Hippo

Sorry, I couldn't be bothered with the whole setting up the overlay rigmarole. I attach a log instead. I chose the first F-16 in the list, and mainly just sat in the cockpit looking forward. That dip to 36 fps I think happened when I then had a good look around the cockpit and sorroundings. BTW, my settings are now different to what they were in that post I linked to. The main difference is I am now running 4xMSAA. Hope this helps. My spec is in my sig. If you can't see it, you need to activate the viewing of sigs in the forum settings. ab2023_07_01_22_09_06_440.hml

Sure, can you suggest a suitable mission or track?

Ah. TBH, because I have been struggling to get acceptable performance with VR for many years, I have avoided "heavy missions" (and don't do multiplayer). I suppose it's very possible you could see considerable improvements owing to the CPU in those circumstances. I have not tested with such missions - I suppose I really should at some point.

I don't think you've mentioned which headset you're using but if it's QP or Q2 you could try doing what I did here and see if your results are very different from mine. I'd be quite interested to know myself.

Supposedly sealed and maintanance-free - so no, and never. I suspect air cooling would've been fine for me, and it's what I've always used, but I was keen to try one of these out and it does look much nicer and tidier. Installation was pretty simple, but care needs to be taken, with the radiator being 360mm, that it will fit without issue in your case.

Cooler Master ML360 Illusion CPU Cooler. VR a handful of cores just under 60 C, the rest around low 40s C. According to MSI Afterburner. Don't do non-VR, sorry

Please note that I refer to DCS F/A-18C only, with somewhat limited testing, and to visible, perceptible improvements in using the sim in VR. I don't care if my CPU frame times have reduced substantially if my experience in the sim is exactly the same. My main aim is a consistent 72 fps and at least 2xMSAA, ASW to kick in as rarely as possible - ideally never. This was very difficult with the 1080 ti. Also, see my sig for more details. Feb 2023, I had i7 8700k + 1080 Ti + Quest 2 -> I was considering a 4090 but decided that "no way am I ever spending £1,800 on a GPU". I instead picked up a 2nd hand 3080 Ti on ebay. Very noticeable improvement. I could now get 72 fps 2xmsaa, with lowish settings and Oculus at 1.0. April 2023, upgraded to an i19 13900kf. No practical, visible improvement whatsoever. My system was limited by the GPU. June 2023, just said life's too short and bought a 4090. This thing has taken me up another level and t,he performance I have seen has been above what I was expecting; it's a monster. Oculus all the way to the right at 1.3, 4xmsaa and highish settings, and I can hold 72 fps in the sort of stuff I'm doing (SP, e.g. I am currently playing the Persian Lion campaign). Two weeks ago, I went for a Quest Pro, greatly improved visuals at no performance cost. For my particular circumstances I have a system which gives me a fantastic DCS experience. I have never bought "top of the line", as I have always balked at the extortionate cost involved. Before I have always gone mid-range and had to compromise in some way or other, endlessly trying to tweak to eke out that last bit of performance; now I'm just enjoying DCS. I think I should've bought the 4090 first and tried it with the 8700k as my first step. I suspect that I would've been fine with that. I really regret not going this way, because I really would have liked to have tested and compared. I'm not unhappy though, as I use the PC for more than DCS, and it was time for a change that mobo and cpu being over 5 yrs old. BTW, I have used an exteral power meter to measure the power draw, and the PC has never gone over 500W when running DCS. I don't intend to o/c (yet) - so my old 850 W PSU has been perfectly adequate. Having said all that, for a new build, with a 4090 I would just go for the 13900k, because, well, in for a penny...

I assumed so but I don't see... when I run it, in the overlay I just see frame times (not percentages), and nothing about headroom?

Apologies, but what is this?

Very much looking forward to your video. Nudge... nudge... And whether you find the performance improvement as significant as with the Aero?

Thank you again. I'd never noticed this before (I'd always assumed it turned on the AA mask and always had it ticked on), but the following images are PrintScreen screenshots: mask off, mask on (QP), and mask on (Q2). So, it does appear to make a difference, and the mask from the QP is different to the Q2 (although that screenshot is from May I don't suppose the difference is due to a version change). However, I am seeing no improvement in performance whatsoever from having it turned on. I also don't think I see any difference in the headset. Could it be that it's only changing what is seen on the monitor? This could all be cleared up by an explanation from ED, instead all we have is uncertainty. Regarding the AA mask, I used to rely on Kegetys's mod back in the day but I would be surprised if it were adopted by ED "as is", since it used to cause minor graphical problems. Whatever the case, if it is doing nothing now, why on earth does it remain in the options? EDIT: On further testing, I think might be a small performance improvement. EDIT: Does anyone on QP think it reduces thesize of the image they see in the headset? I can't say I noticed any difference, but I find it hard to test for.

Please could someone who is getting an uplift >= 30% post their Oculus, DCS and Meta-Foveated settings, and system spec? Thx.

My understanding is that they're both (Q2 and QP) pushing (around) the same number of pixels, so performance should be about the same. It's just the QP's lenses are so much better that you end up with a clearer, brighter image. I've just bought a QP, and my Q2 is now on ebay, the improvement in image quality is very significant. I had some issues with comfort, but I'm getting used to / around those. I did not notice a change in performance going Q2 -> QP. You should be fine for a decent experience with your system (though this is very subjective), just don't expect to be able to run everything at high fps with highest quality settings. There's of course also the option to wait for the Q3. For me, the foveated rendering, and this is just a first impression, is not providing a significant performance improvement. Many others are seeing one So I don't know, and it's still early days. There are so many different configs and expectations... P.S. If you are referring to this sort of thing I would say that, in my opinion, that video is wrong and does the QP a huge disservice, more so now that the price has gone down. P.P.S Have you checked out? Many interesting views and links there.

I would love to see that sort of gain. and would like to try to replicate what you're doing on my system. If it's not too much trouble, please could you kindly provide your settings: (oculus, meta-foveated, DCS), how you're measusing, which mission you're using to test? What is your system, btw?

Thanks for that. Do you have a link to an official explanation / description from ED or is this an educated (and very reasonable) guess? I don't want to appear ungrateful, but you shouldn't have to be coming here to explain and ED shouldn't be putting options in place without explaining what they do; especially if they don't work properly.

Thanks again. (BTW, my sig was out of date, thanks for mentioning, now updated). What sort of gains are people seeing on Quest Pro? Please note that my "10%" is as described in my previous post.

Some further thoughts on performance... Changing the following (from 0.50) horizontal_focus_section=0.60 vertical_focus_section=0.60 I find that the approx 10% improvement I was getting appears to be negated. Unfortunately, for me at 0.50 the peripheral distortions were too much of a distraction. I assume that there is an overhead (at 0.90 performance is worse) and that it must be overcome by the gains from rendering at a lower resolution. I'm beginning to fear that mbucchia was making a very good point when he said that he didn't think the gains to be made on the QP were worth the programming effort required. Sorry to come across as negative, I hope to be proved wrong, and I am sure that for many it will be worthwhile. None of this is to take away from mbucchia's efforts and generosity in providing this software, for which I am very grateful.

I've noticed no difference. That doesn't mean there isn't any, but MSAA is definitely working for me.

My experience so far. Please note that I only got my QP a few days ago and am very, very late to the whole OpenXR Toolkit party. 13900KF / 4090. I have found the DFR to work very well, like others I believe I'm occasionally seeing what has been described as a dark rectangle, although I would perhaps say very thin grey line. My aim is to consistently hold 72 fps (which in this test I do), so I use MSI Afterburner to record my GPU % util and use that as a "measurement" of performance. Flying the same mission, I see the following: I reckon that's around a 10% reduction in gpu util. Very useful, although I suspect I'm going to have to tweak the settings somewhat as the peripheral artifacting is a bit too noticeable for my liking. Is this more or less what others are seeing? I also include results using OpenXR Toolkit with FFR turned on only. At qual/wide and pef/narrow for comparison peripheral_multiplier=0.4 focus_multiplier=1.0 horizontal_focus_section=0.5 vertical_focus_section=0.5 vertical_focus_bias=0.25 turbo_mode=0 smoothen_focus_view_edges=0.2 sharpen_focus_view=0.0 2023-06-22 11:07:56 +0100: Recommended peripheral resolution: 1126x1158 (0.400x density) 2023-06-22 11:07:56 +0100: Recommended focus resolution: 1408x1448 (1.000x density) Why is vertical_focus_bias set by default to 0.25 and not, as I would've thought more logically, at 0.0? Is there any cost to turning on sharpening? Any value to it in combination with the settings I'm using? In case anyone wants to compare I have attached the mission I used (F-18 over Dubai). The autopilot is turned on automatically at mission start, so can just sit back and watch. My graphs are up to the end of the first turn, keeping my head steadily looking forward. (frametime scale is 0 - 50 ms) null benchmark_01.miz

I wish to complain about the long-standing and continued lack of any proper explanation from ED as to what these mask settings do. They've been in the options for ages, but there's no tooltips* and no explanation in the manual. I have been unable to discern whether they do anything at all, and can only conclude that they don't. It is unacceptable to have to come to the forums to try to get answers on this and only find speculations from other users. Please, with relation to the following settings in the VR options MSAA Mask Size enable HMD Mask Could someone from ED please provide an official explanation? What exactly do the settings do? Are they active / do they work / require specific hardware to work / etc? If there is an official explanation somewhere, then please accept my apologies for the above and kindly point me to it. Perhaps ED could consider putting up a locked post that has a detailed explanation of all the options which is updated immediately every time a change is made. Thanks for listening. * There are no tooltips for any of the options in the VR section. EDIT: Apologies, MSAA Mask Size is explained in the manual It does no such thing on my system: whatever I set it to my entire image has AA applied to it. So the question remains, has it even been implemented? Does it work for anyone else? I've been through 3 GPUs, 2 motherboards and 2 headsets this year and this option has never worked for me.

After viewing Ismael's (above) and Lukas's videos (thanks guys), and considering the more reasonable £999 price tag I decided to give QP a go and mine arrived on Friday. I was hoping perhaps for some suggestions or thoughts from QP veterans regarding the negatives below. But first the positives. Coming from a Quest 2, the improvements in clarity, colour and brightness are amazing, and well worth the upgrade. I was in the civil sim F-18 yesterday and had a first in VR: I was blinded by the sun's reflection in the mirror. The point made by Ismael that that he prefers the open design was intriguing. I would also have expected a confiict of the senses but find that my brain fools me into thinking that when I, e.g. roll, my hotas, and my room roll with me, and it's as if my carpet becomes the cockpit floor. Perhaps even adding to immersion; most peculiar. I still need the side blinkers though. I have ordered Meta's light blocker (at an extortionate £50!) as I think I will prefer it for "normal" VR games. Anyone else using this? Any good? Translational movement in VR whilst the floor remains stationary is not ideal, but I find that I can ignore it. Being able to see the keyboard and controllers is also very handy. The additional airflow makes things more comfortable too. Some say give me more pixels. No (or at least not yet), say I. Personally, I find that my 13900/4090 gets me Oculus SS all the way to the right + AA + reasonable settings + 72 fps over Dubai at low level, something that I thought would not be possible. More pixels will surely take me into the land of ASW which I really try to avoid at all costs. IMHO (and I realise it will be a controversial one) the QP is the perfect performance match for my system. The Aero and the Pimax "QC" Crystal are just too expensive for me, and have IMHO too many pixels to push. And now I find, when not expecting it all, that we're going to be getting dynamic foveated rendering as well. Thank you, thank you, thank you mbucchia for doing this. And the missus, and your bunny, and whoever it was that just wouldn't let it lie on reddit. Local dimming. The blacks are much better, but I do find the glowing in night flight a bit distracting. Overall, an improvement. I did ponder returning it and waiting for the Q3, but won't that be using just one LCD? Will it have global dimming? The same lenses? More pixels (see previous point)? No eye-tracking. Sometimes it's just time to throw caution to the wind and... JFDI. And now the negatives... This is Meta's beautiful headset for beautiful people (a club to which I do not belong), and my oversized and misshapen head is not compatible. If I wear the headset for optimum comfort I find that the bottom of the screens are almost in my eye-line. To get the best vertical FOV I have to angle the headset so that it (or, feels at least that) is pointing downwards, but then the lower edge only of the rear cup rests on my head. I have currently alleviated this by, as suggested by others, flipping the rear cup so that it is upside-down. This helps, but the main issue - acute forehead pain after around 30 mins - remains. I have read elsewhere that people get used to it over time as the front pad gets softer. I very nearly returned the headset on Friday evening because of this. I have now also ordered a Globular Cluster replacement pads and strap set. Hopefully this will help. It especially grates that after dropping £999 I now have to fork out another £90 (inc light blocker). I would be interested in hearing other views on the forehead pain, especially from the YT guys mentioned above, since IIRC they don't mention it at all in their videos. It gets warm, and being closer to your face, can make things a bit sweaty (not in DCS, just "normal" gaming). TL;DR? Thanks to the much improved visuals and reduced price this is an excellent headset choice for DCS, but some will find comfort has been sacrificed to looks. I will be keeping it and selling my Q2.

I can assure you there is nothing "seriously wrong" with my set up. it made no practical discernible difference for DCS in VR. You may have a point about "mechanism of measuring", and it's quite possible that CPU frametimes, etc, got lower, but the actual fps and gpu %util (the limiting factor) I experienced, with the types of mission I used to test, and my specific settings, were exactly the same. This was a few months ago. I have very recently got myself a 4090, and that has most certainly made a very considerable difference My wallet: not quite so happy. My understanding on Windows activation was that it is linked to your motherboard hardware. Apologies if this is incorrect. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/get-help-with-windows-activation-errors-09d8fb64-6768-4815-0c30-159fa7d89d85

Whenever I upgrade my system, I always reinstall everything from scratch and I would recommend you do the same - at the very least it can eliminate the issue being something in your old configuration. I recently upgraded i8700k -> i13900k and, with a 3080 ti, in VR DCS saw no improvement in performance whatsover. You definitely should not be seeing lower frames, though. I can't stand W11, so stayed with W10 - you can get a new licence very cheaply at places like https://m.cdkdeals.com/ .

It was just me misremembering, I think I just needed a bit more time to get back into things. Sorry for the bother everyone and thanks for replying.