TrackIR versus Virtual Reality VR: My own experience

[Brainfreeze]

Hi, if you are new to DCS then like me you'll wonder if you should go for TrackIR or VR.   I did and chose TrackIR for price and fear of motion sickness. Some aspects of it bugged me and I decided to try VR with the HP Reverb G2.

 

Trackir:  It allows you to look around your cockpit easily.  I did find that in acrobatic situations (dogfight) it was sometimes difficult to figure out where you were actually looking and find where the hell the opponent had gone.  This is because trackIR multiplies your head movement so that 20deg in real life corresponds to 120-150deg in game.   When over water or blue sky with you head looking up through the canopy it is not easy to find out where you are and when the opponent goes from left to right of your plane from under it it is not easy to get it back in your sight.   I am sure practice will do though but after 30hrs of flying it was still hard for me.   Another grip I had is the lack of 3D when really fighter jets are about 3D movement. Finally, cockpits looked too big/vast on screens.

 

VR with HP Reverb G2.  I chose that Headset because it has a high resolution which is really necessary with DCS.  I have to say the experience has been amazing.  It is much more immersive than on screen. Cockpit is just there around you, you absolutely feel like you are in it.  I find it also a lot easier to follow other aircrafts around me visually. Overall it is much more natural/intuitive to fly this way. Sure the image tends to feel a bit blurry at time, especially with fast moving targets but the scenery is great and the full 3D immersion makes up for it.   So far no motion sickness.  Be sure to set the headset to your pupil distance (IPD), apparently it helps. VR is a little aggressive on the eyes but reducing brightness helps if needed.

 

Not sure I will go back to Trackir but would say that if you are hesitating, I think DCS deserves VR.

 

My system is i7 10700 @2.9GHz with RTX 3080 and 32GB of RAM.    

[dburne]

They are really two very separate things.

But I agree, I went VR in Jan 2017 and have not gone back since. 

[InfinityWingman]

 

I go back and forth.  For me, TrackIR is best for learning and mission building. It has better graphics/performance and is the best way to record video.

It helps to have a good TrackIR setup. Triple screens with a touch screen running Helios interactive cockpits. Almost as good as VR and being able to see your controls is an advantage, especially for learning. 

 

However, I'm always blown away going into VR. It's just incredible.

 

Matt

 

 

 

 

[markturner1960]

I think I will also use a hybrid of the two, with actual flights etc in VR. Luckily it is fairly easy to switch between the two. 

[streakeagle]

For taxiing around runways, navigation, and sightseeing, 2D flat panels still offer a fantastic visual experience, especially if you have a large 4K display on the order of 46 inches or larger. But after flying air-to-air in VR for so long, I can't visually spot/track targets very well at 4K or even 1080p.

 

VR used to have two main problems when I got the Rift CV1: cockpit clarity and spotting targets. The Rift S gave me enough clarity for most cockpits and ED patched in something that makes air contacts a lot more visible in VR. With the Reverb G2, my the visual quality is rapidly approaching my 4K experience, but with the added benefits of 1:1 head tracking and longer range spotting ranges. Another big difference is stereo images: in 2D, I lost a track of visual targets quite frequently on canopy frames. In stereo 3d, one eye usually maintains a visual without even moving my head and the 1:1 tracking allows making smooth corrections in head position to keep things in sight with minimal disturbance even if movement is required.

 

I flew TrackIR for years, so I know I can live with it. I still use it about 20-30% of the time. But if I am flying air-to-air, which is most of the time, I am in VR.