AlpineGTA

Well, after more tinkering I've decided I'll be sending it back. Even with everything on low I can't get it to run stutter free. As nice as it is, I'd rather have a nice smooth experience than nice twinkly stars on a deep black sky. Not having to use SteamVR, good integrated speakers, no mura, sharper image and good comfort also swing it in favour of the trusty old G2, which I'll be sticking with until it no longer works. And then I'll see what else is on the market when that time comes.

My PSVR2 arrived yesterday and my initial impressions were not positive. Firstly, I was surprised how uncomfortable I found it. I expected it to be a lot more comfortable. Particularly when looking up and the weight of the headset shifts I could feel the hard plastic pressing into my head and nose through the face pad. Secondly, the mura was very noticeable and the image was very blurry and stuttering. So not off to a good start. But after some tweaking, I managed to get the headset sat a bit more comfortably. I know everyone seems to rave about the Globular Cluster mod but I'm not yet sure whether I want to spend more money on this or send it back. And after some fiddling with the Steam VR and other settings I got the image looking sharper and smoother, although it does seem to suffer from more jaggedness and flickering than my G2 and I can't completely eliminate the stutters. I was running my G2 at a nice sharp and smooth 60Hz without any upscaling. But, I then tried a quick free flight night mission and wow! I was seeing stars twinkling in the sky that I never knew were there before! Also, because of the better contrast and more vivid colours I was seeing external detail of my aircraft and the terrain in the dark that I just couldn't see before, although, unfortunately the mura is more visible at night when looking at the sky. It feels like you're wearing a goldfish bowl type space helmet as you move your head around. However, the more I played and tried different scenarios the less I was noticing the mura. I think your eyes eventually adjust to it somewhat. So at the moment I'm undecided whether or not to keep it and order the Globular Cluster mod to fix the comfort. I switched back to the G2 to compare and although it felt nice and smooth and sharp again, flying the same night missions everything just looked grey. I could no longer see nearly as many stars nor the detail outside of my aircraft and terrain. I was flying past hillsides that I just couldn't see in a sea of grey that were beautifully silhouetted against a night sky in the PSVR2. Like @RealDCSpilot has said, those OLED panels hard to give up once you've tried them. Other nice to haves over the G2 are the larger FOV and the passthrough, which although only grainy black & white is useful if you want to locate something without lifting the headset. I'll spend a few more days tweaking to see if I can get it running as smoothly as my G2 but that might be difficult on my current system without upgrading.

Since the PSVR2 is currently on sale again for $350 I thought I'd order one from Amazon and see how it compares to my G2. I can always send it back if I don't like it. It should arrive on Thursday.

What happened to the option to buy just the Crystal Light headset without the controllers? Under this new scheme there appears to be only the one option to buy with controllers, so it's now more expensive. Wasn't it previously something like $899 with controllers and $799 without controllers? I would think that a lot, if not most, people purchasing it solely for DCS would want the option to pay less for just the headset without controllers.

Ok. Thank you for the response.

I was just curious whether anyone is using a Crystal Light with an 11th generation Intel CPU? The store states minimum Intel CPU spec is at least a 12th generation i5 but I currently have an i5 11th Gen. Depending on when my G2 eventually stops working, I might be forced to upgrade to a Crystal Light, but it looks like I'd also have to upgrade my CPU? If I was going to upgrade I'd probably go the AMD 9800X3D route, making the Crystal Light a potentially very expensive purchase!

I would be happy if existing owners could just buy a concave hat to replace the original pointed one.

This is the top gripe for everyone that has the STECS, I think. I don't know why they can't just throw in a concave hat to give people the option of either.

Yes, it would be much better if it behaved like the pilot models in other aircraft. It's never been explained why this is intended behaviour. Why is it different to the way it's done in other modules? It's very immersion breaking if you lean forward or lean you head outside an open cockpit door and leave your head behind! The whole point of a pilot model in VR is to increase immersion, is it not? On the plus side. If you bail and decide to go for a walk about (I haven't tried it in the Apache), I'm guessing that unlike other pilot models your shadow will have a head!

Thanks for the tips. First thing I did was turn down the engine effect. I don't like the constant rumble whilst flying, especially on the warbirds. It does tend to dilute everything else.

I went and picked up an HF8 today. My local Micro Center had an open box one for $133 so I went and got it. I haven't even installed the NLR software, I just installed the SSA software and it's working fine. I've been going through all my modules testing them out. I'm not a fan of some of the effects, I'll have to do some fine tuning to my liking but it definitely adds immersion in VR. Firing guns and missiles feels great. With missiles you can really feel which side they shoot from. Pretty cool! It does make my backside numb after a while though. I'll have to work on a cover or something to improve the comfort.

Yes, I've noticed this too. Some traffic whizzes past like they're UFOs.

Great feedback. Thank you. I mainly fly DCS 99% of the time with just the occasional MSFS.

Some good feedback and interesting points about where you feel the effects coming from, thanks. So it sounds like the classic, they both have their strengths and weaknesses. I hadn't considered getting both. Maybe I'll do that but not all at once - space it out to focus on getting one at a time working well. I still have reservations though about how comfortable the seat sounds. And the resources they use up from the CPU, or is it negligible? One other question: Is there noticeable lag between something happening and feeling it happen? Thanks.

I'm thinking of adding one of the two to my setup but wondering which works best for immersion in VR. Has anybody had any experience of both and if so, which do you prefer and why? What are the differences in terms of the effects that they simulate? And how taxing is the software on the PC? Will the extra software running in the background zap some VR performance? If so, is one less demanding than the other? Another concern is I've heard some people complain of discomfort sitting on haptic seat pads. They can feel the motors or inducers. I imagine this is obviously not an issue with a ButtKicker. Thanks for any insights.