TED

I just bought a new PowerColor 7900xtx hellhound as an upgrade from a 6900xt. I’m using this with a 5800x3d cpu and pc is coupled with Ethernet to a mesh node ensuring fast internet. just to balance a bit of the debate online about the 7900xtx I thought I’d give my experience so far. I’m not denying at all there have been problems but for me it’s working really well. I installed it yesterday. Downloaded the latest amd preview driver for adrenaline and tested in dcs and MSFS with my g2. Dcs f18 low level caucuses with all dcs settings maxed except msaa. OpenXRdt set to 100%, openXR toolkit 90%. No overclock yet but basically all adrenaline settings default except Chill mode set to 45 fps max and min to keep the fps from jumping. Straight away I got a significant performance boost. Without chill it’s holding 65-75 fps and at low level gpu times around 11-13 ms. This can be a little choppy at times as fps goes up and down so I activate chill and it’s super smooth, even looking out the side in the valleys at the trees. No stutters or jitters at all. Even when using the tpod and targets blazing it’s totally stable. The vram barely gets over 40%. I haven’t experimented with overclock yet. My 6900xt had a decent overclock to almost 2600mhz but so far I don’t seem to really need it. Although I will play around later and see what I can get. Additionally the gpu is super quiet and much cooler running than 6900 and I have zero coil whine. If I dropped the shadows a bit I’m pretty sure I can get close to 90fps in most situations if I wanted but I really do like the nice visuals of all the bells and whistles from dcs. Theres probably a load of other things I did over the last year tuning my pc but nothing very complicated. Minimizing anything in windows home and having an empty windows room helps. Mt and openXR also has been a really good improvement. All in all I’m really impressed and despite being initially hesitant due to a lot of the comments and reviews I’ve read online I’m very happy.

Two more things that occurred to me that may make a significant difference for you. First- check you Internet. Make sure you have a fast connection. My recommendation would be set up a fast WiFi 6 mesh network with one node close to you PC and connect your PC with an ethernet cable to that node. These are pretty cheap and will significantly improve your dcs stability and your vr stability. I recently installed one and saw an immediate boost in my general dcs play. Second - check the latest amd adrenaline preview driver for June. If you Google it u should find it and I think there was a thread on the vr forum here already. I downloaded and installed today and saw a good improvement with my 6900xt. I have a 7900xtx inbound tomorrow so I'm getting ready. I suspect these may bring down the latency times, then if u lock fps in adrenaline you will see smooth flying. As i said before I'm using 47fps in adrenaline chill for the g2 but it may be different for the pico. Experiment a bit and start by using integers of the refresh rate.

If u can lock your fps to either your refresh rate of the headset or half the refresh rate you may get a much smoother experience. Experiment a bit with settings and resolution to get a solid fps first at either of these and see how u get on. I'm not too familiar with the pico but I think u r using 120hz or 72hz if I'm correct. Set fps to these and try. For example if u r using 120hz lock fps to 60.

If u r using openxr then make sure u set PD to 1.0 in dcs then just adjust resolution up amd down in openxr toolkit. I'm running all maxed on dcs now with 115% and I lock the fps to 47 in adrenaline. Everything super smooth and steady. If I unlock fps and turn off chill I get between 60-70 fps low level in f18 caucuses but it much more jittery as fps hops up and down. For me the key is to keep rock solid fps. Work out what your stable fps is and lock it there so it rarely goes below. To be honest at 45fps constantly it's plenty for a really clear smooth experience. That allows me to bump up everything else in the settings with now all shadows on, and everything at max except msaa.

I have the 6900xt which works great in vr. Despite some of the negative reviews online about 7900xtx, I've ordered one anyway and will get it next week and start testing. I'm fairly confident there is tuning and tweaking that can be done to get this card to work well. The same was true for the 6900. Just confirm u r using MR and openxr?

I've been using a 6900xt for 2 years now with 5800x3d and reverb g2 and it works great. Most settings maxed on dcs except msaa. This i either run at x2 and drop resolution a bit in openxr to 90-95 or i turn off msaa and push resolution to around 120%. No problem locking fps at 45 and very smooth with very few stutters. I personally use radeon chill to lock fps at 47 and its always worked perfectly for me but others have had problems. Without chill the fps is around 60-65 on the g2. Its easy to overclock and undervolt in adrenaline. Like any gpu, u do need to tune to get the best out of it and when using amd u need different approach than when using nvidia. However it is a great performing card. Lots of resources on the forums about how to best tune PC.

Did u get to test this in vr yet and notice any clear improvements?

This sounds very promising indeed. Let us know how u get on and if and when it releases.

@Thinder thanks for all of your very informative posts regarding the 7900xtx. I've beennreading and following closely as I'm on the fence at the moment about upgrading my 6900xt. I went through a lot of the same processes as u when I got the 6900xt and found it to be a really excellent card once I understood it. I actually had both a 3080 and 6900 at the time and tested both side by side for several weeks using a reverb g2. In the end I sold the 3080 as I found the 6900 to be just better. As my g2 is getting tired it will soon also face retirement and the pico 4 has been in the shortlist but I'm doubtful i will get a decent enough performance on the 6900 to warrant that yet. The plan now will be to get a 7900xtx at a decent price and wait till the autumn and see what new headsets are available, possibly a q3. In the meantime i will apply much of the same tuning and tweaking to the 7900xtx as I did with the 6900. As you rightly point out, much is also to do with windows settings and updates. I also got the little windows update (sabotage) surprise but managed to fix it for now. My PC is already fairly well tuned to amd so I would like to think there is not a huge amount more. I will oc the card and add a small undervolt as well as a bit more cooling in the case. Keep up the testing and good posts. I do actually have quite a bit of faith in amd from my own actual experience and quite sure this card can and will deliver what I require.

Thanks for the replies. Food for thought. Right now I'm really pleased with the vr experience with my 6900xt and g2. I've overclocked to a little over 2600mhz and have no problem maintaining 47 fps smooth (chill on in adrenaline) low level in f18 over sinai with mostly maxed settings on dcs. I may wait and see what happens with quest 3 in October before going for the pico 4. However sometimes my impatience gets the better of me and may crack before

The quest pro does look very nice but it's a bit more than i was wanting to spend right now, hence the interest in pico 4. I'm in no big rush and may just have to wait and see what else develops.

My g2 is started to get to the point of needing replacement and I'm considering a pico 4. I'm using an all amd setup with 6900xt and 5800x3d cpu. Works great with g2 but from what I've read the pico 4 may be a different matter. Anyone with any real experience with a similar setup that can help point me in the right direction?

Radeon chill on and set to 47fps. Adjusted gpu tuning clock speeds to find a safe highest frequency and then set minimum frequency to about 2-300 mhz under the max speed. If u get any instability lower these in 50mhz intervals. For me that was around 2700mhz and 2400mhz. If you also have amd cpu ensure amd smart access memory is enabled. I also have tuned the power tuning and upped it to max. that’s about all that is needed. Everything else I do via openXR toolkit. I also spend quite a bit of effort on general pc sanitation. Clear out wmr room and reduce all other unnecessary operations in the background especially for vr. You can Google and find wmr empty room. Minimize always wmr window and all other windows when dcs is open. I use process lasso to make sure dcs is the highest priority and using all cores now dcs is mt. Anything else in the background eating up RAM, cpu or gpu power that is not essential i get rid of. I also recently switched to using Ethernet connection instead of Wi-Fi and that helps a bit. Bluetooth is switched off and I only use wired connections. This I found out early. When the Bluetooth is on it’s constantly scanning for new devices and sometimes connects and this caused some disruptions. Personally I find adrenaline very easy to use and way prefer it to nvidia. I had a 3080 previously and actually for a while had both 6900xt and 3080 and was testing side by side for a couple months. In my view the 6900xt was superior in almost all tests with dcs so I kept that and sold the 3080. in general now with 6900xt and g2 I get a steady 60fps ( although reduce to 47fps for smoother play) in a f18 low level around caucuses or on deck of super carrier. I don’t use msaa but use openXR to custom res of 135 or so and this makes everything nice and clear. Using fsr in openXR toolkit.

Not on 7900xt but been using 6900xt for about a year and a 5800x3d and g2. I love the 6900xt and get excellent results with most dcs settings maxed. Openxr resolution at 135 and use radeon chill to lock steady 47fps. Very smooth and looks great. A bit of tweaking in radeon adrenaline but nothing complicated. I can only imagine 7900xt is even better.

Anyone tried pico 4 with amd 6900xt? Cpu is an amd 5800 x3d. My g2 is starting to get tired and needs to be replaced soon. Many people are saying it needs to be a 4090 gpu but I'm wondering how it will compare if set up and tuned right, too the g2. I get excellent performance with the g2 now. All settings pretty maxed except no msaa. openxr and fsr gives me solid 60fps although I lock it at 46fps through chill and uts very smooth. I'd really like to get the pico to work if it's possible with the current setup.

With the implementation of MT I've now changed this for my set up. I'm running 1-11 on all processes except dcs which is 1-15. Additionally SMT enabled and I have dcs set to real time priority with all others something lower. There was another thread about setting dcs 1-11 and everything else on 12-15 I think, but I found this caused a few problems so I maintain an overlap and let the system prioritise instead. Works very well for me with MT and using win11.

Some mixed reviews and results here but for me this has been the single best improvement ED has done for years. I was sceptical and holding back from further purchases until vr performance increased. Running- Win11 AMD 6900XT AMD 5800X3D REVERB G2. Yesterday I did a test mission I have in the caucuses with f18 strike mission with accompanying a10c's and ah64's and quite a few ground assets and targets. I ran the mission first in traditional ST, then repeated in MT. The difference for me was huge. Low level in the f18 with most settings maxed or high except msaa (off) I would get around 40 fps. Now getting 55-60. I subsequently bumped up openxr to 120% and fix my fps to 45 via amd adrenaline chill mode and it's is completely stable and smooth. Probably I can bump up a few more settings but it's safe to say for me this is a massive improvement and way exceeded any expectations I had for performance.

That did the trick. Thanks very much guys. All fixed now.

I have built a few custom panels for a10c and currently run 3 separate bodnar BBI to connect to the pc. The issue I run into is that they all just identify as “button box interface” in dcs, ie with the exact same name and no differentiation between which one is which. It seems with each start up of dcs the button allocations also switch around requiring new configuration each time. I can’t seem to find anyway to effectively rename them so they each have their own ID. I’ve seen many people are using these and wonder if anyone else encounters the same or if I’m missing some basic configuration trick?

I can't even get the tracking software to open. Spent 2 days going through everything and since updating to latest Gemini just won't open. The controller is showing connected in devices and green light is on but something is preventing any of the software and services from opening. Checked all firewalls and antivirus, run as administrator, all permissions checked. Can't think of anything else.

Has anyone else had issues with leapmotion in windows 11? Since upgrading I can’t get the software to work at all. It basically doesn’t even activate. I cannot even open the visualizer.

I also have a 6900xt and the 5800x3d works wonderfully with it. Especially if you have tuned the 6900 a bit and are using openXR.

I agree with biggus. With a 5800x3d paired with your 2080ti you should be able to release some nice gains and get a good bit more out of your gpu in vr. Right now you are probably cpu limited in most cases with vr, so this should allow you to be gpu limited instead and push some settings further, especially for mp.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the x3d works "very well in my setup". With my 6900xt, I was previously almost always hitting the cpu limit first. So in my case it was a no brainer in order to release more from the gpu. Therefore the benefits are significant. I would suggest unless you are running at least a 3080/3090 or 6900xt then the gains will not so easily be found.

Its really interesting tines ahead in the world's of flight simulation. Vr sim is becoming more and more mainstream and starting to take real steps into commercial training. Indeed we are looking very seriously in our operation. The latest tease from NOR Platform is very interesting. Unrealengine UE5 has addressed the issues from previous versions and is aiming squarely at flight sim. The NOR platform appears to be initially aimed at commercial customers but reading between the lines and looking at the promo stuff they are taking some swipes at dcs and I'll be very surprised if they done release a consumer version in the fairly near future. They have identified the market is there and filled pretty much only by dcs. With their far more modern graphics and rendering engines, multithread and multicore as well as a more flexible development system, the performance will be considerably better. My big fear is that ED plans and development for a new engine may already be too late. If NOR releases a consumer version I'd be willing to bet there will be a large defection of customers to the more modern, better performing system. I love dcs and really want them to be the leader. If they are not already nearing a new engine and a direct competitor steps in offering a better performing product, this will only be bad news for dcs and ED and ultimately the loyal dcs users. Revenue will drop and further development will be very hard as new customers will dry up and older ones start to move away. The sharks are circling right now and closing in. The next 12 months will see more and more rapid development from UE, NOR, META and others who will be able to utilise new engines and build from the ground up. Everything is now very much aimed at VR implementation and maximum effective use of hardware.