Question about Oculus Rift S and MSFS

[Lotharen 287]

I'm glad to see success stories with the Rift S. I have been thinking of upgrading but now I'm just going to get a second headset (my wife plays VR too, soooo). I'm either going to get another Rift S or go for the Quest 2....not sure which at the moment. I love the Rift S and how easy it is to use. I'm just not sure the Quest will be as good and I've heard it can be fiddly with setup.

I will say my flight was very immersive but look horrible. I didn't realize that VR had its on graphic options at the time so that could have been it. The other thing might be my computer, its a i7 7700k with 32gb ram and a Nvidia 1080. My new processor and mother board will be here in a few days, its a i9 10850k so I may see some improvement with that. 

[Republic3D 1,232]

I ended up buying a used Oculus Rift S, and tried it for the first time today!

What an amazing experience. It's just nuts how different of an experience it is flying with VR vs a flat panel. It really feels like you're there in the cockpit. 

I followed some basic guides and tips, and got it working fairly well. I still have some stutters (not fps drops), but working on sorting that out. It's just a matter of spending time to adjust things and try again. But I spent 2 hours in the Rift S just flying around and having fun, just tinkering with some settings and learning how things work. 

This is the first time I've tried VR in any sim since 2016 (with Vive). For someone who hasn't tried VR in sims before, I would describe it like this: Try putting on slightly foggy scuba diving goggles and go sit in a real airplane and fly. 

On my last landing for the day, I flew into ENGM (with freeware scenery) in live weather (snow, cold, dark), landed my XCub and taxied to the GA terminal. White taxiing I looked up outside the window, and noticed my wings were frozen over.. with the tarmac lights reflecting in the ice particles on the wings.. and my aircraft lights lighting up the snow on the ground. It was a 100% real and convincing moment, the only thing that would have been even better was if I could see my frosty breath. 

Positives:

- Incredible immersion. It does really feel real.

- I'm noticing details in the scenery I've never seen before. Depth perception is 100%. 

- Much easier to land and fly in difficult places, like canyons and river beds etc. It feels real. I found myself doing challenging approaches to dirt strip with ease, literally flying between the tree tops. 

- Night flying is so different from a monitor. All the lights and roads and buildings help you perceive the distances much better. And it looks freakin' cool. 

- Fairly easy and intuitive to set up and get it to work

- Rift S seems like a good entry-level setup for VR.

Negatives:

- Still too blurry for reading all the instruments and buttons without zooming / leaning in

- A bit stuttery at times.

- A bit of motion sickness initially. But after a few minutes I barely even thought about it, and it went away. Until I came to a stop and my upper body just physically moved forward until I nearly touched the monitor. But even then it only took a few seconds to get back to normal.

- My HMD seems to pick up shaking/trembling motion too easily. If anyone has a good suggestion how to fix this, I would be thankful. 

 

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by Republic3D

[andreh 125]

7 hours ago, Republic3D said:

Still too blurry for reading all the instruments and buttons without zooming / leaning in

- A bit stuttery at times.

- A bit of motion sickness initially. But after a few minutes I barely even thought about it, and it went away. Until I came to a stop and my upper body just physically moved forward until I nearly touched the monitor. But even then it only took a few seconds to get back to normal.

- My HMD seems to pick up shaking/trembling motion too easily. If anyone has a good suggestion how to fix this, I would be thankful. 

Glad you like it! I'll address some of you negatives below:

Too blurry - can be mitigated with supersampling via the Oculus Tray Tool (at the cost of performance but up to 1.5 is usually ok even for my relatively old 1070)

Stuttery - Has more to do with the fact that flightsims perform badly in VR than the VR headset. Try some other VR apps (Elite: Dangerous is a hot tip for a great VR game) and you'll see it no stutters. Most stuttering can be tuned away, though, through the proper settings

Shaking/trembling - again made worse by the low fps of flightsims. It can't handle sudden, quick movements which will present as stutters

Enjoy your Rift S and remember, there's a lot more than flightsims to explore

 

[Republic3D 1,232]

8 hours ago, andreh said:

Glad you like it! I'll address some of you negatives below:

Too blurry - can be mitigated with supersampling via the Oculus Tray Tool (at the cost of performance but up to 1.5 is usually ok even for my relatively old 1070)

Stuttery - Has more to do with the fact that flightsims perform badly in VR than the VR headset. Try some other VR apps (Elite: Dangerous is a hot tip for a great VR game) and you'll see it no stutters. Most stuttering can be tuned away, though, through the proper settings

Shaking/trembling - again made worse by the low fps of flightsims. It can't handle sudden, quick movements which will present as stutters

Enjoy your Rift S and remember, there's a lot more than flightsims to explore

 

Thanks for the reply!

I will try supersampling to 1.5. I've done the registry thing everybody recommends. So I'm basically running the Oculus software and Flight Simulator and that's basically it. I do have the Oculus Tray Tool but haven't used it much yet. I found out that for me it was best to leave ASW on auto. I will do the supersampling though.

 

[Republic3D 1,232]

Okay so I've done some more testing, flying around the Papua dirt strips with the xCub. A lot of fun!

I've now set Supersampling to 1.5 in the Oculus Tray Tool, I've left ASW at Auto because it works better for me. In sim I've lowered the LOD to about 80. I've also set Buildings and such to High instead of Ultra.
I've also turned off Game Mode in Windows settings, as well as turned off Hardware Accelerated GPU scheduling. 

The result is now higher FPS, less stutter and not so much shaking/trembling through the HMD. Feels more fluid.

I still have one question / issue. That is the virtual cockpits look far smaller than they are in reality. It's like sitting in a reduced scale mockup. How do I fix that? 

Edited January 19, 2021 by Republic3D

[andreh 125]

You should also disable full screen optimization, if you haven't done so already.

I don't know about the too small cockpits, though. Not something I've noticed

Edited January 19, 2021 by andreh

[Republic3D 1,232]

8 hours ago, andreh said:

You should also disable full screen optimization, if you haven't done so already.

I don't know about the too small cockpits, though. Not something I've noticed

Thanks! Yep I disabled that as well. 

 

With the too small cockpits, it's just a feeling I get. Like I could reach over with my hand to the other side of the cockpit to press a button. I guess it has to do with how much my head moves in sim vs in real life. It should be 1:1, but I don't think it is with all aircraft.

[andreh 125]

4 hours ago, Republic3D said:

Thanks! Yep I disabled that as well. 

 

With the too small cockpits, it's just a feeling I get. Like I could reach over with my hand to the other side of the cockpit to press a button. I guess it has to do with how much my head moves in sim vs in real life. It should be 1:1, but I don't think it is with all aircraft.

I've seen the complaint before, but I don't know. Airplane cockpits are generally very small and cramped. Probably much more so than people sometimes realize.

[Republic3D 1,232]

5 hours ago, andreh said:

I've seen the complaint before, but I don't know. Airplane cockpits are generally very small and cramped. Probably much more so than people sometimes realize.

I know, I've been in many cockpits myself. That's the first thing I thougth too when I saw someone else mention it in another thread. But now that I've tried VR myself, I see what he meant. 

[aghanima 0]

I have just shared my success here:

How to Achieve Smoother Visuals with Rift S :: Microsoft Flight Simulator PC & Hardware (steamcommunity.com)

This solution should work on pretty much any PC with modest hardware specs.