So from the above, the following are more important:
Textures. Needs to be high in VR.
MSAA/Depth of Field, gotta be off.
Shadows at Medium is ok on a 1080ti with Deferred Shading on, but you’ve got to turn off Terrain Object Shadows and Cockpit Global Illuminations, which is a real shame. Conversely, you can have Shading off and then bump up shadows/illumination.
For me, I don’t really tend to do ‘competitive MP’ where I’ll sacrifice looks for wins (pwn u nubes!), so my settings are a bit different. Interesting to see though. I am not sure if on a 1070 Deferred Shading it is possible in VR recently, but have been flying 1.5 a bit more so not really remembering it so well.
The video also covered setting up the VR Zoom plus how to do nicer streaming in VR.
I did a couple of quick experiments to see. Here’s where I got to:
I used the exact settings as shown in the screenshot, but on a Nvidia 1070 8GB, i5 @4.5GHZ, 16GB RAM, SSD etc. I used the Oculus Tray tool to monitor perf overhead.
I used this mission, where I hover checked a Huey, rose to about 1000 feet and circled Nellis. Obviously an intense test, but no point in messing about
With everything left as is, about 32 fps, so next stop Pukesville! Not unexpected, as that 1080ti is a beast and not cheap.
With Deferred Shading off but nothing else changed about 39 fps, so still a White Telephone Bowl trip but getting closer. So Deferred Shading very roughly adds about a 25% perf overhead as a guide.
Shadows set to ‘Flat Only’ (from ‘Medium’). Deferred Shading off = 45 fps with a 20% perf headroom.
Shadows set to ‘Flat Only’ (from ‘Medium’). Deferred Shading on = 39 fps with no headroom. Technicolor yawn liquid again.
Shadows set to ‘Off’, Deferred Shading on = 45 fps. Tolerable, but not much headroom if things get busy.
Shadows set to ‘Off’, Deferred Shading off = 45 fps. Tolerable, but headroom if things get busy.
So I prefer the lighting of Deferred Shading (especially with a gamma adjustment, beautiful) but on a 1070 for DCS 2.1 if you fly below 1000 feet then it’s not really doable unless you take off all shadows and try not to go anywhere with lots of action. Plus that’s NTTR and not the more demanding Normandy.
If you turn off Deferred Shading then you can pretty much manage a baseline 45 fps with ASW kicked in all the time for most of your time.
I think one time the DCS ‘level of detail’ (LOD) defaults in the LUA’s got up’d and that sort of changed what people thought of as ‘medium’ and ‘high’ in the presets. It’s sort of exaggerated because VR is so demanding and when it falls off the edge of being usable it really does it big-style.
For a lot of VR flying it can be so subjective as well, as in my tests above features a helo down low, while the guy in the video wanted to do jets up high in MP competitive and didn’t care about trees and stuff.
I guess I’ll chime in here. Sys-specs: 1070 8gb/i7 4ghz/250 SSD/8gb ram. I must have a strong stomach, since I max everything out but set textures to medium. I honestly haven’t checked my FPS, but it seems to be fine for me. No not buttery smooth, but pretty close in most situations.
HOWEVER, I am super sensitive in car games and it has to be butter or I get sick (taking a trip to the porcelain phone booth? lol)
I am also on a 1080. As MSAA and Deferred Shading simultaneously is basically incompatible and cuts frames roughly in half, you have to chose one of the two. I went with MSAA, as without it I feel the quality of the picture suffers badly. Unfortunately, cockpit textures in DCS are set up to either work with Deferred Shading on or off, but not both. Since quite a few cockpits have already been updated, if you want to have MSAA you have to life with some cockpits with lighting errors.
I have the shadows turned off completely. Their absence is quite noticeable, but their impact on frame-rate even more so. It is probably the biggest gain you can get in the settings.
I have also turned down Visib Range to low to give me enough performance headroom to play heavy mission (several hundred ground objects, several dozen aircraft) in VR (especially since I have a weaker CPU). This worked pre 2.1 at least.
VR threads here got me to buy an Oculus Rift; but then some house extensions meant the Rift sat in its box for 7 months. Now I’m back at my PC finally and about to take the VR plunge. I have a couple of quick questions I hope VR-folk (facehuggers) can help with:
Sensor placement - I don’t plan to do any standing gaming. I’ll be flight simming and Elite:Dangerousing while seated - any tips on getting the sensors right on my desk? Is movement or vibration a big deal with them?
If I want my kids to try the Rift (again while seated) will I need to rerun setups and potentially lose my own setup?
Are you guys all using HOTAS buttons or mixing with Voice Attack?
If moving between VR and non-VR sims, do you need to disconnect the Rift or Trackir or can they be left plugged in?
The sensors have a pretty wide field of view. I stand or sit and pretty much never have to change them. If you have Oculus Touch and a second sensor then just put them either side (looking towards you) on your desk.
Nope, they should be fine basically covering your seat/standing position.
Just HOTAS, although some people really rate VA in Elite. I’ve heard good things.
Just leave it in. It defogs the screen by keeping it a little warm. I never disconnect mine.
Ooooh…man, I wish you had let @PaulRix know when you bought it 7 months ago…it would have been sooooo fun to watch him obsess about it still being in the box for half a year! I tortured him for a few weeks I think…
The Oculus software will walk you through the sensor placement step by step…including alignment, setting your “play zone” and all of that.
I haven’t - I mean, their viewpoint might be a foot lower than yours in a seated position, but you could always put a pillow under them or adjust the chair height up I suppose.
I leave mine plugged in all the time. It only activates when I’ve got it on and am using a VR game…
There’s some getting started tips, plus some recommendations of free things to play around with in the enormous VR News topic (perhaps too enormous, we tend to have mega topics here when we need to hit the ‘New Topic’ button a bit more often…):
I need to take a look at these settings as see what I have. I will give the deferred shading a go tonight (1070 here).
I tortured him for a few weeks I think…