I want this for one reason and one reason only: DCS.
Anyone know how well it works/doesn't work yet?
I've waited for years to get a VR heads for DCS (its a flight simulator folks) .. and now, maybe, this is it.
I want this for one reason and one reason only: DCS.
Anyone know how well it works/doesn't work yet?
I've waited for years to get a VR heads for DCS (its a flight simulator folks) .. and now, maybe, this is it.
Something to keep in mind that a lot of simmers (DCS specifically) don't get when they want to jump into VR:
Once you hit the advanced 3rd Gen or any 4th Gen fighter or attack aircraft (essentially anything where you go "heads down" for any significant portion of the aircrafts mission profile) VR becomes more of a liability than an asset.
For those aircraft being a pilot is secondary to being a systems operator.
Think of an F-14; you have the front seat who would want to be in VR because they fly the aircraft, but the RIO would NOT want to be because they have very little need to be, especially since it makes interfacing with their mission systems so much harder. AH-64's are the same split.
Now if you are the sole person in the aircraft and need to do both missions being able to operate the systems fluently and smoothly via dedicated interfaces FAR exceeds any benefit from being in VR.
I've done it all, and I far prefer flying in VR. But for accomplishing complex mission profiles multiscreen with each being an MFD and a rich control set far beat that immersion.
Perhaps the best mix is using a curved UW and trackir plus dedicated MFD screens. Once you get that setup its amazing for that advanced capability set.
All of this assumes you want to use the full capability set of an airframe, or use an attack profile at all. If all you want is to use them for A2A, then VR is wonderful as long as you have a full HOTAS set, understand the preset modes on everything, and memorize the controls and alternate control schemes properly for BVR to close in conversion, countermeasures, etc.
Personally I use physical MFDs in my simulator together with a VR headset, it works out great. Initially I thought I would need to get some kind of hand tracking cameras or passthrough in order to see what buttons I was pressing, but I found that you develop muscle memory super quickly, and seeing the buttons move in VR when you press them physically is good enough.
I had wondered how well that would work; thanks for that input!
I wanna do all of the above, to the extent that a few sessions a week can be had, and yeah, my existing multi-monitor rig allows for a degree of MFD integration, with lots of controls (faderfoxes repurposed for it) alongside an admittedly kind of basic warthog HOTAS .. its more for the fun than anything else. No chance, ever, to fly some of these machines any other way, so its gonna be great ..
Does not seems like a very realistic simulation if you basically give both the pilot and operators their own home office. In reality that does not fit into a fighter jet & the idea being to simulate that experience as realistically as possible.
For DCS only, I wonder how this slots between a Q3 and a bigscreen beyond. The beyond with no controllers is probably about the same price all in as the 1TB, but would be better screens and lighter. If you dont care about the standalone stuff it might be another good option. The frame does bring more versatility, but at the cost of battery/weight. Wireless VR in sims is unbeatable in terms of immersion though.
I bought an HP Reverb G2 for DCS about 5 years ago and it worked great. When Windows started deprecating the Mixed Reality services random things started breaking, though.
If you enjoy DCS give VTOLVR a shot as well. Fantastic fun.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/667970/VTOL_VR/
IMO VTOL VR is better than DCS in VR (albeit unavoidably more arcade-y) because it's designed for VR first, while DCS's screens and labels are much more difficult to read given the limited resoultion
I just want to clarify for others reading that the resolution is really mainly limited by your PC hardware, NOT VR headsets.
As in, it's totally possible to have completely clear text on DCS screens and labels even with an older lower res headset like the Valve Index, as long as you render the game at a sufficiently high resolution (via SteamVR settings or similar).
Just wanted to point this out, since a lot of folks aren't aware how drastically increasing the render resolution (even far past the native HMD panel resolution) affects image clarity.
I used a Rift for DCS and it was amazing graphically. Hard to go back to playing on a screen and using a HOTAS hat to capture your view (or head tracker).
But you better have your HOTAS controls memorized because it's a pain not having visibility of them.
Yes, I would probably try to do some kind of "point webcam at HOTAS" hack to try to obviate this hassle, at least until I get the muscle memory really nailed.