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Returning to DCS, new to VR - plea for help


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Hey guys, I've not really played DCS for many years but the new heli modules have finally drawn me back.

I was used to playing with TrackIR and multi-monitor but I've since got a far more powerful PC and VR equipment so naturally I'd like to be using that.

Now I'm a reasonably technical user with computers but I'm throwing in the towel at this point in totally failing to get VR up and running in DCS and I'm struggling to find any help or guides that are relevant. 

Is there please any beginners guides that will help?

I have a Vive Pro 2 (so not a Quest2 or Reverb2 or any other WMR headset), so I go via a Vive Console > Steam VR > DCS World OpenBeta

I have the OpenVR Debug tool enabled, and have set the DCS settings for VR (based on YT advice for other headsets) and I can get VR to run and the default DCS World menus seem to look and function ok in VR but when I go into to Fly my position in the cockpit is all wrong, I've got framerates slowing to a crawl, overlays from SteamVR 'Waiting for DCS' and just generally an awful experience.

Any help of advice appreciated, starting to loose my sanity when I want to be enjoying the Apache.

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@BigBANGtheory- I don't have a Vive Pro 2 (HP Reverb G2 user here). However, if you are a discord user I recommend heading over to 'VR4DCS' as they have a wealth of users who are likely to be able to assist. I think the direct channel for Vive users is here.

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Dedicated VR subforum here as well: https://forum.dcs.world/forum/302-virtual-reality/

 

Win11 Pro 64-bit, Ryzen 5800X3D, Corsair H115i, Gigabyte X570S UD, EVGA 3080Ti XC3 Ultra 12GB, 64 GB DDR4 G.Skill 3600. Monitors: LG 27GL850-B27 2560x1440 + Samsung SyncMaster 2443 1920x1200, HOTAS: Warthog with Virpil WarBRD base, MFG Crosswind combat pedals, TrackIR4, Rift-S.

Personal Wish List: A6 Intruder, Vietnam theater, decent ATC module, better VR performance!

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On 3/19/2022 at 1:01 PM, BigBANGtheory said:

...but when I go into to Fly my position in the cockpit is all wrong, I've got framerates slowing to a crawl, overlays from SteamVR 'Waiting for DCS' and just generally an awful experience.

Idk much about Vive and SteamVR with DCS but some things are common. After starting the mission and putting the headset on, always sit straight like you are ready to fly and press the reset view button/key (check controls > UI layer > recenter VR headset). Framerates depend on your hardware, graphic settings and the mission, so please, be very specific. Make sure you have set your Windows pagefile to 32GB and exclude DCS game folder from AV realtime scanning.


Edited by draconus

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Thanks for the tips its helped me get something going, I'm using a Vive Pro 2 with a 3080, 5800X and 32GB CL4 3600 on M2 drives

I think the two key frustrations I have with DCS and VR is:

1. Every guide you see goes along the lines of 'I have a Quest or Reverb and here is my guide' bespoke to the HMD and hardware of the individual, which I get because they are user guides and user created content - but there is next to nothing from ED themselves its like you're abandoned with no explanation on the settings involved.

2. The VR sub forum is very poorly organised it's basically for people that have VR up and running and for the community to chip in with their feedback and help, there is very little information and support from ED themselves. How for example would you even know you've got VR setup properly when there are options and sliders that all conflict between performance and quality. I get the user needs to do some tuning themselves but just a good explanation on where to start and what to tune, how to adjust is just absent its all individual experiences which is good of them to share but its soo frustrating when starting from scratch or if you're hardware isn't covered.

It's taken I think 8hrs with the key take away being the balance and effects between the DCS PD setting and SteamVR per eye resolution, and because my HMD has a much higher resolution than the Quest/Index etc their PD settings are completely unsustainable for me unless I lower my resolution.

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This is because every computer is different. This particularly applies to VR, which is the domain of high-end gaming rigs, which vary quite a bit. Even with the same headset, what works on a 3090 based rig will likely not on a 3080 or even 1080Ti based one. Then there's CPU (big deal for DCS ATM, due to being singlethreaded), there's type and amount of RAM, there's storage (I got a huge performance boost from switching to SSD, not something you'd expect), there's other factors as well. Plus, what is "comfortable" VR performance varies greatly from person to person. Then, you have to factor in the mission you're flying, heavy scripting or lots of AI will bog a CPU-limited system down. 

VR is still young, and this means people are still figuring out what's best. Drivers still have issues, and we don't even have direct support for anything but Oculus and SteamVR. I hope they can get WMR directly supported someday.

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@BigBANGtheory you're free to go and write your gripe here:

https://forum.dcs.world/forum/207-dcs-wishlist/

There's plenty of options in DCS and external software to tune your VR experience to your liking, and that's good. That's a lot of settings and it's pretty complex, I get it. That's why if you don't want to do it and learn all by yourself you use a guide or even simply leave the default settings and enjoy. In DCS options > system there are these 4 simple buttons - VR, Low, Medium, High - use it if you don't have time or wish to fiddle with advanced settings.

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23 minutes ago, draconus said:

@BigBANGtheory you're free to go and write your gripe here:

https://forum.dcs.world/forum/207-dcs-wishlist/

There's plenty of options in DCS and external software to tune your VR experience to your liking, and that's good. That's a lot of settings and it's pretty complex, I get it. That's why if you don't want to do it and learn all by yourself you use a guide or even simply leave the default settings and enjoy. In DCS options > system there are these 4 simple buttons - VR, Low, Medium, High - use it if you don't have time or wish to fiddle with advanced settings.

Having the options is a good thing yes I agree, having very little in the way of explanation especially at the start is not good.

Yes you have VR settings and defaults inside the DCS settings but if your PD and or SteamVR res is too high you're completely knackered until by trial and error you figure it out. Now you could say as a user the onus is on you to know how to do these things but the reality* is things like your SteamVR res might work perfectly fine in other VR titles so why would you know to change them in DCS 🤪 

What's missing is a Start here guide to get you running with ok performance (assuming you've got the hardware) then tune these quality settings to your liking and here is what they do in relation to cockpit gauges/text and external focus/detail.

Maybe I could make a guide 🤨

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4 minutes ago, BigBANGtheory said:

What's missing is a Start here guide to get you running with ok performance (assuming you've got the hardware) then tune these quality settings to your liking and here is what they do in relation to cockpit gauges/text and external focus/detail.

Maybe I could make a guide 🤨

But there are many guides and videos, users have DCS User Manual in DCS\doc folder and ED is working on pop up short messages when hovering over the options - some are already implemented. Still, remember VR is minority in DCS.

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On 3/22/2022 at 10:28 AM, BigBANGtheory said:

It's taken I think 8hrs with the key take away being the balance and effects between the DCS PD setting and SteamVR per eye resolution,

Well that might be one of the reasons for your frustration. Both DCS PD and SteamVR setting do the same thing: They change the rendered resolution. Dont adjust both, leave PD at 1.0 and adjust within SteamVR. That way you will always know the exact resolution that is being rendered.

On 3/22/2022 at 11:38 AM, BigBANGtheory said:

Yes you have VR settings and defaults inside the DCS settings but if your PD and or SteamVR res is too high you're completely knackered until by trial and error you figure it out.

That´s not exclusive to VR, if you use an 8K monitor for DCS, the "medium" setting might not work, but "high" might work perfectly fine in 1080p.
Minecraft might run perfectly fine in 4k on max. settings, but Cyberpunk does not... It´s always trial and error.

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On 3/22/2022 at 10:38 AM, BigBANGtheory said:

Having the options is a good thing yes I agree, having very little in the way of explanation especially at the start is not good.

Yes you have VR settings and defaults inside the DCS settings but if your PD and or SteamVR res is too high you're completely knackered until by trial and error you figure it out. Now you could say as a user the onus is on you to know how to do these things but the reality* is things like your SteamVR res might work perfectly fine in other VR titles so why would you know to change them in DCS 🤪 

What's missing is a Start here guide to get you running with ok performance (assuming you've got the hardware) then tune these quality settings to your liking and here is what they do in relation to cockpit gauges/text and external focus/detail.

Maybe I could make a guide 🤨

There's way too much info already out there, makign a guide will bury it in this weeks videos but feel free.
1. Launch your VR via steam
2. Launch DCS.
3. Go to settings (cog)
4. On SYSTEM  tab, click VR preset
5. Go to VR tab
6. settings, Click enable Virtual Reality Headset. (This setting will be persistent, you can use shortcuts or a launcher to switch directly in the future)

System restarts in VR (Put facemask on).

Play and adjust for your own FPS comfort level. What I know is that people are not the same and they will choose to give up more for FPS or want more for this setting or that, but that's entirely up to you, there is some guides out there for each one, but there is no fixed method or certainty that X feature removes Y FPS, it depends mostly on the mission, then the resolution/supersampling (Steam Super Sampling in Steam VR) and Pixel Density (PD) in game. Remember you do not use MSAA or SSAO. Start with the VR setting and a quickstart mission.

For 2 bucks get "fpsVR" which will give you access to performance information which can be used to tune further. You can't escape tuning because there is a simple fact. You are not allowed to have all of the frames, you have to give up some in exchange for the pretties. Pretties vs frames is the endless choice.
With fpsVR tune based on multiplayer since the CPU usage is higher compared to the offline which you will bottle neck the GPU first. Use a baseline that makes sense. Typically there is an element of degradation when the frametime reaches red. Frametime can go from 12 to 30 to get from green to red. Adding settings usually adds one or two milliseconds frametime per feature.

Anything else is past beginner level.

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On 3/23/2022 at 3:29 PM, Eugel said:

Well that might be one of the reasons for your frustration. Both DCS PD and SteamVR setting do the same thing: They change the rendered resolution. Dont adjust both, leave PD at 1.0 and adjust within SteamVR. That way you will always know the exact resolution that is being rendered.

That has to be the most useful bit of information I've seen so far, thank you - Why isn't that explained somewhere in like capital letters?

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On 3/23/2022 at 3:52 PM, Pikey said:

There's way too much info already out there, makign a guide will bury it in this weeks videos but feel free.
1. Launch your VR via steam
2. Launch DCS.
3. Go to settings (cog)
4. On SYSTEM  tab, click VR preset
5. Go to VR tab
6. settings, Click enable Virtual Reality Headset. (This setting will be persistent, you can use shortcuts or a launcher to switch directly in the future)

System restarts in VR (Put facemask on).

That is where it all went wrong, because whilst DCS started in VR mode the results were so bad I couldn't even click on the menus it was taking 30s or more to render frames. What you actually need to do is lower the PD to 1.0 and bring the SteamVR per eye res down to 100% (or something like that) to be in a position where you can tune the other settings. I do have fpsVR and yes I agree its an invaluable tool it was how I was able to eventually get the sim started.

So is it true then what Eugel said about PD and SteamVR being the same adjustment just one is in DCS and the other external therefore to leave PD fixed and only adjust the other?

What target frametime should I be aiming for, is 30ms ok for 'most people'?

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PD and SteamVR Super Sampling are not the same code but they are the same thing, more pixels/resolution. Community has swung on when is more performant, the only consensus I recall is lower PD and use higher SSS. I use 1.0 and I can go to 130% on Steam, depending on mission. SInce DCS is in open development this can change.

The only way you can get a juddery mess in the menu system is by wrecking something outside of DCS. In the menu system most people will get 90 fps until maps and such get loaded in. If you meant something completely different with the word "menus" then please be more detailed, since you can get issues joining servers in MP if they are struggling under certain circumstances.

Target frames sub 30ms. outside of MP you should have a lower CPU frametime, inside a MP mission the CPU will begin to overtake and thats when performance bottlenecks elsewhere. You target what you play in consistently. The main change is what you play, not so much your settings unless you do something crazy to the supersampling. Aim to keep CPU and GPU frametimes together.

Often to rescue VR performance restart the PC, fo some reason, it can sometimes go into a mess for no reason. Can be affected by latency to the server even, I've seen people mass join servers, server starts to drop frames, players start to drop frames and its nowt to do with the graphics.

One of the worst offenders people moan about is on patch day when their shadres recompile and there's a juddery mess.  Can watch that in the dcs.log The simple solution to that is allow your PC to run some heavy unit missions offline in 2D until it stops ebfore trying to run that in VR.

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