Strange interaction between VR pixel density setting and controller failure

[Crispus]

Hi All,

 

New to DCS, and I have a strange problem when I increase the pixel density to above 1.0 in the VR settings (in DCS world or through Oculus debug).

 

If I start a new mission (F/A-18C) then it will work for a short while before the controls freeze up totally. After this point I cannot interact with the simulation or access the menu through my HOTAS or my keyboard. It seems like this is triggered when I attempt to interact with cockpit controls such as DDI buttons or hard-wired functions like A/A or A/G buttons.

 

Meanwhile the simulation continues to run fine, it does not crash and there is no extra jitter or lag. Frame-rate remains as before also. The Oculus head tracking will also continue to work but I am a passenger in the aircraft.

 

If I change the pixel density back to 1.0 then the problem never happens, ever. The issue seems to be 100% repeatable, I have spent a few hours switching between settings (various different pixel densities from 1.1 through to 2.0) and have faced the same behavior consistently every time.

 

I have repaired the DCS World installation, but no change in behavior.

 

Has anyone else observed this behavior (I did search, honest!)?

 

PC Spec: i5-4670K @4.1GHz, 16GB RAM, EVGA GTX1080 SC

[eaglecash867]

What do you have your Rift's USB connector plugged into? This may be an issue with the Rift being a notorious USB bus power hog. I used to have the same issues with my Rift and my controllers until I bought one of these and installed it in my machine.

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FPIMJEW/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Crispus]

Thanks for taking time to help!

 

My Rift's USB connections are all going back to a dedicated PCIe - USB 3 Card similar to the one that you linked to. The keyboard and HOTAS are on the Motherboard USB, a mixture of USB2 and USB3.

 

Its probably worth noting that ctrl-alt-del still works to open task manager, and shut down DCS, but that ESC will not open the in-game menu in DCS. I think that the controllers are still working, Windows sees them, but DCS stops responding to them.

[eaglecash867]

That's really strange. Maybe DCS is losing the focus of the control inputs? Can you still click on things in DCS with your mouse, or does that go away too?

[Crispus]

I went back and did a bit more testing.

 

The problem is definitely initiated by interacting with the clickable cockpit. I flew around for several minutes and cycled through options available from my x52-pro HOTAS and everything was fine. As soon as I clicked on the A/G switch everything locks up. After that I cannot interact with the cockpit with the mouse, and all keyboard or x52 inputs are ignored. I would upload a track to illustrate, but can't because the only way to get out of DCS after this happens is via ctrl-alt-del so the track is never generated or saved as far as I can tell.

[Crispus]

I have reached something of a resolution. In short, 'Use Mouse' needs to be turned ON in VR settings.

 

To explain, I had 'Use Mouse' set to OFF because I didn't want my physical mouse to interfere with my interactions with the cockpit when using the VR viewpoint reticle (blue cross) and the mouse buttons on my HOTAS. This configuration works absolutely fine when the pixel density is set to 1.0.

 

If the pixel density is set to above 1.0 then the very first interaction that I make with the cockpit causes the freezing that I reported above.

 

With 'Use Mouse' set to ON then the freezing doesn't happen when pixel density is set to above 1.0.

 

From my perspective it is perfectly acceptable to leave use mouse turned ON and so I would say that the problem is resolved, but I am still curious about why it happens!