Just bought a Rift S. Comments. Questions.

[tylero68]

So. I just bought a Rift S today as I had never tried out VR in DCS before (I know, an expensive way to try something but I did some research and didn't think I would be disappointed.). And I have a few thoughts to share with those on the fence and a few questions for the seasoned vets.

 

Background about how I have been playing before and about my rig if this provides any insight. R5 2600 OC'd to 4.1 ghz, 16gb 3200mhz RAM, EVGA FTW3 1080ti. 27" 1440p monitor, TrackIR.

 

Initial Thoughts/Impressions:

1. Holy Sh!7 the scale. By far the largest impression made was just the scale of everything. The depth. The size of the world. The coziness of the cockpit. All of it. I initially spawned on the carrier and was blown away. Was not expecting that. (for additional laughs at my expense, I freely admit that during the Rift S demo/setup I was by myself giggling like a little girl in my living room).

2. Its going to take some getting used to. The ease of turning around and looking behind me in TrackIR is much different than ACTUALLY having to turn all the way during a dogfight. Got a little dizzy a few times.

3. I ran FRAPS during the second go round and I was averaging 41 FPS. with a max of 80 and a min of 30. I'm sure this will change as I break it in with more rigorous missions.

4. Did I mention the scale? A mig 21 flew by me in a dogfight and the lil' ol' mig looked massive. It was bad. ass.

5. I can fit my standard gaming headset over the headband, and I have a good sized noggin. For those wondering. I saw elsewhere in reviews this was an issue. Non-issue for me.

 

 

Questions:

1. Speaking of the Mig fly-by, it was not smooth. Neither is when I do an F3 fly by. Is this due to the frame rate? settings? When i normally play one my flat screen the frame rate varies wildly from 40s on up, with an average of 60(i'd guess, I crank the settings up), and Ive never experienced that before.

2. The mouse following the head around and leaving a white dot. How do I get rid of this? i keep thinking I'm seeing one of those darned UFOs.

3. Importance of IPD settings in Oculus app. Big effects? I have no Ideal what my IPD is..

4. Static reflection of the cockpit on the F18 glass. whas dis?

5. Multiplayer Performance: should I expect a huge hit in performance when I go online?

6. The text/gauges are easily legible in the 18. However, is it usual to have a relatively small focal point in a VR headset? or is it me?

 

Please let me know if you have any questions. And for those that provide some answers, thanks ahead of time.

 

TL; DR

VR is a game changer.

[Svsmokey]

So. I just bought a Rift S today as I had never tried out VR in DCS before (I know, an expensive way to try something but I did some research and didn't think I would be disappointed.). And I have a few thoughts to share with those on the fence and a few questions for the seasoned vets.

 

Background about how I have been playing before and about my rig if this provides any insight. R5 2600 OC'd to 4.1 ghz, 16gb 3200mhz RAM, EVGA FTW3 1080ti. 27" 1440p monitor, TrackIR.

 

Initial Thoughts/Impressions:

1. Holy Sh!7 the scale. By far the largest impression made was just the scale of everything. The depth. The size of the world. The coziness of the cockpit. All of it. I initially spawned on the carrier and was blown away. Was not expecting that. (for additional laughs at my expense, I freely admit that during the Rift S demo/setup I was by myself giggling like a little girl in my living room).

2. Its going to take some getting used to. The ease of turning around and looking behind me in TrackIR is much different than ACTUALLY having to turn all the way during a dogfight. Got a little dizzy a few times.

3. I ran FRAPS during the second go round and I was averaging 41 FPS. with a max of 80 and a min of 30. I'm sure this will change as I break it in with more rigorous missions.

4. Did I mention the scale? A mig 21 flew by me in a dogfight and the lil' ol' mig looked massive. It was bad. ass.

5. I can fit my standard gaming headset over the headband, and I have a good sized noggin. For those wondering. I saw elsewhere in reviews this was an issue. Non-issue for me.

 

 

Questions:

1. Speaking of the Mig fly-by, it was not smooth. Neither is when I do an F3 fly by. Is this due to the frame rate? settings? When i normally play one my flat screen the frame rate varies wildly from 40s on up, with an average of 60(i'd guess, I crank the settings up), and Ive never experienced that before.

2. The mouse following the head around and leaving a white dot. How do I get rid of this? i keep thinking I'm seeing one of those darned UFOs.

3. Importance of IPD settings in Oculus app. Big effects? I have no Ideal what my IPD is..

4. Static reflection of the cockpit on the F18 glass. whas dis?

5. Multiplayer Performance: should I expect a huge hit in performance when I go online?

6. The text/gauges are easily legible in the 18. However, is it usual to have a relatively small focal point in a VR headset? or is it me?

 

Please let me know if you have any questions. And for those that provide some answers, thanks ahead of time.

 

TL; DR

VR is a game changer.

 

First , get used to the giggling . I still occasionally do so after months in the CV1 :)

2 . Be sure "use mouse" is enabled in the VR settings page . Also "confine cursor to window" in (i think) the GUI settings page (or possibly the vr page) the mouse cursor (a cross) will still follow your head , as well as mouse movements , which is actually very useful . It will also disappear in a few seconds of non-usage .

6. Small sweet spot usually means your ipd is near a maximum of the specified range , or your headset is not adjusted on your head properly .

1. Yeah mig is well-known to tank frames

 

Enjoy !

[A2597]

I doubt you'll really get smooth flybys.

You have to think, 40fps on a monitor means the object is moving a few inches at 40fps. In life scale, its moving several hundred feet. That said, they still never get old. Makes me feel like I'm at an airshow. Haha

 

And VR is amazing, expect many more moment of giddiness over small things you just dont normally think about. (Try opening the canopy after a mission and physically stand up to watch the waves on the boat. Or other planes landing at the runway.)

[PlainSight]

I can comment on the #5 impression, my Kingston Hyper-X headset just reaches over the halo. Rift S with this headset is not an issue.

[tylero68]

Every new plane i hop into is like flying for the firs time all over again. The A10 is leaps and bounds better in VR than on a flat screen when it comes to lay out and proportions. Its also yuge. And the mig21 is amazing. The sizing of everything really drives home how tiny it is in there. Was already my favorite module to fly around in, and it just got better. Been too terrified to hop into the 14. my pc might explode.

[dawgie79]

As I keep telling everyone joining the light side (whereas dark side is pancake style monitors :P ), I'll just say it again: go and fly a helo in VR. You'll be even more blown away! :joystick:

 

Oh, and in hindsight I think TrackIR is cheating. No real turn radius for your body when dogfighting, but just centimeters, almost infinite zoom option. Yeah, it's cheating. :smartass:

Edited July 15, 2019 by dawgie79

[Svsmokey]

As I keep telling everyone joining the light side (whereas dark side is pancake style monitors :P ), I'll just say it again: go and fly a helo in VR. You'll be even more blown away! :joystick:

 

Oh, and in hindsight I think TrackIR is cheating. No real turn radius for your body when dogfighting, but just centimeters, almost infinite zoom option. Yeah, it's cheating. :smartass:

 

+1 on the helos . Amazing in VR .

[dawgie79]

+1 on the helos . Amazing in VR .

And like you (I think) said in another thread; newfound appreciation for the terrain and cities, trains, and such. :)

[Svsmokey]

And like you (I think) said in another thread; newfound appreciation for the terrain and cities, trains, and such. :)

 

Absolutely !

[Mango]

Especially on the PG map. :)

[Fri13]

2. Its going to take some getting used to. The ease of turning around and looking behind me in TrackIR is much different than ACTUALLY having to turn all the way during a dogfight. Got a little dizzy a few times.

 

Welcome to realism, you start to feel far more comfortable and capable as your head movements are 1:1 in cockpit, far more immersive than anything in TrackIR where you can check your six so easily. And this limitation makes you value far more the real maneuvers and the tactics as you can't be looking your six so easily and quickly, but you will not either lose track of the targets so easily as you will remember the tracking direction far more easily!

 

3. I ran FRAPS during the second go round and I was averaging 41 FPS. with a max of 80 and a min of 30. I'm sure this will change as I break it in with more rigorous missions.

 

That is then good. As the Rift S is running in 80 Hz instead 90 Hz. Meaning you will be capped to 80 FPS at max, or when the AWS kicks in, you see it capped to 40 FPS. So that 41 average means it is running smoothly on 40 FPS. That minimal 30 FPS means you have dropped at some moments to below smooth 40 FPS and doesn't matter so much. So don't expect to see anything above 40 FPS until you reach the 80 FPS when AWS is enabled (and you want to have it so).

 

4. Did I mention the scale? A mig 21 flew by me in a dogfight and the lil' ol' mig looked massive. It was bad. ass.

 

That needs to reminder that Mig-21 is one of the smallest you can fight against, just slightly larger than F-5, but far more slimmer from front. Those two can surprise you by flying straight at you like in reality, and you can't spot them until you are basically dead.

 

5. I can fit my standard gaming headset over the headband, and I have a good sized noggin. For those wondering. I saw elsewhere in reviews this was an issue. Non-issue for me.

 

Totally dependable about used headsets. I am going soon to upgrade to S from CV1, and I think that I will opt to earbuds if the sound from speakers ain't so acceptable as I believe.

 

Questions:

1. Speaking of the Mig fly-by, it was not smooth. Neither is when I do an F3 fly by. Is this due to the frame rate? settings? When i normally play one my flat screen the frame rate varies wildly from 40s on up, with an average of 60(i'd guess, I crank the settings up), and Ive never experienced that before.

 

That is up to the AWS kicking in, at the closer range the faster motion such fly-by does get for some reason not so smooth even if you would get 90 FPS on CV1. Something that I wonder what is causing it. But you can see that as well on low-level flying where the terrain edge of your FOV will be low FPS kind.

 

2. The mouse following the head around and leaving a white dot. How do I get rid of this? i keep thinking I'm seeing one of those darned UFOs.

 

You need to set in VR settings in options to "Use Mouse". And I totally recommend you to learn starting to use Oculus Touch controllers, you will NOT want to use mouse anymore as you use your virtual hands to operate the aircraft. Hopefully they just fix the left/right click to be a A/B and X/Y buttons instead rotating palm over 12'clock position to get Green/Blue laser, and shorten that laser to just 2-3 cm length.

 

3. Importance of IPD settings in Oculus app. Big effects? I have no Ideal what my IPD is..

 

The IPD is affecting how deep separation you see between closer and further objects, nothing to do with the world scale. Example, if in real world you will close other eye, the world doesn't go larger or smaller. But you will lose the depth perception. So you are not good to estimate ranges without other experience/knowledge. And so on things like throwing a ball to hole etc can become far more difficult as you don't know how to estimate power for the throw.

 

4. Static reflection of the cockpit on the F18 glass. whas dis?

 

Limitation in the engine. The reflections in the cockpit are static. Sad thing for VR experience.

 

6. The text/gauges are easily legible in the 18. However, is it usual to have a relatively small focal point in a VR headset? or is it me?

 

That is about the locked IPD in Rift S, instead being physically adjusted lens separation like in CV1 and many others. But the "sweat spot" is large enough for most people, but anyways you will have with all a sharp area center of vision instead edges.

 

 

VR is a game changer.

 

Yes it is, and second game changer is the hand controllers. No more mouse, never! No more any extra unrealistic keybindings to HOTAS etc. Bind just the realistic functions to HOTAS and everything else you do with hand controllers, you will experience how to fly the aircraft in real way... And you will value even more the modern fighters like F/A-18C where you can do all without moving hands from HOTAS, compared to even A-10C etc.