I have a new rig I’m building with a 5900x and RTX 3090, and a G2 I haven’t even taken out of the box yet. I heard there are some nasty driver issues with the 3000 series Geforce cards in VR. I’ve never tried VR, and I’d rather not have my first experiences spoiled by frustrating performance issues, but be something fun and memorable. Can I tweak and configure to get an enjoyable experience, or should I wait until Nvidia posts updated drivers, and Asobo is hopefully a patch or two in toward improved optimizations? To be honest, the Tech Alpha experience kind of spoiled my initial impressions of Flight Simulator, and I’d hate to do it again.
I’m looking to do primarily 152 and 172 flights at small Midwestern airports, and bush flights in the Cubs. No cranking the A320 through Fifth Avenue, so I should be spared some performance there. I’ve also got everything I need on my yoke and throttle, so I’m not concerned about the controller support. I’m upgrading from a 10 year old i7-970 and used to playing at Medium settings with an FPS still only in the twenties, so it stills seems like it’s going to be quite the upgrade for me. However, if it’s a juddering mess that ruins the immersion, I’ll just stick to 2D play in the interim.
Obviously these things are subjective, but I’m playing on my brand new G2 on an old GTX1080. And while it’s not by any means perfection, for me it’s so much better in VR than on flat screen. Graphics settings for VR are default set to low, and that works for me, was even able to add a little airport traffic without ruining the experience.
Mileage will obviously vary, but I’ve been impressed by how stable the VR experience is once you get going, and as I said, as far as immersion goes there’s no comparison when playing in flat screen. I have flown primarily the 152, 172 and TBM 930, and all have been great for me.
I’d say give it a try, and if you’re not happy, go back to flat screen and wait for a bit.
If you are new to VR I recommend trying out tutorials built for the G2 or finding a simple VR experience to get used to how it works. Jumping into MSFS with VR can be a bit challenging if you don’t know what to expect. Right now, even the best hardware is going to struggle with VR because MSFS is just a very demanding game and still new.
For me, I get acceptable frame rates while flying in the country away from big cities. I am on a GTX 1080, 5800x and an Odyssey Plus. However, I can only read small cockpit text if I lean in or use the zoom feature. It’s a trade off, between clarity and immersion in my case.