What I HATE in VR

I played 500+ hours with TrackIR. DCS can really shine in certain enviromental situations. Especially in sunrises. I LOVED doing screenshots. Here you have some of that awesome moments:

Now I switched over to VR. I won't go back, no explanation needed.

I miss the screenshots. I miss, to save those awesome moments.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, add something, that we can have them again in VR.

(VR screenshots are just :cry:. They also look MUCH worse then it looks in VR)

I would have some suggestions:

Track replay:

Beside that the replay generally needs to be fixed, please add some VCR controlls:

(Fast) forward, (fast) rewind, stop, etc. Add the function of adding a "markpoint". So , when flying in VR, i just press this button instead of the screenshot button.

When replaying the track on the flatscreen with max. graphic settings, I should be able to jump directly to the markpoint.

(would be also great for WAY other things...)

Screenshot quality:

When doing screenshots in the replay mode, maybe it is possible to "generate" them? Maybe in 4k resolution with max details, some nice post processing etc.?

In the replay it doesn't matter if the screenshot would take 15 seconds to render...

I know that "issues" like that are very down on the list and that there are pretty much other, more important things.

However, this is also a big "joy -side" of DCS, so I guess its maybe not that un-important...

Agreed ... all my screen saver pics are from my pre-VR days!

+1

good point and very good suggestions

+1

Give OBS with OpenVR capture plugin a shot. I record all my VR flights with it. No performance impact from recording. Of course the quality isn't going to be as good as non-VR screenshots, but after playing back the video in VLC player and taking a snapshot, I can get decent pictures like this:

If you're able to run MSAA in VR the quality would be even better (I run MSAA off).

Thx Nealius, that sounds very interesting. Willl have a look at it.

Give OBS with OpenVR capture plugin a shot. I record all my VR flights with it. No performance impact from recording. Of course the quality isn't going to be as good as non-VR screenshots, but after playing back the video in VLC player and taking a snapshot, I can get decent pictures like this:

 

 

If you're able to run MSAA in VR the quality would be even better (I run MSAA off).

Can you also make high resolution (e.g. 4k as mentioned) screenshots with this software? Or will it be limited to my monitor resolution?

I ask because I play VR only, with a very old low res 2d screen.

If you are on steam (And I think you are) you can use the steam screenshotter F12 or whatever it is.

Also, you can now get near monitor quality with a HP Reverb in VR.

Nealius, just tried it and it seems to work very well.

What are you doing against the "natural vr" shaking?

+1

There are good practices in other games, e.g. Overwatch from Blizzard (not flight sim, but quite awesome in terms of both performance and visual quality), that has dedicated settings and mechanism for taking hi-res screenshots.

It's all good to use 3rd party apps, but they would inevitably hit certain level of limit on the outcome imposed by the game itself, which makes native support still irreplaceably important and would therefore be very much desired. Especially so since VR is the trend and would probably become the primary choice in the near future.

Nealius, just tried it and it seems to work very well.

What are you doing against the "natural vr" shaking?

I'm not doing anything (at least by design) to reduce VR shake. I have a hunch the Odyssey Plus transmits less shake than other HMDs.

I just did a test with OBS, OpenVR and then tried to de-shaken ith with Mercalli (a software I'm useing for de-shakeing my videos when riding on the racetrack with my motorcycle)

I'm pretty satisified with the result:

N-_N-IpClCo

However, while flying in VR is absolutely smooth, it looks very stuttery in the video. I will try to find out why...

The stutter is usually from the recording framerate not matching your in-game framerate. I had that issue at first. Go into OBS's video settings and set the framerate to "integer" then type in a number closest to what you get in-game. I use 45.

If you want to see really nice 4K ultra graphics, use a monitor :smilewink:

It’s never going to be possible for 3D visuals to equal 2D

If you want to see really nice 4K ultra graphics, use a monitor :smilewink:

It’s never going to be possible for 3D visuals to equal 2D

Eventually it will, its just gonna take time. Currently state of the art for consumers is 2160x2160 per eye or 4k per eye. Which with the much larger FOV you get, is a PPD in the 20-30 range. Human eye max resolution is about 60ppd. Most 1080p monitors from a few feet are like 30ppd. Looking at 30ppd image in general is pretty good, and I'd say the most ultraHD monitors are probably approaching retinal level resolution at some reasonable distance. And adding more pixels to them won't get them any better. Meanwhile VR will catch up at some point. My definition of Gen2 VR was about 30ppd, i.e. about 1080p screen at like 2-3 feet away which is what most people are using. The Reverb is at about that level today, so its the first Gen2 headset. I hope to see more Gen2 headsets in the next year or two and it will become the "standard" for VR. Gen2.5 will have maybe a bit more resolution, but likely use better RGB OLED panels to give you better color defintion, and better lens designs. Gen3 IMO will then take PPD to the next level into probably the 40-50's. I expect to see Gen2.5 headsets in the next 2-3 years, and probably another 2-3 before we see Gen3. Assuming we get improved vid cards in the next 6 ish years to drive the extra pixels, OR the VR industry figures out a cheap good way to do good Foveated rendering but I'm not holding my breath on that...

+1 for better screenshot to take in VR, directly when we're playing.

Another way to have nice screenshot would be to save the track and then start DCS in no vr mode (you can easily do that with Skatezilla's GUI), then play the track and screenshot away.... would be, if track recording wouldn't be so messed up! :mad:

Btw, guys, is there a way to have the mirror image on the monitor to take the full area, instead of just a slice in the middle?

I played 500+ hours with TrackIR. DCS can really shine in certain enviromental situations. Especially in sunrises. I LOVED doing screenshots. Here you have some of that awesome moments:

 

Now I switched over to VR. I won't go back, no explanation needed.

 

I miss the screenshots. I miss, to save those awesome moments.

 

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, add something, that we can have them again in VR.

(VR screenshots are just :cry:. They also look MUCH worse then it looks in VR)

 

I would have some suggestions:

 

Track replay:

Beside that the replay generally needs to be fixed, please add some VCR controlls:

(Fast) forward, (fast) rewind, stop, etc. Add the function of adding a "markpoint". So , when flying in VR, i just press this button instead of the screenshot button.

When replaying the track on the flatscreen with max. graphic settings, I should be able to jump directly to the markpoint.

(would be also great for WAY other things...)

 

Screenshot quality:

When doing screenshots in the replay mode, maybe it is possible to "generate" them? Maybe in 4k resolution with max details, some nice post processing etc.?

In the replay it doesn't matter if the screenshot would take 15 seconds to render...

 

I know that "issues" like that are very down on the list and that there are pretty much other, more important things.

However, this is also a big "joy -side" of DCS, so I guess its maybe not that un-important...

You can:

A. Open Oculus Mirror and Set it to a specific Resolution box (720P, 1080P, etc etc), You will get normal 16:9 Images without top/Bottom FoV Distortion.

B. Save the Trk and Render it to a Video file at any resolution

C. Save the trk. replay it live on a Normal Screen with more GFX Options on Higher settings (MSAA etc).

Eventually it will, its just gonna take time.

No because it’s a moving target. When VR gets 2160p monitors will have moved on to 8K which is already a thing. The only way 3D will catch up to 2D is when graphics become so good they look just like reality and no more improvement is possible. You can’t improve on real.

But there are other factors which are almost limitless like draw distance and object counts. It’s always going to be easier to generate a single image than dual ones.

No because it’s a moving target. When VR gets 2160p monitors will have moved on to 8K which is already a thing. The only way 3D will catch up to 2D is when graphics become so good they look just like reality and no more improvement is possible. You can’t improve on real.

But there are other factors which are almost limitless like draw distance and object counts. It’s always going to be easier to generate a single image than dual ones.

If you actually read what I said, You are almost at the res limit for flat screen tech today it’s basically at retinal res now. RETINAL RES is not a moving target, full stop.The iPhone I’m typing on IS there right now (in fact it’s called the retinal display for a reason). Flat screens aren’t really moving forward anymore. And if they are the improvement is in the the 1% range, while VR will move forward in the double digit numbers in the next few years. And it will be more like 50% than 10%.

VR or not, a decent replay system would be really great.

Ok, so I may have found now a way which seems really quite doable for me.

However, its still a lot of work and I would prefer some native, better solution.

As Nealius suggested, I use now OpenVR to capture the VR stream on the right eye. Recording it with 1440p is near the native resolution of the HMD and is not a problem with only a 1080p monitor.

While viewing the video with VLC I can make screenshots and crop them to 1080p. This gives quite good results as you can see from our yesterday training session attached.

To say that I'm happy would be too much, but at least its a working solution.

It feels quite better and more doable then Jabbers approach with a virtual monitor.

Will try now to cut the recording and see how a whole video feels after de-shaking and cutting.

How did you set recording to 1440p? My OBS settings won't let me go higher than 1080p.

It is not only a drop-down menu, you can also just write numbers in there for custom resolutions.

Oh nice! Did you put that resolution for both Base and Output, or only Output?

For both.