I picked up VR again and I'm staying with it this time. I have a couple of questions still after research.

1. I want to upgrade from my Odyssey+. When I first picked up VR I was reluctant because of the resolution. This is the reason I want to upgrade to the HP Reverb for higher resolution. Then I came across the Index Valve which has a wider FOV at 130° max, compared to 114° of the Reverb. I'm still leaning towards the Reverb because I think higher resolution is more important, but I want to make sure there isn't any flabbergasting, huge advantage with a higher FOV that would outdo higher resolution.

2. I know there are new headsets coming up, but I couldn't sort out during research whether any of those is something worth waiting for, other than perhaps the Pimax 8k X.

3. I use the native P3D VR and it works well. Is there still a reason to use FlyInside other than hand tracking? I don't need to open charts and all in VR because I use PMDG's EFB in the NGXu.

4. VR settings/tweaks: I've worked through P3D's VR Learning Center entry so I know about shadows, reflections, e.g. and what impact they have. Are there any more profound settings or tweaks that I should know about?

5. Quick MSFS question: Is the latest still that there will be VR at some point? I'm not in the loop about MSFS and VR.

I think that's it for now. Any input is appreciated.

• Most people seem ecstatic with their reverbs. The index might be technologically superior, but the enhanced resolution might become a large framerate disadvantage on our current slow sims, unless you adjust the settings in such a way that..... you might just as well have saved the money and purchased a Reverb.
• Only you can decide on your budget, but I myself am a bit wary of pimax.
• Someone else will have to help; I don't even really try in P3D with VR anymore, and have not, for a while. I would trend more towards X-plane and Aerofly, or a War-sim.
• I would join the VR Aviators facebook group. People are very friendly and open about their VR experiences and sharing gained knowledge, without quite as much drag due to being tied to older paradigms.
• As far as is known, Vr is still on the menu for MSFS.

12 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

• Most people seem ecstatic with their reverbs. The index might be technologically superior, but the enhanced resolution might become a large framerate disadvantage on our current slow sims, unless you adjust the settings in such a way that..... you might just as well have saved the money and purchased a Reverb.

Hasn't the Index a lower resolution/pixel count?

16 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Hasn't the Index a lower resolution/pixel count?

You're right technically. But I tend to think of the Index's better colors and brightness, wider sweet spot, and the ability to move the screen closer to your eyes; plus the crazy refresh rates, as balancing against that, though I should have been more precise.

Some people have mentioned it has more Godrays, though.

But you said the enhanced resolution of Index could become a frame rate disadvantage compared to Reverb. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Or maybe I misinterpreted.

I decided for the Oculus Rift S a few months ago and run P3DV4 with an oversampling rate of 1.5 to 1.6. This gives me a very satisfying optical resolution and quite acceptable frame rates. The VR experience with this setting is so overhelmingly good for me, that I never since did a single flight without VR headset any more. Flying in VR is far more realistic and landings therfore much easier than with a monitor.

My system: i7 6700k (running at 4.4 GHz), RTX 2070 Super, SSDs, P3DV4.4

Edited March 15, 20206 yr by Flyfox

1 hour ago, Murmur said:

But you said the enhanced resolution of Index could become a frame rate disadvantage compared to Reverb. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Or maybe I misinterpreted.

Nope you are right. My bad. 

I've read people are getting good results in terms of sharpness and clarity with the Valve Index by adjusting the SteamVR settings. I've decided to buy both at this point, decide on the one I like better and return the other. After all, with VR, you have to try it out yourself to make a verdict.

As for p3D and FlyInside, I don't believe there is any advantage to use FlyInside anymore. Native work fine, even if could be a bit more feature rich.  

9 hours ago, andreh said:

As for p3D and FlyInside, I don't believe there is any advantage to use FlyInside anymore. Native work fine, even if could be a bit more feature rich.  

Have you tested the controller implementation with P3D in FlyInside?

13 hours ago, threegreen said:

Have you tested the controller implementation with P3D in FlyInside?

I haven't used Flyinside for years so, no, I guess. Everything works in native and if you have an oculus headset you can bring windows into VR for charts through the oculus home software, which makes FlyInside redundant. 

I have the Reverb and get as good or better framerates than I did when I was using my Samsung Odyssey+ for flight sims - P3D included. Note that going from Odyssey+ to HP Reverb did not require any underlying software changes - I still used WMR Portal and SteamVR for both. The reason that the framerates are about the same is that in order to get a clear enough image for the instrument panels. I was setting the pixel density SuperSampling  for the Odyssey+ to 2200x2400 (percentage is too confusing ) or something similar. This process of rendering to a higher resolution buffer and then downsampling back to 1600x1440 (native resolution of OD+ ) really improved the clarity but it uses performance from the GPU (I have an RTX2070) to make that happen. With the Reverb, the native resolution is 2160x2160 which is actually less than that SuperSample value for the OD+ , is plenty clear as is and doesn't require SuperSampling to any degree. Therefore the GPU is using about the same effort roughly. With the Index and it's reduced pixel density (pixels per degree ) from the Reverb - even though you get to see a wider area FOV - requires some amount of  SuperSampling to maintain clarity of the instrument panel and that results in possibly slower framerates.

41 minutes ago, whitav8 said:

SuperSampling

Do you set that in the SteamVR settings?

Yes, SteamVR->Settings->Video->Resolution Per Eye  (for the Reverb, mine is currently set to 2228x2184  102% )

There is also a Custom Resolution Multiplier called "Per-Application" Video Settings that lets you set a SuperSampling value for each game / application. In other words, for Beat Saber you don't need so much clarity so you could set the multiplier at 80% but leave it at 100% ( x 1.0 ) for the flight sims.