Which VR headset?

[DD_TBone]

OK folks so a brief background... I am currently using an Oculus Rift S to run IL2 GBS. and its great, I love it....
Im lucky enough to have a rig that can run it at 80fps, with a 1.5 Super sampling in OTT too.

I am however looking to update my headset, to something with a bit more resolution, as VR users are at a serious disadvantage on DF servers with no icons. I have avoided them mostly due to this, but player 1 player campaigns are getting a bit boring and I want to fly against other players, other than on my squad nights with my friends.

the 2 I am looking at are the Oculus Quest 2 (tethered) and the HTC Vive 2 Pro. failing that I am open minded to other devices if they are right and for the right price., but I didnt want to spend more than a £ grand if I can help it

does anyone here use these headsets? and can you give you opinions on how they perform?
is the resolution good enough to identify aircraft at a reasonable distance without Icons? and does the higher spec VR headset have a big impact on game FPS and performance?


The spec Im running it on is:
Intel i9 12900k

Nvidia RTX4080
with 32Gb DDR 5.

Thanks In advance...

T

 

Edited August 6, 2023 by DD_TBone

[DD_TBone]

P.S. in the meantime, are there any reasonably decent DF servers you can recommend that do use Icons to be kind to us VR players? lol
I fly both WW1 and WW2.

[Lusekofte]

It is all about the money. I fly DCS mostly with a old i7 3080 with G2 coming from Rift S

G2 is way better and got sane tracking system as Rift S and are just as much a plug and play like Rift S. 

If you want to fiddle a lot tweak and buy a so-called lighthouse. Vario is probably the best. It cost more than the best gpu and you will be king of VR. 
For me that is out of the question. I simply cannot see it is worth the money. Those using vario say it is

[AEthelraedUnraed]

I use the Quest 2, and am very happy with it. Tethered to my PC, it works just fine. It's mostly plug-and-play and I can't remember ever needing to change/tweak anything beyond switching to OpenXR instead of SteamVR for better performance. My setup is right at the bare minimum for VR however so I cannot really comment on whether the resolution is good enough for aircraft ID, but looking at the resolution of the headset itself, I imagine it should be. You can recognise individual pixels if you try, but you really have to focus on that and all the menus are razor-sharp.

 

Though if you're looking into buying a Quest, you should wait until this fall when the Quest 3 is released. Meta markets it as being better at mostly everything (including resolution), for a slightly higher price. Even if you're not interested, Meta lowers the advertised price for the Quest 2 to $300 (around €275, right now it's sold for €350 here in the Netherlands).

 

EDIT: Also, the Quest has the possibility to use "Air Link", which is basically untethered VR through WiFi. My own antiquated router is *slightly* too slow for it, but if you've got a modern one you should be able to get the increased comfort of not having to use a cable.

Edited August 6, 2023 by AEthelraedUnraed

[kraut1]

1 hour ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

I use the Quest 2, and am very happy with it. Tethered to my PC, it works just fine. It's mostly plug-and-play and I can't remember ever needing to change/tweak anything beyond switching to OpenXR instead of SteamVR for better performance.

interesting, which GPU/CPU do  you have?

[AEthelraedUnraed]

7 minutes ago, kraut1 said:

interesting, which GPU/CPU do  you have?

i7-9750H and RTX2060 (laptop version). Not sure what's so interesting about the particular section you quoted?

 

As I said, it's rather on the low end of VR specs and I play at a rather low resolution, but apart from that it works perfectly fine.

Edited August 6, 2023 by AEthelraedUnraed

[Charon]

I advise against the Vive Pro 2. I have one. It's a piece of junk. 6 months after purchase I started getting visual artifacts (banding, etc) in one eye. I sent it back to be repaired under warranty, and 9 months later it failed again in the same way. There's plenty of reports of this on /r/vive, too.

 

And it's a shame, because the resolution and FoV are pretty great when it does work.

[DD_TBone]

ok thats interesting... I thought he Vive 2 would be pretty solid, the one thing that I was sceptical about it was the built in headset, which I dont really want as I have a 7.1 surround surround sound headset which it wont come close to outperforming in terms of audio.

AEthelraedUnraed, you have a similar spec to what I used to run IL2 on, the rig was about 10 years old, when it finally had to be laid to rest.
It handled the Rift S on around 40-60fps, but I had to seriously lean it out in terms of background apps etc, I literally had to close almost everything to run IL2.

when she died, I thought sod it, and bought the highest spec rig I could afford,. I use it for work too, so thats how I could justify the hefty price tag.

Im just wondering if the new Quest headsets would be a significant enough improvement to justify the price, I guess I will just have to wait and see what the reviews say. Is there a release date for the Quest 3?

I do know someone who has a Quest 2, and hes offered to loan it to me to try, but he has no tether cable sadly.

Edited August 6, 2023 by DD_TBone

[AEthelraedUnraed]

3 minutes ago, DD_TBone said:

AEthelraedUnraed, you have a similar spec to what I used to run IL2 on, the rig was about 10 years old, when it finally had to be laid to rest.
It handled the Rift S on around 40-60fps, but I had to seriously lean it out in terms of background apps etc, I literally had to close almost everything to run IL2.

I usually run slightly lower FPS than that, around 30-40, but then I don't close any background apps and I haven't tuned the graphics all the way down as I'm not very susceptible to low framerates. Still, it *might* be that the Rift S performs slightly better.

 

5 minutes ago, DD_TBone said:

Im just wondering if the new Quest headsets would be a significant enough improvement to justify the price, I guess I will just have to wait and see what the reviews say.
Is there a release date for the Quest 3?

Well, there's always the lower price for the Quest 2 if the Quest 3 isn't worth it There's no published release date beyond "this fall" but some online magazines expect it to be in early October.

 

7 minutes ago, DD_TBone said:

I do know someone who has a Quest 2, and hes offered to loan it to me to try, but he has no tether cable sadly.

Well, if you have any USB-C cable that's long enough, that works perfectly fine too. Preferably USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps) but Gen 1 (5Gbps) should work too. There's really no reason to buy the overpriced official "Oculus Quest 2 Link Cable"; I use a generic USB-C cable that I got for a fifth of the price.

 

 

Two further things that may or may not be important to you if you're thinking of buying a Quest 2:

- You need to have a Facebook (Meta) account. You can put all privacy settings on "private" and it only asks you to login perhaps once a year but still, you need an account to use your headset.

- The Quest 2 can be used as a standalone gaming rig. If you're into console gaming, this may be something of a two-in-one deal for you.

[spreckair]

Like Lusekofte, I too have an I7 (albeit a 13700K) and a RTX 3080 using an HP Reverb G2, and coming originally from a Rift S.  I have decided to stick with the G2 until a headset comes out that enables the same aircraft ID'ing as a monitor does.  It is just getting too expensive to purchase new headsets for very incremental improvements.  As soon as someone reports that their new headset allows them to ID aircraft at a good distance, I will be interested in a change.  Besides, eventually the prices have got to come down.

 

Also, it looks like HP no longer sells the G2, but remaining stock is available on Amazon for less than HP's price.

Edited August 6, 2023 by spreckair

[Skycat1969]

I transitioned to the Reverb G2 after using Rift S for two years, and I've enjoyed it daily albeit with cheat icons on and in SP mode only. The Rift S was a very good first headsetset for ease of use but Reverb G2 has greater clarity and better sound. Overall the G2 feels like the right headset for flight simming (including MSFS 2020); while my impression on Quest targets at a more casual gamer demographic. And there are newer, more expensive headsets that promise sharper resolution or wider FOV but I'd be cautious on how they handle fast-moving combat sims like IL-2 Sturmovik.

[Drano]

I'm with exactly the same setup as Sprekair, also went from RiftS to G2 and don't see myself upgrading for the same reasons. I'd recommend the G2, as I love it, but it's basically a discontinued and semi-supported product. HP has said there will be no G3. I don't know if it's a case of HP no longer making the G2 or just selling off what stock they have. WMR is no longer supported by Microsoft so no further improvements to the software will be happening unless some 3rd party rides to the rescue. Issues wth it's proprietary cable make it a gamble at this point. They have a rep of going bad for no reason and are difficult to find and are crazy expensive if you need one, even from HP! But--- if you can get a new one cheap from HP, it'd be cheaper than the better headsets currently available and is a perfectly decent headset for the money if you're just looking to get into VR. They go on sale from time to time. 

 

Hehe! I know that doesn't sound like a glowing endorsement! Just keeping it real! If it's working-- it's great! 

[Russkly]

Agree with what others have said here - the G2 is a very good, mid-range HMD for Il2...for as long as it works. Much-documented issues with the cables abound, and my headset died a month after the warranty expired, and HP would only replace it for a further GBP375.

 

I moved to a Pico 4 for GBP335, but it's a standalone headset and therefore more hassle to set up and optimise with wifi connection, etc.

 

If HP hadn't treated me so badly, I would have opted for another G2, but the mid-range space is getting a little thin on the ground, so we now have low-/mid-range options like the Pico 4 or the Quest 2, which are more aimed at the standalone market, and then we have the ludicrously expensive top end such as the Varjo Aero or the Pimax products.

 

In such a nascent market, I'd be tempted to go for second-hand as a first port of call to test before throwing hundreds of pounds at an HMD - ultimately things will probably continue to change apace, so getting a new, expensive HMD, especially from newer, less tried-and-tested manufacturers, carries an element of risk.

 

[DD_TBone]

18 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

I usually run slightly lower FPS than that, around 30-40, but then I don't close any background apps and I haven't tuned the graphics all the way down as I'm not very susceptible to low framerates. Still, it *might* be that the Rift S performs slightly better.

 

Well, there's always the lower price for the Quest 2 if the Quest 3 isn't worth it There's no published release date beyond "this fall" but some online magazines expect it to be in early October.

 

Well, if you have any USB-C cable that's long enough, that works perfectly fine too. Preferably USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps) but Gen 1 (5Gbps) should work too. There's really no reason to buy the overpriced official "Oculus Quest 2 Link Cable"; I use a generic USB-C cable that I got for a fifth of the price.

 

 

Two further things that may or may not be important to you if you're thinking of buying a Quest 2:

- You need to have a Facebook (Meta) account. You can put all privacy settings on "private" and it only asks you to login perhaps once a year but still, you need an account to use your headset.

- The Quest 2 can be used as a standalone gaming rig. If you're into console gaming, this may be something of a two-in-one deal for you.

Yes, I am already on facebook etc, as I had to register my Rift S device. from what I am reading the Quest 3 spec actually looks pretty good, and the price they are saying is defintely achievable.

I thought that the full kit for the Vive 2, was really expensive. at £1300. but Meta are saying the Q3 will be around £500. which could hopefully free up some cash for a better flightstick. im using a combo of Thrustmaster T.16000 (for throttle) and an X56 Rhino for joystick. The X56 throttle broke after 9 months, and the Thrustmaster stick is not accurate enough. so im using a mix and match setup currently.