When I open MSFS 2020 in VR instead of finding myself ‘in’ the game, x I am outside it looking at MSFS 2020 in a large panel that is in front of me. See attached screenshot, showing the view from a C172 cockpit.
Headset is a HP Reverb G1 using OpenXR. System is an Intel i9-11000 CPU, with 32 GB of RAM and a Nvidia 2080 Ti GPU running Windows 10. All drivers and apps are up to date.
What is going on? My VR has been working fine for many months, as has MSFS 2020.
The problem arose after I had spent some time in the headset going through the Windows speech training sessions. To do this while in VR I’d used the desktop app from the pined apps. After which while still in VR I clicked on the MSFS 2020 taskbar icon. MSFS 2020 started OK but inside the panel instead of me being in the game.
I’ve tried everything I can think of to get out of this panel, including uninstalled WMR and then reinstalled it, but this made no difference. I’ve spent ages on Google but not come up with anything.
A few ideas. You’re clearly in VR but I’ve never seen that happen. It’s very strange.
When you switch back to 2D but still wearing the headset, are you taken to the WMR home? THe game should still be running so open a desktop window and confirm you’re back in 2D mode and everything looks normal… then switch back to VR.
Are you using DX11 or DX12? I assume DX11 but try switching that. Switch to DX12 and see if the issue persists. Then switch back to DX11. I think you have to restart the game when you change that setting.
Do you have OpenXR Tools for Windows Mixed Reality installed? In there is a “Reset all settings” button. Try that. You can install it from the Microsoft Store if you don’t have it.
There’s other settings in OpenXR Tools for Windows Mixed Reality like you can set it to use the latest preview version of the runtime. Toggle those other settings as well. Maybe something will work.
Thanks for your reply Mayhem6633. I’ll try your suggestions, I’m also hoping to resurrect my copy of XP to see if that is also affected. If so then it would appear to be a WMR/OpenXR issue rather than MSFS 2020 but we’ll see.
I had this issue when I first got my Reverb G2 and used to use SteamVR (until I found out WMR gave better performance). It turned out MSFS was running in Desktop Game Theatre mode and turning it off fixed it.
See here under properties for MSFS in Steam and make sure the circled setting is unchecked.
Thanks ResetXPDR, while unfortunately I’m running with OpenXR, however that is definitely food for thought, I’ll check my settings for something similar. Also intend to install the OpenXR Tools as that gives me more control.
Found the solution, a newbie mistake, that’s all. Just had to start the flight from within the headset (the flight not MSFS) while I was starting the flight from the desktop and then putting my headset on. By coincidence this produced the same issue as starting MSFS from the desktop displayed within WMR.
While I’ve been a flight simmer for many years, I am very new to VR. Must have started MSFS successfully a dozen or more times in VR, but avoided this start procedure issue without being aware of it.
