just tried again, after a black screen with the Oculus hourglass for a long time it did get to the main interface and was working correctly, so maybe I just needed to be more patient. I don't think so though. Normally it loads up pretty quickly and I don't get this (or similar) issues. Here's the log for this time. dcs.log

I've been seeing this for around four months or so. When I start DCS, sometimes the system will become almost completely unresponsive. There are variations on exactly what happens: sometimes I'll see the interface screen, sometimes a black screen, but I always see the Oculus hourglass spinning continuously. It looks as if the sim is running at less than 1 fps. I am eventually able to get the keyboard or oculus controller to respond and kill the task, and try to run it again until it works correctly. I would say I see this around 25% of the times I start DCS. I have attached a log file, as this has just happened. Spec in sig. dcs.log

Yes, I get it on Quest Pro. It's been a thing since release. IIRC the dev has said it's something that can only be corrected by ED making changes in DCS. Perhaps @mbucchia can confirm? Since DLAA has made a significant difference with reducing shimmering, it really would be nice to get this working perfectly. Is it worth requesting changes from ED, and how to request? What would they have to do? Personally it doesn't bother me that much as it's rarely very distracting. Much more noticeable in the F-18 than the AH-64 where I can't see it at all.

Thanks. I didn't go out of my way to check moving aircraft. Sad if so as it was all looking so promising. EDIT: Have now checked and indeed am seeing artificating / ghosting. But imho nothing so bad as to not be worth using DLAA + FSR (so far).

I have seen the recommendation to change the following settings in ODT from their defaults of zero, but for the life of me I can't see any difference when I do. Can someone tell me what improvements I should be seeing in DCS when I do this? (endode resolution width, and encode bitrate) I am using Quest Pro over a link cable. Thanks.

Agreed. After further testing, I feel this is truly a game changer. By setting the focus region at 0.25 I am getting AA at a quality very similar to MSAAx4 for free. Yet it is almost impossible for me to tell that DFR is doing its thing (I can see the "square" if I look for it and depending on what I'm looking at, but it's something I can easily live with). I'm possibly seeing some texture DLAA shimmering in the focus region that wasn't there with MSAA (further testing required to confirm). but again, minor enough that I can easily live with it. P.S. Night vision goggles now work properly, and it is possible to see the cockpit "outside" of them. Xmas has come early. Thanks to all concerned.

I've had no issues like that. But then I'm running a Quest Pro, the stanalone version of DCS (i.e. not Steam), and am using a link cable with the Oculus software (i.e. not VD).

DLAA + DFR (i.e. mbucchia quad views foveated) is working wonders for me on Quest Pro. DLAA appears to completely elimate shimmering in the peripheral area meaning the focus region can be substantially reduced for huge performance improvements and a much better overall experience. This is DFR working as I always imagined. For me TAA offers the best visual quality. Especially when looking at taxi way lines and the like. Whilst TAA greatly reduces shimmering, I find it just makes everything blurry, and can produce dreadful ghosting (e.g. in F-18 try quickly looking left and right past canopy frame). DLAA much better but much greater perf hit, same as MSAAx4. But see above if you're using DFR. Having said that, I am running a pretty high-end system. For something more mid-range TAA could be a godsend, it greatly improves the terrain by eliminating shimmering at almost no perf cost, and I think that the terrain blurring looks ok. However, I don't like blurring of the cockpit. Swings and roundabouts.

Sorry, after further testing I was mistaken, and afaict there is no difference. However, I'd swear that since I first tried this when mbucchia released for Quest Pro, either my tolerance or something else has changed. I am able to set a 0.25 focus region (for a massive performance improvement) and whilst I am aware of shimmers in the periphery I can happily live with them - there is no way I felt this was the case when I first tried this out on release. As to 2.9 DLSS, DLAA, TLA, I'm afraid it's all very much 'meh' for me, with any perfomance improvements simply not worth the visual artifacting/ degradation. As always, there's no such thing as a free lunch (though quad views foveated is getting very close). EDIT: Arrrrgh. Someone help pls. I think I'm going nuts. I'm seeing different results between restarting sessions. I think a restart might be necessary between changing MSAA x 4 -> DLAA. I'm not even sure if DLAA is the cause, but I have definitely had sessions where I can detect no shimmering in the periphery, and sessions where I can. DFR is definitely working as it is very perceptible in the menus and I am aware of the "square". If the effect is real, this is a very big deal. To check: in the F-18 engine gauge shimmers are very noticeable when the engine gauge is in the periphery, but I have had sessions where it doesn't shimmer at all. EDIT Again: Almost certainly down to DLAA. Shimmers in the periphery eliminated vs MSAAx4. Needs a mission restart (at least), i.e. changing the setting in-mission doesn't appear to do it. In normal usage (i.e. not using DFR) I can discern no difference in quality or performance between MSAAx4 and DLAA.

My very quick first impression with 2.9 is that DLAA (TAA too, but at the cost of too much blurring) noticeably reduces shimmering (I usually use MSAA x4 as I can't bear jaggies and shimmers), and that it seems to make any DFR peripheral area shimmering much less noticeable than before. Placebo or does anyone else feel the same? Might it be feasible to decrease the size of the focus area further? I will test when I have more time, but wondering if anyone else has already played around with this?

IDK what that is, is it 2880 x 2880 per eye?

What render resolution are you running?

I, like you, have a Quest Pro and am very happy. I haven't tried the Crystal but would be very wary of changing at this time. Main reason: this guy puts it very well. Just do the math and be very sceptical of YTs reporting butter smooth frame rates. Second reason, in spite of multiple YT videos singing its praises, is that Pimax QC and customer service are very suspect. I find this guy tells it like it is although I suspect his particular experience in this case might have been sub-optimal.

Quest 2 with elite strap, vr cover facial interface and link (or 3rd party) cable. 2nd hand (ebay).