I’ve owned an Oculus Rift CV1, Rift S and now have a HP Reverb G2.
Unfortunately you would have a terrible experience in MSFS2020 with a G2 and your current PC. Motion sickness is a real problem with VR. High frame rates and low latency help with that. Both of those things are almost impossible with MSFS2020 and a high resolution headset like the G2 (without blowing serious money on hardware and even then it’s not great). Even a low resolution headset would probably struggle because the sim is so CPU bound.
The motion sickness is something that can be overcome, I used to get it and don’t now. I’ve gotten my ‘VR legs’ but this sim is probably not a good place to start as it is. Unless you intend to buy a much more powerful PC, buy a Rift S and get your ‘VR legs’ with that. Something like Elite Dangerous will blow your mind, help you get used to VR decide if it is for you. The Apollo 11 experience (from the oculus store) is well worth a try too.
One thing though… If you feel sick in VR don’t try to power through it, take a break and come back. Any sickness you feel won’t be permanent but some people that try to power through it never get their ‘VR legs’ and instead get motion sickness faster.
I second the advice to take a break, as soon as you feel uncomfortable. Step by step you’ll be able to handle more time in VR, but never push it too far. I have a friend who developed a “Pavlov” reflex after pushing too much, that mean just seeing the headset make it dizzy and he had to give-up VR. I made the mistake when I first had my first headset : 2 hours inside it. it took me 2 days before I can try it again. Jut use it for short time, like 10/15minutes, and take a rest. If you feel good, you can play longer.
Also, yes, your machine will have difficulty to handle the G2 at full resolution. In fact, none existing powerful machine can really handle MSFS with a G2 at full render and at headset native frame per second (AFAIK). You need to lower your expectation if you keep the same machine, or really lower the render scale in your G2 to get something acceptable. In other side, other sim/apps/games can possibly give you the max quality result and you could enjoy the G2 on other things (like watching a movie in a virtual giant theater, priceless, or Sim much less demanding like Aerofly FS2, or Simracing if you are into it).
I have an i7 10700K OC, 32GB and RTX 3070 and with low/medium settings but texture ULTRA I can manage 45fps with MSFS in my oculus Rift CV1, which is far lower resolution than the G2 and run at 90Hz usually with other Sims/games/apps.
VR is not also really plug and play, you will have to put your hand under the hood to get the most of it. it’s where such forum and great members may help a lot.
Well, gayusbaldar, I remember sitting through ‘Avatar’ in a Dolby theatre and having to put on the big goggles (and trying to sit as centrally as possible in the venue, laterally and vertically) The three-dimensional experience was extraordinary, of course, but can’t be compared to flying in MFS VR – or can it? To some extent? If VR is in any way similar to the wondrous sensation I felt when watching Avatar, I’m in for a treat. I found your description of what VR feels like quite interesting, by the way, and I note your concerns regarding getting your VR legs.
Thanks for your input, sneaky74. I’m looking forward to experience what you describe, especially when in a turn.
About various comments I read on the unsuitability of the HP Reverb G2 given my rig’s specifications, I believe all are warranted; I agree my PC as it stands would probably not have sufficient grunt for it.
CodeLoran69 mentioned the Rift but Facebook’s ownership of Oculus, combined with mandatory social network adherence, ruffles a good many feathers, including mine. A controversial move that does not bode well for the future. On a more upbeat note, your thoughtful musings on limiting VR exposure as much as possible are very much appreciated and I will keep them in mind. No Pavlovian reflex for me, if I can avoid it.
Unfortunately your PC specs are not going to cut it with MSFS at the moment. You could get it to run but IMO would have to make too many sacrifices with graphical detail and resolution. Things might be more promising when the DX12 update comes out later this year, though I wouldn’t expect miracles. Though I am hoping for an extra 10-15 FPS!
A new DX12 is great news, every little bit will help. I’m astounded at the quality of the image I see on my 70-inch monitor 95% of the time. My frames are around 30 much of the time yet everything is very smooth just the same.
It’s only when I approach KLAX from the east in the 747-800 that I suffer frames below 10 and those, of course, bring my rig to its knees.
To get back to VR, I love flying drones (I owned a Mavic Mini and am now looking at the Mini 2) and I have seen the new DJI FPV drone packaging, complete with bizarre-looking drone, controller and ‘headset’. I think I may get one of those and dip my toes in VR that way.
I’ve still not dipped my toes much into the drone world. That new DJI FPV drone looks pretty cool, but it’s going to be expensive. Just their HD headset with transmitter (the bug eyed headset thing) is $1000 last I checked. I’m really thinking about getting the Mini 2 though.
Drones are a lot of fun. I bought a Mavic Mini when it came out and the only reason I returned it is because the DJI Fly app was not fully compatible with my LG G5; some of the functions would not work with my phone which, I must admit, is not listed on the ‘approved’ DJI-Smartphone compatibility chart. I bought mine knowing this because a Mavic Mini owner had stated his was working without problems despite being off the official chart. I still have my G5 as it works well for me but it looks like I’ll have to replace it if get a Mini 2, which is something I’m very very tempted to do.
Yeah, a better computer would be advisable for VR.
I assume that, being an Alienware, you can overclock the CPU to around 3.9 or 4GHz. Just overclocking your CPU a little bit could drastically improve performance. (tricky manoeuvre, but if done conservatively, you can find the sweet spot between melting your PC and improving performance)
I would recommend waiting a bit for the newer cards like the RTX 3080 or the 3090 to become available and getting one of those. I am using an Oculus Rift S, which does the job and the price tag is half of a G2. I now have an RTX 2080 and it’s fine. I don’t get a lot of stutter and I can play any VR game close to full details.
The disorientation and motion sickness that you will feel are temporary.
These are 2 things which need separate addressing.
The motion sickness is the worst. As Gayusbaldar and CodeLoran69 said, Don’t push it. My first time in VR was 2 minutes on, 2 minutes off. And no longer than an hour a day.
In a couple of weeks, I was able to handle 30 minutes sessions with 10 minutes breaks - getting a drink or just refocusing my eyes and sometimes cleaning the headset lens.
Almost a year in, I rarely feel any motion sickness. And when I do, I just do as you would in a real situation; Look at a different spot (still in VR) or close my eyes for a few seconds and it just goes away. And I can fly for hours at a time. Usually I realise I’ve overdone it when I put on my headset after lunch and take it off in complete darkness
Given your age, at first, it will be a bit of a longer process. Play for 10 minutes rest for 20. But slowly but surely, you get used to it and start enjoying it to it’s full potential.
The second thing is the disorientation. That is expected and it’s not as bad as it seems.
It’s like you close your eyes in the living room and you open them on top of a skyscraper (and vice-versa). It will mess with your head a bit, and could be a risk of falling over if you’re not used to it and standing up.
But a lot of VR games can and, in the case of MSFS, are played sitting down. This will alleviate and almost remove any disorientation or dizziness and reduce the risk of injury to almost 0.
(Just as a funny story, I did forget I was in VR once and tried to rest my elbows on the instrument panel. You can guess that my keyboard didn’t know what hit it )
Respect the following rules and nothing bad is going to happen to you our your hardware:
a) Make sure there isn’t anything at arm’s length that you can hit or spill (walls, drinks or family heirlooms)
b) Sit down comfortably in a known environment (at your desk or on your couch)
c) If you get motion sickness, remove your headset and wait until you don’t feel sick anymore before putting it back on
d) Once you removed your headset, don’t stand up immediately. Stretch your arms and back and blink a bit longer. Take 30 seconds to a minute before standing up.
The mini 2 is great, but like all their other drones while it’s an awesome view from above it’s not really an “FPV experience”.
The new one however should be awesome… I’ll be getting one as soon as I can and hope it brings me back to doing more FPV.
Thank you very much for this lucid and comprehensive communication, ElegantAlmond12. It is much appreciated and I will certainly consider its main points. A higher-spec computer would indeed seem to be a requisite for VR; I will look into overclocking and I just may go for that. Ditto for graphics cards, waiting might be advisable for a while as cards’ availability is still fluctuating.
I am not quite ready to embrace VR as things stand; I still have reservations but your thoughts on the subject are of great interest to me as an older simmer. Until recently, I owned two bicycles and I used them regularly. But, in the last year or so, I noticed I was not quite as steady on my feet as I used to, having seemingly lost some of my former natural balance. I can walk at a normal gait with ease but, if I have to walk slowly, walking with my wife, for instance, I do not feel quite as steady on my feet as I would like. I therefore deemed it safer to get rid of my bicycles and I sold them both, with much regret, last fall.
Your comments on motion sickness and disorientation invite careful scrutiny. Thank you. On a lighter note, I duly noted your cautionary remarks about would be close-proximity heirlooms in a VR environment and the inherent, probable danger to them.
What I was going for was to appease some of your worries/preconceptions and to emphasise ways in which you can enjoy VR without fear.
So, start small. (yeah, facebook and all that, but you’re really not their target audience ) Get a rift S or a Quest, play the hundreds of free vr games to get the hang of it (a lot of games are less intense as a flight or a racing sim), and by the time you get it, you’re all set to upgrade your pc and get into serious VR simming.
As is right now, your PC is able to run some simple VR games. That should be enough to get you hooked and better understand how it all fits together.
I might have misspoken. If you have trouble maintaining your balance in real life, you may actually have less problems (with nausea) in VR (but do it sitting down. It’s no shame and in no way does it take any fun out of it. and it’s 100% safe)
I follow this guy on youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSVjrpufOzTd3jZsUGs-L0g
he reviews a lot of (free) VR games and you can get an idea of what VR looks like in different situations as he films himself as well as the VR feed.
Thank you Sir. Your observations are filed away for future reference. Speaking of balance, I may be older than the average person on this board but the problem is not acute and in no way poses a problem for me in everyday life. To tell the truth, my main problem right now is more with the number of hours in a day. Or lack of same. There are not enough hours in a day to suit me. I’m jesting, of course, but seriously, even though I get out of bed around seven each morning, time flies and, first thing I know, it’s time to hit the hay, so to speak. Even if I seldom turn the light off before two in the morning, I find I don’t have time to do half of what I would want to accomplish every day.
Right now, in addition to flight simulation, I am learning to cope with the idiosyncratic behavior of the SDK and the #$%*^ polygon as I try to get it to rotate correctly in a scenery project. Drone flying is another activity I enjoy and I’m seriously considering purchasing a second DJI product, the new Mini 2.
Another thing is I probably spend way too much time in this forum when I’m not ‘looking for and getting stuff’ from internet retailers. I’m also trying to get as much sim flying time as possible (and trying to get my Icon 5 to stay trimmed In level flight–at least for a little while.)
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) Get a rift S or a Quest, play the hundreds of free vr games to get the hang of it (a lot of games are less intense as a flight or a racing sim), and by the time you get it, you’re all set to upgrade your pc and get into serious VR simming.