Would you pay for a VR optimised F-14?

Hey folks

Firstly, have to say what an absolute masterpiece the F-14 is. It's without question my favourite module for DCS, and I've even bought a few copies for friends.

However, it's extremely demanding in VR; moreso than any other airframe in DCS, to the point where it's very difficult to get smooth VR gameplay in most F-14 missions and campaigns, even with a 5GHz i7 and 2080 Ti. This is in contrast to other airframes such as the F-18 and F-16. Not only does it really hurt framerates, it's also incredibly hard to read some of the cockpit labels, even when using a high res HMD like the Reverb.

It would be simply amazing if Heatblur could put together a VR optimised version of this beautiful bird, that is both less demanding on PCs, and also more legible.

I for one would be very happy to pay extra for this feature; I figure that VR users are likely a smaller audience than non-VR users (though we're rapidly catching up, as evidenced by the explosive popularity of the VR subforum here), so Heatblur doesn't "owe" us anything. But if we could make the work worthwhile via paying for a VR module, they might consider it?

So, what do you guys think? And Heatblur peeps - do you think this is a reasonable request?

Look forward to your thoughts.

Hey folks

 

Firstly, have to say what an absolute masterpiece the F-14 is. It's without question my favourite module for DCS, and I've even bought a few copies for friends.

 

However, it's extremely demanding in VR; moreso than any other airframe in DCS, to the point where it's very difficult to get smooth VR gameplay in most F-14 missions and campaigns, even with a 5GHz i7 and 2080 Ti. This is in contrast to other airframes such as the F-18 and F-16. Not only does it really hurt framerates, it's also incredibly hard to read some of the cockpit labels, even when using a high res HMD like the Reverb.

 

It would be simply amazing if Heatblur could put together a VR optimised version of this beautiful bird, that is both less demanding on PCs, and also more legible.

I for one would be very happy to pay extra for this feature; I figure that VR users are likely a smaller audience than non-VR users (though we're rapidly catching up, as evidenced by the explosive popularity of the VR subforum here), so Heatblur doesn't "owe" us anything. But if we could make the work worthwhile via paying for a VR module, they might consider it?

So, what do you guys think? And Heatblur peeps - do you think this is a reasonable request?

Look forward to your thoughts.

IMHO having two versions is BS, maintenance of two modules (or at least two versions) is difficult for all.

I would like to have the "special option" for the F-14B to select another cockpit, which is readable in VR.

Now its hard/not readable, even with VR zoom and head down all the time things don't get better.

Head down all the time makes my neck sick.

Anyway, for me flying on a computer screen is a no-go since I fly in VR, thus if HB states that they start to invest a month doing a readable VR cockpit, yes, I would pay more than one strawberry cake (something around 3 cakes or so).

The F-14 is extremely demanding on a monitor as well. I think further optimisation is needed across the board. When using 1440p resolution and above, I don't think there is a consumer PC out there that can maintain a minimum of 60 FPS with high settings preset. It's a shame that this incredible module cannot be fully enjoyed in all it's glory and needs several graphics settings lowered, even on high end systems. VR is even worse

Maybe we just need to wait for ED to implement Vulkan...that could unfortunately be a long wait though.

I am all for a vr optimised cockpit in which form it comes.

I will definitely be happier for it.

Cheers

I'm totally against that self-destructing tendency to willing to pay even more for anything that should be initially included in the original package.

DCS is already money demanding way too much.

Better wait for the required optimizations. That's called vote with your wallet.

However, it's extremely demanding in VR; moreso than any other airframe in DCS, to the point where it's very difficult to get smooth VR gameplay in most F-14 missions and campaigns, even with a 5GHz i7 and 2080 Ti. This is in contrast to other airframes such as the F-18 and F-16. Not only does it really hurt framerates, it's also incredibly hard to read some of the cockpit labels, even when using a high res HMD like the Reverb.

Just wanted to mention that I see you are running an HP Reverb. I haven't used one, but I understand it has a higher resolution and refresh rate than the rift S. I'm only mentioning this to say that DCS is very smooth in my Rift S, not jerky at all, and most of my settings are turned up. I have a 1080 card and a 9900K Intel. Although not crystal clear, the gauges are acceptable for play. Overall, I'm still having a blast with the Rift S in DCS and especially the F-14.

I think you are running up against the same problem I ran up against over the years with flat screen resolution - I would upgrade to a bigger screen, higher resolution, then notice that my games did not run as smoothly.

I've been toying with the idea of going for a higher res VR unit myself but have talked myself out of it because I know it will inevitably lead to disappointment with smoothness. Maybe in a year or two when all the components are ahead of where they are now.

I have no issues with the f14 and reverb.

I'd like to add two things:

1. The Tomcat is optimized for VR. It very much depends on setup and settings as well though, and many simply try to overdo it. Having less features or less detailed textures does not equal optimized for VR, it just equals less. You have to weigh what you get against the output you expect, and I will very carefully say: a lot of expectations are simply too high for what VR can achieve in such an environment atm. Unfortunately you cannot have both yet: great eye-candy and completely flawless performance 100% of the time at max settings or at the same settings than other aircraft which are in certain aspects - by god not worse, but - "less" (for example as a RIO and pilot you see in the other cockpit as well etc). From the get go the cockpit was optimized to provide a good compromise between both eye-candy and performance. Please don't forget that 80% of HB devs fly in VR exclusively and have flown the Tomcat in VR since day one, and none of us would not have released something, which we found that it does not perform well. And our expectations are high as well of course.

2. Unfortunately I can tell you right now, that such a "pay for secondary option" will most likely never happen. For three reasons: one, even if we would ever consider the road of you to have to pay extra for stuff like that (which we won't), it probably would not cover the amount of time that would have to go into a second low-texture module like that. Secondly, splitting a module like that can cause a plethora of other issues (think alone the headache with multicrew) and it doesn't even guarantee that your performance will be better, because again: graphics wise, it is optimized for VR (equally high res textures does not mean necessarily bad performance, could be a number of things combined from your dcs, system, settings and so on). And lastly, either we stick to what we say by principle, or we become literally "sell outs", who offer special treatment to those willing to pay. That's not a business model we'd ever consider, or else we could have sold it easily for 150 dollars. Money is important, but we find that we are equally responsible to find such balance that simming stays affordable for hopefully almost everyone.

Sorry to disappoint, you guys know that we hate to say no.

I recommend that you post your specs and settings and see where others meet your expectations somewhat, somewhat adjust them, somewhat tweak your settings - without wanting to say "your problem, not mine". To the contrary: we know of so many who have no issues with it, so we should be able to slowly find common grounds that allow players who still struggle to get a good experience in VR. OFC how much will always depend on your specs and setup as well. :)

G'day IronMike, thanks for your detailed response.

As you can see from the specs in my signature (which is missing the info that my CPU is overclocked to 5GHz, while the GPU is overclocked by 10% - all running 100% perfectly with no slowdown from thermal or current issues), I am running the fastest PC available on the market when it comes to DCS VR performance. I was going to chuck another RTX 2080 Ti in, but found out that it makes no difference in DCS or Battlefield 5, my two favourite titles on the PC.

I'm surprised to hear that you have already optimised the cockpit, as it's got some weird performance issues. Regardless of whether I run everything at low detail or max, I get around a 40% frame drop simply by turning my gaze down into the cockpit - yet looking straight ahead it's quite acceptable. I don't get anywhere near that kind of performance drop when using other aircraft.

Before anyone wants to jump in and say that they're running perfectly smooth at 45fps, you should note that you're actually pumping out 50% fake frames due to async reprojection - this causes huge ghosting on nearby aircraft and also trees if you're flying low.

It sounds like there's no easy solution for HMDs with a resolution as high as the Reverb, other than ED doing some major optimisation of the core engine. Until then, it looks like my Reverb is going to continue to gather dust, as I'll be running 100fps on a 3440 x 1440 Ultrawide panel.

Thanks again for your response, and I look forward to the day when I can enjoy flying the Tomcat in VR. In the meantime it's back to 2D for me.

G'day IronMike, thanks for your detailed response.

 

As you can see from the specs in my signature (which is missing the info that my CPU is overclocked to 5GHz, while the GPU is overclocked by 10% - all running 100% perfectly with no slowdown from thermal or current issues), I am running the fastest PC available on the market when it comes to DCS VR performance. I was going to chuck another RTX 2080 Ti in, but found out that it makes no difference in DCS or Battlefield 5, my two favourite titles on the PC.

 

I'm surprised to hear that you have already optimised the cockpit, as it's got some weird performance issues. Regardless of whether I run everything at low detail or max, I get around a 40% frame drop simply by turning my gaze down into the cockpit - yet looking straight ahead it's quite acceptable. I don't get anywhere near that kind of performance drop when using other aircraft.

 

Before anyone wants to jump in and say that they're running perfectly smooth at 45fps, you should note that you're actually pumping out 50% fake frames due to async reprojection - this causes huge ghosting on nearby aircraft and also trees if you're flying low.

 

It sounds like there's no easy solution for HMDs with a resolution as high as the Reverb, other than ED doing some major optimisation of the core engine. Until then, it looks like my Reverb is going to continue to gather dust, as I'll be running 100fps on a 3440 x 1440 Ultrawide panel.

 

Thanks again for your response, and I look forward to the day when I can enjoy flying the Tomcat in VR. In the meantime it's back to 2D for me.

That you particularly loose fps when looking at a certain part in the cockpit, is really odd. Could you maybe provide us with a track and logs - just a very short one? We'll take a look and maybe we find something.

I don't see the ppo,t of OP. for me the F14 is very usable in VR. I only fly VR, from both the RIO position and the pilot position.

The only tiny accommodation I made are I often change a bit the pilot point of view when starting, but think of it as adjusting the seat ^^

Brickdust VR friendly cockpit was nice in the beginning for the labels, but now that I know most of the cockpit I don't need it anymore.

Hey folks

 

Firstly, have to say what an absolute masterpiece the F-14 is. It's without question my favourite module for DCS, and I've even bought a few copies for friends.

 

However, it's extremely demanding in VR; moreso than any other airframe in DCS, to the point where it's very difficult to get smooth VR gameplay in most F-14 missions and campaigns, even with a 5GHz i7 and 2080 Ti. This is in contrast to other airframes such as the F-18 and F-16. Not only does it really hurt framerates, it's also incredibly hard to read some of the cockpit labels, even when using a high res HMD like the Reverb.

 

It would be simply amazing if Heatblur could put together a VR optimised version of this beautiful bird, that is both less demanding on PCs, and also more legible.

 

I for one would be very happy to pay extra for this feature; I figure that VR users are likely a smaller audience than non-VR users (though we're rapidly catching up, as evidenced by the explosive popularity of the VR subforum here), so Heatblur doesn't "owe" us anything. But if we could make the work worthwhile via paying for a VR module, they might consider it?

 

So, what do you guys think? And Heatblur peeps - do you think this is a reasonable request?

 

Look forward to your thoughts.

I have an ancient machine (i-4790K, 1080Ti, 16GB). I use a Rift S. I am happy enough with the VR performance of the F-14 in SP, across campaigns and missions of all sorts of complexity. In MP, things get jerky sometimes, but honestly cannot tell whether it is due to machine performance or net lag. But, of course, I would always be thrilled to get a optimization and performance improvement.

Here's the rub ...

There is no such thing as a free lunch, and I would honestly prefer the HB effort to be invested in something with faaaaaaaar more rewarding yields such as (hint, hint) a flyable A-6 or features on the carrier or existing F-14 such as the LANTIRN etc.

Here's the other thing ...

I think that the DCS VR implementation is an ED responsibility, and not only is there a cap on the amount that HB can do to improve things, but the improvement-pet-unit-effort on the ED side would pay off a lot more. And, to be cynical, I suspect that by the time the improvements roll out we'd have all upgraded to better machines anyway!

But the final thing is, I agree with all the above comments --- two branches of code for this complex a product is ridiculously insane, A maintenance nightmare that would kill the developers (figuratively) and lead to the abandonedware death of this module (no more new features as every update cycle requires code being shuttled back and forth, not to mention bug fixes being from the 666th level of hell). And all for so little benefit ....

Just so I understand this. It's taking a lot more fps to have the present worn look?

I don't have an up to date system. I may have to rethink this.

Just so I understand this. It's taking a lot more fps to have the present worn look?

 

I don't have an up to date system. I may have to rethink this.

Nope.

The worn look has nothing to do with FPS.

The Tomcat is not, IMHO, any more demanding that the F-18 or for that matter any other module I have. And, in fact, much better than many others. To me, the most demanding module is the Spitfire (the props are a HORRIBLE fps killer).

Nope.

 

The worn look has nothing to do with FPS.

 

The Tomcat is not, IMHO, any more demanding that the F-18 or for that matter any other module I have. And, in fact, much better than many others.

I wish I could say that on my end. Compared to the Viper and Hornet, I see 10-20 less FPS in the Tomcat, plus I drop below 60 FPS in many more situations in the Tomcat.

I wish I could say that on my end. Compared to the Viper and Hornet, I see 10-20 less FPS in the Tomcat, plus I drop below 60 FPS in many more situations in the Tomcat.

FPS-wise, i see no noticeable difference between the 14 and 18. The big difference I see between the tomcat and hornet is the amount of memory. The 14 loves it some memory... those big juicy textures are so damned good, but they love some RAM.

Do you mean GPU memory?

Cv1 + 1070 I dont have issues with F-14 over anything else. Visibility was fixed by a mod, FPS makes no tangible difference over other modules.

I believe there is generally a hardship running VR though across all of DCS. You have to fight for frames across the board. Online, busy mission and it's no one's fault but the way VR is and the way DCS is. Room for improvement? Absolutely. Within expectations? To each their own view. Tomcat tangibly worse than others? Not on my lowly setup, especially not the F-18. In fact with Pods and other screens, the modern jets can get quite bad, especially with an SA page full.

@IronMike - Thank you for the detailed insights. Very refreshing to read such candid info directly from a developer. :thumbup:

That said, I personally have no problems with the F-14 in VR either.

Legibility of the cockpit texts was part of the initial post and that is surely something that COULD be addressed ? The fashion for finding the dirtiest/worn pit for photo textures has some merit but perhaps its also to avoid the expense of an artist creating more readable `fake` pit art.

Cruising around it is not so important but in mission the lacking clarity is a burden and hindrance. An alternative fake pit would be great. Not just for the F14.

Legibility of the cockpit texts was part of the initial post and that is surely something that COULD be addressed ? The fashion for finding the dirtiest/worn pit for photo textures has some merit but perhaps its also to avoid the expense of an artist creating more readable `fake` pit art.

 

 

Cruising around it is not so important but in mission the lacking clarity is a burden and hindrance. An alternative fake pit would be great. Not just for the F14.

I've posted this before but it's an answer for better labels. The only problem is it won't pass online play. Maybe somebody can mod it so it would pass.

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3303911/

I've posted this before but it's an answer for better labels. The only problem is it won't pass online play. Maybe somebody can mod it so it would pass.

 

 

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3303911/

I think it would have to be "offical" by HB to pass IC.

Maybe they'd consider it. For those who want to read the labels.

Maybe they'd consider it. For those who want to read the labels.

+1

At least for all the indicator lights...I can barely tell if any of them are lit let alone read them, and this is on a 1440p monitor!

There's a lot of switches/lights to remember. Being able to read the labels until you have them all remembered will help.

Especially, if you have my old worn-out memory.