Dev Blog #81: Virtual Reality

[JaMz]

All I read here is a huge contradidction to what was suggested at the development stage whilst trying to sell a 'pre-order' program

 

 

[Avimimus]

2 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

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.

I do recall almost posting, after reading the dev update: 'Oh, I wonder if the reason we don't have slightly sharper field textures for us flat-screen users is due to the need to accommodate VR players'... but I thought that might be trolling.

I personally looked at my machine and decided I'd run Il-2 Great Battles in VR and Korea in 2D for the next two to four years... then maybe consider an upgrade. I think part of it is that I come from an era where Moore's law still existed as a thing... so every three years you'd need to drop the equivalent of $5000-$8000 on a machine if you wanted to fly the latest flight sim... and I simply got use to waiting two to five years to try the newest sims. I was surprised I was able to run Great Battles on the same machine for ten years (with only a bit of stutter in some parts of some maps by the end)... but I certainly don't feel entitled to that.

I've also recognised - since at least 2004 when I got to try the 'photorealistic' Doom 3 demo - that Flight Simulators will always put specific demands on hardware (often demands the existing hardware and rendering pipelines aren't optimised for), which means that means they won't look as good as a comparable triple A FPS... so I don't expect maximum settings. I'm personally pretty glad that Korea can run on my old machine (which is below the system requirements), but recognise that I can't turn on all of the fanciest features while doing so.

44 minutes 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 would tend to agree with this.

I also think that the development update shows that they are continuing to work on VR, are actively looking at multiple possible pathways for optimisation, and investing hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in supporting this tech (resources that could be used elsewhere for improving other parts of the sim).

[tattywelshie]

Just now, JaMz said:

All I read here is a huge contradidction to what was suggested at the development stage whilst trying to sell a 'pre-order' program

 

 

No one had to pre-order though? I didn't because of the many, many unknowns regarding the game and wasn't prepared to spend over $100 on something that isnt in a properly playable state. I know that's selfish, because without the pre-orders then maybe these issues wouldnt be ironed out. If you pre-ordered, then good on you, but surely no one who pre-ordered expected a game that was close to being finished? 

[Avimimus]

13 minutes ago, Panzerlang said:

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.

It'd be interesting to find out what the biggest impacts on FPS are coming from. The shift to PBR, the new atmospheric lighting model, and the use of more complex and layered textures likely increases the video memory requirements... a lot of this might be future-proofing - accepting some compromises now in order to be able to offer significant improvements over the next half decade.

I've never agreed with decision to improve the lighting models (even back in the Rise of Flight days), but I quickly came to see the merit once the new models were implemented... in other words, I underestimated what a positive effect it has. Flying Great Battles now looks kind-of 'flat'.

Then we have the aircraft being 2.5 times more detailed and the terrain mesh being 4 times more detailed... I mainly care about the flight models, damage models, and AI - but I can see the merit of trying to keep improving the visuals and can see why they've tried to build in higher levels of detail. Personally though, I'm quite happy to turn down some of the settings and focus on the sensation of flight... but again, my first flight simulator was SWOTL running at 320x240... so... I might be more easily impressed.

[AndreiTomescu]

Honoured gentlemen,

Esteemed colleagues,

Flight enthusiasts from all over the word,

Cool down, please.

These boots are made for walking

And this game is made for profit.

They won't make that profit only on x3d and 5090 owners.

They will improve, optimise and upgrade , if not for the passion, then for the profit.

It will take some time....i maintain my 2 yrs estimation till reaching the top.

Rome was not build over night, Great Battles were not so great al launch (remember???) and DCS was exactly 2 planes in a barn when it started (2013).

A couple of yrs from now, when you all gonna be fighting over Guadacanal, who's gonna remember all this excitement?

Keep calm and fly on.

[JaMz]

14 minutes ago, tattywelshie said:

No one had to pre-order though? I didn't because of the many, many unknowns regarding the game and wasn't prepared to spend over $100 on something that isnt in a properly playable state. I know that's selfish, because without the pre-orders then maybe these issues wouldnt be ironed out. If you pre-ordered, then good on you, but surely no one who pre-ordered expected a game that was close to being finished? 

Let me rephrase that then..

 

The DD to me and I guess many seems to be an admission of what people who are involved in VR (not me btw) are now finding out and what will be availabe in the general release... It's not what was implied before EA and through the DD's... I wonder how many of those VR flyers who can only solely fly VR now would of purchased knowing what they know now

 

[tattywelshie]

2 minutes ago, JaMz said:

Let me rephrase that then..

 

The DD to me and I guess many seems to be an admission of what people who are involved in VR (not me btw) are now finding out and what will be availabe in the general release... It's not what was implied before EA and through the DD's... I wonder how many of those VR flyers who can only solely fly VR now would of purchased knowing what they know now

 

Yeah, that is true, I'm a non VR type as well, so would have ignored that element of the game anyway. As I say, the main thing is, the devs are aware of it and hopefully will improve it for those users, or if the prevailing mood from this thread is the same for most VR users they are in a spot of bother.

[Husar]

1 hour ago, Avimimus said:

It'd be interesting to find out what the biggest impacts on FPS are coming from

Maybe because the terrain is four times more detailed than in GB?

Anyway, Korea is an evolution of an engine whose roots go back to 2006–2007. Overall, I don't have any major performance issues—just occasional hiccups (like the grass issue or zoom in fps drop). I believe those can be identified and fixed.

What I don't like at the moment is the clunky ground texture and object streaming system, which is tied to a very aggressive LOD system. Textures are blurred to close and uneven, terrain geometry is reducing mountain vertices in player view , objects pop in and disappear far too quickly, which is quite distracting in GA missions. The particle effects (smoke and dust) are also lacking right now, but I know they're currently being worked on. 

In the future years I would be great if all static objects had a more detailed damage model, using the same destruction physics that dynamic objects already have.  There's smoke and mirrors on/off destruction DM currently implemented and I had hear complains about that.

Few years from now and all will be good, they will deliver or all be on CP 😂, it's is EA time easy to say what could be improved in the future.

Edited July 15 by Husar

[Avimimus]

Yeah, my personal wish at the moment is expanding the distance at which grass can be rendered (dealing with some of the pop-in and compensating for the slight lack of sharpness in some of the field textures), as well as potentially dealing with some of the tree and building LoD issues... but as mentioned, I decided it was most realistic to fly Great Battles in VR and Korea in 2d for at least a couple of years.

I haven't actually tried Korea in VR yet though... maybe once I try it I'll be as full of passion as some many others - tearing my shirt and beating my breast in the agony of unfulfilled VR framerates and that are visible but just out of reach.

I cannot help but think of the myth of Tantalus.

P.S. I'm taking the mic out of myself here - not the people who are pushing really hard for some kind of VR solution that may or may not be possible... I'm just saying that I could see myself going even further down that road potential. Consider at mark of sympathy!

[Dash,Polder]

So, how far along did they get with that 10% experiment and is it still hidden in there somewhere?  Any chance on activating a switch later on, at users own risk and discretion of course, it'd be OK by me.   Who knows, some models of HMD might even hit the jackpot.

[Husar]

19 hours ago, Aapje said:

I would still like the 1CGS team reach out to mbucchia for a second opinion. Frankly, I don't believe that Nvidia puts even their second-best people on helping developers like 1CGS, and no 1CGS developer is going to be as knowledgeable as Matthieu on this topic.

Yes. mbucchia (Mathieu Bucchianeri) has a long history of helping game developers with VR, particularly around OpenXR, runtime integration, and performance optimization.

[=ILS=_Abu_27]

23 hours ago, Dash,Polder said:

Super 57 ppd，它是所有超级处理器中资源使用最接近晶体的，对GPU的使用最简单，图像生成几乎完全相同，因为图像几乎完全重叠。在那个用眼动追踪和延迟工作的模拟器里，分辨率应该比C灯高很多。我一起飞行的那个人总能用他的超级英雄远远领先我。我需要并且想要这种能力。

希望你没有买57ppd 这个版本，我测试过小派所有的设备，super系列我建议是买50ppd版本，而我最建议的版本是dreamair，而我认为最不适合模飞的版本就是57ppd，别被带偏了- -

[YoYo]

6 hours ago, Avimimus said:

Great Battles in VR and Korea in 2d for at least a couple of years.

Personally, I can't imagine returning to 2D just because it's "something new." In fact, if VR isn't there or it doesn't work properly, it's a do-or-die situation for this game for me. There shouldn't be any compromises. It's either okay, or I'm not interested in the game, I won't play it, I won't buy add-ons, period.

In my opinion, this is simply a problem with the LODs (I think), which aren't working properly. This can be fixed. Yesterday's test also clearly showed me that I had a constant frame rate everywhere (okay, except for the mission with a hundred B-29s), but approaching the city, the frames dropped with each second, stopping at 38 above the city. After that, I could explore the entire map at a constant 72 frames. This is clearly a problem with the building design. Sure, there were calls for "more and better," but there's a certain threshold that shouldn't be crossed if it's going to impact performance.

It's nice to have details: dogs, a Korean sitting on a toilet ;), a kite, a cat on a fence, etc. But honestly, flying 300 mph above it, I can't see it. These are "delicacies" good for screenshots and advertising, and that's where the real benefit ends. The buildings and villages in IL-2GB are quite fine; there's no need for more detail if it's going to lower frame rates by 50% or more (and as you can see above, the problem isn't just VR; 2D also has problems with this, with FPS dropping from 160 to 80 or less). This could have been caught during testing and people could have said, "Great, guys, but this isn't the way to go. The cities are supposed to generate the same FPS as in IL-2GB."

I've spent quite a bit of time in VR in IL-2 GB online (hundreds of hours). Currently, in Korea, it's hard to imagine people flying in VR vs. 2D. The difference in perception can be colossal. How to shoot, how to develop a technique, how to to have the same frame (to max your Hz)? This wasn't a problem in IL-2GB, and people in VR could compete equally in dogfights on online servers. Now we're basically talking about the basics of "slideshow" (if the opponent escapes over the city) vs. 2D, which is quite ok. Competing in such a system doesn't make much sense, or rather I bet that it will be even more replayable than in IL-2 GB

Effects, details of aircraft, objects, vehicles, FM, DM, trees, even clouds are not a problem (at least for me) in IL-2 Korea, airports are quite ok, grass too (you can always shorten the distance and even turn it off, but the developers also mentioned that they are working on its performance, ..... but only those damn cities and villages . I believe that the focus should be directed here first.

RAW pictures, DCS London, 72 FPS, London (1945): ~8.3 million population (this was due to the number of buildings and facilities):

RAW Picture, DCS Paris, 72 FPS Paris (1945): ~2.9 million population:

RAW Picture, IL-2 Korea, 1950 Seoul, 35 FPS (what is it that causes such a drop? Seoul - 1950 ~1.0 million population):

Beyond the optimization itself (at least for me, this only applies to the ground), perhaps it's worth considering splitting the settings for buildings, vegetation, and so on. This would provide more options for player choice and customization. Could the player choose whether they want super trees, or instead of buildings, simple structures with maximum frame rate, or something else? This is also a suggestion for developers.

I'll also add that I'm very pleased with the rest of the things I see and don't regret a single dollar, even though I bought the most expensive version. The simulator has potential and certainly has an interesting future, but it requires a return to the basics of the concept, at least in terms of the objects presented.

Edited July 15 by YoYo

[Husar]

31 minutes ago, YoYo said:

The cities are supposed to generate the same FPS as in IL-2GB."

But they don't,  fly above Leningard and watch FPS cunnter - from 200 to 100.

The game's visual fidelity shouldn't be compromised or reduced simply because there are no other options for flying in VR. That's not the right direction to take.

Edited July 15 by Husar

[YoYo]

14 minutes ago, Husar said:

But they don't,  fly above Leningard and watch FPS cunnter - from 200 to 100.

The game's visual fidelity shouldn't be compromised or reduced simply because there are no other options for flying in VR. That's not the right direction to take.

Cant agree. I have absolutely no problems over Leningrad; I still have stable FPS there like outside. It's worse in the campaign because we have additional content and air battles, but flying and exploring solo is fine. 

 

[Husar]

12 minutes ago, YoYo said:

Cant agree. I have absolutely no problems over Leningrad; I still have stable FPS there like outside. It's worse in the campaign because we have additional content and air battles, but flying and exploring solo is fine. 

 

Of course you do. You're no different from anyone else. You just don't notice it because it's masked by your headset's refresh rate. The frame time fluctuations are still there—they just don't drop below your headset's refresh rate threshold. Uncap FPS and fly on monitor over Leningrad.

[YoYo]

By the way, this is quite an interesting issue. Developers strive for the highest possible fidelity. Sometimes we have sceneries in simulators that resemble FPS/FPP games more, with animals, a shovel stuck in piles of sand, a ladder, and even pots on a fence. This is the trend. The question is, do we want and need this in combat simulators? While airports are still quite important, are there really any other things needed? If I wanted to fly for the beautiful views, I'd run MSFS2024. A survey for players about the performance and quality of things not directly related to simulation would be useful someday. Personally, for me, these things are somewhere around 8th or 10th place, with very low priority. Textures and vegetation are probably higher up.

[Husar]

10 hours ago, YoYo said:

By the way, this is quite an interesting issue. Developers strive for the highest possible fidelity. Sometimes we have sceneries in simulators that resemble FPS/FPP games more, with animals, a shovel stuck in piles of sand, a ladder, and even pots on a fence. This is the trend. The question is, do we want and need this in combat simulators? While airports are still quite important, are there really any other things needed? If I wanted to fly for the beautiful views, I'd run MSFS2024. A survey for players about the performance and quality of things not directly related to simulation would be useful someday. Personally, for me, these things are somewhere around 8th or 10th place, with very low priority. Textures and vegetation are probably higher up.

@YoYo

Just relax—they're aware of the CPU bottlenecks. The good news is that Matthieu is willing to chat with them about  the VR implementation as he did to others. That can change something or not. 

 

On ground fidelity topic - not all simers are just fixed wings VR pilots. 

Beyond the flight model, damage model and wether the most important things for me are the visual and sound effects. I'd like them to be much closer to real life as possible.

Edited July 16 by Husar

[TPower]

4 minutes ago, Husar said:

@YoYo 

Just relax—they're aware of the CPU bottlenecks. The good news is that Matthieu is willing to help with the VR implementation.

Beyond the flight model, damage model the most important things for me are the visual and sound effects. I'd like them to be much closer to real life.

That's good to hear because I should not be having issues with a 9950X.

[Hotdognz]

Reading through the Dev Blog on VR and some comments here, im interested in what this setting is they talk about.

Im going to try the mentioned VR pre-set, but want try this part too.

[Dash,Polder]

They're talking about the resolution presets that are new, the bottom setting in the right column for Graphics settings page.

[Jade_Monkey]

2 hours ago, Hotdognz said:

Reading through the Dev Blog on VR and some comments here, im interested in what this setting is they talk about.

Im going to try the mentioned VR pre-set, but want try this part too.

 

It's the last setting in th Graphics menu "VR Resolution factor".

It just renders the game at a lower resolution to be less demanding on the GPU.

I belive this is the same setting you s on Pimax or Steam VR, not sure if one of them is more efficient than the other. However it you do it in both Pimax and in-game, you are effectively multiplying the resolution factor. For example, if you set both to 80%, you are actually rendering at 64% of the original picture size (0.8*0.8=0.64).

Unless someone knows if there are any benefits, you can just leave the game at 100% and move the resolution factor in Pimax Play to 64 if that's what you wanted, or leave it at 80.

[MiGCap]

4 hours ago, YoYo said:

By the way, this is quite an interesting issue. Developers strive for the highest possible fidelity. Sometimes we have sceneries in simulators that resemble FPS/FPP games more, with animals, a shovel stuck in piles of sand, a ladder, and even pots on a fence. This is the trend. The question is, do we want and need this in combat simulators? While airports are still quite important, are there really any other things needed? If I wanted to fly for the beautiful views, I'd run MSFS2024. A survey for players about the performance and quality of things not directly related to simulation would be useful someday. Personally, for me, these things are somewhere around 8th or 10th place, with very low priority. Textures and vegetation are probably higher up.

Obviously You don‘t want/need it, but for me all these little details on the ground were one of the main reasons I bought and fly this sim, beside my interest in the Korean War. And I know more players who think exactly the same. I gladly accept lower FPS in VR if I get more of these fantastic details. And I am happy with 35 to 45 FPS if I have all these nice stuff which makes this sim so immersive.

By the way, I have no problems to get results with my F-80C on ground attack missions in MP with my settings.

[B34k]

I personally don't love the tone this dev blog post. Comes off as "we've tried it all, nothing's going to work, your headsets are just ridiculous." The flat-out dismissal of Quad Views, when a VR expert says there's likely good gains to be had makes them seem a bit closed-minded. Sentences like: "the performance boost from Quad Views was the same as from DLSS" when one keeps the area you're looking super sharp, while the other causes ghosting, show that they're not super in tune to what we as VR simmers need.

I'm not saying VR needs to work flawlessly at launch. It took MSFS 2024 a full year to add DFR, and longer to the sim to the point where I'd say the VR experience is good. For now, I've gotten frame-rates to acceptable levels (mostly 60fps lock except when CPU becomes the bottleneck in missions and cities) by turning things way down and turning off Anti-Ailasing. 

It would just be nice to hear 1C to show more openness to industry standards like Quad Views or a willingness to consult experts like Mathieu Bucchianeri. It would give me more confidence that in 2 years time VR in Korea could be excellent.

Outside of VR though, I think the bones of this game are quite good. Between the damage and flight models, just get AI to a point where it can be interesting to fly against, and deliver a knock-out career mode, and this game is truly a winner. 

 

[YoYo]

2 hours ago, MiGCap said:

Obviously You don‘t want/need it, but for me all these little details on the ground were one of the main reasons I bought and fly this sim, beside my interest in the Korean War. And I know more players who think exactly the same. I gladly accept lower FPS in VR if I get more of these fantastic details. And I am happy with 35 to 45 FPS if I have all these nice stuff which makes this sim so immersive.

But such a survey would be interesting, LOL, and would probably show the way for developers. Here's an example from DCS. I've always wondered why we need such a detailed world in a simulator (I'm writing about combat sim, civil is valid for me)? When I'm speeding, even just above the ground, it doesn't matter much. I will add that these are the Mariana Islands of WWII, interestingly everything works great for me with such detail and I have the highest number of frames, even here in VR (72FPS).

On the other hand, I think 1CGS wants to open the way for a new Tank Crew, perhaps someday. Although I don't have that much detail, in that case it would be quite important to have the groundwork done fairly thoroughly. Perhaps this is the idea and the culprit behind this whole city optimization situation? But again – what happened here to cause such a load on the system? Some of you have probably had some experience with War Thunder. Of course, I'm ignoring the "simulation", but the ground objects look quite good and have an element of destruction (from both air and ground attacks). The game runs in VR very well, yet the gameplay is fluid in and just above cities.

Edited July 16 by YoYo