Thinking of finally going VR

[PanzerMeyer]

I started looking at the different models out there for VR headsets and I think I'm leaning towards getting an Oculus set but I will do some more research for sure before I make the significant financial investment. Right now these are the games I have which support VR:

Elite Dangerous
IL-2 Great Battles
DCS World

Which other VR games are people here playing?

[PanzerMeyer]

Has anyone else here played with a VR set besides Xpendable?

[Hammer]

Gravvy has one, but he has not been on in a long time.

[Xpendable]

I only have experience with the Oculus Rift CV1 and the Oculus Rift S. Neither are made anymore. That leaves the Quest 2, which I don't have. You have to buy a special cable to make it work with a PC. I don't really know how it compares to the Rift S. I have friends that have something different and what they have was really expensive but higher resolution than the Rift S. Can't remember what they use.

[PanzerMeyer]

Thanks for the replies. I've decided to hold off on VR until sometime next year.

[Xpendable]

By the way, Meta just announced the Quest 3, which will be available this fall. It is supposed to b:

• 40% more compact than the Quest 2
• lighter and more comfortable than Quest 2
• Twice the GPU performance
• Higher resolution (don't know by how much)
• $499
• Available this fall
• 2 color cameras suggest AR capabilities, but don't know more about this yet. Update: The YouTube video announcement shows full color AR passthrough... this looks awesome. They need to make some updates to DCS to make this work with home cockpits!!!

Might be something worth considering. They've also announced price reductions on the 2 different models of the Quest 2 (128GB and 256GB versions).

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/1/23744 ... ce-details

[Trichome]

This is peeking my interest now..... Might have to dip deep into the pockets to make this happen.....
I would think it'll be about 599-699 on the CAD side

[PanzerMeyer]

Thanks for that info Xpendable!

[Hammer]

a note: i am not interested in VR.

1. everything you can see in VR is not interactable. i.e. clickable/usable in th simlulation.
2. you still need keyboard and mouse for interacting with things outside of the simulation and even for some things in the simulation. i.e. teamspeak/whisper channels/reconnect, alt-tab for other apps/purposes, buttons/levers on the base of the HOTAS/panels/cockpit walls/etc. (just like in RL).
3. if you are former/current military (not all jobs), law enforcement (not all jobs), paranoid, have kids, etc. being deep in VR land is just not conducive/acceptable.
4. cost, as it cannot replace your monitor; that is still needed.

this is for me and is my opinion. a monitor works just fine.

[Xpendable]

1. everything you can see in VR is not interactable. i.e. clickable/usable in th simlulation.

I'm not entirely certain what you mean. If you mean in the cockpit, you do have the option of using the hand controllers that come with VR to click / interact with everything in 3D space. It takes a little getting used to. Your index finger acts like a laser pointer, and you can reach out and click or grab ANY control. For example, if you squeeze your hand like you are squeezing an orange, your VR hand will grip the control (there is a sensor built into the hand controllers specifically for this purpose), and then you can twist your wrist and the knob will rotate. Or move your hand up, down, left, right while "gripping" to manipulate a switch.

The biggest and obvious shortcoming is there is not real tactile feel to the switches. You can't really "feel" them. Yes, the hand controllers will give you little vibrations to give you feedback when you manipulate a control - but that's obviously not the same. That said, I prefer NOT to use the hand controllers, especially when I generally keep one hand on the physical throttle and one hand on the physical joystick (HOTAS), and the controllers become cumbersome when combined with those types of controls. There are also other technologies such as the Leap Motion that can be combined with VR - which uses a camera to track your individual fingers. DCS has support for that. It will render each finger exactly as the camera sees your fingers. I haven't tried that, but it is compatible with DCS and VR. By the way, the mouse DOES work in VR and will move across the controls easily. It is very intuitive. You don't have to worry about depth, it magically snaps to the surface of each switch as you move it around the cockpit. Kind of the same if you are using TrackIR I suspect.

I personally still use the mouse to click on controls that I have not mapped to my HOTAS. I use the keyboard for a few things, too, but not much. If I used a button on my HOTAS as a shift-modifier, I could double the buttons on my HOTAS (or even triple or quadruple the controls if I use more than one shifter). Of course, that would make it a lot harder to remember what everything is mapped to! I have enough trouble remembering all the functions of the 5-way sensor select hat on the Harrier stick, which has different functions depending on what mode you are in and whether you short press or long press! (And it's like that in the real Harrier!)

this is for me and is my opinion. a monitor works just fine.

Here's the one thing that makes it worth it. Depth perception. Anyone flying in VR has some distinct advantages over you. Maybe some of it won't be relevant to you, but I'll give you a few examples. Formation flying. Folks flying formation with VR (especially Blue Angels-like TIGHT formations) are just naturally better at it than people who don't use VR. It's a night and day difference.

People flying helicopters with VR are generally a lot better at than people who don't use VR. They literally have a better sense of where the ground is and do much better while flying in ground effect.

If you've flown with TrackIR (or similar technology), you know that you basically train your head to control your view around the cockpit. I used to use TrackIR for YEARS before I did VR. I couldn't fly without TrackIR. As you probably know, rotating your head slightly is usually configured to exaggerate the movement of your virtual view so that you don't have to move your head as much. And that's fine, although it's highly unrealistic. With VR, you move your head realistically in ALL directions, and it feels natural because you see EVERYTHING with depth perception. If you want to look over your shoulder and check your six, you literally have to look over your shoulder, complete with the required "I'm nearly 50 years old" grunts that accompany a man of my age trying to twist my body in that way. Ok, maybe that's a disadvantage, but it's realistic. You feel like you are sitting in the cockpit of these things. I never got that feeling with TrackIR.

VR is definitely not for everyone. I've got a few virtual pilot friends that used to do VR and now don't. But they are like 1% of the people I know who use VR. The majority of us who have started using VR can't fly without it.

BTW, one of the reasons I'm building the Harrier cockpit is because it will give me that missing tactile feel for every control in the cockpit. Your brain will actually develop muscle memory to where everything is, you will be able to grab the right control every time by just looking at it and reaching for it (once your brain memorizes the positions your muscles need to move to get to what you are looking at). I watched some research on how this works, and gave me a new appreciating of just how amazing the human brain is. There's this cool experiment they do in a special research room that spins with no outside references. When you lean up against the wall and try to put your arms straight in front of you, they don't go the right place! They got up at a 45 degree angle, opposite the rotation of the room, away from your body -- due to centrifugal forces messing with your sense of gravity. If you keep swinging your arms up and down, eventually your brain figures this out and automatically compensates for the centrifugal forces. Now when you put your arms up, they are straight out in front of you and you no longer feel the centrifugal force that caused them deflect when you first tried it! You brain has literally recalibrated your muscle controls for you! To further blow your mind, they then stop the room from spinning. Now, when you try to bring your arms up, they swing to the opposite side because now the calibration is off again! You can no longer get them to go straight up automatically! You just have to retry for about a little bit and eventually your brain recalibrates to deal with the fact that the centrifugal forces are now gone. Who knew the brain did this! Anyway, the same thing is at play when you train your brain where something is when you can't see your hands.

Of course the utopia is mixed reality where you see your own physical cockpit (assuming you have one), your real hands, and everywhere else you see DCS. That's coming. It's already being done in limited proof-of-concept fashion, but it's going to get better.

[Xpendable]

I had to cut my thoughts short on the last post (short? it's way longer than I had intended!) Anyway, I meant to say that I am NOT trying to convince you to do VR. VR is not for everyone. For some people, it gives them headaches. For some, it's uncomfortable. For some, it just isn't worth for whatever reasons they might have. I've always felt that it's up to each individual user whether it's good or not.

I can only say that for myself, I've been using VR since 2016 and I simply can't go back! I've always been a fan of flight simulation and have been doing sims since Sub-Logic Flight Simulator on the Commodore 64. For me, VR took the experience to a whole new level. Literally the only thing missing now is the full motion rig to really mess with your brain! Well, even that would have limitations. But, for me, having VR is the next best thing to being in the real aircraft. I can't imagine life without it! (And for those few weeks that I didn't have it, it sucked!)

[Cr33p3r]

I can only say that for myself, I've been using VR since 2016 and I simply can't go back!

I think it's cool when something like that happens. I experienced this when I went from joystick to a yoke, adding a trim wheel, and especially changing ro flight simming on vatsim with other virtual pilots and real people air traffic control. You realize what you were missing.

I tried vr but it was a bit awkward and dizzying. I would probably get used to it eventually. Sticking with my monitors for now. Head tracker works good for DCs.

[PanzerMeyer]

The bottom line for me now is that I need to have a hands-on testing session with a demonstration model at a store. I don't want to risk spending 500 bucks or more on something and then end up not liking it because it feels too awkward. Thanks for your invaluable posts Xpen!

[Trichome]

Elite Dangerous
IL-2 Great Battles
DCS World

Which other VR games are people here playing?

F1 2023 will also support VR

[PanzerMeyer]

I read up on the new Apple VR. It's definitely NOT geared for gamers. This is geared towards the Metaverse and other similar apps users.

[PanzerMeyer]

F1 2023 will also support VR

Awesome. Let's see if we can play this with Jedi.