Hippo

For testing I used Maple Flag's Aggressor Campaign mission "Arrival", which is a mission where you watch a transport coming in to land at Nellis. First two screenshots are 2.5.5, the next two are 2.5.6. The fps are around 15 or less throughout in 2.5.6. I get 80 at first in 2.5.5 and then 40 (ASW) as I get closer to the runway. The graphs from MSI AB on the left show the stats from the start of the mission until the transport lands in each case. Notice that at the initial menu screen there is an fps drop of around 20%. This is probably in the ballpark (15%) of what I am seeing in missions where there are no other objects and the severe frame rate drop does not occur. Although not a disastrous frame rate drop, in VR we really need every bit of performance, so this is most unwelcome. From my past experience, changes in fps at the main menu do reflect fps changes in the game. Are you also seeing this? I notice that you are seeing your CPU max out at 100%. Curiously I am not seeing that, so I'm puzzled as to what's going on: CPU at around 70%, and GPU at 13%. I am entirely unfamiliar with your HMD and its details. I have ASW on and as soon as 80 fps can't be maintained it drops to 40%, hence the sudden cliff-edge drops in 2.5.5. Settings are the same for both tests. The white squares are my labels, which should be almost transparent, but that was broken in an update over a year ago, and has never been fixed. Just saying ED. Very annoying as this is vital, imho, in VR. I am also enhancing AA by using 2x w/ MFAA in nVidia Control Panel.

I will take that as meaning that it doesn't automatically reduce. You are quite busy already, so I won't bother you with a grovelling for forgiveness PM. I will carry on enjoying the exhilaration of living on the edge, and revel in my badboy credentials.

Thank you. I see this often. However, in my personal experience, it has never made the slightest bit of difference, including here and now. Can someone from ED please verify whether carrying out this step by users is a required part of the update process? Surely ED wouldn't be so unprofessional as to not deal with this automatically as part of the update process? I expect that ED will respond that it should never be necessary to do this, but am happy to be corrected.

Thanks for the update. Just a couple of things: When I (and I'm sure most) report an fps drop here, I'm (we're) doing just that: reporting it - not complaining - I am fully aware it's a beta. If I were going to complain, it would be about how such a severe fps impact could make it through internal testing. ;). For every subsequent update, if I continue to experience this issue I will continue to report it, on the assumption that it is helpful to do so. Which settings in particular do you think will have the greatest effect?

I can see that you're new here, so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're not just trolling. With the F-18, try taking off from a runway in a mission where you're reading 40 fps. You will notice that the HUD display looks distorted, and that there are distortions around the canopy frame. Why? Because ASW is kicking in: whilst the Rift continues to function at 80 fps - half of those frames are being interpolated. Sometimes this works well, and as in this case, sometimes it doesn't. At 80 fps you will not see this happen. As a general rule, statements of this type (fps don't matter) instantly make me wary regarding a poster's credibility. Do you think if this was in any way plausible that HMD manufacturers would bother with refresh rates higher than 40 Hz, ASW, etc? Just think about it. Before you accuse others of not checking, perhaps you should follow your own advice and try to do what I did here: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4221938&postcount=73 In a simple mission with just the F-18 in it, there is a repeatable, verifiable increase in GPU utilisation. The only difference is the version of DCS I am running. It just happens that of late I had been working on a number of simple missions with just an F-18 in them so noticed a decrease of around 10% - 15% fps (enough to tip me over from 80 fps to ASW kicking in and 40 fps) in those circumstances. However, when I tried a mission with lots of ground objects, the fps drop was severe. Again, the only difference was in the DCS version: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4227381&postcount=100 Many people have reported similar experiences. I suspect that you will very likely notice a difference between 40 fps and 10 fps. Perhaps you should make your testing and descriptions a bit more detailed yourself. P.S. I did forget to include my PD (slap on the wrist for me) - it's 1.2.

It is not immediately obvious to me what the point is in telling people to roll back to 2.5.5 in a thread where people are reporting issues relating to the latest 2.5.6 open beta. I have just gone to the trouble of running a couple of, admittedly fairly simple, tests, and have found that I get the same reduction (from 2.5.5) in performance that I did in the previous OB. This in a thread relating to performance in 2.5.6, in a forum dedicated to reporting issues with game performance. I don't think "roll back to 2.5.5" is the appropriate response, suggest instead "thanks for beta testing for free".

No, I didn't. I just omitted a part of it. My observation was only wrt performance, hence my selective quote.

From my limited testing, performance remains suboptimal. Unchanged from the previous OB.

OB 2.5.6.44266 - performance remains unchanged (i.e. from worse to a lot worse than 2.5.5).

I'm not sure anyone has complained about that. But surely if issues come up in the openbeta, they should be reported - isn't that the point? The concern, of course, is that they are not resolved and just go on to stable anyway. (E.g. label transparency :(, which was broken over a year ago and has still not been fixed.)

I've been at 90% for ages and feel like I'm walking on eggshells.

EDIT. Pls ignore.

The reason there are compromises is because most people are sitting in front of a computer screen with consumer game joysticks, a keyboard, and a mouse, playing a computer game, and not in sitting a real F-18 cockpit. Adding another controller binding option is a minor bit of work. Being an option, people can choose to use it according to preference.

Just tried this. Entirely agree. I'm surprised that adjusting DDI night/day, brightness, contrast makes no difference to the image, only to the symbols - is this correct?

I take your point, but this is a game and there is a multitude of physical controller options out there. It is up to the developer to try to be flexible and accommodate these options. Mapping the ant elev and FLIR zoom to one axis does not have to be the only option - these could be split: ant elev to absolute axis, FLIR zoom to something else (buttons?), and obviously keep what we have now (simulating the control on the F18 HOTAS) as an option as well. An analogue wheel / slider of this type is so common on so many throttles that this assignment should've been offered from the beginning. I find it very strange that this wasn't even considered as it would've been very easy to implement.

From the NATOPS: From this (and I remain quite confused) I deduce that: 1. the INS + GPS is what should be in the DCS F-18 (going by aircraft number)? 2. this (INS + GPS) system is more advanced that EGI (because it appears in later aircraft)? Can someone explain in layman's terms what the difference is between these two / four systems described above? Has ED ever confirmed which is being simulated in the DCS F-18? Just from going through chapter 24, it seems like a lot of work remains to be done. Has ED ever stated how closely the simulation will match what's in the NATOPS (AIMS, etc).?

I was just wondering what the thinking was behind not allowing GPS in these missions? Is this what is actually done in F-18's IRL for this type of exercise? At this point in time, is it all supposed to work correctly in DCS, from searches it seems that it's been buggy on and off in the past?

Yes it does, thank you. Sorry - I hadn't worked out that FLEX was also the name of the departure procedure. P.S. What does the line of five triangles on the chart (p9) represent?

FLEX appears to be a navigation point 4 nm away from LSV on the 335 radial. I don't know how a pilot following the chart is supposed to interpret the words "ON FLEX". It appears in four places on the chart.

What does "ON FLEX" mean? e.g. not above 8000 ON FLEX. What do the five triangles mean (next to remain within 4 nm)? Thx.

I've just installed this campaign for the first time, and the fps in the latest 2.5.6 OB is, for me, appalling (this is in VR). I have reported it in another thread: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4227381&postcount=100 This is in no way a criticism of your excellent work, which I am very happy to support.

I finally got round to installing Maple Flag's F18 Aggressor campaign. In the first (Familiarisation) mission, I get: 2.5.5 last OB 40 fps (ASW kicking in) 2.5.6 latest OB 5 fps !!! This is on entering the mission, sitting in the cockpit of the powered down aircraft and looking around. Settings are as per my previous test. ( https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4221938&postcount=73 ). This is the first complex (i.e. containing many objects), and Nevada, mission I have tried - and have to agree with many other posters that the frame rate decrease is severe in this case.

As can be seen from the image, this isn't happening. Notice that I'm using the ground track pointer on the HSI to fly a heading to correct for wind. However the command heading steering on the HUD is pointing me directly to the waypoint. From the NATOPS: EDIT: Apologies, I meant to post this in the BUGS forum. EDIT: Further apologies. I've just noticed someone else has posted the exact same thing in the bugs forum anyway. Jeez - I'm off to get more coffee. Please combine / delete / whatever.

Thank you for that, although now I only have more questions. I have been so used to the elevation being set as the aircraft altitude as per the mission editor, that I completely missed that the clue's in the name. Should the ME functionality be changed then? Where I have set waypoints in the ME to (e.g.) 34,000 ft, that's what I see in the aircraft when I fly the mission (see image); yet I am unable to enter this same elevation from the HSI pages. So I get why elevation might make sense in terms of a target waypoint, but I had always assumed that it was aircraft altitude that was set in this field. Should (ground) elevation be being set for all waypoints then? What is the reasoning behind this?

I'm not sure where you've detected anger in this thread. People have expressed their concerns in a perfectly reasonable manner. Careful, I think this is most people's definition of lying.