Shame, two consecutive updates and now news on VR bug fixies or performance improvements… i hope the q&a includes the questions regarding the VR progresses.
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Bare minimum that’s the VR support, not a priority issue judging by the patch notes.
Pretty much abandoned after it’s belated addition, if they avoid VR questions in the Q&A tonight that’ll be all we need to know #sigh
Noticed this too. It says they’ve started development on controller support on the wish list. What’s not clear is it may be one lonely Asobo developer in a dark corner!
The upshot is VR beta testers might know but they’re sealed by red tape 
What really annoys me is that they had an entire team working on implementation, they’ve seemingly vanished so we’re left with the Bugs & Issues and lack of actual decent features that should be basic for any VR game/sim.
The Bugs and Wishlist snapshot has barely been updated for months, it’s like Asobo didn’t want to add VR (which they didn’t in the first place so development was rushed last year) and then bowed to public pressure and got it out there and thought “that’ll do”.
But let’s see what they say tonight, if anything.
I think they noticed something like…:“Oh Sh+t, we should definitely fix the base instead of fixing VR first…:”
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As long as I don’t try to go from VR back to 2D, which often results in a CTD, then my VR flying experience is otherwise spectacular, even after the new update.
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The only real issue I have is a blurry mouse pointer (mostly in 3rd party planes). Shows in a different place depending on the eye.
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I’m also a little disappointed with the lack of VR updates so far, but it is worth remembering that improvements to the core sim benefit VR users as well as flat screen.
It’s probably fair to say that their focus is very much upon the upcoming Xbox release this summer and the associated transition to DX12 which will be absorbing a lot of engineering hours. As the Xbox doesn’t have VR it simply won’t be a priority area for them while that work is under a deadline. While I don’t expect to see any major VR specific improvements until after the summer as a result, we will benefit indirectly from all the work going into the base sim’s optimisations related to that.
My main hope at the moment is that as a flagship MS title they will be striving to make it a showcase for all that DX12U is capable of, including some very interesting tech such as sampler feedback, variable rate shading, and mesh shading - all of which would potentially be a big boon for VR users too.
So yeah, my opinion is hold on for summer and the DX12 transition. Hope that they really do properly go for it and utilise core DX12U features like the above and VR users will get a better experience along with everyone else! After that is done hopefully the team will have a bit more bandwidth to deal with improving the VR experience specifically with some of the many wishlist items.
The one thing that does give me more hope re VR is that from listening to the developer videos it sounds like Jorg is only ever playing MSFS in VR these days, so he’s clearly converted.
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Agree. For example the G1000/G3000 update in SU4 makes a difference as well in VR. Now I can set the Glass Cockpit Refresh Rate (GCRR) to High while not loosing fps. I run a RTX3080 and a Quest2 and get around 30fps over lower Manhattan in a Cessna 172 (G1000) with relatively high resolution and medium to high settings, which is pretty descent in this area. In other area’s I get higher fps. Before the update the fps dropped to 24fps with the GCRR on High instead of Medium.
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Most probable all resources are now focused on getting DX12 out and working. Everything else is on backpedal.
VR is essential
I’m surprised it’s not a higher priority too
I’m sure there must be some people out there still using a monitor but VR is certainly the standard way
VR is not the standard, not with the price of the higher range headsets in mind. “Some people still using a monitor” … yeah right. I bet it’s a 70/30 monitor/VR situation… That being said, making VR a priority is defenitely necessary. Although I must say that the latest update seems to be giving me a better experience. I am no FPS hunter, not using any tools, just the overal feeling.
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I fully appreciate the need to get the base sim working properly and as bug less as possible, but to drop VR completely (as seems the case) before fixing the obvious bugs & issues is poor form, but then Asobos form since release has been very questionable (that’s another story!).
I fear we’ll get the Xbox release out and then there’ll be other areas that need focus “before VR”, I’ve seen similar vein a different developer before.
I hope I’m wrong, but i think it would be a travesty if VR didn’t get the attention it needs soon after the console release, sooner the better.
I posted a question about the lack of progress on the VR roadmap a while back, and @Jummivana replied here: Discussion: May 6th, 2021 Development Update - #20 by Jummivana
Basically, current focus is on core issues & Xbox, but should shift back to VR at some point.
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that’s a rather optimistic estimate. I would guess it is more like 95/5. Going by Steam, only 2% of the Steam users own VR. Then you add the fact the MSFS is simulation and that boosts it a bit, but no way to 70/30.
I do not blame Asobo for neglecting VR since it is not profitable at all. That being said, I have a Reverb G2. I am glad however I did not pay for it myself. The image quality is just too bad compared to flatscreen, which is largely due to the bad fresnel lenses which limit the sweet spot. To top it off, the render pipeline is not made for VR and as such performance is really poor compared to flatscreen for the same amount pixels being pushed. VR just has too many intrinsics shortcomings, not to mention wearing that monstrosity on your head all the time.
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Agreed with your estimates if not your assessment of VR, but to each their own. It would be really interesting though to see average MSFS store spend of a VR user vs flatscreen user.
Given those rocking VR headsets are going to largely be those with sufficient disposable income for both a VR headset and a High end PC (plus will likely be more “into” simming than the average flatscreen user), you could hypothesise that they punch well above their weight in terms of potential income stream going forward. For example while they might make up say 5% of users they might account for 10% of store income, obviously we have no way of knowing the numbers but my point is that the two percentages may not align. Ultimately I believe it is the MSFS store that makes for the financial viability of this project’s continued planned development over the next 10 years so it could skew the relative profitability somewhat if that were the case.
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You’ll never truly know the numbers of VR Users, a Poll does help and I did one at RaceDepartment and the number of VR Users surprised me (as in it was much higher than I had thought).
As for Steam stats just ignore the VR numbers in that, you have to remember that Steam has millions of users playing millions of non VR games. You’ll get a better idea with an aforementioned Poll on a specific gaming/sim forum where they have VR inclusion.
I’m pretty sure MS and Asobo can know easily how many users have a VR headset and use it with MSFS, versus 2D users, this information is probably known on their servers.
We (VR users) are probably not that much, but in my case, I can affirm 100% of me cannot play anymore a simulator on screen (flying or racing).
Edit : Oh and I don’t think a forum poll is fully representative, because a lot of “casual” users don’t do forums. In the other way, when you have a VR headset you need often to find help, debug, fine tune, check other settings etc, so I think the poll will probably overestimate the number of VR users vs 2D ones…
Edit2 : and reading above : you don’t need to have a great income to be a VR users. It took me nearly 18 months to buy my first and only VR headset (Oculus rift CV1) and the last machine upgrade I made last summer, i7 10700K and RTX 3070, will appear in my bank account monthly for the next 2 years and half.
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Of course, you can rarely make a one size fits all statement - there will always be exceptions. I think it’s a reasonable guess (and guess is all that it is) that on average VR users will likely tend towards the more disposable income (or at least more inclined to spend what income they do have on PC games/hardware!) side of the equation.
Congrats on the upgrades - Hope you are enjoying your machine…. And well done for nabbing an Ampere card 
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