Why is DCS in VR with 12th & 13th gen CPU, DDR5, and 4090 so applalingly slow?

[Clogger]

Just been away for 7 weeks working, updated and booted up open Beta, it's an absolute mess. Hats off for the improvements in the modules but the game is absolutely borked for VR.

Gonna put the HOTAS away and just play some 2D games as DCS in its current state for VR is not playable. Hopefully by the time the CH46 gets released ED have improved the engine. Every update ruins performance unfortunately.  

[trevoC]

I play DCS in VR without issue. "not playable" is a bit hyperbolic.

[Wolf8312]

On 1/21/2023 at 5:20 PM, trevoC said:

I play DCS in VR without issue. "not playable" is a bit hyperbolic.

I can know the frustration though. I was once waiting for promised performance improvements on a 1080 Ti i7 system and what I got instead was an update one day that made things unplayble! I got a new rig and was flying 2.7 pretty happy. Then I got 2.8 and the same story. The dreaded DCS update!

I can still play OK for now, but for how long will I be able to keep my head above water?

I play a game like VTOL, and honest to God, fancy graphics are nice, but really don't matter much in VR as long as the graphics are tidy and not a shimmering mess. That's why rfactor actually looks better in VR than project cars IMO, because all the graphical bells and whistles not only degrade performance but visually actually tend to just clutter things up.

Unfortunately VTOL has no HOTAS support and feels off for me (though its great being able to interact with the cockpit) but it really does a good job of showing that many of the graphical improvements that DCS gets are mostly not really things that we even need in VR because all we need/want is better performance. Real immersion comes first and foremost with a butter smooth and constant FPS, and everything else is secondary.

I personally think a VR version of DCS that subtracted features would be far better for us than one that constantly adds more on! But unfortunately we are clearly not the target market, and no wonder, when even top end rigs are spluttering! 

But... DCS is with all it's problems still the best VR flight sim I own. And that's why it's so painful...

Edited January 23, 2023 by Wolf8312

[trevoC]

7 hours ago, Wolf8312 said:

I can know the frustration though. I was once waiting for promised performance improvements on a 1080 Ti i7 system and what I got instead was an update one day that made things unplayble! I got a new rig and was flying 2.7 pretty happy. Then I got 2.8 and the same story. The dreaded DCS update!

I can still play OK for now, but for how long will I be able to keep my head above water?

I play a game like VTOL, and honest to God, fancy graphics are nice, but really don't matter much in VR as long as the graphics are tidy and not a shimmering mess. That's why rfactor actually looks better in VR than project cars IMO, because all the graphical bells and whistles not only degrade performance but visually actually tend to just clutter things up.

Unfortunately VTOL has no HOTAS support and feels off for me (though its great being able to interact with the cockpit) but it really does a good job of showing that many of the graphical improvements that DCS gets are mostly not really things that we even need in VR because all we need/want is better performance. Real immersion comes first and foremost with a butter smooth and constant FPS, and everything else is secondary.

I personally think a VR version of DCS that subtracted features would be far better for us than one that constantly adds more on! But unfortunately we are clearly not the target market, and no wonder, when even top end rigs are spluttering! 

But... DCS is with all it's problems still the best VR flight sim I own. And that's why it's so painful...

 

Totally get where you are coming from but thats what the graphics settings are for.

If I can run VR on HIGH/Ultra settings and get 45-85 fps there is tons of room for improvement. I can't speak for everyones setup but I have little to no issues with updates or performance. Yes, it took some time to get it right, a straight install with high/ultra would probably net me 25-35 fps but it is pretty easy to achieve much better results with openXR. If your setup can run openXR i can't recommend it enough.

I do realize that for many it would be nice to just boot up and work, but every minute of setup time pays off divedens in the future. I don't even think of my rig and I haven't for ages. Just boot and play. That being said, I did spend a while chasing fps to get it just right, glad I did because I was medium/low settings to get above 45 fps prior. 

DCS is no worse off in my case than MSFS is. They're flight sims. No sooner than rigs caught up to flight sims in ultra 4k along comes VR to raise the bar <sigh>.

[Steel Jaw]

How do I know which cores are the "P"s in performance lasso?

[Wolf8312]

15 hours ago, trevoC said:

Totally get where you are coming from but thats what the graphics settings are for.

If I can run VR on HIGH/Ultra settings and get 45-85 fps there is tons of room for improvement. I can't speak for everyones setup but I have little to no issues with updates or performance. Yes, it took some time to get it right, a straight install with high/ultra would probably net me 25-35 fps but it is pretty easy to achieve much better results with openXR. If your setup can run openXR i can't recommend it enough.

I do realize that for many it would be nice to just boot up and work, but every minute of setup time pays off divedens in the future. I don't even think of my rig and I haven't for ages. Just boot and play. That being said, I did spend a while chasing fps to get it just right, glad I did because I was medium/low settings to get above 45 fps prior. 

DCS is no worse off in my case than MSFS is. They're flight sims. No sooner than rigs caught up to flight sims in ultra 4k along comes VR to raise the bar <sigh>.

Yeah you ain't wrong about open XR/toolkit. It makes perfromance much better but also seems to make the graphics look better somehow, but not least because one can alter color/appearence settings.

[Steel Jaw]

4 minutes ago, Wolf8312 said:

Yeah you ain't wrong about open XR/toolkit. It makes perfromance much better but also seems to make the graphics look better somehow, but not least because one can alter color/appearence settings.

Does this work with OIculus 2 non-steam VR?

[Wolf8312]

30 minutes ago, Steel Jaw said:

Does this work with OIculus 2 non-steam VR?

Yeah I'm pretty sure it does. Download open XR toolkit companion. Then follow instructions here: https://gitlab.com/znixian/OpenOVR

Most salient instructions being:

"Download the DLLs: 32-bit 64-bit

These come from AppVeyor - whenever I push some new code, it will be compiled and uploaded to those links automatically.

Find your game's openvr_api.dll file, and replace it (though I highly recommend keeping a copy of the old file if you want to switch back) with one of the DLLs available above. Be sure to get the matching platform - if the game is a 32-bit game you need the 32-bit DLL, even though you're probably running a 64-bit computer. Simple solution: if one doesn't work, try the other.

Some time in the near future I plan to release a system-wide install - run an EXE and all your games will open via OpenComposite, and you'll be able to switch back by starting SteamVR. This will make updating much easier."

Remove the api file from the DCS bin folder and replace it with the 64 bit api mentioned above. Back up the original DCS file though. In game press the activate keys (see instructions from XR toolkit companion).

I wouldn't use open composite by itself though as you want the toolkit overlay as then you can really tweak things.

 

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Wolf8312

[Clogger]

On 1/21/2023 at 9:20 AM, trevoC said:

I play DCS in VR without issue. "not playable" is a bit hyperbolic.

 

Nope, VR is currently a mess. I have gone from a pretty good place in terms of performance to a joke. ED does many great things with DCS but VR aint one of them unfortunately. 

Others can feel free to do ED's work for them by doing hours on end of tweaking but it has got to the stage where honestly I cant be arsed , I have limited gaming time available and while I certainty don't expect it to be plug and play I am not willing anymore to waste my hobby time messing around , OMMV.

Hopefully multicore will sort a lot of this out , but that still sounds like a pipe dream. 

Edit:

I know I am ranting , but got to vent somewhere right. 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Clogger

[Baltic Pirate]

On 1/21/2023 at 9:14 AM, Clogger said:

Just been away for 7 weeks working, updated and booted up open Beta, it's an absolute mess. Hats off for the improvements in the modules but the game is absolutely borked for VR.

Gonna put the HOTAS away and just play some 2D games as DCS in its current state for VR is not playable. Hopefully by the time the CH46 gets released ED have improved the engine. Every update ruins performance unfortunately.  

After updating to 2.8, stutters are quite bad in VR. Not unplayable, BUT certainly not as much fun as it was before. Im thinking about rolling back to 2.7.

 

[trevoC]

8 hours ago, Clogger said:

 

Nope, VR is currently a mess. I have gone from a pretty good place in terms of performance to a joke. ED does many great things with DCS but VR aint one of them unfortunately. 

Others can feel free to do ED's work for them by doing hours on end of tweaking but it has got to the stage where honestly I cant be arsed , I have limited gaming time available and while I certainty don't expect it to be plug and play I am not willing anymore to waste my hobby time messing around , OMMV.

Hopefully multicore will sort a lot of this out , but that still sounds like a pipe dream. 

Edit:

I know I am ranting , but got to vent somewhere right. 

 

Thats <profanity>ty, but it just isn't my experience.

All of the "tweaking" was not to get around anything other than finding the balance that my system can offer me. I don't have any different experiences in any other VR software either.

Other than these forums, I just don't think about performance in DCS at the moment. My setup is running a solid 45-85 save a few outliers like the ww2 mission with 100 bombers when they drop their load... that doesn't play well, but I've finished 3 campaigns in the current setup with no major issues. The toughest was UH-1 in huey at marianas where there were 2 moments with a lot of AI stuff happening where it was a slide show for about 10 seconds while I was on the ground.

[Steel Jaw]

13 hours ago, Baltic Pirate said:

Im thinking about rolling back to 2.7.

How would one do that please?

[Baltic Pirate]

18 minutes ago, Steel Jaw said:

How would one do that please?

 

[Steel Jaw]

On 1/23/2023 at 10:06 PM, Steel Jaw said:

How do I know which cores are the "P"s in performance lasso?

Same question please.