To VR or not VR- what should I do now to upgrade???

June 8, 2017

At the end of this month I'm biting the bullet & getting my PC upgraded to whatever it takes to be VR compatable,but before I do i have a few questions to the people here at BoX who have more or less been the Beta crew for people like me. I upgraded my PC a few years back when BoS came out ,so even though it works fairly well with both BoS & CloD, its processor & graphic card ( who knows what else is seriously out of date.Also let me add that I use my Windows 10 PCfor work, email & storage ( backed up of course,) as well.Let me add that in general I only use my PC for Flight Sims ( IL-2 original. CloD, RoF, and of course BoX.)

I'll probably be taking this PC to Best Buy Geek Squad to do the actual work- they re the same guys that did a satisfactory job last time.Best Buy sells Oculus as well & that might make for a smooth install of that product should I choose.I don't want to spend an arm & a leg so I probably can't buy the absolute , but since this will have to be an upgrade that lasts for years I don't want to be pound foolish either way.

So without further ado:

1.) Should I jump into VR now?I understand graphic/pixal improvements are in the pipe line, but are currently some ways off. So buy now or soldier on with Track IR for the time being?

2.) Ideally what should I be replacing in my old rig and with what,be specific if you can. Will I need to think about new & improved CPU units as well? I see there are specifically designed Game rigs for VR for a reasonable price , but I am concerned that they wouldn't be able to handle the day to day tasks my current rig does well- is that true?

3.) The big one: Oculus or Vive if price isn't an object but performance with our flight sim is? Perhaps there are others I should be considering or wait for? I think both of these come with hand controls now- do these have any practical uses in this sim ( BTW I don't play "Full Real" , but usually "Normal" or "Custom".)

4.) How are you handling lack of keyboard visibility? I understand some of the headsets have vision slits, but I haven't found them.I have a KB Gladiator stick with literally dozens of keystroke commands program-able, but I fear many would be useless without some way to visually check on what variation I want. Some of you use voice command right? If so which seems to work best?I used to use the Track IR version years ago but if I remember correctly it was mostly good on Radio orders and things like that. I don't remember if you could use it to raise flaps ot lower gear. Do newer versions do that? Both Oculus & Vive now come with earphones but I haven't seen mics yet, perhaps I should just continue to use my Skull Candy set that has a mic build in?

5.) My PC station is a relatively small space,about 8'by8' give or take, does thiscreate any problems or dictate which VR I should be considering?

I'm probably forgetting something but this will do for now.You can see I'm looking for a list of must do's that I can simply hand a tech & say I'll be back in two weeks to pick this up. I hope you guys can at the end of this thread should you choose to participate give me, provide such a to-do list.Many thanks!

June 8, 2017

1.) Should I jump into VR now?I understand graphic/pixal improvements are in the pipe line, but are currently some ways off. So buy now or soldier on with Track IR for the time being?

So that's a personal choice and hard to answer. Taking VR now you definitely are an "early adopter" of the technology. That said, I love flying in VR and having moved to flying with it I feel there is now no going back. I don't regret my choice in the slightest. This seems to be how most people feel after getting VR, for most people the immersion is so amazing they are willing to look past any minor issues. You hear the phrase "No going back" among VR flyers a lot. For quite a while I didn't fly in BoS but instead flew in DCS, even though DCS is not nearly as good as sim in many ways, simply because DCS had VR support and BoS did not. I'm not the only person who's done this. BoS of course now has great VR support (better than DCS's) but it shows how much I've loved VR .. .

A minority of people are unhappy with their choice of getting VR, generally the issue I've seen is that they're disappointed by the resolution. IMO the resolution is perfectly workable, but it's not as good as a monitor, and you can tell.

In terms of timing I don't believe any generational improvements are coming to VR for a little while yet. They could make VR headsets with higher resolution screens ... but the graphics card technology isn't really there to drive them yet. Honestly my system (a powerful system with a GTX 1080 graphics card) is already somewhat limited by graphics horsepower. So real improvements will probably have to wait for new technologies like eye-tracking to take advantage of higher resolutions on existing hardware. That's a little way off IMO.

2.) Ideally what should I be replacing in my old rig and with what,be specific if you can. Will I need to think about new & improved CPU units as well? I see there are specifically designed Game rigs for VR for a reasonable price , but I am concerned that they wouldn't be able to handle the day to day tasks my current rig does well- is that true

The most important thing by far for VR is the graphics card. You may need to think about a new CPU if your current one is old, although if it's just a few years you'll probably be fine. That said there are (in my opinion) two ways to do computer upgrade: option A, take a reasonable computer and "upgrade" it with a new graphics card. This will work fine providing the rest of the computer is fairly modern. Option B, replace the majority (or all) of it since generally if you need to upgrade the CPU you'll also want a motherboard and memory upgrade as well, at which point you have an essentially completely new computer.

If you know the specs of your current computer feel free to post them, and people can give comment. Unless you are doing something *very* unusual with your computer I would imagine any VR capable PC will be fine for any kind of day-to-day task. Honestly the thing that will make the biggest difference for day-to-day computing is having an SSD harddisk, everything else (CPU, GPU etc) will be more than adequate.

3.) The big one: Oculus or Vive if price isn't an object but performance with our flight sim is? Perhaps there are others I should be considering or wait for? I think both of these come with hand controls now- do these have any practical uses in this sim ( BTW I don't play "Full Real" , but usually "Normal" or "Custom".)

For pure flight sims the verdict has tended to be that the Oculus is the better headset. If you want to do a lot of room-scale VR stuff you can now do it in either, but that has traditionally been more the Vive's strength. That said, either works well and the differences are fairly small.

4.) How are you handling lack of keyboard visibility? I understand some of the headsets have vision slits, but I haven't found them.I have a KB Gladiator stick with literally dozens of keystroke commands program-able, but I fear many would be useless without some way to visually check on what variation I want. Some of you use voice command right? If so which seems to work best?I used to use the Track IR version years ago but if I remember correctly it was mostly good on Radio orders and things like that. I don't remember if you could use it to raise flaps ot lower gear. Do newer versions do that? Both Oculus & Vive now come with earphones but I haven't seen mics yet, perhaps I should just continue to use my Skull Candy set that has a mic build in?

I use my HOTAS, which covers the vast majority of things I need for WWII flight sims. For anything else I use VoiceAttack, which is super cheap and (for me) works very well. The Oculus definitely has a built in microphone and it works well. IMO there's no particular need for a separate headset, and I don't use one. I'm not absolutely certain about the Vive (I'm an Oculus user), but I believe it has one as well.

5.) My PC station is a relatively small space,about 8'by8' give or take, does thiscreate any problems or dictate which VR I should be considering?

I'm probably forgetting something but this will do for now.You can see I'm looking for a list of must do's that I can simply hand a tech & say I'll be back in two weeks to pick this up. I hope you guys can at the end of this thread should you choose to participate give me, provide such a to-do list.Many thanks!

For flight sims I don't imagine that's a problem. IMHO the Oculus is the better headset in more confined spaces, but you can probably get either to work okay. I would recommend a swivel chair, as checking your six without one can get to be a bit of a strain.

Edited June 8, 2017 by Tomsk

June 8, 2017

I would wait or purchase with the absolute knowledge that you will be purchasing again within the next 8-16 months.

June 8, 2017

I'm waiting...I have no desire to spend the money on being an early adopter when I just purchased a 4K monitor. Generally I wait for second/third generation and purchase when performance is better and price is lower.

While I acknowledge, understand and take to heart all of the "it's not about the resolution" comments...I nevertheless don't want to spend the money until the resolution is improved.

I figure I'll be even more wowed by the experienced in a few years, and that's fine with me.

That said, the reviews of VR for this sim are overwhelmingly positive.

For me personally waiting is the best answer however.

June 8, 2017

At the end of this month I'm biting the bullet & getting my PC upgraded to whatever it takes to be VR compatable,but before I do i have a few questions to the people here at BoX who have more or less been the Beta crew for people like me. I upgraded my PC a few years back when BoS came out ,so even though it works fairly well with both BoS & CloD, its processor & graphic card ( who knows what else is seriously out of date.Also let me add that I use my Windows 10 PCfor work, email & storage ( backed up of course,) as well.Let me add that in general I only use my PC for Flight Sims ( IL-2 original. CloD, RoF, and of course BoX.)

I'll probably be taking this PC to Best Buy Geek Squad to do the actual work- they re the same guys that did a satisfactory job last time.Best Buy sells Oculus as well & that might make for a smooth install of that product should I choose.I don't want to spend an arm & a leg so I probably can't buy the absolute , but since this will have to be an upgrade that lasts for years I don't want to be pound foolish either way.

So without further ado:

1.) Should I jump into VR now?I understand graphic/pixal improvements are in the pipe line, but are currently some ways off. So buy now or soldier on with Track IR for the time being?

2.) Ideally what should I be replacing in my old rig and with what,be specific if you can. Will I need to think about new & improved CPU units as well? I see there are specifically designed Game rigs for VR for a reasonable price , but I am concerned that they wouldn't be able to handle the day to day tasks my current rig does well- is that true?

3.) The big one: Oculus or Vive if price isn't an object but performance with our flight sim is? Perhaps there are others I should be considering or wait for? I think both of these come with hand controls now- do these have any practical uses in this sim ( BTW I don't play "Full Real" , but usually "Normal" or "Custom".)

4.) How are you handling lack of keyboard visibility? I understand some of the headsets have vision slits, but I haven't found them.I have a KB Gladiator stick with literally dozens of keystroke commands program-able, but I fear many would be useless without some way to visually check on what variation I want. Some of you use voice command right? If so which seems to work best?I used to use the Track IR version years ago but if I remember correctly it was mostly good on Radio orders and things like that. I don't remember if you could use it to raise flaps ot lower gear. Do newer versions do that? Both Oculus & Vive now come with earphones but I haven't seen mics yet, perhaps I should just continue to use my Skull Candy set that has a mic build in?

5.) My PC station is a relatively small space,about 8'by8' give or take, does thiscreate any problems or dictate which VR I should be considering?

I'm probably forgetting something but this will do for now.You can see I'm looking for a list of must do's that I can simply hand a tech & say I'll be back in two weeks to pick this up. I hope you guys can at the end of this thread should you choose to participate give me, provide such a to-do list.Many thanks!

1: Tough decision. Undoubtedly you have seen reports already here of the pros and cons. Resolution is not as good as some would like at this time, while for others like myself the immersion factor is so overwhelming resolution quickly becomes not so big a deal. As technology progresses it will get better, when is anyone's guess. I know the Rift CV2 is estimated for sometime in 2019.

I can say unequivocally, I had many of the same concerns when I was doing my research prior to ordering my Rift - but I am so glad I rolled the dice and did so. I could not imagine gaming without it now - even with the limitations -no way.

2: You will want as good a cpu as you can, but really the video card plays a very big role. I would go for at least a GTX 1070, 1080 or even 1080Ti if you can swing it. You did not mention the processor you have now or the speed it is running, I am running an older I7 4820k @ 4.5 GHz, and with my 1080 card I get exceptional performance in BoS - with graphics maxed out.

3: You won't go wrong with either. Currently the Rift is a little cheaper than the Vive. The Vive does room scale a little better than the Rift, but it is getting there. Some folks report a little better image clarity in the Rift, but that may be subjective. I have never tried a Vive to compare.

Controllers - Vive has the wand controllers, Rift came out with the Touch controllers the end of the year. The Touch controllers are amazing and I am very glad I got them - they are additional with the Rift though. Opened up a whole new area of gaming for me that I am enjoying very much when I take a short break from flight simming. The controllers though won't do anything for you in flight sims - at least currently.

4: The Rift has a built in mic, works great pretty sure the Vive does as well.

I have the Warthog HOTAS , and all my needed commands programmed to buttons. No problem for me, no need to look at my keyboard. Rift does have a little gap around the nose you can tilt head back and look through, not easily done though. You certainly don't want to have to mess around with key presses. Get the needed commands on buttons and memorize them best you can.

5: 8ft x 8ft is plenty, at least for the Rift I know it is. That is about probably the size of mine.

So in essence, deciding whether to go with VR now or wait is a tough call. I struggled with it for a few weeks, did a lot of research on various forums, and decided I have the money so why not , going to give it a try. This was on Jan 15th, and I use it each and every day and absolutely love it. I would not game on my 2d monitor again. So for me, I have no regrets at all being involved with this first generation device.

Sure, the next version will be improved over current generation - but really, one can say that about any generation - even with computers. The next best thing will always be around the corner...

Also, I know Oculus has a system compatibility checker, you can go ahead and download and run it to see what it reports back on your system:

https://support.oculus.com/1357437467617798

Hope this helps,

Edited June 8, 2017 by dburne

June 9, 2017

Great advice guys..I've checked & all I relly need is a new current graphics card ...so thats the good news& I'm leaning towards the Rift for now.I've got about 2 weeks before I finally decide.

June 9, 2017

2.) Ideally what should I be replacing in my old rig and with what,be specific if you can. Will I need to think about new & improved CPU units as well? I see there are specifically designed Game rigs for VR for a reasonable price , but I am concerned that they wouldn't be able to handle the day to day tasks my current rig does well- is that true?

Before you jump to VR make sure that your rig is able to render min 200fps in a single monitor mode (1080p). VR with its current resolution requires 2.5-3 times more power than 1080p screen. Even the latest GTX 1080ti is not fast enough to give you a stable 90fps with maxed out graphics settings in BoX. I don't want to imagine what we gonna need when 4K VR arrives. NASA computer might not be fast enough .

June 9, 2017

There *are* many caveats to VR.

But, saying that, every naysayer Ive had round who've tried it out has been converted.

In your shoes, I would put together the best PC I could afford and *then* save up for a Rift.

A powerful PC can be used for many things but not so a VR headset. It has limited uses.

But, Ill not fly without it

Edited June 9, 2017 by OrLoK

June 9, 2017

Before you jump to VR make sure that your rig is able to render min 200fps in a single monitor mode (1080p). VR with its current resolution requires 2.5-3 times more power than 1080p screen. Even the latest GTX 1080ti is not fast enough to give you a stable 90fps with maxed out graphics settings in BoX. I don't want to imagine what we gonna need when 4K VR arrives. NASA computer might not be fast enough .

Better drivers for one. The fact that I can get constant 60fps no problem in 4K but almost never 90fps in VR is annoying. Also, once we move to 4K VR, I'll be we'll start to see better support for SLI in VR where each eye is handled by a single card.

June 9, 2017

Better drivers for one. The fact that I can get constant 60fps no problem in 4K but almost never 90fps in VR is annoying.

You are running a 7700K with a 1080 Ti and you almost never get 90 fps?

That sounds a little odd, I am running a 1080 card with an older 4820K processor and easily achieve 90 fps probably the majority of the time in BoS. And I have graphics pretty much maxed out.

June 9, 2017

Better drivers for one. The fact that I can get constant 60fps no problem in 4K but almost never 90fps in VR is annoying. Also, once we move to 4K VR, I'll be we'll start to see better support for SLI in VR where each eye is handled by a single card.

That does sound very strange. What ram speed and graphics settings are you running?

June 9, 2017

I tested out OR goggles a weekend, mostly in DCS . Current update there making it difficult to estimate needed hardware for a new pc atm. And I was not convinced at all in DCS . But I tried a couple of qmb missions in BOS . I found current VR technology adequate for this game, all tho I hear the spotting is difficult. Fantastic cockpits and such. But I fly this game only one time a week. so I need something better for DCS choppers, so I wait.

June 9, 2017

So I guess the question is ;why wait until the end of the month...when I could be ready to fly the new Spitfire with this VR gear???

June 9, 2017

You are running a 7700K with a 1080 Ti and you almost never get 90 fps?

That sounds a little odd, I am running a 1080 card with an older 4820K processor and easily achieve 90 fps probably the majority of the time in BoS. And I have graphics pretty much maxed out.

That does sound very strange. What ram speed and graphics settings are you running?

I am running things at Very High, 2X AA, SS=1.3. With HUD off I am getting 90fps once I get above 1K but closer to the ground I get between 50-80 (with ASW off). My performance in multiplayer is much worse than in single player (offline) where I get 90fps almost all the time.

Ram speed is 2400.

FWIW, I am running the game through Steam.

Edited June 9, 2017 by ClarkFable

June 9, 2017

So I guess the question is ;why wait until the end of the month...when I could be ready to fly the new Spitfire with this VR gear???

For this game I would not wait, unless spotting and id enemy is too big of a problem. The sensation of presence cannot be understated. But I have a feeling it could be so much more. I do not know if it is regulated by common users PC or just the best they can do

June 9, 2017

I am running things at Very High, 2X AA, SS=1.3. With HUD off I am getting 90fps once I get above 1K but closer to the ground I get between 50-80 (with ASW off). My performance in multiplayer is much worse than in single player (offline) where I get 90fps almost all the time.

Ram speed is 2400.

FWIW, I am running the game through Steam.

I am running 4Xaa, SS= 1.5, graphics on Ultra and terrain distance x4.

However I am only flying Single Player, so perhaps that is the difference. And I do not fly with the HUD on.

June 10, 2017

Yeah when playing multiplayer there is a substantial fps hit over single player.

June 12, 2017

I've read several reviews of new grapics cards...is there one that has proved best?

Edited June 12, 2017 by Blitzen

June 12, 2017

I've read several reviews of new grapics cards...is there one that has proved best?

For VR go 1080 Ti without question.

Personally I am a big fan of EVGA, have had their cards for a number of years. Never had a problem, and their support is awesome as well. If I were buying a new one today I would go EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3.

June 12, 2017

For VR go 1080 Ti without question.

Personally I am a big fan of EVGA, have had their cards for a number of years. Never had a problem, and their support is awesome as well. If I were buying a new one today I would go EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3.

Good advice! Thanks!

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