Do you use VR?

[Aruberikku]

Just a quick poll out of curiousity. (Could also interest the CP developers to see how popular the different setups are.)

How many of you use VR (for flight sims)?
And for those who still use a monitor; what's your setup? Single 16:9, multi 16:9; ultrawide 21:9, super UW 32:9,...?

My TL;DR is that I don't. I currently use a single 16:9 4K monitor, but I often find myself thinking about either getting a (curved) widescreen (or even a VR headset in the future).

I actually got to experience VR for the first time a while back when I bought the PSVR2 on release. Even though I saw the potential it has (especially for sims), I ended up getting rid of it.
Never got to try it out in a good flight sim (there are none on Playstation), but I did try it out in Gran Turismo 7. The sim genre is definitely the one where VR shines the most.

My first thought, after getting used to the motion sickness, was definitely a wow-sensation. That feeling of being "inside" the game when using VR is unbeatable and I would gladly trade some graphical fidelity for it. (I often find myself ducking when a near miss occurs during intense dogfights on a flat screen! Imagine playing with a VR headset.)

Speaking of graphical fidelity, compared to my 4K monitor I did find it extremely disappointing to see the individual pixels so clearly with VR.

But the main issue with VR (for me) is actually its contradictory nature.

• On one hand setting up for a VR session takes considerably more time to set-up, so you really don't want to use it for a short session. I found toilet breaks, phone calls, social interactions with family members, etc... a bit of a nuisance when in the middle of a VR session.
• On the other hand I found it extremely uncomfortable to use for long sessions. Not sure about other VR headsets, but the PSVR2's mounting system/padding is really uncomfortable. Tried things like wearing a beanie for extra padding, but I just couldn't get used it to it.

Also with a VR headset you can't look down at your real life cockpit which can occasionally be useful.

If Combat Pilot were to give users the ability to fly long range missions in their entirety (5-10 hours for example), would any of you VR users fly those? I would on a flat screen, but never when using VR.

Edited January 22 by Aruberikku

[Talisman]

I have been using the same VR headset for almost 5 years now.  Time flies!  

I have flown in my VR headset for 4 hours and sometimes 5 hours and often flown 25 plus hours per week.  Mind you, I have modified my headset harness to customise for my own comfort with a head band and even added a chin strap (like a real pilot headset) which just happens to make things feel even more immersive too.

I am looking to upgrade this year and I must say that the Varjo XR-4 Standard version looks very promising.

Happy landings,

Talisman

Edited January 23 by Talisman

[Lusekofte]

I use G2. Very Nice being in the cockpit

but my 49” curved screen is immersive too. 
I might invest in two screens more and abandon vr all together 

[spreckair]

I returned to flight sims about three years ago only because VR became viable.  I took a very long (15 year) hiatus from flight sims because I found flying on displays to be too limiting.  I love flying in my HP Reverb G2, and despite the ups and downs of the VR headset market, I hope that VR flying only gets better and stays affordable.  Fingers crossed.

[Hoss]

Shouldn't this tread be in the VR section?

[Aruberikku]

Thought about it when posting it originally. Since VR is hardware, it really kinda fits both sections.
My reasoning for not putting it in the VR specific section was that non-VR users might be less likely to browse there and the question is also aimed at them.

[Viper]

Maybe I'm going against the grain but personally I'm not interested in virtual reality, the hardware costs too much and then I prefer a nice monitor.

[Lusekofte]

VR got its use. And for ww2 and WW1 I think it is essential. But I fly DCS too. And there are modules there benefiting not using VR. 
I am very disappointed by the progress in VR they seem to only get bigger and more clumsy. Prices too high and it start a never ending spending spree in hardware 

[DaveP63]

I don't think you're going to get a very representative answer to your poll. The results are going to be skewed due to the nature of your audience. To answer your question, no I don't have the equipment for VR and don't think the technology is that mature. If I'm being completely honest, all the "No VR, no buy" "I can't ever go back" "The immersion factor makes up for the fact you cant read your gauges" "Just buy VR (instead of what you asked about)" really puts me off the whole thing. 

[Aruberikku]

Definitely agree that cost is also a major con for VR. Already have a bunch of other things on my wishlist for my flight simming needs. 😁
Currently happy with my head tracking setup, despite its shortcomings.

9 hours ago, DaveP63 said:

I don't think you're going to get a very representative answer to your poll. The results are going to be skewed due to the nature of your audience. To answer your question, no I don't have the equipment for VR and don't think the technology is that mature. If I'm being completely honest, all the "No VR, no buy" "I can't ever go back" "The immersion factor makes up for the fact you cant read your gauges" "Just buy VR (instead of what you asked about)" really puts me off the whole thing. 

Yeah, you're right. The results are going to be skewed.

On one hand (flight) sims are probably the genre that benefit the most from VR, so more people might have VR or at least be interested in it compared to other gaming genres.

But it's probably also fair to assume that thae current users on this forum might be the more hardcore fans(?). (Not everyone is going to join a forum for a sim that might or might not release in 5 or so years.)
I'd imagine that once Combat Pilot releases and the more 'average' players learn about it, you'll find that the majority don't use VR. (Especially if CP also has difficulty settings that cater to non-sim folks.)

Edited February 7 by Aruberikku

[Boo]

The adage with VR at present seems to be "hey what can we leave out to make our headset just a little less good than it could be".  Of course thats not quite true but flight sims seem to be an awkward bedfellow for VR.  I totter on the edge all the time. Tried it early doors and hated it but recently have started to follow the progress once again. There are some encouraging signs but it seems what would be acceptable to me especiallly in the currently most demanding sim applications of DCS is still a way off or too expensive (or both).  

The quandry however comes when I concede defeat and begin to look for suitable monitors (my pc monitor is also my TV screen - I cant have either/or as I live in a house thats smaller than the CloD community). Those screen that suit are pretty much just as expensive as a higher spec VR headset. 

A Quest 3 of simliar will be passing through my house at Christmas as Ive promised the boy one so it'll give me some impression of the state of play of the mainstream I guess and I'll revisit it with a new PC in 2025 when the 5090 is released but i remain a curious bystander at this point. 

Perhaps, given CBs likely trajectory to release, the poll should be asking how many may also consider VR in the next 5 years as well? 

 

[Lusekofte]

On 2/7/2024 at 12:53 PM, DaveP63 said:

I don't think you're going to get a very representative answer to your poll. The results are going to be skewed due to the nature of your audience. To answer your question, no I don't have the equipment for VR and don't think the technology is that mature. If I'm being completely honest, all the "No VR, no buy" "I can't ever go back" "The immersion factor makes up for the fact you cant read your gauges" "Just buy VR (instead of what you asked about)" really puts me off the whole thing. 

You can read the gauges with a midrange vr and gpu. But you get scuba view less graphic candy. This might put you off. But there is still candy left. 
I always recommend people not to overspend first time purchase in VR. You might not like it. It is no hallelujah, it is a compromise and an uncomfortable one. But you are in the cockpit.
but I always laugh at those with cheap sticks and throttle with high end VR , when they start talking about immersion. They know nothing about immersion. I rather have good hardware for sim than any vr.  

[DaveP63]

16 hours ago, Lusekofte said:

You can read the gauges with a midrange vr and gpu. But you get scuba view less graphic candy. This might put you off. But there is still candy left. 
I always recommend people not to overspend first time purchase in VR. You might not like it. It is no hallelujah, it is a compromise and an uncomfortable one. But you are in the cockpit.
but I always laugh at those with cheap sticks and throttle with high end VR , when they start talking about immersion. They know nothing about immersion. I rather have good hardware for sim than any vr.  

No worries. I doubt seriously that I'll ever be a VR crusader. I am nearing retirement and won't have unlimited funds to buy toys to keep up with the Jones's. By the time technology has become more affordable and caught up with the googles, I will be beyond caring about it. Besides, if I'm honest about it, the whole "no VR, no buy" chorus from the VR true believers really puts me off. 

[Skelthos]

5 hours ago, DaveP63 said:

Besides, if I'm honest about it, the whole "no VR, no buy" chorus from the VR true believers really puts me off. 

To be fair, "the game must have feature XYZ or I will not buy it is NOT limited to VR users." You see the same thing in the clickable cockpit debate or head tracking in general among other things. It is just people letting the devs know their preferences for the feature set. 

Despite the very vocal VR community, VR has an adoption rate issue right now. The total number of users is fairly static globally, and headset sales dropped drastically (around 24%) last year. VR is expensive, if you want clear gauges and screens in the cockpit you have to spend the money on higher end hardware, and very importantly, it is far from being plug-and-play so you spend a fair amount of time tinkering to get the best compromise in visual fidelity and performance for your specific system.  You also have a segment of the population that just cannot tolerate it, they get sick, they cannot stand having the headset on, etc.  

22 hours ago, Lusekofte said:

I always recommend people not to overspend first time purchase in VR.

I second this, do not overspend, or if possible find someone with a headset that will let you try it with their setup before heavily investing.  I know a fair number of people who bought into VR when it first came out, and either their system could not handle it or they just did not like it and their headsets sit in a closet or shelf and collect dust.

[Sea Serpent]

I voted that I use a traditional monitor.

I use touchscreen controls, on tablets, and I try to have every control mapped, excluding anything that belongs on the Joystick or Throttles. In something like the Hornet, it means every state of every switch, rotary, or dial.  I don’t know how many controls, or control states, probably hundreds, and as one can imagine, mapping every single thing in a sim like that is time consuming, like 3 to 5 entire evenings. Makes for a great learning tool as well, because you have to go through everything.  Every switch remains accessible with the mouse, but I don’t really want to be doing that in the middle of a dogfight.  I want to reach to the switch, flip it instantly, and without accidentally grabbing the cat, instead of the mouse.

So when it comes to VR, I’d really like to see what I’m doing, but also the real world enough to grab my beer, half watch something on TV during a boring transit, or grab a piece of paper to write something down.  I’d probably be one of those guys that vomits all over the keyboard, but I have a fairly vomit resistant keyboard, so that’s not an issue.  I’m sure I’d love VR If I could reach out and touch the virtual controls, and these days, people who are willing to pay a premium have that ability.  But yeah, it’s expensive.  I keep saying, well maybe next year I’ll get VR, but I’ve been saying that for at least 5 already.  So, someday….

 

Edited May 21 by Sea Serpent

[Lusekofte]

4 hours ago, Skelthos said:

Despite the very vocal VR community, VR has an adoption rate issue right now. The total number of users is fairly static

I do agree in everything you say. I am more into setting things in perspective. I hold best hardware I  possible can have in a limited space. I spare no expenses. VR is the place I put my feet down. Astronomically budget to keep best there is at a one year perspective. 
And it is going in the wrong direction. 
they get bigger and have counterweight in order to keep balance. 
Constantly new vr players go out and call wow experiencing , an experience that is short lived and require updgrading in order to get their fix. 
And not realising they could have done better with a less expensive but high end stick. 
 

[Aapje]

1 hour ago, Lusekofte said:

I do agree in everything you say. I am more into setting things in perspective. I hold best hardware I possible can have in a limited space. I spare no expenses. VR is the place I put my feet down. Astronomically budget to keep best there is at a one year perspective.

That astronomical budget is merely because you are dogmatically attached to your strategy of getting the best. You paint yourself into a corner and then blame the paint, even though it was you holding the brush all along. You are the one who is choosing to have the best there is at each point in time instead of making your gear last a bit longer, and/or buying hardware that has better price/performance, saving a lot of money in the process.

If you always bought the best since 2017, then you went from buying a $699 flagship 1080 Ti to buying a $1,599 flagship 4090. Just that difference alone is easily enough to afford a headset, so is the astronomical budget you complain about really due to VR pricing, or are you letting Nvidia take all your pocket money?

1 hour ago, Lusekofte said:

And it is going in the wrong direction. 
they get bigger and have counterweight in order to keep balance. 

This is just false. The Quest 3 is 515 grams versus 550 for the Reverb G2. And people have been using counterweights with the G2.

And it's also a fact that you can now get the 127 gram Bigscreen Beyond, if you are willing to put up with its downsides. This is not an option that you had before.

1 hour ago, Lusekofte said:

Constantly new vr players go out and call wow experiencing , an experience that is short lived and require updgrading in order to get their fix.

Where is your evidence that the advantages of VR are short lived and that people require upgrading again (more than any of us want to keep chasing improvements, including flat screen players)? I don't see any evidence for it and think that it is just something that you want to believe, despite the fact that you yourself declare that you need to upgrade constantly. Which is rather ironic.

I'm not saying that you have to adopt VR. There are plenty reasons against it. But your particular reasons are really poor.

[Lusekofte]

29 minutes ago, Aapje said:

That astronomical budget is merely because you are dogmatically attached to your strategy of getting the best. You paint yourself into a corner and then blame the paint

You Are wrong. I say this based on a high number of people obsessed by selling their 

one year gear to get newest. And I do see their point when you’re in that route. I settled with a 3080 and G2. I don’t paint in the way you imply. In this case I think you do not understand I am not native English speaker and need some understanding on how I put things. 
 

[Lusekofte]

43 minutes ago, Aapje said:

Where is your evidence that the advantages of VR are short lived and that people require upgrading again (more than any of us want to keep chasing improvements

Are you on Facebook DCs groups or are you in DCS forums. Are you blind or acting that I have to provide evidence , like in court? 
are you frequenting vr section in Gb?

This is an informal topic in a flightsim site where everybody are entitled and gladly give their opinion. You might ignore them or dispute them. But you ain’t doing none of that. 

[Sea Serpent]

Your English is pretty good.  Better than a couple of native speakers I encountered in the dark days of RoF. Just don’t ever become a moderator on an English language website.  I always end up clashing with those people.

Nothing wrong with wanting the very best, imo, to a point anyway.  Flight sim has taught me that it’s better to spend an extra 500 up front, than it is to say “this sucks, I wish I’d gotten something a lot better,” and then finally ending up buying the better thing anyway.  Am I the only one who suffers from this brand of cheap buyer’s remorse from time to time?

Edited May 22 by Sea Serpent

[Aapje]

On 5/22/2024 at 2:22 AM, Lusekofte said:

You Are wrong. I say this based on a high number of people obsessed by selling their one year gear to get newest.

I have no idea what you are even referring to here. What are they selling? Video cards? Headsets? And where? You mentioned the ED forums, but I don't see this there at all.

What I do see on various forums is a decent bunch of gamers, most of whom don't play in VR, who upgrade every generation, including to 4090's and the like.

And in the second hand sales places I see most people who sell their almost new video cards and headsets, do so because they don't use it (enough), not to upgrade.

On 5/22/2024 at 2:22 AM, Lusekofte said:

I settled with a 3080 and G2.

Then you wrote something that is not true when you said this: "I hold best hardware I possible can have in a limited space."

It's hard to have a discussion when you say things that are not true, because then I cannot trust your words.

On 5/22/2024 at 2:22 AM, Lusekofte said:

Are you on Facebook DCs groups or are you in DCS forums. Are you blind or acting that I have to provide evidence , like in court? 
are you frequenting vr section in Gb?

I only sometimes see people in those places go back from VR to flat & in most cases that is not because VR no longer thrills them, but for various practical reasons or other preferences. I see no solid evidence that the advantages of VR are short lived for people. Of course gamers want improvements and with VR there is more reason to upgrade, because you get bigger boosts from an upgrade than with flat gaming, both because the impact of extra GPU power is bigger, but also because VR headsets are advancing way more rapidly than monitors for example

But in these places I see similar things with VR gamers that I see with flat gamers, with some upgrading very often, while others play with relatively old headsets and a 1070.

Of course, VR gamers will more often be the ones that upgrade often, but that is largely self-selection.

Quote

This is an informal topic in a flightsim site where everybody are entitled and gladly give their opinion.

You also made factual claims that are just flat out wrong. Those are not opinions. I mainly addressed those.

I did not respond to @Sea Serpent for example, because his comment was mostly opinion plus some facts that are actually true. I have no problem with that.

Edited May 25 by Aapje

[Trooper117]

This sort of sniping goes on in shall we say other forums... can we not introduce it here fellas... 

[Boba Fett]

Ok gentlemen,

and thank you for making my moderating position finally have meaning, but lets step away from the keyboard and calm down a bit. This site is still lightly travelled and friendly ATM. Let's keep it that way for the time being. At least the friendly part.......

Please and Thank You,

 

Fett

[Boo]

I do agree with @Lusekofte when he makes the argument for investing in controllers over high end VR at this time. Though I do not go to perhaps the same lengths of realism that he does in terms of the hardware used I think his appraoch of investing in quality controllers before the more expensive VR sets, especially for someone who is at the beginnning of the curve is correct.

I should say Im also very grateful for his considered advice to me in other forums (as I always was to the late and great dburne). I think there are many "evangelic" opinions when it comes to what makes a great sim experience, which is absolutely fine. For me, its great to find opinions that also see the whole experience for different view points or in the round so to speak. 

This past week Ive been able to expereince "High End" VR in the form of a Crystlal in MSFS. Whilst very impressive, I personally didnt find the experience transformative. I was aware of the bulk of the headset (though i may get used to it over time) and found it a little uncomfortable (though again there may be things to improve this - its wasnt my set afterall). I did like the off ear speakers though and now crave that experience over tradiational cans.  Overall I found just enough negatives to counter the very impressive positives for me personally. Given the price id be paying it has certainly dampened my enthusiasm for going high end VR at this point but certainly Im not closed off to it in future. 

As Ive mentioned before, I will be buying a cheaper Quest in the not to distant future for wider family use. I was a little worried that my experience with the Crystal miight affect that but, oddly, its acually made me more enthusiastic. I know it wont be as clear or as capable as the Crystal, especially in DCS but at half the price even with accessories it think it perhpas sits at the right point in the cost/benefit curve for where I am overall with VR right now. 

 Im still looking forward to re-discovering the physical interaction of FFB in the shape of a Rhiino over anytrhing else though. 

[Lusekofte]

On 5/22/2024 at 3:41 AM, Sea Serpent said:

Your English is pretty good.  Better than a couple of native speakers I encountered in the dark days of RoF. Just don’t ever become a moderator on an English language website.  I always end up clashing with those people.

Nothing wrong with wanting the very best, imo, to a point anyway.  Flight sim has taught me that it’s better to spend an extra 500 up front, than it is to say “this sucks, I wish I’d gotten something a lot better,” and then finally ending up buying the better thing anyway.  Am I the only one who suffers from this brand of cheap buyer’s remorse from time to time?

I am with you on this. I try not to advise people into my opinion of life. I merely try to convince people to think twice. 
Because I haven’t. VR is exceptional in many ways but it is not the only thing producing immersion. 
In DCS chopper experience a good stick means everything. And rudderpedals that is good enough. I say the same about ww2 planes. You ain’t evolving with a stick not fit for fine handeling. Almost everything else you can do compromise with. Sure a collective is nice. But not at all needed if you got a half bad throttle. 
VR experience is shit if your joystick is not up for the task ahead. If you can afford both, great if not. Spend your money on what is essential for the sim