I know there isn’t a single right answer to this but I’m still interested to hear any views from those of you who play in VR
I need to buy a new desktop PC for low-end 3d design work and I would love to one day play flight sim in VR. I can’t decide whether I should
A) Spend £3k+ on a 3080/3090 setup with a Reverb G2
B) Spend £700 on a low end setup with a 1660 Super and just play on a monitor for now, with plan to upgrade again for VR in a year or so. The low end machine would probably move to the office at that time, or be sold
The reason I am debating is if I am spending £3k then I would ideally like it to be a near-perfect experience where I can run full traffic, airliners, long draw distance (World LOD) etc, and from reading the forums it doesn’t seem to be at that stage yet? I wonder if it is worth waiting to see what new GPUs and CPUs come out by this time next year (if nothing else then today’s components will be cheaper by then), Maybe also there would be a new headset available with bigger sweet spot etc, and see what happens regarding DX12/DLSS implementation
Does anyone have any suggestions which way to go? Thanks !
If you want a near perfect experience then you’ll have to wait a few years.No sim or hardware is optimised for a perfect experience right now and current hardware won’t make the cut in a few years unless there’s a quantum change in optimising use of CPU cores.
I have an i7 10700K and 3090 and have to make compromises on all sims that I use-MSFS, XP11 and P3D included.
I will say that it has taken a lot of time tweaking to get it as good as I want-but I still get to enjoy the experience even if it’s not perfect.
Good luck in your decision making!
Yes that’s what I thought. I think I am also scarred from playing on a 3400g system (integrated graphics…) for several months and spending so much time tweaking to get any kind of playable performance that I feel I can’t face the same for VR! (especially if I have spent £3k for the privilege!)
But then I see people like VR Flight Sim Guy on youtube having so much fun on current hardware (3090) and think it seems crazy to buy something low-end now just to sell it in a year… Decisions decisions
My current honest experiences with FS 2020 and “embedded” VR Support for current GEN GPUs and CPUs
are really not so good. Major Dissapointment.
Mostly because of the obvious major lack of next GEN RTX 3000 Drivers Support and Lack of Direct X 12 and lack of developers caring to offer best possible Performance for such Hardware which should usually offer a blast of a Experience in Med or High Settings in VR. At Least 60 Frames / sec .
I am using a
Gigabyte Gaming OC RTX 3080
Intel i9 10900 K
64 GB RAM
A current GEN NVMe SSD
Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit in latest Version.
The Game runs not good, especially not good at all with latest Hardware in VR on RTX 3000 Cards.
And if i watch comparisment Videos with World Update 3 the Framerates even more dropped now with partly 10 to 15 Frames less than before the current World Update 3 even on elder 1080 Cards.
Sure with manual Tool Tweaks, which can also mess up all your other Oculus / Steam etc Games then using such global settings it might perform kinda smooth here and there with 45 Frames /sec then on a RTX 3090.
And this cannot be for sure in my opinion that the FS 2020 developers do not offer a
Next Gen RTX Grafic Cards optimization from scratch embedded in the Sim curently.
This is all BETA quality for me compared to other SIMS which run buttersmooth with a RTX 3000 GEN Card.
I mean the community show without a doubt that the SIM could run much better in VR using this and that Settings or Tools and where is the Patch then from the Developers here, nada.
I am using RIFT S with the Sim in “Standard Resolution” here not a Reverb G2 or Quest 2 although i own all Oculus Headsets. Sure i can reduce all and everything so the Game looks like pixel mess and yes then its smooth wow.
While some people with a older 1080 TI GPU have a better VR Performance even on MED or HIGH Settings
this is just personal opinion, but go ahead and buy the $3k system and enjoy the sim right away. I did the same thing last year waiting for MSFS’s arrival (bought a new $3k system on amazon, i9, 2080ti). worst case scenario is maybe you’ll be upgrading your graphics card in a couple of years. I feel like the current VR issues are more with the simulator/settings and not so much the hardware. I imagine the VR experience will only continue to get better and better even with the current rigs that everyone has.
I’d just started PPL before the virus hit and had begun to convince myself that a VR setup would help me practise a bit and save me a few hours of tuition. Doubt it would save the 15 hours for it to pay for itself though
Here’s the problem with the mindset of should I wait for something better down the road…there’s always going to be something better just around the corner or coming out in a few months or on the horizon. Especially with a fairly new technology like VR. So you decide to deprive yourself now while waiting for something better and all you’re really doing is missing out on the experience.
And don’t fall into the trap of demanding perfection before you buy…you’ll just be setting yourself up for disappointment. My system is what most people would call middle of the road:
17 9700
GTX 1660 Super (my monitor is only 1080p so…)
32Gb mem
No things are not as clear in VR as they are on my monitor. No I can’t see cars on the road or animals in the fields. No the draw distance is not as far. But the immersive experience more than makes up for those disadvantages, IMHO. I will never go back to flying on a flat screen.
I would say now is actually a good time to get a high end system. The new 3080/3090 cards do seem like a bit of a generational leap. Obviously there’s always going to be better stuff around the corner but the general consensus is graphics cards take a big leap every 3-4 years and the RTX 3000 series cards are that recent big leap.
The one I’ll point out is that PC hardware does hold onto its value surprisingly well. Certainly in todays climate it definitely does. If you get a rig with a RTX 3080 or 3090 now you can always sell the card in a couple of years time and probably expect to get about 2/3rds of its value for it to put towards investing in a new graphics card.
I think you should wait but…keep in mind that, in 2 years, we will have othe technologies added to sim, like ray tracing, maybe other GPU generation that will bring more tech and the sim will uses too…so, we will never “run side-by-side” with the sim.
Ao…enjoy the sim. If you think you really need VR, order one.
Given the fact GPU’s are crazy expensive now I’d wait. The performance we are getting from high end cards on VR is not good enough atm. I’m using a 2080s and it’s barely enough but you need a good VR resistance.
Good luck building a rig right now with an RTX3000. I guess you have to wait anyway as they are unavailable almost everywhere. Still waiting for my rtx3080 that I ordered halfway October
Yes thats true, if we could be confident that they would be able to optimise the sim significantly on current hardware then I should go for it now, get enjoyment from it now as well as in future and also save on the depreciation from purchase+sale of the low end temporary machine.
( Just as a technical point on pricing, you mentioned $3k but if I went with 3090 which surely gives best chance of giving the “near perfect” experience in future when/if we have more optimisation, it would be nearing £4k = $5.5k including the headset, which is a decent amount of money in the Uk and hence my agonizing !)
