Anyone else out there irritated by the blurred focus visuals of the instrument panels in MSFS VR? When I use the VR right mouse button view, the instrument panel is amazingly focused and completely life-like, but that’s at inches from your eyes. But as the eyes’ distance away from the panel increases, I see increasing levels of blurring of its focus. I used to think that this blurring is completely a side effected of the resolution, but another flight sim I fly in regularly, IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad, does NOT exhibit the same level of focus blurring of the instrument panel as the distance away from it increases, while using comparable VR resolution settings for both sims (given below). If you have access to IL-2 BoS and VR, start a mission in either a Ju 88 or a He 111. The VR cockpit of either of these are very realistic and finely detailed, and are stunningly impressive in their own right. Notice that the instruments furthest from you do NOT exhibit the same level of blurriness as similarly distanced instruments in a MSFS aircraft’s cockpit. I’ve tried lots of thing to eliminate this MSFS focus problem to no avail; even using silly huge resolutions only help a little bit while lowering FPS to unplayable levels. For both sims, I use mods that implement FSR and in MSFS have FSR set to 85% scale 66% sharpen and in IL-2 BoS 80% scale 66% sharpen (notice that the effective resolution in IL-2 BoS is less than MSFS’s while delivering noticeably clearer cockpit details). All other scale settings are at 100% for both. I’m posting this in hopes for feedback from others, as in “This VR problem in MSFS has not always existed and was introduced in release X” or “I fixed this problem by doing this” (believe me, I’ve tried what I think is everything) or simply “Yeah, I notice this too and it sucks. They better fix it” or unfortunately for me maybe even “I don’t see this problem”. I’m rather new to VR, but not at all to flight sim. I got my first HMD, an HP Reverb G2 revised last September. Its driven by an evga 3080 ti FTW3 and a 10700k at 4.9Ghz w/HT on and 2x16GB DDR4 at 4000 16-17-17-36 2T. Thanks for reading.
With my G2 I don’t notice such problem. Definitely G2 has small sweet spot I rectified this by:
- using modded gasket allowing placing my eyes much closer to the G2 lenses - this improved the sweet spot size and the field of view,
- my brain adapted to this small sweet spot, I move my head now more, not just the eyes.
For the electronic gauges following things matter:
- set the gauges refresh rate in the sim settings at the highest level (this is counterintuitive, was explained by @CptLucky8),
- setup the resolution in the sim to 100% - this determines electronic displays resolution, if your PC can’t achieve ca. 25 FPS, lower the other settings in the sim and the resolution % in the OpenXR Developer Toolkit).
Yes, I notice exactly the same effect with my Rift S. Cockpit is just blurry, no matter how you setup your graphics and supersampling. You get used to it after a while, and just use the VR Zoom function. But if you ever go for a bit of Aerofly FS2 in between, it’s just shockingly obvious that something isn’t right.
I’m in the same boat as you, hoping that someone comes along with the magic fix, but instead finding many people don’t seem to notice the issue.
With my G2 the cockpit is so sharp, that I never need to use any zooming to read the instruments. I can read all the gauges from my normal viewing position, including the electronic displays in Aerosoft CRJ.
Maybe the pressure setting on analog altimeter in GA planes requires the zooming, but the numbers here are really small.
In G2 case, for electronic instruments, the key for their clarity is setting 100% in game resolution.
I also have the Oculus Rift and I also have the blurry vision from my regular flying position. I have gotten use to the blur but would also like to know why this is happening. I am glad that their are others that are recognizing this. I hope other fellow VR users that have this problem will add a comment. This will help to get a number of just how many are affected by this.
I too find the instruments fantastically clear in Aerofly compared to MSFS in both my Quest 2 and G2. All I can think it could be is the resolution of the instruments. Perhaps they are a higher res in Aerofly?
I think it’s just due to how different software manages to keep things sharp (or not) in VR. MSFS isn’t bad, but when I compare it to iRacing, which has an excellent sharpening filter and some really good AA, the gauges in MSFS do seem a bit blurry with my Index.
Advice for G2: Do you have the in sim resoluotion set to 100%? This setting determines the cockpit visual quality especialy the electronic displays. If you go below 100%, the quality will suffer. It you apply any scaling in the OpenXR Toolkit by @mbucchia the gauges guality will suffer as well, but to the smaller degree. If gauges sharpness is your priority - keep the in sim resultion at 100%, keep the scaling in the OpenXR Toolki (if you use it) at 100% and decrease the custom render scale in the “OpenXR Tools for Windows Mixed Reality” to the level ensuring enough FPS.
Different aircraft and panel types are of varying quality within the sim too. This is very apparent with the Varjo Aero. When literally everything else is crystal clear and sharp, the (most) G1000 based aircraft dash text and buttons, along with the G1000 itself is still quite blurry in comparison.
Conversely, the G3000 aircraft like the TBM… SUPER sharp dash and button text from end to end.
I flew it for the first time yesterday. I thought it was blurry at first but the dimmer knob was at 100% and caused too much of a volumetric lighting effect.
I though the extra clarity was from the larger screens and buttons. But then the wider cockpit causes issues without camera use.
SU8 seems to has helped a little a bit with the focus, but every time I fly in IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad it is just painfully obvious to me that something about the rendering of the virtual cockpit (VC) in MSFS is messed up. In MSFS, anything that has to do with text becomes blurred at distances that in the IL-2 VC are still really focused. It’s not that things become illegible, it’s just that it looks like fuzzy ■■■■ to me. Glad for those that don’t see it as a problem, but me it just sucks. If it wasn’t for another sim handling this VC rending noticeable better, I wouldn’t have started this topic. A friend noted that he can’t see much of the difference between the sims, but then again his gcard is lacking when compared to my 3080 ti.
Got the Just Flight PA-28 Turbo Arrow on sale yesterday (30% off) through the MSFS store. Though immaculately modeled, both visually and in flight dynamics, it still suffers from that same blurring instrument effect. Regardless it is a joy to fly, but no silver bullet here 
With G2, not matter which plane I fly, including the Arrow the instruments are always razor sharp for me. Viewed from distance they are sharp, when I lean up close, that are even sharper.
I wonder what is causing the blurriness for you.
After some more investigation it looks that FSR is the primary cause of the instrument panel blurring I’m experiencing. NIS also does this. Without these I find using in-game 85% render scale and TAA is the best compromise for performance vs. quality; OXR scale is 100%. In-game 100% provides the best image quality of course, but for me running at 25 to 30 FPS is not acceptable (and its quality is still not perfect). I’m disappointed that in the end FSR or NIS doesn’t suit my needs (I do miss the FPS boost), hoping that DLSS will do better when it’s finally available.
I agree with you and I have a Varjo Aero. I also still have better than 20/20 eye sight so I am sensitive to blurry text especially. Something seems off but I haven’t tried any other sims yet so I will have to give il2 a try.
I also think the horizon is weirdly blurry as well in MSFS. But that might be because outside of VR I am looking at an OLED screen.
I also have exceptionally good vision. My overall assessment of the MSFS G2 VR experience is that everything is lacking in clarity compared to 2D, but that’s a worthy trade off for the VR experience given its current limitations. Also, this sort of justifies using less than Ultra settings since I can’t see their improvements in most cases (nor can my 3080ti reasonably handle them).
Running 2D on my 2k monitor is fantastically sharp with 120% Render Scale, highly detailed with full Ultra, and silky smoothness (but it’s 2D 
). To have all that in VR … now we’re talking.
There is a free app on STEAMVR called ROV Test FOV and Resolution, I used it to check the clarity of my Reverb G2 and again when I fitted VR Optician Bluelight/ anti glare lenses. I think visual quality is good in the headset, it MSFS where the problem is.
I searched ROV test in steam. Did not find.
It’s under Workshops, quite difficult to find, you need to add it to your environment in the Steam VR house
I had this Problem also with blurriness of the cockpit and in some planes it was really hard to read next to the buttons. It definately did hurt my eyes!
To be able to continue flying i had to use spacers between the glasses and the facemask to make the experience better and now i can read the knobs. Usually they say you have to come closer to increase the field of view, but i had to increase the distance which really helped me.