VR Headset advice

[Scott]

I think MS in VR would surprise most. I will happily fly around with 40-50 FPS without any issues at all. It's not got the big swinging movements that action games require.... sure... you can throw your head around if you choose, but there's no need.

I played the previous FSX in VR with 20-40fps and had a great time, with the visuals of FS2020 being on point it's just gravy.

It's another example of people getting hung up on FPS though. Rather than just reporting the experience, people have found the need to latch on an FPS counter and moan about low frame rates on their high end hardware. It's been a known limitation of flight simulators since day dot, down to CPU limitations, yet people act surprised and outraged

 

[NoddyPirate]

It's not got the big swinging movements that action games require....

That's a great point actually @Scott

I just put the question to our sim engineers and I'm told our system uses a 60Hz refresh rate - at a resolution of around 2.5k across three projectors - totally standard for the industry it seems. US systems use 50Hz - because of their native power supply.

That refresh rate is much lower than I expected, but I think your point above explains exactly why - it's constant or slowly changing vectors only, so the lower refresh rate isn't as big of a problem. Some very high end sims will use 120 Hz visuals, but that is considered useful only for image quality and not for anything to do with occupant wretching.

 

[Scott]

The only time I ever feel nausea when gaming in VR is when I go backwards. It just totally throws me. It's not a nausea feeling though, it's the feeling when you are on a train.... there's a train next to you..... the train next to you moves, making you appear to move forwards while you are stationary.

It totally throws off my equilibrium and when it's a fast reverse such as PC2 after a crash, I actually have to stop for a second. I think having that feeling for a sustained period is what creates the nausea. I genuinely think it's completely related to balance. Between your perception of what is happening and the inertia feeling of what is happening, if these don't align for periods..... you hurl. When standing and the FPS isn't up to scratch your brain will be expecting to see one thing, but the image is slightly delayed leading to a micro-feeling as described. Join lots of these little micro-feelings and you hurl.

A thought as to why some people are affected more than others could actually be down to tethering. Just exactly how grounded you are to the real world when in the VR world.... subconsciously. I'm not sure whether holding onto reality, and fighting these inputs, would be more likely to cause nausea, or if letting go and being completely encompassed would affect worse.... but I think it's definitely related.

 

[MrWilson]

A thought as to why some people are affected more than others could actually be down to tethering. Just exactly how grounded you are to the real world when in the VR world.... subconsciously. I'm not sure whether holding onto reality, and fighting these inputs, would be more likely to cause nausea, or if letting go and being completely encompassed would affect worse.... but I think it's definitely related.

So in other words... you have to believe... that there is no spoon?

 

[NoddyPirate]

I genuinely think it's completely related to balance. Between your perception of what is happening and the inertia feeling of what is happening, if these don't align for periods..... you hurl.

That is it 100%. In the job the added issue of externally induced motion added to the mix makes disorientation a real threat to us and something we discuss and train for continuously. Your eyes, your bottom (or kinaesthetic sense more correctly), and you inner ear are the three bits that your brain refers to for orientation - if all these don't agree then it gets unhappy.

Severe dicsord creates a reflex action - like reaching out to steady yourself or that tumbling feeling you talk about above @Scott - but it's the subtle disagreement that you won't be consiously aware of, but which your brain struggles with over a long period, that causes nausea - eventually the brain decides that if it can't make sense of the information received then it must rule out toxins in the system and the beginnings of dinner evacuation onsets.

With VR, I imagine there would be additional factors on top of all the above - like, if you move your head 30 degrees, but your visual field moves more or less than that, then the discord again slowly builds over time. Head movement tracking must be rapid and smooth or trouble will brew!

 

[NoddyPirate]

So in other words... you have to believe... that there is no spoon?

Funny but true!!! @MrWilson !

The toughest part of learning to fly is when on instruments only without visual reference. In turbulence, what you see and what you feel frequently doesn't match up and if you respond to the sensation rather than the visuals - which is what you are hard wired to do - it can bring you straight to the scene of the accident.

The mantra is - "Believe the instruments at all times." but I guess we could add "even if there is a spoon in your face" to that too! I'll raise it at our mext meeting.....

 

[ubuysa]

Funny but true!!! @MrWilson !

The toughest part of learning to fly is when on instruments only without visual reference. In turbulence, what you see and what you feel frequently doesn't match up and if you respond to the sensation rather than the visuals - which is what you are hard wired to do - it can bring you straight to the scene of the accident.

The mantra is - "Believe the instruments at all times." but I guess we could add "even if there is a spoon in your face" to that too! I'll raise it at our mext meeting.....

That's very similar to sailing at night under a cloudy sky. Your only visual point of reference is the boat, a sudden gust that causes the boat to heel is very disconcerting. Your ears tell you you're moving but your eyes tell you that all is still....

 

[NoddyPirate]

Your ears tell you you're moving but your eyes tell you that all is still....

We get the opposite when you guys are playing with your boats on a moonless night.

A low level banked turn over a dark featureless sea - with just the lights from a few boats - can cause the brain to find a horizon reference across the lights that isn't really there. Your eyes tell you that you've banked too much, but your ears don't think there's a problem.

"Believe in the spoon" - as @MrWilson says - is all that can be done.

 

[ubuysa]

We get the opposite when you guys are playing with your boats on a moonless night.

A low level banked turn over a dark featureless sea - with just the lights from a few boats - can cause the brain to find a horizon reference across the lights that isn't really there. Your eyes tell you that you've banked too much, but your ears don't think there's a problem.

"Believe in the spoon" - as @MrWilson says - is all that can be done.

You sky jockeys are a big annoyance to night sailors. We're busy trying to take a star sight to determine latitude and suddenly the star we're sighting is obscured by a bunch of moving flashing lights! [emoji1787]

 

[Paulbax]

This isn’t the case for VR at all, refresh rates are to avoid VR sickness, anything under 80hz is considered unacceptable from a health perspective.

By that logic everyone with any realistic home PC should stop playing MSFS20. I seriously doubt anybody is getting 80hz plus.
There are extensive forums of people playing. Smooth motion is the key. Admittedly this may not always be possible for trees and buildings looking out at 90 deg at 100ft altitude. However most of flight is 1000ft plus and 20hz is fine, even out the sides as your cockpit and the world are not moving fast.Turning your head is smooth at all altitudes. General consensus say 30fps plus as a target with 3090's getting into the 30's-50's fps. You could go higher but why lose graphic fidelity if you have sufficiently smooth motion.
Both MSFS VR and Oculus Airlink are essentially still beta so there are no surprises there.
It's also stated that MSFS is not designed or optimised at all well for VR... yet! It is improving with updates.
It's probably a 10 year product that is anticipating technology to catch up.
Bizarrely its performance vs system has a random factor? I hear of 3080 desktops having to run with settings lower than my 3070 laptop??? I doubt these people are all incompetent and perhaps I am lucky (and not too PC competent)?
It really is also a settings lottery.
Anyway I digress. I have over 30 hours of flying at 20-30Hz, love it, would not go back to a 120hz flat screen if you paid me, and I am a casual flyer and dont bring a sick bag on my flights. Some people have hundreds of hours.
You are correct ref 80Hz in general but not for everything.

 

[Paulbax]

Yeah being honest I just can't see how VR with MSFS could possibly be the full experience you would hope for. It's such a labour intensive thing that even with the highest end GPU and a single monitor, FPS stays really low with the settings turned all the way up. With VR I imagine you would have to turn quality way down to achieve a usable FPS to the eye that it would defeat the whole purpose of setting up an immersive experience?

It's a beautiful simaultor and elements of it blow me away - while other bits drive me up the wall in much the same way that most movies involving aircraft make me cringe! But it feels like it's ahead of it's time in what it's trying to do. The display technology just isn't able to keep up yet....

Yep. No current VR headset will look like ultra on a 4k monitor (maybe not even 1080?). However the sense of immersion is wonderful.
With MSFS. Turn off your FPS counter, turn visuals to low and work back up until you have an acceptable level of smoothness vs visual fidelity.

 

[SpyderTracks]

By that logic everyone with any realistic home PC should stop playing MSFS20. I seriously doubt anybody is getting 80hz plus.
There are extensive forums of people playing. Smooth motion is the key. Admittedly this may not always be possible for trees and buildings looking out at 90 deg at 100ft altitude. However most of flight is 1000ft plus and 20hz is fine, even out the sides as your cockpit and the world are not moving fast.Turning your head is smooth at all altitudes. General consensus say 30fps plus as a target with 3090's getting into the 30's-50's fps. You could go higher but why lose graphic fidelity if you have sufficiently smooth motion.
Both MSFS VR and Oculus Airlink are essentially still beta so there are no surprises there.
It's also stated that MSFS is not designed or optimised at all well for VR... yet! It is improving with updates.
It's probably a 10 year product that is anticipating technology to catch up.
Bizarrely its performance vs system has a random factor? I hear of 3080 desktops having to run with settings lower than my 3070 laptop??? I doubt these people are all incompetent and perhaps I am lucky (and not too PC competent)?
It really is also a settings lottery.
Anyway I digress. I have over 30 hours of flying at 20-30Hz, love it, would not go back to a 120hz flat screen if you paid me, and I am a casual flyer and dont bring a sick bag on my flights. Some people have hundreds of hours.
You are correct ref 80Hz in general but not for everything.

Yeah, after yours and @Scott posts I’ve fully reclined on my previous statement. I’ve not played flight sim in VR so that was purely coming from an expectational perspective rather than experience.

I’ve not played any “peaceful” games in VR to be able to give accurate advice.

I also didn’t fully appreciate the impact of the processor for a lot of games.

 

[NoddyPirate]

Yeah, after yours and @Scott posts I’ve fully reclined on my previous statement. I’ve not played flight sim in VR so that was purely coming from an expectational perspective rather than experience.

I have to agree with you @SpyderTracks - I would never have considered MSFS would be usable with VR at those kinds of settings or refresh rates. I'm very surprised at the lads experiences but what they say ultimately makes sense I guess.

 

[Paulbax]

I have to agree with you @SpyderTracks - I would never have considered MSFS would be usable with VR at those kinds of settings or refresh rates. I'm very surprised at the lads experiences but what they say ultimately makes sense I guess.

Often feels more like Microsoft Settings Simulator... it can go from awesome to rubbish one day to the next without any updates. It's probably because we need to all fly off MS servers due to the petabytes (is that right) of Bing earth photo data?
First game in my life where I keep an excel table of windows, control centre, nvidia, oculus, airlink, odt/ott, MSFS settings.... just 1 can change your experience. (At least I dont need steam and steam vr or registry settings now I use airlink...)

 

[NoddyPirate]

Often feels more like Microsoft Settings Simulator... it can go from awesome to rubbish one day to the next without any updates. It's probably because we need to all fly off MS servers due to the petabytes (is that right) of Bing earth photo data?
First game in my life where I keep an excel table of windows, control centre, nvidia, oculus, airlink, odt/ott, MSFS settings.... just 1 can change your experience. (At least I dont need steam and steam vr or registry settings now I use airlink...)

Wow! Impressive!

I like ‘Microsoft Settings Simulator”!!! 😀