Is it worth it to get VR for this game? If so which headset do you recommend?

[GunSlingerAUS]

There is a DCS SLI middle ground if what i have read is true , which stated that while only one GPU does the processing , the VRAM of both is accessible . Perhaps this explains the performance gain claims ?

 

That is unfortunately incorrect. SLI never shares VRAM across both cards, even if it's working correctly. And as you mentioned, SLI doesn't work in DCS VR at all.

[GunSlingerAUS]

I'm not going to argue with people. I was just letting people know that I am running my cards SLI'd while still being able to play DCS. I have tried playing DCS with VR and without, both with the cards SLI'd and without. I am simply stating a fact that I DO get better performance while having the cards SLI'd. I've said my peace on the subject. Try it, don't try it. That is for everyone else to decide what they want to do. Have a great day.

 

Alas DCS does not use SLI at all in VR mode, so any changes you've noticed are the placebo effect. It's been discussed at length by users of all expertise.

[Notso]

Hey guys, just wondering about people's thoughts on VR in this sim.

 

I just recently jumped back into it after not playing for over a year. I have a 4k qled Monitor and track ir and it's really enjoyable but I've never used VR and sometimes wonder how it is in this game in particular.

 

What specs of a PC would you need? Which headset do you recommend? What is the detail like? Would I still be able to see aircraft and read well enough to justify it?

 

To answer your first question about whether VR is worth it, I can only say for me VR is the ONLY reason I’ve gotten back into flight simming. I gave it up many years ago and told myself I would never do it again until VR was finally mature. I violated that briefly about 8 years ago when DCS A-10C first came out. I was all excited to fly it hooked up to a 55” flat screen LED in the living room. It was going to be epic. I was bored in about 45 min and never returned to it even once until I bought myself a VIVE Pro full kit. The moment I was sitting IN the cockpit and not just seeing it on a flat screen in front of me - I was sold. For the first several sessions, my response just “Wow!” The immersion with VR is incomparable. Yeah the visuals were not perfect and crisp but it’s more than made up for by everything else. You have to experience it for yourself, but trust me when you try VR you will never go back to flat screen. To me the difference between VR and track IR/Flat screen is you are flying IN the cockpit vs watching the flight on a TV screen as a interactive spectator.

 

I’ve since upgraded to the Reverb and now the cockpit is crisp and the visuals are so much better. The resolution of the HMD makes a big difference in DCS where it might not be as critical in other VR games.

 

As for system hardware, get the best GPU and CPU you can afford and then get the next thing up :smilewink:. VR is very intensive on your system but it's worth every penny!

Edited April 25, 2020 by Notso

[Notso]

Sure VR is immersive. I would agree it would be great compared to flying on a 24" monitor. But have people tried bigger monitors such as 35" ultrawides or 43" and above? You can sit very close and almost have the screen take up your entire field of view.

 

Sorry, you could make it a 350" 4k screen and it still won't be as immersive as VR. Yes VR has limitations, but the fact that you are sitting in a virtual cockpit and everywhere you look is from the cockpit vs sitting at a desk and looking at a big TV makes all the difference.

 

I believe it's one of the reasons some in the "Home cockpits" thread go to such lengths and $$ to attempt to recreate a cockpit is because they lack the immersion of sitting at a desk. It doesn't feel "real". But even if you build the most elaborate cockpit with switches and dials down to the minutest detail, you are still looking at a flat screen and can see the rest of the room around you. Even with multiple monitors arranged in an arc in front of you, you are still not going to get the immersion of VR and the ability to look all around you in all axises. This is why the military spends $50 million to build a domed simulator with projection screens in a half spherical shell.

[Stickman]

Sorry, you could make it a 350" 4k screen and it still won't be as immersive as VR. Yes VR has limitations, but the fact that you are sitting in a virtual cockpit and everywhere you look is from the cockpit vs sitting at a desk and looking at a big TV makes all the difference.

 

I believe it's one of the reasons some in the "Home cockpits" thread go to such lengths and $$ to attempt to recreate a cockpit is because they lack the immersion of sitting at a desk. It doesn't feel "real". But even if you build the most elaborate cockpit with switches and dials down to the minutest detail, you are still looking at a flat screen and can see the rest of the room around you. Even with multiple monitors arranged in an arc in front of you, you are still not going to get the immersion of VR and the ability to look all around you in all axises. This is why the military spends $50 million to build a domed simulator with projection screens in a half spherical shell.

 

I've been building my own PC's for about 5 years now, and am going to spend about $800 on a new mb, 1tb ssd and 3700x. Should I just wait for ryzen 4000? What would you recommend that won't be too expensive for VR?

 

Right now I have a Vega 64 which is super capable at running this game at 4k with good settings and 50-60fps so I don't think I'd have to upgrade it but i dont know what cpu would be best for VR...

[Bob_Bushman]

Sure VR is immersive. I would agree it would be great compared to flying on a 24" monitor. But have people tried bigger monitors such as 35" ultrawides or 43" and above? You can sit very close and almost have the screen take up your entire field of view.

 

I could use my 32" ultrawide, a 65" 4k tv, or a 100" projection screen.

I never bother to play this game in anything but my HMD.

It doesn't really matter how large the view is, it still feels like a go-pro video feed from some other dudes helmet cam.

 

I own the Rift, Rift-s, vive, and Pimax 5k+, use the Rift-s now, don't get me started on the pile of dogshit the pimax is.

 

I do 'technically' use the monitor on occasion, but that's only for mission editing.

 

I find myself leaning the same way now with ultrawides as I was with trippel screens when I had them.

For certain task's they are great, which is web browsing and spreadsheets etc, for games.

Well so many games, Doom 2016 can't even get the UI correct, don't manage to get this right, primarily the FOV usually goes a bit weird and more often than not I now end up playing games at 2560*1440 instead of the native res of my monitor that is 3440*1440.

 

Next up I think I would just get a big monitor at a 16:9 res, even though this thing is 32" inches it's no taller taller than a 24".

Sim's, and games now are practically VR only anyway as far as I'm concerned.

Edited April 26, 2020 by Bob_Bushman

[Someone]

Good to see that you've gotten back on the horse, Aurelius.

[freehand]

"A forum member sent me a question"

 

 

If a member has asked you a question reply with a PM.

 

Please stop spamming this thread.

Edited April 29, 2020 by freehand

[Svsmokey]

Jeez , get a grip . I , for one , found the post interesting .

[Callsign.Vega]

I'm sorry Lenux, I got busy and forgot to get back to you. Pixel per inch (PPI) is not a very good measurement if we want to simulate reality as it falls on our eyes because it does not take into account the viewing distance. (Are we viewing 320 PPI from 12 inches away or 36 inches away?) The standard measurement in visual neuroscience and ophthalmology is one arc minute per pixel. (one arc minute is 1/60th of a degree) This is another way of saying 60 pixels can fall onto the space of the macula (this is the area of the retina near the fovea where the cones lie and which has the highest visual acuity) that 'sees' one degree (this is 60 pixels per degree (PPD)). For a healthy human with 20/20 vision, this is the maximal discerning ability and this is termed "retinal saturation". If for example, 93 pixels fell onto the mamcula space that 'sees' one degree, the excess information is written off (in the LGN and V1, etc ... ) If 42 pixels fell onto the same macula space, you would see the image as blockish and discrete. (There is great debate about this 60 PPD figure and there are plenty of other considerations taking place as well with regard to acuity, precision and PPD, but I do not want to write out a hundred page dissertation today).

 

60 pixels per degree is the limit at which 2D images approach reality. To see this, you can walk up to a 49 inch 1080P TV and view it from inches away. You will clearly see the individual pixels bc far less than 60 pix/deg are falling on your macula, and this means you will see the screen as discrete blocks. If you back up, and view the same 49 inch 1080P TV from 30 feet away, you will no longer be receptive to the discrete nature of the individual pixels and everything will blend together as a smooth image because now, far more than 60 pix/deg are falling on your macula. The important point is the 60 pix/deg limit and that whenever that is surpassed, any additional information will not be 'seen' by you consciously. (You can see this by watching the same TV show simultaneously on a 49 inch 1080P TV screen, a 49 inch 4K screen and a 49 inch 8K screen, set up side by side, and all viewed from 30 feet away. They will all appear to be equally crisp and detailed, because you are now viewing from a distance where the 60 pix/deg limit is being surpassed.)

 

Likewise, we can use a little trigonometry to calculate how life like different displays appear with 2dRtan (0.5 deg) = 2 x distance x Resolution x tangent (0.5 deg). By using that simple calculation and arctangent (which is just 1/tan or tan^ -1), your 55 inch 4K TV (which has a resolution of 3840 x 2160 and equals 80 PPI), if used as a monitor and viewed from 3 feet away, is taking up ~ 67.4 deg of your visual field. So, you are viewing 3840 pixels across 67.4 degrees, which equals 3840/67.4 = 57 pixels per degree. (You are actually seeing ~ 57 pix/deg at the very center and ~ 67 at the far edges) That is excellent and means that your 4K TV is almost equal to the amount of information that 'reality' sends into your eye (if everything were 2D). If you back up your gaming chair only three inches, your 4K screen will now exactly approximate reality (that is, ... if we saw reality as only 2D). Your 55 inch 4K TV, if viewed from 39 inches with images that are scaled to exactly life like size, would exactly approximate what you really see in the real world as far as resolution is concerned (but not, obviously with regards to dimensionality)

 

For a 27 inch (diagonal) monitor, at a resolution of 1920 x 1080 (this equals 82 PPI), viewed from 3 feet, we would find that it takes up 36.2 degrees horizontally and gives you 1920/36.2 = 53 pix/deg. This is a bit below what reality presents to your eye, so you could move your chair back an extra foot or you could apply some decent anti-aliasing from the Nvidia or AMD control panel for your graphics card.

 

What if we went back to about the year 2000, and used a 20 inch, 1280 x 720 resolution monitor? (This is 73 PPI) For a monitor of this size, viewed from 36 inches, we would find it takes up 27.2 degrees horizontally and gives 47.0 pix/degree. But what if we leaned in? .... way in? If we viewed that same monitor from 13 inches away, we would find that it takes up 67.7 deg horizontally and gives 18.9 pixels per degree. Why am I even mentioning an old 720P display?, ... bc we are going to need this in a minute.

 

For a VR headset, we have many other considerations to worry about (which would take too long to go into here), however, we are still limited by our 60 pix/deg acuity. If we take one of the highest resolution headsets, the HP Reverb for example, made up of two separate LCD screens that are 2160 x 2160, we find that for each eye, 2160 pixels are falling onto the macula over an arc of about 114 degrees (a single eye can span has about a 120 degree FOV unless limited, as it is in the HP Reverb), giving us 18.94 pix/deg. (The diagonal of each screen in the HP Reverb is 2.89 inches giving us an amazing 1057 PPI but this number is very misleading as it is projected over a very large FOV. This is why PPI is close to meaningless as concerns VR headsets. Pixel per degree (PPD) is the far more important measurement if we want to compare the relative resolutions of two VR headsets, or compare a VR headset to a flat screen.)

 

As you can see, the HP Reverb, with 18.94 pix/deg is presenting an image that is far below a 20 inch monitor with a 720P resolution when viewed from 3 feet away. You would have to view a 20 inch (this is the diagonal size of the monitor) 720P monitor from 13 inches to equal the HP Reverb (which would be very grainy and discrete). The Oculus Rift S and Valve Index are also well below the 720P level, which is the level that most flat screen gaming was at, ... in about ~ 2002. For comparison sake, the Pimax 8K, the highest resolution VR headset yet available for consumer purchase, gives a resolution of 22.6 PPD, which is also far below the 720P standard on a flat screen.

 

(The actual FOV of the Reverb is 110 deg and the actual FOV per eye is about ~ 110 degrees, but for a number of reasons that deal with visual neuroscience, I am not going to detail that for this post.)

 

To put it in other terms, using the HP Reverb is the same as viewing your 55 inch 4K TV from inside the focal point at less than 1 inch! (My explanation is simplified on purpose bc I do not have time to mention all the smaller facets of visual neuroscience and neural networks as they apply to flat screen resolution and acuity.) The 18.9 PPD density of the HP Reverb means that it will need strong anti-aliasing to present a smoothed image to the eye along with ASW to maintain up to, or above 60 FPS with current graphics card computing power.

 

So, why can't VR manufacturers make a headset that approaches the magic 60 pixels per degree limit? Partly, it is due to current LCD screen manufacturing capabilities, but the real limiting factor is that there is no graphics card that could even come close to powering it. That is why I have to chuckle a bit when I see posts about the latest and greatest 8K or XDR VR headset and how DCS is going to look so much better only a few months from now when X, Y or Z headset is released. Yes, someone like Pimax can release that, but unless you plan to use only the lowest in-game settings, you are going to be watching a slide show even with an overclocked RTX 2080 Ti.

 

From the data direction above, we can ask ourselves, how long until ~ 'life like' VR reaches us? (aka ... fully 'photo realistic') A normal 1 degree by 1 degree patch of the macula, in the retina, is able to discern 60 x 60 pixels or 3600 pixels total. If the HP Reverb can only put out 18.9 x 18.9, equaling 357 pixels per square degree, does that mean that VR gaming is ten times less realistic than real life? (bc 3600/357 = 10.08 )

 

One manner to estimate VR 'realness' is to say that a normal human has an unrestricted field of ~ 210 deg horizontally by 150 deg vertically. If we multiple that by 60 pixels per degree, we get a rectangle that is 12,600 pixels across and 9,000 pixels in height or 113,400,000 pixels total. (acuity falls off quite quickly outside the focal point, the FOV is not actually a rectangle, and there are many other minor points, but for now, this will be our upper bound) So, if we went with the brute force (non-foveated rendering) approach, we would need a VR headset (HMD) that presented a true 210 x 150 FOV and gave 113 megapixel images around 60 times each second (60 Hz) (this is 30 frames for each eye per second, ... if you wanted a more fluid experience that approximates reality, you would need 60 frames per second per eye, or 120 Hz total). Hardware wise, this is actually not that hard, and VR headset manufacturers could release the prospective hardware ~ perhaps ten years from now. That is the easy part, ... the hard part is supplying such a display with 113 megapixels 60 times a second. This far surpasses anything that a current RTX 2080 Ti or Titan RTX can put out today. Even if we could run four cards in Quad SLI (which we cannot), we would not be anywhere close to this limit. If we used the assumption that every new GPU flagship generation is 50% more powerful than the preceding one, and a new flagship release occurs every two years, then we can make a simple mathematical rule (of the form y = ae^(bx) ) (e is the transcendental natural log here) and use the processing power of the current RTX 2080 Ti as our origin (we are making an X - Y plot), and the answer is about 2035 AD (the exact linear plot is 2031 AD but for several reasons I am not using it, in part bc Moore's Law is unlikely to hold for GPUs with <7 nm dies). If we more realistically look at past data and apply a 2nd order differential equation (flops with respect to time) and then integrate to get the function, we find an answer of about 2038 AD.

 

As you can see Lenux, Pixels Per Inch (PPI) has very little meaning when trying to understand the relative resolutions of VR headsets. But, since you asked, when will a VR headset be able to approach the image quality of your 55 inch 4K TV with 80 PPI? ..... I would roughly guess if we went with the brute force (non-foveaed rendering) approach, .... around 2035 to 2038.

 

(Post corrected twice, once for silly math mistake, once for individual eye FOV)

 

There is a lot more to it than simply saying 60 PPD (20/20 vision) is all you need for a display.

 

I just turned 40, and as a pilot I get a military flight physical every year. I am tested at 20/15. That is 80 PPD, which almost doubles the distance from that 8K screen viewing distance to 31.4 inches.

 

Not to mention, motion and contrast matter a lot too.

 

The human eye can resolve motion irreegularities on solid lines such as the below in access of 300 PPD:

 

https://testufo.com/aliasing-visibility#foreground=000000&background=ffffff&antialiasing=0&thickness=1

 

And on top of that, high contrast scenarios like seeing a star in a dark night sky can result in over half a million PPD.

 

On another note, screen refresh is also a key component. Lifelike virtual reality requires 1000+ Hz:

 

https://blurbusters.com/blur-busters-law-amazing-journey-to-future-1000hz-displays-with-blurfree-sample-and-hold/

Edited April 29, 2020 by Callsign.Vega

[SharpeXB]

With a 32” 4K monitor, sitting at a normal distance, I need to use antialiasing in order to smooth out jaggies. A resolution greater than 2160p would be beneficial. So 8K for a gaming TV doesn’t seem excessive.

[GunSlingerAUS]

"A forum member sent me a question"

 

 

If a member has asked you a question reply with a PM.

 

Please stop spamming this thread.

Thanks Aurelius for putting more real information into one post than I wager many forum posters have ever used a Free Hand over the keyboard to type in their entire time posting here! Onwards and upwards with the knowledge of our beloved community!

[freehand]

Thanks Aurelius for putting more real information into one post than I wager many forum posters have ever used a Free Hand over the keyboard to type in their entire time posting here! Onwards and upwards with the knowledge of our beloved community!

 

So 2 days to come back with that lol.

 

I helped in 2017 with the first Oculus :

 

You entered VR in 2019 and all you did was moan moan moan.

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=259335

Edited May 1, 2020 by freehand

[freehand]

Out of curiosity, I talked to a friend of my wife's (she and her friends are all physicians) over at UCSF in ophthalmology. I asked her about 144 Hz, 165 Hz gaming monitors and 8K TV screens and she said that in double blind studies, where gamers are put in front of a TV screen from 7 feet away or in front of a monitor from 3 feet away (without being told about the resolution or Hz of the screen they are viewing), 99% of them cannot tell the difference between a 4K vs an 8K screen and 97% of them cannot tell the difference between a 144/165 Hz monitor vs a 60 Hz monitor.

 

Did the physicians do the studies if so why ?

Edited May 2, 2020 by freehand

[SharpeXB]

or in front of a monitor from 3 feet away (without being told about the resolution or Hz of the screen they are viewing), 99% of them cannot tell the difference between a 4K vs an 8K screen

3 feet away from a monitor is rather too far, not very realistic. And like I mentioned earlier, I need to use antialiasing in 4K which means I can perceive the pixels. This is with using a 28” and 32” screen.

True I think 90% of people are not videophiles and couldn’t tell the difference and have their HDTV hooked up with the little yellow cable from their old VCR :huh:

[panph90]

Excuse me if I join the topic in the middle of a discussion :lol::lol:

 

For me, getting the Rift S have been literally a revolution. Despite I have a 28’ 4K monitor, the experience the vr give to you worth the loss of resolution.

I’ve been playing military and civilian Sims for 25 years, F29 Retaliator the first one, then the sims I remember better are UNSF97, IAF, and then MFS2000 and Falcon 4.

While years were passing developers improved graphics and aircraft systems, but the experience was “almost the same”. I consumed my sidewinder’s hat (the one without force feedback) viewing around the cockpit, specially in falcon 4 when spotting an enemy wasn’t as easy as everyone would expect.

Last year on July’s steam sales I decided to join DCS with the f18, understanding the high level of simulation but view around with the hat I decided to buy the Rift S.

What I had was a WOW EFFECT that I would never imagined. The immersion vr gave is incredible. The experience changed drastically, and the result is I’ve stopped playing games without vr... I have a steam library of 109 games, I play almost the only with VR...

I joined the Alpha of Microsoft FS2020, great game with incredible graphics, but after few hours I stopped, waiting for release and VR support, without it is “boring”.

Ok, as everyone said the resolution makes spotting enemies and reading mdf’s difficult.

As I started vr playing I had an Alienware r17r5 with a 1070... I was running dcs with vr setting to low, and PD set to 1. For working reason I had to change my home’s backup pc, so I bought the one I have in signature, so I could have raised the graphic quality to high settings and PD 1.7, the graphics changed drastically, the MDF’s are almost quite clear to read despite the rift S resolution.

 

In conclusion, yes you have to look for compromise using VR, but I think no one who have bought a vr headset regretted it, and it’s difficult to come back to 2d screen.

 

Just for fun, when you’ll buy an headset, try to watch a movie with Bigscreen beta with Antialias set to 2x, and then tell me if you still can watch a movie on your 4K 65’ tv in your living room :lol:

[eaglecash867]

3 feet away from a monitor is rather too far, not very realistic. And like I mentioned earlier, I need to use antialiasing in 4K which means I can perceive the pixels. This is with using a 28” and 32” screen.

True I think 90% of people are not videophiles and couldn’t tell the difference and have their HDTV hooked up with the little yellow cable from their old VCR :huh:

 

The difference there is that you know what you're looking at, so its not the same as a double-blind study. The subjects in the study weren't told the resolutions or refresh rates. :D

[=Pedro=]

HP Reverb full stop.

[Svsmokey]

While I'm not recommending anyone to get the Valve Index,

It's what I'd like to purchase, for this year anyway.

 

See my 2020 wish list here for conditions though...

That'd be my choice.

 

It is a great headset , particularly for those who play games in addition to seated sims . The extra FOV prolly increases the sense of speed as well .

[SharpeXB]

The difference there is that you know what you're looking at, so its not the same as a double-blind study. The subjects in the study weren't told the resolutions or refresh rates. :D

I could tell the resolution difference because jaggies are quite visible in 2160p without antialiasing.

The refresh rate? That I haven’t tried so I don’t know.

 

8K TVs are a dumb idea though for home video because there isn’t any 8K content. Movies are shot and mastered in 4K. And there still isn’t mainstream 4K TV broadcast yet so let’s not go there with 8K yet.

[eaglecash867]

 

8K TVs are a dumb idea though for home video because there isn’t any 8K content. Movies are shot and mastered in 4K. And there still isn’t mainstream 4K TV broadcast yet so let’s not go there with 8K yet.

 

There really isn't even that much 4K content on BluRay either, and it only gives you a visual difference if you have a really big TV, or if you sit within a couple of feet of a "medium-sized" (43-49 inches) TV. I did notice a difference between 1080p and 2160p on my rig when I got the 49" QLED 4K TV, but the new TV had HDR and all kinds of other new display technology the old one didn't have, so I'm not sure how much of the new "wow factor" is coming from the increase in resolution.

 

The Reverb is leaps and bounds better than my CV1 in a lot of ways, but I still find myself wishing for better controllers, mechanical IPD adjustment, and more flexibility with extending cable length. Also, I wish they had gone for a home run on the cable, instead of that stupid DP connector on the back of the HMD. That's probably a major contributor to its lack of flexibility when it comes to cable length. Even the active DP 1.4 repeater that is known to work on other HMDs doesn't work on the Reverb. Hopefully the G2 will address all those issues, because the display resolution still makes the Reverb worth dealing with its other shortcomings.

[SharpeXB]

There really isn't even that much 4K content on BluRay either, and it only gives you a visual difference if you have a really big TV, or if you sit within a couple of feet of a "medium-sized" (43-49 inches) TV. I did notice a difference between 1080p and 2160p on my rig when I got the 49" QLED 4K TV, but the new TV had HDR and all kinds of other new display technology the old one didn't have, so I'm not sure how much of the new "wow factor" is coming from the increase in resolution.

I think most reviewers agree that HDR is a bigger plus than the extra resolution. For TVs

However 4K allows much larger TVs than 43-49” to look good. Getting into the 60”+ sizes seems to be a new norm. I still have a 1080p TV and don’t plan on upgrading it until. 1. It breaks. 2. There’s actual 4K broadcast. 3. 4K TVs become so cheap that there’s no reason not to.

Reason #3 will probably happen first :thumbup: