First flights with the Rift

[Guest]

I have been determined to skip CV1 and wait for 4K VR. But from what you guys said CV1 seems to be so much nicer than DK2, kind of tempting...

 

 

Well, withav8 thinks DK2 has a sharper image than the CV1... I guess it's all very personal too. 

[whitav8 98]

Well, what I meant to say about DK2 really was even though the DK2 image has more SDE and 25% less resolution, perhaps my old time thick lenses were a bit easier to focus clearly than with the fresnel - don't know. That's why I decided to create the "vision test". It sounded like from J van E that the results were very similar. I would encourage all VR folks to try the second part of the vision test which is to start your location right over the San Martin runway at maybe 5000 feet with early morning lighting and while doing a steep turn look out the left window and see if you can read the words "South County" on the runway, then go higher - I made it to 7500 before it was hard to read. The hardest thing to see from a distance is the runway and this is partly to do with lack of contrast with the surrounding imagery and objects and that it is at such an oblique angle. While I do want increased resolution and much less SDE in the second generation of consumer VR, I am not sure that seeing the runway clearly from 5 miles away or so is going to be a whole lot better unless we "sharpen" the image instead of anti-alias it. But let's hope!!

[Guest]

Oh boy... DO I FEEL STUPID!!! On the Steam forum someone said something about being able to set the Render Scale Factor all the way right. I thought 'Hold it, that will make AFS2 crawl!' That's too much! When I came home I checked my settings and don't ask me why, but I found out I set RSF to 1.2 instead of 2.0... As I said, do I feel stupid... Somehow I only looked at the 2 and thought 1.2 was sort of the max for me... Of course I did a few tests after that, switching between the two settings, and well, yes... it does make a difference. Quite a difference. What a difference. Seriously, I already liked AFS2 in VR at 1.2, can you imagine how I like it right now at 2.0...?! Okay, it's still pixelated LOL but I can read things now which I couldn't read before. Yes, I already wondered why that test in the Pitts turned out quite bad and in favor of the DK2... :wink: Man... so stupid...

[whitav8 98]

@J van E,

       I was hoping it was something like that - you just didn't sound like you were seeing most things clear enough. Just for fun, start at 1.5 and work up to 2.0 - depending on some of the other settings, you can "overcook" the RSF and get it a little too sharp which results in the pixelated look. Now you can also play with Anisotropic and antialiasing settings. Maybe you also read Sequashtoo's thread called "Do you want 'crispness' with your lettuce? How 'bout your photoreal?" and maybe try some of his ideas for Nvidia Inspector. I'm not sure they are enabled correctly for me but I am trying them out. It's all a little nebulous about what Aerofly FS2, Render Scale Factor, Nvidia Control Panel, and Nvidia Inspector settings do together. Anyway, I'm glad you are even more excited about FS2 in VR. Remember, you can disable ASW with CNTL+Numpad1 and reenable it with CNTL+Numpad_4. I prefer just getting 90fps (actually 75fps for my DK2) solid and seeing incredible flight smoothness.

 

Dave

[HiFlyer 9,332]

Oh boy... DO I FEEL STUPID!!! On the Steam forum someone said something about being able to set the Render Scale Factor all the way right. I thought 'Hold it, that will make AFS2 crawl!' That's too much! When I came home I checked my settings and don't ask me why, but I found out I set RSF to 1.2 instead of 2.0... As I said, do I feel stupid... Somehow I only looked at the 2 and thought 1.2 was sort of the max for me... Of course I did a few tests after that, switching between the two settings, and well, yes... it does make a difference. Quite a difference. What a difference. Seriously, I already liked AFS2 in VR at 1.2, can you imagine how I like it right now at 2.0...?! Okay, it's still pixelated LOL but I can read things now which I couldn't read before. Yes, I already wondered why that test in the Pitts turned out quite bad and in favor of the DK2... :wink: Man... so stupid...

 

:Shame On You: I can't remember how many times I mentioned you should check that setting........... 

[Guest]

:Shame On You: I can't remember how many times I mentioned you should check that setting........... 

LOL Well, a nice side effect of my mistake is that it feels as if I received a free bonus hardware upgrade... The difference IS obvious. And I already liked what I had!

[FlyIce 354]

Was that a setting that makes everything bigger?

[Guest]

No, it makes things a bit sharper by rendering everything at a higher resolution and then showing it in the Rift resolution. Sounds as if that can't make a difference but it does.

[HiFlyer 9,332]

Was that a setting that makes everything bigger?

 

No, its essentially supersampling. Running the sim at a much higher resolution then downscaling it to Rift normal gives a much clearer apparent image, at the possible expense of framerate, if your card isn't powerful enough.

 

EDIT: Crosspost.

 

(Look at the writing in the game as he switches the supersampling setting and imagine the effect on reading instrument panels, etc)

 

[FlyIce 354]

Got it. Didn't know SS can help so much in VR. Maybe should give it a try with my DK2.. 

[HiFlyer 9,332]

Got it. Didn't know SS can help so much in VR. Maybe should give it a try with my DK2.. 

 

You would need the Oculus rift SDK 1.3 to do that for the Rift DK2. Your Oculus will say it can't run it, but ignore it.

 

During setup when it gets to the part about testing the remote, just skip past that.

 

Many newer games conveniently support supersampling right in the game settings, but some older ones don't. If that's the case, and you just really REALLY want it, you can still do it manually using the SDK debug tool.

 

[whitav8 98]

In Aerofly FS2, you don't need the SDK for testing SuperSampling or as FS2 calls it - Render Scale Factor on the VR Tab. Just set it at 1.5 to start and work up to 2.0 - I use 1.5 because I only have an Nvidia 970 and 2.0 will increase the frametime (lower FPS) dramatically  if I run at 2.0

 

In the SDK though, there is a tool, called the Oculus Debug Tool that can set SS for any games that don't have a way to set it in internal settings.

[Guest]

No, its essentially supersampling. Running the sim at a much higher resolution then downscaling it to Rift normal gives a much clearer apparent image, at the possible expense of framerate, if your card isn't powerful enough.

 

EDIT: Crosspost.

 

(Look at the writing in the game as he switches the supersampling setting and imagine the effect on reading instrument panels, etc)

That is a very good video that gives an honest view on it all: I didn't think the DK1 vs CV1 video gave a good view on things but this one does. You can really see 2.0 still isn't like a 2D monitor but it is significantly better. I myself could see the difference between (in my stupid case) 1.2 and 2.0 in for instance the Cessna: with 1.2 I couldn't read a specific text I could see underneath the yoke, with 2.0 I simply read INST. (It is always best to test things like this with things you don't know: if I had new it read INST I might have been able to 'read' it.) All little lines on the gauges but also lines on the ground while flying very low over KLAX became obviously sharper, and also some sort of red post in the distance while standing on the runway changed from a pixelated thing into a post. Things still look a bit low res and blurry but the difference is absolutely worth using this setting.

[Guest]

Wow, man, seriously, holy cow, unbelievable... I am in the middle of a flight but just had to post here how utterly awesome AFS2 and the Rift are... I never liked planes like the Baron with those big engines blocking the view but in AFS2 with the Rift... it is soooooo great to look out of the window and see that big heavy engine and then 5000 feet lower the coast of the US and the mountains on the right... That view blocking engine is awesome 'in real life'! It only make the sense of depth even bigger! I seriously have the feeling I am flying out there at 5000 feet on a beautiful sunny day... Man, this is mind blowing. Absolutely mind blowing. (Specially with RSF at 2.0 LOL). This Baron might as well become my favorite plane thanks to those shiny engines. Simming has never been this good. With the Rift that flat AFS2 photoreal, which doesn't really convince me on a 2D monitor, looks great at 5000 feet. You can't see autogen anyway LOL Looking past that Baron engine and seeing the 'real' world down there, really actually having the feeling you really are at 5000 feet up there and the world is way down there. Priceless. So freakin' real.

 

Yes, I am happy with it. :wink:

 

BTW To navigate in a plane like the Baron I use the HUD (I like to enjoy the view and can't be bothered right now with navigation): I have key for the HUD on my joystick and whenever I want to check where I am in my plan I enable the HUD and in VR, don't know if this is also there in 2D, you then get a kind of map on your lap, so when looking down, which shows the plane and your flightplan. Very convenient!

 

BTW 2 Does anyone here use the Scale factor options? I still think things look a bit small by default...

 

BTW 3 Not only those engines look big, it also occurs to me that in VR the wongs look really big. The sense of scale is so real. It's incomparable with flying on a screen. Those big heavy wings also make the world down there really look like DOWN THERE. The feeling you get is hard to describe... so I will leave it at this LOL

 

BTW 4 I am flying from KCMA to KLPC at 5000 feet and right now I am flying over the mountains north of Santa Barbara Muni, along the coast... Seeing those mountaintops passing nearby below my Baron engines, looking straight down on them seeing and feeling the depth of them... Seriously...

 

BTW 5 So, I landed. Even taxiing with those engines next to you (and those shadows on the ground) is great. This must have been one of my most immersive and beautiful flights ever. And to think I can do this anytime I want, without additional costs like in a real plane. It feels as if I own a real plane! A whole fleet of them!

[pipeorgan 0]

Spot on, an excellent and amusing explanation. It's so difficult to actually say what VR is like but, LOL, I think you will now have a number of people scrambling for a rift and a GTX 1080