Tracking headset

[leo2510]

hi,

Might be a stupid question:

 

I'm planning to buy my first VR headset for dcs ! This thread is not for arguing which headset is the best (although recommandations are welcome)

But I was wondering how the headset works in terms of tracking ? How does it "know" when I'm turning my head left or right ? I saw something called base station for lighthouse system tracking. This cost 200€ and not included in the headset !

 

I might have naively thought that a VR headset would "only" cost 500€ but maybe what they don't say is that we have to buy accessories at 200€ resulting in a 700-1000€ setup

 

Am I missing an info somehow?

 

Help would be very much appreciated

 

Thanks

Fly safe

[Fisherman82]

Hello, some models use external tracking with lighthouse system, and some use inside out tracking where the headset uses cameras to recognize the surroundings together with accelerometers in the headset to work out where you are looking.

The inside out trackning is newer and most likely will be what will be used going forward in future headsets because its simpler and you dont have to put up lighthouses with cables to them also.

 

I bought a Rift S a couple in the beginning of March as my first VR-headset, it uses inside out tracking from 5 cameras on the headset together with the accelerometers. I bought that because it had a good balance between performance, price, ease of use from what I heard from other DCS pilots on the forum and so on. But actually when I bought it I was worried about the tracking, because I have a cockpit setup where Im basically sitting sideways inside a closet, so on my left shoulder I have the open room for surrounding and on my right side there is just a black wall 10 centimeters next to my shoulder. I was thinking that the right wall may be a big problem for the tracking and before I got it I planned to put up IR-LEDs inside the closet to get references for the cameras on the headset because I thought It would be needed.

 

Then the Rift S arrived and I set it up to try it, I was preparing myself to have to send it back in case the tracking did not work in my setup.

 

However, I got pretty blown away. It worked very very good, I mean when Im looking to the right Im looking straight into a black wall just some centimeters away but it still tracks perfectly 99% of the time. On some very rare occasion it looses tracking, and that is when Im looking to my right into the wall, but I think that is not related to lighting conditions or the wall only because as I say it works 99% of the time, I have tried to figure out what is causing it and I think its more related to something else in the computer, like DCS stuttering just when I turn my head or some software running in the taskbar or antivirus or something. But its so rare so its not really a issue.

 

I have been trying to figure out how the tracking works more in detail but if you google it you only get info how the tracking of the handcontrollers work, not the tracking of the headset itself. When Im looking at the wall im pretty sure it uses the input from the accelerometers mostly because I cant see how it sees anything then.

 

If you would be sitting at a desk so that you would have room on both sides, the light on in the roof and shutters closed on the window if its daytime I cant think that you would have tracking problems with the Rift S. If you do it would be related to something else in the computer.

 

Im very pleased with my Rift S, although there are headsets with greater resolution Im pretty happy with running the Rift S with 1.2 Supersampling and 2x MSAA in DCS on my GTX1080. If I could crank up the Supersampling to 1.5 or 1.6 the clarity of the view would be even better so Im hoping for that in the future when I someday get a better graphics card. To do that now I have to turn MSAA of and then the world looks really bad.

 

I had to buy a Starforce USB 3.0 expansion card that gets power straight from the PSU though because when connected to the motherboard I had major problems with "the headset is not connected". I think this is a common problem with VR headsets, they need to have a good powersource for the USB cable.

 

If you have not tried VR, the difference between DCS on a screen and in VR can not really be overrated. Its just no comparison.

 

Perhaps this was a long answer but thats because Im in a boring Skype-meeting and Im happy with the Rift S.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Fisherman82

[Svsmokey]

Welcome to the forum !

 

In order of tracking accuracy/smoothness from worst to best :

 

WMR headsets (Reverb , Odyssey and others) use two-camera inside-out tracking

Quest , Rift S use multiple inside-out cameras for tracking .

Vive Pro , Index , Pimax use base station tracking .

[Topo]

Recently bought a Rift S, first VR experience; i never had a tracking problem when the room is not totally dark

[speed-of-heat]

The reverb works really well , i have no problems with the inside out tracking model