vortex681

@HiFlyer - so on what are you basing your opinion that the Navigraph survey is not representative? I realise that 17,800 respondents seems like just a small percentage of the total of flight sim users out there but unless you’re able to get the opinions of a similar number of users who seem to be at odds with it, it’s difficult to question the results. I have nothing against War Thunder, but to expect it to be in the Navigraph survey shows that you don’t really understand the point of the survey. Remember that the survey wasn’t primarily about VR usage in gaming in general, VR was just a small subset of the flight sim-specific results.

The difference is that whilst the surveys here have had a few hundred respondents, at best, the Navigraph survey had many thousands. How are they “self-selecting”? As far as I’m aware, anyone, not just Navigraph customers, can take part in the annual surveys. It was widely advertised through forums and on developers’ web sites so there’s no reason to think that it’s not representative (especially considering the large number of respondents who took part). Just because it doesn’t seem to match your personal opinions/wishes, there’s no good reason to think it’s not representative. It is, after all, the only large-scale flight sim survey so there’s nothing else out there which you could use to dispute the figures.

Whilst I agree in principle, even in its current state, it looks to be a major improvement over what’s gone before (and there’s still much more development to be done). The sad thing is that no matter how good it ends up being, there will always be those who still think it’s not good enough. Also, saying that a feature can’t be difficult to incorporate is, at best, a guess unless you actually work for Asobo and use their game engine and associated tools.

Who, in this thread, is “pushing back against the relevance of VR”? The thread was about the data in a major survey. It’s about the real world. I can’t imagine that MS wouldn’t want the new sim to VR compatible. However, as much as some would like it to be different, at present, VR usage makes up just a small part of flight simming.

The reply was not about the platform order in which the game will be released but about the timing. An earlier post said that “there is no doubt the XBOX release will be quite some time after the PC release” - it was the “quite some time" which was raising comments as there doesn’t appear to be any evidence for this. @shawty1984 - sorry, just noticed I repeated what you said! Will teach me to check if there’s another page of posts.

Where does it say that?

The only concern I would have is that, unlike proper touch screens, the screen on a normal monitor with the adapter may not be as robust as it’s not designed to be touched continuously.

I changed to Win 10 just after it was released and have had no problems at all. The only things I’d advise are: 1. Do it as a clean install rather than an OS upgrade. It takes longer, as you have to reinstall everything, but if you just upgrade to Win 10 you can end up with legacy drivers and incompatible apps which can subsequently cause problems. 2. Once up and running no, never click the “check for updates” button on the updates page in Win 10. According to MS, the normal update system looks for apps and drivers which may cause issues and delays the update. This is bypassed when you check manually. Just wait for the update to be offered. 3. Set Windows Update to ignore driver updates - https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disable-automatic-driver-updates-windows-10. Third party driver updates can cause as many problems as they solve. Much better to update drivers manually (if there’s really a good reason to do so - often not the case) once you’re sure they’re trouble-free.

That’s not evidence. It just shows that some people are very vocal about VR. If you look on both the flight sim and racing forums, there are plenty of posts about VR but many of them are posted by the same forum members. The number of forum posts doesn’t directly translate to real-world user numbers. Similarly, a few YouTube racing channels are not representative of the whole community. The trend for VR usage is definitely on the rise, but it’s still makes up a very small proportion of gamers overall. The Navigraph survey gives a reliable indicator of flight sim VR usage but there’s no actual data available for racing sims.

Where is the evidence for this? At least for flight sims we've got a substantial survey to give us an idea of numbers.

Three or four degrees cooler is still a really significant result for the 20X when you're comparing it to the previous market leader. What is just as interesting is the difference between the two D15s. I don't think I've ever seen anyone carry out a comparative review of 2 copies of the same cooler before. I'd be curious to know if it was down to the cooler itself or something related to the way it had been mounted - an issue with the thermal paste, for example. It would also be interesting to see if the mounting system for the 20X was as robust as the one used for the D15.

Sim racing is my other hobby. All of the organised sim racing esports events I've seen use monitors. I've yet to see an event with competitors using VR headsets - it would automatically exclude those who, for whatever reason, couldn't use VR. Whilst VR is probably more popular in sim racing, I'd be surprised if the percentage of racers using VR was too much larger than those in the Navigraph survey.

No matter how powerful your system is, it will eventually run out of resources. I’d prefer to be able to use all of the resources to make the sim work as well as possible. It would be interesting to have the option of seeing passengers but it wouldn’t be a preference for me. As long as the weight and C of G reflected the load accurately, I’d be happy.

@FDEdev - as I said in my earlier post, if your sims were really that bad, someone wasn’t doing their job properly (and we’re not talking about the manufacturers). Based on my experience, I disagree with most of what you’ve said but it’s not worth arguing about it here. Let’s get back to talking about the new sim.

The results of the Navigraph FlightSim Community Survey, 2019, are available here: https://download.navigraph.com/docs/flightsim-community-survey-by-navigraph-2019-final.pdf. There were 17,800 respondents, so the survey should give a fairly accurate snapshot of the flight sim community as a whole. Oddly, considering the apparently increasing popularity of VR, the numbers who reported using it for flight simulation only increased by 1% over last year's result - 11% in the 2018 survey compared to 12% in 2019.

That's not my experience at all. I worked in the development office in a flight sim complex (6 sims) for a few years so got to see first hand how the testing and acceptance process works. Level D sims are certified as "zero flight time" and, as a result, crews can be type rated in them without actually flying the physical aircraft. All level D sims are supposed to accurately simulate all systems accessible from the cockpit which are critical to the operation of the aircraft so it's possible that some non-critical functions may not be simulated. Many (most?) sims don't accurately simulate the edges of the operating envelope because the training carried out in them should prevent the crews ever getting that far. Did he report his observations? If so, then someone wasn't doing their job correctly. Our sims were periodically checked by test pilots and any handling or system errors were immediately referred back to the manufacturer who was expected to correct them in the next sim software load (or sooner if it was a critical error). You'd be surprised at the seemingly insignificant things they were expected to fix. Anything "dangerously wrong" would have caused the sim to lose its certification. Were these sims level D? The FAA, for example, specifies the control forces, displacement and response time (usually in hundredths of a second) in level C and D sims based on actual aircraft data from the manufacturer. I can't see how they would be allowed to retain level D certification if they were as bad as you describe.

So how can you know for sure? Leaks seemed to be more of a problem in the early day of AIOs but I'd tend to agree with Rob that, whilst obviously possible, they are now very rare unless the cooler is mishandled. Reports of spontaneous leaks after the system has been in use for some time are few and far between when you consider the number of AIOs out there. I think that, like most things today, anyone who has (or has had) a leak tends to be very vociferous about it whereas those who have no problems tend not to go into print to say so. My experience with AIOs has been good but that wouldn't necessarily stop me considering an air cooler for a future build but it would have to perform well with a decent overclock.

The problem is that, with real hypoxia, by the time you start to notice visual disturbances you're probably past the point at which you could reasonably do anything about it. But, as I mentioned in an earlier post, you don't notice your own breathing changing. Nothing shakes. By the time you've blacked out, there's nothing you can do on your own to recover. Pilots in the real world who've survived hypoxia in flight have generally only done so because someone with them has noticed the symptoms, not because they have. When you're hypoxic, you don't usually realise anything is wrong until it's too late to do something about it. That's why there would be no point trying to simulate it.

But if you're trying to be realistic, how could you see your own lips turning blue in the sim? For real, by the time you've reached the point where your fingernails turn blue, you're probably too hypoxic to notice. Even if they have avatars in the new sim, would you really be sitting there looking at yourself whilst flying? Nothing. I honestly don't think that there's any way to realistically simulate hypoxia in a sim (other than holding your breath until you pass out 😊).

You don't understand hypoxia. As someone who's experienced it in the real world, the first thing you know about it is usually when someone puts an oxygen mask on you, or asks you to check your oxygen, and tells you to take deep breaths. Up to that point, from your perspective everything seems to be fairly normal. You don't realise you're breathing more quickly or that you're making mistakes. That's why it's so dangerous in single-pilot situations where there's no one to see you deteriorate. It's not like an explosive (sudden) decompression where you have external cues to tell you that something's wrong.

I'm no expert but it's difficult to know how you could set up the chart for VR based on the parameters you have to enter at https://wolfchart.org (which, apparently, generated the chart used in the test). The site asks for the distance from which the chart is being viewed, not where you want it to be. It also asks you to accurately measure a line on your display in millimetres, which callibrates the chart for the pixel density of the display being used. The test site made the chart on a normal, non-VR display (was it the same pixel density as the HMD?) and then made some adjustments through the HMD to approximate the same chart size and position. The last line of their procedure says "Roughly evaluate result". How can this be remotely accurate? Or is there something I'm not understanding?

How can you model something that you don't even notice in real life? If it was obvious, it wouldn't be realistic.

But the problem with the gradual onset of hypoxia (the most common form) is that you don't notice the symptoms. Others may notice that you're starting to breathe quickly and slurring your words but you don't. That's why it's so dangerous.

But it is what happens to many YouTube videos. Post-processing in games happens after the image is generated but before it's sent to the monitor. That's what Reshade does - it's external to the game. Many modern games have optional post-processing routines built into in the game code.

The main problem with hypoxia is that it's insidious and you don't really realise that it's happening (so almost impossible to simulate).