Question: how to Force Steam VR now?

[DerekSpeare]

Not a fan of OpenXR.  Is there a way to force Steam VR in DCS without setting Steam VR to be the OpenXR program by default?  Thanks for any help!

PS:  I tried googling, and the information is old.  I tried the command line --force steam vr (or whatever it is)

[Qcumber]

9 hours ago, DerekSpeare said:

Not a fan of OpenXR.  Is there a way to force Steam VR in DCS without setting Steam VR to be the OpenXR program by default?  Thanks for any help!

PS:  I tried googling, and the information is old.  I tried the command line --force steam vr (or whatever it is)

DCS used to run via open VR API but now runs through open XR. Steam VR is the runtime not the API. You can still run DCS through steam VR using open XR. 

 

[DerekSpeare]

I want to run DCS in VR with Steam VR and don't want to set my global options in Steam VR to make all the other VR games that I want to keep on OpenXR for being affected, just DCS.

[sleighzy]

18 minutes ago, DerekSpeare said:

I want to run DCS in VR with Steam VR and don't want to set my global options in Steam VR to make all the other VR games that I want to keep on OpenXR for being affected, just DCS.

DCS has dropped support for OpenVR (those params won’t do anything) so you will need to use OpenXR. 

What are the problems you are having which are wanting you to use the previous OpenVR implementation?

[DerekSpeare]

Steam VR has better FPS performance than OpenXR by miles.  But as I have learned after about an hour of testing, SteamVR crashes with DCS when ending a mission and returning to the mission editor.  So it seems being stuck with OpenXR is what's going to be the case.  I don't like openXR since the images can be "washy" or "watery" when reprojection is working.

I suppose that's the way it is and will have to stay with OpenXR.  It's just too bad SteamVR gives me 90fps in the exact same scenarios as openxr gives me 45

[Phantom711]

@DerekSpeare

I would suggest an alternative approach here:

There is a program called „OpenXR picker“ which lets you quickly choose, which runtime uses OpenXR. So with that you can select SteamVR to be your OpenXR runtime and also unselect it.

What kind of headset are you using?

[DerekSpeare]

3 minutes ago, Phantom711 said:

@DerekSpeare

I would suggest an alternative approach here:

There is a program called „OpenXR picker“ which lets you quickly choose, which runtime uses OpenXR. So with that you can select SteamVR to be your OpenXR runtime and also unselect it.

What kind of headset are you using?

I have a Reverb.  However, as I am learning with testing, DCS doesn't play nice with steamVR any longer, or at least my installation doesn't like it.  I get crashes when using steamvr instead of openXR.  And my DCS installation NEVER crashes.  Specifcally, it's SteamVR that crashes when I exit a mission and return to the Mission Editor, and it's reliably repeatable.  Won't happen with openXR. 

[sleighzy]

9 minutes ago, DerekSpeare said:

I have a Reverb.  However, as I am learning with testing, DCS doesn't play nice with steamVR any longer, or at least my installation doesn't like it.  I get crashes when using steamvr instead of openXR.  And my DCS installation NEVER crashes.  Specifcally, it's SteamVR that crashes when I exit a mission and return to the Mission Editor, and it's reliably repeatable.  Won't happen with openXR. 

Attach a DCS log file for when a crash happens ("C:\Users\username\Saved Games\DCS\Logs\dcs.log" .. or just a text document named "dcs" if Windows is hiding file extensions) and we can have a look to see if it shows anything. You can also run the Windows dxdiag tool, save the results, and then drop that here as well. This should show what the last 10 crashes of applications are in case that shows something as well.

IIRC if you try to use the OpenVR runtime of SteamVR (the one that would be used with the `--force_steam_VR` param) DCS should instead state that this isn't supported and will use OpenXR. I'm assuming that this is what you're doing to make that crash happen.

Edited November 4, 2024 by sleighzy

[Phantom711]

@DerekSpeare

I have to ask this, since it‘s not 100% clear from your posts:

Have you tried running DCS just via WindowsMixedReality (with WMR as your OpenXR runtime)? So without using SteamVR at all?

[DerekSpeare]

On 11/4/2024 at 3:13 PM, sleighzy said:

Attach a DCS log file for when a crash happens ("C:\Users\username\Saved Games\DCS\Logs\dcs.log" .. or just a text document named "dcs" if Windows is hiding file extensions) and we can have a look to see if it shows anything. You can also run the Windows dxdiag tool, save the results, and then drop that here as well. This should show what the last 10 crashes of applications are in case that shows something as well.

IIRC if you try to use the OpenVR runtime of SteamVR (the one that would be used with the `--force_steam_VR` param) DCS should instead state that this isn't supported and will use OpenXR. I'm assuming that this is what you're doing to make that crash happen.

 

No, I changed the option in Steam to force it to be the OpenXR driver.  At this point I'll just have to accept OpenXR and leave it at that   Thank you.

On 11/4/2024 at 3:51 PM, Phantom711 said:

@DerekSpeare

I have to ask this, since it‘s not 100% clear from your posts:

Have you tried running DCS just via WindowsMixedReality (with WMR as your OpenXR runtime)? So without using SteamVR at all?

Yes, of course, and DCS runs perfectly with it.  I don't like the visual effects OXR produces when using reprojection.  SteamVR gives me better frame rates, but crashes, so that's the final verdict.