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To VR or not to VR


Mr_Burns

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Don't get VR if it's only for DCS, it's just not ready yet.

 

However, if you're at all interested in other uses of VR like for games (space pirate trainer, beat Saber, superhot), Google Earth, tilt brush, then go for it, you'll love it.

 

I'd recommend the Valve Index just because the controls are so good for those fun VR games.

 

As I said, i play only DCS, X-Plane 11 and IL 2 BoX

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As I said, i play only DCS, X-Plane 11 and IL 2 BoX

 

I predominately play those 3 in VR and its well worth it. IL-2 in particular shines in VR with the Reverb (and mainly only due to the much closer view distances compared to your average modern jet fight in DCS).

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The only way I can describe it is that when you put on the headset you no longer are sitting in front of a monitor you are sitting inside an aeroplane....Over time I admit you kind of get used to it and that initial amazement wears off. And I now long for some kind of motion influence...

^^^

What he said. All of it.

 

And since i built a 'haptic' feedback system (amp, puck, cheap USB sound card, etc) I also can't stand flying without that feel [in my backside] - it's not real "G" (or stall buffet) but it's physical/feedback. And interesting how well I've adapted to that. Key is not mucking with the settings after the point you've 'trained' yourself to; I feel I'm smoother cuzz I can feel something through the seat of my pants.

 

PS: I had a bad experience with the Butt-kicker device but the concept was so good I built my own.

 

J

VR and never going back, and I have a 40" UHD monitor (a beast) for dev work - tried it once in DCS and after about 90 seconds went back to my Odyssey+, low-res and all.

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Awesome posts guys, truly big thank you for the time to respond and I have read all the comments.

 

 

Im not a huge FPS / graphics grabber, flew quite happily at 25-30fps at 1080x1920 and just bought a RTX2060 which pushed the FPS up to 90 and it didnt make any difference to me.

 

 

I think I will still build the pit and go for VR especially if i can pop it up or remove the nose guard on start up then rely on muscle memory (although my touchscreen UFC will be useless!).

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You wont have a problem with muscle memory, I still use my buttons and gear lever without issue. But I did reduce my real pit a lot and going back to a normal table soon with my left panel on wheels to roll out of the way :)

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The experience of VR (6dof, infinite screen, sense of distance) gives you so much extra you won't care about the loss of picture quality too much.

Going back from VR to a monitor feels like going from a 3D game to a 2D game.

VR is like standing on a mountain top and looking around while a monitor is like looking at a picture someone took on the same place.

If you are thinking of trying VR, get a cheap, used Rift (that can be powered by an older PC too) and give it a try!

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Awesome posts guys, truly big thank you for the time to respond and I have read all the comments.

 

 

Im not a huge FPS / graphics grabber, flew quite happily at 25-30fps at 1080x1920 and just bought a RTX2060 which pushed the FPS up to 90 and it didnt make any difference to me.

 

 

I think I will still build the pit and go for VR especially if i can pop it up or remove the nose guard on start up then rely on muscle memory (although my touchscreen UFC will be useless!).

 

I basically am working with VR pit concepts, which is basically you want your hotas as close as you can to the real plane and then click in the VR pit for everything else just like a real pilot would. I have several sticks/throttles to mix/match for the closest experience per plane.

 

You might also check out the point control thread, which gives you "finger" mice to interact with the DCS pit. I currently use a mouse and have used the hand controllers (too clunky IMO)

 

I actually use a keypad ufc for coordinate entry because its just quicker than doing it in VR, and I can look under the headset to use it. Which I have to because I use a paper notepad to transcribe coordinates.

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I predominately play those 3 in VR and its well worth it. IL-2 in particular shines in VR with the Reverb (and mainly only due to the much closer view distances compared to your average modern jet fight in DCS).

 

What about the Caucasus map - sense / perception of speed, with VR vs monitor?!

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What about the Caucasus map - sense / perception of speed, with VR vs monitor?!

 

Speed feeling is mainly perceived through peripheral vision.

Apart from Pimax 5K+ you don't have much in VR.

 

But If you fly below 100ft and look to the side, you feel it more than on screen, because it's scale 1.

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Choppers are also exponentionally better on VR

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What about the Caucasus map - sense / perception of speed, with VR vs monitor?!

 

At low altitiude and highish speed yes, on all maps. But trees do zip right by on the caucus map. Also, the lower you are the better, especially in choppers.

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Choppers are also exponentionally better on VR

 

Huge +1 on that. I could barely fly helos on the flat screen. Much easier due to a sense of depth perctption you get from VR in helos. I remember watching some due zip around online like an acrobat and being in awe as I drunkenly swaggered my flat screen huey through the air. Now that dude zipping around is me.

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A couple of things about me:

1) I have a full simpit with all the toggle switches and buttons I need in concjunction with trackir and a 34" widescreen monitor; plus additional panels for tons of expansion.

2) I played only in VR with the Vive Pro for 1 month

3) I returned the Vive Pro in favor of the simpit.

 

 

My SimPit setup vs. VR is a ying and yang of sorts. The SimPits pros are VR's cons and vise versa. But it all comes down to personal preference. The limiting factor for me was the lack of adequate hand controls to let go of your HOTAS and interact with the virtual pit. Trackball mice do not cut it, end of story.

 

VR is impressive and a lot of fun. But I 100% could not get over wiggling around a mouse to interact with the pit. There are some things people are developing to get around it but in my mind the technology still is not there yet and is years away.

 

So as long as you're comfortable using a mouse for most of the interactions with your pit then you will be fine. It is true you can use muscle memory and learn where switches are, but you will feel discombobulated when you look down in VR and the switch is not where you expect it to be. It's jarring.

 

So I ended up going with my simpit and I love being able to fly in formation and quickly flick the Tacan, punch in the frequency and set the course needles in the hornet for a case 1 carrier approach while staying in formation. Very hard to do in VR when you're interfacing with a mouse or trying to feel around for a button.

 

Performance was terrible, even on a 2080Ti. Target spotting even worse. VR is not up to my standards visually. I would have thrown $10K at it if I could make it look great and perform great. It doesnt... and no amount of money in the world can tackle the bottle neck DCS is and VR for the consumer. You have to make a lot of sacrifices for it to perform okay, especially on busy online servers and large SP missions.

 

All to say, if the choice was VR vs. a regular HOTAS on top of a desk... I would choose VR. Since I have my simpit and can interface so well with all the buttons and switches... the SimPit was more superior for me.

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A couple of things about me:

1) I have a full simpit with all the toggle switches and buttons I need in concjunction with trackir and a 34" widescreen monitor; plus additional panels for tons of expansion.

2) I played only in VR with the Vive Pro for 1 month

3) I returned the Vive Pro in favor of the simpit.

 

 

My SimPit setup vs. VR is a ying and yang of sorts. The SimPits pros are VR's cons and vise versa. But it all comes down to personal preference. The limiting factor for me was the lack of adequate hand controls to let go of your HOTAS and interact with the virtual pit. Trackball mice do not cut it, end of story.

 

VR is impressive and a lot of fun. But I 100% could not get over wiggling around a mouse to interact with the pit. There are some things people are developing to get around it but in my mind the technology still is not there yet and is years away.

 

So as long as you're comfortable using a mouse for most of the interactions with your pit then you will be fine. It is true you can use muscle memory and learn where switches are, but you will feel discombobulated when you look down in VR and the switch is not where you expect it to be. It's jarring.

 

So I ended up going with my simpit and I love being able to fly in formation and quickly flick the Tacan, punch in the frequency and set the course needles in the hornet for a case 1 carrier approach while staying in formation. Very hard to do in VR when you're interfacing with a mouse or trying to feel around for a button.

 

Performance was terrible, even on a 2080Ti. Target spotting even worse. VR is not up to my standards visually. I would have thrown $10K at it if I could make it look great and perform great. It doesnt... and no amount of money in the world can tackle the bottle neck DCS is and VR for the consumer. You have to make a lot of sacrifices for it to perform okay, especially on busy online servers and large SP missions.

 

All to say, if the choice was VR vs. a regular HOTAS on top of a desk... I would choose VR. Since I have my simpit and can interface so well with all the buttons and switches... the SimPit was more superior for me.

 

Allow me to retort :D

 

Interacting with the pit with the mouse is fine for me since I was doing it with the keybd/mouse anyway when I ran flatscreen DCS. You can also use the various VR controllers, which I also tried, but went back to the mouse cuz it was more intuitive. And once you get the hang of it, its pretty easy.

 

Better interaction is here with "point control" a homegrown DCS project by our talented member MilesD. You get on the list, you wait, you wait some more, and eventually you get "finger trackers" which you then use to flip switches in the VR pit. (I'm still on the wait list but other people love em)

 

VR is now up to "standards" or at least significantly better with the Reverb, and it runs better than my old CV1 rift as well, offers SDE free viewing, and roughly a normal monitor resolution wise. I.e. you can read all the text in the pit and spot planes reasonably well. I can't compare it with something like a bazzilion inch 4k monitor since I haven't used one. And it runs "fine" on a 2080ti.

 

I basically have a VR-simpit. I.e. several types of hotas stick/throttle combos on Foxx mounts that best approximate individual aircraft, and then 2 mice so I can use left or right hands to click switches in the pit. Plus voice control for interacting with "emphemral" DCS stuff like comms or pausing etc. I do have some "physical" stuff like a UFC but for most aircraft its pretty easy to just fly with hands on Hotas, even if they are realistically mapped and Imo more immersive. I do think the best of both worlds would be some sort of combination of the two though, but I think "synching" it would be hard and it would only be specific to one plane, whereas the VR-simpit is modular and you can get good results with all planes.

 

So anyhow thats the other sides two cents.

 

PS nice pit, it would be super easy to adapt that to VR-pit :)

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Allow me to retort :D

 

I can't compare it with something like a bazzilion inch 4k monitor since I haven't used one.

 

There is no comparison. VR is better than using a high resolution TV or a high resolution Ultra-wide monitor (I have both) and use VR in DCS only now.

 

Oculus CV1 was a different story since SDE was so prevalent. SDE is nowhere near the CV1 in the Rift S and I'm guessing nearly non-existent in the Reverb.

 

The idea that TrackIR is better for immersion is, IMO, sort of silly. VR encompasses you. At no time in my VR play history have I ever seen a cat, my wife or kids walk by. haha

 

I was flying an instant mission in my Hornet last night using my Rift S and my stomach sank during a roll while dodging flak. That has never happened in my years of TrackIR use.

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I was flying an instant mission in my Hornet last night using my Rift S and my stomach sank during a roll while dodging flak. That has never happened in my years of TrackIR use.

 

That's called motion sickness. :doh:

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I'm guessing nearly non-existent in the Reverb.

 

So I got my Reverb this week. I would akin the SDE in it similar to using a regular monitor. If you stare really hard at your screen, you can maybe pick on individual pixels but you have to absolutely be looking for them.

 

I had the CV1 and the Odyssey, and it is night and day difference. The Reverb is super clear.

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That's called motion sickness. :doh:
No, it's the same feeling when you go down in a rollercoaster. It's that sensation in the pit of your stomach.

 

If I had motion sickness, I would've never made it through stall and spin training during my flying lessons. lol

 

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No, it's the same feeling when you go down in a rollercoaster. It's that sensation in the pit of your stomach.

 

If I had motion sickness, I would've never made it through stall and spin training during my flying lessons. lol

 

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

 

In real flight, your internal ear and your eyes do agree. In VR, you are sitting and your eyes see motions.

 

Playing Lone Echo standing, during fast moves I almost lost equilibrium and fall to the ground. :D

And I did feel light motion sickness after long game play. (floating in space and moving all directions).

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That's called motion sickness. :doh:

 

Its called a sense of motion, not motion sickness. Something flying a pancake with TIR will never give you. :harhar:

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Its called a sense of motion, not motion sickness. Something flying a pancake with TIR will never give you. :harhar:

 

Agreed ! And i hope that feeling never goes away ! Nothing like a + g dive into a gorge , then rolling into a knife-edge to carve the rest of the way down before rolling out low over a river in VR .

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I'm still, after about 2 years, undecided

Should I get VR or should I not ?

Money is not an issue, the only thing I can't understand, is the way you " find " all the buttons you need

Throttle, joystick, keyboard...

As every DCS player knows, when flying over Caucasus map, there is no " sense -perception of speed "

Sometime, when I fly the F18 / F14 / M2000C / very low altitude, I have the feeling I drive a fast car

Is that the same with VR ?

Which VR headset would you recommend, guys ?

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Thank you

 

If money is not issue no real reason not to give it a try. Oculus S with ear buds!

 

No one can explain it for you and results, perceptions and opinions vary.

 

See it for yourself. VR is a great option and immersive fun though. I still use both, my 65” in screen (which I love) and the S after the CV1.

 

Umm for me the feeling of speed at low alt is enhanced in VR. Also noticed when not in VR it sure looks faster if you zoom out a little.


Edited by MegOhm_SD

 

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Oculus S is better than Reverb ?

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Oculus S is better than Reverb ?
With regards to what? It's probably a better option for people that may have an interest in games other than sims or slightly lower hardware specs.

 

I have a Rift S and a Reverb but can't use my Reverb yet (my specs apparently don't meet the standard for install). The Rift S is great. It's a lot clearer than the Rift CV1 but the setup/software can be finicky for some (it was for me). The tracking is solid, and tbh, I don't really see a difference between the color/blacks with regards to the CV1 vs the S (OLED VS LED).

 

Hope this helps a little. :)

 

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

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