VR has come a long way since its introduction with 4.37, and a lot of the recommendations/tips/tweaks have evolved.

I thought it worth collating what people know in one place.

Edit - my Docs folder didn’t have the latest docs in, so a lot of the below has probably been covered in much better detail in C:\Falcon BMS 4.37\Docs\01 Input Devices\04 VR Guide\BMS-VR-Guide.pdf

This particular post contains my settings for a Pico 4 + VirtualDesktop + 4070ti, thought most of it holds true for PicoConnect with SteamVR as the OXR runtime too.

Virtual Desktop settings - Ultra (3120x3120), SSW off. HEVC encoder at 150Mbps, VDXR as OpenXR runtime.

C:\Falcon BMS 4.37\User\Config\Falcon BMS User.cfg:

# General VR-y things
set g_fVRIPDMultiplier 0.88 # 112% World Scale
set g_b3DClickableCursorAnchored 0 #No cursor anchor in 2D

# I don't use Mixed Reality
set g_bMixedRealityCockpitCoverEnabled 0 

# Cursor follows head in VR
set g_b3DClickableCursorFixToCenterIfVR 1 

# Set BMS res to 1.6x base (1.6*(3120x3120))
set g_fVRResolution 1.6

# best performance. Some find setting to 0 helps with black bars
set g_bVRParallelRenderThread 1 

# disable render to monitor
set g_bVRNoPresent 1

# VR Performance vs Visual Settings
set g_bEnvironmentMapping 1 # 0 for more performance
set g_bWaterEnvironmentMapping 1 # 0 for more performance
set g_bShadowMapping 1 # 0 for more performance
set g_bShadowOnSmoke 1 # 0 for more performance
set g_bReducePSFires 0 # 1 for more performance
set g_nCloudRotatingMethod 1 # reduce the spinny clouds

# Fixed Foveated Rendering - Pico 4
set g_bVREnableFFR 1
set g_fVRInnermostRadiiFFR 0.55
set g_fVRMiddleRadiiFFR 0.60
set g_fVRPeripheralRadiiFFR 1.00

What else do I think I know?

0. Disable OpenXR Toolkit XR layer - BMS will crash
1. Disable XRNeckSafer XR layer - BMS seems to crash
2. Never ever ever ever change values in Falcon BMS.cfg - always set in Falcon BMS User.cfg or Falcon BMS VR.cfg
3. Don’t go over 2x anti-aliasing in the game as this has little visual impact but a lot of performance impact
4. Resolution is key to reading stuff. If you can’t see, increase resolution. If it’s a slideshow, decrease resolution until you find a balance
5. if at any point you had a config line like this - set g_sPriorityFixes "all-PFIX_4K_TEXT_AND_CURSOR_USER_DEFINE_AND_APPLY_DPI" - because the mouse cursor was disappearing in 4.75 initial release, get rid of it. Seems to cause crashes on joining a server, and was strongly discouraged by Max when I had it in my config.
6. Black bars at sides of view. This seems to still be a thing for some of us on non-PCVR headsets, e.g. Pico/Quest. It’s a thing. Don’t move your head so fast. Or try dropping down your bandwidth usage for VD/QuestLink.
7. Can’t see the HUD/radio menus? Drop your visor (Alt-V)
8. BMS in VR (and also not in VR) is awesome

With the above, I get 72fps ('cos that’s what I run my headset at; can’t notice any difference at 90fps) ALL the time. Cockpit visuals are lovely, I can read kneeboards (yes, even the teeny tiny WDP font, but I mostly use EZBoards).

The image below was posted on discord by oleuzop to explain FFR:

// Fixed Foveated Rendering
set g_bVREnableFFR 1
set g_fVRInnermostRadiiFFR 0.55
set g_fVRMiddleRadiiFFR 0.60
set g_fVRPeripheralRadiiFFR 1.00 

Right, discuss! Tell me where I’m wrong, and we can all try to keep an up-to-date VR guide going.

@Sabert00th I used DCS 100% VR for the last 18 months, BMS with headtracking before that.

DCS is a little easier for me with VR because they have a “mouse follows head” option and you can bind left and right mouse clicks to your hotas. So look at the gear handle, push hotas button, it moves. Look at mfd button, click it etc.

BMS hasn’t quite got that yet - you will still need to use your mouse for some things, which is easy to do in VR - you’ll get to know where your mouse is, it’s just as clunky and immersion breaking as it is in 2D/headtracking.

No VR hand controllers required. (You wouldn’t want them)

With DCS I just used hotas - and mouse for startup for some of the harder to get to switches - with BMS I find myself using my cougar MFDs even though I can’t see them, and a number pad for the ICP.

I can’t recommend VR enough.

@Micro_440th will it still be downloadable as a pdf though? It’s particularly useful having the training manual as a pdf as it can be loaded into openkneeboard and viewed easily
In VR during flight; less easy with web content.

I wrote this post on discord a few days back, and thought I’d offer it here as a starting point “VR FAQ”.

My MFDs are hard to read on Quest 2

1. Go to oculus application, turn up resolution to maximum (not auto)
2. Increase your encode resolution and bit rate in oculus tray tool or ODT - try 2912 (I recommend much higher, 4040 is the max I think) and 300 to start.
3. Set your steam VR resolution to the same as the double the oculus native (which is 1832x1920 according to google, so around 3600x3840 is what you’re aiming for) (edited to go double resolution)
4. Experiment with increasing BMS render resolution - eg set g_fVRResolution 1.4

I get sucky performance

Try the following one at a time in order:

1. Disable reflections - set g_bEnvironmentMapping 0 // Reflections are evil
2. set g_bWaterEnvironmentMapping 0 // Reflections are evil
3. Disable shadows - set g_bShadowMapping 0 // Shadows are evil
4. Disable VR mirror (this should probably be first) set g_bVRNoPresent 1 - note this has no effect if you turn of parallel rendering

My cockpit is tiny

1. Add BMS to your Steam library and also click add to my Vr library
2. Go to SteamVR settings, show advanced, and then video per application settings, override world scale for BMS. Try 125% as a starting point

I get lag or black bars when I move my head

This is usually because the parallel rendering is not quite in sync so it’s basically a tearing issue.

Essentially you want to follow the performance steps above to get your frametimes as low as possible.

You can disable parallel rendering by setting this to 0 - set g_bVRParallelRenderThread 1 // Enable Multi-Thread optimization for VR - but it will hit performance hugely.

Index users have reported lowering refresh to 120hz helps.

Config file is usually - C:\Falcon BMS 4.37\User\Config\Falcon BMS User.cfg

@Virus progress! Have you got feedback.ini setup? Does the file start with a [EffectData] - I somehow had a copy that started without the [ bracket

@Kiwispirits use joystick gremlin to bind hotas buttons to keyboard inputs for the comms menus.

You could try open kneeboard if the in game ones don’t work for you. But… I’m on a lowly rift s and have no issues with reading the kneeboards - sounds like you need to bump your resolution up. If you’re a quest user, do that in the oculus app (take it off auto and move it all the way right) and also bump up your encode resolution and bit rate.

Should anyone be interested, here’s my “FrankenFFB” - sidewinder ffb 2 base, with added resistors to double the force, an old Suncom F15 grip with a teensy inside it which I rewired and added a 5 way hat for the thumb/CMS hat, and there are two additional buttons on the front which I use as l/r mouse clicks.

@S3NTRY nope, it’s fixed foveated rendering (as opposed to dynamic/eye tracking), so it’s a reduction in resolution based off the centre point of the current view/frame. Should work on any headset as long as you have a modern ish gpu - not sure about the BMS implementation but others have required RTX cards.

@MCDeedle I like what you’ve done. It works well. I think if I could pick one thing to change it would be that ability to pick from a selection of effects for each bit of “feedback”, as it’s quite obvious that things that sound/feel great to me on my setup might not feel good to you and vice versa - eg I’ve reverted to the old cannon effect as the new one for me is just a whine and rattle. Everyone’s audio setup and the way the speakers transfer vibration into the player is different.

@vandroy this is almost definitely ASW kicking in - if the headset can’t maintain native fps (I’m guessing 72 in your case), then it will lock it to half, ie 36fps.

@Zohardv your network is still the bottleneck. You’d benefit from switching to av1, but even so, you need better bandwidth than that - that’s why VD has it in yellow.

@EMTEC46 At the moment, it doesn’t really matter which one you choose. If they both perform ok, pick which ever is easier (I’d go OpenXR, but that’s just so you don’t have to start SteamVR every time)

@crr_romero my personal preference is virtual desktop, using VDXR. But openxr is probably your best choice if going with link.

You have to restart link after changing those settings in ODT or OTT. That’s how it works.

@crr_romero are you restarting both the link and BMS after making the change?

Just for clarity, because it confuses many people - referring to the line above, “you don’t need to install OpenXR”, which is true, but also possibly misleading because there isn’t a thing called OpenXR that you can install.

OpenXR is an API. A defined programming standard for VR. You don’t install it.

What you do have to have is an application that understands those OpenXR api calls and turns them into something your headset understands. An OpenXR runtime.

Pimax - it’s PimaxXR or SteamVR or PimaxOpenXR.
Quest - Oculus, SteamVR, or VDXR
etc

Note that SteamVR is just an application not an API and is able to be an OpenXR runtime. This gets really confusing because people talk about SteamVR or OpenXR, which is not technically/pedantically correct. OpenVR is the correct name for it. SteamVR is simply a runtime for it - other things could implement it too. (Opencomposite for one)

So, for a Pimax headset, you need:

• PimaxPlay (cos this is how the headset connects)
• An OpenXR runtime - PimaxXR is built in to pimaxPlay, I’d use that.

I’m running a server that flies once a week. Currently on Balkans 4.37.7 under siege campaign.

Last Monday’s sortie, uhf6/tactical became unusable due to an AI flight (Mustang3) swamping it with constant “Mustang 3, We are RTB” calls, for the entire session (90 minutes or so).

In testing for this week’s mission, same problem, just a different call sign.

Sure, I can go in via MC and remove the one that I know is going to do that, but my suspicion is that then another AI flight will do so.

I do have “don’t assign ai pilots to human controlled squadrons” enabled on the server, which is a recent change.

Any pointers for how to stop this happening would be appreciated, but also putting in the bugs section because it’s definitely undesirable behaviour.

@Aragorn to be honest, you wouldn’t want me to build you one. I have grand plans, and they usually work for me for a time, but it’s typically iteration 3 that finally works and lives.

@Aragorn I’ve been thinking of building my own for a while - I had designs that I thought would work for around £300 uk, but then found this -

I’m on the Crystal Lite.

Copied your settings exactly. No difference in brightness on either eye.

Out of interest, why do you lower local dimming?

Quadviews should have no effect on BMS - it’s not implemented. I’ll test the offset on my pcl and report back.