Hippo

Suggestion: it it ain't broke, don't fix it. The forums were very good, afaict they're now worse.

Hi, many thanks for that. Obvs, it's not a major issue, but for such a polished product it does grate when the behaviour does not agree with the normal proc checklists.

I'm minus a VR headset at the moment, and have adjusted FOV as I always used to: "%userprofile%\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Config\View\SnapViews.lua" and changed the "13" entry for whichever aircraft, currently I'm mostly flying the FA-18C SnapViews["FA-18C_hornet"] = { . . . [13] = {--default view viewAngle = 56.000000,--FOV However, I find that when going into the mission, I have to press KPENT for this setting to take effect? Is this normal now? I seem to recall that previously, the zoom would change by itself when entering a mission. Anyway, seems to work ok.

So. Who's tried out a certain just-released civil sim? On first impressions two things stand out. At 4k on my 50" TV*, this thing is a huge step closer to photorealism - quite amazing. All my cores were being utilised with a nicely balanced load nowhere near to 100%. My 1080 ti, though, was going flat out to hit around 30 fps with HIGH settings. I suspect that it is starting to be time for ED to stop beating the dead horse that is ancient, stutter-prone, one-core DCS, and start shifting resources to restart from scratch with DCS 3.0. The much-hoped for Vulkan update, I suspect, is going to have minimal impact. * Well, I sold my Rift S, and have pre-ordered a Reverb G2, so I'm back to pancake temporarily (w/o head tracking - jeez!). Sure - laugh in my 1080ti's face. Have to wait and see what nVidia's new ($1500 - arrrgh) cards can do.

I was beginning to get excited after reading that... Unfortunately, for me, doing my usual simple test mission, performance is unchanged at best, and quite possibly worse. FWIW, in other news... For the F-18 Hornet 1989 CAS mission which I've been playing around with lately, it really is very disappointing to get frequent drops to below 40fps, which I presume are down to the AI battles going on. I run at very low settings. I've posted several screenshots on this post before. Can't be bothered doing that any more.

VR optimized? In DCS? Oxymoron.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=274040 Can this thread possibly be moved here, as it seems to be being completely ignored in its current hiding place?

Thank you for that pearl of wisdom. I am, however, unsure as to how it relates to this thread. It is not a tweak being discussed, it is an option in the game settings recently added by the developer. If users are finding that it doesn't work as expected, then it seems perfectly reasonable to raise it. And still no response or acknowledgement from ED...

Come on ED, can we have some sort of acknowledgment here! Considering That this is a new very visible feature that has appeared in the options The considerable fps increase it should provide I find the fact that there has been no acknowledgement of this post from ED extremely disappointing.

Admittedly, I used fps rather lazily, simply because it's a measure everyone instinctively understands. In my case I am using ASW, and my frame rates are mostly fixed at 80 or 40 fps. What does vary is GPU utilisation, and it is that that I had been measuring. My point, though, is that the poster (and many others who post similarly) would be substantially more credible and informative if he had also posted: which mission he'd used to test how he tested graphs of util / fps / frame time / any objective measure you like his DCS settings his hardware spec (in this case he does, but many don't) Surely this is preferable to: Wow, this new version is so much faster.

Without wishing to appear rude I would be sceptical. Take a comment such as What does this even mean? Frame rate can be higher or lower, I'm not sure what is meant by "smoother". How much are "quite a bit" and "better"? When I see a post such as the above, without a description of how the testing was carried out, the DCS settings, and quantifiable results for the versions being compared, I take it with a huge pinch of salt. In fact, I would go as far as to say that such posts are worthless. Specifically, with 2.5.6 there have been (suggested) pathfinding issues, where fps can vary hugely depending on the mission construction. With my own, basic and somewhat flawed testing, all I can say is that frame rates took around a 10% hit from 2.5.5 - > 2.5.6, and have slowly been recovering ever since. This is for a simple F-18 mission with no other objects in it. I have, however, seen missions with an 80% hit in 2.5.6. If you were to read my previous posts on this thread you would see I have at least made a basic attempt to back up my assertions. I suspect that, even though 2.5.6 has gone to stable, many issues remain. Many issues that have been reported on this forum have been allowed to go on to stable without being fixed. Openbeta is now the wild west, with stable being nothing but a figleaf. I have so far not seen a single post where someone has stated that frame rate is greatly improved in 2.5.6, which contains any convincing evidence.

Can someone please check the following to confirm it's not just me: If I run MSAA OFF I get around a 15 - 25% drop in GPU util (i.e. a considerable performance improvement) compared with MSAA x 2 but I get the usual awful aliasing artifacts. If I run MSAA x 2 BUT set ["msaaMaskSize"] = 0 in the options.lua, I get no AA whatsoever (i.e. it looks just as awful), but get very little or no performance improvement compared to running at MSAA x 2. Certainly nowhere near 20%. Conclusion: the masking option is doing something, but is not providing the expected improvement in performance. I realise that I posted earlier pointing out an improvement, but it was very small. So, I entirely agree with the OP, and would suggest that this needs to be looked into (urgently).

For as long as I can remember my core 12 (11) was always the one that was heavily loaded, with core 1 (0) more lightly loaded. With the latest update they appear to have switched around? I've not seen this happen before, so just thought I'd mention it. Is this in any way significant? Has something changed? The system does not appear to be working any worse or better as far as I can tell. (very quick test only).

Is what out yet?

I'm not sure what to make of your comment. In the latest newsletter it states: This is not about future plans, it refers to 2.5.6 stable which is out now. It would be helpful if someone could the explain what the above refers to, as it's not clear to me. What are these "powerful new tools"?

I think that their position is "look guys, it's been months now and people are getting antsy, JFDI and hope for the best."

So 2.5.6 has now moved to stable. That's very... brave.

What exactly does the following refer to?

Many thanks to all who contributed, very helpful. (including, and especially the OP, obvs)

This is a great suggestion, perhaps AG could consider having the app "remember" the previous session's choices? In my case, I have been importing lots of pdfs for the F-18, and it gets very repetitive to always have to select the aircraft, etc. Pretty please.

Let's hope so. I was hoping to get a bigger increase in performance from the AA mask setting. Turning off 2XAA completely gives me around a 33% increase, so I was hoping for around 20%. Something seems off.

I don't have shadows either. I'm using a Rift-S, but not Steam. I agree, it's hard to see on screenshots. What I see in the HMD are shimmering jagged edges, most noticeable with slight head movements (i.e. always), which are not as evident on screenshots. It is particularly easy to see with cockpit edges when they catch the light and shine - the ka-50 mission is the only stock mission I can think of now that does this. But it's not the only way. I suggest you set AA to 2x in the main options and the mask to 0.1 in VR options, then fly near a Caucasus city int the f-18 (~2nm), at around 2000ft. A restart of DCS is necessary for the changes to take effect. The shimmering jaggies are extremely evident on buildings. You should see that AA is working in the centre of your field of view, but you will see the usual shimmering jaggies around outside of your fov. That's what I see, anyway.

I'm surprised, as that's not my experience. I would suggest you try flying around 2000 ft around 2nm from a city: 1. With no AA whatsoever 2. With 2xAA w/ mask 0.1 in DCS 3. With 2xAA w/ mask 0.1 in DCS + enhance AA X 2 w/ MFAA in nVidia. and see the variation in building jaggies in each case as you pan your view. You must restart DCS with each change for the change to take effect. We have different HMDs (and no doubt DCS settings). Maybe it's down to that.

(if you can be bothered) please see my other recent (post-patch) comments in this thread: https://forums.eagle.ru/search.php?searchid=34570384 I have also replied to you in another thread.

If you want to see a difference and you have the ka-50, go to the instant action mission beslan takeoff, and use the cockpit shinies and truck out of the right window to test. (turning shadows off will probably help). I believe it should be a rectangle, not a circle, and difference is not as marked as you suggest.