VR experiences IL-2 Korea

[Husar]

7 minutes ago, YoYo said:

I flew yesterday in version 1.001, the release version. Unfortunately, optimization is still lacking. I even feel like it's worse in some aspects (because something happened at the airports/runways, where it's currently difficult to achieve maximum frame rates). Before this patch or the one before last, airports were better, and I didn't really complain. Something's been added here. I'll test the lack of grass further  (if it has such an impact on FPS) - but... no grass in the simulator in 2026 (It's not even a compromise, just a visual downgrade and significantly so)? That's a throwback to the early 2000s... 

I have noticed that using DLLA has worse performance (about 20 FPS less) . I'm not using grass since they not fixed it performance yet.

[Cellinsky]

5 hours ago, YoYo said:

I flew yesterday in version 1.001, the release version. Unfortunately, optimization is still lacking. I even feel like it's worse in some aspects (because something happened at the airports/runways, where it's currently difficult to achieve maximum frame rates). Before this patch or the one before last, airports were better, and I didn't really complain. Something's been added here. I'll test the lack of grass further  (if it has such an impact on FPS) - but... no grass in the simulator in 2026 (It's not even a compromise, just a visual downgrade and significantly so)? That's a throwback to the early 2000s... 

I see the same. 1.001 is worse in performance than early accsess for me. I have to dial my resolution even furthrter back (60% in PP) to get it playble. I mean playable not smooth gameplay. I see no visual difference ingame wich could justify this. Despite this, its a fantastic experience. Hope there is room for better o

performance. BTW, grass and pilot are off since the release version...

Edited August 5 by Cellinsky

[Jorri]

We really need a bit more distance to the UI in VR. This has been reported before, I hope the devs pick it up. 

[Jade_Monkey]

2 hours ago, Jorri said:

We really need a bit more distance to the UI in VR. This has been reported before, I hope the devs pick it up. 

Yeah, a slider in the settings to set a distance would be great.

[gord]

On 8/4/2026 at 8:02 AM, Dash,Polder said:

9950X3D CPU

You may have to install EVO to get that crop feature, that's where your going to get your biggest gain, my system can fully handle 22 million pixels without choking, anything over and it starts to gag.  With the excellent overlap on the 57 your not going to notice the crop much at all.  Also keep the hidden area mask on, that'll curve the crop to the shape of your lenses.

That's recorded by EVO directly off the right eye screen, that is exactly what and how I see the game.

Better add in I use MSI also, not really doing any real card overclocking, just make sure the power limit has no restrictions and a conservative memory boost.  Give yourself a nice head start with GPU cooling with the fans also, so it kicks in early and goes maximum quickly under a load before it starts getting warm.

Post release - Shadows now Ultra, and canopy set high, the shadows now work. 

The clouds are now better far as load but the combo with shadows ultra in full overcast and rain when set clouds to ultra becomes a bit of a drag with both on.   Shadows it is for me over full clouds.  Nice optimizations on these for release, but the grass, forget about it, it's a real drag and not worth the cost.  Try the indirect lighting, it was unplayable before, but you can actually fly it at still a great cost in VR.  The only thing of note is how the cockpit instruments appear, they look real with the glass.  But not worth the chug, for me it does have micro stutters, not a silky smooth experience.  It bogs the hanger and menus down big time, but not as bad in the fly.

Great stuff. These settings worked real well for me last night.

Only issue is now my gun sight is kinda blurry, the rest of the game looks great tho. have to figure out what is causing the blurriness to the sight and i am good to go.

[Dash,Polder]

4 hours ago, gord said:

Great stuff. These settings worked real well for me last night.

Only issue is now my gun sight is kinda blurry, the rest of the game looks great tho. have to figure out what is causing the blurriness to the sight and i am good to go.

VectorXR will fix that, it has some nice convergance and stereo vision adjustment abilities.  Bet you have a split football reticle in a crosseyed view in the Mig.  It'll fix that right up.

I'll post some settings might work for you when I get back on the PC.

[gord]

6 minutes ago, Dash,Polder said:

VectorXR will fix that, it has some nice convergance and stereo vision adjustment abilities.  Bet you have a split football reticle in a crosseyed view in the Mig.  It'll fix that right up.

I'll post some settings might work for you when I get back on the PC.

many thanks!

[Dash,Polder]

Try something like that and see if it disappears.  It uplifts the whole gun sight appearance for me, even the mechanical base of the sight. 

Isn't that 57ppd just a fantastic unit?  It's made for this game, a real performer.

[Varibraun]

I am late to this VR party, but very happy to be here now that I can play on Steam.  I am running a Pimax Super QLED 50ppd, 5090 FE & 9800X3D.  I have just started experimenting as I work to get everything running together and will be testing some of the settings you have all been discussing here.  But I have a simple first question for those of you who are running via Pimax Play:

Have you found that the in-game graphics settings for upscaling and AA are worth the effort over just using the Pimax Play upscaling NIS or FSR with Pimax sharpening and just leaving everything in-game disabled?  

Edited August 6 by Varibraun

[Papa]

26 minutes ago, Varibraun said:

I am late to this VR party, but very happy to be here now that I can play on Steam.  I am running a Pimax Super QLED 50ppd, 5090 FE & 9800X3D.  I have just started experimenting as I work to get everything running together and will be testing some of the settings you have all been discussing here.  But I have a simple first question for those of you who are running via Pimax Play:

Have you found that the in-game graphics settings for upscaling and AA are worth the effort over just using the Pimax Play upscaling NIS or FSR with Pimax sharpening and just leaving everything in-game disabled?  

in a 5090 too, I find that in-game DLSS quality is really good. That automatically gives you DLAA, so turn any other AA off. I have pimax sharpening, and no in-game sharpening.

[Dash,Polder]

Good news is you have a 5090, so that will compensate a lot, but the 50 ppd is rather more GPU resource hungry than the 57, you may have to drop overall res just a bit.  Going to depend on the total pixel generation capability sweet spot of your GPU.  For 50 ppd owners the single biggest help will be installing the pimax EVO app and trimming the margins of FOV to gain in cranking up the overall res.  

Although the crystal supers all share the same screens, they are not equal when it comes to pixel generation.  Has to do with the total width and FOV having to be generated all mixed in there.  The 57 has almost 100% overlap, so has far less FOV of pixels worth for the GPU to track and generate. 

Think of it as having to drive a monitor along with a repeater vs another set up having to drive two with only a small section of it being overlapped.  That one  needs far more GPU horsepower.  

[Cellinsky]

1 hour ago, Dash,Polder said:

Good news is you have a 5090, so that will compensate a lot, but the 50 ppd is rather more GPU resource hungry than the 57, you may have to drop overall res just a bit.  Going to depend on the total pixel generation capability sweet spot of your GPU.  For 50 ppd owners the single biggest help will be installing the pimax EVO app and trimming the margins of FOV to gain in cranking up the overall res.  

Although the crystal supers all share the same screens, they are not equal when it comes to pixel generation.  Has to do with the total width and FOV having to be generated all mixed in there.  The 57 has almost 100% overlap, so has far less FOV of pixels worth for the GPU to track and generate. 

Think of it as having to drive a monitor along with a repeater vs another set up having to drive two with only a small section of it being overlapped.  That one  needs far more GPU horsepower.  

I have made this sheet to have a clue what kind of pixel-insanity my trusty 4090 (24MB) has to compute. This card was meant to go with 4K (8.3 MP) at most. Go figure. Combined with my 9800X3d and 64 GB DDR5. I run this game @ 68% in PP. No upscaling, DLAA. Anything higher sure looks better but is not playable imho. HMD is a Crystal Light.

[Charger]

3 hours ago, Varibraun said:

I am late to this VR party, but very happy to be here now that I can play on Steam.  I am running a Pimax Super QLED 50ppd, 5090 FE & 9800X3D.  I have just started experimenting as I work to get everything running together and will be testing some of the settings you have all been discussing here.  But I have a simple first question for those of you who are running via Pimax Play:

Have you found that the in-game graphics settings for upscaling and AA are worth the effort over just using the Pimax Play upscaling NIS or FSR with Pimax sharpening and just leaving everything in-game disabled?  

Same here. This weekend is my first crack at this game. 5090 and the super ultrawide.

Nutting out VR settings is a love hate thing with me. It's trial and error. I'll read and absorb all the great info posted here, and setup up a baseline. Then just start tweaking. 

I wonder what secrets lie in the config file?

[YoYo]

30 minutes ago, Charger said:

I wonder what secrets lie in the config file?

No, bottleneck is primarily code + CPU mainly. 

I can reduce the settings to minimum, but in missions involving ground attacks in long columns, stutter is still visible. The same is true for passing planes; for example, you have the highest frame rates (for example 90), but it still looks like the enemy is "jumping" in the air. The image is not as smooth as in the IL-2 GB. These are symptoms of code problems, I suspect, which need to be optimized.

Of course, many settings will help, and there are many examples in this thread, depending on the HMD, but there's no holy grail right now except for the developers' work.

[JG4_Moltke71]

28 minutes ago, YoYo said:

No, bottleneck is primarily code + CPU mainly. 

I can reduce the settings to minimum, but in missions involving ground attacks in long columns, stutter is still visible. The same is true for passing planes; for example, you have the highest frame rates (for example 90), but it still looks like the enemy is "jumping" in the air. The image is not as smooth as in the IL-2 GB. These are symptoms of code problems, I suspect, which need to be optimized.

Of course, many settings will help, and there are many examples in this thread, depending on the HMD, but there's no holy grail right now except for the developers' work.

Exactly same experience here 😉

[Varibraun]

For Pimax, is there any consensus since the latest updates on VRoptimized vs. Balanced?

[von_Tom]

On 8/4/2026 at 3:02 PM, Dash,Polder said:

 

Does this affect the actual viewable area at all, or is it just cropping what you cannot see?  Either way, how much of the DA resolution is not viewable?

In-game my DA SLAM shows 102 FOV.

Thanks

von Tom

[Dash,Polder]

59 minutes ago, von_Tom said:

Does this affect the actual viewable area at all, or is it just cropping what you cannot see?  Either way, how much of the DA resolution is not viewable?

In-game my DA SLAM shows 102 FOV.

Thanks

von Tom

Try it and see, think it's going to affect each user on an individual basis.  I use prescription inserts so that may be a factor on mine.  I see no difference at 10% but can begin to tell setting it above that, and am willing to trade up to 15 for the upped resolution of .86 without feeling like I sacrificed anything by going to far.  Your mileage may vary.   

[Varibraun]

1 hour ago, von_Tom said:

In-game my DA SLAM shows 102 FOV.

How is the DA treating you in Korea? 

Based on the per eye MP values @Dash,Polder posted above, it seems like it might be the perfect headset for the current state of VR here.  Those OLED screens have gotten good reviews in the other flying sims.

6 hours ago, Dash,Polder said:

For 50 ppd owners the single biggest help will be installing the pimax EVO app and trimming the margins of FOV to gain in cranking up the overall res.  

I need to download EVO and update my Pimax Play, but I will definitely be giving this a try over the weekend based on my experiments so far...thank you!  Personally, I value visuals and performance over FOV.

[Dash,Polder]

2 hours ago, Varibraun said:

I need to download EVO and update my Pimax Play, but I will definitely be giving this a try over the weekend based on my experiments so far...thank you!  Personally, I value visuals and performance over FOV.

There's some great things coming down the pipe for EVO, and some really nice features in it right now like recording directly off one of your eye's screens while in your game.  You can hot swap between play and EVO without shutting anything down, but currently you can't launch a game via EVO because it can't do game profiles yet, but that's on the way.  So if you want to use the record features fire up in play with the settings you want, than swap over to EVO where the capture tools live.

[sandmarken]

Deleting the startup.config file really did wonders for my rig! With the same settings, the picture looks a lot better and it runs better too. Only cities, the biggest airfields, and the frontline cause some FPS drops.

 

Do we need to delete the config every time we try out new settings? 😅

[Cellinsky]

13 hours ago, Dash,Polder said:

There's some great things coming down the pipe for EVO, and some really nice features in it right now like recording directly off one of your eye's screens while in your game.  You can hot swap between play and EVO without shutting anything down, but currently you can't launch a game via EVO because it can't do game profiles yet, but that's on the way.  So if you want to use the record features fire up in play with the settings you want, than swap over to EVO where the capture tools live.

I stopped using evo, because after each swap, I had to redo my pimaxplay profiles. Is there a way to prevent that?
BTW, cropping an allready small fov is not the way to go imho. I had to go 15+Percent to get a marginal gain in performance. But its nice to have the posibillity.

Edited August 7 by Cellinsky

[Joch]

So VR experience for me so far is pretty good, about on par with DCS.

My goal is always to see if I can hit 90 fps reliably with a good visual experience, the standard being able to read cockpit gauges easily at a glance.

My system: 5800x3D, 5070ti, 32 GB DDR4 RAM @3600 mhz, HP Reverb G2 (Oasis driver), Win 11.

As others have mentioned, VR is always a balancing act, limiting the amount of pixels generated by the game to what your hardware can handle.

1st thing was setting the SteamVR resolution to 70% so that the per eye pixels more or less match my G2 native resolution (2156x2156).

In game settings: VR optimized, DLSS quality, pilot body enabled, most other settings (clouds, mirrors, shdows) at medium.

With these settings, I can hit 90 fps reliably with no stutters and good visuals, a bit better than DCS in my experience since Il2-Korea has a more up to date graphic engine. Terrain and cockpit look good, clouds are ok most of the time depending on the angle. 

So far I have only been flying very simple one aircraft missions, practing taking off from smaller airfields, sightseeing and practising navigatiion and landing, but even with these settings, the terrain: hills, airbases, forests, rivers, villages look very good.

Obviously there is always room for improvement, but no reason why players with more powerful systems cannot tweak their settings to get decent VR performance.

 

[YoYo]

1 hour ago, Joch said:

So VR experience for me so far is pretty good, about on par with DCS.

.......

Obviously there is always room for improvement, but no reason why players with more powerful systems cannot tweak their settings to get decent VR performance.

What you're suggesting here is unacceptable to most of us. Of course, you can always fly at 1600 pixels even and it will be fine, but those were the standards about six years ago, when Reverb was released. Reducing the settings to such low settings and enabling DLSS, which further downscales the image, is unacceptable, at least for me. Today, most people fly at resolutions of 3000 pixels and higher. I'm not talking about 8K HMDs, because that doesn't work well in many cases for sure.

I also disagree that the IL-2 Korea performs better than the DCS. What you wrote is not true, that a newer engine = better performance. It doesn't work that way, and there are many other factors involved. In the case of Korea, it turns out that the bottleneck is the code that goes to the CPU. Have you flown, as I understand it, a campaign, a ground attack mission against long convoys, or flown over Seoul or a mission with multiple AI? Check there.

There's a significant performance gap between DCS and Korea, favoring DCS. With the same settings, Korea generates about 1/5-1/4 FPS less, and over cities, it's even half of what I get in DCS, and DCS sometimes has cities several times larger. Needless to say, it's difficult to compare Paris '45 to Seoul '50, wouldn't you agree? Unfortunately, it's not as rosy as you're describing. Run your goggles in DCS with 2500pxt and in Korea, without any DLSS, enable MSAAx2 and I guarantee you that you will have PowerPoint presentations.

It's always worth testing all the options and then reporting back with feedback, but of course, if everything works fine for you and everything works as you'd like, then congratulations.

[Husar]

2 hours ago, Joch said:

So VR experience for me so far is pretty good, about on par with DCS.

No way. Four other guys I regularly fly with in VR and we all agree that DCS performs much better in VR, even without DFR. We all use relatively low-resolution headsets — the Quest 3.