I’m a VR noob and purchased a Rift S. Set up was a disaster. Not even close to plug and play device - their initial setup will not prompt a firmware update, and will just leave you guessing how to get there.
Secondly, on MSFS - a disaster. Another NASA level hunt for how to get the Rift S to work with this title. I couldn’t even get the camera to view straight. Then it somehow broke the aircraft performance, so I couldn’t even move the airplane. Lastly, camera “reset” led the VR headset to just go black.
I don’t think so. This is just too much effort for what was easily $1000 spent upgrading hardware and peri devices to just enjoy this title. Terrible.
I’d have to agree. I’ve had the Rift S for a couple of years now. It’s been fine for other games, but it’s definitely showing signs of age. Between the Oculus software, Oculus Tray Tool, Oculus Debug Tool, Steam, SteamVR, MSFS settings, and the limitations of your PC setup, the number of possibilities for configurations are endless. I’ve followed the steps in several threads on this site as closely as possible, but my experience with the Rift S has been disappointing. I’ll probably run 2D until I decide to shell out some cash for a better setup.
I would just like to say my experience is exactly the opposite of yours! I found the installation of the Oculus software totally painless - everything worked first time in both DCS and MSFS 2020. Have you signed up to the beta program and got the latest updates that include fixes for MSFS Issues?
I have programmed a button on my HOTAS to re-center the view - works flawlessly - something I wish DCS would implement for sure.
The Rift S is obviously not state of the art at now and the resolution leaves a little to be desired - but personally I would rather accept the quality loss for the immersiveness of VR. I would never contemplate flying a flight sim in 2D mode ever again. YMMV obvioulsy.
I suspect if you expect to buy a VR headset and expect flawless performance staright off the bat you may be waiting a couple of years.
Sorry you’ve had a bad experience with the Rift S. It’s a great little headset.
Asobo built VR in MSFS primarily around support for the Samsung Odessy, HP Reverb G1 and G2 - devices on the Windows Mixed Reality platform but does support the Oculus and Steam platforms as well. So that’s the first hurdle simply getting setup and the second hurdle is trying to run the bleedin thing with good performance.
With the Rift S and your first foray in VR simming would probably have gone better with a title like Aerofly FS2 PC. Even VR Flight Sim Guy (YouTube) recommends this over MSFS for noobs. MSFS is a beast and not using the Windows Mixed Reality platform just makes things a little bit harder.
On the plus side, I’ve been using VR for a couple of weeks now in MSFS and at times it’s truely amazing if you have the system to push the pixels to your headset. Oculus Debug Tool allows you to lock frames (Hz so that can help performance). If you’ve had a glimps of VR in MSFS and enjoyed it, then it’s worth persevering because you’ll get the rewards, good luck!
I’m underwhelmed with the visual quality but even that “signing up for the beta” - aren’t we all forever in beta mode with everything nowadays? I saw this reference to beta and I couldn’t even locate it.
But at least I was hoping to experience MSFS in the most basic sense - but I get the black box on the right and then I hit reset camera and the screen goes black. I was like - I’ll just get in the air sideways JUST TO EXPERIENCE ANYTHING and the aircraft acted like it’s parking brake was stuck on and I couldn’t even move forward!
That’s terrific for you but I know I’m not alone and I think I’m going to end up returning the Rift S.
I hear what you say, although I do think you are being a little unfair to Oculus - it was released a couple of years back and VR in MSFS2020 only a few weeks ago - they have been pretty quick (IMHO) at getting a fix into Beta testing.
Anyhow, In case you want to give it a go - to sign up to the Beta
Open the Oculus app on your PC.
Select Settings in the left menu.
Select the Beta tab.
Next to Public Test Channel, click to enrol.
I uses a n X56 Hotas and MSFS automatically allocated the parking brake to the throttle button 12 (I think) which toggles the parking brake - did you check the parking brake setting for your set-up?
I will wait till after the weekend and start so the research on getting VR to work. Yeah the airplane is not moving. I exit VR mode into 2D mode and the airplane is broke - yeah I triple checked the parking brake.
I just got a terrible first impression from Rift S - mostly with initial set up.
Unlke the OP, my experience with the Rift S has been overwhelmingly positive. That said, my experience with the Rift S and MSFS has been repeated exercises in frustration. I have been monitoring these forums looking for the silver bullet, but I’m just not convinced there is one, at least not with my hardware. I have experienced bad performance, crashes to desktop, and even a couple of blue screens trying run this title with stable performance. The couple of times that I did get an hour or so before a crash were game changers, even with some of the graphical hits I felt it took. It just wouldn’t be the same experience.
Sure there might be other sims that work, but the draw of MSFS is that it is a virtual copy of the real world. Playing another sim is just not the same. Still, I have to applaud MS for acknowledging VR users, even if it wasn’t designed with my device in mind.
I chalk most of my issues up to my PC hardware. Its not bottom of the barrel, but it is a couple of years old. I have an I7 8700K with RTX 2080 and 16 GB of RAM. A HW upgrade probably wouldn’t hurt. I’d love a 30 series GPU, but I’m sure most of us know that story by now. Not holding my breath anytime soon. In the meantime, a memory upgrade probably wouldn’t hurt. Until then, I’ll keep watching the forums and hope that some groundbreaking discovery that will make it playable on my rig.
I always had great experiences with my Rift S, both with combat flight sims, racing, and other VR games. Mostly flight sims. It was really a no muss no fuss device for me.
Have not used it with MSFS 2020 though so can’t comment on that, as I already had my new Reverb G2 when Asosbo released the VR patch for MSFS2020. And I ain’t going back to Rift S now. G2 was a royal PITB for me to get set up properly and running, but now that it is I am so loving it.
This is horrible biased false information obviously from someone inexperienced and plagued with user errors and incompetence …where do we even start?
Oculus HMDs and software are as polished and newb friendly as it gets.
Are you aware about this awesome advices from VR Flightsim Guy?
For me, using the Oculus Tray Tool like he suggests in the new version 0.86.9 and putting ASW to 18 Hz in the tools’ settings the sim now runs butter smooth using the Rift S having only high settings in the sim itself (Trees on Ultra). I have the i9-9900KF and the 2080 Ti. If you haven’t done it, give it a try! It was a game changer for me and many others!
The Rift S needed two specific steps. It needed a firmware update at set-up but the set-up program did not prompt this, unless I “set up later” option. Then I needed to opt into their beta. I was expecting some plug and play experience and some tweaking, not a fishing expedition. My experience is adequate, but not what I was hoping for. It’s kind of a novelty and it’s a promising technology - but overall I wouldn’t buy the Rift S because of the “screen door” effect and objects in the distance lack severe definition.
I have to say - Those of us without high end machines would be very happy with the Rift S. I just upgraded from the CV1 to Rift S, as I have an older laptop with a 1080 card.
I would recommend the Rift S, when on sale as it was a $100 off. Was going to get the Quest 2, but thought that would over tax my system.
So anyone with a Quest 2 and 1080 card 8Mb (not TI) and 7th gen CPU?
I actually have watched this and attempted to replicate his settings. Unfortunately, I still get stuttering and loss of headset tracking. It cuts to the black screen and my headset will not come back on successfully until I close FS and restart the oculus software from the app. Sometimes I can restart Oculus software while the game is running, but its been inconsistent.
I’ve seen a lot of recommendations to start the game in PC mode and setup my flight settings then switch to VR. I’ve tried that, I’ve tried launching it from within the VR headset and hitting CTRL+TAB to switch to VR mode. I’ve had intermittent successes, but have not yet been able to find a foolproof method to keep it consistent.
+1 for Rift S, works really well. Okay have to take a bit of time tweaking and getting it smooth but no different to other sims like Xplane. Lots of useful info out there on youtube on how to do this.
No doubt compatibility with oculus and msfs will get better as more revisions to the software sort out some of the earlier issues.
