fixed Latest Oculus v63 PTC build crashing DCS when used on Oculus Link

[Bri01]

Well just for sake I tried steamvr Believe me that's not a workaround. It's unplayable. Way too slow. So still waiting on Ed. Which knowing them could be a loooong time. 

[tribbin]

1 minute ago, Bri01 said:

Well just for sake I tried steamvr Believe me that's not a workaround. It's unplayable. Way too slow. So still waiting on Ed. Which knowing them could be a loooong time. 

I tried it too, but I get motion sick when screens don't move with my head movement and the epileptic flickering is torture.

[alfalima2]

On 2/28/2024 at 3:51 PM, Lange_666 said:

You can block the Oculus app from updating:
Simply browse to C:\Program Files\Oculus (or where you installed your application)
Create a new file called Staging (with no extension)
Create a new file called tmp (also, no extension)
rename folder \Staging to bak.Staging
rename folder \tmp to bak.tmp

This blocks the update. When there is an update, you still get a notification that there is an update and that it is in progress but if you check it's shows as queued and the update will be blocked.
Just reverse the steps and restart the app to let the update go through.

I just made this change to the file structure to prevent the upgrade to Oculus ver 63. If anyone is on Windows 11 and struggling with this change because of "Access denied" error, first login as Administrator in Windows, then rename the folders first, create the Staging.txt and tmp.txt files using file explorer. Once you do that then use cmd to rename Staging.txt to Staging (ren Staging.txt Staging) and also for tmp.

To sign in as Administrator, I had to first run cmd "net user administrator /active:yes". Then when you click on the windows icons, you should see Administrator as a user you can switch to.

Hopefully this will prevent updates to Oculus sw until the issues are resolved with DCS.

[yoadknux]

On 3/22/2024 at 8:19 PM, slughead said:

Why aren’t you on Meta’s forum complaining about it? This isn’t Eagle Dynamics doing. This is solely down to Meta. So go complain there if you don’t want this happening again.

I asked Meta to allow rollbacks. What makes you think I didnt? 

Whatever, this is just another absurd issue of the "sim experience" where you spend more time troubleshooting or waiting for fixes than playing 

[BIGNEWY]

Just now, yoadknux said:

Whatever, this is just another absurd issue of the "sim experience" where you spend more time troubleshooting or waiting for fixes than playing 

It certainly is an inconvenience and totally understand the frustration. 

As soon as I do have a patch date I will let you all know.  

[kilux]

 

This worked for me, DCS started with openXR with all the settings I had for my Valve Index I used before.

I literally got my Quest 3 two hours ago and was wondering what was going on. Found this thread on Reddit (via VR4DCS Discord)

 

[mbucchia]

I wasn't going to release this, but given that this crap show has been going on for too long now (and the cat has been out of the bag on reddit), here is an alternative OpenXR implementation for Oculus Link (air or cable) that currently works without issues with DCS:

https://github.com/mbucchia/VirtualDesktop-OpenXR/releases/tag/1.0.3

This is the same implementation users of Virtual Desktop have been able to enjoy for a while now, except you can use it without Virtual Desktop. It comes as-is with no extended support. All you need to do is run the installer and you will be all set. Check out the instructions in the link to also switch back and forth between this and other OpenXR runtimes if needed.

I will still recommend to you all to consider Virtual Desktop, which is a much better experience that Oculus Link. But if you resist, well you can try the workaround above with Oculus Link.

Hope it will help a few.

PS: Cheers to @MoleUK who's been testing it with DCS and reporting success.

Edited March 26 by mbucchia

[Mausar]

Thank You Mr. mbucchia it works great!!! Even if I put my VR of my head game not crash. Just amazing after so much waiting.

[mbucchia]

See my other post below for an alternative:

 

[Cooper21]

32 minutes ago, mbucchia said:

I wasn't going to release this, but given that this crap show has been going on for too long now (and the cat has been out of the bag on reddit), here is an alternative OpenXR implementation for Oculus Link (air or cable) that currently works without issues with DCS:

https://github.com/mbucchia/VirtualDesktop-OpenXR/releases/tag/1.0.3

This is the same implementation users of Virtual Desktop have been able to enjoy for a while now, except you can use it without Virtual Desktop. It comes as-is with no extended support. All you need to do is run the installer and you will be all set. Check out the instructions in the link to also switch back and forth between this and other OpenXR runtimes if needed.

I will still recommend to you all to consider Virtual Desktop, which is a much better experience that Oculus Link. But if you resist, well you can try the workaround above with Oculus Link.

Hope it will help a few.

PS: Cheers to @MoleUK who's been testing it with DCS and reporting success.

 

Which launch properties are you using with this? So far, I have not had any success launching DCS after switching to VDXR runtime using Link Cable.

Edited March 26 by Cooper21

[Mike_CK]

3 hours ago, jurinko said:

You need so start dcs from desktop icon, then using steamvr works. 

I did that. I couldn’t get it to work. It launched but my display was just an aircraft hangar and no menu. Same screen i get on my desktop when I take my goggles off. My error to be sure but nevertheless. I’ll give it a shot again later

Edited March 26 by Mike_CK

[mbucchia]

13 minutes ago, Cooper21 said:

Which launch properties are you using with this? So far, I have not had any success launching DCS after switching to VDXR runtime using Link Cable.

 

You want to run the game in OpenXR mode, so that is either ST with `--force_OpenXR` or MT without modifiers. Note that when using the Steam edition, running MT has to be done from Steam itself, and running the exe from bin-mt directly doesn't actually pickup the MT version. 

If you were using other OpenXR mods such as OpenXR Toolkit, you might want to clear their settings or disable them temporarily until you get a baseline going.

Edited March 26 by mbucchia

[YoYo]

25 minutes ago, mbucchia said:

See my other post below for an alternative:

 

Hello mbucchia! Glad to see you :).

Do you have idea why for Quest 3 users doesnt work, but for Quest Pro owners it works (v63) mostly? OXR, not steam overlay.

[mbucchia]

Just now, YoYo said:

Hello mbucchia! Glad to see you :).

Do you have idea why for Quest 3 users doesnt work, but for Quest Pro owners it works (v63) mostly? OXR, not steam overlay.

I haven't looked at why the Oculus software doesn't work. My recommendation goes to using Virtual Desktop, which is significantly more powerful than Oculus Link (and yes, you can get awesome results without a cable).

[les]

For me and out air cadets Sims, this is just getting worse ..

I can't now update dcs even if there is an update fix, oculus is not running, headset not plugged in, I have stopped all the oculus processes I can see In taskmanager and dcs still won't start.....it also won't update as the last time it was used was in offline mode, so I'm really stuck....any ideas on getting dcs to run in basic desktop mode?

[YoYo]

9 minutes ago, les said:

For me and out air cadets Sims, this is just getting worse ..

I can't now update dcs even if there is an update fix, oculus is not running, headset not plugged in, I have stopped all the oculus processes I can see In taskmanager and dcs still won't start.....it also won't update as the last time it was used was in offline mode, so I'm really stuck....any ideas on getting dcs to run in basic desktop mode?

Q3, right?

[OperatorPuski]

v63 killed my DCS launching for me also.  It crashes just after the 15yr splash page.  Link cable launched from within Oculus home.   Good news is if I launch this from within Steam and run it within Steam DCS works just fine.  The performance seems to be on par after the latest steamVR updates.  Good enough to just wait it out for a Meta patch.  So far only DCS was affected that I can tell.  I'm not tech disciplined enough to wrestle back and forth to try to keep v62 going since it works fine through steam for now. 

[tribbin]

12 minutes ago, les said:

For me and out air cadets Sims, this is just getting worse ..

I can't now update dcs even if there is an update fix, oculus is not running, headset not plugged in, I have stopped all the oculus processes I can see In taskmanager and dcs still won't start.....it also won't update as the last time it was used was in offline mode, so I'm really stuck....any ideas on getting dcs to run in basic desktop mode?

Stop it in service manager, as it will otherwise restart.

[Lange_666]

1 hour ago, alfalima2 said:

I just made this change to the file structure to prevent the upgrade to Oculus ver 63. If anyone is on Windows 11 and struggling with this change because of "Access denied" error, first login as Administrator in Windows, then rename the folders first, create the Staging.txt and tmp.txt files using file explorer. Once you do that then use cmd to rename Staging.txt to Staging (ren Staging.txt Staging) and also for tmp.

No need to go the CMD road to rename the files, just use Explorer, select the file, choose rename and remove the extension. Then on the prompt that it might become unusable, just hit YES.

[Apache 64]

Hi guys, I'm getting my first VR glasses tomorrow. I've been reading along here for a while and am wondering if I can even install Quest 2 with the current problems DCS has with this headset.

I'm using DCS as a standalone version (no Steam).
What do you guys think?
Is it not working at all at the moment? 
Does link cable or wifi make a difference?

Is it currently possible for me to get the older Oculus software version on an initial install?

Would be great if you guys could help.

Edited March 26 by Apache 64
litte corrections

[les]

I'll try that thanks,  my dcs is beta not steam, don't think I can use steam ve to run it?

 

Both oculus processes set to manual in service manager.....still won't start

 

[les]

On my own setup, I'm actually really enjoying the virtual desktop, it works really well, better than oculus- the problem I have our air cadet Sims is that we don't have good enough WiFi and some places we take the Sims on outreach, have nothing we had a stand at RIAT last year, attached picture of a red arrow pilot flying out SIM in DCS.

So we need a cable link or we can't run

[sjebens]

It's the v63 update from Oculus that broke it. Look around for more details.

 

[Gizzy]

1 hour ago, Lange_666 said:

No need to go the CMD road to rename the files, just use Explorer, select the file, choose rename and remove the extension. Then on the prompt that it might become unusable, just hit YES.

@mbucchia

Thanks for your skill and efforts to get this sorted, for info, for me though, no luck at all.  The install does the work fine, it shows as default for occulus but still everything as dead as a dodo after the NVIDEA splash screen....

Kind regards
Chris

 

[mbucchia]

3 minutes ago, Gizzy said:

it shows as default for occulus

You're going to have to elaborate. With my thing, you should never see "Oculus" anywhere, so you probably re-enabled Oculus OpenXR after install.

You can take a look at the log file under `%LocalAppData%\virtualdesktop-openxr` for clues.

Given that this method has been working for others, it's likely that your issue wasn't OpenXR in the first place, but perhaps something completely different.