DCS Control

A free Windows app for DCS World that runs DLSS 5, frame generation and Quad Views foveated rendering together in VR (Pimax), set up and launched with one button, and makes DCS run faster for every pilot, on a monitor or any headset.

• Every pilot (monitor, Quest, Varjo, Reverb, Pimax…): Engine Optimizations remove CPU work inside DCS without changing the image, about +50-60 % FPS at a busy airfield when DCS is CPU-bound. Once applied they stay on every time DCS starts, also from Steam or a desktop shortcut.
• Pimax pilots get the full VR pipeline in one go: Quad Views (eye-tracked foveated rendering) + DLSS 5 (NVIDIA neural rendering on the area you look at) + frame generation (OFXR, 2×, 3× or Auto), working together, plus an in-headset panel that shows what each one is doing.

Everything the app changes is backed up and comes back with Back to stock DCS.

Early beta. Flown mostly on one PC so far (Pimax Crystal Super, RTX 5090, Windows 11, DCS 2.9 Steam, single player), so expect rough edges. It was built with an AI coding assistant. Bug reports are very welcome: see Reporting a problem.

Engine Optimizations (every pilot)	Quad Views, read from Pimax Play	Back to stock DCS

What it does

For every pilot, on a monitor or with any headset

• Engine Optimizations: a small module DCS loads by itself from Saved Games. It takes CPU work off DCS's render and model threads (multi-threaded G-buffer and shadows, faster culling, leaner memory and state handling) and leaves the image exactly the same. Measured at a busy airfield in VR: about +50-60 % FPS and p95 frame time −34 %; with everything on, the GPU becomes the limit. How much you gain depends on how CPU-bound you are.
• CPU Boost: gives DCS priority and its fastest cores while it runs, and fixes a DCS terrain loop that wastes CPU time (the fix also works when DCS starts from Steam).
• Free VRAM: closes memory-hungry apps before the flight and reopens them after.

Not on a Pimax? Choose Optimizations only: DCS runs exactly as you set it up (monitor, or your headset with its own software) and the app adds only these optimizations.

For Pimax headsets (Pimax Play, or SteamVR with Sboys)

• Quad Views (foveated rendering): sharp where you look, lighter in the periphery, eye-tracked. It uses the focus area you already set in Pimax Play. Keep Quad Views on in Pimax Play: the bundled Quad Views takes over from it for DCS.
• DLSS 5 (DLSS-NR neural rendering) on the focus area only, optionally just its central part to save GPU time, with an in-flight on/off key to compare.
• Frame generation (OFXR): Auto picks 2× when DCS can hold 45 FPS and 3× when it can't.
• VR helpers: a small DCS window on the monitor, a lower monitor mode while you fly, the in-headset panel (FPS, frame-generation mode, DLSS state, VRAM).

After each flight the Overview shows a Last flight summary.

Quick start

1. You need: Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit; tested on 11) and DCS World 2.9. For the VR features: a Pimax headset with Pimax Play (or SteamVR with the Sboys driver) and an NVIDIA RTX GPU; for DLSS 5 your own nvngx_dlssnr.dll (tested with 310.8, not included).
2. Download DcsControl-0.5.6-preview-Setup.exe from Releases and double-click it: it installs DCS Control for your Windows user (no administrator rights) in the folder you choose, with Start menu and desktop shortcuts, then opens it. Uninstall it from Settings → Apps. Or take DcsControl-0.5.6-preview-win-x64.zip for a portable copy: unzip it anywhere and double-click DcsControl.exe (keep the files folder next to it). The app tells you when a newer release is out and updates itself after checking the release signature.
3. Choose how you fly in the right panel: Pimax, Sboys, or Optimizations only (monitor or another headset). Detect my setup and Guided setup can do it for you.
4. Tick the features you want. Each one has its own page if you want to adjust it.
5. Press Launch DCS. Engine Optimizations then stay on whenever DCS starts. The VR features and CPU Boost need DCS to be started from the app.

The User Guide explains every feature, what it costs, the in-flight keys, and what to do when something goes wrong.

Good to know

• Single player only so far. With DLSS 5 or Foveated SR the app places a dxgi.dll loader and Cheeky's files in DCS's bin folder; with Engine Optimizations (terrain prefetch fix included) it adds a hook and a module in Saved Games\DCS\Scripts. Without DLSS 5 nothing in the DCS install changes. Multiplayer and server integrity checks haven't been tested.
• Frame generation adds latency, more in 3× than in 2×. Head movement stays smooth; the mouse cursor moves at DCS's own frame rate.
• Start the app from the Start menu or Explorer, not as administrator.
• Updates: the app asks GitHub for a newer release at most every 6 hours (turn it off on the Diagnostics page). Update installs only a setup signed with the release key built into the app.
• Formerly DCS VR Control. The app was renamed in 0.5.0. Installing it replaces the old install; your backups and profiles are kept.
• Before updating or repairing DCS, close it and use Back to stock DCS.

Credits and licences

DCS Control's own code is MIT-licensed (LICENSE). It builds on other people's work, each under its own licence:

• Quad-Views-Foveated by mbucchia (MIT)
• CheekyFoveatedDLSS (GPL-3.0), with local changes for the Quad Views focus views
• OFXR Bridge by tig3rmast3r and the djules75 fork (LGPL-3.0-or-later), with local patches
• Sboys CustomHeadsetOpenVR (GPL-2.0 source; downloaded from its official release, not bundled)
• AMD FidelityFX SDK (MIT), Microsoft .NET and the WebView2 SDK

The NVIDIA DLSS runtime is not included. Every release has a sources ZIP with the complete corresponding source. Details are in docs/THIRD_PARTY.md. DCS World is a trademark of Eagle Dynamics; Pimax, NVIDIA and DLSS are trademarks of their owners. This project isn't affiliated with any of them.

Support

Feedback and bug reports go in Issues. If the app saves you some frames and you'd like to buy me a coffee: ko-fi.com/nigos. Thank you!

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For developers

How it fits together

DCS (DX11) → Cheeky (DLSS 5 on the Quad Views focus views, D3D11↔D3D12 transport) → bundled Quad-Views-Foveated → OFXR frame generation → Pimax OpenXR runtime (or SteamVR with Sboys). The app gives the DCS process a private OpenXR runtime and layer environment, so nothing is registered globally. The design and the alternatives that were tried are in docs/APPROACHES.md; performance measurements are in docs/PERFORMANCE.md and frame pacing in docs/FRAME_PACING.md.

Third-party changes are kept as reproducible patches: scripts/patch-cheeky.py with patches/cheeky, patches/ofxr-djules75/*.patch applied by scripts/build-ofxr-djules75.ps1, and the Quad Views edits in scripts/build-quadviews.ps1. The DCS engine optimizations (DcsQvCull, with the terrain prefetch fix) are in native/dcsqvcull.

Original files and recovery

The first time the app writes a path it backs up the original (or notes that there was none) under %LOCALAPPDATA%\DcsControl\originals. Later launches simply overwrite. Back to stock DCS puts every path back: backups are written back, new files are removed, and in options.lua only the settings the app changed are restored. Only a running DCS blocks it.

Build and test

./scripts/bootstrap-sdk.ps1
./scripts/fetch-integrations.ps1
./scripts/build-upstream.ps1 -Component cheeky
./scripts/build-ofxr-djules75.ps1
./scripts/build-quadviews.ps1
./scripts/build-dcsqvcull.ps1
./.tools/dotnet/dotnet.exe run --project tests/DcsVr.Tests -c Release
./scripts/build-release.ps1
./scripts/test-release.ps1

Build scripts pin upstream revisions. Tests use isolated DCS fixtures and never start DCS. scripts/package-sources.py builds the corresponding-source ZIP.

build-release.ps1 also makes DcsControl-<version>-Setup.exe (native/setup, built by scripts/build-setup.ps1, with the release ZIP appended) and signs the setup and the ZIP with scripts/sign-release.ps1: <file>.sig is the base64 of an ECDSA P-256 / SHA-256 signature in IEEE P1363 form, made with the private key in %USERPROFILE%\.dcs-control-signing\release-signing-key.pem (never in the repository or a release) and checked against the public key in src/DcsVr.Core/Updates.cs. Without the key a developer build warns and stays unsigned; build-release.ps1 -Sign fails instead. Publish the setup, the ZIP, the sources ZIP and their .sha256 and .sig files with the release; the in-app updater needs DcsControl-<version>-Setup.exe and DcsControl-<version>-Setup.exe.sig. More: validation, adapter contracts, interface notes, third-party components.

Command line

./DcsVr.Cli.exe inventory
./DcsVr.Cli.exe validate --profile profile.json
./DcsVr.Cli.exe preview --profile profile.json
./DcsVr.Cli.exe status
./DcsVr.Cli.exe launch
./DcsVr.Cli.exe restore

preview only writes a private staging cache; apply, launch and restore change files. Commands that use the app's state refuse to run when Windows redirects %LOCALAPPDATA% into another app's package (pass --state to choose a folder).

Documentation screenshots

The images in docs/screenshots are rendered by the app itself with a neutral demo layout, so no real user path appears:

$env:WEBVIEW2_ADDITIONAL_BROWSER_ARGUMENTS = '--force-device-scale-factor=1'
$env:DCSVR_SMOKE_DEMO_ROOT = 'C:\DcsVrDemo'
$env:DCSVR_SMOKE_DOC_VIEWS = '1'
$env:DCSVR_TEST_NEURAL_PATH = 'C:\DcsVrDemo\Downloads\nvngx_dlssnr.dll'
./DcsControl.exe --web-smoke <output-folder>\interface