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@ MouthyGrunt97
brilliant thanks 
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I had a G2 for two days until the USB gremlins got it. For a long time I’ve been hemming and hawing about whether I should go cheap and get a Quest 2 or kick it up a notch with the Index.
In the end, I decided I’m sticking with the 4k Ultra and a TrackIR for the near future. This setup looks and works great. I miss VR, but the sim is just way too unstable right now to throw a bunch more money at hardware. Will it even work a month from now?
Maybe I’ll come back to VR this summer after game breaking bugs from the DX12 switch get patched, and when the HMD software and drivers situation calms down a bit.
The bottom line for me is that whenever I use a 2D screen for flying it just doesn’t feel like I’m really flying. It feels like I’m playing a flying game.
Now MSFS 2020 is a demanding game without VR so it’s no surprise that most people can’t run it at acceptable quality yet. Almost every VR sim starts out rather rough and as hardware improves things get better and better. I remember how rough looking IL-2 was the first time I played it on the cv1 with a 980ti. Now it looks fantastic. DCS has also gone from barely playable to smooth.
I just got the G2 and it’s amazing in terms of visual quality. The only thing holding it back is the hardware performance. But I’ve found a nice sweet spot.
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It’s also interesting how deeply personal and subjective this topic is. Some find VR to be the next fad, like 3D glasses, a neat gimmick that wears off after a while. While others literally had their lives changed by it, and now live inside the Oasis.
3D glasses didn’t change the way you interacted with the game. It was a visual embellishment. With VR your head and depending on the game hands become input devices and change the way you interact with the game. A game is just inputs and visuals. So VR is a fundamental change where 3D glasses were not.
I’ve always said.
Simming through a 2D/3D monitor even with TrackIR and even the old Nvidia 3D Vision Kit(RIP 
) is like looking through the window of a candy shop.
VR is like being inside of the candy shop!
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For sure, I meant 3D glasses more in regards to film. 3D glasses did indeed change the movie going experience. It’s a thing that’s neat to try, but there are enough drawbacks to it that 2D screens still dominate. Meanwhile in VR, I’m not actually using my hands in the game yet for anything I wasn’t already doing. It’s definitely a game changer, but I can see VR still struggling to make it out of its niche place for quite awhile.
I love this analogy. I do feel like I’m looking around a window into my airplane.
Except the candy shop makes you put on a welding mask before you can come in due to Covid. Yeah, you’re in the candy shop now, but looking around is a bit of a pain in the ■■■, and you can’t touch anything lol.
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Quest 2 is better than an index… i sold my index for that reason
Any particular reason why? It’s amazing how everyone’s opinion is completely different on this topic lol. There’s a whole thread about people who got rid of their G2 for a Quest 2, and another about how the Index is the best.
When you’re flying a plane you look by turning your head. That’s the intuitive natural interaction.
A lot of people don’t play flight sims because to them a screen is not intuitive. You don’t realize it but it takes a sprinkle of imagination to believe that your screen is a view into a real plane. It take imagination to believe that the cursor your moving with your thumbs is you pointing a gun.
So VR brings us closer to the intuitive natural experience and interaction. So, in the long run it has the potential to bring in more people into gaming. Those people who never really accepted that a screen was a cockpit and a thumbstick was a gun.
Curious, what are the USB gremlins that got your your G2? I just bought a G2.
I have a Quest 2, Index, and G2 (also a Rift S) and I can confirm that the Quest 2 is not better than the Index. The bandwidth limit on the Q2 limits it severely and the comfort and audio are horrible. I keep it around because it’s portable and great for cough video.
just everything really, it was a nicer experience for me, the resolution was comparable but there is NO screen door with the quest 2… like none …
i wasnt happy with the quest 2 fit tho… tried the “elite” strap, but didnt work for me, so fitted a PSVR halo to the quest and bingo !
another thing about the index was the towers and they were a faff… tracking on the quest 2 is near perfect… and if i want to be wireless, i can…
i normally use a rift S for simming tho… just for convenience
That’s why I use TrackIR. It’s not as natural as VR, but it works well enough, and then the picture quality itself is better than VR. It’s always some kind of compromise no matter which setup you go with.
For two days everything was magic, and then I plugged it into the computer and got an error in WMR saying it couldn’t establish a USB 3 connection. Numerous other users report similar errors and HP is pretty worthless on the topic. Some people can fix it by installing a USB 3 host card, or a USB hub. For some that works temporarily, and then the error eventually resurfaces, and for others, myself included, no solution works. I tried two different USB cards, changed all kinds of stuff in the BIOS, drivers, tinkered with the headset itself, and then I returned it.
I have a Reverb G2 , 10700k, 3080 and I could never go back to 2D mode anymore. It has not lost its luster even after hundreds of hours. I do everything from GA to vatsim in VR. 2D can’t come close to the feeling you get in VR. I found that sticking with the graphics settings that allows best FPS is the way to go. The graphics are still really nice even when on medium and the immersion is unbeatable.
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MSFS 2020 should not be your first VR experience. You need a little time to acclimate to VR. Your brain adjusts to the visual feedback.
But MSFS 2020 is so far the most difficult game to get right in VR. You can’t get it to run at a smooth 90fps no matter what. So it’s not a great first experience. I’m surprised you didn’t just get sick.
Also, MSFS 2020 needs a lot of tweaking so it helps if you’ve had experience in the past tweaking all the various parameters and adjusting them to your liking before dealing with something as difficult as MSFS 2020.
For example, you’re so used to playing on a monitor that it feels right to you. But if you take someone who doesn’t game the limitations of a screen are more apparent to them because they haven’t grown accustomed to them like you have. It’s the same with VR. It’s a new medium and your brain needs to adapt and become more accustomed to it.
For me, I’m at the point where using a monitor feels unnatural and immersion breaking. That’s because I’ve become accustomed to VR.
So, I would say, take things slow. If you like combat games then I recommend IL-2 or DCS for a better VR flight experience.
lol, i am terrible at both of these sims 
I don’t see anything else to touch outside of default sliders besides
100 Supersampling
Light Shafts to medium
Clouds to Ultra (hopefully clouds will get touched up in the future to look good on medium one day or even 3rd party payware clouds)
Water Waves to High
Terrain Vectoring to Ultra
4X Ambient Occlusion
Nothing more!
Exactly. I am a real world pilot as well and VR is so close to the real thing in my opinion. 2D can’t match real life nearly as well.
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