DCS World With Virtual Joystick, Keyboard & Mouse [NO HOTAS]

Last Updated on August 1, 2023 by Ajay Kumar

Digital Combat Simulator (DCS) is by far the finest simulator for fighter jets. It is a fighter plane simulator game with astonishing graphics and close-to-reality physics simulations in a realistic simulation environment. Aircraft models are carefully designed based on real-world data and sometimes with direct help from the actual engineers behind the real fighter jets. The South Atlantic Map is one of the most extensive maps in the DCS World Game with an area of about 3.1 Million square kilometers.

Such realism means little more effort for first-timers. You can’t just download & play the game as you do in other games like Ace Combat, you have to spend quite a lot of time reading the manuals and studying the cockpit and its functions as I already mentioned, It’s All Real! Setting up tons of key binds for the camera, flight control, and & stuff, is also a hassle too. Though there’s a ton of information on the web (eg. the Hoggit Subreddit, Many many YouTube videos, and everyone’s personal favourite Chuck’s Guide) and amongst them, here’s our little try to help you first-timers start your journey with DCS, no Hotas? no problem, let’s start with How to Start DCS World with just Keyboard, Mouse & a virtual joystick on your phone.

Things You Should Know Before Heading Forward To The DCS World

DCS World is a fun game and exciting, I think we can all agree with that but, it’s only if you first spend some time clearing the basics and learning as you do in any other real-life career. Actual Combat is just a very short part of flying, it’s mostly the learning part (learning the cockpit, functioning of the sub-systems, weapons and armaments, sensors & all sorts of real-world procedures).

You could still get away with learning in DCS in just mere hours but in the real world, we spend years just learning without even stepping foot inside a cockpit. If you want the simple fighter jet actions (like missiles go boom) and don’t want to sink in the realism and complexity behind flying the big machines, I would highly recommend games like Ace Combat.

They’re not simulators and are very simple, but their graphics are good too, you will get the satisfaction of flying a supersonic piece of metal with good graphics and no need to learn the real-life stuff with good visuals as well, here’s a video that’d give you a glimpse of the difference in the experience you get in both games), you could also try your hands on War thunder for a more arcade-PVP experience in flying combat.

If, you’re hard on your decision to fly, let’s proceed further.

Does DCS World VR Free You From Stepping Your Hands On Keyboard/Mouse?

The straight answer is Yes. You see, DCS is a great game but there are alternatives such as VTOL VR which is a great game, especially considering it’s developed by a single person and these many buttons aren’t clickable sometimes in DCS modules, unlike VTOL VR where you could interact with every single button inside the cockpit with your virtual hands using devices like Oculus Touch controllers.

And, that’s where you’d have to use the keyboard & mouse which sometimes get annoying while you have a VR Headset on. Although, DCS world still outstands the entire market of Digital Flying Simulators for its high level of detail, realistic physics simulation, modules & astonishing graphics.

Most DCS World pilots prefer a VR Headset & a HOTAS controller while using some key bindings on your keyboard and mouse for clicking the buttons and navigating in-game menus, and that’s what we also recommend. Ignore other controllers!

Hardware

If you don’t have an up-to-date system, be prepared to spend some money as you’re gonna have to buy some hardware and PC upgrades to fully enjoy the experience to the full extent.

You’ll need a good-performing PC with minimum specifications as listed below, for those who can’t buy a VR Headset & HOTAS (Hands throttle and stick) controller, we’ll be discussing How you can play DCS World without HOTAS & VR, it’d surely not be the same experience but it’d work fine if you are so dedicated for the game & you don’t bother controlling the plane using a virtual Xbox Game Controller on your android or iOS devices, although I would still recommend getting a cheap Joystick controller or at least a real Xbox controller, but for those who don’t have any of that here’s a way around.

DCS World PC Specifications Requirements

Intel core i3 or AMD FX with at least 8 GB of ram, 120 GB Free storage, discrete video card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 / AMD R9 280X or better is the minimum you must have to be playing with the least settings possible. For some better graphics & performance, consider getting a more powerful processor, at least 16 GB of ram, and a discrete 1070Ti Graphics Card or a better one.

VR Headset

My pick for a decent VR Headset with great performance at a budget price for most people would be the Oculus Quest 2. It offers you a nice 1832 x 1920 per eye resolution which is very decent for this price point & gets your work done.

Some other higher-end options would be the HP Reverb G2 with 2,160 by 2,160 pixels per eye and 90Hz Refresh Rate or the ultimate best for PC Games, the Valve Index Kit, the most versatile of them which includes a premium VR Headset with a 1,440 by 1,600-pixel resolution, an eye-watering 144Hz refresh rate and a massive 130-degree field of view, Valve’s finger tracking controllers that and two SteamVR 2.0 base stations.

Dig Deeper: Read more in-depth & focused articles on the Best VR Headsets

HOTAS (Hands On Throttle & Stick)

Coming towards some more aviation-focused stuff the HOTAS, short for Hands On Throttle & Stick, the precise definition by Wikipedia “a concept of placing buttons and switches on the throttle lever and flight control stick in an aircraft’s cockpit” or in our case to control an aircraft’s virtual cockpit.

While there are a bunch of manufacturers out there in the market that manufacture these devices but that number’s still very low when compared to manufacturers of other electronic devices such as a VR Headset or say a keyboard & mouse and when you sort out the list of manufactures that make their products available to us common people who just want to play games, it’s a very short one.

A combination of vendors like Logitech, Thrustmaster, Virpil & some others make everyday HOTAS devices for us common people and everyone else only makes them for professional uses for real-deal pilots that are gonna sit inside a real-world cockpit one day.

If you are looking forward to a full HOTAS system to play DCS then look no further than this article for choosing a HOTAS System For DCS World.

How To Download DCS World On Your PC

DCS World at the moment is only available on Microsoft Windows. You can’t play this flight sim on Mac, Consoles & most of the cloud gaming platforms yet like Stadia & GeForce now however it’s available on Boosteroid, but just as any other cloud gaming services available out there, its playability heavily depends on your geolocation & vert fast internet connectivity.

You might be asking what about Linux, so you could give it a try but its a rather tricky task relative to how you just click on a .exe file on Microsoft Windows, and it’s still not guaranteed if it would run or not as DCS world is not specifically built with Linux in consideration, but with a bit of tweaking you could have a way around. Have a look at this page for more information about how you can download & play DCS World on Linux.

For those of you with Windows, here’s how you can download DCS World on PC:

• Standalone Version: DCS is available in two methods two downloads; Standalone & Steam. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. You can visit the official downloads page of DCS World and install the standalone installer, upon download just run the .exe file and some clicks and it would torrent the DCS World to your systems. The advantages are, you get access to all of the DCS World modules available and you get them fast as soon as they launch and don’t require the need to have some extra software.
• Steam Version: This is the second method to download DCS World on PC from Steam, which is a platform for people to buy, download & manage games on their systems with just one click. You can download Steam from its official website, create your account, purchase the game, and simply install it to your system with just a click. Downloading DCS World from Steam would give you higher download speeds, and a way to automatically update your game when there’s one available. Although you don’t get access to the latest DCS World modules quite as fast as the standalone version, some of the modules may even be unavailable for the Steam version. Apart from that you get access to Steam Gaming Overlay & Steam friend list to quickly play MP with your friends.

How to link Steam Account With DCS For License Transfers

If you desire to play DCS World Multiplayer, you must have signed up with an official version of the game purchased. If you want to transfer the DCS license from Steam to the standalone version, head over to the official site and sign up/sign in by clicking the login button in the top right corner. Once you’ve done that, click on the profile button in the same top right corner and then click the edit button written next to the personal information section, scroll down and you’d find the setting to bind your Steam account & transfer your license.

How To Set Up Virtual Joystick And Keybinds For DCS

To play DCS with just a virtual joystick on your mobile phone, Keyboard, and mouse, download and install the PC Remote Software From Monect on your Windows PC. Once you’ve done that, you’d also need to install its application on your Android phone (available on Google Play Store). The PC Remote Software From Monect is one of the best Remote Connectivity software between your Android devices and desktops. It offers tons of features for free that you’d most likely not get even in the other premium applications available.

You can protect your phone’s screen, pictures & videos on your PC screen, multimedia control to control or mute the volume on your PCs, use its touchpad to use as a mouse on for your PCs, remote camera & mic, wireless data cable to access things from your PC directly to your smartphones & the one we are gonna use, the GamePad. It comes with a bunch of preset layouts for various games like GTA series, Ace Combat, Forza, and many more, but to suit our purpose, we are gonna edit the Xbox Controller layout that comes as a preset, as DCS only takes input from an Xbox Controller and if you build a custom layout with Monect, DCS wouldn’t take it inputs.

You could use your mobile’s Gyroscope sensors to take the x and y axis inputs and use a button to toggle the axis on or off but using an onscreen thumb joystick would be a better approach as you’ll be pressing keys on your keyboard and maybe using some mouse as well in-between controlling the joystick and then you’d have to hold the mobile still.

Download this Monect layout and import it to your monect application by opening the app > layout section > + icon on the top right corner > Import from storage and browse the .mlo file you just downloaded which is the layout file and there you’d have the layout displayed on your screen named “DCS Controller”.

Connect your mobile application with the receiver monect software on your PC by opening them in both your mobile and PC, make sure they are connected to either the same WiFi network, USD Cable with threatening on or connected by Bluetooth (Internet connection is not mandatory in any of the methods). Once you’ve done that, head over to your mobile screen, open the profile tab and click on your listed device and you’re connected.

Questions we answered in this article

• DCS World requirements?
• Can I Play DCS World with the keyboard?
• DCS World, how to use the mouse in the cockpit?
• Can you play DCS World without a joystick?