HP Reverb G2 - Is the Tracking Good Enough for DCS/ Dogfighting

[CommandT]

Hi Folks, 

 

I've been on the VR sidelines since forever. I'm about to finally commit and have my sights set on the Reverb G2. I've stayed away from VR headsets as personally I've felt the resolution/ screen door effect has just not provided the visual fidelity I would expect before. I think the G2 might change this. However, I am curious to know if the head tracking will be good enough? I do a lot of dogfighting in DCS so it's really critical that there are no noticeable issues with tracking. I'm aware the Valve Index with it's towers is the best headset for this but I can't justify any headset unless the visual fidelity is there and I'm not convinced by the Valve. 

 

I've watched all the G2 vids out there but wanted to gather some more first hand experience from DCS users here. 

Cheers! 

Edited December 4, 2020 by CommandT

[Qiou87]

I think you are confusing controller tracking (as in, the hand controllers) with the headset tracking. The Reverb G2, and generally all WMR headsets, get criticized for their hand controller tracking. It was "greatly improved" on the G2, but still falls short of Oculus (which uses the same technique).

 

But in DCS, as you point out, the only thing that matters is head tracking, you probably won't use the hand controllers if you have a HOTAS. I have not seen any bad press about head tracking on this headset or any previous WMR one. Bad head tracking would quickly lead to nausea, because your physical movements wouldn't translate in game so your brain wouldn't know if it should trust its movement sensors or its eyes, so there is no room for error here: head tracking has to be perfect. And, to my knowledge after reading many articles on this headset and others (I don't have personal G2 experience since I game with a Rift S), it is.

 

One recommendation I can give you if you jump on the VR bandwagon (and I truly believe you should, DCS in VR is awesome): give yourself 30sec before putting the headset on, relax your neck, flex it in all directions. Especially if you dogfight a lot, the first time you will rotate violently to the left and right to check six, you might have serious neck pain if you didn't flex your neck first. No cheating possible like with TrackIR where 10° of head movement translates to 40° or more ingame, in VR it is always a 1:1 ratio (or else you would get sick).

Edited December 4, 2020 by Qiou87

[CommandT]

3 hours ago, Qiou87 said:

I think you are confusing controller tracking (as in, the hand controllers) with the headset tracking. The Reverb G2, and generally all WMR headsets, get criticized for their hand controller tracking. It was "greatly improved" on the G2, but still falls short of Oculus (which uses the same technique).

 

But in DCS, as you point out, the only thing that matters is head tracking, you probably won't use the hand controllers if you have a HOTAS. I have not seen any bad press about head tracking on this headset or any previous WMR one. Bad head tracking would quickly lead to nausea, because your physical movements wouldn't translate in game so your brain wouldn't know if it should trust its movement sensors or its eyes, so there is no room for error here: head tracking has to be perfect. And, to my knowledge after reading many articles on this headset and others (I don't have personal G2 experience since I game with a Rift S), it is.

 

One recommendation I can give you if you jump on the VR bandwagon (and I truly believe you should, DCS in VR is awesome): give yourself 30sec before putting the headset on, relax your neck, flex it in all directions. Especially if you dogfight a lot, the first time you will rotate violently to the left and right to check six, you might have serious neck pain if you didn't flex your neck first. No cheating possible like with TrackIR where 10° of head movement translates to 40° or more ingame, in VR it is always a 1:1 ratio (or else you would get sick).

So there is no loss of head tracking even if you look directly behind? 

I wasn't confusing the head tracking with the controllers. The Valve Index is known for the best possible head tracking as it uses the towers. The Reverb does get criticised for head tracking and I have seen reviewers give up on it because the head tracking would just break, however this was not sitting down in a flight sim pit but rather standing up and moving in some sort of arcade game. So I wonder if it's adequate enough for someone sitting down in a pit. I mean I am almost certain it won't be an issue but I don't want to spend £800 to find out I've made a mistake. 

Thanks for the advice

[Qiou87]

2 hours ago, CommandT said:

So there is no loss of head tracking even if you look directly behind? 

I wasn't confusing the head tracking with the controllers. The Valve Index is known for the best possible head tracking as it uses the towers. The Reverb does get criticised for head tracking and I have seen reviewers give up on it because the head tracking would just break, however this was not sitting down in a flight sim pit but rather standing up and moving in some sort of arcade game. So I wonder if it's adequate enough for someone sitting down in a pit. I mean I am almost certain it won't be an issue but I don't want to spend £800 to find out I've made a mistake. 

Thanks for the advice

From what I have seen, since it is using cameras (similar to the Rift S that I own), it needs available light to track you head. So playing in pitch black is a big no-no, but if the lighting is reasonable in your room (=uniform & artificial is best, as opposed to something very directed or worst, next to a window with direct sunlight), there shouldn't be any issues. Also note that the tracking issues are sometimes pointed out by people playing very fast-paced games (Beat Saber for ex.), standing up and moving the controllers. DCS World is not that, even in a dogfight you are not moving your head in all 3 dimensions at a very fast rate all the time. Your body staying fixed means you only have rotation on 2 axis, no translation which can sometimes confuse tracking (no up/down or forward/back translation).

 

It is actually only 575€ here in France w/ controllers (HP is having a -20% discount on their own website), so it should be much cheaper than £800. Today I put my money where my mouth is and bought one G2, I have no doubt the much higher resolution will be beneficial for DCS. Have to wait until January to receive it.

 

The Index is a great product but the external trackers need power, make some noise, and are generally totally incompatible with my gaming area (living room). Adding the high cost of the device and I wasn't considering it despite obvious upsides to the product, like a larger FOV. Inside-out tracking, like Rift and Reverb, is my only option. Based on all I read and saw, for DCS and sims in general, this G2 seems like a real winner.

 

Edited December 4, 2020 by Qiou87

[CommandT]

1 hour ago, Qiou87 said:

From what I have seen, since it is using cameras (similar to the Rift S that I own), it needs available light to track you head. So playing in pitch black is a big no-no, but if the lighting is reasonable in your room (=uniform & artificial is best, as opposed to something very directed or worst, next to a window with direct sunlight), there shouldn't be any issues. Also note that the tracking issues are sometimes pointed out by people playing very fast-paced games (Beat Saber for ex.), standing up and moving the controllers. DCS World is not that, even in a dogfight you are not moving your head in all 3 dimensions at a very fast rate all the time. Your body staying fixed means you only have rotation on 2 axis, no translation which can sometimes confuse tracking (no up/down or forward/back translation).

 

It is actually only 575€ here in France w/ controllers (HP is having a -20% discount on their own website), so it should be much cheaper than £800. Today I put my money where my mouth is and bought one G2, I have no doubt the much higher resolution will be beneficial for DCS. Have to wait until January to receive it.

 

The Index is a great product but the external trackers need power, make some noise, and are generally totally incompatible with my gaming area (living room). Adding the high cost of the device and I wasn't considering it despite obvious upsides to the product, like a larger FOV. Inside-out tracking, like Rift and Reverb, is my only option. Based on all I read and saw, for DCS and sims in general, this G2 seems like a real winner.

 

Ah I see, cheers. You are right, it is  cheaper but people are selling for much more on ebay. I uspect because they are out of stock on the hp website and I don't see any "pre-order" option  

Edited December 4, 2020 by CommandT

[San]

Hi 

 

I have just received a G2 which will be first foray into VR. I'm afraid I haven't used it yet as I've been usper busy this week but here's a couple of quick answers.  I can update after the weekend once I've used it.

 

G2 has received mixed reviews about "tracking" but invariably these related to the tracking of the hand controllers.  In games like beat saber but moreso FPS games holding the controllers close to the face or by your sides can cause a loss of tracking of the controllers (according to some people...)  However assuming you play DCS with some kind of HOTAS this tracking is  a non-issue to you ingame.  The only tracking there that counts is the headset tracking which is generally considered to be very good, with points made above about needing some light in the room.

 

In terms of pricing, it's been on pre-order for many months and only launched in the last 2-3 weeks, there's still a bunch of people who pre-ordered in July / Aug who are only just receiving them.  Like the CPU / GPU/PS5 releases recently lack of demand leads to Ebay scalper prices

 

System Active are the approved dealer for preorders in the UK but they have a big backlog of orders and enw ones are likely not fulfilled till next year.  I have seen reports that HP UK are selling from their website with near immediate delivery, if they have any left they should be at MSRP.  (Edit:  Just realised it looks like you have already checked HP UK website)

I can update with my new to VR experiences later this weekend, although I'm running it with a slightly underpowered GPU (5700xt) so not ideal.

 

Hope this helps...

Edited December 4, 2020 by San
already checked HP website

[CommandT]

13 minutes ago, San said:

Hi 

 

I have just received a G2 which will be first foray into VR. I'm afraid I haven't used it yet as I've been usper busy this week but here's a couple of quick answers.  I can update after the weekend once I've used it.

 

G2 has received mixed reviews about "tracking" but invariably these related to the tracking of the hand controllers.  In games like beat saber but moreso FPS games holding the controllers close to the face or by your sides can cause a loss of tracking of the controllers (according to some people...)  However assuming you play DCS with some kind of HOTAS this tracking is  a non-issue to you ingame.  The only tracking there that counts is the headset tracking which is generally considered to be very good, with points made above about needing some light in the room.

 

In terms of pricing, it's been on pre-order for many months and only launched in the last 2-3 weeks, there's still a bunch of people who pre-ordered in July / Aug who are only just receiving them.  Like the CPU / GPU/PS5 releases recently lack of demand leads to Ebay scalper prices

 

System Active are the approved dealer for preorders in the UK but they have a big backlog of orders and enw ones are likely not fulfilled till next year.  I have seen reports that HP UK are selling from their website with near immediate delivery, if they have any left they should be at MSRP.  (Edit:  Just realised it looks like you have already checked HP UK website)

I can update with my new to VR experiences later this weekend, although I'm running it with a slightly underpowered GPU (5700xt) so not ideal.

 

Hope this helps...

Yeah if you could update that would be great. And yes, unfortunatly it's out of stock on both hp UK and System Active. No pre-order available. So I'll just havw to wait till a good deal comes up on ebay. Don't see another solution

[Thinder]

It's pretty obvious that people who chose the G2 aren't the same kind of players than those who chose the Oculus Quest 2.

 

I do my home work before committing any amount of money toward my PC and I knew well about tracking before I made my choice, my requirements for an headset are not controllers or tracking for playing saber games of climbing rocks, but DCS and eventually other flight simulators, and there is no way controllers are helping playing those games.

 

On the other hand, quality of the optics and picture are a must, so to me, the G2 is the best choice by default for flight simulation.

 

Good news: I should get mine before year end according to my provider, equally good news, second hand Samsung Gear VR Controllers working with the G2 can be found for as little as £8.00 at CEX, just in case I couldn't access the menus and start it with a mouse only (which I was told I could but we never know), I pre-ordered mine without controllers.

Edited December 4, 2020 by Thinder

[Thinder]

16 hours ago, CommandT said:

Hi Folks, 

 

I've been on the VR sidelines since forever. I'm about to finally commit and have my sights set on the Reverb G2. I've stayed away from VR headsets as personally I've felt the resolution/ screen door effect has just not provided the visual fidelity I would expect before. I think the G2 might change this. However, I am curious to know if the head tracking will be good enough? I do a lot of dogfighting in DCS so it's really critical that there are no noticeable issues with tracking. I'm aware the Valve Index with it's towers is the best headset for this but I can't justify any headset unless the visual fidelity is there and I'm not convinced by the Valve. 

 

I've watched all the G2 vids out there but wanted to gather some more first hand experience from DCS users here. 

Cheers! 

 

I can tell you what I have done to help G2 tracking when I got it but not if it works:

 

I ordered a new keyboard, an Alloy FPS pro with red lighting set to continuous maximum, and I have a light centered just behind my screen, eventually, adding LED strips behind the screen should help further.

 

Those cameras are sensitive to contrast, low contrast can occur even with lot of light, so they shouldn't have much problem detecting keyboard lighting and back-screen LED for as long as the room is not washed out with another source of light like day light, just give them a well contrasted directional source of light and they will track.

[CommandT]

Well I got the G2. No tracking issues! But definitely needs a loooot of setting up to get an acceptable image quality/ smoothness. Any guides that you guys can suggest? I've seen a few but not sure which ones to follow. 

Edited December 14, 2020 by CommandT

[Greekbull]

G2 does not have a tracking issue with the headset....the tracking is more than adequate for dogfighting or any other task you'd like for flying!  It is by far the best headset for DCS.  I've flown with and owned a lot. CV1, Odyssey, Odyssey Plus, Reverb G1, Pimax 8K X and now Reverb G2.  

10 minutes ago, CommandT said:

Well I got the G2. No tracking issues! But definitely needs a loooot of setting up to get an acceptable image quality/ smoothness. Any guides that you guys can suggest? I've seen a few but not sure which ones to follow. 

 

Please check our VR4DCS he has all the guides you need

[CommandT]

1 hour ago, Greekbull said:

G2 does not have a tracking issue with the headset....the tracking is more than adequate for dogfighting or any other task you'd like for flying!  It is by far the best headset for DCS.  I've flown with and owned a lot. CV1, Odyssey, Odyssey Plus, Reverb G1, Pimax 8K X and now Reverb G2.  

Please check our VR4DCS he has all the guides you need

Yep, thanks, this is one of the guides I'm using. Really hope I manage to optimize it to work well. So far I can see huge potential but am so far from having an acceptable image/ smoothness that I'm almost a little apprehensive that I'll be able to have a great VR experience. But so far I don't regret the G2 one bit. The colours and clarity is just awesome. Just hope I can get it to run well grrrr

[Thinder]

I've got mine and as I said, no issue at all with the headset itself, on the other hand, Steam VR is crapy as hell, compared to what it took to run a CV1, it's complicated and unstable, it disables my mouse, doesn't respect the windows limits for its cursor, overlap it in Windows throwing the whole thing out of focuse (like Oculus did as well).

 

In short, the headset needs a far better quality support software and right now, Steam isn't offering it.

 

Having said that, I certainly don't regret upgrading from CV1 to G2, image quality is simply of a different world. I'll try the modification for increasing FoV, what I figured is that it is far better to set up everything in 2D, controls etc, start Windows Mixed Reality then DCS and set it in VR, it will trigger Steam and you'll have the mouse ready to use. It doesn't always work but it's the best solution I did find to play DCS without controlers.

Reverb G2 Fov Mod by Icebeat.

Edited December 15, 2020 by Thinder

[Qiou87]

I don't understand why you refer to SteamVR ; for me this headset runs with WMR. Do you need to use SteamVR as well in order for DCS to run in VR in the G2? Or are you using the Steam edition of DCS, not the standalone?

 

Sorry if these questions seem stupid, I am coming from a Rift S, waiting for my G2 to ship. The Rift S was stupidly easy to setup in DCS, plug it in, turn on VR ingame, and enjoy. I just use OTT to set supersampling and that's it. 

[Waxer]

On 12/4/2020 at 12:22 AM, CommandT said:

...the G2... However, I am curious to know if the head tracking will be good enough?

 

Answer 1) Yes.

Answer 2) Besides it is better head tracking than TrackIR or any of the Track IR Clones. So if you have been using any of those... it is an upgrade.

[CommandT]

6 hours ago, Qiou87 said:

I don't understand why you refer to SteamVR ; for me this headset runs with WMR. Do you need to use SteamVR as well in order for DCS to run in VR in the G2? Or are you using the Steam edition of DCS, not the standalone?

 

Sorry if these questions seem stupid, I am coming from a Rift S, waiting for my G2 to ship. The Rift S was stupidly easy to setup in DCS, plug it in, turn on VR ingame, and enjoy. I just use OTT to set supersampling and that's it. 

I have the standalone version fo DCS (not the Steam one) but to run DCS with the G2 it's really complicated - you need WMR, SteamVR and Windows Mixed Reality for Steam VR (and apparently you need the beta version of this, not sure why). And then you can get DCS to boot in VR... it's ridiculous really. 

13 hours ago, Thinder said:

I've got mine and as I said, no issue at all with the headset itself, on the other hand, Steam VR is crapy as hell, compared to what it took to run a CV1, it's complicated and unstable, it disables my mouse, doesn't respect the windows limits for its cursor, overlap it in Windows throwing the whole thing out of focuse (like Oculus did as well).

 

In short, the headset needs a far better quality support software and right now, Steam isn't offering it.

 

Having said that, I certainly don't regret upgrading from CV1 to G2, image quality is simply of a different world. I'll try the modification for increasing FoV, what I figured is that it is far better to set up everything in 2D, controls etc, start Windows Mixed Reality then DCS and set it in VR, it will trigger Steam and you'll have the mouse ready to use. It doesn't always work but it's the best solution I did find to play DCS without controlers.

Reverb G2 Fov Mod by Icebeat.

 

Yeah I've ordered a mod someone does on ebay - some 3d printed part to get you closer to the lenses. Lets see if that works. 

Going through the optimization stuff now to get it to run well... a bit of trial by fire here. Hoping I can get it to run well. 

 

[CommandT]

Question... is there a "centre" function on the G2? Like what you do with trackir to get centred once every while? I'm not sure how it knows where my neutral head position is relative to the virtual pilot body when I load the flight for the first time. 

[CommandT]

In the vr4dcs guide there's an instruction "Calibration – Your IPD – G@ as per SLIDER on the Headset" - what does this mean? My calibration slider in WMR is greyed out and is showing a fixed value of 64.512

[CommandT]

And another question. How do you turn on reprojection now? I see it's been taken away from the vr4dcs guide and apparently it should be replaced with a setting in steamVR but it's not there? 

[Qiou87]

4 hours ago, CommandT said:

Question... is there a "centre" function on the G2? Like what you do with trackir to get centred once every while? I'm not sure how it knows where my neutral head position is relative to the virtual pilot body when I load the flight for the first time. 

Check the game commands in DCS, you can have a key bound to reset head position in VR. Super helpful when you start the game, find your natural body position then press this key.

 

22 minutes ago, CommandT said:

In the vr4dcs guide there's an instruction "Calibration – Your IPD – G@ as per SLIDER on the Headset" - what does this mean? My calibration slider in WMR is greyed out and is showing a fixed value of 64.512

IPD is the distance between the center of your eyes. An optician or ophthalmologist can measure it for you. It is set with a slider on the headset, not in software, that’s why the soft only shows the value but cannot change it. 

[Thinder]

5 hours ago, CommandT said:

Question... is there a "centre" function on the G2? Like what you do with trackir to get centred once every while? I'm not sure how it knows where my neutral head position is relative to the virtual pilot body when I load the flight for the first time. 

 

I don't know about the G2 software but in DCS you can recenter and literally reposition yourself by leaning backward and forward while using a key:

 

Controls > UI Layer > Recenter VR Headset. On my throttle I use it as POV backward button and toggle VR zoom as POV forward, since I don't need those POV functions I can allocate them to other keys, the Vertical ones I use them for raising and lowering the seat, I don't use the diagonal POV functions to avoid making mistake, the whole setting is very usefull.

 

The POV switch is a bit off so it shows as left or right but physically it is fwd and bwd.

 

Edited December 15, 2020 by Thinder

[CommandT]

I got it, cheers. I'm really struggling to get my headset to work smoothly. I'll start a separate thread for optimization before I totally give up