Hey all,

I’ve been playing with my CV1 since right before Christmas and to me at any rate it’s almost as much of a game changer as my first 3dfx card. I can’t think of a peripheral that has had that big of an effect, even TrackIR.
Ice, you mentioned driving games? Driving games are where IT’S AT as you spend so much time moving your head you don’t focus on the screen door effect so much and I swear I notice things in VR out of the corner of my eye that I NEVER would in pancake. Additionally the use of peripherals such as a steering wheel or Warthog HOTAS go a long ways in keeping immersion so you don’t have to peek as well as helping to keep your lunch down.
There’s a discussion or two over at Racedepartment about VR and I believe that as the technology matures we’ll be seeing more and more adoption particularly from us in the sim community. I remember thinking a TM Cougar was expensive back in the day but I’m running a Warthog now and I know TM must sell enough to be profitable as they still make them. Race teams and driver’s training centers will use them, especially the teams who don’t have the money for big triple monitor motion capable setups. Think what you will of Project Cars 2, but the first time I ran the 24 hours of Le Mans (time compressed, of course) and experienced the weather and night/day cycles in VR I was hooked! Not to mention the sheer detail of Assetto Corsa where I swear I saw garbage on the ground trackside by a can as I was going past at a hundred and ten.

But the best I’ve saved for last:
Flight games.
Man oh man, I finally got IL2 BOx working and actually was able to take off! I’ve been trying for months but although I can get the A2A Spit in the air in FSX or P3D the IL2 version kept defeating me. Finally I read the Chuck’s guide and discovered it doesn’t actually HAVE toe brakes so no wonder I kept ground looping it! Once I finally DID get it into the air though, just sublime. Bounced a couple of Emil’s and came away the victor right away due to the fact that it’s IL-2 so I’ve had a lot more practice than two weeks, be sure. Landing was again, problematic but as I’ve committed the location of the escape key to memory I don’t mind stabbing that when I bounce or see one wing come up a foot and a half on one side. I wasn’t too good with target ID in the regular IL-2 so I don’t mind the pixelation TOO much, heck I remember playing Pacific Fighters on a “19 square glass monitor in 1024X768 so the Rift is a big step up from that.

But I mainly wanted to express some interest in having a specific VR hardware thread as I believe that the simulation community will play a MAJOR factor in it’s adoption as we have historically helped to drive hardware sales and development in the high end PC gaming market. What with video card prices being what they are it was a no-brainer for me what my upgrade was for myself this year. A Rift costs half what an upgrade Video Card for my current system would cost thanks to Crypto-mining so it was a very easy decision and one I don’t regret. With VorpX to convert the titles that don’t natively support VR I’m having a blast re-visiting old games that seem quite different now in VR and many like the Alien game and GTA5 have extensive VR mods made by the community which elevate them into an entirely new experience when played in VR.