Great campaign, sucks in VR?

[witwas]

Hi Guys,

First of all, great campaign!, the issue I would like to address is off course out of control for the devs of this great product but I would like to seek advice regarding VR gameplay.

I would really like to play this campaign but after the two first missions I hade to stop because it’s almost unplayable in VR, I have a beefy PC with a 10900 and a gtx 3080 but the gameplay is so choppy it’s not fun anymore, I do not chase FPV’s but just want a playable setup.

I have an index and a quest 2, it is slightly better on the quest 2 but still not great. Even on the lowest settings it remains choppy.

Does anybody has played the full campaign in VR and maybe has some setting tips? I understand that there is a lot going on during a mission which tends to lower fps’s but I would really like to play this one.

[Hiob]

I think the problem is the Marianas Map.

I use an Index myself (also a 3080 like you) and while it is fine on caucasus or syria map, fps absolutely tank on the marianas map.

I don't have similar problems in pancake.

[Reflected]

I’m sure ED’s gonna optimize the map once it’s finished. Until then I can’t do much about it. 
 

the campaign has very few units and mainly old low poly ones. 
 

you could try to lower your settings until then, like ground shadows to flat or lower the visibility range and shadows to medium. 

[Hiob]

...and trees..... there are lots of trees..... ...and water.

[trevoC]

I played this entire campaign in VR (oc'd 20% 5900x, nvme, 3090)

Yes, Marianas map at low level is a bit of a bitch compared to others. In fact, I use the Huey Marianas free flight to setup DCS as my goto "does this setting give me more or less fps"

In general, when you start the free flight, take off and immediately fly right towards the ships/crane. I fly under the crane and measure my performance at that point.

My current setup gives me 40fps at the crane (All high, Extreme visibility, 4xMSAA, tree detail is like 0.2 but visibility is extreme, building detail is like 0.6) I'm running OpenXR with FOV rendering and upscaling (<Game changer btw). For comparison, in a fixed wing aircraft same settings on Caucus for instance I'll get 60-90 fps depending on aircraft and if I'm near a city, usually averages around 75 fps (almost double Marianas)

That being said, there were a few moments (getting shelled at fob berlin is the first time it happened I think) that dip low enough that my VR goes black. This surprised me as I was re-arming and trying to take off when it happened from berlin in a heavy huey... lets just say that didn't go well.

What most people forget and what happened here is that even though I'm setup to get around 40fps on Marianas, I'm not testing when  bombs are falling and events are being triggered.

DCS in general and my setup specifically are CPU limited. The 3090 is at low 60ish% utilization on Marianas during the huey test while my CPU is missing targets while flying under the crane.

The problem with being CPU limited is that when a campaign (or multiplayer server) has to calculate dynamic actions or events and draw more animations and vertices etc... (bombs falling, actions happening, Valkyries riding etc...) and you are already hitting limits, frames start dropping

This is why contrary to the belief that ED needs to make the game more GPU efficient, with the release of ever increasing graphics power available, Vulkan and Multi-Threading is infinitely more important. and most likely why you seem to only be having a problem while in a campaign, or this campaign. The events that are happening are pushing your CPU over the edge.

Now, the campaign creator could remove those events to prevent this from happening, but I didn't find this campaign particularly event happy (nodding at one of your WWII campaigns, blue nose i think with 4 million bombers, I digress... also not complaining, that shot was epic) back to removing events..... he could remove those events, but then it wouldn't be a campaign would it... it would just be free flight on Marianas map.

What really needs to be done if you want a great experience is to tune your setup to have a 20-40% headroom (depending on the campaign) to allow for the extra stuff that is about to happen. Of course, then you are wasting that headroom for general play which isn't ideal, so you might want to lower more CPU intesive tasks during campaign play only.

[YoYo]

Im thinking about this campaing (it has a little discount now) and I love Reflected Simulations campaignes... but .... Im afraid about FPS here (I fly only in VR).

Marianas map has known performance issue (however I change my GPU last time and it works quite ok from now). I'm curious how the VR campaign will work. 

[ShaunX]

On 1/22/2023 at 4:52 PM, YoYo said:

Im thinking about this campaing (it has a little discount now) and I love Reflected Simulations campaignes... but .... Im afraid about FPS here (I fly only in VR).

Marianas map has known performance issue (however I change my GPU last time and it works quite ok from now). I'm curious how the VR campaign will work. 

I also only fly in VR (5900x/3090/G2)

I'm flying this campaign at the moment and it's awesome in VR !  I'd flown Guam many times before, but Anderson, fully stocked and functioning, and in the right lighting is a sight to behold.

Must admit, I'm still on 2.7.18.30765 as I love flat shadows on and don't see any milage in upgrading to 2.8 yet.

So I'm flying OpenXR/Open Composite, WMR render scale at 120%, no OXRTK FSR or NIS oversampling (just a tad of sharpening), pretty much all DCS settings high and MSAA x2. In the campaign, which has pretty intense weather and plenty of AI I'm getting locked 30FPS with motion reprojection, which for me in the Huey is indistinguishable from locked 45.

I'm sure with your rig you'll be fine.

..so long as your idea of fun is trying to land your heavily overladen Huey with a couple of wingman Hueys, in a tiny jungle LZ on a slope, in semi-darkness and under fire from 3 sides