I’ll give a quick update on my roadmap for the project.
First thing is that the current form of this project is actually being halted - but only to be replaced with a new, better, more general “OpenXR Toolkit” instead.
There are 2 main reasons for that:
- The new OpenXR Toolkit will not just do NIS, but it will be a playground for other developments. For example, many have requested other features like the ability to tweak the ICD (world scale) and image post-processing (brightness etc). So it does not make sense to keep calling the project NIS Scaler.
- The current code for my software was designed to do NIS and nothing else, and to do it quickly (low development effort). So adding anything on top of it (like the features described above) is very inefficient. Just even something like D3D12 would be extremely messy with the current software. It just wasn’t set up for this.
So the new OpenXR Toolkit is being developed with extensibility in mind. The other key issue it will tackle is user experience. There still seems to be a lot of confusion around the config tool and how to use it, and making sure that the settings are actually being applied etc. The OpenXR Toolkit will come with an on-screen display. It will not be a full menu, as in it will not be controllable with the mouse or the VR controller, but instead it is inspired from AV devices (think VCR or audio amps), where only a few lines of text and 4 buttons are needed to navigate. All settings will be accessible from this menu, while the game is running. It will not solve that changing the render scale will still require re-entering VR, that is not something I can improve, ever.
The goal is that the tool should just be installed using the setup wizard, then start the game and be able to change the settings right there. Here’s a quick preview of the on-screen display (that you will see in the headset – please ignore the cubes, this is a test application – just imagine Flight Simulator running instead 
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(also this is very early stuff - it will be improved like “Upscaling” will show the actual resolution, and the text will be properly aligned etc
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Last but not least, I have several new features and experiments coming up.
First I’m happy to say that I’ve partnered with another developer who’s making some serious progress on adding FSR support. FSR is a comparable process to NIS, and there’s a chance that it will either be better than NIS for Flight Simulator, or maybe better for some people’s taste. It could also not be as good, we’ll have to try and see.
I’ll also be looking on some performance improvements like the NIS half-precision mode. Many have requested post-processing like being able to change brightness/contrast, and the new code allows to experiment with such effects pretty easily. Whether they will “look good” in the game, I don’t know until I try them.
There are also features like custom ICD (world scale) and custom FOV that should become doable with the new code. Finally, the new extensible framework I am developing for the toolkit will allow me to begin work on D3D12 support.
So lots lots lots of work ahead, and the holidays are over for me, so also less time to work on this. I have a list of 20 To-do, ranging from small bug fixes that will take me minutes, to larger features that may take days/weeks, and also completely random tasks like “make a (small) website”.
I am really hoping to release something in mid/late January with at least 2-3 of these new features.
Thanks again to everyone for your awesome support!