Oculus Rift and DCS World Discussion

[CookPassBabtridge]

Has anyone tried Oculus with Nvidia GTX Titan Black? I have the GTX 680 4GB and wondering if my judder will be better with Titan Black or two 780ti in SLI mode. I haven't tried tweaking anything yet, but thought I'd ask in case someone has already tried it.

 

Talking to the guys over at the oculus forums, apparently DCS doesn't play nice with SLI at the moment without lots of tweaking (AFAIK). A few of them have got 780ti's and still come up against judder especially over towns where the frame rate dips.

 

The old "DCS is CPU limited" probably factors in here too, so if you have a 4.6GHz monster you will probably do better with that.

[CookPassBabtridge]

Oh, man, I have no issue with 99.99% games, but Half Life 2 made me want to die. Never could get through much of it back in the day. I read later it was because they used a 120 degree FOV or something and that there was a 'cheat' to change it to 90, but never tried. Maybe you can dig that up though and it will help. Given what it did with a monitor HL2 would probably make me flat out barf.

 

This made me chuckle.

 

The last sentence I mean, not the fact of your suffering :D

[Buznee]

@Buznee

 

Nice. I must still be doing something wrong, in your video it looks like you have 6DOF, how are you controlling that? I'm locked into pretty much L-R and UP-Down.

Belive it or not, but I think that's what is making me more nauseous.

 

I had the same problem. Try uninstalling the runtime sdk, restart, reinstall, restart. it should be beta 0.4.2 i believe. Make sure your rift is on extended mode and is in portrait view. Also make sure your monitor and the rift are at 75 hz. You can also try turning the rift on and off. anytime you change between primary and secondary it resets to 60 hz so double check. Go into task manager and services and stop the ovrservice. go into dcs, make sure vsync is off and i use nvidia inspector to set the fps limiter to 75. Also make sure your graphics are way low. I had to do that to garantee myself solid 75 fps. you can use fraps to confirm fps is solid on 75.

 

To enable mouse click functionality, which i dont always do because its a pain, go back to desktop while still in dcs and flying, go to nvidia control panel and set oculus as primary. again make sure both are still at 75 hz. its fun trying to navigate the windows menus in the rift... NoT!! Hopefully that helps.

[xaoslaad]

Heres the info. Guess it was 75 not 120, which exaggerates motion.

 

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Field_of_View

[digitaljjd]

Word of advise, don't intentionally try to make yourself sick in the Rift. Hey guys I figured it out. I fired everything up and it worked. Was like WTF? Closed out and got the 4 DOF thing again. What I have noticed is the DK1 legacy deal keeps checking itself somehow after I exit DCS (force ably close icon on desktop) not through the DCS exit. When this is off the tracking works after pause...but somehow comes back on again and since I never really looked at it again after pausing (I did notice yesterday it kept coming on) but didn't put 2 and 2 together. Works now I'll just have to go into it every time before opening DCS.

[hansangb]

For those of you getting motion sickness, remember that Ginger is just as (if not more) effective than commercial pills.

 

hsb

[hansangb]

Talking to the guys over at the oculus forums, apparently DCS doesn't play nice with SLI at the moment without lots of tweaking (AFAIK). A few of them have got 780ti's and still come up against judder especially over towns where the frame rate dips.

 

The old "DCS is CPU limited" probably factors in here too, so if you have a 4.6GHz monster you will probably do better with that.

 

Thank you. I'll keep an eye out and see what happens with EDGE - yeah, right! :)

[CookPassBabtridge]

For those of you getting motion sickness, remember that Ginger is just as (if not more) effective than commercial pills.

 

hsb

 

Whilst i wouldn't want to put anyone off trying it, and I can understand why people are leery of taking meds, the National Institute of health compiled the results from a number of separate studies and lists ginger as "Possibly not effective" for motion sickness due to the mixed results available.

 

With respects to it being better than meds, one study found it superior to dimenhydrate at reducing stomach related symptoms, but it will not stack up against drugs like cinnarazine or hyoscine for overall motion sickness symptoms of the type found with the rift.

 

By all means try it, as it has arguably less side effects, however if it doesn't work, please don't do what some folks have done and feel like you need to abandon your rift. Acclimitisation to VR can occur very rapidly and there is no reason to believe you will be taking meds for any great length of time.

Edited September 14, 2014 by CookPassBabtridge

[CookPassBabtridge]

Thank you. I'll keep an eye out and see what happens with EDGE - yeah, right! :)

 

Hehe yeah we can hope :music_whistling:

[doveman]

Games like first person shooters that feature a lot of strafing are especially powerful sickness inducers in the rift, because the movements are unnatural. Your brain expects an associated g-force on your body and vestibular system (a trip down the the oool' ear canal :D ) and of course you don't get any, seated in your study / bedroom etc. Its the opposite of motion sickness, where your eyes say "no movement" and your vestibular system says "I'm rockin' about like an angry colt".

 

Half Life 2 is really bad for this because of its "ice skating" effect. If you suddenly backpedal from an enemy, it feels like someone just squeezed your brain, and after a while you start to feel cold, sweaty and sick.

 

Thanks for the info, very interesting.

 

Yeah, I remember HL2 being really bad for this, made me all clammy and nauseous if I played it too long but so have quite a few games :puke:

[doveman]

Whilst i wouldn't want to put anyone off trying it, and I can understand why people are leery of taking meds, the National Institute of health compiled the results from a number of separate studies and lists ginger as "Possibly not effective" for motion sickness due to the mixed results available.

 

With respects to it being better than meds, one study found it superior to dimenhydrate at reducing stomach related symptoms, but it will not stack up against drugs like cinnarazine or hyoscine for overall motion sickness symptoms of the type found with the rift.

 

By all means try it, as it has arguably less side effects, however if it doesn't work, please don't do what some folks have done and feel like you need to abandon your rift. Acclimitisation to VR can occur very rapidly and there is no reason to believe you will be taking meds for any great length of time.

 

I remember my Mum gave me some ginger drink before a school trip in a minibus once, as it was supposed to help with travel sickness.

 

Man, I don't think I'd ever barfed so much before. Luckily they managed to stop the minibus in time for me to jump out and use a hedge :)

[phant]

 

 

Nice video Buznee, you are a very skilled pilot!

 

Feel of flight and presence inside cockpit are great: which are the differences about TrackIR vs OR in your opinion?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Bye

Phant

[AndyHill]

I did some testing with the Oculus Rift DK1 in DCS and I thought I'd write about it on the simulator forums I frequent (since I was really curious about reading about OR myself earlier), but it ended up becoming a pretty major story so I turned it into a blog post. If you're interested in my experiences with the device and my infinitely wise assessment of its potential, check out this post: http://anttiilomaki.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/oculus-rift-in-simulator-gaming-potentially-the-most-disruptive-tech-since-trackir/

[metalnwood]

I haven't done any dogfighting in the rift with DCS. I just tried the p51 vs 109.

 

Just found the biggest problem with the rift and dogfighting. You need a tight set of headphones. My g35's are not up to the task. Every time I get in a dogfight they end up falling behind my back. The range of movement is so different from trackir that they wont stay on.

 

On the plus side following the aircraft is much more natural than with TIR but seeing right behind you is more of an issue of course.

[FIN_Centurion1]

I did some testing with the Oculus Rift DK1 in DCS and I thought I'd write about it on the simulator forums I frequent (since I was really curious about reading about OR myself earlier), but it ended up becoming a pretty major story so I turned it into a blog post. If you're interested in my experiences with the device and my infinitely wise assessment of its potential, check out this post: http://anttiilomaki.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/oculus-rift-in-simulator-gaming-potentially-the-most-disruptive-tech-since-trackir/

 

A very good article, and very well written too! You have some very good points, and this goes pretty much along with my perceptions even though I haven't even had a chance to try OR yet.

 

Perhaps one potential solution to the "gauge read at low res" problem is to present a small-ish but readable text in the bottom of the FOV that gives the readout of the gauge if you look directly at a gauge?

 

Anyways, I am really looking forward to the Rift CV1 for my simming. I could not care less how much better or worse it would make me perform in competetive multiplayer dogfights, I want to feel like I am flying an actual combat jet and so far the OR might be our best hope yet to achieve that end.

[AndyHill]

Personally I'm all for immersion and that's why I was so interested in giving the Rift a go even though I of course knew beforehand that it's not currently in a usable state. I've got quite a bit of hardware, but its purpose is not to make me better (I gave up on that a long time ago) but make flying more pleasant and more immersive. That's why it was kind of surprising to see how much the Rift improved my flying abilities (at least in some ways).

 

As for being able to read gauges I think your idea does have some merit at looking at gauges should be pretty easy already with the improved DK2 tracking (which I haven't tested myself). However, I don't think it's going to be enough to make the Rift usable in the long run. For the purposes of this test I forgave the awful resolution (because it's not the point at the moment), but for real use you are going to need much more resolution than it has right now, even just to really feel the immersion. Even at the point where you are able to read gauges and HUD comfortably you won't see out extremely well so I'm not sure if it's good enough to consider the Rift baseline usable at that point, but my guesstimation is that it will be. Luckily I also think that that kind of performance just might be attainable with the best screens available for the consumer version, but that remains to be seen.

 

If you have a chance to try out the rift in a simulator or just get a ride in one of the demos I suggest you try it out. It's a really interesting experience even though it's not close to being ready for everyday use.

[hansangb]

Nice video Buznee, you are a very skilled pilot!

Feel of flight and presence inside cockpit are great: which are the differences about TrackIR vs OR in your opinion?

Thanks in advance!

Bye

Phant

 

 

In my opinion, TrackIR is a convenience thing. But TrackIR and Rift are completely different animals. For example, One of the things that I hated about flying sims was the lack of feedback to fly in close formation. I would always find myself over flying, or under flying with the formation. With Rift, it's much much easier because you can fly *and* look at your wingman. Your brain understands this with Rift. And the sensation of flying is much greater with Rift. For example, I flew under the power lines in Huey, and it didn't take that much effort. The 3D view really helps with spatial awareness that's so critical in sims. Also, landing is much much much much easier with Rift. Again, it's that spatial awareness and sense of speed, and outside world relative to the aircraft that Rift brings to the table. Yes it's jittery, yes the resolution is not that great, but in terms of "feeling like you're there" it's second to none.

 

thanks,

hsb

[Hadwell]

While it is easier to look behind you with TrackIR, it's less natural when you're just trying to look forwards, need nearly, if not, a deadzone so that you can keep your crosshair centered, and it's harder to keep a target exactly centered.

 

With the DK2, its very natrual, you just look at the target and the only real way to lose it is to have it go underneath something, yeah it's a bit more effort cause you really need to look around, but on the same note you look around the same way you do in real life, so it's a lot easier to keep track of what your looking at, that mixed with depth perception, makes it much MUCH easier to spot targets against the ground, lower resolution or not...

 

that said, easier to spot targets, but harder to ID them, because of lack of detail at any distance.

 

all in all, I'd use the DK2 only, if it worked multiplayer and they increased the font size for the chat box, and allowed me to use the FOV slider on my stick so i can zoom in on displays and stuff.

Edited September 16, 2014 by Hadwell

[streakeagle]

Presently, even DK2 comes at a resolution penalty. If it isn't at least 60 Hz fps at 1920x1080p (per eye!) (which is still a bit low for me as a former 1920x1200 fan), I am not flying it. With 4K screens (1920x2160 per eye?) and an affordable video card that could drive that resolution without any fps loss, I would be all over OR. Until then, TIR and a big screen monitor is my preferred solution.

[Buznee]

Nice video Buznee, you are a very skilled pilot!

 

Feel of flight and presence inside cockpit are great: which are the differences about TrackIR vs OR in your opinion?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Bye

Phant

 

I appreciate the compliment =)

 

Here's my honest opinion so far. I started with freetrack with the wiimote and a custom IR hat. I then moved on to trackir which had a much better IR camera and was more robust. It was great to be able to immersive myself in the environment by using my head to control the view. Dogfighting and searching for targets was really neat. I used it for a bit but had a couple a things that bothered me. It gives you some bad habits, you start to do funny things with your eyes. You basically train yourself to keep your eyes on an object while you turn your head. Believe it or not, I found myself doing the same thing while I was driving or flying in real life! How nuts is that? Another thing I didn't like about TrackIR was the fact that you have to keep your head really still to be able to click on switches and this strained my neck quite a bit. I know that you can disable the tracking and enable the tracking when clicking the stuff but I didn't like the fact that I had to do that in game. It was just another thing to worry about. It made me think, this is really screwing me up and if I'm trying to use certain hardware to improve the realism this is not really doing it... So I went back to the good ol' hat switch. Yeah, I know you probably think I'm crazy...

 

Sooo along comes Oculus VR. Very exciting. First time I hook it up and get running on DCS it ends up stuck without positional tracking. This kinda threw me off a bit because my brain was telling me I was translating a bit and it wasn't captured. So I get that fixed but now I run into another issue... Judder. It is such a terrible thing. You are looking straight ahead, everything looks smooth and then you go to move your head and you get this vertical tearing slideshow and it is really disorienting and distracting as can be. After a bit of research I learn that I have to get my framerates at 75 fps for this sim to look smooth. I lower the graphics to minimum and use NVidia inspector to limit my framerates to 75 fps. Much nicer now. Again setup is HUGE for a proper VR experience. You have to take the time and measure your IPD for your eyes and configure your profile in the oculus utility. You also have to get your offset distance based off the setting you dial on the headset. Unfortunately I doubt this is currently implemented in DCS because you have to disable the OVRService to run DCS with Oculus and this information is supposed to be transferred through the OVRService. I noticed that things look smaller than they should in the cockpit because I have my offset maxed out. I do this because it's more comfortable having the lenses farther away from your eyes and it gives you slightly more pixel density at the cost of reduction in field of view. The software supposed to account for this and adjust your field of view so that things continue to look the right scale, but if OVRService is not being used by DCS, it will settle to a default. Because of this everything I see in the cockpit looks ever so slightly out of scale. I know this because I have the Thrustmaster warthog and when I look at the stick and throttles through the oculus and compare them to my controls they are about 25% smaller scale or so. I'm sure this will be fixed once DCS begins to use the OVRService. ED plans on adding better DK2 support soon but caution on playing for too long in it's current state because it's not using the correct IPD and offset which can really screw with your eyes and possibly cause you to go cross eyed.

 

...So as is with the best setup I can do for DCS, the smoothness of the view and the fact that it is in 3D and surrounds your field of view, it is incredibly immersive. No longer does it feel like you are playing on a pc running the sim. It literally feels like you are IN the world. Everything pops out at you naturally. I have a center stick mount and have a custom collective I built with the Saitek pedals as well. It is important to try and setup your controls in the same general location as the heli or aircraft you are flying. This is because in the game you feel like you want to grab the control in the virtual environment and if they are not where you see them, it will throw you off. Having them in the right spot though is very rewarding and again, immersive. Once you use Ctrl+shift numpad keys to center yourself in the right position you feel like you really are sitting in the aircraft and grabbing the aircraft controls. I've never felt anything like that before. It is insane. The resolution is low and the effect is similar to having bad vision. You have to lean forward to the instruments to try to read them but most of the time you get so close to them that you can't focus on them because your eyes are literally cross-eyed so I ended up just accepting that I could not read some of the stuff. Helo flying is great for this though since most of the flying you do is looking outside and nearby. As compared to TrackIR the Rift is much more in tune to reality and feels much more natural, you look where you want to go and your eyes also do their natural thing, scanning etc. Also because the movement is 1 to 1 the sensitivity is much lower as compared to TrackIR. Keeping your head still to click on switches is no big deal and not straining at all. Also the fact that things don't get magnified in the distance when you lean forward means that you can lean back in your seat and relax. Much more comfortable. You also move your head and body much more which honestly relieves tension. You become much more dynamic. Probably looking quite silly to anyone looking from the outside world at your animated body sitting with an empty desktop screen in front of you. Which reminds me, currently for many of the games that support DK2, when you run the game it does not show up on your main monitor, therefore anyone that is watching you play cannot see what you are seeing making it quite akward and boring for your guest. There is a temporary solution that I found. If you download "Open Broadcast", It allows you to preview whatever you are recording and use whatever source you like. I've used this software to basically show on the main monitor what is being shown on the rift. I'm hoping ED implements this feature and gives you the option of cloning your rift image onto your monitor. Also the main menus do not work on the rift properly and are quite a headache to navigate. Again I'm sure ED is implementing this in EDGE since I heard EDGE will be a single executable for both the menu and the sim itself. Even with removal of most of the judder, and being centered properly in the cockpit, I do seem to have some negative side effects from using VR. It is not VR sickness since I feel like just fine, but after using it my eyes and mind feel like a little bit out of calibration. Almost like I've been on a boat for a while and I've lost my balance a bit. Also I have a little bit trouble focusing on things. It may just be that DCS is not using the biometric properties from the Oculus service and is throwing me off but it isn't fun. Huge potential but word of caution, it's a work in progress and it can make you sick even if's set up properly. The fact that you see motion and don't feel it is something that you won't be able to fix unless you also decide to build a full motion sim. Good luck! hah.

Edited September 16, 2014 by Buznee

[metalnwood]

Presently, even DK2 comes at a resolution penalty. If it isn't at least 60 Hz fps at 1920x1080p (per eye!) (which is still a bit low for me as a former 1920x1200 fan), I am not flying it.

 

It doesnt really work the same way as monitors. I understand where you are coming from with monitors, I liked the 16:10 (1920x1200) monitors over the 16:9 (1920x1080) monitors but this aspect of it is not very relevant.

 

It does require more resolution though. You need to try one and you may very well not like it because of the resolution but you may very well decide that the resolution is not going to be the final determining factor all things considered.

[CookPassBabtridge]

Is there a separate DK2 problems thread? I am guessing not as there is the impending update...

 

However, the cockpit shaking issue seems to have come back again for me, having thought I had solved it by moving the camera further away and slightly above. It was last night with the Huey, even looking straight forward at the camera its as though the entire cockpit model twitches under me by about 6 inches in a random direction.

 

I found a few other people on the net having the same issue, and its separate to judder which is a stuttering between frames during head movement. In judder, the cockpit model stays still, but there's a lack of sync between the frames each eye sees causing a 'dragging' as the head moves. This shaking however is different and as stated the whole cockpit model is moving and seems especially linked with maneuvering.

 

I had thought it was camera bounds, but it can't be as its happening when facing forwards. Obviously I can't test with another computer though to be sure its not frame rate linked, but I would be surprised if it is as it seems random. I can fly over the same terrain and it will be fine one day, then awful the next.

 

I even experimented with turning the lamp off in my room in case it was confusing the camera or something :huh: Could it be picking up my warthog LED's?

 

I get it whether rift is primary or not in my config, and I am running 0.4.2. Specs below :)

Edited September 16, 2014 by CookPassBabtridge

[Buznee]

yeah my only thought would be a IR issue. Is there maybe a mirror behind you or glossy surface that may be reflecting the IR light from the headset back to the camera?

[aeliusg]

Is there a separate DK2 problems thread? I am guessing not as there is the impending update...

 

However, the cockpit shaking issue seems to have come back again for me, having thought I had solved it by moving the camera further away and slightly above. It was last night with the Huey, even looking straight forward at the camera its as though the entire cockpit model twitches under me by about 6 inches in a random direction.

 

I found a few other people on the net having the same issue, and its separate to judder which is a stuttering between frames during head movement. In judder, the cockpit model stays still, but there's a lack of sync between the frames each eye sees causing a 'dragging' as the head moves. This shaking however is different and as stated the whole cockpit model is moving and seems especially linked with maneuvering.

 

I had thought it was camera bounds, but it can't be as its happening when facing forwards. Obviously I can't test with another computer though to be sure its not frame rate linked, but I would be surprised if it is as it seems random. I can fly over the same terrain and it will be fine one day, then awful the next.

 

I even experimented with turning the lamp off in my room in case it was confusing the camera or something :huh: Could it be picking up my warthog LED's?

 

I get it whether rift is primary or not in my config, and I am running 0.4.2. Specs below :)

 

I think the cockpit shake is a whole separate issue. I mean the terrain doesn't shake with it...

[CookPassBabtridge]

I think the cockpit shake is a whole separate issue. I mean the terrain doesn't shake with it...

 

Exactly. It seems odd that there's only a few folks experiencing it. At the moment I am trying to just ignore it. Kinda makes your eyes go funny though lol