Baldrick33

My experience with the VP2 compared with a G1 was that it was a downgrade in terms of clarity. Significantly so. I could whack the resolution right up to twice the G1 to get close but then the performance was totally unacceptable. This is with a 8500K @5 Ghz and a 2080Ti. I guess a 3090 and 10900K @ 5.2 might allow a bit more scope for higher settings. I also found the VP2 uncomfortable and hot, I tried a bunch of face plates but never really got it feeling right so could be a head shape thing. I also suffered with EMF if I touched the headset though think that is a base station thing as I had the same issue with Pimax & Index. I would definitely take a G2 over a VP2 from my experience but YMMV!

This thread will drag on forever if it is simply a collection of individual opinions asserting what is immersive as if for everyone and whether the VR cockpit implementation is a worthy enough multiplayer cheat to require fixing. You have presented a proposal which is a reasonable summary of the many other threads on the topic which appears to cover all bases yet continue to assert your view on immersion as if it is fact and continue to suggest the motivation for people not wishing it changed is to be able to cheat and behave like a ghost. Personally the way it works now is fine for me. As soon as the clipping through the screen commences I back off just enough. It is a subtle warning which I heed. Having the little bit beyond the clipping turn black or pixelate would be far less subtle and hence more immersion breaking for me. That is just my opinion, there is no right answer what we find immersive. Hard limits are simply horrible, nothing to do with motion sickness it is the most immersion breaking option of all for me. The same would apply to multiplayer and would lower immersion, it doesn't mean I want to behave like a ghost, nor wish to cheat. I can understand the desire to stop those that do but don't assume everyone that is happy with the status quo does. ED will have to weigh up how big a deal the "cheating" is, compared with other forms of tracking and whether it would reduce enjoyment for those that don't use it in any way as a cheat or even stop players joining. Maybe a hybrid solution will be best allowing a little clipping for people like me who use it to determine where the limits are and fading out as we move past it.

I said this somewhat in jest earlier in this thread but having just tried the BF109 to check out where it clips I do think a clunk or similar when the head hits the glass would add a lot to the immersion of when to stop moving.

I have no objections to your suggestions to cater for all. However, I do find your suggestions they should be for those with "real issues" somewhat derogatory, which may explain the negativity received. I personally find removing tracking at hard limits an immersion killer. In the other sim it is pretty impossible to feel where the limit is until the plane literally starts to shift. From an immersion perspective I prefer to just see the onset of clipping to know to pull back a fraction, not have the tracking broken. Maybe just having a thud sound before the limit as my head hits the glass would be enough! Some may find the movement induces induce motion sickness, for me it just looks like broken tracking. It is personal preference but compared with titles like Onward seated games like flight & race sims are a relatively safe choice for VR users. There are many who don't get on with simulated body motion which is why we have such a myriad of locomotion options with each title and even then it can be vomit inducing. The beauty about flight and driving sims is that we can have a true 1:1 matching of our physical movements which makes it much more natural than any form of simulated locomotion. I have tried numerous shooters, so keen to have a VR variant of old favourites but every one has disappointed because it feels so unnatural and whilst I have my VR legs for seated applications I guess I just are not wired for locomotion games, not through lack of trying.

An early VR implementation in a race sim only had rotational tracking. I was fine with it but many couldn't stomach it and only once positional tracking was added could they use VR. The issue with the hard limit is that positional tracking stops abruptly and given generally we can't see transparent glass it is as if tracking has failed. When tracking fails and positional tracking is lost it can be nauseating and this is what some find with a software solution that purposefully breaks tracking. The transition between 6dof and 3dof tracking can be worse than just having 3dof in my view. The aforementioned race sim has hard boundaries to prevent someone having a 10ft neck to see over or around the car in front etc. but the boundaries are only normally hit when setting up the centred position correctly. By their nature race sims have less "normal" movement.

I don't think anyone is arguing against having options, just that having the option to enforce it in multiplayer would seem to exclude those that do experience motion sickness if the chosen option is to stop positional tracking at the invisible boundary.

For me it is a non issue for 99.9% of the time. It is just those rare occasions when you might be straining your neck trying to follow an opponent and get a whoosh of air sound as your head has gone just out of the boundary in a plane with tight cockpit (typically WW2). In my case it is more trying to avoid a painful neck rather than trying to cheat. The sound acts a bit like an alarm and I quickly tuck back in. It is a bit immersion breaking but without a physical stop, better (in my view) than stopping positional tracking and the whole plane moving with me. Once you have centred the VR view in your seat, most normal head movement won't get you into trouble with objects like you describe, whereas trackir by design will exaggerate head movement. Bear in mind this isn't like Half Life Alyx where you move up against a wall and it stops motion, because you see the wall. The cockpit boundaries are largely invisible, making it more visible would cause greater issues. Glass is meant to be clear, hence all the videos of people running into closed patio doors! Add the limitations of VR resolution to the mix and it is no surprise we have little or no visibility of the boundary. That is the bit that causes nausea for some - 6dof tracking converting to 3dof so positional tracking comes to an abrupt end

It is hard not to compare with TrackIR when this is being labelled as a cheat. By necessity TrackIR doesn't require you turn your head like in VR, unless you have a wrap around 360 monitor which of course isn't the case. It doesn't detract from the skill required to use TrackIR effectively but compared to VR or real life it could be labelled a cheat being able to look behind you facing a monitor in front of you. It speeds up the process and allows people with restricted movement to easily turn their heads to look behind them. The latter would seem a good thing - most of us aren't the fit young fighter pilots we might imagine we are! The suggested solutions seem fine, especially from an immersion aspect but the thorny issue will be if multiplayer servers determine cockpit limits are deemed a cheat whereas any form of TrackIR profile is fair game. My personal view is that the VR aspect as a cheat is being somewhat blown out of proportion, though of course it depends just how far people will go and if it is possible to program arcade views purely for the purpose of getting an advantage then maybe some limits need to be applied in terms of just how far the head can stray outside of a cockpit. My concern would be it might impact the player with limited movement who finds it more comfortable to move their body to assist neck movement which might cause them to stray fractionally outside of a cockpit and hit the proposed limits which may cause nausea, when the same player could comfortably use TrackIR. So having a little leeway might be the solution. This would only be for multiplayer servers that force it on so the numbers may be so miniscule as to not be worth worrying about but I do see accessibility as a key aspect of sims we can do in our homes and restricting people should only be done if considered a big enough issue in terms of fairness.

Immersion breaking maybe, a “pretty big cheat” seems an over exaggeration. Compared with trackir contorting around in VR to look behind is much harder and stretching out of the cockpit and rubber necking to see the lower six seems a stretch of the imagination, certainly beyond my experience with VR.

I have mapped every MFD button to be a mouse click. I look at the virtual MFD button I want and press a physical MFD button in the vicinity of it. No feeling around to locate the button. Works for me but maybe a bit unique!

I would be keen to understand how significant an advantage a VR user poking their head out of the cockpit is perceived to be. I get the immersion aspect and as someone who places immersion above gaming competitiveness I try to avoid it and would welcome a solution that doesn't involve disabling 6dof tracking as that is a much bigger immersion killer for me. The biggest issue I can see is that when I initially put my headset on because I have started it with the headset on the floor beside me and use the monitor to select a mission, I sometimes initially start with a view outside of the plane until I hit my VR reset button. So I guess someone could move around, reset VR and achieve an arcade view if they really were that determined. Having the view fogged/blacked out outside of the cockpit would solve this. Other than that it seems a bit of a mountain out of a molehill, there is so much we can do which can't be monitored like connecting a hotas and pedals to a swivel chair in VR which is ridiculously unrealistic but how would you police that? Someone adept at using trackir can do a 360 sweep in with a minimal movement of their head, we can bind awkward to get at switches in the real plane to a hotas the plane doesn't have, the list goes on. Doesn't mean we shouldn't aim for realism wherever possible but we some things we just have to accept and in the scheme of things don't seem that big a deal.

I think the point is to try to dissuade people from doing it short of a physical cockpit in a rig. The choices seem to be: 1/ Positional tracking has boundaries at which point positional tracking stops and the whole plane moves with you, which is anything from a bit weird to motion sickness enducing 2/ Fade/blackout/whiteout out the view so it becomes obvious you are moving out of bounds without the whole world moving with you oddness. 3/ Pixelate/fog the view - as above which should be still obvious but maybe a bit more subtle 4/ Allow the pilot to push his head of cockpit but scare the living daylights out of them with the rush of wind noise for doing so - what we have now

Sometimes seeking fairness in multiplayer can be a bit of a route to insanity. One of the big challenges with most VR headsets with FOV limitations is looking behind, something easily achieved with minimal effort with Trackir, without even turning as far as a real pilot. Rather than trying to impersonate an owl it can be easier to peer around which sometimes can inadvertently get you on or over the limit of the cockpit. If we had the FOV of our eyes it would be less hard. Regardless turning with our body tends to be more comfortable than swivelling our head around. Some of us don't have the flexibility of young, fit fighter pilots so that needs to be taken into account too. If we say that we shouldn't due to realism most of us wouldn't endure the g forces in the real plane either. That is the beauty of simulations we can do stuff we would neither have the opportunity or in some cases the capability to do in real life. Of course some will abuse the privilege and use it to see around obstructions and create some form of dreaded arcade view. Whether the perceived advantage makes up for the disadvantages in resolution and view options of VR compared with monitors is an endless debate but realism should always be a goal if it is achievable without creating unnecessary barriers to entry. I agree with the poster above, for me switching from 6dof to 3dof is not a nice experience. It works ok in sim racing as the movement should be comfortably confined within the limits once the headset is centred. In combat flight sims the possibility of triggering it is much higher. So an alternative pixelating or fade out of the area outside of the cockpit would seem preferable as an option. Personally I gained my VR legs in race and flight sims many years ago but still struggle with other forms of locomotion where my virtual body is moving and I am not. So the switch from 6dof to 3dof I find nauseating. I never otherwise have an issue with seated sims regardless of the crazy manouevers I perform!

I disagree, it is why seated VR games without any kind of simulated head or body movement other than your own work so well for people who would get motion sickness playing any kind of first person shooter or similar in VR which simulate body motion. Even g force effects in race and flying sims should always be an option to turn off in my view, as they mess with the brain without the physical force. All the movement displayed should equate 1:1 with the player’s head, the moment it doesn’t it breaks immersion and can cause nausea with the mismatch of what we see and feel for some. Forcing it just adds an unnecessary barrier to entry to VR.

A popular online sim racing game enforces a limit on positional tracking, to avoid any advantage someone might gain from having a view outside of the cockpit. It works ok as in normal race driving there is still ample scope for head movement. If you want to rubberneck and check out your opponents behind you by looking over the airbox the positional tracking comes to an abrupt stop and the car moves with you. It is pretty horrible but fortunately easily to prevent. A flight sim isn't so easy as you do look around a lot more and will come across the limits more regularly. Switching from 6dof to 3dof tracking will undoubtedly cause nausea for some. Having it forced on in a multiplayer server doesn't sound a great idea. Fading out the view beyond limits may be a better option to avoid the 6dof/3dof switch but still might mess with our heads.

It isn't just the exhausts but the whole acoustics of the car body and what the sound is travelling through before it gets to our ears. The amount of resonance of a kit car installation compared with a large luxury SUV doesn't bear thinking about. Even how well the windows seal and the amount of noise coming through the car and travelling from outside the car makes a massive difference to the sound of the same engine. The point is there is no guarantee the same gun will sound identical in each aircraft it is fitted depending upon where it is being installed and the sound the airframe adds as part of its individual acoustics. Not saying any one is right but the belief they should sound exactly the same is IMHO flawed.

I am sure a Land Rover Discovery V8 sounds much the same as a TVR 350i. Same engine, different installations.

I used to do this but found that recent updates made DCS load much faster with lots of modules & terrains. I tried it a few days ago and there was five seconds difference between a fully loaded OB and Stable with one terrain and two aircraft. 30 seconds (Stable) vs 35 seconds (OB). It just isn't worth maintaining two environments for IMHO.

I agree, I recently flew the Huey again and it felt a bit toy like. Sure it is a lot lighter but I also feel it is a previous generation physics modelling wise. The Hind has really captured my imagination.

Just to add I tried adding a modifier and by assigning the y axis to an unused camera function in VR I can switch between collective and unused camera mode. This parks the collective where it is. Pressing the button again enables it. Might be useful for anyone who has a collective that doesn't stay in position on its own. Or even to deliberately reduce the friction to get rid of the dreaded stiction!

You should still have the Mi-24P folder in the config/input folder. You can copy the folders from here to the new Mi-24P Pilot folder. Seems to have worked fine so far for me.

In my case the solution was a replacement cable for my G1. It was losing connection regularly causing SteamVR to crash. However, I also had some other crashes which appeared related to WMR for SteamVR beta so I opted out. Since the two things it seems to be fixed. Edited to add: WMR for SteamVR beta was recently updated and included: Fixes a crash due to a race condition with game titles during their startup. note it should say rare. So maybe this will fix the startup issue mentioned above? Edited again to add: No, opted in to beta, crashed a couple of minutes into DCS!

I believe you are losing 6dof tracking rather than simulating never being out of the cockpit, so getting to positional tracking. Some cope with 3DOF and being limited to rotational tracking ok but it isn’t a nice solution for many, myself included. Having limited head movement works ok in race sims which prevent you from having any kind of view advantage but the positional head movement is far less, cranking you head over a bit into corners etc. compared with combat flight sims. I guess an option would be ideal, defaulting to no limit so as not to cause VR nausea.

I think there are two questions here: Should a new map run with high settings on a mid range graphics card? Should a new map run with any settings well on a top end graphics card in VR? I believe the recent posts have been to the former question, we might expect the boundaries to be pushed so the latest and greatest hardware can be used to the full, yet lesser hardware can also be used albeit with reduced settings. The latter is an example of early access work in progress. If the very top hardware can't run it at acceptable rates then it needs to be addressed. Of course that could mean the user parking combinations of content, or mission types whilst the development progresses, safe in the knowledge there is other content you can use. Given the free aspect of the new map it doesn't really hurt the customer having to wait. The feedback that the new map doesn't really work acceptably in VR on a 3090 should be more than enough to highlight the need to address the map going forward. Be that optimisation, reducing detail or even waiting for Vulkan.

I think some choice on settings for the older maps and those pushing the boundaries is somewhat inevitable, especially in early access. Also catering for a wide range of hardware is always going to involve some compromise and IMHO providing a range of content with somewhat varying performance allows for users with low, medium and top end hardware to find what works best for them. This is very different from console games where the hardware is fixed. In my view aiming all content at a "standard" configuration is going to disappoint more enthusiasts. Which brings me to my second point, this is an enthusiast piece of software which typically is going to require some greater investment both in software and hardware than a typical computer game. Fortunately the continual development approach of adding more content rather than replacing it in a more typical release cycle (DCS 2018, 2019 2020 etc.) does mean we can pick and choose what works well with our hardware. Sometimes though we may need to pass on the shiny new early access until either it gets better tuned or we upgrade. Of course we want ED to do everything possible to make it run faster and be more detailed and have more features but it isn't exactly as if we aren't already vocal in asking for that and the early access process seems to work pretty well in allowing us to feedback back experiences with a wide array of hardware beyond any closed test group.