ALWAYS Run DCS in full screen on your monitor

[Thick8]

I was surprised that everyone doesn't know to do this in VR.

The game display on your monitor doesn't take any extra horse power to be shown there. What does take extra horse power is your video card having to draw your desktop and the game on your monitor.

If you look when in full screen you will notice that what is being displayed on the monitor is just a stretched view of what's on your HMD so there is no extra pixels being drawn and shaded.

I find that all of my VR game benefit from doing this. Some games I have to ALT+TAB and ALT+ENTER to make sure it's full screen but the effort is well worth it.

[streakeagle]

Can you provide data that supports merely checking the "full screen" option to make useful performance gains and/or reduce stuttering, etc.?

 

What I do know is that checking the "full screen" option used to cause some bugs in DCS World years ago. I looked up the bugs in the forum, saw the solution was to uncheck "full screen" and never looked back.

[Hippo]

Just tried this. On my system, having full screen ticked or not makes no discernible difference whatsoever.

[RePhil]

just checking Full screen box will not make it launch full screen in VR u need to hit left alt enter after it loads to get full screen

[Hippo]

just checking Full screen box will not make it launch full screen in VR u need to hit left alt enter after it loads to get full screen

 

Not sure whether you're replying to me, but, yes I had to go alt-enter to go fullscreen, however, after doing that, in terms of performance:

 

on my system, having full screen ticked or not makes no discernible difference whatsoever.

[NeilWillis]

It helps - mainly because it prevents you clicking outside the window when you reach for switches at the extremities in the cockpit. So yeas, it is essential - does it improve frame rates? Don't think so, but it doesn't hurt.

 

You always need to go to full screen using alt-enter. Checking the full screen option doesn't work, and hasn't for at least a year. A fix for that would be very useful now we have 2.5 in a stable form.

[Hippo]

It helps - mainly because it prevents you clicking outside the window when you reach for switches at the extremities in the cockpit. So yeas, it is essential - does it improve frame rates? Don't think so, but it doesn't hurt.

 

There is an option in Settings -> VR : "Cursor confined to game window" which accomplishes the same thing. I sometimes find it very useful to have the spare desktop space available for other windows. I will be keeping the fullscreen option in DCS unticked for now.

[S-GERAT]

In my case if I don't do ALT+ENTER I get a lot of stutters.. I was disabling ASW to avoid the stutters until I find that pushing fullscreen works fine.

[Hippo]

I was surprised that everyone doesn't know to do this in VR.

The game display on your monitor doesn't take any extra horse power to be shown there. What does take extra horse power is your video card having to draw your desktop and the game on your monitor.

If you look when in full screen you will notice that what is being displayed on the monitor is just a stretched view of what's on your HMD so there is no extra pixels being drawn and shaded.

I find that all of my VR game benefit from doing this. Some games I have to ALT+TAB and ALT+ENTER to make sure it's full screen but the effort is well worth it.

 

I'd be very grateful if you could:

 

- Explain how you have tested to come to your conclusion

- Quantify your findings

 

Your argument does sound reasonable, although I suspect that in practice any gains are negligible on today's systems. I notice that you are not using a Rift, so are presumably not running the Oculus software layer; I think that probably makes your system different enough from mine so that comparisons may not be completely valid.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Hippo
clarity

[dureiken]

I tried alt+enter in DCS, going to fullscreen or not, and FPS were exactly the same

[Kayos]

Is there a way to make it your screens actual resolution when you Alt+Enter? It seems to be some low res and stretched image (I'm on Ultra-wide)

[streakeagle]

FPS alone doesn't tell the whole story. But I would be surprised if the desktop needed any refreshing while flying in DCS and even more surprised if the cpu/gpu resources required to do so impacted the in-game experience in any way on a high end system with a 1080 GTX gpu.

[NineGzuz]

Has anyone tried playing with Windows 10 game mode on/off? Does it help with VR?

[NeilWillis]

There is an option in Settings -> VR : "Cursor confined to game window" which accomplishes the same thing. I sometimes find it very useful to have the spare desktop space available for other windows. I will be keeping the fullscreen option in DCS unticked for now.

 

Yes, there is, and no it doesn't stop you clicking outside the window when working in the extremities of VR.

 

Hence the need to run in full screen, and also the fact that the check box for running in full screen doesn't work either, as already stated!

[BigDuke6ixx]

Yes, there is, and no it doesn't stop you clicking outside the window when working in the extremities of VR.

Hence the need to run in full screen, and also the fact that the check box for running in full screen doesn't work either, as already stated!

 

You can reposition the taskbar to the vertical edge of the screen and that does the same job as full screen as far as losing focus is concerned.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

I don't notice any performance difference either, and I like keeping an eye on Discord through the nose peek hole while flying :-)

[toutenglisse]

1 year ago I tried to put a second gpu on my system just to put the screen on it (so desktop + oculus left eye) to test the load.

The screen used 2-3 % load (in peak!) of the second gpu (970). Very little.

BTW that didn't work with DCS (for DCS to work it needed oculus rift and screen on the main gpu), only with oculus store titles.

With VR very little save can't help (it's rare for you to miss 1% power to reach 45fps and so ASW to kick in, or 90fps .....)

I tried but noticed nothing from using fullscreen.

[streakeagle]

I haven't had any problems with my mouse going outside of the DCS window while in VR. My checkbox is set to constrain the mouse to the game.

[Spetz]

I run the desktop resolution the smallest possible with VR. I figure it might add an FPS or two as VR doesn't care what the desktop res is set to. And never had my mouse cursor go outside of it unless I alt-tab to do it.

[NeilWillis]

You can reposition the taskbar to the vertical edge of the screen and that does the same job as full screen as far as losing focus is concerned.

 

No, it just moves the task bar to a place where you click less often.

 

Full screen works very well, so why complicate things by screwing up everything else you do on your PC?

[BigDuke6ixx]

No, it just moves the task bar to a place where you click less often.

 

Full screen works very well, so why complicate things by screwing up everything else you do on your PC?

 

Completely incorrect. In windowed mode, with the taskbar at the bottom, it's possible to hit the taskbar, in fact it's inevitable, but you can never do that with the taskbar at the side. It's very handy to have the desktop right there if you need it.

 

So to recap: you are completely wrong about the taskbar at the side also being a problem.

[SkateZilla]

ALT+ENTER

[katdog 5.0]

heh

[BadK]

Tee hee

[Insonia]

if alt+enter change the fps. that mean the WDM or other apps on desktop is consuming the resource. Like wallpaper engine.