lot of ground units or burning units making DCS VR unplayable

[LOW_Hitman]

Hi all,

normaly the game runs great but since the last updates it becomes unplayable in scenarios where are a lot of ground units. Burning or destroyed ground units make the game unplayable. Vram is full and thats it.

[Mr_sukebe]

I don’t believe that this is a new issue.  I certainly don’t feel that things have got worse recently.

What do you want us to say?

Choose one or more of the following:

- throw money at a new GPU

- reduce the number of ground units/amount of smoke

- optimise the VRAM usage on your computer.  There’s several guides around in the forums

[dcval]

On 5/18/2025 at 7:56 PM, LOW_Hitman said:

Hi all,

normaly the game runs great but since the last updates it becomes unplayable in scenarios where are a lot of ground units. Burning or destroyed ground units make the game unplayable. Vram is full and thats it.

Encountered  the same behavior while in VR. I dont remember if it comes with the new release, I fixed it lowering some LOD and put "smoke" to its minimum. You could fix some perf issue following what I wrote here:

It seems you use a Pico 4, so the script "setOVRPriority" I provide cannot apply to you.

I will try to provide my parameters (nvidia and DCS) so you could be able to set yours as well (Im away from my Windows computer at the moment). Just to know, my 5080 render at least 50 fps while in VR + heavy scene, with a pixel density @1.7-1.8. Pretty sure you could get 40fps with your 4070ti @1.3-1.4 pixel density (I got these fps with a 4070 laptop GPU with a PD @1.2). CU later...

EDIT: I didnt install the latest release 2.9.16.10523 , still waiting because  they change the DLSS version, dont really know if it provides better perf. or another issues (I tried DLSS4/preset_k  swap by myself and got very bad perf. )

 

On 5/18/2025 at 11:44 PM, Mr_sukebe said:

- throw money at a new GPU

It has nothing to do with the GPU, but the way the game engine manages its threads (see the "F10 map" issue), and surely the way DLSS manages new graphic events. I have a 5080 myself and got this issue as well while using 70% of VRAM.

Edited May 25 by dcval

[dcval]

So, my configs:

NVidia:

Note: OpenGL API needs to set a graphic context which defines some eg a color profile, AA sampling and a lot of features that may be or not supported by the GPU driver, and conversely the GPU driver may define something that is not supported at all by the application. So, some NVidia parameters doesnt make any sense for DCS, but which ones is only known by the developers (or perhaps with a reverse engineering ...)

 

 

 

DCS / VR Profile

Note: the pixel density defines the VR Headset resolution, while the resolution (1st parm in the DCS Panel) defines the DCS window screen.

PD = 1.0 => 2160x1200 resolution = 2,592,000 pixels
PD = 1.5 => 3240x1800 resolution = 5,832,000 pixels
PD = 2.0 => 4320x2400 resolution = 10,368,000 pixels
PD = 2.5 => 5400x3000 resolution = 16,200,000 pixels

While in VR, I got from 40 to 60fps with heavy scene  on a 5080. Some stuttering sometimes, but not really annoying, small and quick. Before any DCS session, I clean all the GL/NVidia/Shader/whatever caches. I rarely/never again encounter fps drop like you describe it, which effectively makes the game unplayable (my 5080 was falling down to 12fps). Remember to adjust the Pixel Density accordingly with your GPU capacity, this parameter is the most important.

I dont know how the Pico4 client works, sorry.

I didnt try the latest DCS update with DLSS4.

Hope it helps,

Val.

[sleighzy]

23 hours ago, dcval said:

EDIT: I didnt install the latest release 2.9.16.10523 , still waiting because  they change the DLSS version, dont really know if it provides better perf. or another issues (I tried DLSS4/preset_k  swap by myself and got very bad perf. )

DCS shipped with the latest DLSS version, but the default preset hasn't changed (they're still using C), so you shouldn't notice a perf decrease because of this. You have to explicitly update it in the DCS config to change the preset.

[LOW_Hitman]

Am 25.5.2025 um 09:12 schrieb dcval:

Encountered  the same behavior while in VR. I dont remember if it comes with the new release, I fixed it lowering some LOD and put "smoke" to its minimum. You could fix some perf issue following what I wrote here:

It seems you use a Pico 4, so the script "setOVRPriority" I provide cannot apply to you.

I will try to provide my parameters (nvidia and DCS) so you could be able to set yours as well (Im away from my Windows computer at the moment). Just to know, my 5080 render at least 50 fps while in VR + heavy scene, with a pixel density @1.7-1.8. Pretty sure you could get 40fps with your 4070ti @1.3-1.4 pixel density (I got these fps with a 4070 laptop GPU with a PD @1.2). CU later...

EDIT: I didnt install the latest release 2.9.16.10523 , still waiting because  they change the DLSS version, dont really know if it provides better perf. or another issues (I tried DLSS4/preset_k  swap by myself and got very bad perf. )

 

It has nothing to do with the GPU, but the way the game engine manages its threads (see the "F10 map" issue), and surely the way DLSS manages new graphic events. I have a 5080 myself and got this issue as well while using 70% of VRAM.

Thank you for your help! Iam not using a pico4, i switched back to my oculus quest 2. What do you mean with LOD? Preload radius within the game? And what do you mean with smoke? There is only one option ingame Chimney smoke i think but i had that switched to OFF for a while now.

[dcval]

On 5/26/2025 at 3:39 PM, sleighzy said:

DCS shipped with the latest DLSS version, but the default preset hasn't changed (they're still using C), so you shouldn't notice a perf decrease because of this. You have to explicitly update it in the DCS config to change the preset.

Thank, but I use preset_j, and I lost fps using preset_k (tried this some times ago with DLSS Swapper). Since my last comment, I tried the last version, and didnt notice any real improvements with either J ok K preset. The fun fact is that MSFS2024 has now better performances than DCS while in VR, and better image quality but for the cockpit, which is clearly better in DCS. But the cockpit in MSFS2024 is now really readable and pretty clean, and you don't have any fps drop or stuttering like in DCS. MSFS2024 now features a very stable engine, a clean and instant switch between desktop and VR, 2 parameter presets (desktop/vr), and fluent fps even with heavy scene and weather. The only thing that makes me using DCS is its incredible Flight Dynamic Model which is far the better I have ever experienced (the UH1 FDM is simply stunning). Hope they will implement Vulkan and improve our VR experience because the case above is definitively an issue (like the F10 map trouble which is still alive).

 

10 hours ago, LOW_Hitman said:

Thank you for your help! Iam not using a pico4, i switched back to my oculus quest 2. What do you mean with LOD? Preload radius within the game? And what do you mean with smoke? There is only one option ingame Chimney smoke i think but i had that switched to OFF for a while now.

Your signature told us 'Pico 4' ... 

You really need to read carefully the DCS parameters ! LOD --> LOD Switch Factor (1st picture), Smoke -->  Chimney Smoke Density (1st picture). Good luck.

Edited May 28 by dcval