Oculus Rift and DCS World Discussion

[Jeffg54]

One question please. How do I move my Huey Module over to Steam so I can use it there.

Thanks,

[cichlidfan]

The answer should be in here.

 

Steam Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) and Steam Specific Issues

[KaspeR32]

I tried the different SDKs oculus has.. to no avail....I gave up trying to get it to work with my AMD card....I get the black screen too. Hoping the DCS crew look at this problem. Im just using Rise of Flight with Tridef now and it works beautifully!!

 

I posted here a while ago about my AMD card not working with the rift. I've decided to stop playing DCS until EDGE (and hopefully full rift support.)

 

See you guys in 2 years. ;)

[blksolo]

Has ED acknowledged any problems with AMD cards and rift support for DCS?

[rabidmanatee]

has anyone fixed the black screen issue with AMD cards yet?

 

 

I asked the same question a month or two ago and never found or heard of a solution for native support of rift and AMD. The good news is that using the Stereo monitor setting in DCS and opentrack I was able to approximate the experience. A highlight is that opentrack supports other trackers. This lets me attach a Hydra to the HMD for translation tracking in addition to rifts angular tracking. This allowed 6DOF movement and importantly leaning into the instrument panel in game in order to read the instruments.

 

Two issues I had to address was editing the Stereo.lua file properly as the defaults were far from correct. This is what I did: Flip the signs for left/right viewDx and zero the values. Then progressively increased the values by .001 until things were comfortable in game. My final value is .005. Other settings I left the same. Also rift support in unchecked(disabled) in DCS settings screen. Note that Stereo monitor does not have barrel distortion but it wasn't noticeable center view and only mildly visible at the edges of view.

Setting the values in opentrack is straight forward and there's no gotchas, it requires flipping between opentrack and dcs to set the axis curves. Almost all my curves are just single point to move the max down. They're all linear except for yaw, that need some slight inflection at the far right to get 90 deg gaze along each shoulder to look down each wing and still see the far limit at the tail. I had to invert pitch and TX axis. I think Center Pose is for compensating rotation effects of having the Hydra off center. Would like to hear if anyone fiddles with it. Full disclosure, I upgraded my AMD to an Nvidia since and DCS rift support worked perfectly. No change was necessary other than to turn on DCS rift support. But I still prefer the hydra+rift config.

An issue with the rift in particular however is yaw drift that becomes noticeable after about 15 minutes in pit. I find myself progressively rotating to keep the view centered.

 

So the result of all this is the ability to lean closer to the instruments. While it doesn't make everything perfectly legible. I can read the numbers on the larger dials and some of the other instruments depending how far away the panel is. In the Huey I can lean in and read the lines of the white label on the pilot sight. The controls on the center console are easily discerned but any writing is not. Hydra and rift are much better than rift alone, where just about every label in pit is illegible. As improved as it is, it's not an ideal environment to learn the cockpit.

 

In general I'd say the HMD adds a new layer of the flight sim experience beyond what trackir and hotas provide. The ability to maneuver and keep sight of another aircraft over shoulder is really the sensation I've been wanting ever since using padlock in Falcon4. Out of pit, other aircraft are not visible beyond 1 mile and really only effectively below a half mile. Interestingly this gives a twist to the utility of labels. While not particularly realistic, it does mitigate, to some degree, the AC at distance issue. Objects larger than AC suffer less from the low resolution problem and the land scape is entirely believable to point of being navigable. That said, it's unfair to compare flying a rift vs a 3 monitor setup in terms of total experience. Modern displays have had over 20 years of refinement since the first VGA displays. While the rift and support for stereo display in common software is a year or two. For now my flying will be split between stereo and mono, but I expect the ratio to only skew more towards stereo as displays improve.

Edited May 29, 2014 by rabidmanatee

[clearskies]

One question please. How do I move my Huey Module over to Steam so I can use it there.

Thanks,

 

Hey Jeff! I searched for an hour an got no response, but I clicked around enough and figured it out.

 

I would recommenced to uninstall it first from your PC.

 

I purchased my games through DCS.com, it might be similiar if you purchased it from another site but you have to get the activation code they provided.

 

Go to digitalcombatsimulator.com

Look on the left column for Personal and click it.

Then click Order.

Now you can look to the right and click Details to get your activation code.

Open steam up and and under the Games tab click "activate product on steam" and Viola! Steam will begin to add it.

 

 

Or try the link below..

 

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/personal/order/

 

 

(I was reading there is no need to "deactivate unless you are moving the game to a new PC.)

 

You can do this with all the DCS addons I believe. I moved over, FC3, A10, Huey, Blackshark 2.

 

NOTE - DOWNLOAD DCS world, let it update, and add the activation keys. If you don't see the new additions, make sure DCS world is downloaded and updated and restart Steam.

 

Good luck! :)

[clearskies]

The answer should be in here.

 

Steam Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) and Steam Specific Issues

 

Or that! haha. If I had only seen this yesterday!

 

lol

[blksolo]

Apparently Samsung and Oculus are pairing together for VR,this is good news

http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/30/samsung-oculus-partnership/

[Chivas]

Is there some sort of NDA thats curtails any mention of how DCS looked on the Oculus Rift DK2 at ITEC last month?

[Maximus_G]

Apparently Samsung and Oculus are pairing together for VR,this is good news

http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/30/samsung-oculus-partnership/

Аt last! The great excuse for not picking up the phone

[blksolo]

Is there some sort of NDA thats curtails any mention of how DCS looked on the Oculus Rift DK2 at ITEC last month?

This is the only thing I could find.

[Mnemonic]

These are interesting:

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/2621gt/tried_the_dk2_at_the_itec_today_screendoor_effect/chnqmty

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/2621gt/tried_the_dk2_at_the_itec_today_screendoor_effect/chn13v1

[Kuky]

These are interesting:

 

 

 

Thanks for the links, I am no longer looking forward to this OR... if you can't read instruments and text, it is useless for DCS... at least the guy was honest enough about his experience with it in DCS.

Edited June 2, 2014 by Kuky

[bongodriver]

it was his personal experience and is not necessarily how it is for everyone.

[Kuky]

Well unless he has little bit bad vision, I take his comment as what I would see (or not see) if I tried one.

There's been too many disappointments and I wouldn't be surprised if this was just another one of that list.

Edited June 2, 2014 by Kuky

[blksolo]

I'm gonna have to call BS on this one,I have a DK1 and every once in a while I use my trackir 5 with it and when you lean forward you can read all of the gauges and most instruments and MFD's. The only things I have trouble reading are the control panel letters,UFC letters and other fine print items because trackir loses me if I lean that far in.DK2 will have much wider degree of tracking I am sure. I'm sure there were some items he couldnt read but to say he couldnt read anything is just not true or he is blind. Also with the recent Samsung Oculus collaboration CV1 will be 1440p minimum.

Edited June 2, 2014 by blksolo

[bongodriver]

I'm gonna have to call BS on this one,I have a DK1 and every once in a while I use my trackir 5 with it and when you lean forward you can read every single letter and instrument.Dont believe me try it yourself if you have DK1 and trackir.

 

Same for me.

[Frusheen]

I agree. Can't believe the resolution was as bad as he says. Greasy, fogged up or wrong lenses for his eyes maybe. By zooming slightly with DK1 you can read gauges. DK2 should be better. Unless OLED pentile is a major step backwards. We should know next month. I wouldn't discount OR completely remember these are dev kits with max res of 1080p. Consumer version is expected to be 1440P.

[Mnemonic]

I agree. Can't believe the resolution was as bad as he says. Greasy, fogged up or wrong lenses for his eyes maybe. By zooming slightly with DK1 you can read gauges. DK2 should be better.

You can't zoom with native DCS world OR implementation, and that's correct, it's very important to keep virtual FOV and HMD FOV the same.

You can move your head forward, that's true, however from my personal observation I can't read anything on Su-25T HUD with DK1, and because it's collimated it doesn't matter how close you move your head to it.

 

On the other hand, even if you move your head to the instruments of Frogfoot, it's really hard to read them in DK1. It is possible, but it's far from enjoyable, or realistic.

 

Shouldn't be too long till DK2 will arrive and we will test it first hand. But keep in mind there are just x1.5 pixels more horizontally, and new screens have pentile subpixel layout, so readability may be different from what we expect it to be.

[bongodriver]

Either way the DK versions are not intended to be enjoyed as final consumer products, anyone buying DK's thinking it represents the full and final experience is kidding themselves.

[Kuky]

I think DevKits should only be worse looking.... functionality and specs shoyld not be different from actual final product. In order to release final product they must first have tested it (actual hardware) and it wont be as good looking as final product (fact is most people still want a cool looking gadget). So if this test kit is not good enough, it wont matter if final product is cool looking.

 

But in the end unless eventually I try one myself I can never know for sure... time will tell, but now I am sceptical

[bongodriver]

Who is to say the current dev kits aren't worse looking than the intended consumer release? the dev kits are being built with the best components available to them at the time, the components for the consumer release are still being developed, the dev kits are intended to be put in the hands of developers simply so they can implement the functionality to their titles, no they should not be on equal spec to the consumer release or they would be the consumer release.

[cichlidfan]

I think DevKits should only be worse looking.... functionality and specs shoyld not be different from actual final product.

 

Perhaps that should be the case, but it isn't.

[bongodriver]

By that logic all Alpha/beta software should be the final product but delivered in a brown cardboard box or somehow made to look ugly deliberately.

[Jeffg54]

Thanks for the tips on moving my module over. I must say that I am really enjoying the Huey in the OR. The panel is not readable but don't need it at this point of my training. Maybe my DK2 will be better.

Caught a video on youtube that is really great. Search DCS World Max Flight Stick Oculus Rift and it will come up. He used a Razor (sic) attached to the Rift and can lean in any direction and look at the panel, etc. Pretty cool video.

I have the Max flight stick. Anybody have any experiences in DCS World with it??