Is it possible to use VR + MFCD export together?

[SkateZilla]

On 10/26/2023 at 9:36 AM, RoyMi6 said:

@SkateZilla - I mean I suppose "new" is a relative term  We've been looking to do exactly this (export the MFDs so we can use cockpit displays in addition to VR) for 7 years... and this is literally the first time I've found this mentioned when I randomly started looking at this again. Your first response to this thread was that it wasn't possible and in 2021 I didn't come across anything to help. A Google search shows that this options isn't exactly being talked about widely... Suppose we're a bit of a niche userbase though  

Will hopefully get a chance to try tonight something tonight as screenshots from this thread also looking into this option (again on helio github Some viewports and instruments are transparent in VR · Issue #756 · HeliosVirtualCockpit/Helios · GitHub) seems to show that it can work with a single monitor for testing at least:

Note that the transparent background is an issue for some in this thread but you can change it to black in the helios settings from what I can see.

 

 

in 2016 we were still on 2.0 Alpha and 1.5 Beta w/ Oculus 1.3 just being integrated in April.

A feature request was made in 2021...

[Rainmaker]

When it comes to doing this, does anyone happen to know how to possible control the UI rendering size?  I am seeing the transparency thing which I can somewhat deal with for now, maybe even see if I could solicit some interest from the RB folks to correct in the future, but it's not a 'big' issue for me at the moment.  What I'm not sure I can deal with is having unusable UI areas as I am one of those that has MFD/internal displays so the VR repeater/UI resizes to cover the entire display grouping which is not symmetrical.  As a result, the bottom right part of the screen won't allow curser movement.  I've tried unchecking the mouse to screen restriction but that makes no difference.  Non-VR UI does not extend out past your primary screen unless you want it to, VR doesn't follow the same restriction unfortunately....at least not by default.

Not the end of the world if I can't make it work, just curious.

 

null

Edited October 28, 2023 by Rainmaker

[VirKoV]

Same here.

 

trying to keep the mouse from leaving the user interface.

If I try to click on buttons at the bottom, the dcs window loses focus and I can't click on "exit".

 

Has anyone made any progress regarding this? By modifying the value of UImainview I have not achieved anything at the moment.

[VirKoV]

En 28/10/2023 a las 18:34, Rainmaker dijo:

When it comes to doing this, does anyone happen to know how to possible control the UI rendering size?  I am seeing the transparency thing which I can somewhat deal with for now, maybe even see if I could solicit some interest from the RB folks to correct in the future, but it's not a 'big' issue for me at the moment.  What I'm not sure I can deal with is having unusable UI areas as I am one of those that has MFD/internal displays so the VR repeater/UI resizes to cover the entire display grouping which is not symmetrical.  As a result, the bottom right part of the screen won't allow curser movement.  I've tried unchecking the mouse to screen restriction but that makes no difference.  Non-VR UI does not extend out past your primary screen unless you want it to, VR doesn't follow the same restriction unfortunately....at least not by default.

Not the end of the world if I can't make it work, just curious.

 

null

 

 

 

I got it!

The problem was not in DCS and LUA files, it is the loss of focus of the active application in windows. When moving the mouse to the MFD windows, the application lost focus and that is why we could not press some keys in the UI.

 

All you have to do is install the Microsoft Powertoys application (or similar) that allows you to make an application always on you. In this way, the entire UI is accessible while we are in VR.

To do this, follow the following steps:

1- Install power toys https://learn.microsoft.com/es-es/windows/powertoys/install

2-Activate "always on top" feature

3-Assign a keyboard combination to activate the chosen window (for example CTRL+SHIFT+Z)

4-Enter DCS, and when you are in the main menu, press the key combination. A beep will sound, and the DCS window will be in front of the rest.

5-Enjoy.

Edited December 30, 2023 by VirKoV

[Rainmaker]

3 hours ago, VirKoV said:

 

 

I got it!

The problem was not in DCS and LUA files, it is the loss of focus of the active application in windows. When moving the mouse to the MFD windows, the application lost focus and that is why we could not press some keys in the UI.

 

All you have to do is install the Microsoft Powertoys application (or similar) that allows you to make an application always on you. In this way, the entire UI is accessible while we are in VR.

To do this, follow the following steps:

1- Install power toys https://learn.microsoft.com/es-es/windows/powertoys/install

2-Activate "always on top" feature

3-Assign a keyboard combination to activate the chosen window (for example CTRL+SHIFT+Z)

4-Enter DCS, and when you are in the main menu, press the key combination. A beep will sound, and the DCS window will be in front of the rest.

5-Enjoy.

 

 

Appreciate the help, but this one did not address the issue for me with my setup.  For whatever reason, on my setup, it does not allow the mouse to travel down far enough to click in the lower right corner.  It's not that it goes out of focus for me, it's that the render and the mouse cursor limits for whatever reason are different.

[VirKoV]

hace 7 horas, Rainmaker dijo:

 

Appreciate the help, but this one did not address the issue for me with my setup.  For whatever reason, on my setup, it does not allow the mouse to travel down far enough to click in the lower right corner.  It's not that it goes out of focus for me, it's that the render and the mouse cursor limits for whatever reason are different.

Yes, you must align your monitors at the bottom right, for example move the monitor called "5" to that right corner in the Windows configuration and that way the mouse can travel lower.

 

[Rainmaker]

10 hours ago, VirKoV said:

Yes, you must align your monitors at the bottom right, for example move the monitor called "5" to that right corner in the Windows configuration and that way the mouse can travel lower.

 

Yes, that’s actually what I did last night. That worked. Its a windows limitation of where it allows the mouse curser to move inside the display limits. I think I might have a work around if the NVIDIA control panel allows me to set a display group and give them really huge bezels and allows the mouse curser to pass along the bezels. I havent tried it yet, but I know it used to be a thing back when I had triple monitors and eyefinity years ago.  Its a long shot, but that might work. Otherwise yeah, I might just be stuck moving displays to certain positions to allow the mouse curser to move there. The other option might be seeing if the UI allows hand controller use in the UI, been years since I have messed with that.  I’ve git some ideas, just need some time to dedicate to playing with it. 

[Thundersmoke]

I'm getting so close on this.  Sorry to revive it back to the top!

So, I've followed all the instructions and guides here, and I'm getting my 3 (winwing) MFDs exported while in VR.  BUT.

They're being exported with like a transparent background and there's game video being shown in the background in with the exported content.

Anyone run into this specific issue before and / or have any idea how to solve it?

Just to cover the basics:

• confirmed monitor lua file has correct native resolution and also tried with the "optimized" resolution to which Virtual Desktop adjusts things
• VR_allow_MFD_out_of_HMD = true is in the file
• In DCS VR settings, "Use DCS System Resolution" is checked
• In DCS settings, the monitor lua is selected and game resolution is set to the full height/width of all monitors per the usual multimonitor guides

Thanks in advance for any help, it's driving me nuts!

[RoyMi6]

8 hours ago, Thundersmoke said:

I'm getting so close on this.  Sorry to revive it back to the top!

So, I've followed all the instructions and guides here, and I'm getting my 3 (winwing) MFDs exported while in VR.  BUT.

They're being exported with like a transparent background and there's game video being shown in the background in with the exported content.

Anyone run into this specific issue before and / or have any idea how to solve it?

Just to cover the basics:

• confirmed monitor lua file has correct native resolution and also tried with the "optimized" resolution to which Virtual Desktop adjusts things
• VR_allow_MFD_out_of_HMD = true is in the file
• In DCS VR settings, "Use DCS System Resolution" is checked
• In DCS settings, the monitor lua is selected and game resolution is set to the full height/width of all monitors per the usual multimonitor guides

Thanks in advance for any help, it's driving me nuts!

I THINK this might help you: https://github.com/HeliosVirtualCockpit/Helios/issues/756#issuecomment-1722451553

Obviously depends what plane you're flying, and it appears some people WANT the opposite  MFD Background Turn Black After 2.8.3.37854.1 Open Beta Update - Multi-Display Support - ED Forums (dcs.world)

[Thundersmoke]

16 hours ago, RoyMi6 said:

I THINK this might help you: https://github.com/HeliosVirtualCockpit/Helios/issues/756#issuecomment-1722451553

Obviously depends what plane you're flying, and it appears some people WANT the opposite  MFD Background Turn Black After 2.8.3.37854.1 Open Beta Update - Multi-Display Support - ED Forums (dcs.world)

Thanks!!

I did some more testing last night and found out that I actually had the settings right / mostly right, and my problem was that I was testing with the F-15E, which has the idiosyncrasy of the MFD exports having a transparent background for some reason.

Changing nothing else except going to the Apache and Hornet, they worked fine.  It's still obnoxious because I need to choose different profiles for each.  In 2D, the center MFD will stay dark if there's no feed to it (airframes with only 2 MFDs) even if I have Left/Center/Right specified in the monitor lua.  Now I get a video feed and "missing texture" garbage in 2-MFD airframes if I don't delete out the Center display in the lua.

Either way, I look forward to diving in deeper on the links you provided this weekend.  Very much appreciate it.

Now on to figure out the best tool for chroma-keying / greenscreening out a window to see my physical MFDs in mixed reality.  I think OpenKneeboard is still the best workaround, but that will be for tomorrow.  First-world new-simpit / new-VR problems!

Edited February 7, 2024 by Thundersmoke

[nick_thain]

Gudday @Thundersmoke, I'm having the same issue as you with the mouse being blocked from the bottom right of the DCS menu/GUI, did you have any luck with this since you last posted? I'm currently using a workaround where I'm using a mod to change the displayed ordfer of the module icons so that the modules i want to fly/test are furthest left, and using 'escape' and 'enter' on the keybaord as I can to navigate in and out of GUI screens... not ideal ;).

FYI, my monitor setup is a 5120x1440 monitor with 3 800x600 USB monitors (from Cubesim) top right of the main monitor. 

Cheers! Nick

[Thundersmoke]

On 3/4/2024 at 1:40 PM, nick_thain said:

Gudday @Thundersmoke, I'm having the same issue as you with the mouse being blocked from the bottom right of the DCS menu/GUI, did you have any luck with this since you last posted? I'm currently using a workaround where I'm using a mod to change the displayed ordfer of the module icons so that the modules i want to fly/test are furthest left, and using 'escape' and 'enter' on the keybaord as I can to navigate in and out of GUI screens... not ideal ;).

FYI, my monitor setup is a 5120x1440 monitor with 3 800x600 USB monitors (from Cubesim) top right of the main monitor. 

Cheers! Nick

Hey Nick, sorry for the sluggish response!  I did not find suitable workarounds and I've since gone all-in on VR for now.  Which means my expensive WinWing MIP displays and MFDs are mostly sitting cold and dark while I play (doh! lol) at the moment.  I feel like we're right on the cusp of a mixed reality breakthrough -- maybe ushered in with the Somnium VR-1 or Varjo XR-4 headsets.  Just couldn't get it good enough for now and now that I've tasted VR, I can't go back.  Hopefully in a few months I can revisit the multi-display, mixed-reality setup, but for now I'm leaning into full VR with Voice Attack, VAICOM Pro and a couple little helper tools like DCS The Way.

[slowmover]

I have the same problem with the bottom right corner on menu i can not click EXIT to leave game. Maybe anyone find a solution?

[tribundf]

Totally necro'ing this discussion here, but I am wondering if there has been any more progress towards this goal. Id like to use Helios on a touchscreen with VR, but the VR viewport always renders the touchscreen as well, making it impossible to see anything on the exported screen. I want to use the touchscreen to export the Chinook CDU. Works perfect in 2D, but not in VR. Is there  away to manually tell DCS where to render VR and what to keep for the exported screen?

[Twwhitey]

Can someone help me understand the scenario here I’m confused?  This thread is seemingly stating that you CANNOT use a peripheral setup like the Winwing MIP setup (with 2 external MFDs and an AMPCD) AND VR at the same time… is that correct?  
 

If so this seemingly defies all recent examples of mixed reality setups I’ve seen vendors like Varjo and Somnium demo where they’re able to mask off portions of the screen and show the real world cockpit (with what I thought was working MFDs etc) mixed with the actual DCS VR experience.   
 

Are we saying that MIxed Reality VR using real external MFDs is not supported by DCS currently?  (That just doesn’t jive with my understanding I totally thought I’ve seen this…) Or is this export thread just a different specific approach that isn’t supported?  
 

 

[rivershan]

ED must do some works on VR mode for the Mixed Reality project.. hope ed can hear that. @BIGNEWY

[RoyMi6]

@Twwhitey @rivershan My setup isn't running at the moment but helping out a friend trying to get this working and this post seems to suggest it's all possible still:

 

[hansangb]

On 3/17/2024 at 4:42 PM, Thundersmoke said:

Hey Nick, sorry for the sluggish response!  I did not find suitable workarounds and I've since gone all-in on VR for now.  Which means my expensive WinWing MIP displays and MFDs are mostly sitting cold and dark while I play (doh! lol) at the moment.  I feel like we're right on the cusp of a mixed reality breakthrough -- maybe ushered in with the Somnium VR-1 or Varjo XR-4 headsets.  Just couldn't get it good enough for now and now that I've tasted VR, I can't go back.  Hopefully in a few months I can revisit the multi-display, mixed-reality setup, but for now I'm leaning into full VR with Voice Attack, VAICOM Pro and a couple little helper tools like DCS The Way.

 

I know this is necro'ing, but couldn't help myself. 

The future is already here.  *IF* you use projectors.  Check out RomeoKilo's YT page and how he seamless integrated a physical cockpit with VR. It's pretty amazing.

 

 

[nick_thain]

@hansangb I owe you a beer of beverage of your choice!

This video finally solved it for me, as well as a little more tinkering, and I now have full MR with Quest 3 with 3 MFD displays. For others who are still suffering:

• Warthog Project guy (in above video) uses Helios for his MFD/display exports into his sim rig.
• As a result, his monitor.lua format is very different to the monitor.lua for those of us using Cubesim or WinWing MFD displays.
• We still need to add the extra lines to the bottom of our monitor.lua as he does to allow MFD export during VR.
• Even with this I was still gettitng the blocked bottom-right DCS Menu GUI issue, and was getting the in-sim footage in my MFDs (not the exported MFD screens).
• After further tinkering, I fixed the above 2 issues:
  •  In Virtual Desktop I disabled 'Use nominal resolution', as it was cropping my 5120x1440 screen down to 2560x1440.
  • This cropping was breaking my monitor.lua, regardless of if I set res to 2560x1440 or 5120x1440.
  • Soon as I disabled 'Use nominal resoltion, Virtual Desktop used the full 5120x1440 res, with no noticeable impact on performance.
  • I also turned off a 'spare' 4k monitor is it was being constantly moved around by Virtual Desktop.
  • With those changes, my full VR DCS Menu GUI is clickable, and the MFDs are being exported correctly during VR.
• Full disclosure; I am yet to get the Open Kneeboard pass through working, I first wanted to get DCS VR MFD export working, Open Kneeboard is next ;).

Cheers, hope this helps someone else!

And thansk again @hansangb, Love Your Work!    

[nick_thain]

On 12/30/2023 at 7:18 PM, Rainmaker said:

 

Appreciate the help, but this one did not address the issue for me with my setup.  For whatever reason, on my setup, it does not allow the mouse to travel down far enough to click in the lower right corner.  It's not that it goes out of focus for me, it's that the render and the mouse cursor limits for whatever reason are different.

See my post below @Rainmaker, I think I fixed your (and my) issue.

[Thundersmoke]

On 3/12/2025 at 12:53 PM, nick_thain said:

@hansangb I owe you a beer of beverage of your choice!

This video finally solved it for me, as well as a little more tinkering, and I now have full MR with Quest 3 with 3 MFD displays. For others who are still suffering:

• Warthog Project guy (in above video) uses Helios for his MFD/display exports into his sim rig.
• As a result, his monitor.lua format is very different to the monitor.lua for those of us using Cubesim or WinWing MFD displays.
• We still need to add the extra lines to the bottom of our monitor.lua as he does to allow MFD export during VR.
• Even with this I was still gettitng the blocked bottom-right DCS Menu GUI issue, and was getting the in-sim footage in my MFDs (not the exported MFD screens).
• After further tinkering, I fixed the above 2 issues:
  •  In Virtual Desktop I disabled 'Use nominal resolution', as it was cropping my 5120x1440 screen down to 2560x1440.
  • This cropping was breaking my monitor.lua, regardless of if I set res to 2560x1440 or 5120x1440.
  • Soon as I disabled 'Use nominal resoltion, Virtual Desktop used the full 5120x1440 res, with no noticeable impact on performance.
  • I also turned off a 'spare' 4k monitor is it was being constantly moved around by Virtual Desktop.
  • With those changes, my full VR DCS Menu GUI is clickable, and the MFDs are being exported correctly during VR.
• Full disclosure; I am yet to get the Open Kneeboard pass through working, I first wanted to get DCS VR MFD export working, Open Kneeboard is next ;).

Cheers, hope this helps someone else!

And thansk again @hansangb, Love Your Work!    

And I'll owe YOU a beer or beverage of choice.  Thanks for posting this.  I too was discouraged by the blocked off mouse area and solving this may have me tinkering with mixed reality again.  It was super frustrating having the mouse corralled by invisible boundaries and having to work around it.  Cheers!