Cgjunk2

Has this been fixed yet?

We tend to undervalue practical “makeshift” solutions. If they work, they work. Crude is in the eye of the beholder. I’ve managed to make plenty of “crude” solutions in making a flight sim chair, mounting my center stick, making a collective mechanism that bolts on to my winwing throttle. Mostly using lumber scraps, drywall screws, broom handles, and steel strap and steel angle from the hardware store. A wood saw, hack saw, drill bits and a drill is all it takes for tools. Once I’m flying, I don’t notice my contraptions as long as they work well. Making it work well, though can take a little time and thought. Though not much more time than researching ready made commercial solutions (that might not exist, and may not work as well). And if anybody needs anymore validation for “makeshift” solutions, I submit that aviation fabrication in general is full of them. Look around some of the highly detailed cockpit models in DCS. I see tape, zip-ties, string, simple angle brackets, etc all over the place lol. If it’s ugly, but it works (without killing you or putting the plane in danger), then it’s fine!

The other big issue with the mirrors, is that when moving your head position in VR, the pilot model reflection doesn’t start moving immediately. Often times, you stop moving your head before the reflection starts to move. It’s quite nausea inducing.

Hello, I’m back lol. The improvements to MSAA only lasted that one session. Second day started out good, but once things get heavy in the server, frames drop and my Quest 3 starts to have the same infuriating hitching stutters when I turn my head. Even restarting DCS, and dropping down to Atari level graphics didn’t stop the head tracking stutters. But on the positive side, seeing a Chinook in frame did not make it worse!

I think DCS is approaching a point where well made and optimized “lite” textures will reap them real long term reward. Sure, some people’s computers are spuds, but when gargantuan file sizes start to affect relatively recent computers it starts to hurt. By enjoyable, I mean “lite” textures that don’t destroy instrument legibility. That retain sharpness in Vr despite less details. Basically, just plain optimized. It will help everyone, not just those running Idaho’s finest. There is a sustainability angle for ED to spend a lot of resources creating optimized/enjoyable ways for people to keep using their payed-off hardware. Happy customers buy more modules and spend money on peripherals instead of computing power. More peripherals yield a more committed customer base. All this results in less electronic garbage as well in terms of the environment (this comes into focus the older you get and you have a huge pile of old computers in the corner). The opposite of this is a customer base that wonders if the house of cards is going to fall, leading to less confidence in spending money on anything related to flight simming. There’s the expectation that flight sims always require the most bleeding edge hardware to make everything work. But if one thinks about that critically, that expectation was set by Micr*soft. Their FS business model gave them little incentive to optimize software. Just move on to the next FS version and collect sales, and enjoy additional profits of Windows OS sales when people bought better computers. That’s wasteful of money, and wasteful of opportunities to help improve the art of development. ED and DCS operate under a different business model. One that I quite like for various reasons. Make and maintain an environment where their own and 3rd party products can be used. Their environment, and playability, is the paramount goal. To that end, ED would reap long term benefits from having every single new module go through an internal, tough as nails, “optimization control board.” One that would strike fear into any developer submitting files for review. Just kidding, it doesn’t have to strike actual fear ;). But seriously, fear works. I kid! I kid! I’m in no way a developer of software or 3d modeler. But like any craft, I would guess skill in development is not based on how overbuilt something can be made, how much power it has, or complexity, etc…but rather on how well it’s put together to do the job it has to do. Effort expended on unusable details is always wasted. I admit that development for something like DCS is definitely a complex thing. And credit where credit is due…for every stumble, DCS has always had corresponding moments of glory. I yield my remaining time to those in line for the soapbox.

Could you please give the coordinates of the places with the improved meshes that you are referring to? I’ve been flying around blindly taking guesses as to where it might be with no luck. I also bought this terrain for the improved height map technology. I love helis and was instantly sold once I saw this terrain would have it. Did you get a chance to add it to the Petra location?

So…this odd. I’ve been running DLAA/DLSS (performance or balanced) ever since it came out, because it was so much smoother. The ghosting sucked, but it was smoooooth. But DCS has been running so bad for me since the Hook came out. Last night I almost decided to log off the server when people started spawning into Chinooks, just out of pure anticipation of frustration and nausea. Then it occured to me that I missed being able to read the displays in my F18 like I could pre-dlss days. I figured things can’t get any worse, so I switched to MSAA x4. Could you believe that stuttering I get when I’m flying next to a Chinook went away!?!? Well, that’s exactly what happened!!! Crisp image, and no more weird stutters or constant image hitching when I turn my head with my Quest 3. I even flew a little aerobatic dance in my Huey with a Chinook! So now, MSAA (x4!!!) is smoother????? How does that make sense? My oh my, how the turns have tabled! There’s definitely something up with the current build, and I don’t think it’s the Chinooks fault. My apologies to for casting any aspersions towards, what is likely, a very fine module. By the way, I reserve the right to come back tomorrow and complain about crappy performance. In the last couple of weeks I’ve celebrated victory over bad frames at least three times after applying different changes or recommendations. All were spectacular successes (especially “run in full screen”) until they weren’t.

I didn’t buy the Chinook yet, but it’s made playing on MP servers with any chinooks around a horrible experience in VR (quest 3) for me. Once the I make eye contact with one, the frames drop hard. What’s worse is that they don’t really recover unless I restart DCS. I love the visual model of this thing. After all, I’ve had plenty of time to see it one very slow frame at a time But the details inside and out seem excessive. I don’t need to actually be able to read the hydraulic level in the sight windows, or the thread count of the seat webbing lol.

Haha, for real? I must have totally blocked it from my consciousness if that’s the case, since I fly the Huey pretty regularly. I do wonder if bugs like this are superficial visual bugs, or if the forces are being modeled incorrectly. There was a weird one a few years back with another module where a tailwind made your airspeed read higher than if you headed into a headwind. Or the other big one…reverse ground effect…I just hope the slip ball isn’t revealing the true forces being modeled.

I seem to recall this type slip-ball bug happening on other modules. Didn’t the Huey have this for a long time. It always makes me wonder if there’s a fundamental simulation bug floating around.

To clarify my comment about "youtuber" reviewers that don't know what FFB is, I wasn't necessarily speaking about Spudknocker (I'm not that familiar with what he does). My annoyance is about a general trend of asinine review, offering insights about how "solid it feels", and that "it's made of metal and high quality plastics", and "it moves smoothly to all 4 corners"...pretending as if they're not just throwing out another monetized review that's as pointless as AI generated youtube content. In fairness, some of the dumb videos were at the expo, where anybody could make a video. But the few I've seen of people receiving a unit from Moza have not been informational, despite having hollywood levels of production quality. Yeah sure, they might be flight simmers, but if they don't understand the physics or effects that FFB is modeling, then their input is pretty pointless. It would be like Nikon sending a flagship DSLR camera to people that say they like taking pictures. You might get a really relevant review, or you might get someone complaining they can't take selfies with it. All I'm saying is that Moza's selection of influencer-type reviewers may end up causing more harm than good.. Too many youtubers are self-promoters and are more interested in buzz that generates them clicks. That said, it seems like most product launches for anything in general these days all seem to follow the same formula...the manufacturer picks their chosen reviewers, sends them product or invites them to an old-school "press junket".... and the very next day you have the EXACT same drivel being put out by 100 different youtubers, all with the EXACT same *jazz-hands* thumbnail...ugh. Seriously, I'd rather watch AI content just for the giggles I get from hearing mispronounced words by a voicebot with an australian accent. Spudknockers comment about the stick not getting full throw is really a problem with the mount geometry and dimensions, not the FFB stick proper. I mean, a mount is not exactly high technology. He could have simply gotten in contact with them to tell them the mount has incorrect or insufficient dimensions for the setup he's using, and tell them he's unable to review it as a mount/FFB package until they send him an appropriate mount, because he doesn't want to crush his trigger finger. That's assuming Moza intends on selling a purpose built mount. He chose to announce this caution to the general public...no big deal I guess, besides bad press for Moza (which would be Moza's error ultimately, even if I don't want to see them get bad press). If Moza graced Spudknocker with a FFB stick, it's because they want the exposure that his review will generate, so I'm sure they would send out an appropriate mount pretty quickly. On the other hand, maybe Spudknocker doesn't care about mounting it in a way that will allow a proper review. I guess we'll see when he releases his video review. Hopefully it's not full of comments such as "made of metal and high quality plastics" and talking about how smooth it feels when it's powered off I'm rooting for Moza and FFB in general. I'd hate for Moza to have marketing missteps and set back FFB unnecessarily. I hope their marketing team was briefed by engineering that this unit is NOT, in any way, designed to work on *top* of a desk (the stick grip would probably be at neck level on most people, which could cause someone to get clubbed in the chin lol). Sorry, but if somebody feels it's elitist to say you shouldn't use this on top of a desk, well then, they don't really understand what FFB is and they'd be royally wasting their money. That said, it would be wise for Moza to offer a lowered desk mount for this specific unit to let the casual gamer use it appropriately, easily, and safely. So if they are sending them out for reviews, the mount needs to have the correct dimensions. But if Moza does not intend to produce a mount for it, then they need to make it very clear that the reviewer/purchaser is responsible for figuring out a mounting solution (and they aren't responsible for crushed fingers or bloody noses lol).

I think it’s annoying that it gets sent to youtubers that focus on aspects that don’t have to do with the force feedback aspect of the product. Moza might not understand well what makes a good flight sim setup. They’re going to chase their own tails trying to please people who have no idea what they are reviewing or buying, and end up ignoring the fact that a good force feedback stick (with high forces and throw) can never work as well as it should on a desktop. They should just develop a desktop version like the old MS sidewinder and just tell everyone that this particular unit is not meant for the casual simmer that has run out of ideas on how to spend money.

Thanks for the update! Feedback about one small thing…the time lag between head movement in VR and the pilot model head movement. I thought I could get used to it, but I just cant. Tends to induce the dizzies. Any chance this can be locked in to actual head movement like the Tomcat?

The community is made up of people with a spectrum of real world flight experience or knowledge. Those that state that airplanes don’t have any feedback really don’t understand what force feedback does. And often times they think force feedback is the same thing as just rumbling effects. I think this is what makes consumer-level Moza/Winwing FFB sticks so exciting. It will allow simmers to feel the differences between airplane designs/eras. FFB is perfect for simming the aerodynamic loads on control surfaces of cable/pushrod controlled planes, the hydraulic feel of early hyd-boosted planes, and the “engineered/designed” stick-feel of later designs (assuming proper telemetry on the software side). Just because a real F18 doesn’t transmit actual aero forces to the pilot, doesn’t mean FFB is irrelevant, like some would say. It would be awesome to experience the changes in stick-feel for different regimes/configurations that are designed into any FCS/FBW airplane. This is a whole new layer of sim experience for a sim nerd like me! And don’t get me started about helicopters. Super excited about all of this. My only fear is the power of youtube reviewers that might not understand what FFB is, that can easily set back people’s understanding of what FFB does. I’d hate for FFB hardware and software development to get derailed by opinions of a big customer base that lacks an understanding of what FFB is primarily meant to simulate. On a side note…my theory is that Winwing and Moza are co-developing these. Winwing has the commercial flight simulation expertise, and Moza has the FFB tech expertise.

Not sure of the source of this issue; but in VR I’m noticing a delay between my my head movement and the movement of the virtual pilot head reflected in the mirrors. The reflection lags behind my head movement considerably. For example sometimes I can complete a quick check around the canopy frame in front me before the reflection is even half way through imitating my movement. Sometimes it seems the reflection is somebody behind a”mirror” pretending to be a reflection, like they do in a comedy movie lol. Is this a processor limitation on my end? For now Ive turned off mirrors to avoid the feeling of diziness it can induce, but curious if anyone has any ideas.

I was not planning on buying this module, as it wasn’t a plane of particular interest to me, and I figured my potato would not be able to run it smoothly . But relented once I saw all my online buddies having a blast with it. No regrets missing out on the pre-release price…in my eyes you guys have earned the full purchase price! The performance is way better than I thought it would be. The cockpit frames rates are much, much better compared to the tomcat when it first released. This is an amazing module! Your responses as developers to questions and feedback is very professional and it’s very apparent to me the heatblur team is extremely passionate about their work. I think the DCS community is truly lucky to have such talented folks like Heatblur making airplanes to this level of detail. I’m watching with interest the discussions about the control stick modeling that decouples the virtual stick from the physical stick. I have strong preference for the stick displacement to be absolutely controlled by me, partly because I’ve put some money and thought into peripherals that allow me to closely model control throws as close to 1:1 across most of my favorite modules. Since my stick is not FFB, I use trim and spring force when I’’m “off-center” as a proxy for control pressure. It works well once I let my imagination interpret making trim changes as “relieving pressure” instead of stick movement. And while I think it’s impossible to convincingly transmit an impression of force or changing trim center to a non FFB stick, I do think there is a big “sim design philosophy” component to all this that falls outside the scope of correct/incorrect. Regardless, I await the official Heatblur description of the philosophy and modeling behind the stick simulation before making up my mind. Especially since I know nothing about how the actual F-4 was designed. I hope the feedback and discourse on this particular topic remains respectful and honors the time and thought put into this F-4 simulation. And I also hope that nobody views the possibility of future changes in this area as some sort of waste of effort on Heatblurs part. It certainly isn’t, since the thought that went into modeling the bob weight and bellows seems to be reason enough for me to start saving for the strongest FFB stick I can afford! Congratulations to the Heatblur team on an epic simulation!

Yikes, they really like to hold on to their springs lol. I’m surprised they didn’t send a matching set since the other one is already on death's door. I suppose they know it will mean more cam kit sales. My local hardware store had a variety of springs that were the same diameter and un-extended length. I actually found some slightly heavier springs than winwings heaviest option in their cam kit. It worked out perfectly for my stick extension. Nearly three dollars each, so not necessarily cheap, but cheaper than a whole cam kit! edit: it’s surprising you had problems buying extra springs from them, when others in this thread have been able to.

It was the two allen screws that secure the telescoping portion of the extension. Good call!! It took me a while to pin down the problem. I took the cams off to get real good look, and decided to torque down the main axis bearing bolts thinking maybe it was the culprit. (As an aside, I took a good look at my grip twising issue while I was there, and happened to notice I was wrong with suspecting that it was turning internally. It was actually the screw collar twisting around the lower portion attached to the gimbal.) Anyway, I thought it had to be the main bearings since I was able to get a quarter turn on a couple of them, so i was disappointed when it felt way worse after reassembly! I previously hadn’t been able to replicate the clunk without being hard mounted to my sim chair, so the fact it was now clunking horribly on the workbench made it much easier to finally identify the problem. I didn’t see any obvious movement/shifting between the two extension tubes, but it was the best guess. When I got the allen key on them, it was obvious they weren’t tight enough. I cinched them down tight, and the clunk was immediately gone. Just spent a couple hours flying with the stick hard mounted, and all was smooth and quiet! Thank’s for the help everyone!!!

Hello all, I've had an Orion2 joystick for about a year and half. Works great, and has been smooth and accurate. I installed the wingwing extension on it recently, and a few days later I started experiencing a "clunking" feeling (that can also be heard) that happens when the stick crosses over the center point of the axis travel. The clunks is more prominent when I move the stick quickly across center, and sometimes even feels like something is shifting slightly. The accuracy of the signal is normal and not affected during the clunk. By accident, I noticed that the clunking went away if I tightened screw ring of the extension down tighter. But lately it's been doing it more frequently and I can't tighten it down any harder. Sometimes if I loosen and re-tighten the extension it will go away for a while, but the clunking comes back. I don't think it feels or sounds like the springs settling/shifting as they get stretched and released. Possibly it could be the cams shifting over their mounting studs, but I don't see anything to suggest excessive wear on that pivot point (even though there has always been slop between the cam and the mounting stud). I'm suspecting it might have something to do with the following. When I first bought it and mounted the included F-16 grip, I noticed that I could sometimes turn the the grip on accident. It didn't turn at the junction between the grip and the joystick, but rather the portion of the joystick that attaches to the gimbal structure was turning. I don't know if that can be tightened down (there is a collar with flats that might be threaded that I might try to tighten). Not sure if that could have anything to do with this. Is anyone else experiencing this clunk with the extension? Does anybody else have any ideas what could be leading to the clunking?

I’ve spent my last few MP sessions on an aerobatics server chasing around another F-18 buddy doing everything possible to shake me off, in the most stylish, edge of the envelope manner possible lol. Basically, dogfighting someone willing to be chased within the confines of an aerobatic box. Let me tell you, it’s some of the most fun you can have in VR. It was enough to actually raise my heart rate, which surprised me. But I swear, I’m not that out of shape! It was because it was so fun, immersive, and engaging! Although, I’ll admit my neck still hurts after two nights of this lol. Someone here previously mentioned VR quality and performance in the Hornet. I agree, it’s among the best of the modules in this regard. Even on my meager 2070 driving an HP G2, it’s an awesome and largely smooth experience on the MP aerobatics server I frequent. I especially love that the pilot model will actually cast shadows on the instrument panel, and that it moves lock step with my actual head position. I can actually block glare just by moving my head! That adds a huge amount to the immersion! From a flight dynamics and feel perspective, it’s an all around great job ED! Compliments to the chef! Your work is appreciated!!!

I’m absolutely loving the feel of the new FM during aerobatic flight. And I’m also loving listening to the various podcasts interviewing different Hornet pilots and hearing how their experiences seem to match up so well with what I’ve been experiencing flying it. Including all the different ways it can catch you out and kill you. I was listening to an interview with a Canadian RAF pilot (“Bones”) and he mentioned the trim going inactive at certain AOA regimes. Perhaps that is partly to blame with some of the trim behavior being observed on the newest update? That said, trim has tried to kill me on the last FM as well in various situations. Bones himself seemed to think that some of the flight law was not universally well understood by all their pilots, leading to various accidents, so it’s not surprising if some if a flight sim pilot is surprised by what is or isn’t happening. I’ve only had one instance of being caught completely by surprise, where I ran out of pitch authority just as I was about to land on the carrier. It felt completely normal in the groove, and the vector was mostly stabilized in the bracket. In the last few seconds, I wanted to raise the nose slightly to adjust my descent. I thought I had enough speed to effect a small pitch up, but I got no response even as a quickly increased to Full aft stick. I dropped flat onto the deck, almost as if I was in a full aerodynamic stall. That was interesting! I have no idea if that’s a bug like the aileron input bug mentioned, or if that behavior was true to life. It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s a realistic response to a mistake i may have made. Truth be told, I’ve been having way too much fun throwing it around to devote time to do “serious” flight testing lol. I’m sure the experts here and at ED will identify and sort out any buggy aspects with a little time but in the meantime, I’m having a blast. The Hornet seems to have a more “real” feeling to how it moves in the air that makes it very satisfying to fly.

I’m getting a bit confused at all the information I’m reading online regarding windows and WMR deprecation, and I’m unclear what the situation is for a fresh installation of Win 11 Home. Let’s suppose I were to buy a pre-built computer right now with the latest win11 home OS, would WMR come preinstalled? If not, is it currently possible to install WMR on the current version of win11? If I can get WMR to work with a newly installed version of Win11, then I’m planning to shut off updates to Win11 so I can keep using my G2 until better options arrive on the market. But if Microsoft wont allow wmr to be installed on new win11 installations, then I’m screwed. I really don’t want to spend for a new PC and a new (more expensive and less ideal) VR headset at the same time.

Before I ordered my stick extension, I would occasionally have the issue of the grip twisting. It wasn't twisting at the threads, but rather the portion of the stick that goes into the gimbal (the same part that holds the screw ring) I could reduce the chances of twisting if I really tightened the grip with the screw ring, to the point I could no longer land the grub screw on the flat area. I installed my stick extension tightly enough, so I thought. But my spastic reaction during a near-miss in form flight loosened it slightly lol. In order to retighten it, I had get a good body position to improve my grip on the screw ring, grabbed the middle screw wring for counterforce, concentrated, stuck my tongue out a little, and tightened. I felt I got a good solid torque on it this time and it's been stable for a while. If it loosens again, I might dump the grub screw (it's just chewing up threads if it keeps slipping) and use the teflon tape idea. Hopefully, the teflon tape would still allow for enough torque to be applied to sufficiently pre-tension the stick nub coming out of the gimbal. That's my theory anyways! EDIT: I forgot to add this. I was playing around with different springs after using the stick extension for a while, and on my second try, I developed a hard center (I use soft center cams) on my aileron axis. It could hear/feel a "thunk" whenever I crossed center when the pitch axis was also centered. It felt horrible and thought it was actually wearing out. I looked around and thought it might have something do with the bearing that rides on the cams and that it somehow lost tension on the cams. I imagined maybe the bearings were on some sort eccentric mount, so I tried adjusting the bearing mount screwto no avail (because there was, in fact, no eccentric adjustment like I was hoping). Then my stick extension loosened up on a flight (that near miss I mentioned above). By total and complete chance, when I properly tightened the stick extension to the stick nub on the gimbal, my hard center completely went away, and it returned to normal quiet movement across the center.

This is my understanding as well. From a purely aerodynamic perspective (meaning no artificial FCS intervention), my understanding is that as dihedral increases, a plane will show increasing tendency to roll back to level when roll input is nulled. So a basic trainer or ultralight plane with high angles of dihedral (wing tips higher than wing roots), will naturally want to return to level when rolling input pressure is relieved. Conversely, when a wing is built with anhedral (wingtips lower than wing roots) it’s the opposite…it will have less tendency to stay where you put it. It will also require less aileron input to roll, as a side benefit, if that’s what you are looking for in the basic aerodynamic traits of the design. First time I flew the F1, I thought it was odd that it wanted to roll level, especially since it has an anhedral wing. I figured maybe the FCS commanded that as an auto-level type thing. But that didnt make sense to me because requiring constant roll input pressure to hold a bank angle means it has to drag a wing spoiler out in the breeze the whole time it’s banked in a turn, which will induce a bunch of drag, and just generally mess up how it cuts through a turn. Anyone that has built paper airplanes, you had to put dihedral into the wings to make it stay level. But if you folded the wing tips lower than the root, it tended to fall off in either direction very easily, leading to a very short flight. Edit: a quick perusal of wiki regarding dihedral effect and roll stability revealed the fact that high mounted wings by themselves produce lots of dihedral effect due to pendulum effect, and anhedral is added to tone down the self leveling to more neutral levels. It also revealed that the self-leveling tendency of dihedral angle result as an effect from sideslip. In other words, even a plane with a high dihedral angle wing, if flown coordinated, will not self level. So if the Mirage F1 FCS keeps the plane coordinated in bank, it would have even less reason to show self-leveling effects on the roll axis

@Art-J Did you notice a reduction in blade flap frequency by reducing the rotor rpm trim? If the sound is linked to the rpm (but correlated incorrectly) then hopefully it would be an easy bug fix. Awesome sleuthing by the way! I had a blast on a relaxing cross country flight today, and absolutely had a blast getting the main and tail rotors to bark. Love it. It’s worth the effort to get it perfectly right (even though my ear didn’t pick up on much difference).