VR with a notebook

Hi,

I'm currently playing DCS on my Acer V Nitro black edition notebook & X56 HOTAS and it is running quite smooth on a normal screen, but I figured out that it will not be fast enough for VR.

With the new mixed reality headsets coming w/o external tracking, I finally want to switch to VR. So I was wondering if anyone already plays in VR with a notebook, what specs you use and how well it works :book:

My objective is to buy a new notebook and Samsung HMD Odyssey (or similar) in the coming months, I definitely don't want to buy a desktop. I use the notebook for travelling, video editing etc. too. My budget is quite open, but I'm not willing spend more than necessary to play smoothly in DCS or to buy a heavy notebook that is more the portable desktop kind of thing (it will be 15'' for sure). I might wait for Volta graphics if the 1070/1080 are too slow for VR. Otherwise: the sooner I have it the better.

I think it will be amazing to put the notebook in a backpack and walk around in a room with the HMD - not for DCS of course but there are other things to discover, too ;)

A powerful notebook should support VR just like a regular PC, provided that is has a good GPU and enough display and usb ports to drive the thing. I tested Rift on a high-end Zbook and it worked fine, but the GPU was below Oculus recommended specs, so I could run only basic games with it.

That being said, we don't know how DCS will support the new headsets.

The big problem I see is having enough USBs. Just for DCS in VR, I'm currently using no less than 8 ports...

VR with a notebook

I am playing with oculus and an msi notebook...it is good but not perfect (with dcs mostly asw and so 45fps regardless of the settings) it is a quite good notebook msi gt73vr 7re with i7-7829hk 2.9Ghz (overckocked at 4.2 for Gaming) gtx 1070 and 32gb ram.

I just bought also a desktop with ryzen and gtx 1080ti and i still didn’t test it with dcs for comparison

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The big problem I see is having enough USBs. Just for DCS in VR, I'm currently using no less than 8 ports...

My notebook has 5 usb 3.0 slots...then when i am at home i use it with an external monitor keyboard and mouse and i have powered usb hubs for it and the hotas and pedals

My notebook has 5 usb 3.0 slots...then when i am at home i use it with an external monitor keyboard and mouse and i have powered usb hubs for it and the hotas and pedals

Interesting. Have you already experienced any issues when your hotas and pedals were plugged in to the hub? I'd like to know because I plan on switching to a laptop in the years to come.

Interesting. Have you already experienced any issues when your hotas and pedals were plugged in to the hub? I'd like to know because I plan on switching to a laptop in the years to come.

I've had zero issues with Komodo, TM Warthog, MFDs, MFG Rudders and Chroma on them w/ zero issues. These are all USB 2. And I use this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HL7Z46K/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I like that it has power broken out to 6 and 6 setup.

Interesting. Have you already experienced any issues when your hotas and pedals were plugged in to the hub? I'd like to know because I plan on switching to a laptop in the years to come.

Even if your PC has many USB slots, they usually just have internal hubs on 1-2 controllers. So I don't think this will be an issue, except maybe for latency of the HMD.

Thanks for the replies so far :) Good to see that a 1070 works with 45fps already, though it also means that I will need to go for a 1080 to have higher resolution on the new glasses.

I'm not so much worried about the integration of windows mixed reality glasses. Microsoft uses Rift and Vive too so hopefully it will be easy to integrate for ED. Would be nice if ED gave a statement about it.

I'm using Origin EON 15-X laptop (prev. gen). The nice thing about it for me is that 1) you can customize your spec and 2) desktop CPU inside (Core i7-6700K in my case). GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1070 (sadly, they don't provide GTX 1080 option for 15''), 4 USB ports: 1 USB 2.0, 3 USB 3.x (1 USB Type-C). It works good for me with Oculus CV1 and HOTAS Warthog in DCS (you can't expect too much with 1070 though) and perfectly in other VR games (Lone Echo etc). I also bring it to my work every day as it's relatively compact (though a bit heavy together with its power unit). Cons: it was quite an expensive for me (~ 2.4K). But in general I'm satisfied.

Hope that helps.

Thanks lester I didn't know Origin and their concept.

Btw. my HOTAS needs two and the new mixed reality headsets only one USB slot, so three in total = no issue for most notebooks :)

Hi,

I wanted to share my laptop and headset combo with you as it works perfectly well with DCS.

This summer I bought an Acer Predator Triton 500 with RTX 2080 and a HP Reverb (I ordered the first batch but delivery got delayed by more than a month for the fix).

Sadly I don’t have much time to play or write a report, but I can say that there is no stutter or any issue except that the touch pads on the controllers are bad. Luckily I fly with HOTAS. :) Cable connections work without adapters, the Triton got all build in that I need.

The cooling fan will be loud, but there was no overheat so far.

Don’t hesitate to ask for specific topics. I won’t be able to do longer FPS checks though.

My dad bought a notebook specifically for "portable" VR flight simming.

He got an Alienware with an i7 and GTX 1080 (non-ti) with 16GB RAM.

Works well, I can fly DCS on it without any issues using a RiftS

MSI Stealth with 2080Ti works like a champ with the Reverb.

I using an Acer Predator 17 laptop until my desktop is completed and have for the past two years iirc got it prior to Christmas 2017. Great lapto-but weighs a ton as a 17” laptop.

I used to use an ASUS ROG laptop for DCS with my old rift. It worked ok but a few warnings.

GFX card, make sure its a) good and b) good cooling, since you aren't gonna be able to upgrade. Good cooling is also essential as it will throttle and you will get shit performance.

Laptop overall. Make sure it has amazing cooling, if not the game will run for X minutes and then tank performance wise due to thermal throttling.

USB/other ports. Again, make sure they are compatible, and look forward to the future. You

can use powered USB hubs for connecting peripherals as many laptops don't give you much juice on the connector.

IMO, if you can do it a desktop is a FAR better solution for DCS. I still use my laptop for other games, but for DCS it was far from ideal.