The optimum - yet to be built - VR headset for DCS?

[Willie Nelson]

I am wondering what would be the best new design for a VR headset in my case, comparing it to the HP Reverb G1. This is a great headset that seems to push my PC to the limit but not too far beyond.

When the Vulkan API comes out and hardware improvements become readily available I personally would prefer something similar to the Reverb but with a wider field of vision an an ability to capitalise on Aspheric lenses so that we don't have to use 150% supersampling and instead that 50% increase in SS can be placed into eith better performance and or improved resolution.

Thoughts?

[DavePastry]

a small quality of life improvement that I've come to really love is the aftermarket fan I have installed in my index's frunk, I tried to use a pimax for a bit and aside from a host of other comfort and fit issues I had with it I *really* missed my little eyeball fan. 

[Willie Nelson]

15 hours ago, DavePastry said:

a small quality of life improvement that I've come to really love is the aftermarket fan I have installed in my index's frunk, I tried to use a pimax for a bit and aside from a host of other comfort and fit issues I had with it I *really* missed my little eyeball fan. 

Yep, that sounds like a good one, too hot and sweaty or HMD too cold doesn't help.

 

[Willie Nelson]

Bump.

 

[Willie Nelson]

Bump

[InfinityWingman]

 

I'd vote for augmented reality where you can see your real life simpit along with DCS in VR. 

I would guess 5 years until that happens.

 

[Nodak]

18 hours ago, InfinityWingman said:

 

I'd vote for augmented reality where you can see your real life simpit along with DCS in VR. 

I would guess 5 years until that happens.

 

Than you'd be wrong.

https://www.lynx-r.com/

[Willie Nelson]

On 2/24/2022 at 4:31 AM, Nodak said:

Than you'd be wrong.

https://www.lynx-r.com/

I think the Dutch may be using AR also with a full scale Viper cockpit but I could be wrong. Didn’t look like DCS but it was definitely integrated Full scale AR. 

[Mr_sukebe]

Look at the specs for the proposed flagship Pimax.  Huge field of view, very hires and eye tracking to facilitate foveated rendering.

 

if only I had any confidence in them really delivering a quality product that not only lived upto the specs, but was also reliable and easy to configure, then it would be spot on. 

[dburne]

I have found the Aero to be a pretty sweet headset for me. Have over 200 hours in it now and absolutely loving it.

[Willie Nelson]

7 hours ago, Mr_sukebe said:

Look at the specs for the proposed flagship Pimax.  Huge field of view, very hires and eye tracking to facilitate foveated rendering.

 

if only I had any confidence in them really delivering a quality product that not only lived upto the specs, but was also reliable and easy to configure, then it would be spot on. 

100%, nevertheless you have to admire their scrappy determination to become leaders in the field even if they haven't yet delivered a high standard implementation yet. I was blown away by HP for just quietly appearing, at least from my limited perspective, out of nowehere with their amazing bang for buck Reverb but I don't see any FOV improvements from them in the pipeline as yet. 

 

5 hours ago, dburne said:

I have found the Aero to be a pretty sweet headset for me. Have over 200 hours in it now and absolutely loving it.

It looks great but again, it's the horizontal FOV that I'm persoanlly most interested in tbh particularly for DCS. The sensation of speed and the improved situational awareness can't be underestimated. I just can't justify that price for a similar FOV to my Reverb, neverthless, I am really impressed with what they appear to have done in terms of reducing the SS requirements of their competitors with their aspheric lenses. It is possible that this type of tech could be quite a gamechanger going forward as can be seen by the higher resolution and yet greater performance of the Aero compared to the likes of the Reverb. I am wondering if that tech can be pushed further laterally than they have at this stage, it does seem like aspheric lenses may have this as a limitation but I will continue to watch this space. Glad you're enjoying it so far.

 

[Burt]

See through technology like the high end Varjo

[Gunnars Driver]

On 3/8/2022 at 1:08 AM, Willie Nelson said:

It looks great but again, it's the horizontal FOV that I'm persoanlly most interested in tbh particularly for DCS. The sensation of speed and the improved situational awareness can't be underestimated. 

I had the Reverb G1, and decided that I needed the Pimax 8KX when it was revealed. Waited long time.

When I got the 8KX I found that the resolution, (pixels per degree) was much lower than I could guess on the 8KX. I could not longer see the displays and visual combat in DCS got very hard. 
In my friends game setup Hueys vs Hueys I started loosing every time due to not being able to see the enemy.

In racing games, Asetto Corsa for example, the low resulotion isnt a problem and the wide FOV give a lot of extra speed feeling, which is nice. 

But DCS with 8KX is not good enough for me, saidly enough. ( I have a RTX3090, i9 9900KS@5.2Ghz and even with high settings to maximize the picture quality it is not good enough and the framerate suffers.

I would have liked a much higher resulotion in the KX, to be on pair with the Reverb. This is not possible with the CPU/GPU calculation power of today, I think. So my conclusion is that even if I would like better FOV, I need to sacrify FOV at this moment.

Ive just used my Aero briefly due to work away, but the resulotion is VERY good. The FOV is smaller than G1/G2, and the man issue is that the FOV looking down is much smaller than other headsets. Its disturbing to not being able to see downwards (lowwr psrt of instrument panel etc) as with most other headsets. I need to tilt the head down where with other headsets I would se it without tilting the head. 
Probably I will lger used to this quite fast but I think thatis the main issue/disturbance during the first hours for me.

The sharpness of the Aeros isnt compatible today with the FOV of the 8KX so one needs to decide what to sacrifice. 

 

[Willie Nelson]

3 hours ago, Gunnars Driver said:

I had the Reverb G1, and decided that I needed the Pimax 8KX when it was revealed. Waited long time.

When I got the 8KX I found that the resolution, (pixels per degree) was much lower than I could guess on the 8KX. I could not longer see the displays and visual combat in DCS got very hard. 
In my friends game setup Hueys vs Hueys I started loosing every time due to not being able to see the enemy.

In racing games, Asetto Corsa for example, the low resulotion isnt a problem and the wide FOV give a lot of extra speed feeling, which is nice. 

But DCS with 8KX is not good enough for me, saidly enough. ( I have a RTX3090, i9 9900KS@5.2Ghz and even with high settings to maximize the picture quality it is not good enough and the framerate suffers.

I would have liked a much higher resulotion in the KX, to be on pair with the Reverb. This is not possible with the CPU/GPU calculation power of today, I think. So my conclusion is that even if I would like better FOV, I need to sacrify FOV at this moment.

Ive just used my Aero briefly due to work away, but the resulotion is VERY good. The FOV is smaller than G1/G2, and the man issue is that the FOV looking down is much smaller than other headsets. Its disturbing to not being able to see downwards (lowwr psrt of instrument panel etc) as with most other headsets. I need to tilt the head down where with other headsets I would se it without tilting the head. 
Probably I will lger used to this quite fast but I think thatis the main issue/disturbance during the first hours for me.

The sharpness of the Aeros isnt compatible today with the FOV of the 8KX so one needs to decide what to sacrifice. 

 

Yes, I hear what you’re saying. The 8KX pixel density combined with the enormous horizontal FOV is simply too ambitious for the PC power currently available. That’s the rub and that’s why I am wondering if the aspheric lens technology that the Varjo Aero uses could be implemented elsewhere.
 

For example in the case of my Reverb, I have 2160 x2160  per eye x 2  x 1. 4  that’s more than 13 million pixels to push. If that 1.4 factor that is there for the purposes of lens distortion compensation (not needed with the Varjo Aero) could be used instead to increase the horizontal FOV, then you would necessarily have 40% wider FOV for exactly the same clarity (still just over 13 million pixels to push) and PC power requirements would remain exactly as they are. 
 

Make no mistake, my current specs do struggle sometimes on the Supercarrier and in Multiplayer yet for the mist part, I get pretty decent performance and hopefully with multi core arriving in two weeks it should all be blue skies and tailwinds

Edited March 9, 2022 by Willie Nelson

[Willie Nelson]

Bump

[DeltaMike]

F16 training using mixed reality

I was surprised so many are asking for wider FOV, I'd a thought better resolution would have been the call.  

Those things are working at cross purposes of course.  The key variable in VR clarity is pixels-per-degree, which is a function of how many physical pixels are present, what size the screen is, and how close to the eye the screen is.  

Apple's "retina display" is 60 pixels per degree, chosen because, according to their research, that's the point of diminishing returns.  People can perceive the difference between 30ppd and 60ppd, but they can't tell the difference between 60 and 90, for example.

The G2 and Pimax 8K display about 20ppd, the same as a 640x480 monitor.  Yes, they used to have those.  Anybody here old enough to remember the IBM PS/2?  Yeah.  That's where we are at.  To get there, your poor GPU has to drive over 9 million pixels, the equivalent of two 4K monitors. 

Of course I'd like to have it all.   60ppd and wider FOV.  But how do you brute-force that problem?  I have some experience building GPU servers (for mining) and feel that could be part of the solution.  AMD used to support dual-GPU setups for gaming, and they keep making noise about bringing it back for VR.  Easy for me to say, of course; I don't have to write the drivers.  

Varjo uses fancy optics to fuse two screens -- one tiny and high-res, the other big and low-res.  They hit the 60ppd mark in your central vision at least (which is fine), and according to reports is no harder to drive than a G2.  They also have the capability of doing foveated rendering, which I guess would be a requirement if you're gonna stretch the FOV.  Something tells me they are on the right track. 

-------------

Optimum?  For what?

I love the G2 for DCS, but it's about the last HMD I would buy to play Alyx or Lone Echo.  For those titles, or even for MSFS, I might settle for a wider FOV at the expense of central vision.  But not for DCS, where resolution is king.  You use central vision for spotting, or for deciphering those teeny tiny symbols on your MFD's.  To me that needs to be the priority. To the point where I don't think I would pay much extra for wider FOV.  Gimme the 60 ppd first, then we'll talk. 

But, that's how I play DCS. There are a lot of different ways to play the game, as evidenced by the shouting matches over on that other forum.  "It's a sim not a game!'   "Dude, it's a game."  Way I look at it, ya never know when you'll be called to fly a real F18.  Did you see Independence Day?  I dunno about you, but I'm gonna be ready.  Kick me some alien butt.   I think central vision helps me prepare.  YMMV.  

[Willie Nelson]

36 minutes ago, DeltaMike said:

Optimum?  For what?

I think you have answered your own question and mine too:

38 minutes ago, DeltaMike said:

Of course I'd like to have it all.   60ppd and wider FOV.  But how do you brute-force that problem?

The optimum PPD and FOV compromise for CPU and GPU power that is available this year without making the new standard a multi GPU requirement. 

Varjo has incorporated some novel ways to improve PPD in part and with greater performance than the Reverb but I am think better value would be the same PPD in the sweet spot as a Reverb and yet a wider FOV than both of them. I think it will be available one day but I am 48 years of age and I'd be hoping to see something that doesn't look like either a Rift CV1 or a scuba mask before I am dead.

[DeltaMike]

Wait what?  Smell-o-vision is real?

This is the grail we seek. Sort of, check the specs.  G2 resolution in wide screen mode, 60ppd in narrow mode.  What's another 11 grand, right

In other news, Texas A&M finally got the memo.  They should have visited ED forums first.  

Edited March 23, 2022 by DeltaMike

[mhe]

Basically an Aero including eyetracking and foveated rendering with the FOV of a Pimax in the form factor of an Arpara with Index Audio. I'll take two. 

Edited March 23, 2022 by mhe