Tips and Tools for getting the most out of your new Rift S in DCS

The Rift S has many levels of Sim Pilots as owners. The setup here attempts to ensure a good initial experience for just about anyone running a Rift S on their system.

Experienced VR pilots may not find a lot of new info in this posting.
For new Pilots, it will get you flying quickly and start more tuning from here.

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Assumptions

• You have accomplished the “Rig Tuning” [<<<LINK] as noted in this Blog and have completed the basic Oculus Rift S setup per the instructions that came with the HMD.
• It is HIGHLY recommended that you ensure you’ve updated Windows 10 to 1903 [<<<LINK] and are up to date on patches. Else you won’t get all the pixels folks.

As the Rift S doesn’t require complex setup or deep technical understanding to run at its best. The following setup works to maintain that simplicity.

 

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Additional Software Recommended

Oculus Tray Tool

For managing the use of ASW and Super Sampling, you want to install a copy of the Oculus Tray Tool. [<<<LINK]

OTT gives you on-the-fly change capabilities for tuning your experience. It includes an available pop-up Visual HUD in your HMD for watching FPS and importantly FrameTime on the GPU/CPU.

Initial Oculus Tray Tool Settings

Default Super Sampling:

1.5 – 1.7 is a solid starting range.
I don’t see a lot of benefit in the Rift S visually beyond a PD of 1.7
Beyond 1.7 I begin to see some performance degradation.

Your rig may be able to run up to 1.9 – 2.1.
Past 2.1 there is not any benefit being applied via the rendering, stop at 2.1 or lower as smoothness dictates.

If you want even more clarity of distance beyond this tuning, you’ll need to consider a different model VR HMD with a higher overall Pixel Per Degree rating.

Default ASW Mode:

Set ASW to 45
The Rift S runs at 80Hz, so this number is equal to 40 not 45 for you.
80Hz / 2 eyes = 40.

Visual HUD

We’re going for a balance of a great view, good detail, and smoothness with a Rift S.
Smoothness comes from Low FrameTimes generally in the low to mid-teens. FPS is important, but really keeping low FrameTimes will enhance your experience in VR in DCS.

Application Render Timing:
This is my favorite In-HMD Graph for seeing what is really going on. Using this as you adjust your in-game settings or OTT settings will show you visually what trade-offs you just made. – Switch this to NONE when you’re done tuning.

 

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Nvidia Control Panel Settings (OPTIONAL!!)

For the Rift S testing and setup, these Nvidia Control Panel settings were used.
These are HIGHLY variable for each individual gaming Rig. Except for recommending Prefer Maximum Performance and trying VR Pre Rendered Frames to between 1 and 3, the rest are up to you!!!

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Initial Oculus HMD Settings

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DCS Settings

The first thing you need to do is click the VR Button on the bottom right.

• MSAA is EXPENSIVE in horsepower. If you can’t live with the jaggies, you’ll want to trade down in SS from the OTT app to not lose smoothness.
• If things seem slow in the Caucasus Mountains – drop the TREES to below 50%
• Run your PD settings from OTT not from the DCS VR Interface
• Use the Visual Hud/App Rendering in OTT to watch the effects of your changes.
  FrameTime in the low teens for CPU/GPU is your goal to keep the world smooth.

From here adjust your settings to: 

 

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Starting DCS in VR Mode

Launching Order

• OTT
• Oculus
• DCS (Or via Skate Zilla’s DCS Updater)

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NEXT UP: X-Plane Settings for Rift S