Advice on VR hardware

Here you can find help for how to best run and setup your XWA VR experience.
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Advice on VR hardware

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Old_Jedi
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Post by Old_Jedi » Wed Dec 16, 2020 5:30 pm

Hi guys

Having taken the opportunity to upgrade my work laptop to a Dell G5 gaming rig (i7-10750; 16GB; NVIDIA GTX 2060 6GB) I thought I would ask Santa for a VR headset. I will pretty much be playing XWA and some Squadrons, not at all hard-core, so was wondering what your experiences are with the Quest 2? I realize I asked a similar question a while back, but am now much nearer pressing the button on ordering this (bugger all else I can do living in a Tier 3 area this Xmas)

Would you recommend it, how does it compare to the older and soon to be discontinued Rift S? Is the fixed 3-position IPD a hindrance?

Cheers,

OJ

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m0rgg
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Post by m0rgg » Wed Dec 16, 2020 9:14 pm

Hi,

Disclaimer: I havent tried RiftS.

I went from an Oculus CV1 to a Quest2 and it is a clear improvement in terms of image quality. The difference between Quest2 and RiftS is less pronounced, but still in favor of Quest2, even with USB Link to a PC and the associated video compression. With the latest update to Oculus Link, if your machine can push it, you can have a similar if not better image quality.
Of course you need a USB cable, but you can get a cheap one from Aliexpress (I paid 13€~$15 for a 5m one).

The RiftS does not have mechanical IPD adjustment, only software, so Quest2 is superior in that regard. Even with 3 positions, if you are in the average range (and especially in the lower part) it should be fine. I went from the analog setting of the CV1 to the Quest2 without noticing the difference (I'm 65mm, right in the middle between 63mm and 68mm, and it's perfectly clear and comfortable. A 1-3mm difference in IPD does not impact the image quality a lot.

But apart from cabled PCVR, the Quest2 has 2 advantages that can be very important (or not) depending on your use case:
- Standalone VR and portability: you can use VR anywhere without bringing your PC with you (although with a gaming laptop it is less of an advantage).
- Wireless PCVR: with Virtual Desktop and a good 5GHz Wifi network you can play PCVR games wireless in the Quest, with a quality comparable to the Link, and insignificant latency (unless you play competitive Beat Saber or similar). When you test wireless, you may never want to go back to cables :-)

The main advantage of RiftS is the confort, but you can fix that with a cheap halo style head-strap for Quest2 from Aliexpress (~25€). It's the one I have and a clear improvement over the default and even the original CV1. Or some of the other headstrap types if halo is not comfortable for you. Quest2 is made for easily interchangeable headstraps, no need for 3D printed adapters or mods.

Oh, and there is the Facebook account requirement, which can be an issue for many people, but that applies also to the Rift S. You would need to go to Valve Index or HP Reverb G2 to avoid that.

Even with the $100 discount for RiftS, I would still buy a Quest2 today. The only hesitation would be if you can catch a used RiftS for a very intersting price.

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Old_Jedi
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Post by Old_Jedi » Thu Dec 17, 2020 5:43 pm

Thanks very much for the detailed review.
OJ

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Old_Jedi
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Post by Old_Jedi » Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:00 pm

I can't believe it has been just over a year since I posted this and I have *finally* gotten around to trying XWA with my Quest 2 headset. A few abortive, nausea-inducing Squadrons sessions and general life events meant that it is only today (due to annual leave) that I finally strapped the Quest 2 on and tried XWA (actually the TFTC) as VR - what an absolute blast!

Unlike Squadrons, I did not feel nauseous and only stopped when the family taking the pi$$ out of their 58-year-old father in a VR headset got too much!

I found some of the star detail too distracting and things slowed down a lot during big dogfights and laser hits, but I guess I need to trawl the advice settings given previously.

Kudos to you guys for enabling VR in this ancient but still brilliant game!

O_J

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m0rgg
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Post by m0rgg » Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:50 pm

Always happy to read experiences, especially from people enjoying it!

Ther is a lot of work ongoing from @blue_max to incorporate changes by @JeremyaFr that will greatly improve performance.

I'm surprised that Squadrons was more nauseating than XWA 😁. I guess that means the team has progressed a lot making the VR experience playable... But still many things to fix and room for improvement!

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blue_max
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Post by blue_max » Wed Jan 19, 2022 8:58 pm

Right, as m0rgg said, I'm working on merging the latest hooks by Jeremy into the Effects version of ddraw. Preliminary tests show an improvement of 2-4x over the previous version and we expect that will also translate to VR. You will still see some slowdowns in large dogfights, but we hope the performance hit won't be that big anymore. So, stay tuned!

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haui
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Post by haui » Thu Sep 01, 2022 11:23 am

Hi does anybody us a Acer or Lenovo Vr Headset?
I can geht one for a good price but i want to know if it works well with steam an x.wing
It's better to burn out than to fade away .

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blue_max
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Post by blue_max » Thu Sep 01, 2022 4:15 pm

haui wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 11:23 am
Hi does anybody us a Acer or Lenovo Vr Headset?
I can geht one for a good price but i want to know if it works well with steam an x.wing
I don't have these headsets, but I can tell you this:

* If these headsets are wired (i.e. they are *not* wireless, they connect to your PC using a regular cable), then VR performance will be mainly driven by your machine. If you can get 90fps or more without VR, then you can expect good performance with your headset.
* Look at the specs of these headsets. What is the maximum per-eye resolution in pixels? If you can get good performance at a similar resolution without VR, then you'll be fine. For instance, if you intend to play at a per-eye resolution of 960x1080, then check what's your performance when you set the game to play at 1920x1080 (this would be the area in pixels for two eyes).
* Try to find what others say about tracking and how comfortable the headsets are.

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haui
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Post by haui » Thu Sep 01, 2022 5:39 pm

Thanks my Hardware is fast enough AMD rycen7 and rx7600.
So i think i will try it
It's better to burn out than to fade away .

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haui
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Post by haui » Thu Sep 08, 2022 9:17 am

Ok
i bought an used Lenovo explorer VR Headset.
It was easy to install and it works great with the Xwing VR Mod.
i have all details at max and all effects by blue max enabled.
CPU Rycen7 3500
GPU Radeon RX6600
32GB RAM
It's better to burn out than to fade away .

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m0rgg
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Post by m0rgg » Thu Sep 08, 2022 10:23 am

Glad to read it works fine for you! We had reports of issues with Windows Mixed Reality devices in the past.
Be aware that there are now much better headsets in terms of resolution.
If you like the experience and are willing to invest some budget, you can get a Reverb G2 or Quest2

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ual002
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Post by ual002 » Thu Sep 08, 2022 1:53 pm

I have the reverb G2, and its looks great on them less busy XWA missions but some of the TFTC reimagined missions, I'm still getting a bit of a slide show, not something I would experience on a monitor, so I don't know if we have more room for improvement or if the reverb can only handle so much, but its harder to troubleshoot with an added layer of complexity over simple monitors. Plus I'm no VR expert, just a flight simmer looking for new options.
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m0rgg
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Post by m0rgg » Sat Sep 10, 2022 7:57 pm

There is some room for optimization on stereo rendering, but it requires significant code changes to implement. I hope it can be tackled once the game is fully playable in VR (HD cutscenes are coming!)

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haui
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Post by haui » Sun Sep 11, 2022 5:36 am

I play This game for nearly 30 yeasr now. And i would say thanks to everybody who made IT possible to play IT in vr. That is the the best Star wars game now i have Ever played
It's better to burn out than to fade away .

iggybottom
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Post by iggybottom » Thu May 04, 2023 2:20 pm

Hi mate, can i ask how you managed to get VR working on your Reverb? Tried everything but only get the sound and a loading window in SteamVR. Hoping you can help!! :)

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ual002
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Post by ual002 » Fri May 19, 2023 4:18 pm

There are some config files in XWA directry that need to know you want to play VR. Easiest way is to use babu friks configurator and change the head tracking to steam vr there.
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