Last night, I decided to get to the bottom of how the SteamVR Video Resolution slider interacts, if at all, with the pixel density (PD) setting in DCS. I ran a number of test flights using the instant action F/A-18C Case I Recovery mission for each flight, noting frame rate (FPS) and overall image quality. While the results allowed me to find a balanced setting for my gaming rig, I still have some questions. I also wanted to find out if the hand controllers need to be visible in order to achieve 6DOF. During my testing, our technologically venerable @fearlessfrog offered some insight.
As to the hand controller question, that’s a big negative. As long as you successfully get through the WMR startup test (Look Left and Right, then Look Down), 6DOF works perfectly, which is another nod to Samsung’s tracking technology. My hand controllers are out of sight under the desk, and haven’t been used since I last visited the ISS VR a few months ago during the Tesla/Star Man spectacle.
SteamVR Video Resolution does in fact affect the frame rate in DCS, but strangely an increase or moving the slider to the right, does not improve image quality, IMO. For instance, with mac daddy 2080 ti, if I left Video Resolution set to automatic, which SteamVR adjusts the slider to 200%, left the DCS Options preset on High, and set PD to 2.5, my average fps was around 19-22! Chip’s rig brought to it’s needs begging for air. Just sliding the Video Resolution to 100% raised the FPS to 35-40 range. Further lowering PD to 2.0 moved FPS to 45-50 range.
This is what I settled on to give best FPS (never lower than 45) and image quality:
SteamVR
Video Res on 100%:
DCS
Options preset: VR
Textures: High
MSAA: 2x
PD: 2.0
I still want to try some further settings to see how they affect both FPS and image quality, like setting terrain textures to High.
Fearless speculated that the reason raising Steam VR Video Resolution affected FPS but not image quality might be because some other process, like the WMR and SteamVR lobbies, were absorbing GPU resources. Makes sense to me.
I’d be interested in what you Odyssey owners find playing with those settings. Also, it would be nice to not have to switch SteamVR settings for each game. Setting Video Resolution to manual is global. I see under the Applications tab that you can have a custom setting for each application, but it is not clear what affects DCS. You might want to have DCS at 100%, but BoX at 200%.