Hello. What do I need for VR flight, from scratch?

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Hi.

I’m a lifelong MSFS simmer - I started on the Atari ST with FS2 when it was owned by SubLogic, way back in the 1980’s !

Now, the years have passed and I’m 60 and grey. I’ve always hoped that VR and Flight Simulation would be a thing before it was too late for me to experience and I think now is a good time to jump on board. At the moment, all I have is an Xbox Series X and an old PC.

I’ve seen several reviews of the Meta Quest 3 headset and would like to buy one of those to use with MSFS. I assume I will need a powerful PC to connect it to (I have no idea if it’s possible to connect it to the Xbox?)

I have a budget of perhaps £3000 / US$4000 including the headset. I’m not wealthy enough to throw money at ever-diminishing returns in the pursuit of small improvements, but I’d like it to be as good as I can get it for the money.

Could folks help me please with regard to whether that budget is enough, what the specs of the PC would need to be etc, (if I can’t connect to my Xbox) ?

Thank you very much.

Kev.

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Yes that budget is enough. VR won’t connect with Xbox. I assume you want a pre-built system and you’re in the UK?

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my recommendation as a long time VR user - get the most powerful system you can possibly afford :slight_smile:

I have an i9-14900k, 4090, 64gb ram, 2TB SDD etc… I built this PC and I think it ran a touch under $4k. So that plus the headset might cost you a little over your budget, but not by much… you can probably build one cheaper now than when I built this rig several months ago.

So Yes I think your budget is right on. Also - there are AMD options out there, too. I went intel/nvidia because I have always built using these components and I use this PC for streaming, as well.

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Might want to check out the Video below from Simhanger if you’ve not already. He post some great videos on you tube & into his VR stuff.

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Thanks for the replies. I am indeed in the UK and I wasn’t thinking of pre-built unless it was significantly cheaper. I’ve built loads of PCs in the past and I’m a server tech by trade so I’m ok with the hardware assembly!

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that headset is almost half his budget lmao. A 4090 will eat up healthy chunk of the rest, there will be no more money for anything else :laughing:

Still, $4k US will get you a very beefy system

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I’m in UK as well, and also a server tech :slight_smile:
I built mine a months ago with following spec…
CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-13700K
GPU: GeForce® RTX 4070 Ti
RAM: 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5
MB: MSI PRO Z790-P
Disk: 2TB M.2

I bought a Quest 3 a few weeks and quite happy with it, i also play DCS as well

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Choose a headset first, the Quest 3 is supposed to be good for VR in general, as well as for flight simming. However, I’ve got my eyes on the Pimax Light which looks to be better if you’re using it just for flight simming. Utuber VR Flight Sim Guy has some good vids on it.

After that, see how much you’ve got left in your budget, then go for a high-end CPU and GPU, plus 32GB of fast RAM. Storage of your choice, but Dvme is fastest and well priced.

I came into it later in life and can’t keep away from it now!

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