To VR or not to VR that is the question

User Support Hub Virtual Reality (VR)
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Thought I would post my experience on VR. Keep it short and simple:

  • Avid flight simmer for many years
  • Excited when heard the news of the new MSFS
  • In anticipation of the new MSFS got a new rig…AMD Ryzen 3900XT, RTX 2080Ti, 32GB ram
  • Skeptical when VR support was first announced
  • Reading posts on how more realistic and immersive VR was starting thinking more seriously about it
  • Once released I jumped on the bandwagon and purchased an HP Reverb G2 HMD and wow was amazed at how immersive it really was but found the tweaking down on graphics settings was killing the reality factor for me
  • Determined to enhance my VR experience, I went ahead an upgraded my rig with an AMD Ryzen 5600X, RTX 3090
  • VR is now much more fluid and better looking as I am able to tweak up some graphic settings but not totally satisfied with the overall visual clarity and reduced rendering attributes of the sim in VR as well as always fiddling around with my peripherals like having a blindfold on !
    *Decided to do a flight in 2D PC mode with everything on Ultra and WOW the sim really shines
  • So amazed with MSFS in 2D Ultra I had to look twice at my VR headset sitting idle

Not complaining at all and overall very happy with my MSFS experience so far. Yes it has set me back a few bucks but now has me wondering what will it take to run this sim in VR Ultra mode? With ongoing development and performance improvements, I guess time will tell…
Thanks for reading.

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Technology not of this plane of existence (no pun intended). No seriously, people with the tippy top end systems barely get 30 frames if they’re lucky. Right now, you have basically everything you need

What you’ll really need is a bit of patience. The VR Feedback snapshot indicates Asobo is aware VR performance is less than ideal (which is putting it nicely depending who you ask) and they’re currently working on it. There’s just a tiny bit of hope that i have that this update in two days will bring improvements to VR performance

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I have. High end system with 3090. I use the new Reverb G2 and it is really awesome. So much so I can’t fly on a 2d monitor anymore. It’s that good. Yeah it’s still in its infancy but man it’s night and day better than any flat panel out there.

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i put up with 2D flight because the performance in tubeliners is not where it needs to be to want to have a $400 plastic box strapped to my face for 3.5 hours

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Buy it. You won’t regret it. So much fun

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i couldnt imagine flight simming or race simming on a flat monitor ever again… VR all the way for me !

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It’s all about reprojection. WMR poop - Oculus good. With Oculus 18hz reprojection you can crank up the visuals to ultra and still have a smooth flying.

G2 is the headset that would benefit a Oculus quality reprojection the most but unfortunately we don’t get that.

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I have the same background. After several years of absence from flight simming I have rebuild my sim pit with panels and my old goflight devices in anticipation of the launch of msfs. Also bought a new PC for it and have been flying happily since august.
Few weeks ago I decided to get a Quest 2 and can’t go back to 2D anymore.

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Running 30-40fps on a Quest 2 and same, can’t do flat screen anymore.

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Man how I wish people would stop buying Oculus devices and feeding the FB monster. It’s not that I care about needing to have an FB login for it, I use my FB login for a LOT of things, but that’s all completely voluntary, and I don’t have to allow FB to determine whether or not a piece of hardware that allegedly belongs to ME is even going to work if I anger them in any way.

Even just today, in exchange for a large subsidy (you don’t think they’re selling a device that should be at least $550 is selling for $400 for no reason, do you?), you have to have a FB account, and not get unlucky enough to get a permaban or they’ll brick your device.

Tomorrow (the metaphorical tomorrow, I don’t mean Thursday), it’ll be, well, we need to make sure you’re in compliance, so you’re gonna need to send us a copy of your ID so we can cross reference your name and DOB. Then it’s gonna be, well, you have nothing on your profile, and we’re now requiring at least X amount of information to be accurately filled out, and we will be checking for accuracy. Then it’s well, you gotta login at least once a week. Then twice a week. Then every day. Then you gotta post or like something every X days, and X will slowly shrink, and the amount you gotta post or like will slowly grow.

All the while, the carrot is you get to have a heavily discounted VR headset, while we monopolize the VR market even more than we already have, and the stick is, if you don’t like it, all your headset are belong to us, and poof, they’re bricks. And then, when the last of the competitors gives up on VR, guess what? They don’t even have to try any more.

Think I’m crazy if it makes you feel better, but if you don’t think I’m right, just remember this is freaking Facebook we’re talking about here.

Please, please stop feeding the beast and buy anything but an Oculus. Personally, I’m a fan of the G2, but I really don’t care what you buy as long as it isn’t an Oculus.

And this has been your 4AM civil service message from KevyKevTPA.

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Hi Piper9t3,

You’ve done a great job summing up the VR / not VR dilemma! I’ve flip-flopped between ‘WOW VR is so immersive!’ and ‘WOW 4k ultra is so d@rn good!’ I have a rig similar to your original setup and have pretty well settled on VR, despite the still present limitations.

Now, I’m just looking forward to the next generation of hardware and headsets … my wallet open, my credit card waiting…

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Hi, you say you are an avid flight simmer and have been for many years. Have you tried other flight sim titles in VR yet?
If not I strongly suggest that you do if for no other reason than to see what it “could” be like.
I’m sure (read hoping) that MS VR will improve as it’s only the first iteration.
Now do yourself a favour and strap yourself into an F-16 in DCS VR to see what it could be like.

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Same. i9-9900k & 3090 with G2. Once set right, its amazing. Sure it will get better too. :slight_smile:

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Exactly. I love the immersion and depth of my medium G2 but I love the detail on 2D Ultra.

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I am hoping for that too but like you say patience is needed… will keep a close eye on that VR feedback snapshot

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Don’t know if you’ve tried it but I find headtracking makes flying in 2D much more bearable after having tried VR. You can buy an app on your phone called smoothtrack which will use your phone to capture headmovement and send it to the PC, opentrack will then give you headtracking in games that support trackIR like MSFS. Works surprisingly well.

I still obviously prefer VR for immersion, but if I couldn’t fly VR I’d choose a large 4k tv and headtracking. The sim does look stunning all at ultra in 4k, but VR is looking pretty good too now that I can run 100/100% and most settings high or above… defintely lacks that crisp and beautiful detail of playing on the 4k tv though and having to lock at 30fps in VR is less than ideal imo.

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I agree too it was a successful VR implementation and not complaining the least bit but holy WOW factor would it be to be able to run full Ultra in VR ! Next gen hardware for sure and wallet open no doubt…

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I have spent years on FS2004, FSX and P3D…not much of a combat flight simmer but you bring up a good point…maybe try something different. Got the Aeromacchi MB-339 jet recently and really liking it in MSFS (both in VR and 2D) - wonder what it would be like to strap some ammunition on a jet fighter?

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There’s still big advantages to flying on the 2D display. Its obviously not as immersive as VR but its a much better way to experience how beautiful the visuals look. I love switching to the outside view and with effects like contrails being added soon the cinematic quality to flying with the outside view will be really enhanced.

Technical issues aside there are things about VR I’m not so keen on. I’m not always wanting totally cut off from the real world when I’m playing the sim. Its nice to be able to do various other things whilst I’m flying. Plus interacting with the cockpit and learning what everything is doing and cross referencing things with online tutorials during a flight is next to impossible in VR. So yeah for me there’s pros and cons to both mediums of enjoying it. VR is just another branch of it. Of course, it’ll help all the current technical issues are ironed out.

I’m sure in about 5 years time VR will really be at the place a lot of people want it to be now: really wide angle of view with high resolution optics. But until then the 2D monitor will still be the default way I’ll enjoy it.

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you play DCS for that.

Spoiler: It’s amazing