Issues with Bigscreen Beyond 2e

[Merlin-the-mog]

I've recently received the new Bigscreen Beyond 2, and I'm having problems getting it to work with IL-2.

It's working fine with all other games I've tried it with (Elite, DCS, No Mans Sky, Skyrim + many others), but there's a strange eye-offset issue as soon as the menu boots in IL-2.

It's an odd one because it's not just an IPD issue. Instead, it seems like one eye is being rendered at a different vertical height to the other eye so the IPD controls aren't of any help here, and it's *really* uncomfortable to view.

 

I've asked in the Bigscreen Beyond Discord and the the indication I got was that this was likely caused by IL-2 using a very old SteamVR stack. 

So I'm wondering if anyone here has seen anything like this before? IL-2 is one of my favourite games, and other than this issue, I'm loving the BSB2 because it's SO light and comfortable - and it normally just works without needing to mess with settings because it's a native SteamVR headset.

 

Would be great to find a way to fix this issue with IL-2 since I'm finding it difficult to play games with my other headsets after using the BSB2 for a few weeks.

My other headsets are Quest 3 (great quality lenses, comfort not great, spend a lot of time tuning settings to make it work well), and PSVR2 (small lens sweet-spot, issues with Mura which is fine for some games, but very bad for flight sims).

Edited Tuesday at 09:23 AM by Merlin-the-mog

[chiliwili69]

Thanks for posting this here. Please, put it in the bug/issues report as well so dev team is aware of this and how important it is for new devices. So the can update IL-2 with teh current OpenVR SDK o even better support native OpenXR.

 

Do you know any other person who also has the same problem with IL-2 and B2B?

 

Have you tired any of this:

 

1.- Use OpenComposite and change SteamVR as OpenXR runtime. Never tried this but who knows.

2.- Upgrade to a different version of SteamVR (Beta?)

3.- Review IL-2 config file: ...\IL-2 Sturmovik Battle of Stalingrad\data\startup.cfg  (Review or reset graphics if needed. Back it up before editing)

To reset this file you only need to rename it to other name and IL-2 will build it when launched

4.- Review SteamVR user settings file: <Steam>\config\steamvr.vrsettings (typical: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\config\steamvr.vrsettings) –
 this is the user-editable JSON with runtime parameters (render target scale, IPD/IPD offset, driver forcing, etc.). Back this up before changes.

Compare it with the default file <Steam>\steamapps\common\SteamVR\resources\settings\default.vrsettings –
this file is overridden by your user file; Valve warns not to edit this for personal settings because updates overwrite it.

 

 

 

[Merlin-the-mog]

Thanks for all those great suggestions. I wish I'd had them a few days ago 😄

Checking through your list, I've already tried all of those things whilst trying to get to the bottom of this over the last few days. Nothing seems to make any difference at all to the vertical eye offset I'm seeing - It's super frustrating. I can use the IPD settings to move the eyes from side to side but there's no controls or offsets that affect the vertical alignment. 

The odd thing is that the eye views are not offset vertically when displayed side-by-side on my 2D screen, so the issue seems to only happen when projecting to the headset.

 

I'll go ahead and put it in the bug/issue report like you suggested.

 

So far, I've not heard from anyone else who has tried IL-2 with BSB2 so I have no idea whether this is a problem that's only affecting me, or all users with this combination.

This issue makes the game unplayable so I was hoping to get confirmation that this either is or isn't affecting others.

[tati]

I had a similar issue years ago with Samsung Odyssey with IL2 only. Other games were fine. I gave up and returned it. 

Have you tried adjusting System >> Field of view >> Advanced settings in OpenXR?

[giftgruen]

Very interesting topic.

 

Since I plan to upgrade my QuestPro ( though I am quite happy with it ) for a better resolution headset and BB2 is obviously a candidate.

However .. still waiting for more real user reviews, especially for IL2. Now there is one. Thanks !

[chiliwili69]

10 hours ago, Merlin-the-mog said:

Checking through your list, I've already tried all of those things whilst trying to get to the bottom of this over the last few days.

Ohh! this is then worse than I thought.

The important thing is that other devices like Pimaxes or Quest3 are working fine with the "old stack" used by IL-2.

So, it looks like this is something that could be fixed as well in the BSB2 side.

 

I have asked ChatGPT5 for a detailed mail you could send to BSB support, so mantain back compatibility with "old stack":

 

Subject: Request: Compatibility shim for IL-2 Sturmovik (old OpenVR stack causes diplopia on BSB)

 

Hello Bigscreen team,

 

Several users (including myself) are experiencing vertical diplopia (one eye’s image shifted relative to the other) when running IL-2 Sturmovik Great Battles in SteamVR with Bigscreen Beyond.

This seems to be caused by the fact that IL-2 still uses an old version of the OpenVR/SteamVR API. In particular:

• IL-2 queries legacy eye-transform/projection matrices (from the original OpenVR stack).

• SteamVR normally keeps backward compatibility, but the newer Beyond calibration data (per-unit vertical alignment, hidden-area mesh, lens correction) is only exposed via newer API calls.

• As a result, IL-2 receives “default” transforms instead of Beyond-specific calibration → producing visible diplopia.

Other headsets (Quest, Pimax) don’t show this problem, likely because their runtime layers insert a shim that translates old API calls into corrected eye transforms.

Possible solution on the driver side:
Would it be possible for the Beyond SteamVR driver to intercept those old GetEyeToHeadTransform / GetProjectionMatrix calls and inject the proper calibrated transforms before handing them back to the game? This would replicate what other vendors have done to preserve compatibility with legacy OpenVR titles.

We understand the “right” long-term solution is for the IL-2 developers to add OpenXR support or recompile against a modern OpenVR SDK, but in the meantime, a driver-level fix on your side would allow Beyond users to enjoy this classic sim without visual discomfort.

Thank you for considering this request!

Best regards,
[Your name]

[chiliwili69]

11 hours ago, Merlin-the-mog said:

So far, I've not heard from anyone else who has tried IL-2 with BSB2 so I have no idea whether this is a problem that's only affecting me, or all users with this combination.

 

From past posts in this forum there are a number of users of the previous BSB headset who didn´t report any issue.

 

At @Goldwrench, @=WoVi=Defbond, @N0.10_Paladin,  Is your BSB headset still working OK with IL-2?

[chiliwili69]

Just to double check this, have you tired to disable Advance Supersample Filtering in SteamVR?