Few more comments after taking a flight in the Eclipse 550 from LOWI

First the good.....

It's amazing, it really is. I could feel myself getting a bit emotional sitting in the cockpit of this little bizjet soaring over the landscape. It's been said before about VR, but it's impossible to convey just how much it feels like you are in a cramped cockpit soaring high over the world.

When I think back to being a kid and getting interested in aviation and computer simulation, but having to use my imagination, I couldn't have believed what would become possible at home - for a cost, admittedly!

X-Plane will win hands down IMO because, assuming you've done your Ortho work, you are actually flying over countries how they look in the real world. I can't stress how important it is for me in flight simming to actually feel like you're travelling somewhere and seeing what it would be like if you arrived there in the real world.

I no longer want to fly somewhere and just see the same Orbx textures arranged in a different way, with the same featureless flat runway. That is no longer good enough for flight simming for me.

Now add in VR and the total package is somewhat mind blowing

Something else I really like is being able to switch in and out of VR, so you can depart and arrive with VR, but take the headset off (in a 3rd party a/c) and set autopilot etc. Obviously we need as solution to stay in VR and make changes to systems, but this will do for now.

It also means you can fly the cruise mainly in 2D and do other things, returning to switch to VR to go and sit down the back of the aircraft to do a bit of sightseeing.

Few downsides, beta related no doubt;

I'm getting a weird clipping on clouds - jagged holes appear meaning I can see through clouds from time to time.

The world is too small - we need that world scaling option that Flyinside has. It's like you're sitting in a toy plane

But overall, really impressed

Can anyone tell me if an i5 6600K and a 1070 (8gig) would be enough to run XP11 on a Rift? (Win7 64 Home with 16Gig)?

It might, but even on my rig I have to reduce autogen to Low and AA to FXAA to get a stutter-free experience on most scenarios.

Thanks.  Im not overclocking either.  VR sure seems enticing these days.  I may get a Rift and see what my system will do.

44 minutes ago, GCBraun said:

It might, but even on my rig I have to reduce autogen to Low and AA to FXAA to get a stutter-free experience on most scenarios.

I think setting World Objects to medium (that will keep roads and lighting) and decreasing the Autogen draw distance via dataref (LOD_bias) gives a better result with the same performance. But there is certainly performance to be regained with the future releases of VR support...

How's the view in the distance when trying to make out runways and landmarks from afar?

Still pretty limited by the HMD resolution?

That's what made me quit P3D VR with Flyinside..

22 minutes ago, irrics said:

How's the view in the distance when trying to make out runways and landmarks from afar?

Still pretty limited by the HMD resolution?

That's what made me quit P3D VR with Flyinside..

That's one reason we need a zoom function. I use zoom on almost every flight in in regular 2D flying to spot a distant runway. I call it the "Chuck Yeager eagle eye cheat," to compensate for relatively low monitor resolution.

I'm often flying bush planes into non-controlled airstrips without being on an ILS glidepath, so acquiring the runway visually is critical. And X-Plane does a superb job of modeling features out in the distance without pop-in. So I hope a zoom feature makes it into the VR mode.

1 hour ago, Colonel X said:

I think setting World Objects to medium (that will keep roads and lighting) and decreasing the Autogen draw distance via dataref (LOD_bias) gives a better result with the same performance. But there is certainly performance to be regained with the future releases of VR support...

Thanks! I will try that. I assume I can use the Rendering Options App for that (Object Bias LOD)? It was at 1.5. I will try setting at 3.

2 hours ago, GCBraun said:

Thanks! I will try that. I assume I can use the Rendering Options App for that (Object Bias LOD)? It was at 1.5. I will try setting at 3.

Well, a single line Lua script would do, too. Having more objects in close range is much better than having sparse Autogen extend further...

5 = Very Low
4 = Low
3 = Medium
2 = High
1 = Very High

10 hours ago, sightseer said:

Can anyone tell me if an i5 6600K and a 1070 (8gig) would be enough to run XP11 on a Rift? (Win7 64 Home with 16Gig)?

I have a 6850K at 3.6 Ghz and A GTX1080. Your 1070 will probably do as well or nearly well as my 1080 does and I would bet the 6600 will be Ok also. You won't max out but with orthotiles you really don't have to have a lot of autogen and in VR AA is not nearly as important as it is in flat screen. I run FXAA only in VR and it looks good, when in flat screen I had to run 8X+ all of the letters added toget rid of the shimmering. 

7 hours ago, Paraffin said:

That's one reason we need a zoom function. I use zoom on almost every flight in in regular 2D flying to spot a distant runway. I call it the "Chuck Yeager eagle eye cheat," to compensate for relatively low monitor resolution.

I'm often flying bush planes into non-controlled airstrips without being on an ILS glidepath, so acquiring the runway visually is critical. And X-Plane does a superb job of modeling features out in the distance without pop-in. So I hope a zoom feature makes it into the VR mode.

There is a zoom function click = (equals sign), on the keyboard to zoom in and the - (minus sign), on the keyboard to zoom back out. 

For the first go at native VR support, LR did a very good job. 

13 hours ago, wb5okj said:

I have a 6850K at 3.6 Ghz and A GTX1080. Your 1070 will probably do as well or nearly well as my 1080 does and I would bet the 6600 will be Ok also.

Thanks.  that sounds encouraging.  If nothing else, AFS2 should run well and XP11 will get better.

I'm also itching to try VR truck driving with ATS and ETS2.