From 4K to Rift VR Questions

Hello all. As the title says, I recently picked up the Rift with the sole intended use being for DCS. Previously I had been running DCS at 4K with no issues. The sim looked amazing.

Now when using the Rift, the level of immersion is stunning, but the graphical quality is rather disappointing. I have increased the pixel density, but did not notice any gain from going up to 1.8. My question is, will changing my graphic settings in the sim make things better? And if so, what have folks found to be the best? I noticed while in menu, using the Rift, that all my settings are still where I had them for 4K, including screen resolution. Any pointers in the right direction would be most appreciated. I just got out of a test flight in the F-5, and while really enjoyable, reading any of the gauges or switch labels was practically impossible. And forget spotting targets without labels. I was unable to even recognize aircraft type until under 1 mile. :doh:

Here are my system specs. Hopefully someone has a similar build and can steer me in the right direction.

i7-4790K, EVGA 980ti Hybrid, 32GB DDR3-2600. Small overclocks on the processor and video card. Thank you all.

When DCS detects the Rift it will run DCS at the native resolution of the Rift regardless of your settings. Some people have messed around with their graphics settings to get, what they believe to be, a better image.

My settings are left the same as when I run DCS on a 1440p monitor with TrackIR. This way I don't have to changes settings back and forth. With CV1, reading gauges and text is a lot easier than with the DK2. I can't say that I have any issues reading the aforementioned, then again I'm used to the prior DK2 experience.

When it comes to ID targets, you can set your object size (forget the technical term) to medium or large - that will help while using the CV1.

It's unrealistic to expect first generation VR to come close to a 4k screen. The benefits of VR far outweigh any screen if the realities of the limitations are kept in perspective.

VR screen resolution is fixed. You cannot adjust it.

Sacrificing the resolution for immersion is a no-brainer for me. And you get used to it after a while... Cannot go back to 2D/TrackIR...

Thank you all for the quick replies. I certainly did not expect 4K quality from the Rift. I knew there would be sacrifices. I guess I was expecting closer to 1080 resolution quality. But it's not even close to that.

Like I mentioned in my first post, even zooming in, all the gauges and switch markings are totally unreadable. I see videos on YouTube, and the quality of their image is vastly superior. Particularly Bunyap's VR videos if you are familiar with them. I will keep researching and tweaking, but have there been any reports of "defective" Rifts?

I know the technology is still in the early stages, but if others are having success with it I would like to troubleshoot the issue.

Like I mentioned in my first post, even zooming in, all the gauges and switch markings are totally unreadable. I see videos on YouTube, and the quality of their image is vastly superior. Particularly Bunyap's VR videos if you are familiar with them. I will keep researching and tweaking, but have there been any reports of "defective" Rifts?

 

I know the technology is still in the early stages, but if others are having success with it I would like to troubleshoot the issue.

Any product could be defective, but the Rift also requires much more "fitting" than a normal computer peripheral. If the lenses aren't properly aligned with your pupil they will distort the image. Have you checked to see if the blurriness equally effects both eyes? If one eye is clearer that could easily be IOC adjustment issue. Much like binoculars, rotational mal-alignments and IOC/IPC issues could mess up the appearance, but without a prior baseline its harder for you to know what should be expected.

I haven't heard of anyone else finding that the image is blurry even when zoomed or leaning in. Plus, most users (including Bunyap) have stated that their Rift image quality is much better than the recorded video.

It seems like something is amiss in your case.

-Nick

Any product could be defective, but the Rift also requires much more "fitting" than a normal computer peripheral. If the lenses aren't properly aligned with your pupil they will distort the image. Have you checked to see if the blurriness equally effects both eyes? If one eye is clearer that could easily be IOC adjustment issue. Much like binoculars, rotational mal-alignments and IOC/IPC issues could mess up the appearance, but without a prior baseline its harder for you to know what should be expected.

 

I haven't heard of anyone else finding that the image is blurry even when zoomed or leaning in. Plus, most users (including Bunyap) have stated that their Rift image quality is much better than the recorded video.

 

It seems like something is amiss in your case.

 

-Nick

Ghost, Did you go though the alignment of the three vertical lines and three horizontal lines on the rift during setup? This is super important I think

Ghost, Did you go though the alignment of the three vertical lines and three horizontal lines on the rift during setup? This is super important I think

I don't recall that being an option I saw during setup. But that could very well explain the problems I'm having. Thanks for the tip, I shall investigate further.

Also, do you normally wear glasses?

Any video capture is going to be what is shown on the mirror and not on the VR device itself. I'm not even sure a HDMI capture will do it.

Run the tooltips. That's the best you can get. Some planes are better than others. The F5 is impossible to read. VR is too good right now, so it's worth it.

I just got out of a test flight in the F-5, and while really enjoyable, reading any of the gauges or switch labels was practically impossible. And forget spotting targets without labels. I was unable to even recognize aircraft type until under 1 mile. :doh:

If you're running the latest Beta, you can set a zoom option in UI Layer (probably last in the list of "controls"). I use a Warthog and set my pinky switch to it. You might also check that your cockpit settings are 1024 which should up the clarity as bit as well. With these two set, there's nothing important that I can't read in the cockpit.

Currently I'm diddling with labels (I don't MP much these days) to find a balance between the range I would expect to visually spot targets. Currently editing the labels.lua to reduce that to 2000 on ground targets and trying to come up with a decent figure for air.. considering 7000. Good thing about labels is that they're editable. I'm also only showing them as a ".", no range, no info, just red . or blue .

My first test flight in the F-5 was a take-off using instant action, a flight of about 100 miles, then a landing. On a flat screen, I probably would have been bored a couple of minutes after takeoff. In my Rift, I was mesmerised the whole journey.

Don't be scared (just kidding) to try different setting. For example, when I used 4K large TV I had to have shadows on High otherwise shadows look too jaggy for me. In VR I have them now on Low and they still look good.

I use 16x AF and 4x FSAA and 1.0 pixel density (settled for this for now as it gives fairly decent visual, can't see the jaggies due to some FSAA, and still get good fps). You need to use medium (don't want to go to High as I think it might be too much) model enlargement setting. It helps with spotting ground units a bit.

Definitely not there with resolution yet (but that was expected) and then again if we did get 4K per eye headset you would not be able to run it at good fps, so its a good compromise... after all it's only 1st gen on VR headset... it will get better with newer headsets, hopefully VR catches on and manufacturers will continue to improve on them.