Dev Blog #81: Virtual Reality

[Husar]

1 hour ago, lefuneste said:

They should have keep DX11 if DX12 is such a blocker. Another DX11 sim with quad view has better fps than Korea...

apparently DX12 is not a problem, to contrary it easier to do geometry instancing which helped gain significant amount of performace in VR with MSFF24 (only 30% geometry instanced) a and big winner was  Iracing (all geometry instancing using Nvida MVR which is the prehistoric version of DX12 view instancing).

 

Edited July 14 by Husar

[Dash,Polder]

Quote

But we’ve also seen issues, and we’re not ignoring them. Therefore, in addition to searching for solutions to existing issues and constantly working to improve performance and fix bugs,

Don't leave that part out, not like they just up and quit and said this is it.

[Spasticus]

I'm glad they at least show having VR on the radar. I still hope they will implement foveated rendering. I'd be happy with 10% performance boost and other games using it effectively still makes me doubtful that's the max performance gain they can get. 

I'm still having a lot of fun with a Pimax Dream, 4090 and playing on lowered resolution.

I have also come to the dubious conclusion that it's often easier to spot with lower resolution as the shimmering edges are much easier to spot than tiny pixels... That helps in multiplayer but I don't want to feel gimped playing in high res. 

[AEthelraedUnraed]

4 hours ago, Jade_Monkey said:

Idk, the post reads like “it’s not us, it’s you!”.

You are telling me the game is already perfectly optimized for VR? 

They do mention that there are certain limitations in hardware and software that cannot be overcome at this point in time, but nowhere do they say that they already consider the game perfectly optimised. In fact, they quite literally say that they are aware of the issues and are "constantly working to improve performance and fix bugs".

 

2 hours ago, Picchio said:

Bottom line: 1C won't implement QV because of 5% perf boost (with what settings, who knows) but users should consider spending over 4000 Euros or whatever insane price it is for other currencies in order to buy a 5090. This is beyond ridiculous.

Nowhere do they suggest you buy a new video card. In fact, they suggest that buying a 5090 is probably not a good idea because the performance gain is minimal and you won't be able to play at max settings anyway. That's literally the opposite of the words you put in their mouth.

 

I can understand that people are disappointed that they won't be able to play VR in max settings for the foreseeable future, but I really do not understand how these misquotations and otherwise hostile responses are going to help anyone.

[Hotdognz]

Reading the latest Developer blog is pretty disappointing in that they think they have good VR performance in Il2 Korea, coming from DCS (old engine) and MSFS2024 (new engine) in VR and trying to get Il2 Korea running on a Pimax Crystal with a 4090 and I9 13900K and 128gb DDR5, I can certainly say IL2 Korea looks and preformes really bad using the recomended VR preset and even trying to fix the image with different settings its still looks like a 5 year old game, compared to what MSFS2024 looks like its just looks outdated, FPS fluctuations vary from 20-50 FPS. I was happy to support Il2 Korea and purchased the expensive version and have all the GB series, but seeing how VR preforms and this dev blog on how the say it preforms, I wish I had kept on the side lines and waited.

[JMax]

9 hours ago, Leifr said:

Buy a 5090, problem solved.

Yes the video card/ram insanity,if it continues,will surely be the death knell of these great games.Unless developers can produce something that isnt so demanding on wildly expensive components.My Nvidia 4070Ti  has a hard time with VR in terms of fpm and video quality.I really think its a small minority that can afford these cards etc.

[Drewm3i-VR]

8 hours ago, Husar said:

"A separate story here is that the widely advertised Foveated and Quadview modes turned out to be ineffective for applications developed for the modern DirectX 12 pipeline" . DX12 geometry instancing -  DX12 multi-view rendering is It's an even simpler way to do instancing of geometry

 

They should literally just hire this OpenXR Toolkit MBucchia guy as a consultant to optimize the game/VR once and for all!

[Drewm3i-VR]

Korea is the sim of the future--the hardware to enjoy it at max fidelity/framerates does not exist yet, and is likely 2-3 generations or more away. GB is STILL--and will be for the next many years--the sim of NOW.

 

What cpu/GPU was mainstream in 2014 when the first fledgling module, Battle of Stalingrad, was released?--an Intel i7-3370K and a GTX 780 on system with 8GB of DDR3 ram? Lol.

 

VR would have been impossible at the time, even if it existed!!! Anyone remember SLI and stereo 3D? Lol, how far we have come!!

 

Sad to say, but the game engine (in conjunction with the more complex simulation and graphics engine) and hardware are just not there yet--maybe MBucchia's methods could help but who knows.

 

I am so happy we still have Great Battles/Flying Circus to enjoy! It's my favorite sim of all time (because of VR). As a ominous aside: PC hardware development for video games has really slowed with the advent of crypto and AI--because the latter is where the MONEY is at in selling server-grade components for those operations!

 

I want to buy Korea, but since my PC can't play it in VR...well, I'll see you guys in the sky over on Combat Box (not Korea) when I fly.

Edited July 15 by Drewm3i-VR

[Picchio]

6 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

They do mention that there are certain limitations in hardware and software that cannot be overcome at this point in time, but nowhere do they say that they already consider the game perfectly optimised. In fact, they quite literally say that they are aware of the issues and are "constantly working to improve performance and fix bugs".

 

Nowhere do they suggest you buy a new video card. In fact, they suggest that buying a 5090 is probably not a good idea because the performance gain is minimal and you won't be able to play at max settings anyway. That's literally the opposite of the words you put in their mouth.

 

I can understand that people are disappointed that they won't be able to play VR in max settings for the foreseeable future, but I really do not understand how these misquotations and otherwise hostile responses are going to help anyone.

Ironic, not hostile. It's impossible not to see the disconnection between the content of the DD and the comments both here and in Discord regarding performance in VR.

If the engine can't push enough FPS with the best available hardware and yes at maximum settings in VR (who the hell doesn't expect that with a 5090 at least while pushing moderate resolutions?), where is the problem?

13 minutes ago, Drewm3i-VR said:

Korea is the sim of the future--the hardware to enjoy it at max fidelity/framerates does not exist yet, and is 2-3 generations or more away. 

 

GB is STILL--and will be for the next many years--the sim of NOW. What cpu/GPU was mainstream in 2014 when the first fledgling module, Battle of Stalingrad, was released?--and Intel i7-3370K and a GTX 780? VR literally would have been impossible at the time even if it existed!

 

Sad to say, but the game engine (in conjunction with the more complex simulation and graphics engine) and hardware are not there yet--maybe MBucchia's methods could help but who knows.

 

I am so happy we still have Great Battles/Flying Circus to enjoy! It's my favorite sim of all time (because of VR).

 

Since you're bringing up absurd comparisons, please tell me that the high end GPU market is the same as it was in 2014.

Maybe you're right and it's really built to be future proof, but hardware accessibility is another matter entirely.

Edited July 15 by Picchio

[Dash,Polder]

37 minutes ago, Drewm3i-VR said:

Korea is the sim of the future--the hardware to enjoy it at max fidelity/framerates does not exist yet, and is likely 2-3 generations or more away. GB is STILL--and will be for the next many years--the sim of NOW.

Talk about commercial suicide by design than, not bloody likely.

[KC23]

(reads blog 81)

YES, you too can have those kinds of headaches for the sum of 2 grand plus.

No thanks, I'll be waiting a while to buy one of those.

Edited July 15 by KC23

[YoYo]

7 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

I can understand that people are disappointed that they won't be able to play VR in max settings for the foreseeable future, but I really do not understand how these misquotations and otherwise hostile responses are going to help anyone.

But what are you talking about here? What maximum settings? 

None of us are complaining that the game runs fine for them, but doesn't perform well on maximum settings LOL. We're talking about the fact that it doesn't work well even have optimal settings, the lack of proper optimization, and the fact that even on average headsets (Quest 3), the game doesn't generate the required frame rate compared to even the competition, where cities look much more detailed and are 5-10x larger (DCS: Paris, London, Cairo, etc., MSFS2024). The developers mention the new generation of graphics cards as a hope, but that's not entirely true. No simulator can handle 8k at the moment, but here too there is awareness and proposals for other solutions like QV. So, contrary to appearances, that 10% increase in VR is a lot. In 2D, whether it's 150 FPS or 165 FPS makes no difference, but in VR, whether it's 82 FPS or 90 FPS makes a significant difference. I wouldn't abandon this path, regardless.

Yesterday, I tested a flight over Seoul with DLSS Quality enabled, an RTX 5090, and the frame rate dropped from 72 to exactly 38. This isn't a problem with my GPU or CPU, but simply with the optimalization of IL-2 Korea. It just has to happen, and please don't tell me the game runs fine on other settings, but only poorly on maximum or 8K. We're not kids. 

[kraut1]

After reading all these posts it seems to me the best to use my 6 year old average gaming pc (+Rift-S) a further year with the extended win10 security updates, to focus on GB and to use Korea (already installed) just for some sporadic test missions / 1 plane sight seeing flights.

Or is there a chance to buy a ca. 1500...2000Euro new gaming pc and to fly with a Quest3 with "balanced" graphic settings acceptable VR combat missions?

Edited July 15 by kraut1

[Husar]

2 hours ago, Drewm3i-VR said:

They should literally just hire this OpenXR Toolkit MBucchia guy as a consultant to optimize the game/VR once and for all!

For sure they could try to reach him for that.

He is now working for Valve,I believe in the future steamVR will gain significant performance .

[Husar]

2 hours ago, Drewm3i-VR said:

VR would have been impossible at the time, even if it existed!!! Anyone remember SLI and stereo 3D? Lol, how far we have come!!

I do , I had  a double GPU NVIDIA GeForce graphics card and a 3D monitor with NVIDIA 3D Vision, was playing Rise of Flight in 3D stereoscopic.

[kraut1]

Has anyone already tested a Rift-S with OpenComposite with Korea?

[Charger]

It's a new flight sim released in 2026. 

Pretty sure ill still be flying it in 2040. I'll be retired then! 

Point being, there is a long way to go. 

[Col.Sanders]

1 hour ago, kraut1 said:

Has anyone already tested a Rift-S with OpenComposite with Korea?

Why would you need to use open composite? The game is openxr native. You only need open composite for GB.

[AndreiTomescu]

2 hours ago, YoYo said:

In 2D, whether it's 150 FPS or 165 FPS makes no difference, but in VR, whether it's 82 FPS or 90 FPS

guys, i don't VR yet, i was preparing to, since i got this new rig dedicated to korea. But now i'm gonna wait.

But those figures, yoyo, they are ....optimistic.....and i'm talking about 2D: 9070xt, 9700x, 32 ram, settings on high plus, so to say, and i have to cap at 80 fps. CPU bottleneck, i guess. If i let it run free, it goes to 180+ fps, and suddently drops to 70-90, sometimes to 50 (bomber armada).

So to avoid stutter, in 2D, with my very good, i'd say, rig and decent settings, 80 fps is the limit.

Oh, and also the sky......

But we'll hope and pray for optimisation.

[Spasticus]

Seeing as Matthieu Bucchia, the developer of XR toolkit, is basically a world-leading expert on PCVR and optimization for it, I hope they take his suggestions and criticism about the implementation of foveated rendering seriously. He knows what he's talking about. And it would be a shame to leave performance improvements received via foveated rendering in other sims on the table when it comes to IL2. 

I would encourage the devs to listen to him and maybe work with him. 

Edited July 15 by Spasticus

[AEthelraedUnraed]

Since there apparently are many people with reading problems, I'll start this post by spelling out the following in a bit larger font:

The Devs are "searching for solutions to existing issues and constantly working to improve performance and fix bugs." They continue to "invest a great deal of time and effort into this support and optimization." This blog "cover[s] the nuances" involved in doing so, but it doesn't disacknowledge that issues exist.

 

3 hours ago, Picchio said:

Ironic, not hostile. It's impossible not to see the disconnection between the content of the DD and the comments both here and in Discord regarding performance in VR.

Twisting one's words is not irony, it's malignance. By putting entitled-sounding words in the developers mouths that they'd suggest that "users should consider spending over 4000 Euros" on hardware, you're hurting their image, and by extension the game and the community as a whole.

Right at the top of the blog, they acknowledge that there are issues. I do not see how that is disconnected with users' comments. At the same time, they are also honest about what they can achieve, and honest about what users should expect.

3 hours ago, Picchio said:

If the engine can't push enough FPS with the best available hardware and yes at maximum settings in VR (who the hell doesn't expect that with a 5090 at least while pushing moderate resolutions?), where is the problem?

No matter what optimisations you use, VR is always going to be more hardware-intensive than 2D. Saying that a 5090 should be able to run maximum settings in VR, is akin to saying that the maximum settings should be tuned to VR sets. I think that's entirely unfair to the large majority of 2D players.

2 hours ago, YoYo said:

But what are you talking about here? What maximum settings? 

None of us are complaining that the game runs fine for them, but doesn't perform well on maximum settings LOL.

That's a false statement since as you can see from Picchio's comment, there are in fact people complaining that VR doesn't run on maximum settings.

FWIW, VR runs fine on my rig (4080, 7800X3D, Quest2). I had to tune it slightly down from the VR preset settings, but it now works well for me apart from some small glitches (e.g. the terrain LOD one) that I'm sure they'll solve soon - we're still in pre-release after all. I haven't done any real testing and it isn't a fair comparison in any case since the graphics settings differ, but overall I'd say that on my rig Korea runs better than MSFS2024, where the framerate really drops at low altitude. I realise that I probably got lucky and that there are many users who do report legitimate issues, but it's certainly not the whole community that is dissatisfied with Korea's VR performance. Just a very vocal part.

[BlitzPig_EL]

The irony here is that this community, both VR and 2D, have begged the Devs for more details, better graphics, better physics modeling for flight and weapons, better, well, everything, and when the Devs deliver what we have asked for, it devolves into wailing and gnashing of teeth because their computers can't run the things that they all asked for in VR.  You can't push the bleeding edge of tech, and VR is the bleeding edge of tech, and not expect to have the absolute best available system specs

Pushing the boundaries is a costly business.

VR is still an emerging technology, you folks that use it are indeed pioneers, you cannot expect to open up the new world to be as easy as walking to the corner shop for an ice cream.

 

[Panzerlang]

My concern (such as it is these days), and one I'd thought obvious until now, is that selecting the Fly Now and taking a single plane for a joyride away from cities and large towns doesn't show a legitimately expected improvement in FPS. Why? Are the ground textures and trees way more complex than DCS or GB? If so, they don't look it. Is it the sky? Clouds? Turn those down, no appreciable benefit. At the most basic performance (one plane, away from buildings), the game struggles to perform in VR.

It's far from unplayable, as subjective as that might be, but it's not as enjoyably playable as GB. DCS, same ballpark there (subjectively, for me). Which is why I stopped playing DCS a long while back.

However, I find myself feeling largely ambivalent. Possibly too many years of caring too hard. Lol. A valid hope, of course, borne out by previous experiences, is that the tech from both ends (devs and hardware/software providers) will eventually find a way. All us users need to provide is patience (and enough years left to see the fruit of all that stuff).

[Picchio]

3 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

Since there apparently are many people with reading problems, I'll start this post by spelling out the following in a bit larger font:

The Devs are "searching for solutions to existing issues and constantly working to improve performance and fix bugs." They continue to "invest a great deal of time and effort into this support and optimization." This blog "cover[s] the nuances" involved in doing so, but it doesn't disacknowledge that issues exist.

 

Twisting one's words is not irony, it's malignance. By putting entitled-sounding words in the developers mouths that they'd suggest that "users should consider spending over 4000 Euros" on hardware, you're hurting their image, and by extension the game and the community as a whole.

Right at the top of the blog, they acknowledge that there are issues. I do not see how that is disconnected with users' comments. At the same time, they are also honest about what they can achieve, and honest about what users should expect.

No matter what optimisations you use, VR is always going to be more hardware-intensive than 2D. Saying that a 5090 should be able to run maximum settings in VR, is akin to saying that the maximum settings should be tuned to VR sets. I think that's entirely unfair to the large majority of 2D players.

That's a false statement since as you can see from Picchio's comment, there are in fact people complaining that VR doesn't run on maximum settings.

FWIW, VR runs fine on my rig (4080, 7800X3D, Quest2). I had to tune it slightly down from the VR preset settings, but it now works well for me apart from some small glitches (e.g. the terrain LOD one) that I'm sure they'll solve soon - we're still in pre-release after all. I haven't done any real testing and it isn't a fair comparison in any case since the graphics settings differ, but overall I'd say that on my rig Korea runs better than MSFS2024, where the framerate really drops at low altitude. I realise that I probably got lucky and that there are many users who do report legitimate issues, but it's certainly not the whole community that is dissatisfied with Korea's VR performance. Just a very vocal part.

My comment was an exaggeration.

I'm not adding anything else. If you didn't already I would still suggest reading through the pages of comments here in the Forum and in Discord in order to get a (partial, yes) understanding directly from users.

[tattywelshie]

1 hour ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

The irony here is that this community, both VR and 2D, have begged the Devs for more details, better graphics, better physics modeling for flight and weapons, better, well, everything, and when the Devs deliver what we have asked for, it devolves into wailing and gnashing of teeth because their computers can't run the things that they all asked for in VR.  You can't push the bleeding edge of tech, and VR is the bleeding edge of tech, and not expect to have the absolute best available system specs

Pushing the boundaries is a costly business.

VR is still an emerging technology, you folks that use it are indeed pioneers, you cannot expect to open up the new world to be as easy as walking to the corner shop for an ice cream.

 

I agree here, we all wanted fancy explosions, villages ploughing fields, horses running around in fields, longer smoke trails, more complex clouds, and so on and so on, surely folks realise that with all these things, performance will suffer? The main thing is these problems seem that they are being addressed by the devs. I'm sure in time the VR performance will be sorted, as I say, at least it's being addressed.

Edited July 15 by tattywelshie