Mods and Tweaks for VR (Oculus Rift)

[RoyMi6]

As you can no doubt see from my post count this is my first thread here on the DCS forums but as a long time fan, and even bigger fan since getting to try the P51 with the Oculus Rift DK2, I thought I'd start a thread specifically about mods, scripts, tweaks and other customisations for DCS to make it run better with VR headsets as they currently stand.

 

I hope this thread to be more generic, in the sense that it shouldn't be used for information relating directly to getting your VR device to work, but getting VR to work well with DCS.

 

So if you're Oculus Rift doesn't yet work, please check this thread:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=93477

 

or even the developer forums for the Oculus Rift:

https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=11328

 

However, if you've got some good ideas about how we can improve DCS with VR in mind, post away!

 

Some ideas that my friend and I have come up with already:

 

Enable Labels but then tweak them for realistic visibility

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/270020/

Based of the above LUA Script we work around one of the issues with current VR headsets, which is spotting targets with the current resolution.

 

By virtue of the fact that the text from labels is rendered closer than the plane in 3D space, you ensure that by using a period (or any other small character) that the plane will always take up at least one pixel on the display.

 

Currently it's possible for medium distance objects to be lost "between" pixels due to the resolution so this can be a little annoying.

 

Obvious side effects are seeing the dots/labels through your cockpit - but compromises are going to be a common theme I think!

 

We ended up with this which we think worked fairly well for Air combat:

 

With this far away they appear as a small dot.

Nearer they appear as a chevron

Closer they appear as a filled in chevron

Closer still it goes back to just overlaying a single dot.

 

AirFormat = {}

AirFormat[5000] = "'"

AirFormat[10000] = "}"

AirFormat[20000] = "]"

AirFormat[30000] = "'"

 

GroundFormat = {}

GroundFormat[5000] = ""

GroundFormat[10000] = ""

GroundFormat[20000] = ""

 

NavyFormat = {}

NavyFormat[10000] = ""

NavyFormat[20000] = ""

NavyFormat[40000] = ""

 

WeaponFormat = {}

WeaponFormat[5000] = ""

WeaponFormat[10000] = ""

WeaponFormat[20000] = ""

 

-- Colors in {red, green, blue} format, volume from 0 up to 255

 

ColorAliesSide = {255, 0, 0}

ColorEnemiesSide = {0, 0, 0}

 

Bigger font sizes for the HUD

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/374967/

Again, based on the above mod it's obviously possible to change the font sizes for some HUD elements. I found a thread (which I can no longer find!) that went into detail of why this was harder for some than for others but hopefully more mods like this will make flying other planes easier.

 

There's an expectation by the mods creator that you "wouldn't want to go any bigger" than this, but that's obviously under the assumption you're using a monitor and the script easily support going higher if needed.

 

Cockpit textures

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/569605/

While maybe deviating from reality these kind of subtle changes to the cockpit textures can be of great benefit when trying to overcome the loss of fidelity with the reduced resolution. More high contrast mods like this would be fab for quickly understanding the current state of your aircraft.

 

 

75fps target with graphics reduction

I think everyone knows that when using a VR headset this is a minimum FPS we need. Even a momentary stutter below this can knock you for six so it's essential that high FPS is maintained. I watched a couple of vids from MrJwmcfarlin (https://www.youtube.com/user/MrJwmcfarlin) and noticed that even while trying to hit his minimum 60fps limit that really that's not good enough for us.

 

For me, I put everything on low and take the hit. The immersion gained is second to none, but insight into any settings we can change that won't introduce random performance drops would be greatly appreciated by the VR community.

 

Graphical improvements

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1873475#post1873475

 

While maintaining 75fps is essential, the slightly washed out colours of DCS combined with low graphical settings make target identification and route finding harder. Using something like SweetFX to bring out details in the terain and air could help us a low to make up some of our losses.

 

Really hoping some of the more serious modders on these forums like PeterP and maybe even Mustang have some insight as to other areas we can improve.

 

Regards,

Roy

Edited September 14, 2014 by RoyMi6

[RoyMi6]

Clickable Cockpit without a mouse

 

Another aspect we're thinking about trying is moving away from using the mouse to use the in cockpit switches.

 

Is anyone aware of a way that you can bind a joystick button to a mouse click to active switches? It would mean we could leave the cursor in the middle of the screen then just look at the button you want to toggle and then click via a button.

 

One possible problem with this is that the mouse cursor disappears after a while of inactivity, this could be OK if clicking the same button we assigned to left mouse click was able to make it reappear though.

 

EDIT: Got this working.

 

Trick is to use joy2key (http://www.electracode.com/4/joy2key/JoyToKey%20English%20Version.htm) to bind a joystick button to Mouse 1.

 

In addition bind another button on your joystick to "Clickable Mouse Cockpit Mode On/Off" in General. This lets you get rid of the yellow cross when you're flying.

 

Note, to get the clickable cockpit to function correctly DCS needs to be running as your main monitor. See post below as to how to get this working.

Edited September 14, 2014 by RoyMi6

[RoyMi6]

Mirror DCS to second display / Run DCS on Rift as main monitor

 

Currently untested with DCS but currently it's not possible to see what's happening on the VR display, while in game, on a secondary monitor.

 

Open Broadcaster Software works for other applications so hopefully this will work with DCS as well: https://obsproject.com/

 

Will update when I've tested!

 

EDIT: Tested and working

 

This works really well for getting the switches to work because you can set the Rift as the main display then use OBSP to see what's going on when navigating the menus etc.

Edited September 14, 2014 by RoyMi6

[RoyMi6]

Improved / More legible Tooltips

 

Simple enough hack done by editing tooltip_cockpit.skin.lua

 

Update the lines relating to the background colour and font size:

 

bkg = Bkg.solid(Color.new(255 / 255, 255 / 255, 255 / 255, 255 / 255)),

text = Text.new('dxgui/skins/fonts/DejaVuLGCSansCondensed.ttf', 18, Color.black(), Align.new(Align.center), Align.new(Align.center)),

 

This should remove the transparency by changing the opacity to 255 rather than 150, then increasing the font size from 14 to 18.

[aeliusg]

Excellent work, Roy. Thanks for these.

[Markeebo]

Excellent sources Roy. Greatly appreciated and I hope that this becomes a sticky.

 

Markeebo

[Markeebo]

tried the A-10C Hud Font change. SPOT ON! Good stuff.

 

Also the toolTips font change. Worked great.

 

I have also been using Open Broadcast. Really works well since DCS opens in my primary(Rift) and I need to interact with it.

[Markeebo]

Wanted to separate this from the post above......

 

Is there a way to increase HUD font size on the FC aircraft?

 

The Eagle and A10A come immediately to mind.

 

Edit: Found a HUD Font Res mod but it only improves font quality.....Not size.

Edited September 23, 2014 by Markeebo

[RoyMi6]

Wanted to separate this from the post above......

 

Is there a way to increase HUD font size on the FC aircraft?

 

The Eagle and A10A come immediately to mind.

 

Edit: Found a HUD Font Res mod but it only improves font quality.....Not size.

 

Yeah, sorry, not had a look at the FC aircraft at all and no existing mods I'm aware of.

[mipko]

this should be sticker !

[kludermor]

Great work

 

I'm still waiting for my DK2 to arrive, but happy to see you are working on solutions for VR.

[ralgha]

Here's another essential font size tweak, to make the radio menu readable:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2028218&postcount=18

 

(As always, when editing DCS files like this, be sure to use a good text editor like Notepad2 or Notepad++. Standard Windows Notepad will mess things up due to encoding problems.)

 

Also, now that they fixed the multiplayer crash on startup when using the Rift, I noticed it works well (yay!) but there's one problem. The player names in the list of aircraft disappear as soon as I scroll the list (only when using the Rift). This makes it hard to tell who's doing what on the server. Anyone else have this problem or know a solution? I can bring up the pool to see a list of players but I can't tell what they're flying. I guess as a partial workaround I can join the server before turning on the Rift, scope it out, exit and come back in the Rift, but that's kind of a hassle.

Edited September 28, 2014 by ralgha

[Hadwell]

Also remember that green text is easier to read, due to double the pixel density over red, so use shades of green or colours with lots of green in them, makes even the default text sizes fairly easy to read most of the time.

 

as for seeing who's in what plane, click fly then press '(button next to the enter key) on the keyboard

Edited September 28, 2014 by Hadwell

[MuskelBiber]

Thank you very much for the tweaks and tips!

Does somebody know how to get the zoom function working while using the rift?

would be great to read the gauges, displays and other stuff in the cockpit ;)

[Salsam]

First post... here goes!

 

Hi guys! Been lurking in the DCS forums for a while now and closely monitor this thread especially :-)

After getting my DK2 there is simply no going back to the regular Triple 2D- monitor setup again :-P

 

Already edited the "Radio menu" and changed the "Controls Indicator" .lua to make it readable/usable in OR.

Currently working on getting nrgized "NVG mod" to work with the DK2. Anyone tried if you can change the "focus.png" to the right side of the screen? So you only get the NVG on only one eye and normal vision on the other. Will try that later this week.

 

My question is if anyone know where I can find and edit the .lua for "mission update" text size and make the background non-transparent

Same goes for the briefing screens.

With that fixed I could really start flying missions and campaigns with OR :-D

 

Trying to post screenshots of the text I'm referring to:

http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/466913/Screen_141216_221824.jpg

 

Edited December 16, 2014 by Salsam
Faild to upload screenshot

[Kelevra]

In Game Messages

 

Improved / More legible Tooltips

 

Simple enough hack done by editing tooltip_cockpit.skin.lua

 

Update the lines relating to the background colour and font size:

 

bkg = Bkg.solid(Color.new(255 / 255, 255 / 255, 255 / 255, 255 / 255)),

text = Text.new('dxgui/skins/fonts/DejaVuLGCSansCondensed.ttf', 18, Color.black(), Align.new(Align.center), Align.new(Align.center)),

 

This should remove the transparency by changing the opacity to 255 rather than 150, then increasing the font size from 14 to 18.

 

Anyone know what file should be changed to make the in game messages readable with the Oculus ?

 

I am looking in the same folder : "DCS World\DCS World\dxgui\skins\skinME"

[Salsam]

About font size, found this on the forum, not tried it out yet thou.

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=123285

[hannibal]

would love to see some youtube videos of your stuff in action!

[Toolboy77]

would love to see some youtube videos of your stuff in action!

 

Yep would really like to see this too!

 

I've put my DK2 away for a bit and gone back to my TrackIR5 just because I was missing the detail and graphics.

 

:thumbup:

[sundown28]

Helmet HUD

 

Development of a helmet hud!

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=2335709#post2335709

[rcjonessnp175]

Anybody figure out how to increase the text chat size in multiplayer, both for chat and messages of what was killed?

[djbordie]

ive been looking in to this as well:

 

basically taking the mods from his list, adding them to JSGME mod manager and see what works and what KO's my framerate.

 

that being said, i havent fully locked 75fps with no mods yet.

 

but the concept of JSGME is excellent for tweaking settings and such.

you can even make custom file swaps and easily test before and after without worrying about wrecking your install.

 

mod list of potentials: some could work well with VR but some may kill fps. you probably need a gtx 980+ to even consider the vram of the HD textures mods.

Mod List :

 

1. DCS World environmental shaders mod (http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php...)

 

2. Ground Texture Mod Version 3.0 ( http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php... )

 

3. DCS Building HD overhaul ( http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php...)

 

4. DCS World Cloud Shadow Shader Mod (http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php...)

 

5. More Visibility (http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php...)

 

6. Skin Mods(Su27 grey Cockpit) (http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com...)

 

Best Part :

 

5. Sweet Fx 1.5 (http://www.sweetfx.de/ )

Really Nice settings : http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p...

[Buznee]

Not sure what's going on but when I try to change the parameters in tooltip_cockpit.skin.lua, there is no change in the game. The opacity of the rectangle stays the same and font stays the same.... What could I be doing wrong?