Eldur

Just make another desktop shortcut to the DCS.exe in the bin subfolder that has the respective parameter added: »"E:\DCS World OpenBeta\bin\DCS.exe" --force_disable_VR« and use that for pancake ops.

It's been very WIP for over 4 years by now. But now you say it will get obsolete - does it mean that Single Pass Stereo will finally be fully implemented making that switch obsolete? Would be very much appreciated and probably do more for our performance than having multi threading (in the end, everything counts, though)! I've never tried that OpenXR mod... is the support now officially integrated into DCS so that mod gets obsolete? Could you maybe elaborate on this? I'm still stuck with SteamVR firing up and with the Quests, performance with either AirLink or Virtual Desktop is just atrocious, wired link is totally broken anyway. On top of that, the notes don't read anything about the up to 60% fps loss from 2.8.x over 2.7.x yet (I do even have that in pancake, so it's not just the flat shadow bug).

This is interesting, because I expected it to be different as I remember the discussions about this back in the day of the old Il-2 series. Can't go back there anymore, RIP Ubisoft Forums... ORR was a great resource that's now gone. The thing is, what I have kept in mind was the Oleg Maddox stated that you'd get no Forsazh and only the first supercharger speed with the handle in the back position and either Forsazh or the 2nd supercharger speed in the forward position, depending on altitude and based on how the Forsazh worked by utilizing the supercharger to create that overboost. That statement was due to a discussion why the La-5F, FN and -7 series only would go to 100% THR and not 110% (as most other planes) while having the separate WEP button work and he also stated it would not technically be possible to model it accuately to enable Forsazh with the supercharger gear commands which is why it still used the separate WEP command even though the throttle quadrant neither has a specific WEP zone (the reason for it being maxed at 100%) nor any kind of mechanism that enables Forsazh since that's been done by flipping the supercharger into the 2nd gear position while being down low at altitudes where you'd not use the 2nd speed.

Typically on a "When'sday" - as in "When's it gonna be released?"

I was just about having this "issue" again. Well, my 2nd 980 Pro (the bigger 2TB one for games) decided to start breaking (what a shame, but I'm well within the 5 year waranty peroid and only had games installed on it, so imma gonna RMA it which I normally wouldn't want to do with drives). Noticed because I thought, repairing DCS might be a good attempt to try for getting lost performance back, or at least to make sure it isn't caused by a corrupted install. Well, some terrain files had to be re-downloaded and those were on the 2nd drive (DCS is on my 1TB 980 Pro which also is the sys drive) with junctions pointing to that location. I then tried to simply backup everything onto an external HDD and a good amount of bigger files failed, so I had to do the real check: Well, talking about a 400 bucks drive wasted after 1.5 years. A quick google later I knew I wasn't the only one, they apparently had a bad batch and I obviously got unlucky (as always). Well, at least I had some luck when I snagged that drive for 20% off, so it just was 320€. And I could get a 4TB Crucial P3 Plus (it's got lower max bandwidths, but my second slot only does Gen3, 3.5GB/s max anyways) for just 300. So I took the chance to increase my available space, move that other massively huge sim that relies on a gigaton of cloud data off to the new drive and so I've got almost 300GB free of space on my main drive now. May the new maps come! Also, when I'll finally have my 2TB 980 Pro RMAed, I'm going to replace the system drive with that to have that one doubled as well. The 1TB will then get a cozy place inside an external USB3-case and will be my "USB stick" But well, the whole thing delayed my acquiration of those Quest Pro controllers for my Q2 (dang, I kinda hate how often my blows aren't even registered at all because I'm doing full swings in those sword fighting games). And the Steam Deck which I'm interested in getting... at least I can update both DCS and that other sim now without getting migraines again

Me, when first spotting the announcement: "It's not gonna be before Q5 2022 anyways!"

I cannot thank enogh for those as well. I don't want to discuss other flight sims here, but the recent massive update of a different sim left me with a laughing and a crying eye. I was happy to experience the soaring in VR (it is absolutely amazing!), but I was missing vital flight dynamic shenanigans such as VRS, LTE, RBS and even just the hovering in ground effect. What a bummer! It's moments like those you realize how advanced DCS is and it's still the only sim that can give me the rotary fix when I need it! Needless to say that sticking with the FFB support even throughout the complete and utter lack of hardware (what a shame!) is such a golden piece in flight simming right now! Especially flying helos without the force trim is just... wierdly arcady to some extent. I can't live without. And I totally can't understand why those who initially brought FFB into the sim market are now so far refusing to support it or even use their financial assets to make some hardware manufacturers produce FFB hardware again, finally. Also thanks for the sneaky BS3 release, wasn't expecting it at all. Only noticed because everyone and their dog was releasing BS3 content on the Tube today...

I have all the modules, but never sat in the C-101 "Hair Dryer Of Doom" yet (snagged for 50% off in a sale when they started pumping out patch notes like crazy) and the MB-339 full release - to be fair, I haven't flown anything else since either except for trying to fix my ultimately subpar performance that 2.8 introduced. I had more fps on my old 3570k / 1080 with the G2 at 40% steam res (somewhere in the neighborhood of 2300-2400px vertical) than I have now on my 5800x / 3070 in 1200 pancake. Tried flicking all the switches in DCS and the NVCP as well as HAGS and even a few things in BIOS, updated all drivers and Windows to 22h2, nothing helped so far. I guess I'll be sitting this out as I'm confident it will get better eventually. The weird thing about this is it starts out all good, even in VR, until I select a plane and hit Fly. Then the rate crashes from ~60ish in VR down to 20 and from 120+ down to 30-40ish in pancake. Checked firewalling the power settings of both CPU and GPU already (like selecting prefer max perfpormance in nvcp and setting the min CPU rates to 100% in Windows advanced power settings), the GPU is firewalled 100% all the time during this and I never saw that before 2.8 (typically it was always the CPU hogging at 100% and the GPU somewhere in between 30-90% depending on situation). It even carries out to the menu which will run in low frame rate then as well until I restart the sim completely. But to quote Jay, "I digress!" But apart from that, I have flown all the modules at least to a "I learned how to do like 80-90% of the things, but I might have forgotten a lot of it already" state. I'd say my top "dumped a ton of hours into" modules are the F-Teens, the A-10C, the Ka-50, the AV-8B and the Viggen. Oh, and I've never even loaded up Normandy at all. I guess my debut will be when the upgrade is installed...

Expecting Q5 honestly, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

Definately something going off in general. In 2.8, I do have less fps in pancake than I had in 2.7 in VR. And I've been rolling back to double check thrice. The weird thing though is that sometimes (in 2.8 that is, not affecting 2.7), the fps start out in a similar ballpark to 2.7, but then drop a lot after the airplane selection dialogue. Like crashing down from 55-70 to 20ish (in VR) or from 120+ to 30ish (in pancake). Feels like the GPU is entering sleep mode for some weird reason without any chance to get it back up until after a DCS restart and then it's only good until the a/c's been selected. Again, not happening with 2.7. Tried that "prefer max performance" setting in the nvcp already, no luck. And I prefer not to have that on anyways, I can't afford the thing being ramped at 250+ Watts all the time. Electricity prices are far beyond the moon these days. Still trying to nail it down on my side though (altering settings, driver updates etc), just dropping my first observations before dumping an in depth report.

Just was about to watch this. It's Anthony, so this mentioning doesn't surprise me that much anymore. It's been said by Linus at some point that he even is watching Growling Sidewinder's channel sometimes. But I always like when DCS gets mentioned on channels with a larger audience which also has been the case multiple times aready on the RTFM Show on JayzTwoCents' channel. He also had an A-10 wallpaper going for quite some time during the pandemic

I wish the sun would get as much love As it stands currently, it looks absolutely horrible (it's merely just a little yellowish dot) and it's been like that for years. And yes, I do have switched those unrealistic lens flares off, of course (knowing it's not as bad with them on). This is a simulator, not a Hollywood show. Don't need fancy camera effects like that, DOF or Bokeh in first person while sitting in the cockpit. It's just weird.

Not possible AFAIK, unless you're in VR and looking to the side then. Would be awesome for video creators though...

That is because it literally just is the toom slider inside that UI. On the pro side, it also adjusts the external zoom (which is saved at least within session separtately) when you use it in like F2 view. This was possible before though with the "external zoom" keys which also have a reset, but you couldn't set a default value. What we really need though is: - Per aircraft limitation sliders for max / min values and a slider for the default value, of course all within constraints set by the module dev or ED (like no zoom in to 0.5° being possible) - Also the same as default settings with checkboxes in the per aircraft settings to enable module specific variations of the settings if wanted, so we don't have to change every module one by one - Default external zoom angle slider - Keybinds to directly jump to certain angle settings immediately on a keypress, possibly in 10° steps, maybe even 5° (which basically is what the old Il-2 series in the early 2000s had and is possible already in DCS by editing the config.luas for input by adding keybinds to set the slider to a certain value - which is how I have done it to get 30/60/90° instakeys, you just have to calculate the exact values dependant on the min/max FOV range of the given module, most are ranging from 20 to 140° though) BTW I'm saying that as someone who almost exclusively flies in VR since mid 2019, I wouldn't need that for myself anymore, but I'd like to see such improvements for the average pancake simmer still - I mean, I still do some pancake flying sometimes when I just want to test something that doesn't require me being in VR as it's just quicker to hop in without putting the HMD on and setting everything up completely.

Am I dreaming? Just checked and we actually can switch from freedom units to actual units and back now without having to leave the mission? What a treat! I just now hope the thing will properly save which buttons I had selected and which not... that was always kinda funky in the past and it drove me nuts. Oh, and I also noticed the new fps counter/stats displays. So much better now! Have you tried clicking that little arrow in the top left corner? It hides the graph and leaves the counter with a backshade so it's actually visible which the old one wasn't unless you changed the color in one of the config files... Genuinely looks like glaucoma at around 40-45ish IOP, just bigger in angular diameter and with a thinner rainbow.

I remember it being functional already in the free mod, so I kinda expected this to work now as well, but great to know!

These guys are bringing the Tohneighdo to Misfis? Sold! Meanwhile, I'll be happily grabbing their new MB-339, eagerly await the Gina and hope for an F-104 next

Listen to this absolute banger of a pro tip and don't do this:

I just hope it will finally get the Tetris easteregg on the SYST page it deserves

Looking forward to the weather system updates, tone map and VR improvements. Thrilled to have a humidity slider that I can drag down though to increase visibility past like 5nm on a CAVOK day without having to add shader mods anymore (or just give us the pre-2.5.6.50321 visiblity back finally!) The La-7 looks nice, can't wait for their Su-22 though

At first I was like: Who wants to pay for another Normandy map? Then I was like: Ugra: announces Normandy 2 ED's The Channel: Am I a joke to you? Then I got to the part explaining the pricing, coming to the conclusion that this new map ofc is based on the old one, but also somehow must include The Channel given that owning it reduces the price tag and simply asking the question: Why would they want to make that complete area that we do already have again from scratch? And with those owner's discounts, I'm absolutely all in for the upgrade! This will be a great addition. And the new tech that delivers stuff you don't own in lower quality seems to be the first step towards a grand scale world map, I can perfectly see the exact same thing happen with the Gulf, Syriam Caucasus and the upcoming Sinai as well as the already announced Afghanistan maps and probably an Iraq map as well. And, hopefully, one day... the Crimea, where it all started with Flanker to LOMAC+FC (for purely nostalgic reasons; I've been wanting to see the Crimea back since BS1).

Absolutely looking forward to the Tohneighdo! I'm quite glad about the version they chose, but I hope they'll make at least an early 90's British GR.1 with TIALD as well afterwards. GR.4 with Brimstone would be cool as well, but I guess it's too classified still and it probably would be similar with the German ASSTA upgrades, at least the latest ones. Totally wouldn't mind getting an ECR later on though, or even the F.3 ADV (not the greatest fighter, but certainly not a bad interceptor either). But let's take the one they're making first But I'd really like to know more about the devs, especially their "decades of experience" in the business. I could find exactly nothing so far... ... and that didn't bring anything forth either. Absolutely zero information on what they did before. Shall I wait for that "Hey guys, we're those solid blokes that made DI's Tornado back in the 90s..." mic drop? I mean, most of us have been wanting that thing from Heatblur, especially with their expertise and the Tomcat and Viggen in their portfolio already... I wouldn't be surprised if the community wants to get it at around their level of detail anyway now I got it very late (like late 2000s) myself as well, Installation isn't really a problem (-> DOSBox!), but I can't make it accept all input axes, basically stuck with just pitch and yaw, unable to map throttle and rudder. If I just could get that done, I'd probably actually still dump time in it... just did that a bit with keyboard only That's absolutely a fair point to this day. They've got their plate packed a lot already. Maybe they could secure the F-111F for themselves though Let's just hope that AviaStorm can provide a similar level of quality as that's what we all want to get I'm pretty sure it's not completely banned as opposed to the JP233. I'm rather sure the KB44 and STABOs are still in service even now, might even be the case with MUSA. MIFF and MUSPA however have been classified as mines and therefor been decomissioned. I guess you're speaking about Fast Talking Performance... That guy speaks faster than a Tornado could fly even with the ramps not welded shut. Very hard to understand acoustically sometimes, still great to listen to though I actually do wonder in which cases that did happen... Did I miss something? I just remember seeing OctopusG's video a few months ago basically teasering it without having dropped an official announcement yet and the only other thing I could find was a video of a never released CubanAce mod from 2017.

Just three words are enough to sum up this newsletter's content: ~Wags

[Edited into spoiler since it's not the main point of this post] But enough the usual MS rant... (I mean, the real worst thing they ever did was dropping the Sidewinder product line - we do need fricken FFB!) I'm glad the F1 cockpit brightness has been fixed finally! This post was sponsored by my totally broken eyes (road to next surgery...), aaaaas always!

To be fair, the DCS community has plenty of practice with that based on how the Hornet's 404s had been for quite a long time...