35 yr Simmer/former pilots 1st day of VR

Wordy but it is the morning after and a response to a earlier post for advice on if I am ready to jump into VR.

Soloed on my 18th Bday mid 80s and went on to fly fixed/rotor craft until being injured at 45. 1st sim was Microprose F-19 on a Tandy 20 mhz from Rat shack for $3000. Recently posted asking "VR"? and response was overwhelmingly HELL YES.

Yesterday was the day. Usually build my own rigs but my Xmas gift to me was a no expense spared build from Falcon Northwest. Worth every penny as it was truly VR ready although be aware every usb port is precious. Uses a 2.0 extension for mouse/keyboard/trackir. Running 4.7, 16 gigs, MSI 1080 ti GTX/win 10. Oc Rift.

The initial hands tutorial with the robot assistant in the shop BLEW MY MIND. Was truly up there with some of life's top 10 "in awe" moments. Coming from a former builder of quad copters the 2nd thing I noticed is why they did not have a simple small fan similar to those in computers or to cool rc speed controllers blowing in air to cool the face. My Fat Shark goggles had a simple mod that clipped on the foam piece that forms around the face. I stress this because the lights DO get hot and many times I mistaken my red face for my BP getting high.

DCS- I can run W.A open so left the settings alone at 4k, dot setting at 2.0 iirc. 1st flight was the Harrier at Groom. Again, initial MIND BLOWN :lol: followed by "dam this is fuzzy. Coming from a 38 inch Sony 4k its a steep drop but a DCS poster told me you want multiplayer kills stay with 4k. You want immersion go VR. Best advice yet.

Old cliche but unless you experience it you really cannot describe it. A hologram you operate is the closest. I had a few deja vu moments from my RL flying days mainly in the helis which I have most time in. For me the cockpit enviro and looking over your shoulder and down were the highs and the distance fuzz. the overall "vasoline" appearance and clouds the low points. Lighting changes are truly incredible as are the little details you never noticed that simple drop your jaw.

Except for the facial heat, I already have passed the HOTAS Warthog blind test so other than the occasional peek at the keyboard transition was smooth. Had numerous crashes usually when switching aircraft and a couple oom errors. IMO combat and spotting ground targets is impossible. VR to me is for the experience of jumping in a aircraft and feeling as though you are really operating a machine rather than watching graphics on a monitor change.

So bottom line it was worth $400 just to experience VR even if for a short time and back to trackir for simming. The advice of if you want graphics clarity, ease of use and seeing the enemy, stick with 4k. If you want mind blowing IMMERSION, VR is a must have is also my conclusion.

Ya, it's pretty cool isn't it. The ground spotting gets easier the more you do it. It is very hard though. It will be nice when we can get 4k per eye. Hopefully the Rift CV2 won't be too far out.

Dont know if you fly online a lot, but if you mainly fly offline, or coop with friends - who can maybe be convinced, dont shy away from enabling the labels. They can always switch them off locally, if it rubs them the wrong way ;)

They are adjustable, and the two I use both use a very small '.' - as small as I can make it, centered on the unit. They appear bigger in VR than on monitor.

I have a version with color, that I use for BFM, or furbal type stuff, where visually ID becomes very hard in VR. So the dot starts black, faint, at around 12km and then fades over to red or blue, which becomes most visible at around 4km - still not full strength color, but noticable, and then fades out again, to nothing. Same principle for ground targets, just adjusted distance.

Black version does the same, just no friend/foe difference, is just black fading in / out.

Put them into your ..\Users\'username'\Saved Games\DCS.openalpha\Config\View folder, and rename the one you want to use, Labels.lua

Serves will overwrite it, if they use their own label file.

If you want to edit them, use notepad++. Goes for all lua's. Regular notepad will mess it up.

That is, if you still go VR and want to give it a shot again.

Labels - black.lua

Labels - color.lua

Only issue is the Gazelle is hard crashing me into a black screen with only the oculus page viewable through the goggles. Screen is black and cnt alt del ---alt tab. esc etc does nothing, only a reboot.

Other thing is I was in the Harrier and wanted to use NV and bringing up comms was a major pita. Had to take a peek for the correct F keys.

Actually had my 1st " I don't feel so good.." In Vegas I was buzzing the strip in the Huey and decided it was time to take a break so I intentionally clipped one of the cranes with my blades.

The heli lost it's blades and fell. I gotta admit watching the ground rush up at me was not only scary but hurl inducing.

Still playing with the dot thingie which most feel should be left a 1.5 iirc. Def shading for me is a must. Currently I am running everything maxxed, 4x msaa iirc, shadows norm 16x.

Night looked like dog poo but I have learned if you stare at something long enough and DON'T look for example at that latest,greatest TV or even new car, you get accustomed to it and it grows on you. For me, imo VR is now best for the slow movers and low so you can get the depth.

Do watch the sticky thread "All Things VR" from Jabbers. Very good starting place to maximize everything (visually) Then open the Huey doors and look down while flying. Just don't bang your head on the table like I did.

There is a Vive Kickstarter for HMD fans. Easier for Vive since there is a USB on the HMD. But I'm keeping an eye on them.

Compared to the DOS days and literally thousand of hours tweaking FS9/FSX .cfgs, there really is not much in DCS to do. Yes I have watched the guy but other than clicking on boxes and seeing what happens no really much else. I think those of us with the latest/greatest rigs its a case of "It is what is is." Shut up and fly.....

Only issue is the Gazelle is hard crashing me into a black screen with only the oculus page viewable through the goggles. Screen is black and cnt alt del ---alt tab. esc etc does nothing, only a reboot.

As I said in another thread I am seeing more crashes in the latest vers 2.2.x I find I don't need to turn the PC off or restart it just call up task manager and kill off DCS and close task manager it can be a pain if left running then start DCS again.

Other thing is I was in the Harrier and wanted to use NV and bringing up comms was a major pita. Had to take a peek for the correct F keys.

Yep swapping between the Rift and keyboard is a pain sorry doubly so when flying.

Actually had my 1st " I don't feel so good.." In Vegas I was buzzing the strip in the Huey and decided it was time to take a break so I intentionally clipped one of the cranes with my blades.

The heli lost it's blades and fell. I gotta admit watching the ground rush up at me was not only scary but hurl inducing.

It's a shame you can't get the Gazelle going that was almost hurl inducing for me the first time I took it out in VR and yeah those crashes I still brace sometimes. :lol:

Still playing with the dot thingie which most feel should be left a 1.5 iirc. Def shading for me is a must. Currently I am running everything maxxed, 4x msaa iirc, shadows norm 16x.

Night looked like dog poo but I have learned if you stare at something long enough and DON'T look for example at that latest,greatest TV or even new car, you get accustomed to it and it grows on you. For me, imo VR is now best for the slow movers and low so you can get the depth.

MSAA @2 and pixel density at 1.0 for me works a treat.

Have you adjusted the height and angle of the goggles for best resolution?

There are options for the "aircraft" cockpit resolution that may help.

Spoke to soon. Just flew or tried to fly and had numerous ctds/black screens. Once was after I ejected and the others were switching aircraft and trying to start a flight or exiting after a graphics change. I was one usb short so I used one of those 4x that was a older 2.0. I have been assured running mice/kb even the hotas on 2 is fine. Thats said I also noticed a red flag on the oculus menu warning me of the need to possible update my usb drivers.

Don't think its the issue but I have never liked plug in extra usbs but rather a powered or in a slot. Going to remove the now unused Trackir and get rid of the 2.0 usb hub and see what happens.

JimJam,

good to hear you like it, I am pretty new to VR myself, the boys convinced me to get VR over a fancy motherboard and I dont regret it. It is Jaw dropping.

If it turns out that your USB really needs a new driver, there are 3 sites you may get them.

A: Motherboard vendor

B: Chip vendor

C: if those 2 above have none, try this, best site for this: win-raid.com

You will need the Device-ID from DeviceManager to spot the right driver.

Also your Nvidia driver might cause iussues, not all releases work with everything for everyone, actually quite the opoosite is true.

I do know that the newest one, 390.65, bugs on my end, so I reverted back to a 387 driver.

You will have to play a bit with it to see what causes your crashes.

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Late last night I had 2 more hard crashes with a windows box that said the computer was low on memory and had to shut down. Never seen that before.

Did update Nvidia driver a few days ago iirc.

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Late last night I had 2 more hard crashes with a windows box that said the computer was low on memory and had to shut down. Never seen that before.

Did update Nvidia driver a few days ago iirc.

Open TaskManger and keep it on top at all times, so you can watch your rigs graphs with mem, swap and cpu usage ( per core, not total ).

16GB should be enough, some missions could use more online but it is not a mandatory for now.

How is your swap file configured ? Dont turn that OFF, keep it on, you may set a fixed size equal to your RAM size, 16GB. Putting that on the HDD is fine, I would not put it on your sole SSD for now.

You may as well revert to an older NV driver, 1 or 2 versions back and try again.

To tune DCS in general, many polits incl. me use ProcessLasso. YOu can tie DCS to physical cores with it's free version, it can help to iron out stutter and general misfiring under the hood.

You should download and install MSI-Afterburner, it's a GPU monitoring and tweaking tool for ---ALL--- graphic cards, Nvidia and AMD, any vendor.

Understand how this tool works and it will be your friend, hands down.

YOu can set the OSD so it shows all relevant data, GPU CPU usage and temps, RAM usage, ANYTHING. Just take the time to dig into it. Many, if not all, serious gamers use either that or an equivalent, which is hard to find for all functions, basically that is IT.

It does install itself, Afterburner, and Riva Statistics Server, RSTS. Install both, as prompted, reboot, and learn how to work your GPU.

Tip, your card runs just as fast with less Volt, and cooler too. MSI allows you to do that, CTRL-F.... as a teaser. :thumbup:

If you use MSI AFterurner OSD, there is no need for TaskManager to be on top. The OSD can have all that info + a ton more if need to be

After reading some forums it seems the latest "5th" of this month iirc Nvidia drv has some serious problems. Of course those with no issues don't post. Went back one and now the Gazelle heli loads without crashing and some other wierdness seems better.

I have a Asus Z170 Deluxe mobo/ MSI 1080 GTX/32 gigs, recent Falcon Northwest custom build btw and I was unable to reboot. The tv would simple lose signal but the tower would still be lit up leading me to hold the on/off button. Was a major PITA during MS last huge update as it would not reboot automatically.

I use msa afterburner but tbo just bumped it up a little. I have learned the hard way that tweaking bios or the card can/will lead to wierd things.

I flew a couple flights and must admit that even with thousands of rl hrs in wing slingers, the Gazelle got me cross eyed and I had to have turned green! Doesn't help that quick rotation even my fire breathing rig can't keep up and those micro stutters really press the nausea button hard.

Seriously Thanks for the tips and I will keep in touch so others can learn from us and we stumble though imo what I feel is finally the REAL VR awakening.

Try with no MSAA. Game's MSAA really hits hard, and you cant override with nVidia driver. Even if fps shows 45, its still really bad when looking around. Far from smooth.

So we are kind stuck with low Pixel Density and x2 MSAA, or higher Pixel Density but no MSAA.

With a lesser rig, I currently run 1.5 PD, no MSAA, 8x AF, terrain texture low, terrain shadows off, shadows low. All ground clutter stuff off. Rest is high, and I rarely dip below the magic 45 fps (RCTRL+Pause for fps counter).

I was a hardcore quad flyer with goggles "Fat Shark" and wonder why Oculus they did not add a small fan into the goggles. $$ had something to do with it.

I am really getting red face as the heat does build after usage. I have some mask that I adapted to the goggles for quads with small fans and going to try and make it happen.

Also have a leather/cloth face mask shield due in to make it less sweat inducing and also does not soak it up like a sponge.

Not sure if its the Rift making my face red and eyes bake or those videos that have nothing to do with flying that those russian hackers keep putting on my computer...:blush:

I fly with a fan blowing across my computer desk/monitor. It also provides a breeze across me. This really helps keep down the heat buildup. I have never stopped flying VR due to heat. My problem is that I wear glasses and even with the straps set fairly loose, the glasses push on the nosepads fairly hard. After longer flying sessions, it eventually starts to hurt and I have to stop flying. But I generally do fine over my typical hour or two of VR flying before going to bed.

I am one of those who HAS to have air blowing all the time so I have plenty. Got one of those fancy dyson no blade desk left of the warthog and also a large room fan.

I also wear glasses but luckily I can do just fine without them. Be very careful not to scratch the glass. I should be getting a aftermarket replacement leather/cloth face pad which users say does not soak up the sweat as bad and allows better circulation/less fogging. I will report my findings.

Had I needed glasses and still might, I am hoping a thicker face pad will give some more space betreen glasses and glass.

Just flew my first "hell yeah..this is incredible" mission against some ground threats in the harrier. I recently enabled hdr and imo cleans it up and looks better.

IRL I have a lot of time wearing NVG and flying so again I got lucky in that using the VR zoom feature does not make me nauseated. In VR using the labels for me is a must and what I did was pop them on/off and with the zoom was lethal against the targets with the gun.

Dam this is fun. :lol::D

Just flew my first "hell yeah..this is incredible" mission against some ground threats in the harrier. I recently enabled hdr and imo cleans it up and looks better.

IRL I have a lot of time wearing NVG and flying so again I got lucky in that using the VR zoom feature does not make me nauseated. In VR using the labels for me is a must and what I did was pop them on/off and with the zoom was lethal against the targets with the gun.

Dam this is fun. :lol::D

:thumbup:

Indeed it is!

I have been flying with my Rift for about a year now and still love it, would not go without it.

Also fyi if you have not seen it, there is a VR sub-forum here that has a lot of good info shared within it.

https://forums.eagle.ru/forumdisplay.php?f=497

Thanks... If mod wants to move this there I understand.