Tinkickef

The first on your list is the factory overclock version, so the CPU should have been binned to ensure it can cope with the extra performance. It is faster than your second choice, which is why it is more expensive. Case. Go for a full ATX tower case. It will have plenty of room for your kit, plus far better cooling than a small form factor case. In DCS your PC will be producing a lot of heat. I had heat build up problems with a previous case and bought the one below. It lowered some of my temps by 15 - 20 degrees in summer, has some impressive features /build quality and represents excellent value. Be warned though, it is very large if you find space at a premium. Still, my 300mm radiator was a breeze to fit in the top and all inlet air is dust filtered... https://m.newegg.com/products/N82E16811139060

Some info on the base stations has just come to light. It looks like there will be no headset only option for original Vive owners as the new headset is not backwards compatible with the original lighthouses. I feel for those Vive owners as having to buy into a new, expensive tracking solution for me, being a Rift owner, made it a deal breaker. I hope no one found some second-hand lighthouses and bought them in anticipation of the valve release....

1. That 2080TI looks like a very good price to me, however I live in Europe and there would be 20% VAT to be added on at customs. That's an extra $240-ish. Something to consider if you live in an area where sales tax is added above the sticker price. 2. The thing about custom build over pre build is that pre builds are usually built to a price with overheads added on. You are paying someone to build it got instance. They keep a keen price by adding great "artillery pieces" like CPU, GPU, Case ect. Where they meet their build price is with the "small arms" that no one looking to buy a pre build usually pays attention to. Stuff like budget, unbranded PSU, generic RAM, cheap as chips cooling fans, unbranded or lower end cooling solutions, tending towards air cooling with low spec coolers. Obviously, even if the CPU and bios allow it, the marginal power and cooling will make any overclocking difficult. That means you need to buy another CPU sooner.... Custom builds depending on the builder, certainly enthusiastic builders, tend to have a far higher percentage of (perceived) high quality and higher spec parts. This is due to the builder researching the specs of each part and adding a little overhead above the requirements needed at this moment, plus the kudos factor. You don't want to build a PC knowing its a mish mash of barely adequate parts, there is little satisfaction in that. Also, many still perfectly good parts will be stripped out to use in the next build, saving money the next time. I have a round robin type of planned upgrade - my venerable 980TI went into two different cases until it was replaced by the 2080TI. It also saw two PSUs, one from an earlier build (650TI) but planned to power the rumoured 980TI with a decent overhead (650w), and the next designed to power the 2080TI with a decent overhead (850w). This when everyone expected it to be called the 1180TI. The 2080TI will eventually be powered by a different CPU and RAM. That CPU and RAM will eventually run the grandson of my 2080TI, and round it goes. This way I am only replacing items that need to be upgraded as required, not the full system. Pre builders don't want that, they want you to buy another PC. Also, I have tried upgrading pre builds in the past and it is often a nightmare as they often have maker specific connection solutions ect, or the case is not designed for water cooling, extra fans, longer GPUs ect.

I agree with John Hargreaves. I just finished googling for further news and nothing. The cut off point was just about a month ago and the cut was as sharp as a razor. I believe Tested was the last one and had a little more detail. Absolutely nothing since, other than the types of speculative YouTube videos that look through content released through other providers and recompile it as their own. It's as if, as John considers, that the media and content providers are under an NDA. What has probably happened over the last few weeks, is that the media types have consented to an NDA, HP have sent them headsets for review. Headsets duly reviewed and videos made, ready to be uploaded on the date that HP specified. I expect late this week to early next week will bring more news. We will probably have more to talk about this weekend.

Indeed. However as far as I am concerned, both the Valve and the Vive Cosmos are out of the window for now. I reckon both headsets will be in the £600+ price bracket, roughly in line with the Pimax 5K. The cost of the headset plus the cost of the lighthouses is a step too far for me. To buy the Vive Pro full kit with lighthouses in the package right now is well over £1200 and I don't see the prices for the new steam headsets being much different. I can get a £500 spend past the missus, but I think it will take a lot of work to get £800 -850 past her. £1200 and I would be eating out of the dustbin for weeks. I just don't think mechanical ipd adjustment and better tracking in a roomscale environment is worth double the price. My ipd is in the ideal range and the tracking of the wmr sets will be fine for DCS. Wish more news was forthcoming though. I hate the secretive nature of these "reveals' that we seem to have to endure with any new product these days. I think their marketing people sold used cars on ridiculous finance deals in a previous life.

Any more news on the reverb? Since my card blew on Friday and I can't get RMA approval till Tuesday because the offices are shut over the Easter weekend, it looks like the reverb will be available before I get a new GPU delivered from the vendor and I think I will likely pull the trigger on the Reverb. A long weekend without my PC is tough, although I fear I have somewhat overcompensated with my alcohol intake.

Yup. That's the way the dice rolls when you early adopt the first batch to leave the factory. Really hope I get a different batch with the Samsung VRAM, although I heard they are failing too. What I have found is its not thermals and its not the design and build of the tier two manufacturers like Asus, as the problem appears to be across the board with founders edition and all tier two brands failing. Suspicion seems to be falling on the internals of the GPU itself, or pcb build problems at Nvidia themselves. Steve at GamersNexus has an excellent article on his site. Nvidia are not even admitting a problem. In the meantime, I will probably pack my Rift away back in its packaging as it is likely that the HP Reverb will have been released by the time I get a new card back and fitted.

First card on pre order. Arrived September last and failed just after Xmas. 3 months of weekend only use. Duly went through the return process, supplier tested and found the card faulty (bsod) and I received a replacement. This was fitted near end of January. Yesterday evening I was running through the cold start for the F14 and got to the point of setting wing sweep when my Rift went dark. Rebooted PC. Got error 43 message "Windows has stopped this device as it reported problems" and a letterbox size image on the monitor. Uninstalled card, reinstalled it with last month's driver and rebooted. Card starts to initialize then 100s of artefacts in the shape of small white lines appear, card immediately goes black screen. Rebooted again, same. Unplugged PC, dismounted card, refitted it and tried again. Same. Now running on in built graphics, so no damage to PC image this time at least. Unlike last time when I had to reinstall everything. Card is back in its packaging and waiting to enter into the snail pace RMA procedure. I've always been lucky.......not. :( So 2x cards failed at 3 months of relatively light use. I'm betting the replacement was of the same batch as the original, although both failure modes were different, PC just shut itself down the first time and would not reboot (bsod)with the card fitted last time, then Windows said files were corrupted and could not be recovered. I learned from that and have the complete system image regularly backed up on a removable drive. At least this time I could use Windows to troubleshoot it. Really hoping that original batch has now all been sold. It's getting ridiculous.

As to where the VR chokepoint may be. I'll take a punt at the present deferred lighting system being too system intensive for VR use.

My insight is captoglove type haptic feedback devices. You won't need to build a physical cockpit to get the physical sensations...

Thanks guys. I do recall the Hog pinky switch controlling the nav lights now you mention it. I will bind it to do the same on my TM Hog throttles Much appreciated.

Seems like a small deal, but since I do a lot of night missions it is quite a big one for me. Jester assisted start. He says "external lighting as required" so I switch on the nav lights ect and flip the "T" switch for the Taxy Light, but it does not work. Is there some lighting system that needs to be switched on that I may be missing for it to work, or should it be a function of the T switch alone and it is bugged? I did one parking hot spawn in where it was on by default, and the next time it was not on. I have glanced through the manual a lot in learning to cold start the jet, but can't recall it being mentioned in any detail, other than the generic "switch controls Taxy Light" type thing.

Nope, the track was replayed immediately the flight ended.

F14, Nevada, Stable Branch. Did a short, start from parking hot mission from Nellis to Creech. Idea was to fly the aircraft to Creech, then replay the track sat in the rear cockpit to see if I scare the backseater. Mission duly flown, and during replay... Hot start, brakes off, taxied maybe 100 metre and the aircraft started veering away from the taxiway centreline. Managed to turn into runway, but angle was maybe 20* off runway heading at the piano keys. Throttled up, plane left the runway and proceeded across the grass until it exploded......... Was the backscatter scared? Hell yes.

Hi Glyn. Still having the problem I see. Same here. It is time related and I think is down to a faulty sensor. Everything is fine for maybe half an hour, then the jumping starts when looking over my right shoulder for maybe ten seconds or more. Feel your sensors, I have one sensor that runs very much warmer than the other. I put the warm one in front of a fan and that has reduced the severity of the jump, but not the frequency. Instead of suddenly finding myself looking up at the panel these days, I just jump a few inches. I think the sensors are going out of vertical sync somehow, and when one loses a strong lock, the other takes over supplying the vertical positioning, which it is giving as a slightly different value. Are both of your sensors at the same level? Like you, I am hoping the problem will go away with the arrival of the Reverb. Hopefully, in a months time the problem will have been put back in its box and placed on a shelf in my man cave.

(Release Version). May well be something I am doing wrong, I only just passed the two hour mark in the F14, most of that running through jester assisted starts and can barely operate any systems with any confidence yet. Cruising along, engage autopilot, engage alt hold and engage heading hold. The aircraft starts wallowing from side to side in roll, at ever increasing angles. Looking at the rudder indicator dial, it seems as if it is the rudders inducing some type of "PIO" as they deflect ever more. Jumping in the rear cockpit does the same with iceman in control. He loses complete control of the aircraft in about thirty seconds. Stab Aug switches all on. It is very reminiscent of the A10C autopilot uncommanded roll bug from a few years ago. Edit. Should mention that when the instruments are reporting rudder deflections, the rudder pedals themselves are not moving. Originally thought it might be some kind of dead zone problem with my pedals, but I guess not. Edit 2. It appears to be something to do with Jester, the assisted start and the INS. I thought during the assisted start that Jester would get his own house in order. Apparently not. After running through the cold start tutorial again and slaving my HSD to Jesters INS to see if had aligned; I found that Jester was not aligning the INS and I had to jump into the rear cockpit to start the alignment manually, then go back again to switch the NAV mode to INS. Autopilot, although it is a blunt instrument and not the scalpel that the Hornet possesses. at least behaved itself enough to not try to kill me.

And the OP is running a 980TI.......

Found out an interesting fact. When you eject from the F14 on the ground in VR, leaving Jester sat in his pit, then press 2 to get in his pit to have a look round, the pikeys come onto the base when your back is turned and steal all Jesters switch panels. They just cut through the cables and have the panels away tout de suite.....leaving the cut cables dangling forlornly in the depths of the consoles. I reckon they have found a ready market for them in the home cockpit boys that live upstairs. Jester really is a wuss, you'd think he'd put a bit of a fight, put unfortunately for me, I just found out he is a pacifist. Now it all makes sense.... :lol:

Sorry, but your 980TI will not cut the mustard with the latest crop of 2K per eye headsets. I think the best hope without investing in a 2080TI or maybe as an absolute minimum a 1080TI (within DCS) would be the Rift S. It is certainly the most inexpensive solution to your question and Wags raves about it. It would certainly seem to be better than the sum of its parts, if what Wags says is true and I see no reason why it should not be. :) I see no mileage in buying a high res display, then tying one of its arms behind its back. If you are planning a PC upgrade in the near future, spend your money on your PC hardware first, then your peripherals after. This will give you more options in the future. Hope that answers your question.

Have to say that those images are sharp. Good job on capturing them, from what I have heard, capturing through the lens video is notoriously difficult.

When I did the first test with the 2080TI and the 4790k in VR; I was not seeing CPU limitations. What I did see is poor vr optimisation within the DCS engine. Apparently the ED devs agreed as this is being worked on. If you are not getting stutters and hourglass now with current hardware, you will (probably) not get them with the higher res headsets. I say probably because no one knows how much CPU headroom the new headsets will require to operate through their specific apps. Things like lots of AI units and all the bells and whistles eat CPU headroom, pushing pixels does not. The bells and whistles can be dialled back easily. The info is already being sent to the GPU, the GPU is converting that info and compiling it into frames, then sending that info to the headset. The headset is incapable of displaying that info, which is why pushing PD is subject to the law of diminishing returns. This is why I said that displaying at native resolution is far more efficient than upscaling and then downscaling again. I don't see cpu headroom requirements being any different to what the Oculus app requires.

I know what you mean. Hate it when a lot of headsets are "revealed", but with no relevant specs to compare like for like. I can be a little impulsive and when the reverb is launched, it will be hard not to pull the trigger at once. The valve will be horrendously expensive for current Rift owners as I have heard that the base stations will NOT be included in the headset package. This will add a further £200 on top of the purchase price. For this reason I think valve is not for me. The Reverb lacks mechanical IPD adjustment, yet is optimized for 64mm with further software adjustment. I happen to be at 63.5 - 64mm. I like the familiarity of the rift like look. Some expressed concerns about the sweet spot, however reverb sweet spot has been increased by 33%. Reverb two camera tracking. Not a problem with hotas and seated games like dcs. However I fly long missions and it may get dark outside causing tracking to fail. Someone suggested stringing led strings around for the cameras to track... I have solar powered LED strings in the garden and a few spare sets still in their boxes. My man cave is dedicated to my gaming, so it is no problem to plonk them on a window sill to charge up and string them out when there is the chance it will get dark during my dcs session. Dusk arrives, they switch on automatically and problem solved. Automatic and eco friendly solar powered solution. Obviously you would not want them on your living room window sill. People would look at you funny. However as a speccy four eyes, I have concerns about the suitability for spectacle wearers. I have one pair which is fine for the rift and another pair that will not fit. Adam from tested is also a speccy four eyes and he made no comment about glasses not fitting. Then we have the Acer. From the blurb it says the display is 4320 suggesting that it is a single screen, yet it appears to have mechanical IPD adjustment which suggests two screens at 2160. With no release date and very sketchy details, it is not a contender at this time. Pimax. Again, expensive and the need to buy base stations. Not a contender. From this meagre info, it still looks like the reverb is the one at this moment in time. This may change between now and the end of the month when other firm details such as pricing and included parts may be released. It is frustrating that businesses these days are incapable of being up front about anything.

Now I see.. Yes, it is fairly obvious that those with an older system will need to update their hardware and many are planning to do so. I would regard the 2080TI as a necessity for high settings, as the bump in res is really a GPU thing, not CPU. 1080TI owners may get away with lowering some settings, yet can still benefit hugely from the increased resolution. My poor old, heavily overclocked 980TI STRIX would have burst into flames..... I recall when announcing I had the 2080TI on pre order, some thought I was mad paying £1400 on a GPU and should go for a 10 series card instead. They were right and wrong, a 1080TI would have been sufficient at that time, but I was not buying my 2080TI for then, I was buying it for now. Instead of dropping maybe £600 on a new headset this year, I would have dropped £800 on a GPU last year and still be scrabbling around trying to find £2K for a headset and a GPU to run it this year. I am a firm believer in having a planned upgrade program. My next upgrade was to be the CPU and RAM, but with the announced optimizations and proposed Vulkan changeover, I will hold off a little longer. My current rig was built in 2015. I figure I may retire it next year, stripping out the still relevant, recently upgraded parts for the new rig. My next planned GPU upgrade will be the 2280TI. I always skip a generation.

But image quality is everything. I don't understand why you would want to push your system harder for no gain in quality, unless you just want to load up your card? From what I gather from your post, this is not what you are asking, but just in case.. Reverb will give a far better quality image at native resolution than your vive pro would even if you could push the PD to 2.2, not 1.5 and will do it far more efficiently. You may be able to bump up the resolution a little more, but that will depend on the map, your hardware, and the upcoming vr optimisation, but generally native resolution will be where the tech today is at, much like how it was when Rift released and we were all flying around with PD at 1.0. Most of us at that time had never heard of pixel density, never mind increasing it via software to get a better image. I would imagine that further optimizations will come along in time just like they did with Rift. I run my Rift setup with everything high and PD at 2.2. I have been as high as 2.4 without problems, depending on map ect, however any difference in visual quality between 2.2 and 2.4 is barely perceptible and not worth having. It does mean that I should have a little headroom when the new hardware arrives. Time will tell. It depends how good Windows motion smoothing is compared to Oculus ASW. Individual results may vary. My PC is dedicated to gaming and light internet surfing only, no other bloatware on it. If I need to type a letter I use my older PC.....

Try running it off a self powered usb hub. It made a big difference in reliability when I bought one to run the hotas from.