Here is a new look at the Oculus Rift in DCS: World 1.5. I fly missions in the Ka-50 Black Shark and A-10 Warthog discussing the good and bad points of the experience as I go. Enjoy.

Thanks for the info. Were you able to adjust the new DCS option that allows distant aircraft and objects stand out more? I have the DK2, but haven't bothered trying it with the Beta, as the DK2 doesn't have a physical IPD adjustment. The software adjustment doesn't help much with my particular IPD. Thankfully the CV1 does have a physical adjustment.

I believe the CV1, with its higher resolution dual displays, should be just enough especially with Samsung custom display made especially for VR, that could have a better pixel, sub pixel arrangement, with less space between pixels. Combined with the Oculus custom lenses, and optimized Optical software, should make the perceived resolution in the CV1 much higher than the perceived resolution in the DK2.

Thanks! I only watched the first few minutes but that was enough to answer some of the q's I had about OR. The performance at higher settings is disappointing. I was expecting that the unit itself would process the visuals and that the GPU would only need to drive a GUI. Obviously I haven't been following the technology closely but it sounds like it has more potential with console, where there is tight coordination between developers and complete consistancy among equipment.

I've had a long hiatus from DCS but recently got back into it with the 1.5 beta. Back in the A-10 I was very quickly reminded how annoying default point of view is (as if you're sitting over the edge of the seat), and noticed in this video this this doesn't appear to be a problem with the Rift.

Since the logical explanation for the weird PoV (which as far as I'm aware has never been officially acknowledged) is that moving the camera further back would make the HUD difficult to read, I'm surprised to see it corrected for the OR, given that the low resolution would only make the problem worse.

Can you confirm that this is with default settings, you haven't messed about with any config files?

Cheers

Great video Bunyap,thanks.I posted awhile back about an easier implementation for the comms menu that never really inspired anyone to it.What I was asking for was a way to do away with the F-keys and how immersion breaking it is to press a button HOTAS and then look at keyboard and do the F-key stuff.I asked for a system that used two key presses only.First key press brings up comms menu and you then cycle the choices with same key until you highlight what you want and then use second key to activate.Simple two keys and can also be done with mouse for use in oculus.Use scroll wheel to cycle and press scroll wheel to select.Or for warthog throttle users actually use the mic switch by pressing the hat switch down to select.

Not sure if I understood you correctly, but I am assuming I did. I't not possible to have to unit "process" the visuals from a single GPU generated image. The images for each eye in the right are not identical and not just because one shows more to the right and the other more to the left. They are in fact generated from diferent view points where your eyes would be, even though those viewpoints are only 4-5cm apart, they are diferent and need to be rendered twice.

I think it's preaty much a given on the standart view point that it's as you say. I messed with the standart view point in the past to place my view in a more "realistic" position, but found that even with trackIR it was just much more confortable to leave it at default, having to move my head to read my hud the whole of the hud was not very pratical for me with trackIR. I imagige it will be much better with VR, much more ackeen to real pilots need of moving their head. Of course as you say at present resolutions, lets just say I don't see myself diving into it until we are talking CV2 or CV3.

What I meant was that I naively thought that the Rift would mitigate the performance issues of running so much detail on a monitor. I just didn't understand what the hardware actually did. Now that I have a better understanding, I have less faith that the device will be practical in the sim world unless the sim developers dial back the GPU needs so that the game runs smoothly enough to please the OR wearing player.

The most I could expect processing-wise out of the HMD itself is barrel distortion for the eye buffers, and it's likely they do that on the GPU too because doing it HMD-side would introduce more latency.

Needless to say, latency is BAD for VR. Having a screen or two consume most of your FOV ruthlessly reveals deficiencies in responsiveness and head-tracking that a typical monitor/TrackIR setup wouldn't, and a lot of the advancements they've been trying to make over the years involve cutting down motion-to-photon latency (or in other words, input lag) as much as possible.

On the PC side of things, it'll take serious optimization from the developers to make a good VR experience because the whole user experience needs to be designed with VR in mind. It looks like Eagle Dynamics has come a fair way with DCS 1.5, even having a virtual monitor for the menus, but cockpit and distant unit visibility may be issues even at CV1 resolutions, just extrapolating from my Gear VR experience (which works with 2560x1440 phone screens divided into 1280x1440 per eye, technically higher than the 1080x1200 per eye res of the CV1, but Gear VR apps run the eye buffers at 1000x1000 for performance reasons).

Nevertheless, I'm excited enough that when the Rift CV1 finally hits the market, I'll be snapping one up and playing lots of DCS with it. Probably Elite: Dangerous too, since I told myself I wouldn't buy that until the CV1 releases. Watching YouTube footage of that and DCS 1.5 through the Gear VR utterly spoiled me, it's like actually being in the cockpit.