Twwhitey

So my Index arrived yesterday and after spending a few hours on prep (backups of the current rift setup, base station mounting and wire management) I'm finally getting a chance to explore the Index within DCS. The good and the bad right off the top of my head The good: IPD and eye relief adjustments are exactly what I needed (my IPD is in the 70ish range and I've used every mm of adjustment) Color richness & FOV.... when combined with being able to adjust it correctly for my eyes is a massive improvement over the Rift S. Cockpit is clear as day even in peripheral vision, way more so than the Rift S. And I don't find the colors quite so washed out as the Rift S. So in a sense I got what I was paying for. The bad.... and these are tough to swallow for $1,000 Argh, 1 of the 2 Base Stations is LOUD... constant whizzing in the background. I'm even running a fan right now (it's hot in SoCal) and I can hear it over the fan. A massive annoyance. The other is dead silent so I think I'll be filing a ticket w/ Support. I can live with the annoyance now that I've figured out you can get SteamVR to turn them off when not in use but I'm concerned about longevity... whatever bearing is in there doesn't sound good. Dead pixels... never expected I'd see this one based on my research but I've got what I think are a cluster 3-5 dead pixels slightly offset of center on the left eye piece... that blows. I'll definitely be filing a ticket with support. Random "USB Device Not Recognized" error message every time you boot up the system. Granted it's only been a day but crawling under the desk to unplug/replug the HMD power to reset sucks. And I'm using the same USB 3.0 input I was using for the Rift (w/o) so I know it's good. So I'm going to stick with it (though I won't be immediately selling my Rift S quite yet) and try to work through the issues. I've been messing with a TON of config settings in DCS, SteamVR and dabbled in the Nvidia settings (based on this article) and I've got "decent" performance. I'm getting 45fps on the Instant Action Free Flight (Caucasus) HOWEVER I'm having (2) issues with the visuals that I'd welcome any insight based on my settings below. When performing any maneuver in the plane (say roll the F/A-18 in this case) and looking at the ground I get double vision on every object... Motion Smoothing is turned off because it creates horrific waviness/warping when you simply pan your head (if you look at the mirror frame on the cockpit its literally bent/warped as you move your head that 100% goes away when you turn off motion smoothing). Literally double vision... I see 2 buildings instead of one. Along those lines EVERYTHING outside the cockpit is slightly blurry when in motion... I know the plane is moving... but this isn't high speed passes...trees, buildings, everything have no crispness even at slow speed..and I definitely don't recall it looking like that in the Rift S. I ran the Rift S with ASW on (motion smoothing) and I really think the Index needs the same but the warping/bending/waviness in my experience makes it completely unusable. Has anyone out there figured out a way to fix that? Is anyone using the SteamVR motion smoothing? (My research seems to indicate most turn it off). My settings are below and I've spent a bunch of trial & error time (one change at a time) trying to fix the sense of ground object blurriness... any recommendations based on the below I'd welcome the input while I continue to evaluate (while my 30 day return window counts down!)

Right on.. I’m certainly no expert but I’m in the area.. check ur inbox I’ll show you what I’ve put together so far

Oofff... man there are some sobering reddit threads surrounding that issue when you go down the rabbit hole (not to mention Valve support and possibly quality control). Hoping it’s not a catestrophic hardware problem requiring return to sender but some form of driver or synch thing - it doesn’t sound good tho. I’m thinking we’ll need to take the 30 day return policy timetable (read: evaluation period) pretty seriously upon receipt... bummer.

Well this is certainly encouraging news! Well apart from the DCS main menu oddity. Good stuff!

I’m in the same boat, my Index arrives tomorrow and I’m hoping the adjustable eye relief and IPD improve what was a solid but flawed Rift S experience largely due to my similar IPD. I’ll be tinkering with it once it arrives and post up some comparison thoughts.

Nope. U.S. California. That would seem to fit the comment above about U.S. full kit orders getting caught up..like I said I was really surprised (and wasn’t really planning on spending the $$$ until autumn LOL)

Good question, I needed to look it up myself... oddly enough it wasn’t that long ago, I had thought I was going to be waiting until September or so. So I signed up for a “reservation” back on July 8th and got the notification I could place the order on July 19th w delivery scheduled for 7/25... def double check spam filters, etc... might even be worth a follow up with customer service.. I was honestly shocked by the quick turnaround

Interesting and very helpful information indeed thanks for posting. Tracking info I got from Valve indicates a Thursday delivery so I guess I know my weekend plans :megalol: I believe - based on all my tinkering w the Rift I’ve got a pretty good handle on what needs to be removed Oculus wise (apps, services, etc.) to clean up the system in preparation. Also good news that I’ve honestly done little than play DCS on this system since getting it June so it’s still reasonably fresh. That reddit troubleshooting thread is a goldmine so I’ll be browsing that in my spare time...thanks again for that and cheers

Yeah apparently the latest round of index “reservations” are now shipping... I got my index order placed on Friday and just got the tracking number today (Sunday). Considering I’m coming from the Rift S (which I actually love but my IPD is well outside the sweet spot and is killing me) anyone have any recommendations out there regarding how to best prep/clean my system in preparation for the switch? I REALLY don’t want to wipe and re-install the OS considering the system is barely over a month old. Uninstall Oculus stuff would be obvious... anything I need to do to DCS in particular? Or just install steam, update drivers and go?

Got it thank you - I’m going to give it a go

So I came across a series of Youtube videos by Bunyap Sims (whose channel is a DCS goldmine BTW) where he was flying the A-10C in a mission that's included in DCS Combined Arms. (Mission is called "Company Day Advance on Kislovodsk" and the 1st video of the series is here: ) I've read that DCS CA does NOT support VR but obviously the A-10C module does. As someone who flys exclusively in VR now (and I own the A-10C module) can I fly this mission in DCS CA in the A-10C in VR? or does NOTHING work in VR related to Combined Arms? I have no interest in taking 1st person control of ground units knowing that VR isn't supported (well actually I have a little interest but understand it's broken) however the mission, and being able to direct units via the map, in his video look pretty cool so for $20 I'd buy it just for that and the other included missions... if, of course, I can fly the A-10C in VR. It's a little confusing what works in VR and how plane modules interact with CA... Any guidance out there?

I’m by far not an expert in VA but what you mention might be doable based on another thread I just came across. Check out this post related to an in-cockpit scratch pad someone created. The OP used the Windows dictation functionality of the Speech Recognition module, coupled with VA commands, to capture (in a dictation buffer) then transcribe voice dictation into a scratch pad. Seems like you want to do something similar just transcribe the output into the chat window instead? Check out the readme.txt they posted to see how it works... like I said seems doable if you’re willing to fiddle with how to get it to post to the right window

Yeah I’m running the homeless .exe in conjunction with the Oculus Tray Tool. In my mind the Homeless option is definitely worth running - considering its pretty trivial to swap between .exes. My rather informal testing using the windows task manager seemed to indicate that the stock Oculus Home app (with the rendered room with the fireplace, etc. running at all times in the background) ate up 3GB of the 11GB of VRAM on my 2080ti. Swapping out with the Homeless version (which replaces the rendered room with a blank gray environment) freed up 1.5GB of that. I figure DCS could stand to use another 1.5GB of vram... It’s a simple .exe swap so if you don’t like it or notice no perf improvement you can easily revert... you just need to make sure you re-apply it after oculus forced updates.

It looks like you are using a Rift S yes? Have you looked into the (or actively using) the Oculus Homeless Option with the Oculus Tray Tool? If not I strongly suggest it. I found that the Oculus Home - specifically the VR scene rendered in the overly bloated Oculus app running in the background - utilizes 3GB of the 11GB on my 2080ti. Using the Oculus Homeless (replacement .exe with just a blank “Matrix” loading screen scene) freed up 1.5GB of that on my system.

You just sold me on getting the Huey module :megalol:

So I haven't tried this ^^ yet but I did do a Clean and Repair as mentioned above. So far, as a follow up to the exact issues I mentioned in the 1st post - I'm still seeing some of the terrain artifacts on NTTR (these appear as white lines in the distance seemingly where texture tiles join together... I can't claim 100% for certain they weren't there in 2.5.4.30386 on NTTR so I'm going to play around with my anti-aliasing/graphic settings to see if I can get them to go away (they aren't a real deal breaker) and see if I notice them on PG or the other theaters - I have NOT yet noticed the hovering (parked) aircraft at Nellis like before - I have NOT noticed the weird Tacan Nav issue but honestly haven't had more than a 5 min flight since last night so haven't tried to reproduce. - I have NOT noticed the weird flight path indicator getting locked to the horizon again after cat shot on my practice carrier t/o landing mission (this was a real mission ruiner) - The conflicting comms on the carrier are still there tho. Basically I start the mission hot on the ramp with 3 other aircraft (2 F/A-18s in my flight and an S-3 Tanker also planning to take off) and where (in v2.5.4) I'd "request taxi to takeoff", that elicts zero response now (yes after confirming the proper radio channel/comm select). When I "request takeoff" instead I get prompted (eventually) to "taxi to runway XXX" but when I start to actually taxi the ATC is constantly stating "Hold Position" then "Continue Taxi" followed by "Hold Position" over and over and over until I hook up to the shuttle... (and this was after the deck was empty) that behavior is 100% new (and somewhat annoying). :dunno: Anyhow thanks for the insights I'll continue to play around with but hopefully there aren't any other major things that pop up... I"m thinking the Clean/Repair helped...

Right on thanks - nope, no unofficial mods... I made a conscious decision to never to use those for reasons just like this...only user files I've downloaded and used are missions (and explicitly missions that don't require mods). (For the record I only have F/A-18, A-10C, PG & NTTR modules at this point). I'll give the cleanup and repair a try - I didn't try that last night as everything from an update perspective seemed to proceed flawlessly. Let me ask, after the issues I experienced I renamed the 2.5.5.32533 version \DCS World folder then restored the entire 2.5.4.30386 version from a recent backup - is it as simple as just renaming the install folders to switch between the 2 versions? or will that generally introduce issues with the /<user>/Saved Games/DCS content? Anyhow DCS.log from my 2.5.5.32533 session attached.. that's the first time I've looked through it so I'd be curious if anything jumps out. Thanks again dcs_log.txt

So I went through the process of updating from 2.5.4.30386 to 2.5.5.32533 last night - the first stable version update I’ve made since buying DCS earlier in June. I fired up the computer, opened the DCS updater and let it run for 20-25 mins or so. Update appeared to process fine and once finished I launched DCS (i confirmed 2.5.5.32533 installed) and proceeded to play 2 pretty basic F/A-18 missions to see if I could notice any immediate improvements (VR perf, new features, etc.) Well unfortunately despite the update seemingly completing error free I noticed ALL SORTS of new...weird bugs in like 30 mins of play. - Static/parked planes hovering ~2ft above the deck at Nellis, - white lines/artifacts in the distance on the ground and wonky flashing shadows on the NTTR map, - clouds in the distance appearing disappearing based on where my head was pointing (I play in VR) - TCN nav acting wierd (distance to TCN freezing on hud and nav tick on heading tape disappearing/re-appearing) Moving over to a simple carrier take-off landing mission I created for myself weeks ago, taxied to take off and got all sorts of conflicting ATC comms - after takeoff the flight path indicator was locked at the horizon line on the hud and wouldn’t budge And these are just the ones I remember (and the ones I tried to get screenshots of) My experience in the 3+ weeks I’ve had DCS has been pretty awesome - I LOVE it - and apart from eagerly wanting more features in the F-18 (like everyone else) I’ve been impressed with the stability and bug free experience ED has put together so this update introducing a myriad of super obvious and jarring issues is honestly a bit shocking... First of all... am i the only one seeing this stuff? I was honestly surprised to see zero new threads on the forum this AM noting post update bugs like those I mentioned above considering I never saw any of this or even the volume of obvious issues in the previous version... So that got me thinking did I do something wrong? Should I have done a delete and complete reinstall instead of just “updating” from version to version? In the meantime I’ve actually reverted back to 2.5.4.30386 for now and all those issues have gone away. Any thoughts out there? as this is my first stable version update I’m open to any advice from the collective wisdom of the forum

Out of curiousity where are these located? I’m toying with a rudder pedals upgrade...

I had that problem shortly after installing VoiceAttack & Viacompro. I fixed it by cycling the “Keyboard Shortcuts” button (on the VoiceAttack main screen) even though it appears that they are already enabled. Once I did that Lalt+Lctrl+C started working for me... worth a try

+1 on hq4dcs I’m eagerly awaiting the next version of this (man I hope there is another version...it’s been eerily quiet on the website) I echo a lot of the comments of having limited desire (and time) for detailed mission editing. what I can do however (and would recommend for those like me) - which isn’t terribly hard - Is use hq4dcs to generate a relatively simple mission with the flight configuration/objectives, etc I’m interested in...unfortunately there’s no carrier ops in the tool yet so I then open the newly saved mission up in the DCS ME, apply a reusable carrier group static template I created, move my flight to the carrier, Tweak the waypoints,save and I’m good to go...15 mins... and I’m new at this. I’ve had some pretty enjoyable missions especially considering I’ve only been playing for a few weeks and have learned a lot while not being overwhelmed with some of the super complicated downloadable missions available via the user files. Having a version of hq4dcs which uses other maps (Its only Caucasus now) and offer t/o landing on carriers (right now only airfields) will alleviate a lot of ME editing even more... Just another option to think about

Yeah I ended up pulling the trigger on Acronis True Image 2019 and it’s just as advertised. Ironically enough I’ve already put it to the acid test :doh: After installing and taking a baseline (clean/stable) image (thankfully onto a rescue/bootable USB stick) I started messing around with disabling some of the background services and checking things off using the Autoruns tool mentioned above. Welllllllllll I mustve got super overzealous and managed to get Win10 into an unbootable state... tried like mad to reset the services I disabled in “safe mode’ but no dice. So I fired up USB stick and did a full restore... Hey at least now I know it works lol... I’d definitely recommend it (and also recommend a bit more care using Autoruns)

Reviving a thread for all the new'ish Oculus Rift S users out there who may not be aware of this.... I was messing around with Oculus Tray Tool and the Oculus Homeless modification mentioned above today doing some side by side simple comparisons and wow... yeah this is worth doing in my opinion. Toggling the Oculus Home to the stripped down version (and this just sitting at my Windows desktop with the headset on.. not in DCS or anything) reduces CPU utilization by 5% (15% to 10%), nVidia GPU memory usage from 3.3.GB to 1.6GB (50%!) and the 3D GPU load from 32% to 7%. And this is all before starting up something like DCS. It's pretty straightforward once you understand what's going on (it's basically replacing one .exe with another .exe - one which removes all the 3D you see in the background of the Oculus home environment) Interestingly enough running DCS (the Flight over Tbilisi instant action) and monitoring the 3D load on my 2080ti was maxing out at 100% so I figure the extra 25% freed up is getting put to good use. For folks that are running 8GB nVidia cards and a Rift I'd say the 1.6GB of GPU memory is worth the hassle as well. YMMV but I'll be leaving it in place for now...

Excellent thank you. That autorun utility looks like a helpful one to have regardless of Acronis... This is great info thanks again for passing along!

Oh please post...purchased, downloaded and installed True Image 2019 earlier today and got a full C: backup and bootable rescue restore setup on a USB stick. I like it... Straightforward enough to use but yeah damn there’s a lot going on in the background LOL. This evenings research was going to be how to now lean things out. If you have a KB article I’m all ears!