Johnny Dioxin

I had no idea that the latest patch has killed off a number of mods (again :music_whistling: ) but thanks for drawing it to our attention - not tried the new FC3 aircraft yet, so will be a good opportunity to do so with Rudel's missions - thanks for your efforts :thumbup:

See, that's another thing I've seen quite a bit of - people with Vive Pro headsets saying that the Index isn't any better, and sometimes saying it's worse. This is why I will keep my order as I did with the other headsets, and make my own mind up. That's got to be the best way. I've been following the Index thread on the Oculus forums and there are too many people there listening to complaints and criticisms and discounting the headset based on such claims. Doesn't affect me, of course, but it's a shame to see so many people being swayed by what is effectively false, or at best misguided or subjective, information. Mind you, I feel that VR itself has suffered badly from this right from the start. It used to make me mad to see so many derogatory "reviews" of VR as a whole on both forums and popular YouTube gaming channels, some of whom never even owned a VR headset or were basing their "advice" on those cellphone headset things like Google Cardboard (which was what actually originally convinced me to go with VR), when we needed as many people as possible to be getting into it. Unfortunately, that's the way things are now. People rely too much on the opinions of these amateurs on YouTube and even some of the VR sites often make me cringe with their bias and/or ignorance. Still, I'll have mine, and I'm sure I'll have fun, so they can go and do what they like! :D

No worries - what you posted here is a good example of what I was talking about, because many people are complaining about the "washed out" colours in the Index, though people have posted potential fixes for this, and I haven't seen any of the journalist reviews mentioning washed-out colours, either. I think for me, I'll make my mind up when my Index arrives. If I really don't like it, I'll return it - but so far I'm confident I will like it.

I still intend to do this review - but I'm going to do it on Reddit and/or YouTube, so I can cover its use in other products without being deleted. I'm no expert and I have a new channel so lost my subscribers from the previous Johnny Dioxin channel - just the one so far - but I don't care about that, if people want to watch, they will, and if not, no problem. Never been keen on being a "YouTuber" anyway - just do it for fun as the mood takes me, and I think it's been ruined by Google.

That doesn't overly bother me, really. Not enough to put me off paying up when my reserved Index becomes available. I read a review likening the "glow" in Index to that of CV1 - and if that's accurate, it would not bother me in the slightest - even a bit worse will not be a biggie. This picture is also taken against a "black" or dark background, so will show up worst. But what exactly is it? A menu/loading screen - so who cares? OK - it may be being used to illustrate the issue, but then it could be considered an extreme - because how many wireframe VR games do we actually have these days? When seen in the context of a modern flight sim a la DCs World, I doubt if it's anything to write home about, based on such pictures. Maybe when flying at night? In that case, perhaps settings can be altered to tone down the glare - I don't know. Currently there seem to be two sides to the Index story - those that say the (imo minor, from the pics shown across forums) faults are game-breaking and those who say it's a fantastic bit of kit. It was the same 3 years ago with Rift and Vive, but I have to say, even though I suffered from some of the faults, it never overly bothered me, even when one was bad enough to get a warranty replacement - all I was worried about was being without my headset for a couple of weeks! Reddit is full of many, many complaining posts. A lot of those have got on, or tried to get on, to Steam support and then they are complaining they are not being responded to quickly enough. There are only 24 hours in a day and how many of us work 24 hours? I genuinely feel sorry for the Valve support team - some of whom are in fact desparately trying to placate people and help out. /2 penneth :v:

Not quite.... Asus are very unhappy about Scan's refusal to honour the Asus warranty and are determined (they say) to take action to protect their customers. Tune in for next week's episode...

delete if ya like - or not - no skin off my nose.

Wow - Asus got back to me straight away and said that Scan have to accept it as a return because the warranty is in fact 36 months. I don't hold out much hope for Scan agreeing to that, so I've ordered the Z87-Pro from China. Oh well. At least I got 2 years' worth of good VR gaming out of it and I can keep using it until the Chinese one arrives in a few weeks - if it does't completely give up the ghost. End of saga... :music_whistling:

Well that's done for me. I was considering the Odyssey+ instead of Index (to save pennies) but I sent my Rift S back - if that's so much better than the O+ I won't bother.

Despite Asus telling me to RMA the board to Scan, Scan are refusing to accept it, saying it's not their problem after 24 months, despite the Asus 3 year warranty. They probably noticed I've stopped buying from them since I bought it - I was not impressed at all by the customer service - and more recently I noticed they were charging an extra £70 on top of the retail price of a Rift S. They've reduced it since, but nevertheless... They won't be seeing any more of my money. If these motherboards were still generally available, I would have just binned this one and bought a new one, anyway - but they aren't. 2H from ebay there are loads, but that's not an avenue I would persue on so vital a bit of kit that could have been abused for years before put on sale with no guarantee. There are some very nice Asus Z97-Pro mobos available from China for £130 and I think that's what I'll go with - otherwise it's a minimum £450 upgrade to today's hardware and that would mean cancelling the Index. I can't afford both. I would even do that if the Rift S hadn't been such a flop for me (rubbish FoV due to the lack of decent IPD adjustment). I'd be happy to forgo Knuckles until later as well, but that would put the delivery back even further - and buying the headset and base stations separately is almost as expensive as getting the whole package, so not worth it (and notice how they didn't offer this as a package). Oh well. I have got a low bid going on a used MSI Z87 Gaming on ebay, but I think I'll be outbid come end of the auction, so the Chinese option will be taken up. The frustrations of being on a piddle-poor pension. 90% of the disposable part of it goes on my PC hobby.

please delete - no longer relevant

Just an update for anyone interested - I got in touch with Asus support - their response time is between 24 and 48 hours - and did some tests, sent some info etc and they have now told me I can return it. How that will pan out, I don't know - this is a 6 year old motherboard with LGA 1150 - I'm not sure they will have any to replace it with and I have my doubts about it being repairable. Refund after over 2 years? I have had that from a local shop, but never from an etailer. We'll see. Aside from that, I'm expecting my invitation to buy the Valve Index any time now - so hopefully it won't come until this is sorted out. Lukckily I have my old VR PC sitting idle in a corner, but whether it will have the oomph to drive the Index is another matter. I hate RMAs!

They are all now on Gumtree, if you'd rather buy through that ;)

New configurator released, peeps: https://forum.virpil.com/index.php?/topic/558-vpc-configuration-tool-test-releases/ Get it while it's hot! :)

Guys, come on - I can't believe you are still arguing with this guy. Ignore is a very useful function ;) Don't get baited.

The OC Scanner gave me an extra 83MHz on the gpu clock. Nothing earth-shaking, but certainly more than some I've seen. I'll keep plugging away and then see what it gives me in sim.

I've been really impressed with this card - think it was a very worthy upgrade to my 1060/6. Performance has been excellent and it hasn't missed a beat - so for the first time in years, I'm going to overlcock it. I normally just overclock the CPU, RAM etc and haven't overclocked a graphics card since my X800 days (never felt the need to). I'm reading many reports of near 1080 performance from the 2060, quite comfortably, and my Index is not too far away. Yesterday I tested the ray tracing with the new Quake II RTX. It was quite impressive in clarity, but the gamma levels were a bit of a nightmare (light areas way too light and dark areas way too dark - a bit like DCS 2!) but there were many different options on the ray-tracing, some of which I just didn't understand what they were for - though nVidia have done this mod to show off the ray-tracing, I've been unable to find any kind of guide for it (in that game). https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/geforce-rtx-2060-review-(founder),32.html I can see ray-tracing being very useful for DCS World, but of course, it's up to ED to decide if it's something they'd like to implement and whether it's worth it. I don't even know if it's here to stay or not. Still, this card has left me smiling - often! PS - I've been able to increase many VR games' graphics settings (eg In Death to maximum and PD increase to 2.0 from minimum on my 1060) and the difference has been night and day - not felt sick once with the 2060, where I used to in several games with the 970 and 1060 due to the res/clarity) it worked well with the Rift-S as well. No need to reduce any of the settings I'd had with CV1 (so they weren't high enough, lol).

Yeah, the review will have to be delayed a little - I've not had much time to use the HOTAS as yet, as I've been so busy making the new profiles. Only another 25 to do before I've got all my DCS aircraft covered! It's a real challenging throttle to learn, especially (the stick is easier to learn) because there are just so many inputs to get your head - and fingers - around. :joystick:

Yeah, that was aimed more at Naruto, seeing as he says he will hold off due to this - I wouldn't. I'm also sure they know what they are doing - people are always making waves about minor things, and let's face it, this is a minor thing. I haven't seen a single person complaining that it adversely affects them in any sim. I doubt it will be changed, and I can't say I blame them, It's easy to sit in judgement from a cosy armchair, but how much do we actually know about why it was removed and what the options were? Assumptions are ten a penny. I'm happy and I'll continue to be, no doubt. Time to get back to flying.

It's still an outstanding throttle

It's only an 'issue' in the configurator software, though. So doesn't really matter if you assign and tune your axes in DCS World. I don't see a single issue when moving my v3 throttles back and forth. Edit: Correction - I've just been testing and looked for this exact issue in DCS World and it is, indeed a factor. You have my apologies for being skeptical (I always am until I see concrete proof of something - too many people making waves about everything these days), this is an issue that maybe needs to be sorted out by Virpil, who knows, though - it isn't that serious. Test: Assign left and right throttles individually in DCS World. Then use "Axis Tune" option. Set the left handle to somewhere in the middle of its axis. Move the right throttle through its full length and watch as the received position signal in DCS World jumps - by some margin - as it passes the left handle position. Well spotted! Still, if the user has no intention of using the throttles separately, they needn't be concerned. Not seen it bothering anyone in-sim, either. edit: having thoroughly tested this, it's nowhere near as big an issue as is being made out and shouted about - it wouldn't surprise me if Virpil leave it as it is, and I can't say I blame them. It isn't game-breaking nor is it going to have any meaningful negative effect on throttle control.

I'd say the 1080 is enough, too - but just be careful on the subject of Rift S - if your IPD is not average you may end up with a poor FoV.

Yeah, I don't really see an issue. I just tested the throttle handles and the analogue PoV stick on the throttle. All carefully calibrated with the VPC software. In DCS the PoV stick is pretty much perfect - I can see zero difference between movement of the ministick and the axis indication in the controls panel - nor any excess movement either way - it looks 100% perfect. With the handles, the only thing I can see that is even slightly amiss is that there is a very slight movement of the handle (each one) before it registers input. Can't imagine this would be an issue, as it's a tiny movement at the start of travel (none at the end). The two rotary knobs seem accurate as well. Hope this is what you are after - if not, tell me exactly what you'd like testing or please post a link to the thread you are referring to.

I agree - I'm saving for big CPU/mobo and RAM upgrades - I just don't agree with paying the silly money demanded for the top graphics cards right now - so for the time being my RTX 2060 (which is doing a great job - far better than the 1060 it replaced - which was up to the job, but at low settings) will be staying. It's going to be hard to tell if I have improvements, as I hadn't finished tweaking things with the 2060 with the previous iteration.

Is it possible to disable zoom (for everyone) in the server settings? That would even things out a little. Still not perfect, but stops "telescoping" by monitor pilots.