VR for Dummies

[DavePro]

I'm keen to try VR when it comes up, but have no experience with it. I hope that the team will either produce a 'VR for Dummies' cheat sheet, or refer us to one. I have checked my system using Steam's VR checker and it comes out as Medium, with upgrade recommended. My thought is that I'd pick up a simple VR first and try it before fiddling with my PC to improve video quality. For this application a tethered headset would be fine: I don't intend to swing my axe at dungeon bosses.

But my questions are pretty basic - for example, how do I handle key press controls while wearing a headset?

[-OrLoK- Слава Україн]

many of us use a HOTAS (joystick /throttle)

this often means you don't have to touch a keyboard etc.

that said, I still use my keyboard to change views and I've just Learnt to know where the keys are via muscle memory.

note: VR is very demanding on ones PC so if ones budget allows it might be time to upgrade a bit:)

VR does have its drawbacks and issues but I won't fly without it anymore.

[shadowgravy]

VR hasn't been officially released in this series yet (it's coming) so it's difficult to give advice specific to Cliffs of Dover Blitz and Desert Tobruk. I use VR in other flight sims that have implemented it well: IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad, DCS World WWII, Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) and Lockheed Martin's Prepar3D. I started with an Oculus Rift S which was easy to set up and use; and it worked okay with older graphics cards (GTX 970 Ti and 1070 Ti in my case) but has lower clarity than newer generation headsets.

The Rift S and my current Reverb G2 are tethered sets. I think that is still the way to go for flight sims because of the high computing power needed for high frames (especially important for combat sims), but I believe that untethered sets like the Oculus Quest 2 can receive signals from a PC. I don't have any experience with untethered sets; I only know that these games can't be processed within the headset themselves. If somebody gifted me a Quest 2 I'd go buy the link cable for it anyhow.

I began VR flight simming with an older PC: i7-4790 cpu, 16 GB RAM and a GTX 970 Ti GPU. That setup ran War Thunder beautifully in VR; IL-2 Sturmovik Battle of Stalingrad was "okay" but I got warping and judders when the action got heavy; and DCS WWII was minimally flyable. I built my own machine for VR and it has been a huge improvement: i7-9700K, 32 GB RAM, RTX 2080Ti GPU.

As for how to control the game itself with a headset, I think Cliffs of Dover will be similar to DCS and MSFS in that all have cursor interactive controls. We'll probably be able to use our mouse similar to how we already use it when playing on monitors. Keyboard commands are an obvious limitation though, unless you don't mind lifting up your headset every few minutes. I use a speech recognition program called Voice Attack (it's available on Steam). It takes some time to setup though; first you have to train it to recognize your voice. Then you manually create a profile for the game you want to use it with. Profiles can be a few basic commands like "pause," "menu," and "recenter view" or they can be extensive to cover dozens or hundreds of keybinds available in the game.

[DavePro]

Thanks, Guys. That's a great start for me.

[-OrLoK- Слава Україн]

oh ffs, I was talking about BoS rather than Blitz, apologies.

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

There is already a guide for using VR in BLITZ/TOBRUK which has been given to the VR Beta Testers.

A finalized version of that guide will be available when we release VR publicly.

[cercata]

Originally posted by DavePro:

But my questions are pretty basic - for example, how do I handle key press controls while wearing a headset?

I normally do everything with my HOTAS, but I setup my googles for having a hole in the nose, so I can look my queckref sheet, the keyboard, in case of an emergency.

That works well in general, yet we have to see how is their VR implementation, and what you can use for people that don't like having hole that lets light entering.

[DavePro]

I've been doing some thinking about VR over the last year. Issue I see is that human binocular vision is ineffective over 20 feet/metres (sources vary). Basically, anything beyond your wing tips won't show in 3D. It will certainly make the cockpit itself much more realistic, and the big bonus is that we'll be able to see around the canopy framing bars. That apart, I'd be happy to settle for having the same image presented to both eyes, provided that the ability for the image to follow head movement is retained. To me, that's the major virtue.
A lot of you out there know much more about VR than I do, so I'd be happy to listen to comments/corrections.
David

[Toprudder]

Originally posted by DavePro:

I've been doing some thinking about VR over the last year. Issue I see is that human binocular vision is ineffective over 20 feet/metres (sources vary). Basically, anything beyond your wing tips won't show in 3D. It will certainly make the cockpit itself much more realistic, and the big bonus is that we'll be able to see around the canopy framing bars. That apart, I'd be happy to settle for having the same image presented to both eyes, provided that the ability for the image to follow head movement is retained. To me, that's the major virtue.
A lot of you out there know much more about VR than I do, so I'd be happy to listen to comments/corrections.
David

So what are your system specs and what hmd are you considering?

[Japp3]

Is VR mode offered in Cliffs of Dover in 2024?
I am just a noob that would love to play this with vr. If any could throw some light it would be great..its not easy to get news about IL2 cuz the different IL2versions and dlcs are a bit confusiing for starters, thanks!

[-OrLoK- Слава Україн]

there's no public VR yet in il2 Cliffs of Dover.

it's coming but we don't know when

il2 Great Battles has VR right now.

DCS has VR right now.

MSFS2020 has VR right now.

there are others but those are the ones I use for VR.