Oculus Rift and DCS World Discussion

[Vivoune]

 

Go to about 1:34 - that's not something I'd want to hear!

 

Indeed. Sadly it's all we'll hear for some time, whether it's the OR or the Vive, the tech just isn't there yet for a HD crisp VR experience, it'll feel like 480p and will be the norm for some time. Though that's enough for a lot of people, some prefer a crisp HD screen at home, other prefer the huge average quality screen of cinema theaters, it's all personal preferences.

 

Personally I think I'll buy into VR once it allows DCS World (cockpits, ground target scanning etc) to be as readable as with an HD screen, I recon a year or two from now depending on how big of a leap the next GPU and CPU generation will take.

[Brisse]

in real life you have to keep moving your head to know exact direction of the sound, that is, if the sound is stationary. If the sound source moves fairly quickly around you, sound source movement replaces your head movement.

 

You meant to write "DCS" instead of "real life", right? What you say (that you have to move head or source) isn't true for the real world, and that can be proven by scientific facts.

[Kuky]

You meant to write "DCS" instead of "real life", right? What you say (that you have to move head or source) isn't true for the real world, and that can be proven by scientific facts.

 

No, I meant real life. I'll repeat one more time... you can only know approximate (side) sound location until you move head to get more information from different position, and compare them. This is exactly the same principle as triangulation.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Kuky

[GeorgeLKMT]

No, I meant real life.

 

The brain can tell the direction of the sound by:

 

Different audio levels.

Different timing.

Frequency change caused by the shape of the outer ear.

 

 

You can be stationary and still tell the direction. Levels can be exactly the same if the sound is coming directly from above/below/ahead/behind and you can still tell without moving, because your outer ear and your body is changing the frequency response.

Simple stereo can't do anything about this and that's why more advanced audio processing is needed to take into account all of this.

[Brisse]

Correct George. If Kuky was correct, binaural recordings such as the barbershop would never work, because the headphones are attached to your head, so they turn with you.

[j0nx]

Indeed. Sadly it's all we'll hear for some time, whether it's the OR or the Vive, the tech just isn't there yet for a HD crisp VR experience, it'll feel like 480p and will be the norm for some time. Though that's enough for a lot of people, some prefer a crisp HD screen at home, other prefer the huge average quality screen of cinema theaters, it's all personal preferences.

 

Personally I think I'll buy into VR once it allows DCS World (cockpits, ground target scanning etc) to be as readable as with an HD screen, I recon a year or two from now depending on how big of a leap the next GPU and CPU generation will take.

 

I'm not really sure how you reckon that since the rez of the OR is higher than a HD 1080P screen already? The screen door effect and CA is gone as well from all the reviews I have read about CV1. The effect should be superior in every way compared to a 1080P HD monitor.

[Brisse]

I'm not really sure how you reckon that since the rez of the OR is higher than a HD 1080P screen already? The screen door effect and CA is gone as well from all the reviews I have read about CV1. The effect should be superior in every way compared to a 1080P HD monitor.

 

You cant directly compare the resolution of a VR headset to that of a monitor. The monitor covers a very small portion of your field of view. With a VR headset, it covers a much much larger field of view, so if the amount if pixels are equal to a monitor, the size of the pixels will look absolutely huge in VR.

 

Try sitting so close to your monitor that you can barely see it's edges without having to rotate your head. What you did just now was to change how much of your field of view that your monitor covers so that it is roughly equivalent to a VR headset. If your eyes can still focus on the pixels, they will surely look huge when you sit that close to the monitor, right? You might be so close that it's hard to focus though, depending on how big your monitor is.

[hannibal]

This is true, but even most game engines use more than point sources for their audio. More detailed HRTFs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function) create more convincing audio environments.

 

finally! someone is listening to me!

yes, there is a whole science behind HRTF.

i hope ED taps in to that oculus audio SDK ( and newest rift SDK for general rift support) whenever they can put time after the whole transition to DCS 2.0.

 

I worry about sound being stuck to my head!

[hannibal]

No I haven't. But I think everyone can test something to see if I am right or not (that there is no such thing as more than stereo in real life.

 

if you use a hat switch for camera view and move the view left and right, im sure u can hear the respective sound change depending on where you are. no doubt for trackIR also. but spatial audio is very distinct, and works only if there is a positional tracking solution (DK2 or TrackIR), but its the combination of both the software (to allow spatial audio) and the hardware (to track head movement) in order to do the reproduce spatial audio.

 

but forget displays, either its on a monitor or DK2.

http://realspace3daudio.com/realspacedemovideo/

 

im sorry, times that i play with DCS, it doesnt sound spatial.

[hannibal]

Personally I think I'll buy into VR once it allows DCS World (cockpits, ground target scanning etc) to be as readable as with an HD screen, I recon a year or two from now depending on how big of a leap the next GPU and CPU generation will take.

 

this is smart. the patient route. let things take course and jump in when its ready and when you are ready.

[Brisse]

finally! someone is listening to me!

 

Oh we were listening all the time, and the answers were the right ones. You just disregarded them in a somewhat disrespectful manner only because I left out all the fluff about HRTF and spatialization, which you falsely assumed I knew nothing about. A straight up answer without unnecessary fluff isn't enough apparently.

 

Well it doesn't matter now. You have your answer.

 

Summary: DCS lacks any form of spatialization that could be deemed acceptable for a good VR experience. What you hear in front of your monitor is what you will hear in VR, and it is not good enough to create a sense of presence in VR.

[Enduro14]

Oh we were listening all the time, and the answers were the right ones. You just disregarded them in a somewhat disrespectful manner only because I left out all the fluff about HRTF and spatialization, which you falsely assumed I knew nothing about. A straight up answer without unnecessary fluff isn't enough apparently.

 

Well it doesn't matter now. You have your answer.

 

Summary: DCS lacks any form of spatialization that could be deemed acceptable for a good VR experience. What you hear in front of your monitor is what you will hear in VR, and it is not good enough to create a sense of presence in VR.

 

Spot on we need better audio with VR, I also recommend a butt kicker it's amazing with VR

[doveman]

The brain can tell the direction of the sound by:

 

Different audio levels.

Different timing.

Frequency change caused by the shape of the outer ear.

 

You can be stationary and still tell the direction. Levels can be exactly the same if the sound is coming directly from above/below/ahead/behind and you can still tell without moving, because your outer ear and your body is changing the frequency response.

Simple stereo can't do anything about this and that's why more advanced audio processing is needed to take into account all of this.

 

Indeed. If IRL someone behind me shouts I know they're behind me without moving my head around and can even tell roughly how close or far away they are. Likewise if someone shouts from a window above me or if I hear a helicopter flying above I know the sound is coming from above, or if I'm upstairs in a building and hear someone on the street outside shouting I know they're below me.

 

Personally, I don't get any of that with Virtual surround. It's better than plain stereo and gives a wider soundstage but it's nothing like IRL and whatever they're doing just doesn't work for me. It may be because all the sounds are coming from a driver right next to my ear, whereas IRL the sounds come from different places in relation to my ear and bounce off different parts of the ear to give the directional and distance cues. Either way, I have a much better experience using real 5.1 surround, which is so immersive it often makes me think I'm hearing stuff from outside when it's actually coming from the game.

[DerekSpeare]

Perhaps a new thread is needed on 3d sound?

[hansangb]

Amen, brother.

[doveman]

Perhaps a new thread is needed on 3d sound?

 

Probably but it should be noted that whatever Oculus uses may not work for some people any better than current virtual surround does and they may need to use a real 5.1 speaker system. If the current solutions work well for you on the other hand, then I'm sure Oculus' implementation will be even better.

[whiteside]

Will the Leap Motion work with DCS?

[hansangb]

I'm pretty sure Leap is independent of games. But I have the leap (for different use) and the granularity was no where high enough to use it to point at anything. This was in a different application, but I can't imagine it would be any better with DCS. One of these days, i should load up the latest leap drivers to see if they made any improvements.

[DerekSpeare]

@whiteside - no, leap isn't support TTBOMK. However, if you have FSX and Flyinside, you can use your Leap there.

 

I'm staying with my Plantronics Gamcom 300 muffs...comfy as all day, has a boom mic, long cable, not USB and an inline volume adjustment. Besides, once you get locked into a cockpit, you're not going to hear much of what's going on outside anyhow.

[IAF_Phantom]

Is head or eye point accurate enough for switch clicking?

 

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

[Corbett1403]

Butt kicker I can't get mine to work since I had it tried all sorts. I never tried VR and I think it's an exciting time for all gamers no matter what platform you are playing. There's a lot to offer a wider range of people and we can use VR in many different ways not just to play a game.

[Brisse]

Perhaps a new thread is needed on 3d sound?

 

Another one? We already have several of them!

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=122517&highlight=hrtf

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=150125&highlight=hrtf

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=151897&highlight=hrtf

 

Probably but it should be noted that whatever Oculus uses may not work for some people any better than current virtual surround does and they may need to use a real 5.1 speaker system. If the current solutions work well for you on the other hand, then I'm sure Oculus' implementation will be even better.

 

Speakers won't work for VR.

1. They don't follow your head.

2. They are heavily affected by room acoustics.

3. Anything heard through speakers are only 2D, even if you have a 5.1 system. With a pair if simple stereo headphones you can achieve 3D using software sound processing and proper sound mixing.

 

Anyone who says "virtual surround doesn't work" just haven't experienced it properly. If done correctly, you should see results similar to binaural recordings. For the full effect it has to be implemented in the game engine (very few games has done this, but there are some). Stuff like Dolby Headphone or Razer Surround are still just 2D. They pretend to look like a 7.1 surround system so the game outputs 8 channels, then they simulate sitting inside a room with a surround sound system around you. It's not the same thing as simulating actually being inside the game environment, which is what Oculus is trying to do with their audio.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Brisse

[hansangb]

Is head or eye point accurate enough for switch clicking?

 

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

You have to lean in with DK2 to read the cockpit labels, but yes, you can look and click. Pretty intuitive. But I'm curious what the pointer that CV1 ships with can do.

 

I'll find out in April. :D

[Markeebo]

Butt kicker I can't get mine to work since I had it tried all sorts. I never tried VR and I think it's an exciting time for all gamers no matter what platform you are playing. There's a lot to offer a wider range of people and we can use VR in many different ways not just to play a game.

 

 

I initially had problems getting mine to work too. I actually called their tech support and they suggested that I plug into the left or right channel rather than the sub channel. Worked fine once I did that. Seems counter productive but it worked.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dot]

Spot on we need better audio with VR, I also recommend a butt kicker it's amazing with VR

 

Butt kicker I can't get mine to work since I had it tried all sorts. I never tried VR and I think it's an exciting time for all gamers no matter what platform you are playing. There's a lot to offer a wider range of people and we can use VR in many different ways not just to play a game.

 

Butticker users (giggles:) ) how would you compare a buttkicker and a 400-500w active sub woofer mounted directly under the seat?