Recommendations

[Chubster]

OK, i may be thinking about getting a VR headset, what would be your recommendations based on my spec ?

Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core CPU (3.7GHz-4.6GHz/35MB CACHE/AM4)

32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 16GB)

12GB AMD RADEON™ RX 6700 XT - HDMI, DP - DX® 12

If I have to sacrifice visuals, massively just to run it then I'd probably stick with head tracking 

[DeltaMike]

Oh you're gonna get a pretty picture.   It'll blow you away actually.  Just keep in mind, tuning your rig for VR is a bit more subtle than just slapping all the sliders all the way to the right. You may find, for example, that running low terrain textures, and low or standard clouds looks about the same but makes the rig run a lot smoother.   We'll help you with that and there are plenty of tuning guides available.  Rest assured, it'll be awesome.  

What you're mainly giving up with VR, as opposed to flat screen, is resolution.  Spotting distance, instrument visibility, etc.   Best way to mitigate that is to run your headset at its native resolution.  With that in mind, 6700xt is a good, but not a great GPU for VR.  It could use a bit more horsepower and quite a bit more memory bandwidth.  I'd be cautious about biting off too much. 

If you look at the G2 for example, which is very popular in DCS, you need to be able to drive about 9.3 million pixels.  Not sure I'd be eager to tackle that with much less than a 3080/6900XT.  

Quest2 "only" has 7m pixels and might be a better match for your GPU.  I used to have a Rift S and found Oculus software (ahem... Meta) to be slick and friendly to the new user.  You get native support in DCS.  It's also cheap. 

I'd also look at Pimax 5K, which has 7.3m pixels.  You'll get less resolution in your central vision, so instruments won't be quite as sharp, but you might like the wide field of view, which I understand is very immersive.  The software is going to be an order of magnitude more complex but it seems to work amazingly well with underpowered GPU's if you don't mind the extra layer of complexity.  

Either one will give you a stunning picture with your hardware.

VR puts a load on the CPU also, but you're in good shape there, you will be able to handle DLC like Raven One no problem.  Really heavy missions like Liberation or MP might require some adjustments (more RAM? 5800X3D?  Dedicated server?) but at least you have an upgrade path if you need it. 

[Chubster]

Many thanks for the replies. I'm looking at the quest 2 as I'm not sure how I will get on with VR....am I correct in saying that that needs a lead running to the pc, the pc is in a cupboard, or would it work through a USB port on my monitor, MSI mpg341cqr

[DeltaMike]

VR headsets tend to work best if plugged into a USB port direct to the motherboard, and they can be finicky, they may like one USB port fine and hate the one right next to it.  I think most people are using a physical cable for DCS; check that and factor that in to your price (that's what I was gonna do before I bailed and got a G2).  Take your PC out of the cupboard, it's gonna overheat and throttle.  

[Paul_Exotic]

Quest2 owner here, one thing to consider is that the Q2 will be running off Link(or AirLink/ Virtual Desktop) which needs to compress the image and send it to the quest which adds some overhead and relies heavily on your GPU's encoder performance.  Unfortunately, with AMD, that's one big disadvantage they have compared to Nvidia cards and could negatively impact or limit your experience should you go Q2 with your current GPU.  

If you were to go with something like a G2, Index or one of the other Windows Mixed Reality sets, they are essentially directly connected displays and there's no encoding overhead as there is with Link.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Paul_Exotic

[Burt]

Yeah I have my G2 hooked up to a Type C USB 3.2 Gen2. Transfer speed of 10Gbps 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Burt

[Burt]

But I think you will be good for VR with that gpu having 12gb of vram. I have heard people with Amd rigs have to use a usb hub. I would recommend the G2 and it’s new cable version that helped the red team either the G2 version 1 or V2.

[Chubster]

I ended up getting the quest 2 today as it was in stock, how impatient is that

[Burt]

That’s cool I know a few that enjoy the Q2. 

[Paul_Exotic]

3 hours ago, Chubster said:

I ended up getting the quest 2 today as it was in stock, how impatient is that

Congratulations! Some tips to help save you some time:

Oculus Debug Tool is your friend, and you will want to sign up for an Oculus(Meta?) Developer account so you can enable Developer Mode on the Q2 and use SideQuest which allows you to increase the resolution width of the Quest2 display. Also recommend VRPerfKit, which gives you better performance through Fixed Foveated Rendering as of the latest .3 version.  VRPerfKit also allows for Image Upscaling but I have it disabled in my config file as I get enough performance boost through FFR alone.

For an example of my settings in the Oculus Debug Tool, see below.  In the main Oculus app, (under Devices->Quest2-> Graphics Preferences) I have it at 72Hz and the resolution slider set all the way to the right.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Paul_Exotic

[DeltaMike]

hehe sucked another one in.  ain't no going back now.  

[Burt]

Haha ! Start neck yoga Good advice Paul !