PSVR2 to PCVR is releasing today.

[RealDCSpilot]

6 hours ago, Marklar said:

Sony decided not to implement it, same with HDR.

About HDR, there is not a single PCVR game out there supporting HDR output. It wouldn't make much sense for Sony to "implement it". The capability is in the hardware, so never say never. However, Valve is cooking on something with HDR strings in SteamVR's code. But that could just mean nothing. In the end, developers need to implement HDR in their game anyway. We might get emulation through certain hacks earlier, but that still would not meet the quality of native HDR.

Edited August 9, 2024 by RealDCSpilot

[LucShep]

7 minutes ago, RealDCSpilot said:

About HDR, there is not a single PCVR game out there supporting HDR output. It wouldn't make much sense for Sony to "implement it". The capability is in the hardware, so never say never. 

Besides, I'm not so sure the motion clarity would be that great with HDR (some blur when moving your head around, like we do in DCS) if implemented in the PSVR2 for PC.

[Marklar]

23 minutes ago, RealDCSpilot said:

About HDR, there is not a single PCVR game out there supporting HDR output.

Of course there is not, because we don't have a headset that supports it.

MSFS has HDR in pancake mode and looks amazing on my OLED monitor. It should not be a big problem to output stereoscopic video in higher dynamic range. I guess...

[tn_prvteye]

Well, I got my adapter.  After fiddling forever I got it to work with DCS.  Aaaaaaaand...it was okay.  Coming from a Reverb G2, it's a bit of a side-step.  But I kinda knew this going in since I play PS5 games on it.  Yes the colors are more vibrant, and the FOV may be a smidge larger, but not much else.  The "Sweet-Spot" seemed a bit bigger compared to the G2, but overall seemed a little blurrier.  

 

I couldn't get it to work with UEVR (which I use to play Mechwarrior 5), so that's a deal breaker for replacing the G2 for now.

 

My useless opinion?  If you already have a G2, don't go out and get a PSVR2.  I got mine for my PS5 and enjoy thoroughly.  I'll hang on to the Adapter in case they decide to include foveated rendering for PC, or the UEVR guys get it working.

 

When the G2 finally dies (or MS bricks it), I'll probably look into the Pimax Crystal Light as my Sim replacement headset.

 

And that's my TED talk.

[RealDCSpilot]

Let's put it this way. The PSVR2 has basically the VR HMD features i wished for after 2019. The year when VR took a sidestep and almost all HMDs switched to LCD. It's more of a highend successor to the HTC Vive Pro. Much better OLED panels with more pixels and more FOV, without being a brick on your forehead (that's why Pimax's form factor will never be an option for me).

The Pico 4 and the G2 have both 2160 pixels horizontally, but lower FOV (104° and 98°). That results in slightly higher pixels per degree (~20 ppd and ~22 ppd). The PSVR2 comes with 110° and a resulting 18 ppd. The one really gamechanging thing about the PSVR2 in DCS for me is the big comeback of OLED panels for PCVR and how they change my night mission capabilities and experience. I basically avoided night time actions more or less because of the poor LCD panels since i had the Valve Index. Now i'm back into business and holy sh!t does it look gorgeous.

In the end the PSVR2 is another small step in VR device history. It's not perfect but brings enough improved stuff on the table. Pros and Cons as always. I will be finally happy when we reach 3800x3800 pixels per eye and minimum of ~140° FOV with HDR and eyetracking working on OLED or QLED or whatever new display tech in a comfortable small device at a reasonable price.
That will take a while, but i'm still enjoying the journey since 2014 (Oculus Devkit 1).

Edited August 10, 2024 by RealDCSpilot

[AlpineGTA]

I've seen mention that the PSVR2 was on sale recently in the US for $350. It seems a bit of a PCVR bargain for that price. I'll have to keep a look out if it goes on sale again.

[Morat]

18 hours ago, AlpineGTA said:

I've seen mention that the PSVR2 was on sale recently in the US for $350. It seems a bit of a PCVR bargain for that price. I'll have to keep a look out if it goes on sale again.

Well exactly. Between that and some Amazon vouchers I had from work, I got a PSVR2 for £175 plus anothe 60 Euros for the adapter (inc delivery from amazon.de). So if it's as good as the G2 I'll be very happy. If it's significantly worse at least I'm not taking a punt on something high end that might be really uncomfortable or just not suit me.
It's a gamble and I know it won't be as sharp as a G2 in the middle but if it's sharp enough and makes a pretty image while being OK on my head - good times.

Edited August 12, 2024 by Morat

[tn_prvteye]

If you DO decide to go the PSVR2 route, these two products are a must have.  One makes it much more comfortable, and the other replaces the crap earbuds provided by Sony:

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CBJY4DR2

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C9CWQJH5/

 

World of difference from stock.

[Morat]

I have just flown DCS for the first time in PSVR2. I liked it!

Yes, it's not quite as sharp as the G2, but it's perfectly good enough to read all the text and dials in the cockpits with ease. There is a noticeable SDE or Mura or whatever it is that makes the image look a bit grainy but it's not at all bad. The tracking is faultless, which couldn't be said of my G2 and I do love the natural colours. I did find it extremely bright so I turned it down to 80% brightness. I also like the comfort and the FoV is definitely better for me. As for the lenses, I prefer them as I was able to read more of the F14 cockpit without having to move my head as the sweetspot is larger.

Is it the ultimate VR headset? No, but for what I paid it's a good step and I'm happy.

 

The important settings for me were to switch off reprojection, which was awful and made everything look like jelly. The other was to adjust the play area so it didn't intrude in the cockpit. If there's a way to switch off the play area fence when playing seated games, let me know!

The only thing I need to investigate right now is a weird FPS cap at 40 FPS. FPS for the headset is at 90, and I was able to reach that easily in the G2. Maybe this is a SteamVR -> OpenXR thing but I got 40 FPS everywhere in Caucasaus and 40 FPS nearly everywhere in the Marianas unless I was low and fast over the island when it dropped a bit to about 33 FPS min. With the G2 I got 90 FPS unless I was low over a town using the same ingame settings. (13700/4080).  To the Googles!

[RealDCSpilot]

@Morat Check SteamVR settings, Play Area. There you can switch off the area fence and let the boundary only be rendered on the ground. I also had the FPS cap and checked motion smoothing off and messed around with throttling behaviour in Video settings / per app settings. Can't tell atm, don't remember exactly.
For general image sharpness, if you have used the HMD on a PS5 before you have a slight advantage. On the Playstation you can dial in your eye distance pretty exactly because of the eye tracking and also find the perfect position where the HMD has to sit on your head. This makes finding the sweet spot so much easier. In PCVR you really have to take your time here, play with the eye distance wheel and slightly move the HMD on your head and check how the sharpness of the image changes.

Edited August 13, 2024 by RealDCSpilot

[Morat]

46 minutes ago, RealDCSpilot said:

@Morat Check SteamVR settings, Play Area. There you can switch off the area fence and let the boundary only be rendered on the ground. I also had the FPS cap and checked motion smoothing off and messed around with throttling behaviour in Video settings / per app settings. Can't tell atm, don't remember exactly.
For general image sharpness, if you have used the HMD on a PS5 before you have a slight advantage. On the Playstation you can dial in your eye distance pretty exactly because of the eye tracking and also find the perfect position where the HMD has to sit on your head. This makes finding the sweet spot so much easier. In PCVR you really have to take your time here, play with the eye distance wheel and slightly move the HMD on your head and check how the sharpness of the image changes.

 

Awesome, thank you! I don't have a PS-5 but I'll check out your advice.

[Morat]

Well a few patches later and after messing around... I'm very pleased with the clarity now. I can run the F-14 at the default resolutions and the beaten up cockpit looks excellent. Everything is easily legible. I had some issues with aliasing. MSAA wasn't great. It worked fine in the G2 but with the PSVR2 it still struggled with fences and hangars when on the ground. In the end I went with DLSS which, to my surprise, works quite well.
As for performance, I get 60FPS everywhere even on the supercarrier flight deck. This is a bit annoying as the FPS setting in steam is 120FPS and it means that reprojection must be enabled somewhere even though I've switched it off wherever I can find it. If I switch to 90 FPS I get 45 FPS on the deck so... I guess I can't quite push 90 FPS at my settings. I'd really like to get rid of motion reprojection as I can see the very slight ghosting as I turn my head. I can live with variable FPS if 60 is the floor value and I'd like to see if the micro blurring goes away without it.

[AlpineGTA]

Since the PSVR2 is currently on sale again for $350 I thought I'd order one from Amazon and see how it compares to my G2. I can always send it back if I don't like it. It should arrive on Thursday.

[WindyTX]

I bought a PSVR definitely a downgrade from a G2 using a 2080ti , there is a distinct screen door effect vs a G2 the OLEDS are nice otherwise bright and very saturated colours.  I bought it cos my Motherboard bust and 24H2 wont run WMR.  I  am on the list for Pimax Super so this will do till that arrives but overall worse than a G2 , oh I also have a PS5

[AlpineGTA]

My PSVR2 arrived yesterday and my initial impressions were not positive.

Firstly, I was surprised how uncomfortable I found it. I expected it to be a lot more comfortable. Particularly when looking up and the weight of the headset shifts I could feel the hard plastic pressing into my head and nose through the face pad.

Secondly, the mura was very noticeable and the image was very blurry and stuttering. So not off to a good start.

But after some tweaking, I managed to get the headset sat a bit more comfortably. I know everyone seems to rave about the Globular Cluster mod but I'm not yet sure whether I want to spend more money on this or send it back. And after some fiddling with the Steam VR and other settings I got the image looking sharper and smoother, although it does seem to suffer from more jaggedness and flickering than my G2 and I can't completely eliminate the stutters. I was running my G2 at a nice sharp and smooth 60Hz without any upscaling.

But, I then tried a quick free flight night mission and wow! I was seeing stars twinkling in the sky that I never knew were there before! Also, because of the better contrast and more vivid colours I was seeing external detail of my aircraft and the terrain in the dark that I just couldn't see before, although, unfortunately the mura is more visible at night when looking at the sky. It feels like you're wearing a goldfish bowl type space helmet as you move your head around. However, the more I played and tried different scenarios the less I was noticing the mura. I think your eyes eventually adjust to it somewhat.

So at the moment I'm undecided whether or not to keep it and order the Globular Cluster mod to fix the comfort. I switched back to the G2 to compare and although it felt nice and smooth and sharp again, flying the same night missions everything just looked grey. I could no longer see nearly as many stars nor the detail outside of my aircraft and terrain. I was flying past hillsides that I just couldn't see in a sea of grey that were beautifully silhouetted against a night sky in the PSVR2. Like @RealDCSpilot has said, those OLED panels hard to give up once you've tried them.

Other nice to haves over the G2 are the larger FOV and the passthrough, which although only grainy black & white is useful if you want to locate something without lifting the headset.

I'll spend a few more days tweaking to see if I can get it running as smoothly as my G2 but that might be difficult on my current system without upgrading.

 

[AlpineGTA]

Well, after more tinkering I've decided I'll be sending it back. Even with everything on low I can't get it to run stutter free. As nice as it is, I'd rather have a nice smooth experience than nice twinkly stars on a deep black sky. Not having to use SteamVR, good integrated speakers, no mura, sharper image and good comfort also swing it in favour of the trusty old G2, which I'll be sticking with until it no longer works. And then I'll see what else is on the market when that time comes.

[PryingMantis]

Grateful for any assistance someone can provide to help me get this PSVR2 running properly. I moved from the Reverb G2 and the visuals are amazing and the lightweight is a godsend. Unfortunately I am getting severe stuttering and jankiness near any city areas, low to the ground with high terrain and lots of trees, or near airfields with a multitude of assets. I have tweaked the settings repeatedly, and even if I eliminate most of the stuttering with reduced visual settings in DCS (far below what I had the G2 at), as soon as I try multiplayer is it entirely unusable. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
 

 

[correca]

Check the resolution in SteamVR. The default is too high, I think 4020 x 4100 per eye.

[PryingMantis]

@correca thank you for your assistance. I was able to get the motion to smooth out. Frame rate is still pretty low, no where near what I was running with the Reverb. 45 FPS is the average if I switch Steam VR to 120 HZ. If I use 90 HZ I can get it to spike higher, but the visuals are very blurry.

1. Do you have a specific per eye resolution you can recommend?

2. With stuttering mostly reduced (occassional with head turn to the side low to the ground looking at buildings), I am still getting a mirage effect on the buildings and ground. Like a shimmer. Any ideas?

I am using DLSS at the moment as that seemed better performance for this than what I was using for the Reverb.

[correca]

You can start with a resolution of 2800 x 2856 and go up from there to improve the view in the sweet spot area. I personally use DLAA together with Fixed Foveated Rendering thanks to mbucchia's Quad-Views-Foveated utility.

[PryingMantis]

Thanks for the tips.

[PryingMantis]

Still having trouble getting this helmet running. Cchasing my tail. I've followed @correca your tips and seen no major change. Appreciate your attempts though. I've gone through all the settings following VR guides and various tips for general settings and what taxes the system more before even posting here, and in the past couple weeks I've gone through it several more times trying to tweak things and find the right mix.

All drivers are up to date. Bios is up to date. Uninstalled and reinstalled PSVR software and Steam VR. Sony is unwilling to look into the issue. ED has no experience with this helmet. Any help someone who has it working can provide is appreciated. Feel free to DM if easier.

I came from a Reverb G2. The first 500 hours in DCS I was on an AMD Ryzen 5. I am now on a Ryzen 7 5800x with 64GB of RAM. Same GPU - 3070ti.  This allowed me to get even more out of the Reverb. The PSVR2 looks great and the colors pop, but it runs like absolute trash compared with the Reverb. It runs worse than the Reverb did on the Ryzen 5. ONLY ON DCS. I've had no issues with other software. This helmet has newer hardware, uses DP2.0 Cable vs USB. Is it just not optimized? Am I missing some key setting? With the Reverb I was able to sustain 70 to 80 FPS in multiplayer and here I'm struggling to break 40 under the easiest map conditions.
 

Here are some issues I cannot comprehend:

1. Changing settings in Steam VR and DCS have bizarre effects. SteamVR is stabilized and once I set the resolution to 2800x2856 nothing else seems to effect the FPS once DCS is running.

2. Turning Shadows 'OFF' caused performance to decrease vs Flat-Only setting.

3. Lowering the Preload radius had the most drastic effect on the FPS in a positive way. Using a KA-50 in Sinai Instant Action 'launching from helipad', dropping the Preload from 10000 to 100 took the FPS from 4 or 5 to 30. This I can understand, but the shadows had the opposite effect as well as Anisotropic Filtering going from 16x down to 8x dumped the FPS back to 4 to 5.

4. Turning off the Force DCS Resolution increased performance slightly.

5. Turning off Force IPD also had a slight increase in FPS.

Any ideas as to what I am missing here? I have textures low, shadows Flat-Only. Using DLSS. Tried switching from DLAA to MSAA to test but DCS keeps resetting it back to DLAA on me.

Thanks in advance.
 

Edited February 17 by PryingMantis

[correca]

Playing DCS with VR headsets is always a compromise between performance and graphics quality and the latter is very subjective.

Your system is similar to mine except that my GPU is more powerful and I can play at an acceptable quality with around 60 fps.

I'm not an expert on this subject as I started playing VR games with the Playstation PSVR2 last autumn but if you want, @PryingMantis, you can contact me on Discord with the same nick and we can exchange ideas.

 

[Morat]

My experience has been positive and I'm keeping this HMD for this generation. I get a very steady 60FPS unless I use F10 too often and then I get dropped to 20 or so which is grim, but clearly a DCS issue and not limited to the PSVR2.

Comfort with the Globular Cluster mods is really good.

The only HMD I would consider now is https://en.shiftall.net/products/meganex8k but I'd need more CPU (from 13700) and probably more GPU (from 4080) to run it and it's already super expensive.

I'm going to call VR done for now and look at FFB next.

[PryingMantis]

@Morat thanks for the affirmation on the helmet. Agreed 100%. @correcahas been a huge help and we were able to get the PSVR2 running on my machine with solid FPS even under the more taxing conditions, e.g. KA-50 helipad launch in Cairo on Sinai map. This was running at 5 FPS on average before the setting adjustments and now around 40FPS. Officially tested on a multiplayer server last night as well, with success.

I will try to post some helpful tips for others who choose this helmet, but in the interim I would highly recommend the quad-view foveated rendering mod available on github. There were other important settings to get it to work, but this was what brought it up to speed to run 50-60 FPS vs the 30-40FPS I was able to attain with SteamVR and DCS settings.

Now that it is running, I can definitely recommend this helmet as a low cost and comfortable alternative to the Reverb G2 until some better helmets come out. Especially since the Reverb is going to be bricked soon.

Edited February 24 by PryingMantis