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My experience with the Oculus rift DK1 and DCS so far Ok so this guy appears to be using opentrack which is free and I highly recommend it for any rift experimenters out there. It allows you to use many different kinds of sensors and combine them. I use this to have the Oculus Rift Head tracking work as if it is a Track IR in DCS. I only get 3DOF this way. I can add a web cam and maker as the guy in this outerra video did and us the webcam for xyz trans to get 6dof in DCS. I may try this Friday and over this weekend. Here's my experience so far with the DK1 rift and DCS and some notes: I run everything off a laptop. I have a lenovo x220t with an i7 8GB Ram and a very fast SSD drive 500GB. I use an EGPU external nvidia full size graphics card to power my graphics. The egpu plugs into the expresscard slot. It's a GTX 660TI. The x220t i7 is only 2real cores hyperthreaded to 4 cores. They are 35 watt cpus though and when only doing cpu work with a real GPU it's pretty fast. I can play almost any game out there on my asus 1920x1080P 3D monitor in 2d with all settings on full ultimate high and get good frame rates with low antialiasing. If I goto 3D i drop framerates in half to a reasonable 30fps solid on the asus monitor. My experience on the rift is everything ultra and 1920x1080 drops games into the 20fps area! I'll do better benchmarking this weekend with fraps and hwinfo. I was able to get 70fps with low distance in dcs. That had the biggest effect. I'm finding the proper tradeoffs for my machine. I had about 45fps with high distance and lowering of some other effects at 1280x800 with aa4x. That looked pretty good and was smooth. Bottom line my computer that did everythings was an awesome art tablet to draw on and played all games wont support the future of the rift at full 1080p res and ultra settings. I need a dedicated game rig going forward. Things that work great. Head tracking is as good as any game with opentrack with the exception of some drift and need to center once in a while. I have yet to add opentracks center key to my stick. The center in dcs doesn't seem to work in track ir mode. Maybe the webcam with help stabilize, maybe but I'm sure it's solvable and its workable as is. The FOV is awesome. The resolution is okay, not great but passable for me. Smooth zoom works so I can zoom in and out on targets or gauges in cockpit fine and even look around naturally while zoomed in works great. Things that aren't working so great: I cant find a way to center within the game while using track ir. The cockpit click doesn't seam to line up with the cursor placement perfectly and you have to fiddle around to find where to click. This is definately what I've been waiting for to get into DCS. I've been collecting the titles for a while now and now I can finally play them in a way that is natural and satisfying to me. I feel like im in the cockpit. I can spend hours in there. I really enjoy flying the P-51 and attacking the trains and cars. But also the A10C and the Su-25T were amazing in the rift. I love my GAU8 and rockets. Can't wait to learn the sysems on the su-25T. Even more looking foreward to being the door gunner and using the minigun controls on the huey!! If I post videos of this what would convince you monitor guys this is now and worth $300 to play with right now? How many of you havd 3D monitors where SidebySide video would work? Should I show just one side playback so you see the track IR and see my head move in another video like the outerra? I'll can give some benchmarks soon too. Is any of this useful or interesting to the rift community here. Since i'm super into playing with mine I can do some experimenting for you guys if you let me know what you'd like to see or know about. I've got every full module expect flaming cliffs 3 and I'll have that if / when they port those keys to steam. I even have all the WWII stuff as it becomes available and I'm super excited to test and play with those assets. List of things I think are useful for future Rifters: Tridef Can make 2D content into 3D content and does an amazing job. Can make 2D movies 3D. If you capture these you can play them in the rift with other players. Makes some DX9 old games work fantastically with the rift. Nthusim Can make your desktop and everything work with the rift broken in win8.1 right now but will be fixed and will incorporate head tracking. Will support netflix in the rift! Opentrack Headtracking solution for most things! Fraps to benchmark and record games, also lets to you record stereo video from tridef to playback in other apps. VR player the best player for videos in the rift until nthusim works with win8.1 desktop. Thanks all, -michael

I've now used opentrack with my rift and stereo from DCS world nicely. I just had to tweak the stereo file in the camera folder so I wasnt cross eyed. I'm using opentrack to use the rifts head tracking and it works as track ir 3DOF. I will consider adding a webcam for 6dof soon. I'm also going to look into zooming. Frankly though in real racing and flying you are strapped in so tight for G's you can't lean too much. I feel I can read the instruments just fine using DK1 rift as is now. I'm very happy. Only going to get better from here!! -mikey

Other software has a laser pointer mode that ignores the 3d and shows true screen center that you can show or hide. Nthusim now has a new HMD version I will try that includes headtracking for the rift and supports desktop look around. This is a dream for me because it means netflix and hulu in the rift!!! But it also means DCS world with head tracking. Now I still need time to test it. I also downloaded all the other trackers. I'd like to try a webcam added for positional. That will take more time. I'm still looking for a way to map the cockpit mouse click to a joystick button? Does anyone know if this is currently possible? I don't want to have everything working only to have to reach for the mouse and mess up my view to click a control. Thanks michael

I'm not sure if it was there and I missed it before this update. But it's there now. In video options where u set number of screens 1 is default 1 monitor. You can setup for 3 screens. You can setup for MFD screens. They also have stereo right there. If you choose stereo it will split screen left and right and make 3d stereo of dcs world. It works GREAT with the rift. Set to 1280x800 or 1680x1050 is even better and use stereo. Mouse look will orient the rift. I'll be trying those tracking software tips people posted later. So far there is no way to turn on the rift head tracking wth DCS that I know of. Tridef and vorpx don't work with DCS steam. They work aweomse with other sims. But the huey and p51 were amazing with stereo. I need to find a way to map mouse buttons to the joystick. Is that possible? They I'll be able to click the cockpit controls in the rift. Note that the stereo isn't warping correctly for the rift lenses. But it still looks pretty fantastic. I'll be flying htis way untill they provide some beta oculus stuff for us to try. I'd love to beta test the rift for you guys if you like. I am part of the WWII kickstarter also and I'd like to help with the terrain if need be. michael

Man it's real and frankly it's really ready for DSC right now. Just turn it on. I figured out there was a stereo view last night and played with the rift in the huey and the P-51. IT WAS AWESOME! The current res isn't a problem with zoom. More would be better but it's amazing right now. The only thing is that I had to use the mouse to look around because the rift tracking wasn't enabled. Just let me use the rift as a mouse till you get it fully working. We need a mouse click map option to add mouse clicks to joysticks for rift users.

Wags can you give us an idea when a test of the oculus might be available for DCS? Can we expect an update with it for the current product? I've been using the first gen rift for some time now and I LOVE it. I have it working very nicely with tridef and several flight sims. I cannot get tridef or any other trick to work with dcs. I'm dying to try the rift with the p-51 and the huey. In fact I've put off learning the huey until beta rift comes to dcs. I can't imagine it without the rift. The current rift is enough to make me not want to fly without even with the lower res.

Thanks this worked great and the new calibration for the new firmware is more detailed. Now I only wish that each thing used the latest sdk release. Vorpx still sees It's own oculus config version it came with. Tridef doesn't let you mess with it. Vorpx looks very promising. I did a quick test in warbirds and the resolution was MUCH better than native. It will need lots of tweaking but I'm sure that's just how DCS would work with it. I'll need to set back up for mouse looking. Thanks!

I like monoprice's stuff. Ive been using their stuff for years. I prefer HDMI switches for most things and when I use DVI I convert it at then end of an hdmi cable. The HDMI cables are must smaller and lighter allowing the switches to be smaller. They work seamlessly with DVI. http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=101&cp_id=10113&cs_id=1011310&p_id=8155&seq=1&format=2 You'd have to make sure to get a unit like you got that would support dual-link. At this point I'm keeping my asus monitor on and cloning with NVidia to the rift. I haven't got anything setup to the point where I can read the menus in game in rift so keeping the other monitor on is easier and I'm getting awesome performance with it. I can't see the other monitor in fact I keep the room lights on and don't notice in rift. I haven't touched the brightness or contrast controls and its fine.

vorpx has a nice little utility to set things up and it links to the oculus setup. I don't see firmware listed in the oculus setup. Though it has a magnetic calibration tool so hopefully that will help with my drift. How can I check firmware and update it? Thanks

Thanks!

I just purchased tridef and vorpx to use. Side note Tridef does an excellent job of creating 3d movies from normal movies if you have red blue glasses or a nice 3d monitor. Works awesome on asus 3d monitor with Nvidia. I wish the movie theater demo for oculus used a similar technique. -michael

WAGS do you think an Oculus Rift SDK Setup pinned thread would be useful? I think more and more people will be getting them.

I use the vent to see my stick sometimes if im moving around The vent helps I was fogging up at first because I had the screen full close. Now I use it fully out A cup without glasses. I'm 20/20. No fogging since.

They have 3DOF only at this time. Resolution is low but looks decent in some implementations. Tridef is looking very nice. The consumer is rumored to be getting 6dof somehow. The resolution will also be much better. I've heard rumor that they may go beyond 1080P by the time it comes out. I'm also hoping for cheap stereo camera options or at least single camera built in to do overlay look at real world with a button press. It would be great if consumer was wireless. You can get tangled up if you have a poor setup and you feel the cable. Pretend it's your HMD suit wire cuz it is. Headset isn't uncomfortable on top and I spend hours in two sessions this weekend. I haven't gotten sick flying and my head is anywhere but forward while I fly. And I have a massive Logitech 930 headset. There is a tiny drift to the right over time that I need to have a hat mapped to correct. Rift trim :) I can touch type so I have no problem hitting some keys with keyboard off to left. Mouse is now right of stick. Stick is center position. I Have a Logitech freedom 2.4 setup right now. Just purchased Saitek x52 pro and also Saitek 3 axis throttle. I'm pretty sure x52 will be natural. But I think the 3 axis might be tough at first by feel. Ground attack and helo flight will be some of the most amazing things to experience in the rift. Being able to look anywhere around you 1:1 and then roll and pull naturally to where your neck muscles are orienting your head is easy. It let's you track any point on the ground and maneuver around it. Dogfighting wont be the same after you rift. I have the earliest 3dof natural IR. I never made it 6dof. I just didn't use it much after playing around in racing and lock-on way back. It gathered dust. It was cool but not enough to keep me from using my hat and padlock. This is now so imerrsive coverying your entire FOV with world I can't go back even though it's like playing 480x360 games again. It reminds me of virtual io glasses that I tried way back with looking glass technologies flight unlimited. Awesome even with the low res you just can't go back once you are sitting there able to look around. The low res is better than the boresighted world for dcs. If you were flying an SR-71 it might be fine to have a hat and padlock and super hi-res. But DCS type planes thrive on the rift where it's natural to look anywhere.

Just got my rift sdk this weekend. Only had time to play with a few things. Warthunder is just awesome with it. This will definitely change the way you fly. Looking naturally around the world as you fly is not only very immersive but natural and really tunes your flying and situational awareness. Even with the low res it's awesome and I can't fly any other way right now. I have not had success with DCS or anything else but their demos. Everyone liked the coaster and the Tuscany demos. I have the beta tridef but haven't gotten position working with it yet. I've also gotten virieo perception for free and I'll look at vorpx soon. I don't want to incorporate external head tracking right now until they do it. So far it's awesome. I have iracing but haven't tested it yet. Looking forward to trying Team Fortress 2. I'd love if anyone has had decent success with the SDk if they could start a pinned Oculus SDK Setup Notes thread. We could compare notes and help new SDk people get started in DCS. So far I'm dead in DCS with it. I'm really looking forward to the P-51 and the helos in DCS.

My key also works now!! Thanks ED!!!

So what do you use for trim? Hat clicks? Currently I'm using my keyboard. Has to be better than that. Can scale fix the jitter? Or is hat the way to go?

I'm looking for a new stick for wwii sims and dcs p-51 and dcs in general. I don't really want pedals at this time. X52 pro looks pretty nice. I'd really like to have something on still and hotas for rudder and elevator trim. Can you use the x52 for dials for trim if you set the scaling and deadzones?? I'm also considering the saitech throttle prop mixture 3 axis control either for trim or throttle pitch and mixture for same sims. Any opinions would be great thanks!

still waiting for mi-8 key to work on steam

my rift is on the way My rift is coming soon. I feel just as you do. I cannot wait to try iracing and ROF and all the sims. Even low res.

Thanks

I just purchased the beta Mi-8 I got it outside steam figuring that since they updated all the keys to work with steam I'd be all set. Wrong It wont recognize that in steam I'm trying to install it into steam It says I need DCS world 1.26... I have the latest in steam DCS world. Do I need to install both worlds? This is turning into a major pain. They need to be all in with steam or not at all. This part way stuff stinks. -michael

Thanks, Wish me luck I'll try this soon. I'll try to see where the modules are in steam. Ill install lock on near them. Then I'll try to install fc3 there too.

Ok, I'm downloading FC3 and any updates. Where Do I install Lock on first? Do I install it into steam? Where do I install FC3 after that? Thanks very very much

So would a better way to play DCS world be: Instlall DCS world out of steam Install all modules then add launch support to steam?