At last, we may have a VR winner!

[avallillo]

At long last it appears that VR may become more reality than virtual in flight simulation. Having been overwhelmed by the concept at last year's FlightSim Expo, but not by the execution at the HTC Vive level (poor resolution - graininess to the point you can't read instruments from normal seating position), I now see that not only 4K has come but also 5K and 8K, courtesy of Pimax. And even better, a 200 degree field of view that should put paid at last to the temptation to follow Dr. Joe Maldonado to the boneyard for another airplane nose (see A Night in Elf Hill, in the features)

 

My questions to any of you who may be in the know --

 

1. Is the resolution on either the 5K or 8K Pimax truly good enough to banish the screen door effect forever?

 

2. Is the 200 degree field of view for real?

 

3. Will it work with flight sims? I know that the 5K version works with XPlane 11; how about FSX and Aerofly FS2?

 

4. The unit is, to put it bluntly, enormous -- how much time at the gym sill be required to strengthen the neck muscles to allow more than a 5 minute flight with this thing on!?!

 

And any other comments, yea or nay, that you can offer from the point of view of actually having seen and tried this.

 

Thanks in advance for perhaps sparing me from being in hock to Flight Deck Solutions!!

 

Tony Vallillo

[Rohan_Nair]

A bit late but here's what I know, nonetheless!

 

Nice to see you're still into the FS world, Capt. I Don't use VR cause I don't have a PC that's powerful enough. I haven't thoroughly researched into the specifics and peculiarities of VR flight simming.. but I do know a few things...

 

Yep, VR has caught on really well in the FS world. Plenty of options depending on how much $$ you wanna spend. HTC, Oculus, Pimax, Asus, Lenovo, Acer and a few more.

 

About the Pimax.. I've heard about the great specs they claim. It's from a Chinese maker, though. I've heard that there a few quirks with it. Check out some YouTube reviews. Linus there points out some quirks in it. To know more about the Pimax, you should probably head there.

 

Apparently, Pimax's 8K = 2x4K displays. One for each eye. Some folks say it doesn't entirely do away with the grainy-ness/screen-door issue. It'll be lesser compared to lower res. headsets but not 'super perfect'. The 200-deg FOV is real apparently.

 

X-Plane 11 and AFS2 have VR support right outta the box. FSX and P3D can support VR with the help of an add on called FlyInside I believe. Those folks have their own FS with VR support too BTW. Seems like FLyInside for FSX/P3D supports leapmotion too. That let's you use your bare hands to manipulate cockpit controls instead of holding onto some controllers. I'm guessing there are some fancy sensors involved.

 

With regards to gym time.. haven't heard a lot of folks complain about those headsets being too heavy. One thing I wonder is how they work if you have glasses on and can't do without em'.

 

You're going to need a powerful PC for VR. No doubt. And you'll have to tune your sim for high frame rates. How far you'll have to go in this respect depends on the rendering capabilities of the headset you choose.

 

Oculus is known to have some fancy asynchronous space/time warp thing that does something like motion interpolation or so to basically give you the illusion of a higher FPS output. It can cause a few momentary graphical glitches at times but I hear that people get good results from it. Dunno about the other sets especially the low cost Windows Mixed Reality ones from Asus, Lenovo, etc.

 

VR isn't a mature tech. in the FS arena right now and I feel it has a last mile or two to go before becoming a near perfect solution. Low FPS and issues with headsets can create a nauseating or discomforting VR experience. Developers have taken a keen interest in it, however. Particularly, X-Plane devs. There are plenty of new add ons for X-Plane 11, both freeware and payware, that are explicitly optimized for and supporting VR! There are some plugins being made too (free ones BTW), that will significantly improve your VR experience (mostly with regards to frame rates) in XP. Currently, these plugins are for the Rift only I believe.

 

If I may suggest, the best thing to do is to scour YouTube for a particular headset being used in a particular FS and see what the user says. Check out their system specs too. Try to get in touch with someone who has a similar setup to yours and is using a VR headset. That's the best way to find out how things will probably work out for you.

 

All the best!