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I agree with all of that. The Reverb was not the quantum leap over the Vive Pro that I had hoped. However, it is better and I'll take any improvement I can get. And yes, the tracking is getting cumbersome as of late. I'm almost tempted to shell out for an Xtal. Almost. But my main concern is that even the most high end machines are likely to struggle to run it. I assume the engineers who developed it likely had a $15K+ super tower computer to be able to run it. If not, and it will run on a current high end commercially available CPU and GPU setup, then that's very bad news for my checkbook.

Nope. The realism and immersion has definitely not worn off. I actually enjoy the physical sensation of having the bend around to check six and I'm no spring chicken. But it adds to the realism. I think the thing that is hardest if you're in a fixed seat is there are no canopy rails to push against like there is in a real cockpit. I am toying with the idea of building a sort of VR sim pit that has physical rails for just that purpose. It makes a HUGE difference in neck and back strain if you do it correctly. I have the Reverb to replace the HTC Vive pro, and the difference in all of the issue you mention is SOOO much better. Its still not a 4K HD flat screen. But its fricken close. I have no trouble reading displays or dials and the world outside is crystal clear and frame rates smooth. I could never in a million years go back to a flat screen. The WOW is the whole point. A flat screen is just a game in your office. VR is as close to actually being in the cockpit as you can get.

So I took my own advice and set up a bunch of quick ME missions to do Offensive BFM at various setup ranges and later 1v1 and 2v1 High aspect ACM (HACM) against an AI Mig-29. I am getting back into the Hornet after spending most of my time in the F-16 recently and it was really enlightening to figure out how to best manage energy and when to cash in energy for a quick gun shot or AIM-9 shot. A couple of observations.... The AI Mig-29 model somewhat sucks. It flies a constant vertical loop and I don't think it's ability to go vertical over and over is accurate. I might try some other AI models. Probably what would be more helpful is to have a similar airframe like making a Hornet as the red air and fight like for like so the energy states are the same before going to dissimilar fights. I'll report back on how that goes. Another tip is to set yourself as Invulnerable so you don't blow up all the time while you learn. Especially on the high aspect ACM fights, the bandit will always pop you in the nose with an Archer or Aphid before the merge. The whole point is to get to the merge and turn and take post merge shots. If you get shot, you can see and hear the missile bounce off you, so you know you F*#ked up but you can continue to fight and learn. Later on - I tried to set up some 2v1 ACM with an AI bandit and an AI wingman. It worked OK if I set the bandit on my nose and merged with him. The AI wingman was OK sometimes engaging the bandit and getting the kill and other times just flew around being stupid. I then tried to set the bandit off the wingman's nose so I could turn to engage him quickly while the bandit was turning with my #2. Unfortunately, #2 almost always died pre-merge from the before mentioned Archer in the face from the bandit. So that was less of a valuable exercise. The whole thing though was a lot of fun and a great way to kill a day in isolation. If you set the scenarios up correctly, you can run them over and over very quickly once the DLO is achieved.

Hey BN, thanks for all you and the ED team's hard work. Keep the love coming.

Correct. And you'll never be truly good at BFM unless you grow a mustache like the dude in the video. :lol:

What aircraft are you flying? If F-16, I've noticed this exact phenomenon is worse on that module than other aircraft. I'm running 2.5.6 and I get smooth frame rates with settings high in the Hornet, but see the same slowdowns at the same settings if I jump into the F-16 and fly the same route. Yes, 2.5.6 is buggy - but the F-16 is worse. I've gone back to the Hornet because of this and having no issues at all.

I'm honestly not having any issues with keeping tally using the Reverb. Its actually improved over my Vive Pro. I've got my SS set to 150%, so maybe that's helping. but I can get visual on the tanker at 8ish miles and can easily see an F-5 or Mig-29 at 3-4 miles which is very realistic. Much beyond that and fighter size targets, unless highlighted against a blue sky background or clouds, are tough to see even in the best conditions. Vipers, F-5s and Harriers are THE hardest ones to get a tally on IMHO. Especially nose on. Tiny little buggers.....

Lots of good books out there. They've been listed before. Those that know them off the top of their head hopefully will post the title names. There are also some unclassified tactics manuals out there for some various aircraft that discuss BFM moves and such. They can be helpful if your google fu is good enough. The platform is fairly irrelevant - for instance if you're flying a Hornet in DCS but find an F-16 tactics manual on line - the BFM basics are the same. But not only practice, practice, practice - but have a scripted focus for the practice. And work up to actual ACM in baby steps like air forces do IRL. Starting off with random entry ACM will likely build negative habit patterns. If you are practicing the wrong thing and get lucky once in a while, you will go backwards. The key skill you should be thinking about is not ACM but rather BFM. The key word being "basic". Use the mission editor to set up an offensive BFM engagement where you are directly behind the bandit at say 3000 feet (~ 1/2 mile) and use IR and gun only. Learn how to recognize and enter the turn circle, get good at the HOTAS until selecting the correct radar Acq mode and missile or gun becomes 2nd nature. Do this over and over until you master it. Then move the bandit out to 6000 feet (~1 mile) and do the same exercises. Then do it at 9k (~1.5nm). Repeat this all again with the bandit directly behind you and learn to survive at various ranges (3/6/9K). This is called Defensive BFM. Once you get good at this and not losing sight of the bandit behind you and surviving until at least you get to the floor or can go offensive - then you can move to ACM. Again, using ME - set up the bandit on the nose co-altitude at something like 5 miles. At the merge, practice 1 turn and 2 turn fights to see how your particular aircraft performs with either. Your turn performance and the bandits turn performance dictate the type of turn fight it will be. Of course the last person to turn sets the fight. later on, If you have HMCS and AIM-9x - try to take shots across the circle. Again, being super proficient with your HOTAS is the key here as well as NEVER losing sight. When you get decent at 1v1 ACM, then add a wingman to work on cooperative ACM. 2v1 ACM is some of the most fun you can have with your clothes on. The old adage is: Lose sight, lose the fight! good luck.

The other thing to do is have more light on in the room. I found this out yesterday when I started simming during the day time but it got dark and I didn't have the room lights on. Early on I could look straight up at the ceiling and 6DOF would come back, but then as it got too dark I lost 6 DOF altogether.

Yes, you are correct. I was getting those two terms mixed up. Thanks. On a related note, I'm assuming the "Use Legacy reprojection mode" needs to be off? What does it do?

The reality is that IRL, human wingmen use more gas than the flight lead. Almost always. Especially inexperienced ones. It's just the nature of formation flying. The flight lead can set a power setting and not touch the throttle while the wingman is making constant adjustments to stay in position. What makes a good flight lead is the ability to manage the flight's fuel to accomplish the mission without Bingo'ing out early. Frequent fuel checks is the key to see if trends are developing. From my observation - The primary thing that makes AI wingmen in DCS run out of fuel WAAAY earlier than the human player flight lead is because the AI wingmen do not fly formation correctly and especially don't turn correctly in line abreast formation - which is the normal tactical formation for most situations, whether it be low level or A/A CAP. AI wingmen in DCS don't do "TAC turns" and therefore waste a huge amount of fuel, usually in AB, chasing lead around to get back into formation. If DCS could model Tac turns correctly, AI wingmen would likely have at least 50% more fuel by the time they call bingo.

As long as you are getting valid ranging from the laser at the time the coordinates or designation is commanded, it can be 1-2 sec or longer depending on the atmospherics. As to Chuck's guide, his wording is mostly correct. He is correct that you can designate without the laser using the pod angle trigonometry as I described earlier. But its not as accurate as when using the laser during the designation. He is correct that coordinates can be gathered by the TGP without the laser but again they will not be as accurate as when the laser is fired when those coordinates are being stored and memorized. The GPS bombs will only be as accurate as the coordinates sent to them. GIGO.

Thanks, and good add. I forget that its not obvious to all that lasers are both a designation as well as a ranging device. That's why most of the time it is commonly referred to as an "LRD" or Laser Rangefinder/Designator

I made an interesting discovery today. I was pulling my hair out trying to get my Reverb and system set up to run the F-16 module smoothly. I was getting horrible frame rates anytime I was near a dense city - Abu Dhabi, Las Vegas, etc. So I was running multiple test runs using the F-16/Instant Action/Free Flight scenario. I even rolled back to 2.5.5 OB assuming that it was 2.5.6 that was causing the issues. I saw a minor improvement in 2.5.5 but still really crappy frame rates in VR. I tried all setting combos as possible from low to high across the spectrum of adjustments such as NVIDIA control panel, Steam VR, and DCS settings. Anytime I was near a city with the F-16, the frame rates and GPU and CPU performance were maxed out on a high end system (see my specs below). Just as a comparison, I just flew the Hornet across the same flight path over southern Las Vegas in 2.5.6. TOTALLY different outcome. I had stable 45 fps throughout without a hiccup and buttery smooth scenes through the HMD even with the settings fairly maxed out Motion Smoothing in Steam VR @ 150%, MSAA x2, Visibility ultra, AF 8x, etc). See the attached screen grabs with the different performance #s: Why is the F-16 so much more of a resource hog than the F-18? Is this a known bug? It wouldn't allow me to repost the screen grabs since I already added them in another thread. But here are the links to the pics: F-16 screenshot: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4264122&postcount=19 F-18 screenshots: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4267397&postcount=32

OK holy cow! I think I just discovered something very interesting. SO I wanted to replicate what Gunnars Driver did with the same instant action / Free flight over Las Vegas in the F-18. I ran two trials in the Hornet following the same path I did with the F-16. TOTALLY different outcomes. I left all my settings the same as before (MSAAx2, Vis range high, AF 4x, shadows flat, etc) and run #1 was with Motion Smoothing in Steam VR set to 100% in both Global and DCS app with native resolution 2212 x 2160 and then re-ran the same flight path with the only change to set the DCS Motion Smoothing set to 150% (2708 x 2652). See the two screenshots. No issues with keeping a solid 45 fps and frametimes were reasonable. More importantly, I was getting buttery smooth flight and no judders at all. So it seems to be an F-16 issue rather than a HW settings issue. Both the F-18 and F-16 screenshots were running 2.5.6 OB

I don't think so. What should I be looking for?

WOW!! That looks nothing like what I was seeing. Even at very low settings with most stuff turned off - both the GPU and CPU was getting hammered - especially the CPU was solid red. I wonder if it was the F-16 module that was the issue. I'll try it with the Hornet to compare.

See my answers in RED. thanks

Ok, so I literally spent almost the entire day yesterday (self-isolation is great:music_whistling:) playing with every possible combo of settings. In 2.5.6, I was not seeing any real appreciable change between the usual settings being almost maxed out (ranges high, MSAA x2, shadows flat, SS @150%, etc) to them being turned way down. AS long as I was not anywhere near an urban city such as Vegas or Dubai, I was getting a solid 45 fps even when flying around other AI. AS soon as I got within about 5 miles of a city, the frame rates would plummet and stay around 28-30 regardless if I had the usual performance hog settings turned on or way down. I rolled back to 2.5.5 OB and tried all the same combo of settings (high to low). Yes it was better around the cities - but only slightly and not really enough to make a difference. As soon as I got anywhere near or over a city - the frame rates dropped from 45 to 30 and frame times into the 20+ ms in 2.5.6 while in 2.5.5 I was seeing frame rates drop from 45 to 35-40 and frame times in the high teens to low 20s. The "feel" was not significantly different between the two. So long story short, I went back to 2.5.6 as it had some upgrades I enjoy on the F-16 and most of my "fighting" for now is over the open desert where my performance is fine even with the settings pretty much maxed out. I have SS set to 150% in Steam VR and MSAA x2, AF 8x, terrain object detail at medium, shadows flat and visibility to Ultra. The picture is SOOOO much clearer and enjoyable. And everything is smooth for now. Of course I'm not playing on any MP servers yet, just practicing SP missions for now learning the F-16. So hopefully by the time I want to try some MP stuff, ED will have the VR bugs sorted out. I'm going to stop tweaking for now and just start flying. This rabbit hole could go on forever otherwise. Edit: I still think my CPU is the bottleneck given the fpsVR details. But not sure how to address that. If anyone has any thoughts on that, I'd be very appreciative. Thanks in advance.

Ok, ignore Laser guided BOMBS completely for a minute. We are talking about using the laser to generate accurate coordinates to send a solution to GPS weapons like a JDAM or JSOW. The TGP generates coordinates essentially by using trigonometry. The jet theoretically knows where it is in space and it then uses the angle measurements of the target pod to generate where the crosshairs are looking on the ground. You are correct that if you are holding the crosshair on something like the roof of a 5 story building, the bombing computer will not know the building is there and instead draw a straight line beyond it to the ground well past the building. The bomb will likely miss because the jet is drawing a triangle to the wrong point. This is where the laser comes in. By firing the laser at the roof of the building, it is giving the computer the correct slant range to the TGT (i.e. the hypotenuse of the triangle). There is a bit more involved than that, but that's the basic principle. That's why firing the laser when generating coordinates or making a designation - completely aside from using it for terminal guidance - is critical to getting the most accurate designation possible. Even if you were dropping dumb Mk-84s and you had a TGP - you should always shoot the laser to designate your target to get the most accurate spot for the jet to calculate the release parameters. Again though, I have no idea if DCS models this correctly or not.

Sigh, you're misunderstanding. I'll try to explain later after dinner. :)

For a pilot, that's very technical. :megalol:

A "Class A" mishap is simply that there was more than $1M in damage to the aircraft, loss of the aircraft, or loss of life/severe injury. I think the new number these days is $2M. But in any event, you can almost scratch a fan blade of a modern jet fighter engine and incur $2M in damage. So just because it's a class A does not necessarily mean catastrophic. Check these links out for stats on USAF single engine vs Twin engine Class A's https://www.safety.af.mil/Portals/71/documents/Aviation/Engine%20Statistics/USAF%20Single%20Engine.pdf?ver=2019-12-05-121311-920 https://www.safety.af.mil/Portals/71/documents/Aviation/Engine%20Statistics/USAF%20Twin%20Engine.pdf?ver=2019-12-05-121310-513

That's strange. I thought most jets of that era had Over-G trip sensors that would alert MX to an Over-G condition so the pilot couldn't hide it. In addition, I figured it would show up when the MX guys hooked up the electronic download thingy to the jet to record all the MX and BIT data. Did the F-16 not have this too?

This is one of the reasons why you should fire the laser to get the most accurate coordinates.