Seperate VR and non-VR Desktop Icons?

[ESzczesniak]

I have a somewhat split personality flying DCS.  A portion of my time I "fly" more.  These are things like carrier patterns, dogfights, etc where VR is very nice and immersive.  The other portion is systems "study" where the high resolution of a monitor and easy access to manual, keyboards, etc make a traditional monitor more preferred. 

 

At the moment, I've been switching between VR in the options menu which then requires a restart.  I don't know how realistic there is, but would there be any way of having one icon that launches the sim with a VR group of settings and another with a monitor group of settings?  I don't know if there could be some batch file, etc that could change things before starting the sim.  Thanks for any thoughts!

[unlikely_spider]

SkateZilla's DCS Updater GUI Utility does the trick when it comes to separate settings launching DCS without having to restart. You can make a keyboard shortcut for that, but not two for each profile I think.

[t1mb0b]

you mean like

VR:

DCS.exe

 

2D:

DCS.exe --force_disable_VR

 

As for options for each environment, i think it's just ....Saved Games\DCS\Config\options.lua you need to copy in for each environment in your .bat file, worlds your oyster as they say.

 

HTH

Edited April 10, 2021 by t1mb0b

[ESzczesniak]

1 hour ago, t1mb0b said:

you mean like

VR:

DCS.exe

 

2D:

DCS.exe --force_disable_VR

 

As for options for each environment, i think it's just ....Saved Games\DCS\Config\options.lua you need to copy in for each environment in your .bat file, worlds your oyster as they say.

 

HTH

 

 

Yes, although if easy enough I might tweak some additional graphics settings since I can push the eye candy higher in 2D.  Looks like I might need to do some reading to figure out how to make a .bat file.

 

EDIT: I wonder if anyone could tell me if the options.lua has the selected controller profile.  I'd love to have the HAT switch pan in 2D mode and be the trimmer in VR.

Edited April 10, 2021 by ESzczesniak

[ESzczesniak]

1 hour ago, unlikely_spider said:

SkateZilla's DCS Updater GUI Utility does the trick when it comes to separate settings launching DCS without having to restart. You can make a keyboard shortcut for that, but not two for each profile I think.

 

I also need to look in to this option as well.

[unlikely_spider]

5 hours ago, ESzczesniak said:

 

I also need to look in to this option as well.

It is very handy. I use that most often now, instead of the normal DCS executable. You can create multiple profiles with their own graphics options, and just select which one to launch in a drop down list.

[Slo-Mo]

I built myself a simple .cmd file that uses pre-set .lua config files to change the settings in DCS as to my choice as I only have one installation of DCS (Open Beta). I also use it to set sound device and volume (with nircmd) and to start other necessary programs that I want in conduction with DCS, like TrackIR, VoiceAttack and DCS Simple Radio. I also have a line in it to change the .lua file for my Joystick as I want to have the same Zoom buttons in VR (for muscle memory reasons) as I have when I am flying with Track IR. When I select a Track IR option, the VR-joystick file is removed so the basic Zoom settings in Control apply again (and not VR Zoom in UI Layer).

 

I have attached it so use if you like. Paths etc. has to be changed ofc. as they are related to my config/setup. The .cmd file resides in Saved Games/DCS.openbeta/Config directory and I have made a shortcut to it on my desktop.

 

Cheers

 

 

DCS Start menu.cmd

Edited April 11, 2021 by jonass1

[ESzczesniak]

7 hours ago, jonass1 said:

I built myself a simple .cmd file that uses pre-set .lua config files to change the settings in DCS as to my choice as I only have one installation of DCS (Open Beta). I also use it to set sound device and volume (with nircmd) and to start other necessary programs that I want in conduction with DCS, like TrackIR, VoiceAttack and DCS Simple Radio. I also have a line in it to change the .lua file for my Joystick as I want to have the same Zoom buttons in VR (for muscle memory reasons) as I have when I am flying with Track IR. When I select a Track IR option, the VR-joystick file is removed so the basic Zoom settings in Control apply again (and not VR Zoom in UI Layer).

 

I have attached it so use if you like. Paths etc. has to be changed ofc. as they are related to my config/setup. The .cmd file resides in Saved Games/DCS.openbeta/Config directory and I have made a shortcut to it on my desktop.

 

Cheers

 

 

DCS Start menu.cmd 4.23 kB · 7 downloads

 

 

Thank you!  I think this is the path I want to go.  I just need to learn a little bit about the command/code lines so I can edit and/or create.  Thank you for sharing!

[ESzczesniak]

Jonass1, thank you for the idea/example file.  I don't run almost any external programs (occasionally VoiceAttack).  So I reconfigured this to simply switch settings before running the main DCS executable.  This switches options.luas and Joystick *.diff.lua files with 3 basic configurations of VR, 2D in 4k, and 2D at 1920x1080.  When I fly in 2D, I use a 4k TV, but when I'm troubleshooting I prefer to use my desktop monitor.  This is all working beautifully.

 

If it's not too much trouble, could I ask where you found the official Windows name for your sound devices for the nircmd tool?  I like your idea of ensuring the sound is set to either speakers or the VR headset.  However, when I take what's in my sound settings page of Windows (Speakers (High Definition Audio Device) or Headphones (Realtek USB2.0 Audio)), this portion of the cmd doesn't seem to do anything.  No errors are returned, so I think it's finding the programs appropriately.  But no changes are made. 

Edited April 11, 2021 by ESzczesniak

[Slo-Mo]

Glad to hear it is working to your liking! As for the name of the sound devices they are names that I have set myself. You can do that under Windows Start button, select Settings, select System and then Sound. There you have the option of naming your different sound-out-put devices, like headphones or VR headsets. Make sure that WRM is active before doing so, otherwise your VR headset will not show up.

 

As for nircmd i would suggest putting in a "timeout /t 5" in your .cmd file after it starts Steam VR for your VR option. I have found that WRM and Steam VR takes a bit of time to start up which makes the VR headset not being set as default sound device quick enough. That in turn means that the nircmd command in the file gets executed but have no effect since it cannot find the device.

 

Cheers

Edited April 12, 2021 by jonass1