Oculus Rift and DCS World Discussion

[Mnemonic]

So guys, to all who is curious about current Rift devkit, I just made a simple test. Just for the test purposes I made side-by-side output of the same image editing monitor setup lua. This image is not suitable by viewing in Rift in terms of stereo or even for 2D viewing (one need to apply offset to images to actually converge in the device, and apply barrel distortion).

 

But, I wanted to show you just how resolution (in one eyepiece) looks like on Rift devkit with 1280x800 panel (640x800 per eye), and how it affects gameplay.

 

Important - I set up in-game FOV to match Rift's FOV (or at least close to it). So - no zoom applied, as zoom is not suitable for RIFT (whole your vision zooms). Images are clickable, you can check original resolution.

 

So here are the photos made from actual Rift devkit. First I show you two steps, as I move my camera closer to lens - more of actual FOV you see (same for the eyes).

 

 

 

And here is how A-10C cockpit looks like (true FOV)

 

 

Now, if I position my camera as close as possible to MFCD, this is how it looks like:

 

 

Here is an input image of a HUD, what goes to Rift:

 

 

And the same image how it looks like in Rift (I moved my camera as close as I can to Rift lens, if you move your eyeball closer you will see a bit more around):

 

 

And CDU (moved position as close as I can in simulator with default camera limiters)

 

 

In Rift:

 

 

And here is Su-27 HUD from FC3 (actually readable)

 

 

These images are from current Rift devkit with 1280 x 800 panel, and they do look actually good for consumer-priced HMD. Now, if the panel will be 1920 x 1080, instead of 2 pixels we will see 3, will it be much better for DCS simming? I personally doubt. I would love to try UH-1H anyway, as it seems not that bad.

 

But it needs to become 4k rez in order to just start to be actually useful and beneficial. And there are not so many videocards out there currently suitable to render 4k, even more, do it in two viewports for stereo with 60 frames per second.

 

For sure we will get there, but I think it can take some more time.

[Robert1983NL]

Thanks for the clarification!

 

Like I thought, nice technology, but not suitable now and in the near future.

 

Maybe for DCS 3.0.0

[leonpo]

Thanks for the overview. I am waiting for my kit too. Did you try actually fly Huey? how is when you need to look outside and into the cockpit?

 

Leon

[Mnemonic]

Hi Leon, you are welcome. I didn't tried to actually fly, because this image is not converging when you look into Rift with both eyes (you would need to move center of both images closer to each other in order for it to work, because Rift doesn't have 100% overlap for left and right eye). But I hope to try Huey with proper stereoscopy, maybe using upcoming VorpX driver, if it will work with DCS.

[leonpo]

thanks. If i understand correctly, with proper rift support where image is warped for correct lense distortion before rendering into low resolution screen surface, center of the image will have more pixels making hud and instruments hopefully more readable.

 

Leon

[Cedaway]

Great overview.

By now, I think the best solution for the near future is a solution like THIS.

But it need a LOT of works and measurements...

[metalnwood]

Thanks for the clarification!

 

Like I thought, nice technology, but not suitable now and in the near future.

 

Maybe for DCS 3.0.0

 

 

Have you not read the thread? There has been recognition since day one of the dev kits that the resolution would not bee good enough to sell as a product.

 

Its like someone came here and vindicated your only view that the resolution was not good and thats the end of it.

 

The resolution is not the technology. How was the FOV for you?

 

You must remember you cant look at these screen shots on your desktop and say there is no FOV, triple is better. you have to imagine that everything is life size and consuming your view. To me, the look of the huey is entirely convincing of what you would see and how much of the cockpit you would see when sitting in one.

[Mnemonic]

Thanks for the link Cedaway - super awesome setup, but should produce hell of a heat :)

 

thanks. If i understand correctly, with proper rift support where image is warped for correct lense distortion before rendering into low resolution screen surface, center of the image will have more pixels making hud and instruments hopefully more readable.

True, with proper barrel distortion center of the screen will occupy a bit more pixel-space, so it should be a bit better.

 

The resolution is not the technology. How was the FOV for you?

 

You must remember you cant look at these screen shots on your desktop and say there is no FOV, triple is better. you have to imagine that everything is life size and consuming your view. To me, the look of the huey is entirely convincing of what you would see and how much of the cockpit you would see when sitting in one.

 

Absolutely, actually FOV in Rift is very big, I'm not sure if there is a sense to make it even bigger, trust me it occupies almost all view if you move your eyes really close to the lens.

Huey looks pretty good, I'm looking forward to try it out when VorpX driver came out (should be soon).

But as you see A-10C would be hard (or even impossible) to use because of all the computers it has, and lot's of stuff you need to read. Trying to read this fonts hurts eyes after few minutes.

 

Consumer version of Rift should be better, but I wouldn't expect a huge leap resolution wise. Anyway I will be here when it will be released, and I will buy it day one, and will do some more photos for you guys :)

Also, high resolution small panels is technology, and it's hard to order them in needed quantities, for certain price, when you do a niche device, so hopefully Oculus will rule-out all these problems.

 

 

Thanks for the clarification!

 

Like I thought, nice technology, but not suitable now and in the near future.

 

Maybe for DCS 3.0.0

It is more about actual devices, not the technology. But I agree, as it is now it is not suitable, and I don't think it will improve much in very near future, but in 3-5 years it can.

Edited May 20, 2013 by Mnemonic

[Robert1983NL]

To me, the look of the huey is entirely convincing of what you would see and how much of the cockpit you would see when sitting in one.

 

You still don't have all of your peripheral vision.

[metalnwood]

You still don't have all of your peripheral vision.

 

No, you have the whole world in front of you, a canvas much larger than triples will ever give you, much, much larger. No comparison.

 

you may not be able to see that thing out of the corner of your eye that you cant recognise anyway.

 

Good luck to you. I have 3 27's on my small rig, the FOV is nothing like the rift is.

 

Anyway, no point in keeping on debating the same thing with you, we are each entitled to our own opinion, of course it would be nice to leave the thread alone and not jump in every other page with how it all sucks unless you have been quoted directly.

Edited May 20, 2013 by metalnwood

[Pnume]

Thanks for the clarification!

 

Like I thought, nice technology, but not suitable now and in the near future.

 

Maybe for DCS 3.0.0

 

It is good enough for the Huey or the P-51 which is already something. :D

[Robert1983NL]

No, you have the whole world in front of you, a canvas much larger than triples will ever give you, much, much larger. No comparison.

 

you may not be able to see that thing out of the corner of your eye that you cant recognise anyway.

 

Good luck to you. I have 3 27's on my small rig, the FOV is nothing like the rift is.

 

Anyway, no point in keeping on debating the same thing with you, we are each entitled to our own opinion, of course it would be nice to leave the thread alone and not jump in every other page with how it all sucks unless you have been quoted directly.

 

I've said it earlier... But I'll repeat myself, again. You don't need to recognize things in your peripheral vision, as long as you notice it.

 

Could you explain why 3x 27inch doesn't show FOV like the Rift? The Rift shows 90-110 degrees? I can imagine 3x 27inch showing at least 140 degrees. And ofcourse superior resolution.

[Mnemonic]

It is good enough for the Huey or the P-51 which is already something. :D

It is good enough to try from time to time, but imagine play in it all the time, I would say not so much.

[Frusheen]

It is good enough for the Huey or the P-51 which is already something.

 

I really hope it will be. I'm currently using 1280x800 resolution with a projector setup that fills a good deal of my field of vision and sadly it is lacking the clarity needed to tune radios or read labels on switches. For out of the window flying with occasional instrument sweeps its fine anything complex inside the cockpit is an awful eye strain and with trackIR even becomes nausiating at times. I will definitely buy the rift to try it once its released. The immersion should be fantastic. I doubt I will bother with the dev kit though.

 

Edit: I should add I'm only flying the Huey in DCS. I can't imagine trying the A10 or black shark at that resolution.

Edited May 20, 2013 by Frusheen

[Mnemonic]

I really hope it will be. I'm currently using 1280x800 resolution with a projector setup that fills a good deal of my field of vision and sadly it is lacking the clarity needed to tune radios or read labels on switches.

Current Rift devkit (I made photos of) is 640x800 per eye. And unlike on projector or monitor, you actually see only middle part of it, so you don't use whole 640x800. With consumer version, if they use Full-HD panel - we will have 960 x 1080 per eye, so like I said previously where there is 2 pixels, it will be 3.

[Pnume]

I really hope it will be. I'm currently using 1280x800 resolution with a projector setup that fills a good deal of my field of vision and sadly it is lacking the clarity needed to tune radios or read labels on switches. For out of the window flying with occasional instrument sweeps its fine anything complex inside the cockpit is an awful eye strain and with trackIR even becomes nausiating at times. I will definitely buy the rift to try it once its released. The immersion should be fantastic. I doubt I will bother with the dev kit though.

 

Edit: I should add I'm only flying the Huey in DCS. I can't imagine trying the A10 or black shark at that resolution.

 

You don't have the pixel concentration in the center with this setup. The rift should be better.

 

It is probably not a perfect experience but what you will lose in detail you will gain in feeling. You brain beleives he is moving and that is a huge +

 

And btw it isn't as if DCS world environement was good to look at in the first place :D

 

I should receive a kit soon enough (I expect first 10 days of june) and get a clearer view.

[Mnemonic]

It is probably not a perfect experience but what you will lose in detail you will gain in feeling. You brain beleives he is moving and that is a huge +

From my own experience so far it's + and -

You do feel movement immensely well, but not without drawback - motion sickness factor cannot be underrated for Rift. I personally don't want to fly in a simulator with a paper bag :D

 

But you can train your brain though!

[Pnume]

From my own experience so far it's + and -

You do feel movement immensely well, but not without drawback - motion sickness factor cannot be underrated for Rift. I personally don't want to fly in a simulator with a paper bag :D

 

But you can train your brain though!

From what I heard it seems to vary from one person to another. Hopefully i'll get lucky.

 

Is it the same as watching an IMAX movie or is it more prononced? I do like it in IMAX.

[Darkwolf187]

No, the ultimate is the real aircraft. Or a holodeck ofcourse.

Dude... 3x 27" is the ultimate currently available and affordable.

 

I've got three 27" monitors at 7680x1440.

 

I'm seriously considering getting an Oculus when it's available and working for DCS.

 

Vertical FOV with triple-head is pretty woeful, although it's uber for horizontal FOV. Immersion is great with TrackIR, but seriously - the Oculus should blow that out of the water.

 

As for the keyboard? I have a keyboard with no symbols on it. I don't need to be able to see my keyboard at all and I'll still be able to type fine. And with a HOTAS, all the controls you need in a hurry should be on the HOTAS and not on the keyboard.

 

My main concerns with it is whether the resolution will be good enough to allow you to be able to distinguish small targets on the ground.

[metalnwood]

Ahh, you have a das? it brushes up your typing skills for those keys you dont access as often :)

[Darkwolf187]

Indeed it does. No training wheels if you forget which key has the ^ symbol on it or something :D

[cichlidfan]

Indeed it does. No training wheels if you forget which key has the ^ symbol on it or something :D

 

I love mine but I have the 'child' version, with the symbols! ;)

[mhe]

The keyboard issue seems somewhat overblown - the GameStar hands on review from 2 days ago mentions that you are able to peek down past your nose to look at the keyboard (but that might depend on the form of your nose). :)

 

As for 3x27" vs Rift: You can't compare fov in sheer numbers because the FOV generated by a triple screen setup varies with viewing distance and the angle the outer screens are positioned at. You also cannot compare DPI of the display panels as that again produces different results with different viewing distances. So it all comes down to pixels per angular minute or second when comparing displays. You can calculate these with a tangent function and you will come up with the result that the picture in a 3x27" FullHD setup will be much more crisp because there are vastly more pixels drawn over a much smaller area in your personal field of view. But since immersion is much harder to quantify (and does NOT represent graphic quality), it is rather pointless. Since immersion is a very individual thing and people respond very differently to different forms of stimulus, it all boils down to what works for who. Some people's brains respond very positive to convincing aircraft sounds, others need high end graphics, even others need that every switch must do what the original aircraft's documentation says it does.

 

Before we discuss what is more immersive and why, we would have to come up with a quantifiable score for immersion and since that is down to the individual, the only way to keep that score is by reviews of users having tried the thing. And the response is very positive, even from people who own triple screen setups. Of course everyone acknowledges the downside of the low resolution of the technology in its current form, but that problem will go away with time. Once the resolution problem is solved and you have perhaps a bit more resolution than needed, you have some leeway for playing with the optics, stretching the FOV even farther. And FOV not only means horizontal or diagonal, it means vertical FOV as well (although the vertical FOV on the current Rift is slightly higher than the horizontal per eye).

 

In DCS usage, the Rift might be fun for simple flying around or doing air races in a Mustang, for combat you currently have the issue of resolution (and that holds true even for FullHD screens). Many people have the zoom mapped to the spare axis on the Warthog Throttle, including me, and it requires a fair amount of zoom to line up small targets for the GAU-8 at larger distances. But in the Rift, zooming in that way might give many people serious headaches, the only way around that would be a massive increase in resolution so you can see these targets at a distance - you cannot aim at subpixels.

Edited May 21, 2013 by mhe

[average_pilot]

The keyboard issue seems somewhat overblown - the GameStar hands on review from 2 days ago mentions that you are able to peek down past your nose to look at the keyboard (but that might depend on the form of your nose). :)

That's good news. You don't need more than that to know where your hand is going to land on. Although I have a rather big nose... :huh:

[mhe]

Well if looking down is desperately needed, I'm sure it can be made possible by modding the hardware a bit if it doesn't give you that capability right out of the box. :)