DCS VR Multiplayer Settings Guide | Quest 3 | 2024

[@laubox]

With the lastest updates of DCS I have also experienced a nice performance boost. That good, that right now I can make it run very stable in Multiplayer! I hope this guide will give you some directions in to optimize it for your specs! Let me know what this did for you!

[@carlosarangosch]

I really suggest to increase the quest resolution instead increasing pixel density. PD is a supersampling process and it impacts performance really hard. There is a default instant action mission in Marianas for free flying de f-18 use that mission to benchmark. Use f2 and focus the view in the f16 park at the hangars and try to achieve stable 72 fps. Another tip is to lower LOD Switch factor to 0.4, this will affect distant detail of units (the carrier to) but that will give you massive performance. Another trick is to mix full quest resolution with 1.1 or 1.2 PD in-game and 0.4 LOD Switch factor but take into account the performance hit.

[@laubox]

Hi Carlos,I very much appreciate your comment and feedback! I have tried the Marianas scenery, but is there even a chance to get 72 fps there? It seems that scene, with all the planes, is just very badly optimized for VR. I get as low as 35 fps there, while in a heavy multiplayer server it is stable at 72 fps with some planes around. I have set the LOD to 0.4 indeed, which helps a lot, and right now I have set the PD to 1.0 and Quest 3 render scale to 1.3, which for me is the best. I still use the FOV Multiplier.

[@carlosarangosch]

@@lauboxtoday my obsession for performance gave me the right path to get the most from my Q3 and my system. I have a 4080 and a 7800X3D, so anyway. Im using the free flight mission of the f18 and the dawn invasion for apache as a test ground all in Marianas, if I pass that test with stable 72 fps without any trouble DCS will have the best perfomance. So I had tried a bunch of different options. So far the best one is the following: With link cable put your resolution to maximum, then in oculus debug tool put fov 0.8, distortion curve to low, and gpu scaling disable. Then use Open XR toolkit under display and bump the resolution (this is essentially doing some supersampling) Im using different resolution depending the antialiasing option. So for example, dlss supports more resolution like beyond 2250x2459 and for dlaa im using 2050x2247. Then in DCS settings PD is set to 1.0 (no need to do another supersampling) and then textures and terrain textures in high, shadows in high, clouds standard, water is in medium (remember DCS render the shadows below the terrain so that hits fps really bad) and from memory I can recall to have trees at 60%, grass 900, anisotropic 16X. Vis range in medium because I only have 12 gb of vram. At the end this combo is giving me 72 fps stable in low and high altitudes in that missions in mariana. The cockpit have a very good resolution far beyond any other method. Give it a try and tell me how it goes. Remember to give me some credit in your videos. A final word: set the lod switch factor to 0.5 is the best setting to see details from far and obtain those extra fps. Take care m8! Last tip! If you are using virtual desktop try the openxr for virtual desktop and see if you can replicate this. It’s important to tell you that in order to perceive more resolution by this method you need to reduce the fov. Less fov more perceived resolution.

[@JimmyNuisance]

It's kinda amazing that we can now play the most advanced combat simulator ever made, in VR, with no performance issues.. That's just incredible. It's not just tech issues and stuttering and crashing, it ACTUALLY works like it was a native Quest game, just full on works.. In a way that lets you play the game and not just dread the next crash or 3 seconds of frame drops or whatever bullcrap we've been dealing with for a good long while. This is a golden era, you should all appreciate this. Get VR headsets and really enjoy this simulator to its fullest. There's nothing better than VR.

[@ImNotQualifiedToSayThisBut]

Is it really that good? I got myself a Quest 3 just for testing it out (last time I used a VR headset was the 2019 Quest and it was awful) but I'm not sure whether I want to keep it. It has improved overall, but I cannot wear it for more than an hour without getting a serious headache from the strap. I'm currently traveling abroad too and don't have my PC with me - only a gaming laptop with a measly 16GB RAM and a RTX 4050 8GB. My main PC has a 3060 12GB and 32GB RAM which doesn't seem to be enough either.

[@Sebiguy1]

@@ImNotQualifiedToSayThisButthere are alot of cheap straps that are *alot* and i mean *alot* better. i got one for myself and they really do improve headaches, since i also always had them with the default strap. theres alot on amazon and also used ones on E-bay

[@ItalianBoogaloo]

very helpful, thanks for taking the time to do this. cheers from italy

[@heeder777]

These videos are great! Thanks for sharing your settings. I set mine up tonight using them and it’s the best I’ve had yet. No micro stutter, went away. I still have some playing around to do this weekend. I’m also running 64gig memory but I am running a 4070ti. Other points, I normally fly the F-16 but I have the Hornet module so I gave it a try. Big difference in using the hand tracking, much better on the Hornet but still good on the F-16. I know it takes time to tune these and you are appreciated for helping others. I was having so much fun I forgot to open the toolbox and set to turbo and see the frame rate. My eyes said the frame rate was good enough for me. 👍👍👍

[@laubox]

Fantastic and appreciate the comment! The reason I make these videos. What and where you flying?

[@heeder777]

I’ve never flew online. I fly the F-16 or A-10 because I was an avionics tech on both so I know the systems pretty well. I’d like to try the online environment but I need to educate myself on how to do that plus brush up on the comm skills.

[@michael070]

Hey Laubox. I just wanted to say thank you! I have a pretty mediocre system 4070ti - 5700X - 64GB ram.. I followed these instructions to a tee and my god! It’s simply stunning it really is.. just like to note that I accidentally had the throttling on open XR set to 72 and not “off” like it should be and it caused massive stutters. So fixed that and just like magic it’s silky smooth!! All internal instruments are clear and easy to read. Just beautiful. Can’t imagine what it would look like with a 4090 and that pixel density ramped right up it must be insane! 😂. Keep the content coming mate you’re doing a top job!! Cheers! Mick

[@johngrouse9027]

Just using Virtual Desktop wirelessly, out of the box with zero changes to the default settings, I found the Quest 3 was already super smooth. No cable needed.

[@332FG-Pitman]

I've also got better performance using VD over the link cable

[@OperatorPuski]

Naturally if you want to look through a straw at .65 the fps will be great

[@1SaG]

Hmm... not sure if this will change with more objects on my screen, but I did give DCS a quick whirl last night, using the ODT settings that work great in IL-2 for me and only applying the VR-preset in the DCS in-game options without any tweaking whatsoever. I didn't expect much as my performance in DCS used to be terrible while I was still on my Reverb G2, but with the Quest 3 (cable-linked), with these settings and at 90 Hz and 1.4x render res (and no upscaling/super sampling and only CAS activated in OpenXR Toolkit) ... I got a constant 90 FPS in the A-10 GAU-8/rockets training mission. Not a single hiccup/slowdown - which was much better than what I ever managed with the G2... although I do think DCS has been updated since I last used it in VR and probably runs better now in VR, generally speaking. Oh, and that's not on an ultra-high end PC, but with an i7-14700KF, 32 GB of DDR4 3600 and an RTX 4070 Super. Only thing I need to take care of is that the HUD in the A-10 looked pretty blurry in default view and only *really* became usable when I used VR-Zoom while looking at it. But, like I said: I didn't change any of the in-game settings in DCS, so not sure if that might help with that.

[@AloccoTG]

Will try when I get home, thanks for the video!

[@laubox]

Keep me posted!

[@AloccoTG]

@@laubox Worked excellently! Getting a consistent 72 fps while playing servers like Contention and recording a 2560 x 1440p video on OBS. Thanks!

[@DanBlake3rd]

Thanks for the excellent video. Would you mind making an updated video since the OXR TookKit is no longer supported?

[@NLarsen1989]

0.65 fov on the quest 3 are you serious? you can notice the black edges as soon as you start dropping below 0.92~. A much better solution is using fixed foveated rendering using quad views, I set the focus area to 0.55x0.55 @ 1.4supersample and the peripheral edges to 0.5(under?)sample. A lot of this advice is really outdated sorry

[@laubox]

I hear this often, and it likely has to do with the IPD, as I can barely see the black edges on the side with the Fov at 0.65. Some even notice them a lot at 0.8, while I, for example, don't see them at all at 0.8. Regarding fixed foveated rendering, this is a very strong personal opinion. I would rather have minimu, black edges than have a large part of my surroundings somewhat blurred out, having to move my head to a specific area to make it sharp. it brings me out of immersion while little black bars feel like im wearing a helmet. Vtolvr btw does the same, the edges are grey / black which represents the pilot helmet. Of course, this is very much related to settings, but I am definitely going to try out your suggestions. Thanks! I will let you know about the performance gains compared to the FoV magic.

[@guyamek]

I agree. Everything below 0.9 looks bad

[@karlhungus545]

Yes, below 0.9 on my Q3 is extremely apparent.

[@EvanMaillardRacing]

@@lauboxa properly designed helmet doesn’t restrict you field of view. I heard this argument countless times in sim racing and it’s never right. Only cheap motorcycle helmets can sometimes alter you FoV but pilot helmets are in the six figures so you’d bet they’re properly designed.

[@Tritium1775]

QuadViews renders 4x the images needed. Low and high res for each eye in VR. This is good for some, not for others. Personally I can't stand the blur effect and find it distracting and leave it off with great performance. Quest Pro / VD / H.264+ @ 400Mpbs on Godlike

[@jd.3493]

Thank you so much for your help!!! This was the reason I could run VR!

[@derneuemann]

Really good work!

[@laubox]

Thanks a lot!

[@leguytenone5047]

i cant open the openxr in dcs how did it work for u?

[@derneuemann]

@@laubox is there a way for you to test an AMD Card, like 7900XT or XTX for DCS VR (maybe Quest 2/3)?

[@PappyGunn]

I also discovered about a year ago that the bottleneck in my system was RAM. I currently have 48 GB and that seems to be enough. AMD Rysen 7 5800X3D, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti.

[@axelemer]

Hi, how much ram did you have before? Because I tried with 32gb and I dont know if it was the cause but it was not running good

[@PappyGunn]

@@axelemer I think I had 24 GB not sure. I used the task manager to monitor performance and my RAM was pegged, so I bought more. This was before they indroduced MT.

[@axelemer]

@@PappyGunn the MT version probably needs more ram. I think I'll have to try again with more than 32gb. Thanks for the answer!

[@Autoxdriver]

Trying to get DCS working in my Quest 3, first time connecting my Q3 to my PC, using a direct link cable that passes the connection test. I downloaded and ran Open XR Toolkit from the site in the link provided below and it doesn't look anything like what is shown here. The site says it's discontinued, not supported anymore and recommends not installing. When run mine says it's the "OpenXR Toolkit Hand-to-Controller Configuration tool". Someone please point me in the right direction if possible, thanks

[@thomas_ger4098]

Unfortunately the OpenXR Toolkit is no more supported or further developed. This is sad because it helps me to get a smoother experience due to the Turbo Mode. But despite this your settings work perfect. Most important takeaway for me was to disable DLSS, cause this makes the display way much sharper. Thank you for your tips

[@ReplyNI]

What link cable do you use? Does it charge the headset while playing enough without the battery still draining?

[@serdarugur3828]

hi man thenk you. i dont no very vel English little google translate good job :) Thanks to you, I enjoy the game more

[@bigrivercod]

At 2:36 in the window under "Enable XR Toolkit exclusively for each application" there are a number of .exe files shown. How do you add the .exe files in to here as my one is blank?

[@Jednou]

Is the Oculust Tray tool discontinued? The link doesn't work and googling did not turn up any download page

[@iPerso576]

Hi, unfortunately my laptop doesn't meet the requirements for running dcs in vr, but i was wondering... Since you can visualize your desktop in VR as a second monitor, could it be possible to use the Quest 3 as a Head Tracker and at the same time using it as screen? In other words, inject your head movement input as track ir, and at the same time visualize your desktop inside the headset.. I think it would make the perfect setup

[@alessandrorenna7690]

Hello and thanks for the video...there is a difference between Oculust Tray tool that you use and the oculus debug tool? I usually do the fov thing with the debug tool. what you think? I also have followed all the others guide that you uploaded for us

[@Eythx]

Thanks for all your guides. I personally use Virtual Desktop, for some reason i see much better performance. Will these oculus Tool settings work with VD?

[@laubox]

The Oculus tray tool unfortunately doesn't work with VD no :( do you het 72 stable in vr multiplayer? May o ask your specs?

[@tomcatvrkalisz820]

I just tested recently link cable vs VD on 6e wifi and I don't know why , VD give me better performance and good image quality plus small around 40 ms latency. Despite the fov cut which I did in oculus debug tool.

[@Eythx]

​@@laubox I get 90 stable on single player, but on multi i have fps fluctuations. I have a 4090, 5800x3d and 16gb ram. Probably the ram is holding me back or the cpu?

[@laubox]

@@Eythx if you can up your ram to 32 or even better 64, you will gain great improvements i think. I was once playing in MP in syria on a busy server and it was using 34 GB of ram :)

[@Eythx]

@@laubox Ι will give it a go, thanks alot :)

[@bigrivercod]

Thanks for this video. I've tried the settings and am getting around 35FPS over Normandy towns in SP in the Hornet at 2500ft. I've got i9-11900, 3070 GPU and 96GB RAM. The FPS counter says generally I am CPU limited. Two questions if I may (1) any thought on which setting I need to tweak to see tracer rounds from the Hornet, and (2) if I change to a 4070 vid card am I likely to see much of a difference on the same settings?

[@filipemartins9611]

Have you tried using Virtual Desktop to play DCS?

[@robhoofs3932]

I just got a quest 3 and it looks quite blocky if I am on the parking strip in my F5. When I do the training mission to get familiair to the cockpit and then look around I can see another F5. That F5 looks like a blocky mess. Is there anyting ai am doing wrong or is this normal? I am using the quest with a powered link cable

[@Daeva83B]

and a little sidenote.. that default headstrap of the quest 3 isn't that bad... haha, you need that headstrap, what you do need is an external battery for longer sessions.

[@pro100kit]

Hey! Thanks for guide! Just 2 questions more. 1. 0.65 at least for horizontal view its to small. You will wee a giant black bars. 2. VR in AH-64 - is it even possible to play?) On F-16/F-18 I have 72 FPS in sky and about 50 near big cities. On AH-64 its about 16-28 FPS

[@Savage_Viking]

Looks good but the PPD still too low. Not worthy of an upgrade at this point. If new to VR this might be a good entry level model.

[@HuDz1966]

Are you currently playing using the link cable @ 72fps or VD with SSW on at 40/45fps? Im just getting back into DCS after a long time away 🙂

[@killraine0712]

Hey man so I had good settings at DLSS but hated that smearing look...so went an did these settings. Perfect!!! 14900kf 64gb rm 4070s an 2tb ssd..an this is running smooth on quest 3 an love how clear it looks ...actually ran 3 long missions not one issue...thanks

[@mattgarrison592]

I have the same cpu with the 4080s..are you having overheating issues??

[@killraine0712]

@@mattgarrison592 no ..my cpu is liquid cooled...and the GPU has about 4 fans on it....whats ur temp running at

[@mattgarrison592]

@killraine0712 I'm spiking at 95c when the game is loading. But when playing it seems to only spike to about 85c. My 14900kf is liquid cooled but it's also stuck in an alienware case...

[@mattgarrison592]

@killraine0712 also only the cpu is getting hot..the gpu even oc is only hitting 65

[@killraine0712]

@mattgarrison592 that's normal temps.....as long as below 100 ur fine ....download lasso process

[@wolfmamba6332]

works great thanks only thing is on multiplayers servers i get only 30-40 bc of my vr thats just a me problem tho bc i only have a 2060 6gb vram unfortunately but thanks againg for video and the black lines also dont bother me that bad

[@charlesmagrin6260]

Very cool thanks a lot ! What about your nvidia control panel settings ? would be interesting to know them as well :)

[@hinnyhinhin9498]

Does anybody have exerience using a quest 3? and how do you guys keep it charged while playing. thanks

[@thelmaviaduct]

Thinking of getting a Q3. Will a 4090 be ok for 120hz?

[@laubox]

Pfew i still think it would struggle with maintaining 120 fps in dcs. But 90hz is absolutely fine for a flight sim! I myself are also thinking of doing this upgrade

[@thelmaviaduct]

@@laubox are you happy with the Q3 for DCS?

[@jameslamar6533]

I'm having a strange issue with open xr using the Oculus runtime. I have the DCS MT shortcut on my desk top and if I run with Steam VR as the default open XR runtime it works fine (72 fps smooth). If I switch to the oculus as the default Open XR runtime and run the same MT shortcut it does not run smooth at all. I'm using the latest version of everything. Also when I enable the performance graph with the Steam runtime it says CPU BOUND RENDERING THREAD, just like yours. But with Oculus Open XR is says CPU BOUND MAIN THREAD. Makes me think that it's not running multithreaded somehow with Oculus. Has anyone else encountered this ?

[@PappyGunn]

If you want to confirm you are running MT in VR, when you start DCS go to the Option, system, and see if you can use "upscaling" DLSS. This option is only available if you are running MT. If it is not selectable, you are not running MT. I ran into this before. The way I start DCS in VR to enable MT: I start oculus, and use the link. Then I go to my desktop and open Steam. I right click on DCS and open properties. I make sure that in the launch options I have MT preview selected (either of the 3 doesn't seem to make a difference, Oculus or Steam VR mode). You do this once and it is set up forever. So then every time I start DCS for VR, I open steam and start DCS with that big green play button from the steam game screen. This will start the DCS in the launch options you have selected. I am currently testing if the MT preview in Steam or Oculus makes a difference. So in short, I set up MT in the Launch options on the Steam Library page and always start DCS from that page in VR. It works.

[@jameslamar6533]

@@PappyGunn Yes, DLSS is available both ways that I run it. I just so weird that the same executable runs so much worse with the Oculus OpenXR runtime than with the Steam OpenXR. It's using the the same files and the same settings ... and the same desktop link to run it. The fact that the Threads were labeled differently in the performance graph leads me to believe that it's processing differently somehow in Oculus Open XR. I might try removing all the oculus software and re-installing.

[@PappyGunn]

@@jameslamar6533 Well, you know what? My humble advice is that if it runs fine with the Oculus XR, just play it that way and don't try to fix it. I've lost many hours of sleep and pulled out a lot of hairs messing with things that I should have left alone and DCS probably accounts for half of it. Good luck & let us know if you find the cause (but backup everything!)

[@AAda-xe5wg]

Steam vr works better than occulus vr in my system. I think laubox is not using steam version of dcs.

[@jameslamar6533]

@@AAda-xe5wg I'm not using the Steam version of DCS either. But it runs better with the Steam Open XR runtime for some reason. The Oculus one isn't smooth at all.

[@film2movie228]

How we can set graphics for war thunder also

[@christianh301]

Where can I get Tray tool link is broken

[@vicrattlehead1852]

For some reason, when using left CTRL and F2 nothing happens. Am I missing something?

[@ianjeff22]

Great video! Just wondering, can you do a similar video but for IL2?

[@Michelsen3K]

IL is much better optimized for VR. There no need for limited fov and stuff.

[@Shifty2805]

Thanks voor de tutorial! Het is heel erg duidelijk uitgelegd 🙂 Ik heb nog wel een vraag, moet ik OpenXR en Oculus Tray Tool ook iedere keer starten zodra ik DCS in VR opstart?

[@seanman22001]

How to get this game on my oculus with a Mac Studio. Just point me the right way to find out plz

[@Freeway7]

Or you use Virtual desktop and no problem at 90 :)

[@Lycan1995]

It's a shame that the Oculus Tray Tool no longer works with Virtual Desktop

[@Daeva83B]

This is the only game, that i have owned for years, but never was able to play it. When i finally got it to work in VR (many years ago) I couldn't fly the plane.. How do i start the damn thing? hahaha I needed keyboard combinations, just to start it up.. so i gave up.. Even today with my RTX 3080, i haven't even tried.. i am happy that flight simulator 2020 is running smooth and i just fly between buildings, to get my military fix, haha.

[@spirosdelistavros2970]

can i get 72 fps on a rtx4070? quest 2 i712700kf 64gb ram

[@laubox]

I believe you can!

[@tradetp8643]

why the openxr dont work on dcs steam edition?

[@MoogEdits]

Does this work with quest 2 too

[@Navigatorl]

my fov multiplyer work 1 time then it does not work_?

[@adam-b5l8l]

Adjusting the fov does not affect performance at all. I even set it to 0.30 both vertical and horizontal and hardly had a screen left and it didn't increase fps even by 1 extra frame. That is ridiculous. WTF? Lol

[@thetdmzack2929]

Recently started playing DCS with VR and in general, but when I try taking off, my plane leans to the left or right, and I cant seem to fire my weapons. Do you have any tips?

[@PappyGunn]

Sounds like maybe you have a controller device that is sending inputs. Maybe the vr hand controllers or some other device. When I start Dcs I cycle my throttle and stick (ie move them around like when you calkbrate), because a couple of times, although my throttle was on idle, the engines would push me off the carrier deck.

[@thetdmzack2929]

Alright. Well, I'm trying to use the Su-25 as that's the only aircraft I own. Can't interact with anything inside the craft though, can only use the stick and throttle.

[@PappyGunn]

@@thetdmzack2929 OK look at how many input devices that are plugged into your computer. Mouse, keyboard, stick, etc. Some of them may be sending input to your computer. Also, calibrate your tick and throttle. Go to the DCS control panel, whre you assign key commands and all your input devices are there. There are probably 2 devices assigned to the same axis. For example the stick and the mouse both assigned to flight control

[@thetdmzack2929]

@@PappyGunn Alright. So, if I'm using VR, I should unplug the mouse and keyboard?

[@PappyGunn]

@@thetdmzack2929 No, because you will still need them. You will use the mouse to click buttons in the cockpit. You will use the keyboard for some commands also. What I think is that you may have 2 devices sending input to the same axis. Start DCS, then go to Options (the cog at the top) and then choose the Controls tab. It will list every input device it can see in different columns. By looking at this you will be able to tell if you have 2 devices sending imput to the same command or action. For example, you might have your joystick and your mouse sending input to the ailerons (example). If so, you need to eliminate one of them. SO you click on the command that you do not want and hit the "clear" button. So that device will still be plugged into your computer but it won't compete with your joystick for aileron control

[@Matthew.1994]

as soon as i enable turbo mode the game crashes

[@JustinOhio]

If you’re choosing Oculus as the API, then OpenXR shouldn’t do anything at all??? Are you sure you know what you’re doing here?

[@DonDesperados]

does this exclude virtual desktop? or is it an Addition to your video kzbin.info/www/bejne/lYKZpXaee9WNorc&ab_channel=laubox ? ? so i use virtual desktop plus open xr and oculus tray tool?

[@AAda-xe5wg]

Laubox I think you are not using steam version of dcs. I have steam dcs and steam vr is better than occulus vr. I think for steam version of dcs users steam vr is better than occulus vr. For steam games there is also steam link instead of occulus link kzbin.info/www/bejne/fmOxomeoj8ytqM0si=EoT8GFtPjF4Wuayk

[@laubox]

I have never played with steamvr no. Well, all the way in the early days I.dod and that was not running well as it was fist doing steamvr and at the same time using openxr. But its good to hear steamer is working well for you! Wondering if there are more here who experience the same!

[@karlhungus545]

0.65 is way too low. Below 0.9 the black bars are very noticeable and ruin the experience. OpenXR Toolkit is pointless on my system (Q3, 4080 Super/5800X3D/32 GB Ram). The only thing that matters is changing your bitrate setting to at least 200 in Oculus Debug tool, if using a link cable. Also, 64GB of Ram is only necessary for the tiny handful of people that play multiplayer. 32GB is plenty for single player. Many of us have all 4 slots filled already, and it is not worth tossing your current ram and buying another 64GB, so this is bad advice you are giving.

[@mattgarrison592]

Hey boss, I'm trying to get into the vr dcs world and I also have a 4080 super with 64gb ram..is the experience worth the money for the q3?

[@karlhungus545]

@@mattgarrison592 Do you mean compared to a Q2?

[@cuttheloop]

Using these settings, DCS looks like ass on my end.

[@robskey]

Qest3 is a trash headset 😅😅😅

[@eluder25rs]

go back to your rift then 🙄

[@Savage_Viking]

Well I wouldn't call it trash but PPD is still way too low to consider an upgrade to it.