DCS and Pimax

[ram0506]

I did some further testing on the stutters when rolling the airplane. The stutters are there despite Smart Smoothing is showing to be active in PiTool. When SS is deactivated during flying (when frames drop below the threshold of half of the refresh rate) the stuttering gets worse, but with SS running you still have stuttering and warping of the landscape. This is only when rolling the aircraft and looking to the sides. Apart from that SS is working fine. Means, as soon as you finish rolling and you are in the turn, everything is smooth. You start to roll again to finish turn > stuttering/warping. Flying straight > smooth.

[Dorianesque]

Received Pimax 8k and not thinking of it as a second generation VR headset AT ALL. My Vive Pro gives me much better resolution and steady 60 to 80 FPS thanks to the suggestion of one of our own DCS pilots on our forum Rage.

 

I have tried every possible setting including different Nvidia driver versions, PiTool set to 0.5 , 1 and 1.5 and FOV to normal, small, rendering settings in game , Steam SS with different settings, GPU driver set at Preffered Maximum power , and render set to 3. All kinds of combinations of settings.

 

I’ve spent hours trying to get Pimax 8k give me acceptable results compared to Vive Pro, but seriously, resolution is much better with Vive Pro except for FOV which is a great pimax feature. Also sense of speed seems more realistic. Hornet feels to have a little less drag and less sluggish at slower speeds.

 

All other VR games give way better performance and this might have to do with DCS not being multi thread. Hope this is something that can be added / modified within the infrastructure of how the game is set up. At that point we’ll be getting way better frames and resolution and no stuttering. In the meantime, I will continue working on it, but I ran out of ideas.

 

Turning Anisotropic filtering inversely proportionate to in game VR render gives best results same way.

AF 16x with In game VR 0.6 gives me 60 -90 FPS

AF 2x and VR at 1.2 gives me same result on the Vive Pro.

 

 

 

I-7 8086K, Titan V

[Dorianesque]

But this is exactly how it works. SS is only active when current FPS is more than 1/2 of refresh rate. It immediately inactive when fps drops lower and active again when fps is sufficient for SS to work. At first you need someone to tell you when it active or inactive from PiTool window, but very soon you will learn to see the difference.

 

 

Normally you don't see this effect when looking straight ahead. But it is very visible when you looking at the side. And this is how you can tell if SS active or not. When it active, there is no blurriness at all (which, in fact, double rendered objects, shifted a little). As soon as objects on the sides became blurred - you know that SS is inactive. When they become sharp - you know that SS is active.

 

Vive Pro does not give stuttering when you look to the sides. It’s all smooth and you can even see the windows of buildings clearly delineated. Vive Pro does not have as good FOV as pimax, but so far I rather fly missions with my Vive Pro. Once you find that sweet spot it’s actually amazing!

[33-DFTC]

Received Pimax 8k and not thinking of it as a second generation VR headset AT ALL. My Vive Pro […]

 

How would you compare your 5K+ and 8K in DCS ?

[Lehmen]

Vive Pro does not give stuttering when you look to the sides. It’s all smooth and you can even see the windows of buildings clearly delineated. Vive Pro does not have as good FOV as pimax, but so far I rather fly missions with my Vive Pro. Once you find that sweet spot it’s actually amazing!

I never tried Vive Pro, previously I had owned Oculus Rift, so I can not tell anything about how is Pimax resolution compared with Vive Pro. I totally agree that DCS performance currently is not perfect: I can make everything smooth and sharp, but it require too much compromises for my taste. And although their latest PiTool with smart smoothing is definitely a step in the right direction, we are not quite there yet. Another 20-30% of performance, and hopefully I'll be satisfied. But still, I can not go back from wide FOV, not anymore. My biggest problem with Oculus was that I was unable to properly look around without breaking my neck.

Edited February 8, 2019 by Lehmen

[Dorianesque]

How would you compare your 5K+ and 8K in DCS ?

 

Think Pimax 5k+ will have better resolution than 8k. I saw Sweviver's youtube video where he explains that overall difference not being that significant between the %k+ and 8K , however he did say he cold read the cockpit gauges with the 5k+. I will continue to try different lower settings to see what I can get out. Also waiting for the 5k+ to arrive and then I will compare more in depth. Although I am no expert in this, but at least I will provide the settings that work for my GPU and CPU.

 

There was also a testing done for backers where they came in and compared and most said they would go with the 5k+ and not the 8K due to better resolution. Wish I would of seen that video before I ordered mine. Pimax 8k works GREAT in other VR games I must say, it's FOV ... well you know already. Good luck!

[Boris]

Technically speaking, the 5k+ doesn't have a "better" resolution than the 8k, because it actually has a lower resolution.

However, many have said that the 5k+ produces a "clearer" or "sharper" image and that and difference in SDE is worth it. It's supposed to be due to the linear instead of staggered pixel arrangement.

This is why so many have opted to change from the 8k to the 5k+.

[Dorianesque]

I never tried Vive Pro, previously I had owned Oculus Rift, so I can not tell anything about how is Pimax resolution compared with Vive Pro. I totally agree that DCS performance currently is not perfect: I can make everything smooth and sharp, but it require too much compromises for my taste. And although their latest PiTool with smart smoothing is definitely a step in the right direction, we are not quite there yet. Another 20-30% of performance, and hopefully I'll be satisfied. But still, I can not go back from wide FOV, not anymore. My biggest problem with Oculus was that I was unable to properly look around without breaking my neck.

 

I guess a lot of people skipped the Vive Pro thinking it was a rip off, I don't think that's the case. I understand it was expensive, but I had an Oculus Rift prior and never turned it back on after trying the Vive Pro on DCS.

 

It took a lot of time and changing settings and nothing happened until I started experimenting with downloading previous NVIDIA drivers versions until came across NVIDIA Driver Version 399.24 which gave me gave me much better resolution ( readable in cockpit gauges) and 40 FPS.

 

Then after reading Rages settings I bumped the hard drive parameters to render at 3 with Preferred Max Power and boom ! There it was , 70 to 90 FPS with Vive Pro and Latest DCS version Steam. while looking 90 degrees to either side flying downtown caucasus map, there was no stuttering and you could see clearly demarcated windows of buildings. Pimax 8k yet to be able to do this.Waiting for Pimax 5k+ and will sure to report.

 

So far FOV and probably it's more in my mind , but the sense of speed with Pimax 8k is more realistic than with Vive PRO.

 

At this point, it all has to do with being able to compromise. DCS is the best Flight Combat Sim worth waiting for best technology to make shine even more.

 

Thanks to all DCS pilots that contribute on here and more to those who share their settings. These will all vary according to your hardware.

 

I am going to update driver today and see what happens. Have a great weekend everyone!

[Buckeye]

Received Pimax 8k and not thinking of it as a second generation VR headset AT ALL. My Vive Pro gives me much better resolution and steady 60 to 80 FPS thanks to the suggestion of one of our own DCS pilots on our forum Rage.

 

I have tried every possible setting including different Nvidia driver versions, PiTool set to 0.5 , 1 and 1.5 and FOV to normal, small, rendering settings in game , Steam SS with different settings, GPU driver set at Preffered Maximum power , and render set to 3. All kinds of combinations of settings.

 

I’ve spent hours trying to get Pimax 8k give me acceptable results compared to Vive Pro, but seriously, resolution is much better with Vive Pro except for FOV which is a great pimax feature. Also sense of speed seems more realistic. Hornet feels to have a little less drag and less sluggish at slower speeds.

 

All other VR games give way better performance and this might have to do with DCS not being multi thread. Hope this is something that can be added / modified within the infrastructure of how the game is set up. At that point we’ll be getting way better frames and resolution and no stuttering. In the meantime, I will continue working on it, but I ran out of ideas.

 

Turning Anisotropic filtering inversely proportionate to in game VR render gives best results same way.

AF 16x with In game VR 0.6 gives me 60 -90 FPS

AF 2x and VR at 1.2 gives me same result on the Vive Pro.

 

I-7 8086K, Titan V

 

Lol'd at you saying the Pimax isn't a "true 2nd gen headset" based on the fact that DCS is so poorly optimized it doesn't run worth a shit on it :lol:

 

Sounds like a DCS problem, not a Pimax problem.

[33-DFTC]

Also waiting for the 5k+ to arrive and then I will compare more in depth.

 

I thought you already have a 5K+ since you already made an exhaustive comparison to the Vive Pro in a previous message. Well, thanks anyway.

[Dorianesque]

Lol'd at you saying the Pimax isn't a "true 2nd gen headset" based on the fact that DCS is so poorly optimized it doesn't run worth a shit on it :lol:

 

Sounds like a DCS problem, not a Pimax problem.

 

Glad I got a laugh out of you :thumbup: Yeah not even not even 45 FPS. Even compared to other games , asides the FOV , don't see it being that any better than Vive Pro.

[Buckeye]

Glad I got a laugh out of you :thumbup: Yeah not even not even 45 FPS. Even compared to other games , asides the FOV , don't see it being that any better than Vive Pro.

 

The resolution was never supposed to be better than the Vive Pro, the PPI is actually less if I recall correctly...but the pixel pattern lends to better text clarity. This is for the 5K+, I'm not as well versed on the 8K.

 

But yes, DCS is a disaster when it comes to VR optimization, so pretty much no one here is going to be able to get satisfactory performance out of it unfortunately. At least not until these so call "VR optimization/improvements" are finally released.

[Lehmen]

Glad I got a laugh out of you :thumbup: Yeah not even not even 45 FPS. Even compared to other games , asides the FOV , don't see it being that any better than Vive Pro.

It is second gen because of the FOV. Regarding resolution, current hardware having troubles to keep up even with Pimax. 2-3 times higher resolution with even wider FOV and less distortions would be 3rd gen already. But we need at least couple more generations of GPU for that to work.

[etherbattx]

DCS and Pimax

 

how much of a perf increase are we going to get with the upcoming optimizations?

2x? 3x? 5x?

[Svsmokey]

how much of a perf increase are we going to get with the upcoming optimizations?

2x? 3x? 5x?

 

Dreamer :)

[Harlikwin]

how much of a perf increase are we going to get with the upcoming optimizations?

2x? 3x? 5x?

 

 

LOL

[StandingCow]

I think the bigger deal for us DCS players will be fixed foveted rendering which should be in the next pitool version. Could potentially give us "up to" 25% performance gains. So, that mixed with hopefully some DCS optimizations will help us out.

[Buckeye]

DCS and Pimax

 

how much of a perf increase are we going to get with the upcoming optimizations?

2x? 3x? 5x?

 

 

 

In the past it’s usually gone something like this...

 

1) ED says improvements or optimizations are coming in a blanket statement, we anxiously await them

2) Two or three years pass with nothing more said by ED

3) Information and Details Start to be shared with us by ED, hype intensifies

4) Wags shows a video or steam on YouTube telling us how he has every setting on High with MSAA on and he is “Locked at X frames” and it’s a “great improvement we are really going to love”

5) It gets released, we actually have equal or less frames than before and we realize that Wags’ video was him flying in SP, alone, with no other units so it was a worthless performance baseline

6) See step 1

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[freehand]

LOL that just about sums it up.

[Wmacky]

The main issue I would assume is a lack of competition.

[33-DFTC]

Unfortunately you may be right. The fact that DCS stands alone in modern aerial warfare is not helping us to get the most from ED.

[SharpeXB]

I think the bigger deal for us DCS players will be fixed foveted rendering which should be in the next pitool version.

Forget fixed foveated. Looks like the new Vive Pro is actually getting eye tracking and foveated rendering

https://www.vive.com/eu/pro-eye/

*Content and graphics card compatibility required

[hansangb]

Unfortunately you may be right. The fact that DCS stands alone in modern aerial warfare is not helping us to get the most from ED.

 

It's just been *THREE* years since DK1 came out. I mean I want better performance, but let's give some credit to ED for jumping on the VR bandwagon early. You can't change an engine overnight to meet the demands of a new tech that's been in existence for 36 months.

[33-DFTC]

If no others sim developement teams did not offer much better performances within virtual reality I would totally agree with your statement, but the fact is others sims are well known to run way better than our own.

 

ED made a choice to go all in and lead a vast amount of projects simultaneously instead of focusing on small incremental updates of their product as the others dev teams chose to. Sure we're getting a lot more content from ED but at the cost of stability and consistency. I wish they could change their mind set about that. There is so much needed work to be done on core level assets of DCS.

 

I suppose we just have to deal with it.

[etherbattx]

the fact is others sims are well known to run way better than our own.

 

is that with the same environment, same AI, modeling and detail?