VR experiences IL-2 Korea

[Jade_Monkey]

Just checking the frametimes for the different presets, it seems like there is a huge jump between the Low and the rest, even just idling on the main menu which does not have to load the whole map or all the mission assets. 

 

I think the biggest item for me is how much of a jump there is from Low, and how little "optimized" the VR preset seems to be, especially because that is the one where frametimes matter the most in.

Can we figure out what are the specific items that these presets change in the backend, and which one of them has the biggest impact from Low -> VR Optimized?

 

GPU frametimes in main menu, all other settings equal:

	frametime
Setting	GPU	CPU
Low	5.0	4.4
Balanced	11.2	5.2
High	14.4	5.1
Ultra	13.2	5.0
VR Optimized	14.0	5.0

Edited July 26 by Jade_Monkey

[Dash,Polder]

Running dozens of benchmarks doing comparisons between these settings I would disagree, the VR option is the smoothest and stablest on the frame times but it does require horsepower and it can't compensate for an improperly tuned operating system.

[Muas]

9 hours ago, reidarpeidar said:

In which airplane and with which gunsight? Some gunsights have a choice between natural illumination or light bulb, and some have a sun filter.

I fly mostly the F-80, even in the F-86, with any gunsight, I don't see too much of a difference... there is something weird though, if I move my head right or left, so one eye only is looking through the sight, the recticle gets brighter, it seems that there is some kind of cancellation when both lens look at the recticle... not sure if IPD has something to do with that, can't really explain.

[Dash,Polder]

2 hours ago, Muas said:

I fly mostly the F-80, even in the F-86, with any gunsight, I don't see too much of a difference... there is something weird though, if I move my head right or left, so one eye only is looking through the sight, the recticle gets brighter, it seems that there is some kind of cancellation when both lens look at the recticle... not sure if IPD has something to do with that, can't really explain.

It's because they fade badly in intensity as the reticle image begins to be clipped at the outer edge margins of the sight glass.  

What your looking at with your head centered is the two cut outer halves blended back together in VR from the two separately generated images for each eye.  It's especially bad in the Mig, where the cut images which are very large on such a small glass are clipped so badly they look more like a football with the center missing than any circle.  The image at least needs to be consistent all the way across the glass with intensity to be functional in VR, sure it works fine on a flat screen with one image being generated, but it's broken in VR.

[BlitzPig_EL]

The gun sights are not bright enough in 2D either.

[Antonovomatic]

3 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

The gun sights are not bright enough in 2D either.

I think the default gamma setting is excessive/mistuned for most displays.  Try dropping it and see if that doesn't improve the visibility.

[pr0x]

I've never had this issue with reticles, but I have similar issues with surface/airport lights at night. One eye renders brighter than the other.

[Joch]

Finally got around to trying the game since I had to get my trusty G2 Reverb HMD back up and running. No issues or tweaking required so far, just using the standard High setup works fine. Very smooth gameplay, no stutters. Cockpit, map and clouds all look fine. Really like the new pilot body.

Also nice to see the HOTAS presets so you don’t have to redo everything from scratch. Very impressed so far.

Now I just have to work on my rusty flying skills. 🙂

[Jade_Monkey]

Anyone noticing the sunrise/sunset glare hits one panel (eye) at a time on the headset?

Unlike in real life where each eye gradually gets more light as you turn towards the sun,here the whole panel gets a glare, then the other panel/eye as you turn more towards the sun.

The issue here is that due to binocular overlap (?), there is a nasty effect in the middle where one eye is glaring and the other is not but the images overlap making it very noticeable.

Unless there is a more elegant solution, I'd almost rather both eyes get the glare at the same time. 

[BlitzPig_EL]

9 hours ago, Antonovomatic said:

I think the default gamma setting is excessive/mistuned for most displays.  Try dropping it and see if that doesn't improve the visibility.

Currently I have gamma at .94, not sure I want to make it any darker.

[Koziolek]

On 7/26/2026 at 4:15 PM, Jade_Monkey said:

Just checking the frametimes for the different presets, it seems like there is a huge jump between the Low and the rest, even just idling on the main menu which does not have to load the whole map or all the mission assets. 

 

I think the biggest item for me is how much of a jump there is from Low, and how little "optimized" the VR preset seems to be, especially because that is the one where frametimes matter the most in.

Can we figure out what are the specific items that these presets change in the backend, and which one of them has the biggest impact from Low -> VR Optimized?

 

GPU frametimes in main menu, all other settings equal:

	frametime
Setting	GPU	CPU
Low	5.0	4.4
Balanced	11.2	5.2
High	14.4	5.1
Ultra	13.2	5.0
VR Optimized	14.0	5.0

Are you sure that Ultra has lower GPU frametime than High and VR Optimized?

[YoYo]

4 hours ago, Jade_Monkey said:

Anyone noticing the sunrise/sunset glare hits one panel (eye) at a time on the headset?

Unlike in real life where each eye gradually gets more light as you turn towards the sun,here the whole panel gets a glare, then the other panel/eye as you turn more towards the sun.

The issue here is that due to binocular overlap (?), there is a nasty effect in the middle where one eye is glaring and the other is not but the images overlap making it very noticeable.

Unless there is a more elegant solution, I'd almost rather both eyes get the glare at the same time. 

That's true, but I think it also depends on the time or something else. I think I've had this happen twice, where one eye was much brighter than the other. Of course, this looks unrealistic and simply bad in VR, and some people might even get headaches. I admit, though, that I haven't encountered this in a while, so it could be a specific situation.

If I meet it again, I'll let you know. For now I don't have a diagnosis why.

[Jade_Monkey]

1 hour ago, Koziolek said:

Are you sure that Ultra has lower GPU frametime than High and VR Optimized?

In the main menu yes. I noted that in the post. Because this doesn't even take into account the map and all the objects that are probably handled differently in each setting.

46 minutes ago, YoYo said:

That's true, but I think it also depends on the time or something else. I think I've had this happen twice, where one eye was much brighter than the other. Of course, this looks unrealistic and simply bad in VR, and some people might even get headaches. I admit, though, that I haven't encountered this in a while, so it could be a specific situation.

If I meet it again, I'll let you know. For now I don't have a diagnosis why.

 

Yes it's definitely a specific situation, the way to recreate it is in a scenario with a sunrise/sunset  (e.g. Black Thursday on takeoff?) and then slowly turn your head towards the sun.

[Drewm3i-VR]

8 hours ago, Joch said:

Finally got around to trying the game since I had to get my trusty G2 Reverb HMD back up and running. No issues or tweaking required so far, just using the standard High setup works fine. Very smooth gameplay, no stutters. Cockpit, map and clouds all look fine. Really like the new pilot body.

Also nice to see the HOTAS presets so you don’t have to redo everything from scratch. Very impressed so far.

Now I just have to work on my rusty flying skills. 🙂

What system?

[YoYo]

2 hours ago, Jade_Monkey said:

Yes it's definitely a specific situation....

Okay, I've completed the mission now, around 6:00 PM. Leaving aside the sun size bug, I'm wondering if it's possible that sometimes one eye can see what's behind the windshield frame, while the other can't. The other is then obscured by the frame. Then you actually get an image where one image in the goggles is brighter and the other darker. If that's the case, then it's fine; that's how it should be.

[Panzerlang]

1 hour ago, YoYo said:

Okay, I've completed the mission now, around 6:00 PM. Leaving aside the sun size bug, I'm wondering if it's possible that sometimes one eye can see what's behind the windshield frame, while the other can't. The other is then obscured by the frame. Then you actually get an image where one image in the goggles is brighter and the other darker. If that's the case, then it's fine; that's how it should be.

That's exactly what I felt was going on with it.

[=ILS=_Abu_27]

采用dream air 这类oled 屏幕来看阳光的画面会舒服很多， 我的经验来自 多台qled的super和oled屏幕的dream air 的对比测试。

Using an OLED screen like the Dream Air, the picture quality when viewing sunlight is much more comfortable. My experience comes from comparative testing between multiple QLED Super screens and OLED Dream Air screens

[Jade_Monkey]

15 hours ago, YoYo said:

Okay, I've completed the mission now, around 6:00 PM. Leaving aside the sun size bug, I'm wondering if it's possible that sometimes one eye can see what's behind the windshield frame, while the other can't. The other is then obscured by the frame. Then you actually get an image where one image in the goggles is brighter and the other darker. If that's the case, then it's fine; that's how it should be.

I'm not arguing what should happen in real life, I'm arguing the VR implementation of it. The point is that it causes very awkward artifacts due to how VR works with the binocular overlap, how it renders very different lighting in the overlap area. You can see a vertical line at the edge of the one panel  that is exposed to the sun instead of blending in the overlap.

[Antonovomatic]

6 hours ago, Jade_Monkey said:

I'm not arguing what should happen in real life, I'm arguing the VR implementation of it. The point is that it causes very awkward artifacts due to how VR works with the binocular overlap, how it renders very different lighting in the overlap area. You can see a vertical line at the edge of the one panel  that is exposed to the sun instead of blending in the overlap.

I feel the effect is significantly less pronounced than it is in reality with similar eyewear IRL.  If the sunlight is only striking one lens of dual-lens eyewear that is the same sort of effect you will experience (but much more acute, since peak brightness on HMDs can't approach anywhere near the intensity of the real thing).  It's actually one of the advantages of dual/split eyewear over a single monolithic one, you can close one eye and have relatively unaffected vision in the other, especially if the lenses are close to the eyes, meaning your nose is shadowing your other eye.

Edited July 28 by Antonovomatic

[tikijoetots37]

Is anyone else having issues with bad Lod/pop in, in VR? I've got a 5090 and since the last update, I've been really happy on the solid performance I'm getting on my pimax oled. The issue I'm having is pretty bad pop in from, (I think you call it, Lod), where sections of the map are really blurry then change over to nice graphics when you get closer. My issue is that the Lod distance seems to be really close, sometimes happening right under me at just a couple of thousand feet. Doesn't happen all the time, but it looks super ugly and feels like it should not be happening when I'm that close. I've pretty much have my graphics maxed out, max distance and scenery, everything is set to ultra. At one point I though my game install might of been messed up, so I did a clean reinstall but to no avail. 

In great battles, I have this too but it seems to be in a circular pattern, whereas as you flying off in the distance you can see the blurry textures change over to the high def textures as you fly along, but it is a smoother transition and fluid. Here in Korea it seems like it is more a square grid type Lod, but it seems to be at random when the switch over to high def happens textures happen. Like I'll be flying along and the ground right under me will be blurry low def where right next to me a some farther distance away, it is the high def textures. Which doesn't make sense to me, why would some terrain textures that I'm closer to be the low definition ones, while the father ones away are the high def. Seems to happen at random and not all the time. When I watch people play on flatscreen, I'm not seeing this? Is this happening to anyone else or maybe something is wrong with my game? 

[Husar]

1 hour ago, tikijoetots37 said:

Is anyone else having issues with bad Lod/pop in, in VR? I've got a 5090 and since the last update, I've been really happy on the solid performance I'm getting on my pimax oled. The issue I'm having is pretty bad pop in from, (I think you call it, Lod), where sections of the map are really blurry then change over to nice graphics when you get closer. My issue is that the Lod distance seems to be really close, sometimes happening right under me at just a couple of thousand feet. Doesn't happen all the time, but it looks super ugly and feels like it should not be happening when I'm that close. I've pretty much have my graphics maxed out, max distance and scenery, everything is set to ultra. At one point I though my game install might of been messed up, so I did a clean reinstall but to no avail. 

In great battles, I have this too but it seems to be in a circular pattern, whereas as you flying off in the distance you can see the blurry textures change over to the high def textures as you fly along, but it is a smoother transition and fluid. Here in Korea it seems like it is more a square grid type Lod, but it seems to be at random when the switch over to high def happens textures happen. Like I'll be flying along and the ground right under me will be blurry low def where right next to me a some farther distance away, it is the high def textures. Which doesn't make sense to me, why would some terrain textures that I'm closer to be the low definition ones, while the father ones away are the high def. Seems to happen at random and not all the time. When I watch people play on flatscreen, I'm not seeing this? Is this happening to anyone else or maybe something is wrong with my game? 

It happens on all platforms, both VR and 2D, regardless of the graphics settings. Streams don't capture it very well, but it's a common issue with ground textures and objects popping in and out at relatively short distances.

[tikijoetots37]

47 minutes ago, Husar said:

It happens on all platforms, both VR and 2D, regardless of the graphics settings. Streams don't capture it very well, but it's a common issue with ground textures and objects popping in and out at relatively short distances.

Ah, okay. Good to know it isn't something wrong on my end. I'm sure it'll be tweaked in an upcoming patch hopefully. 

[YoYo]

For Pimax users:

 

[gord]

frames still plummet when i get down close to a city. 71FPS anywhere else, which is fine as that's most mission, but ground attack in or near a city and frames go to 20-30FPS. tried that fix about the exploit protection in Defender and didn't seem to help. hopefully that gets smoothed out. only issue in VR so far. 

[YoYo]

2 hours ago, gord said:

frames still plummet when i get down close to a city. 71FPS anywhere else, which is fine as that's most mission, but ground attack in or near a city and frames go to 20-30FPS. tried that fix about the exploit protection in Defender and didn't seem to help. hopefully that gets smoothed out. only issue in VR so far. 

True, it's no holy grail, but it might help some people. It doesn't make a difference for me either. I'm really hoping for some improvements on August 4th and in subsequent patches. The IL-2 GB runs great for me (except for campaigns with a lot of planes, when you might notice a slight FPS drop, but only a slight one, around 5-7, and only for a short period of time). Cities, though they look really simple in IL-2 Korea, are a real FPS killer. Maybe I'm making a silly comparison (I don't fly there , but I checked once the VR), but in War Thunder VR, cities not only have a damage model but also have a very low impact on FPS. Everything there worked perfectly for me in VR, and they look quite okay too (plus, you can drive tanks there). We don't need anything more, no hanging laundry or pots on fences (an example from DCS, although it also performs better in terms of FPS). So my fingers are crossed.