Oculus Quest: Guide to use and optimize USB Link for DCS

Hi all

I've made a guide for setting the Oculus Quest up for use in Windows and DCS, and for optimizing the Oculus Link driver.

I hope it can be of help to fellow Quest users.

There's also tips on how to use the Oculus controllers in DCS instead of using mouse. DCS has some useful default key binds for them.

I've been using Oculus Quest for a while in DCS, and succeeded optimizing it using Oculus Tray Tool to get a picture and performance in game that I'm satisfied with.

You can optimize the video stream sent to the Quest over Link by adjusting Encode Resolution, Default Super Sampling (Pixel Density) and Distortion Curvature (which is a kind of sweet spot sharpness setting), provided you have a powerful GPU.

I don't have the highest fps, but I can see everything pretty crisply, and can see objects pretty far, ie. Supercarrier from the air, and aircraft approaching.

With an i7 9700K, GTX 1080TI OC and 32 GB 3000 MHz RAM I have around 36 fps in average, down to 30 fps on Supercarrier with Tomcat, or in MP with Gazelle, with quite high settings.

I am using an Anker USB cable, the one recommended by Oculus.

The most important thing I found is that it seems to look the best, with the best view of far away objects, with SS in Tray Tool and PD in DCS set to the same value.

But feel free to experiment for yourself.

My focus has been on graphical quality more than on fps, your priorities might of course differ. :)

The guide can be downloaded below, and I add some screenshots to show the result of my settings in game.

There's links to download of Oculus Tray Tool in the guide, and also a link to Oculus' page with their recommendations for Link resolution settings.

Using the Oculus Quest for DCS_Rev2.pdf

:thumbup:

Nice job!

Thank you so much !

As a new Quest/Link owner this is super-useful :)

Great work.

Cheers,

Emacs

Isn’t having 1.3 on OTT and 1.3 in game the same as having PD of 1.69? Wouldn’t it be better to do one or the other instead of both? I thought (I could be wrong) that the SS and PD are multiplied together

Isn’t having 1.3 on OTT and 1.3 in game the same as having PD of 1.69? Wouldn’t it be better to do one or the other instead of both? I thought (I could be wrong) that the SS and PD are multiplied together

That's normally what has been recommended, yes.

But I tested it thoroughly, and the best result was what I described in the guide.

I have tried 1.6 in game and 1.0 in the Tray Tool.

Here the image is limited by Quest Link that does not pass the full quality to the headset.

I've also tried 1.6 in Tray Tool and 1.0 in game.

Here Windows is clear, but DCS seems to be not as sharp as it can be.

I have also tried a slight difference ie. 1.2 in game and 1.3 in the headset, or the other way around.

Again the image got worse and I hardly gained any performance, actually it felt slightly worse.

I don't know if it is because that the identical setting is simply easier for the system to work with. I can only guess at that.

But about sharpness I have come to realize, that using a small setting twice is in fact like using a sharpening filter twice.

And that I have had good success with when working with image treatment for my work: Using a gentle filter twice gives a better result than using a harder filtering once.

It could be a similar phenomenon going on here.

But test it for yourself, preferably on the ground.

I have tested both for image quality, but also tested for how far away I could see details and small objects.

And the described setting was the one that let me see the clearest and the farthest.

Edit:

It can also be that it is simply just the best compromise between having a sharp game and good transfer of the image via Link to the headset. :)

OTT PD just overrides DCS PD setting. You can easily check it yourself, just use Pixel Density Visual HUD in OTT. Visual HUD is broken in DCS right now, but you can still see it on mission loading screen if you look to the left or to the right.

I‘m still confused about the resolution I select in DCS.

Does that play a role at all?

Cheers,

Emacs

I‘m still confused about the resolution I select in DCS.

Does that play a role at all?

 

Cheers,

 

Emacs

In VR mode display resolution doesn't do anything.

OTT PD just overrides DCS PD setting. You can easily check it yourself, just use Pixel Density Visual HUD in OTT. Visual HUD is broken in DCS right now, but you can still see it on mission loading screen if you look to the left or to the right.

Thank you.

Finally a definitive answer.

Then my guess would be that DCS works best if it is set to the same PD as OTT already forces.

That makes sense to me.

One more question - two actually:

I see some kind of micro stuttering and tearing in the picture when I move my head quickly or when I roll my plane fast.

I assume that can be affected by the ASW mode? I currently have that off.

I'm clueless what to set it to. 30 Hz would be close to the fps I get in the game. But what is "Adaptive" and "Auto" ? Are those recommended?

And the second issue I have: I get a message "This window is not in focus" quite often. Although nothing else is running on my PC - except DCS, Oculus Link and OTT, something grabs the focus away from DCS. I cannot figure out, what it is.

And lastly: the picture which renders on my monitor is pretty narrow. Can I do something to make that wider?

Cheers,

Emacs

One more question - two actually:

 

I see some kind of micro stuttering and tearing in the picture when I move my head quickly or when I roll my plane fast.

I assume that can be affected by the ASW mode? I currently have that off.

I'm clueless what to set it to. 30 Hz would be close to the fps I get in the game. But what is "Adaptive" and "Auto" ? Are those recommended?

 

And the second issue I have: I get a message "This window is not in focus" quite often. Although nothing else is running on my PC - except DCS, Oculus Link and OTT, something grabs the focus away from DCS. I cannot figure out, what it is.

 

And lastly: the picture which renders on my monitor is pretty narrow. Can I do something to make that wider?

 

Cheers,

 

Emacs

On your first question, most likely. If you are not able to maintain 72 fps and you have ASW set to off, then that could induce stuttering when below 72 fps. You might try with with ASW on auto and see how it looks to you.

One more question - two actually:

 

I see some kind of micro stuttering and tearing in the picture when I move my head quickly or when I roll my plane fast.

I assume that can be affected by the ASW mode? I currently have that off.

I'm clueless what to set it to. 30 Hz would be close to the fps I get in the game. But what is "Adaptive" and "Auto" ? Are those recommended?

 

And the second issue I have: I get a message "This window is not in focus" quite often. Although nothing else is running on my PC - except DCS, Oculus Link and OTT, something grabs the focus away from DCS. I cannot figure out, what it is.

 

And lastly: the picture which renders on my monitor is pretty narrow. Can I do something to make that wider?

 

Cheers,

 

Emacs

Sluttering you mention can be caused by things:

1) You are running ASW off but don't get stable 72 fps

2) You are running what is called "45 HZ forced" in OTT. This is really lame setting that limits your fps to 36, but does't actually use ASW interpolation!

To troubleshoot:

1) Run OTT and set ASW Mode to 45.

2) Run DCS and hit ctrl-pause once. See how much fps you are getting. You should be getting 36 fps stable.

3) Run Oculus Debug Tool (you can find it here "C:\Program Files\Oculus\Support\oculus-diagnostics") and make sure that "Asynchronous Spacewarp" is set to "Force 45fps, AWS enabled"

You should not be getting any micro slutters now. If you are still getting them try lowering your settings till you get stable 36fps.

One more question - two actually:

 

I see some kind of micro stuttering and tearing in the picture when I move my head quickly or when I roll my plane fast.

I assume that can be affected by the ASW mode? I currently have that off.

I'm clueless what to set it to. 30 Hz would be close to the fps I get in the game. But what is "Adaptive" and "Auto" ? Are those recommended?

 

And the second issue I have: I get a message "This window is not in focus" quite often. Although nothing else is running on my PC - except DCS, Oculus Link and OTT, something grabs the focus away from DCS. I cannot figure out, what it is.

 

And lastly: the picture which renders on my monitor is pretty narrow. Can I do something to make that wider?

 

Cheers,

 

Emacs

About ASW: I don't recommend switching it off.

Very few, if any, can reach 72 fps, and that will mostly likely only be with very low graphics settings.

I run it at Auto, that works fine here.

I've tried the fixed settings, but I didn't feel I gained much out of them, so I eventually set it back to Auto. That's also why I recommend leaving it be in OTT.

Try with Auto if it works well for you, it should.

Also, 30 fps is in the low end, you don't have much margin for drops.

If you can be at 36 fps it's generally better.

But see what works best for you.

About "Out of focus" messages:

Do you perchance run SRS , Simple Radio Standalone?

That's a known phenomenon with that.

You need to switch off the window it automatically starts when you connect to a server.

Otherwise you'll have to leave DCS, click with your mouse in the DCS window on your monitor, and then go back again.

I got tired of that, so switched it off for now.

Hi VitS, hi Sport,

Yeah, 72 fps seems pretty much out of question.

I‘ll adjust my Settings a bit more until I get 36fps most of the time.

Today my USB3 cable should arrive (the first one got lost while shipping).

And, yes, I had SRS running, but the SRS window not being displayed. It‘ a strange scenario when this happens. The 2d mouse pointer acts very erratic. In one case it appeared to be bound to the Windows task bar and I couldn‘t even click on the DCS window... needed to alt-tab back to DCS.

I‘m still getting a bit of motion sickness / vertigo sometimes. It‘s fine during normal flight, even dogfights are mostly fine. But somehow it hits me most often in the landing pattern around the turns to base and then to final. That probably will get better over time.

Cheers,

Emacs

The USB3 cable arrived and tested good.

Now suddenly I have another issue. My in game fps are stuck at 24fps. No matter what I do. Only 24fps but rock solid. I've opened another thread for that. Don't want to hijack this one for all my problems.

Cheers,

Emacs

A slight addition to the guide:

It seems that as of software version 17.0 Oculus has added the possibility to use a USB 2.0 cable, like the charger cable the Quest comes with, for Oculus link.

I have only tested it shortly, it seemed to give increased lag, so not so useful.

But give it a try if you want.

A slight addition to the guide:

It seems that as of software version 17.0 Oculus has added the possibility to use a USB 2.0 cable, like the charger cable the Quest comes with, for Oculus link.

 

I have only tested it shortly, it seemed to give increased lag, so not so useful.

But give it a try if you want.

Yeah I would encourage anyone serious about using the Quest with Link for DCS to at the least get a good USB 3 cable, preferably the Oculus Link cable as it will likely give the best results.

I tested mine with the Oculus Link cable and it worked very well for DCS.

But I prefer my Rift S.

I just had a quick peek at the guide, looks very well done

Maybe you should consider adding a how-to section for wireless connection via Virtual Desktop as well for those interested

I'm running this for a while now and it's amazing without cables, I just went back to the CV1 for DCS because of the better performance desparately needed lately.

Thanks for the guide - will check / try it out and see what it can do for me :thumbup:

I just had a quick peek at the guide, looks very well done

 

Maybe you should consider adding a how-to section for wireless connection via Virtual Desktop as well for those interested

 

I'm running this for a while now and it's amazing without cables, I just went back to the CV1 for DCS because of the better performance desparately needed lately.

Thanks. :)

Sadly, I haven't tried Virtual Desktop, so I can't do a guide on that.

Have you tried running the Quest with cable instead of Virtual Desktop?

Maybe the performance would be sufficiently good then?

Personally I wouldn't be able to live with lower resolution than the Quest, to be honest.

Tested both Oculus Link and Virtual Desktop in a 5 GHz WiFi. Oculus Link has much more performance!

I recommend to use Oculus Link.

Of course Link is performing better, it's using a 5GBit/s connection as opposed to 866MBit/s via the WiFi ac in 2x2 MIMO. The thing works with much less compression to begin with and literally no noticable delay. Well, ~20-30ms isn't that much either (I've flown flight sims with 10x that or even more), but with rapid headmovements, that delay definately is visible. Not a problem in rather slow paced VR games (I bought the Quest mainly for those since I don't have enough space in my gaming room), but it's apparent in DCS. I'll definately try that when possible... still don't have the cable for it and trying it with another USB 3 C cable that I have (from a Galaxy Note 9, capable of 5GBit/s) with Quest s/w v 17.something didn't work as the thing wouldn't accept my USB 3 ports for being capable enough. Having the same problem with the CV1 BTW, it just works with the sensors on 2 ports that are run by an Intel controller - but not even those work for Link - which is being said to work with USB 2 even since v 17 (although those 480MBit/s would even be worse than WiFi). The future with WiFi ax (6) looks promising though, but the Quest will be stuck at 5GBit/s thanks to the limits of the 835 in there.

And since the general performance of DCS, I'll probably stick to the CV1 for a while anyway.

This is awesome, thanks for taking the time to put this together. I just got my Quest last night and fired up DCS to test with no tweaking. It's not perfect out of the box (hopefully your guide will help), but wow, VR is incredible! I had no idea it would be that good. I don't think I could ever play 2D again. I was hoping to get Virtual Desktop running but think Link might be the way to go for now. Anyway, thanks for the guide.

This is awesome, thanks for taking the time to put this together. I just got my Quest last night and fired up DCS to test with no tweaking. It's not perfect out of the box (hopefully your guide will help), but wow, VR is incredible! I had no idea it would be that good. I don't think I could ever play 2D again. I was hoping to get Virtual Desktop running but think Link might be the way to go for now. Anyway, thanks for the guide.

Lol, I said the same thing regarding how I don't think I could play 2d again back in Jan 2017 when I got my first Rift. And to date, I have not.

Hi,

I checked some documentation about how the distortion is applied in the Link pipeline.

You can read in many places that "Low" is the best setting, however it's more complex than this. The distortion pass has been added before compression on purpose for increasing the pixel density at the center, while decreasing pixel density on the edges.

This means it actually improves the perceived image quality for low encoding resolutions.

So unless the encoding width is set to something very high, setting distortion on "Low" will decrease perceived quality in the center (and improve in the edges).

Is there a rift app for testing perceived resolution? Such as something with resolution scale bars.