With all the buzz about the VR performance increases in Prepar3D V4.2 I now find myself once again considering one of the two go to  VR headsets. I am sure I am not the only one. If you have experience with both VR headsets please answer question 1 in the poll. If you have experience with one or both please answer question 2. And so on! If you don't have the requisite experience please do not skew the poll by completing it based on unsubstantiated opinion. And if you complete the poll please add you comments. If you have no experience with VR feel free to ask questions but please do not ruin the thread by offering opinions about VR in Prepar3D unless you have actually experienced it. Mainly I would like this thread to be a tool for those considering the purchase of a VR headset with Prepar3D as its primary use and would like informed opinions of those who have first hand experience with one or better still both head sets, to aid them in making an informed choice.

Dave

These are my experiences with VR in flight sims.  I regularly use the Rift with P3D v4, and occasionally AeroFly FS2 and XPlane11.  When I first tried the Rift (in FSX with Fly-Inside sometime in late 2016), I was instantly hooked.  I am a RW private pilot and I fly Cessna 172s and Pipers, and for me the experience of using VR in flight simming changed everything.  To be able to feel like you are "in" the cockpit, and the ability to look to the side while on base turning to final, to me is fantastic.  Then there is the thrill of getting "in" the left seat of any Carenado plane, a Majestic Dash, an Airbus 320, a PMDG 7xx,,,, everything takes on a whole new level of challenge and awe.  You look around the cockpit of the Dash8 and ....stunning.  Look around your left shoulder at the prop hub and check for icing.  Now, I know a lot of folks don't care for VR due to the lower resolution as compared with HD monitors, but that is something we live with for now.  In other words, I am more than happy to give up screen resolution in exchange for the feel you get from VR.  

Both the Rift and the Vive are fine instruments.  I personally prefer the Rift simply because I feel the headset itself is more comfortable, the Oculus home is a better design than Viveport, it is less expensive, the support is great, and the sensors are easier to use.  Also, the Rift is designed so that you can peek out the bottom of the nose bridge, providing ventilation and a way to see peripherals without completely removing the headset.  But, there are many happy Vive users out there, and when I had the Vive the experience in FS was very similar to the Rift.  

Best practices to consider :  1.  You need a relatively powerful PC, min graphics I believe is a GTX 970 card to run VR itself and preferably your CPU is at 4GHZ or better.  An underpowered machine leads to miserable VR results.  2.  Have your joystick or Yoke, throttle, and mouse set up so you can use them without seeing them.  Get in front of your setup, close your eyes and get used to 'feeling' where your controls are.  Some VR implementations are suggesting the use of the Rift "touch" controllers or the Vive handhelds, but I dont buy it at all.  You want to have things that you can easily reach....to control throttle, flaps, elev trim, gear, etc etc.  Pic of my setup is below.   3.  For the best framerates and smoothest experience, get Fly-Inside FSX.  The software has superior VR processing and vastly improves the smoothness of the flight experience.  It also has neat features such as adjustable resolution, binocular zoom (great for reading instruments / FMC's) , and other tools.  They support P3D v4,x, X-Plane 11, FSX SE.   Also, their support is excellent.  NOTE: the 'native' VR in P3D v4.2 has been much improved with the last couple of releases.  I run an 8700k at 4.8 GHz and a GTX1080 Ti, and am now getting decent frames / smoothness with single-pass stereo, a new feature that LM released this week.  This was not the case in prior versions of P3D.  This also allows you to 'switch' back and forth from VR and 2D (something you can't do with FlyInside) - nice on longer flights when the headset becomes tiring (about 20-30 mins in my case).  Lately, my flow is like this:  set up the flight and program the FMC in 2D (non VR).  Start the pushback, then put the headset on, switch into VR, taxi, takeoff and climb to cruise.  By that time, I'm ready to take the headset off so I switch off VR and rest.  That is the nice part about P3D  VR, that you can freely switch back & forth between VR and 2D.  

Let me know if you have further questions, hope this helps.  

 

cheers, 

Joby

I just got myself a Samsung Odyssey and having used the Rift for more than 1 year, I must say that the Samsung device is superior, and by a good margin! The resolution is improved and things are much easier to see in the cockpit. In fact it has the same resolution of the incoming Vive Pro for perhaps 50% of the price. It also has no need for the external sensors, which is great!

The Odyssey works as good as the Rift on P3D/DCS and much better on XP11`s Native VR.

My Rift is already on eBay. Highly recommend the Odyssey!

Good to hear, I’ve been interested in the Samsung instead of my rift for seated use and keep the rift for room scale stuff. Problem is the Samsung is not sold in Europe.

Chris

Yeah, I have uset ShipItTo to get it from the US.

Going to hop on the HTC vive pro when it's released I'm sure a couple of months later there will be a new rift but not waiting any longer.

31 minutes ago, stephenbgs said:

Going to hop on the HTC vive pro when it's released I'm sure a couple of months later there will be a new rift but not waiting any longer.

As I posted above, the Samsung Odyssey is already available, costs 399 USD and has the same resolution as the Vive Pro without the need for external sensors. Not sure why you would wait some months still to end up paying 700 USD or more for a similar device.

8 hours ago, GCBraun said:

I just got myself a Samsung Odyssey and having used the Rift for more than 1 year, I must say that the Samsung device is superior, and by a good margin! The resolution is improved and things are much easier to see in the cockpit. In fact it has the same resolution of the incoming Vive Pro for perhaps 50% of the price. It also has no need for the external sensors, which is great!

The Odyssey works as good as the Rift on P3D/DCS and much better on XP11`s Native VR.

My Rift is already on eBay. Highly recommend the Odyssey!

Do you still see pixels in the picture? Can you read gauges of the NGX (provided you own it) without having to lean forward or zoom? What does the outside look like, both from inside the cockpit and outside view? What I mean by that is do all the eye-candy scenery addons like airports and environment textures become redundant because you can't really see them clearly?

I'm aware of the fact there's no HD VR (yet) but I returned my Rift because I couldn't stand the pixels and overall image quality.

 

^^^ exactly what he asked? I’ve tried the rift and couldn’t deal with the poor res. This Samsung device intrigues me

1 hour ago, threegreen said:

Do you still see pixels in the picture? Can you read gauges of the NGX (provided you own it) without having to lean forward or zoom? What does the outside look like, both from inside the cockpit and outside view? What I mean by that is do all the eye-candy scenery addons like airports and environment textures become redundant because you can't really see them clearly?

I'm aware of the fact there's no HD VR (yet) but I returned my Rift because I couldn't stand the pixels and overall image quality.

 

 

51 minutes ago, KL Oo said:

^^^ exactly what he asked? I’ve tried the rift and couldn’t deal with the poor res. This Samsung device intrigues me

So, the Odyssey has two 1440x1600 AMOLED screens. That's is almost twice the pixels of a Rift. When you apply 1.5 super-sampling that's actually 2.25 x the number of pixels. Being that said, the impact that I am experiencing is not as dramatic as the numbers may appear. It is definitely better and once you try the Odyssey, it would be hard to go back, but this is not a night and day difference. More likely in the 30-40% region. 

Answering your questions directly, yes, I am able to see the gauges of the NGX. Remember that with Chaseplane you can set up your cockpit position in VR. Therefore, I have configured a main Pilot`s view that allows me both to fly the plane and glance at all important instruments. 

Regarding scenery, the difference is not as significant. It is surely better, but it is still not comparable to a 4K monitor. Nevertheless, the immersion factor is so dramatic that I don`t really care.

 

I agree with GCBraun (and I have just a DK2 !!) Just checking - what did you (those that tried Rift/Vive but returned it) set SuperSampling (Pixel Density Override) to and still couldn't read the instrument panel ( BTW your eyepoint needs to be where it should - the edge of your seat should be straight down)?  - the answer should be at least 1.5 or more. If you didn't set it that high, you missed out on a much clearer picture! And now, with P3D Native VR improvements (especially Single Pass for Rift), it is really smooth. The use of SuperSampling instead of high (8x or more) settings of MSAA  -  I use 4x SSAA  now to minimize instrument panel fine-line flicker - has made a massive improvement in clarity. The image that we send to the VR screens has to be the best quality that the video card can generate - and that "best" is different than for HD monitors.

Yes, I would like more resolution but with SuperSampling, I can read the instruments well (with minor leaning in for small fonts)  and the outside world seems about 20/25 vision. I can read a standard red with white letters taxiway sign from about 30 - 40 feet away. Certain colors "bloom" in VR and fonts with that color are harder to read depending on the background color as well. Make sure you try the Pitts Special in Aerofly FS2 for instrument panel clarity - but then the FS2 Airbus A320 EFIS screens are a bit harder to read so we turn up the SuperSampling to 2.0 in that case.

Dave W.

 

6 hours ago, GCBraun said:

As I posted above, the Samsung Odyssey is already available, costs 399 USD and has the same resolution as the Vive Pro without the need for external sensors. Not sure why you would wait some months still to end up paying 700 USD or more for a similar device.

To be honest If it becomes available in stores here in Ireland I will definitely have a good luck at the odyssey but until then I prefer to keep hardware upgrades off the credit card statement 😉 The vive is the only premium level vr headset that I can buy relatively easy in a local store

On 2/17/2018 at 6:51 PM, GCBraun said:

 

So, the Odyssey has two 1440x1600 AMOLED screens. That's is almost twice the pixels of a Rift. When you apply 1.5 super-sampling that's actually 2.25 x the number of pixels. Being that said, the impact that I am experiencing is not as dramatic as the numbers may appear. It is definitely better and once you try the Odyssey, it would be hard to go back, but this is not a night and day difference. More likely in the 30-40% region. 

Answering your questions directly, yes, I am able to see the gauges of the NGX. Remember that with Chaseplane you can set up your cockpit position in VR. Therefore, I have configured a main Pilot`s view that allows me both to fly the plane and glance at all important instruments. 

Regarding scenery, the difference is not as significant. It is surely better, but it is still not comparable to a 4K monitor. Nevertheless, the immersion factor is so dramatic that I don`t really care.

 

Thank you.

Is Flyinside still a must-have with the Odyssey or is native VR in 4.2 on par?

17 minutes ago, threegreen said:

Thank you.

Is Flyinside still a must-have with the Odyssey or is native VR in 4.2 on par?

I haven`t used Flyinside since P3D 4.1. I am really satisfied with Native VR, specially now with single pass rendering and other goodies.