That “needing to remove goggles” is one issue, as you might remember, that I don’t like, but that isn’t necessarily an issue with VR itself, it is more an issue with how Asobo and 3rd party developers deal with it. If all of the information needed by a pilot could be accessible inside the virtual cockpit, in as realistic a manner as possible, then there would be no need to remove goggles and that would improve immersion massively.
One idea that I had voiced, in the early days of MSFS VR, was for Asobo to provide a library tablet that would be useable in 2d and VR, to provide access to at least PDF documents, but maybe also to a web browser. Although some developers would still have the will and the way to produce their own, potentially enhanced tablet, those that don’t/can’t would simply be able to include the MSFS offering.
btw, i have seen that at least one 3rd party developer has brought forward an addon for this, which will probably now reduce the chances/need for an inhouse variant. Either way, that particular problem is solved, albeit at a modest additional cost.
Correct and it adds so much immersion! It does eat some framerates which is not ideal for VR, but I have found that running on pretty minimal settings - 10 IFR + 10 VFR flights, 10% additional ground parked traffic - the framerate impact is not too bad, and the injector is smart enough to dynamically inject and remove those 10 aircraft in smart places so it feels like there is more than that around
I can see many of you are suggesting using mouse in VR as a workaround - yes it does help but it also defeats the purpose of VR in my opinion. Controllers are part of the VR experience and being able to interact with knobs and switches contribute to overall gameplay.
I feel like we deseve updates and improvements from developers regardless of the % of VR players -because it is just a shame how some things work now.
Perhaps the number of players would increase with updates and improvements?
Quite the opposite. HOTAS and button boxes are part of VR experience. Definitely not the controllers, at least not in flight simulators. My controllers still have a protection film applied and have been gathering dust since I bought my headset over 2 years ago.
Hi all, being relatively new to MSFS I was concerned by reading about the discontent from the community (here and elsewhere) regarding VR support from the developers. For me it’s disappointing that they had a VR team and now no longer do, VR whilst it works is clearly in need of attention, here’s just some issues I found in the first few sessions of flying;
the mouse can get very laggy making mouse click precision basically impossible, not very good when on Final Approach.
I have to move the mouse away from toolbar Windows otherwise certain button binds don’t work, this is very annoying.
performance is very sporadic, I can be over a relatively low GPU sensitive area and the fps jumps from 45 down to 20. I appreciate many factors can play into this, but to compare with other VR titles I don’t suffer this issue with them.
Other than that the lack of a single screen mirror for screenshots is a poor design choice, no head pointer to make button clicks better (unless it’s in the settings somewhere that I haven’t seen yet?), plus other little areas that require a lot of TLC.
Ultimately though the fact there’s no VR team and by all accounts no new features since last year does not fill me with much confidence, I’m sure as I use it more the Sim could be great in VR, but there’s still a lot to do to make the user experience much better and those bugs above must be priority for me - as above I saw them very early into my playing time.
I have sort of stayed out of this topic for some reason, but since I am a massive proponent of VR in flightsim (specifically MSFS these days) and there have been lots of questions/posts about use of VR controllers to interact with aircraft in VR and tools that can make your life easier in VR… I’ll jump in.
First of all - I never use the mouse in VR. Ever. Only one single oculus controller (the right hand one). I have a sidestick (for airbussing) and a yoke (for everything else). Rudder pedals. A cheap throttle that has a bunch of buttons for binding to various functions depending on aircraft. And my one oculus controller that I have in my right hand or laying on my lap when not using it… I put out a video a while ago on how to configure this one controller to enable any and all cockpit/flight deck interactions for any aircraft. Using these bindings to the controller, there isn’t an aircraft I have come across where I can’t interact with any control (even airbus push/pull knobs).
In terms of tools that you can use in VR to make your life easier - there are three main ones and they all integrate nicely into the main one (the all-in-one tablet). Using these tools, I am able to fly any aircraft in VR while on VATSIM (and while streaming it even ). I never ever ever remove the headset or interact with MSFS in 2d mode during these flights… the only time I take the headset off is on a long flight or multi-leg flight to… um… take a bio break lol… The tools are:
flightsimulator.me all in one tablet - FlightSimulator.me - All In One v3.0 This tablet provides a multitude of features in one, easy to use, compact tablet interface. Things like simbrief OFP integration, a canvas for writing down clearances (when on VATSIM) or taking notes on ATIS, runway in use, etc… it’s surprisingly easy to use with the VR controller after you get used to scribbling with it. It has a landing rate calculator (actually a full-on flight monitor)… AND it has navigraph charts integration… yes… you get the entire navigraph 8 charts interface on the same tablet if you have a navigraph subscription.
VATSIM radio - this amazing, free plugin has too many features for interacting with VATSIM controllers to type here. Main feature is a list of all controllers listed by proximity and the ability to, with one click, tune com1/com2 primary and standby radios. no spinning the radio dial in VR frantically when you get a handoff… just a click. It has simbrief integration so it will filter out your ground based freqs by your departure/arrival/alternate airports. It has a full featured map so you can see your route, your aircraft position and also the ATC boundaries/frequencies that you are going to cross into (so you can tune them up before even getting a contact-me ping)… It has the ability to get 1 click ATIS where available and you can get METARs for any airport in the world when ATIS isn’t up. So much more… here’s the link - GitHub - daveblackuk/VSR: Vatsim Radio (VSR) - MSFS 2020 toolbar app for VATSIM Oh! and it fully integrates with the aforementioned tablet!!! so no need for another floating VR window!
FSDesktop - ok, this one is useful for me so I can look at the YT chat while streaming all this in VR… but you can use it to pull in any windows desktop window into VR (think watching a YouTube video in VR while in the cruise on a long flight!! ) - https://fsdesktop.com/
If you are interested, you can see these tools in action on any of the livestreams.
I’m only posting these links here because of the questions raised in this thread about VR… And mainly because I want everyone who wants to use VR to be successful with it! The more people that use VR, the more attention it gets. And we, as VR users of MSFS, need to stick together as a community within a community. We are a bit like outcasts right now. But if we all stick together and help each other out - and try to get as many people to see how EPIC VR is in MSFS, the more attention VR will get from developers like Asobo (and yes Laminar).
Please feel free to hit me up if you have any questions about any of this. Oh, I should mention, I get no kickbacks from any of these developers. I’m not officially affiliated with any of them (ok, one of my vids is up on flightsimulator.me to showcase the tablet, but that was my suggestion because people had questions about how to set it up )
Yes. I confirm everything written above
I accidentally found your video on YT about setting up VR controllers for MSFS… and it turned 180 degrees my approach to flying in VR in MSFS.
Even though I still prefer XP11 (can’t love XP12), now with your VR controller setup idea, MSFS has become a second parallel sim for me.
Always, in XP, I only used a right controller (Rift S)( never mouse) + honeycomb alpha and bravo + pedals.
Now that I’m going back to XP, I righ wish I had the convenience of using a controller like you showed in your video.
I am very grateful to you for your contribution, because it allowed me to enjoy my second MSFS sim
Love the analogy. To be the minority group with special needs, to passionately advocate for them only to be met by indifference by most and the same tired, ignorant tropes by others. To see your favorite thing at your go to place discontinued as you try to convince businesses they should cater to your niche.
I reverted from VR to delicious pancakes, but I still eagerly follow these threads. I wanted to love VR, but I was really disappointed with my G2 and returned it. I thought if we could just get one more generation of headset, one more generation of PC hardware, and one more generation of software, we’d be there. But I’ve come to think of this as a pipe dream. What we really need is a revolutionary paradigm shift. I feel like we’re still in the days of the Apple Newton, awkward, clunky stuff with stumbling releases and implementations. And we’re waiting for the iPhone. Maybe another decade.
That post made me laugh, thank you As for an “iphone” in VR…it may come sooner than you think. In my opinion, there’s basically only a few things we need for that to happen. Not just in MSFS, but in a broader sense.
Entry price gadgets (to lure masses).
A comfortable, low weight device that more resembles glasses than a helmet (almost there) with adaptable lens (to cater ophtalmological discrepancies - also almost there)
Eye tracking (which is more or less achieved, just needs some evolution)
Controller free hand tracking, perhaps with some gloves to provide haptic feedback
The ability to experience any content in VR (some people are already doing very important steps in that direction, for example Preydog’s modding attempt which will basically make every unreal engine game playable in VR).
You have arrived at the same conclusion as me, I am also flying with left hand on joystick (like an airbus sidestick) and right hand using VR controller to interact with everything else. I find this much more immersive than using a mouse or the same HOTAS keybind on every plane!
The main problem I have with this setup is throttles on multi engine aircraft. Whilst the throttles on the original Asobo multi engine aircraft (eg 747) move together when grabbed with VR controller, this does not happen on most newer first and third party aircraft such as the A310, ATR 72, etc. I made a bug thread on this, please vote/contribute for them to fix it ! Cannot move both throttles together with VR controllers on many aircraft
As a workaround I am also using a physical throttle on these aircraft, but it is not ideal as then I have to put the controller down and fumble for the throttle, which breaks the immersion and the benefit of the VR controller in the first place
I’ll often see a ship out on the ocean in my peripheral vision then move my head to look at it and it will disappear, only to reappear when i look off to the side a bit. So annoying and immersion breaking.
Yes, I also get that with other aircraft, particularly noticeable in the dark.
I’m not sure if it is dependent upon distance, relative speed or another factor, but sometimes i can see the other aircraft’s navigation lights by looking straight at them and sometimes i have to turn my head to one side or the other.
That is a Z-buffer issue. When you look straight at something, due to the complex transformations for VR, you have the most Z resolution, and the object gets clipped and thus invisible.
When you look away, the Z-buffer resolution in the direction of the object is less, and due to floating point to integer truncation the object’s pixels do fall into the visible range. In principle you can have this with normal 3D graphics too, but it’s more exotic in that case.
[EDIT] : The answer by @smitty9792 is simpler and therefore a lot more probable. The far plane is actually modeled as a plane. Kind of surprising.
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