TheFamilyMan

I remember years ago when I first paid over 400 for a gpu that I'd lost my mind...little did I know where that would lead me.

I imagine all the companies making these $$$-$$$$ VR HMDs know this and are privately freaking out about it. I simply got lucky timing wise when I built my dream FS rig a year ago. It's really weird to think my $2700 5090 was a good deal 🤪.

The SE is such a quandary for me. If they only had spent some quality time developing a really good facial interface, they have a runaway smash hit product flying off the shelves IMO. Not cheap by any means, but dang that super light weight coupled with such excellent visuals, I can't bring myself to return it. Did a ripping WWI dogfight in Flying Circus that would have wrecked my neck in my G2 within 30 seconds...now it's nary any concern with the SE. Build quality...we'll see...keep you posted.

I would have got a Crystal Light a long while back, but its weight and massive size is a no go with my weak neck. My G2 was barely acceptable...usually.

It's a (potentially) fantastic upgrade over a G2, if you can afford one. I liken it to upgrading from a '70s TV to a high end 2026 4K TV. The day has finally come that crisp high def 2D panel visuals can be had in VR. A jaw dropping improvement compared to my G2, but for those with the latest crop of OLED HMDs this is not news. Coupled to my 5090, I run full Ultra at its native resolution, DLAA, and at sim locked 36 fps (half of its native 72 htz). It's as smooth and solid as my G2 at 45 fps. MSFS looks fantastic. All the subtle texture details of the cockpit pop out at you, as does all details of what's outside the aircraft (now full ultra is finally revealing all it glory to me). Dang, no going back to the G2! Its BIG downside is its facial interface which is uncomfortable, leaks light unnecessarily, and makes for an effectively TINY FOV. I tried using it without the interface installed: when I put my eyes up close to its lenses, it opened the FOV up to G2 size while still looking just as sharp, focused and stunningly amazing as it was with the interface installed. I'm definitely going to replace that junk, hopefully soon with the replacement that Pimax has promised to ship, but in any event at least there are 3rd party options available. There is zero screen door effect. If you look really closely you can see pixel grain but its definitely less than the G2's grain. I had to fine tune the IPD adjustment to dial in maximum sharpness, for it's lenses seem quite sensitive to being perfectly aligned with your eyes. The controllers and their tracking seem fine, at least as good as the G2's. The audio is slightly less detailed than the G2, but still quite good for my needs. Considering its BSB 2e rival, cost wise (unless you already own VR base stations and controllers) getting a DA SE is a no brainer but crud, you have to deal with that FUBAR facial interface .

Congrats on your upcoming build, hope it comes together smoothly. I built my computer last July, just before the RAM shortage hit. Got my 2x32 kit for $230, and 5090 for $2700 (which was an insane price regardless, but dang no regrets, that card IS Mr. VR). As to why: Perhaps a bit of hyperbole on my part here, but check this out. Sorry if this hijacks the OP.

Pimax is just starting to ship out its Dream Air product line. A friend of mine is schedule to get his Dream Air ($$$$) next week, and I got notice that my preordered Dream Air SE ($$$) is now awaiting customs for international shipping. Hoping to get it in 4 weeks or less. That being said, thanks to AI the future of home high end DIY computing is disintegrating before our eyes. Though these small form factor HMDs with amazing OLED displays and next gen optics are ushering in the next age of VR, in a year or so very few may (or possibly even can) be building the computers needed to drive them. I imagine Pimax is taking note of this, a huge bummer to say the least.

Seems my deep link for the true fix for the crazy huge G2 artifact bands and triangles wasn't deep enough. Here's another go at that link, for all that really want to perform the once and forever done fix for this G2 artifacts problem: https://github.com/mbucchia/Oasis-Driver-for-Windows-Mixed-Reality/wiki/Known-Issues#visual-artifactsblocks-hp-reverb-g2-only-fix-in-preview-branch Got to love its rather Star Trekian problem description (slighted edited):

Wow, I am really looking forward to this. I live a few miles from Moffett Field, and for many years KPAO has been my MSFS home field. To have those hangers in MSFS 2024 is dream I've been hoping to have realized for years now, THANKS!!!! Nice touch that you've included the Ames wind tunnel (seen in the background of your 4th update picture)! Dang....can't wait!

Seems you missed reading the post I made recently. Nothing is permanently fixed by moving the ipd slider.

Had really bad artifacting stuff happen with my G2 a few months ago. This fix completely took take of it. Edit: Before doing this fix, fiddling with the IPD slider fixed it (that is until the next time I started it up).

Just making sure here. There is a pairing button that's under the battery cover of the G2 controller that has to be pressed when Bluetooth pairing the controllers to Windows. Also, when you get your controllers paired, all you need to do is rerun the Steam Oasis app and set up the driver to use the controllers. Happy Contrails...

My two cents: Pay close attention to the details of setting up the Oasis driver. Be sure to Bluetooth connect the G2's controllers to Windows before setting up the Oasis driver. Having to run its Steam app, i.e. set up the driver, more than once isn't a problem. Run the G2 at 90 htz and limit FPS to 45 using MSFS 2024 or an external tool such as riva tuner statistics server. This gives smooth head motion while providing headroom for higher graphics settings, but with an occasional, as in seldom, stutter outside the aircraft. No need to reduce resolution of anything with your high-end hardware. Make sure you have the IPD adjustment set for your eyes' IPD, and experiment with your facial fit to get your eyes in your G2's sweet spot. This can be tricky but when you find it all looks fantastic, i.e. sharp and clear, but it's a rather small area. To look around your VR world you'll need to move your head for the clarity of the visuals drop off considerably when your eyes look outside of the sweet spot. Get used to this limitation, yes it sucks but worth it overall IMO.

No. IMO what you are experiencing is the ideal situation for running VR flightsim. The graphics power needed for driving a Crystal Light is intense. When I run VR with my G2, I've tuned my MSFS graphics settings to get the GPU/CPU performance you are experiencing. I do this because I want the best possible image quality for my G2, thus I want my 5090 "pushed to the wall" performance-wise to deliver that eye candy. This is the only reason why I bought it...I WANT MORE! If you have Windows HAGS enabled, disabling it may achieve this goal but probably not in a manner that'd make a big difference. Basically, you are fine! But I'm assuming you are happy with how your CL is performing. It's easy to reduce graphics use: turn down MSFS graphics settings and/or reduce the resolution you use for your CL. But IMO doing stuff like this basically nixes why anyone would want a high end GPU. Don't worry about driving your GPU at 90% utilization (less it's constantly temperature and/or power throttling), and enjoy the glorious performance it's delivering for you. If you are having problems with your GPU temperature and/or power throttling, you most likely have a problem with case airflow or maybe your GPU's heatsink is having problems such as a bad install, failing fans, or incorrect driver settings.

Is it just me, but dang, this place is now heavily spammed with ads. Pretty much I have reached my wits end dealing with it, both on my computer and cell phone. Did I miss the memo on getting a reoccurring paid subscription to have them stripped off? Whatever...

The limited fov of VR is an easy thing to complain about. I remember grumbling about it when I was a VR neophyte years ago. But I now gladly ignore that deficiency, and fully embrace the beauty and joy inside my 5090 enabled virtual cockpit's fully 3D view with it amazing detail everywhere. Dang, IMO it is miraculous the technical feats that VR HMDs and software have conquered. Sure, the more fov the better, but I'm not going to pine about it anymore.

The experience I had with a prototype Dream Air showed constant judder running DCS. Judder is the effect that all motion, including moving your head to view a different part of the cockpit, looks as if the animation consists of a very quick succession of still frames, thus there really isn't any smooth motion unless you remain perfectly still (hence no motion other than the distant scenery outside the cockpit). fakeoptimism (or any other Pimax HMD user), does this describe the experience with the Dream Air if MSFS can't sustain it's native frequency?

If "it" is a VR app, e.g. MSFS, "it" is actually pushing about 1.5x the pixels listed above. This supersampling pixel overhead is necessary to compensate for the barrel distortion of the HMD's optics.

It's disgraceful to say the least...and an excellent job of "grinding the axe" by the reviewer. The reviewer mentioned that he's told Pimax about his mod, and considering his online prestige concerning VR and FS, I (hopefully) can imagine the chaos that his mod is stirring up at Pimax.

Lately I've also been getting an occasional 1-2 second black screen in MSFS 2024 with my G2. Sometimes none at all during a flight, other times 3 or more. What is concerning is that my realtime GPU load plot doesn't show a dropout when one occurs. A friend of mine has lately seen this as well.

That OXRTK mod (now at 1.3.5) solely consists of replacing a dll in the OXRTK's directory. Its download doesn't provide anything but that dll. I have no use for the mod, but for those that do, enjoy.

I assume you tried reinstalling it to no avail, bummer that you lost its use. The OpenXR toolkit's author, mbucchia, has taken down both its documentation and download link from github. Obviously he's serious about no one should use it anymore, though I currently still use the OXRTK with MSFS 2024 but solely for its super convenient FPS display in VR with my G2.

My 2020 install was moved to an ancient 500GB sata SSD to free up my MSFS dedicated M.2 for my first ever 2024 install, about six months ago. I think I've run 2020 maybe 2-3 times since them. 2020 will go when I get around to futzing with Linux again, which was the previous sole occupant of that sata SSD on my prior build. Thanks for reading.

The Dream Air they had for their San Jose, CA demo had a kludged, uncomfortable head strap that was nothing like the final strap. Other than the DA's very excellent 8K panels, the lack of eye tracking along with pretty much everything else I was hoping to see was very disappointing. I have a DA SE preordered, though I'm seriously thinking of either dropping the order or upgrading to the full DA. I can live with the G2's marginal sweet spot and washed out blacks and colors, but it's smoothness is very good running at 45 fps with the Oasis driver. When running the DA at 45 fps, if every head motion results in a judderfest, even with its vastly superior visuals, I'll probably pass on it completely. BTW, I did pay extra for their return for any reason with free shipping option.

I've yet to give this a try, but IFAIK the Reverb G2 (even with its Oasis driver) automatically runs depth reprojection to generate interpolated frames to fill in the 90 hz refresh rate frames for the ones that the host doesn't generate. Note that this is not the same as motion projection, but it's very similar and completely automatic as mentioned. To get judder free VR motion with a G2, it's best to frame limit it to 45 fps, so the interpolated frame rate is consistent with the host's generation of new frames. A question I've asked a few places that never has been really answered: does Pimax software do this automatic depth reprojection? I know that Pimax has "Smart Smoothing" which I read is either not available, not working, or is dreadful when it does. I'd guess it's a form of motion reprojection, which BTW can still be enabled for the G2 with the OpenXR toolkit. Bottom line here is if Pimax only implements reprojection via its SS, I can see Nvidia's Smooth Motion, i.e. a depth reprojection workaround, of great value to Pimax users. I demoed the Pimax Dream Air several weeks ago. Judder was constant and painfully obvious. I was hoping that is was a side effect of the prototype environment, and not the way things are with Pimax HMDs when they aren't driven with refresh rate fps by the app driving it.