Microsoft Flight Simulator In VR: a Turbulent Start For Wide-Open Skies (arstechnica.com) 19
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After over a year of requests from fans and enthusiasts, and months of official teases, Microsoft Flight Simulator has a virtual reality mode. Whether you play the game via Steam or the Windows Store, you can now take advantage of "OpenXR" calls to seemingly any PC-VR system on the market, aided by an "enable/disable VR" keyboard shortcut at any time. This summer, ahead of the game's final-stretch beta test, the developers at Asobo Studio used a screen-share feature in a video call to tease the VR mode to us at Ars Technica. This is never an ideal way to show off VR, in part because the platform requires high refresh rates for comfortable play, which can't be smoothly sent in a pandemic-era video call. But even for a video call, it looked choppy. Asobo's team assured us that the incomplete VR mode was running well -- but of course, we're all on edge about game-preview assurances as of late. Now that users have been formally invited to slap Microsoft Flight Simulator onto their faces, I must strongly urge users not to do so -- or at least heavily temper their expectations. Honestly, Asobo Studio should've issued these warnings, not me, because this mode is nowhere near retail-ready.
Ultimately, trying to use the 2020 version of MSFS within its VR mode's "potato" settings is a stupid idea until some kinks get worked out. It's bad enough how many visual toggles must be dropped to PS2 levels to reach a comfortable 90 fps refresh; what's worse is that even in this low-fidelity baseline, you'll still face serious stomach-turning anguish in the form of constant frametime spikes. Turn the details up to a "medium" level in order to savor the incredible graphics engine Asobo built, of course, and you're closer to 45 fps. I didn't even bother finding an average performance for the settings at maximum. That test made me sick enough to delay this article by a few hours. [...] The thing is, my VR stomach can always survive the first few minutes of a bumpy refresh before I have to rip my headset off in anguish -- and this was long enough to see the absolute potential of MSFS as a must-play VR library addition. I don't have an ultrawide monitor, so testing MSFS has always been an exercise in wishing for a better field of view -- to replicate the glance-all-over behavior of actual flight. Getting a taste of that in my headset -- with accurate cockpit lighting, impressive volumetric clouds, and 3D modeling of my plane's various sounds -- made me want to sit for hours in this mode and get lost in compelling, realistic flight. But even the most iron stomachs can only take so much screen flicker within VR before churning, and that makes MSFS's demanding 3D engine a terrible fit for the dream of hours-long VR flight... at least, for the time being.
Ultimately, trying to use the 2020 version of MSFS within its VR mode's "potato" settings is a stupid idea until some kinks get worked out. It's bad enough how many visual toggles must be dropped to PS2 levels to reach a comfortable 90 fps refresh; what's worse is that even in this low-fidelity baseline, you'll still face serious stomach-turning anguish in the form of constant frametime spikes. Turn the details up to a "medium" level in order to savor the incredible graphics engine Asobo built, of course, and you're closer to 45 fps. I didn't even bother finding an average performance for the settings at maximum. That test made me sick enough to delay this article by a few hours. [...] The thing is, my VR stomach can always survive the first few minutes of a bumpy refresh before I have to rip my headset off in anguish -- and this was long enough to see the absolute potential of MSFS as a must-play VR library addition. I don't have an ultrawide monitor, so testing MSFS has always been an exercise in wishing for a better field of view -- to replicate the glance-all-over behavior of actual flight. Getting a taste of that in my headset -- with accurate cockpit lighting, impressive volumetric clouds, and 3D modeling of my plane's various sounds -- made me want to sit for hours in this mode and get lost in compelling, realistic flight. But even the most iron stomachs can only take so much screen flicker within VR before churning, and that makes MSFS's demanding 3D engine a terrible fit for the dream of hours-long VR flight... at least, for the time being.
Ooh! Ooh! I know! (Score:2)
Advertise this rocky first version as Flight Simulator 2020. You know, the year when all the aircraft were gathering dust in desert boneyards.
Re: (Score:1)
We may all be stuck in Mom's basement while playing vidaijoh games, but at least no one is really gettin hurt or infected!
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Back when MS Flight Sim fit on a single floppy I was playing it in the computer lab at the college, flying in and out of O'Hare. After I got fairly good at it (keyboard only) I took the jet and flew it into the Sears Tower. It didn't implode though, maybe I should have been flying out of La Guardia.
Re: Ooh! Ooh! I know! (Score:1)
Xplane 11 has had VR for a few years now, absolute must have for anyone interested in flightsim.
MSFS is hot garbage, maybe in a few years it'll be ok (when its less like an alpha build)
Lame (Score:2, Insightful)
The screen door effect is way too prominent to enjoy anything like this. Wait until 2028 when we will have adequate GPU power (double that of the current RTX 3090) and VR headsets that can do 5K per eye at 120 fps.
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Or wait until next fall when we can do that with an Apple M2.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Lame (Score:2)
Yeah, i'm sitting here reading this article with full knowledge that plenty of games that you would think would be awesome are plaged with usibility issues in vr, for little other reason than the hardware isn't yet powerful enough to display smoothly at such detail.
I feel this article is little more than stating in a more creative, and perhaps damaging way to say msfs is really, really challenging on hardware.
One of my friends can't play minecraft in vr because it makes him feel sick too.
I guess my point...
Not a new problem (Score:2)
This has been a problem with 3d/VR games scince the beginning.
The movement you are seeing does not corrispond with what your equilibrium 'expects', and this disconnect causes the sickness.
In the beginning, games like Doom (the 1993) often made me feel sick, but I got used to it, and very rarely is this a problem for me nowadays. Of course, YMMV.
Re: (Score:2)
Screendoor effect is all but invisible on the current Gen headsets. Also the best graphics card won't help you in this game. It's incredibly poorly optimised. Even people with 3090s are struggling to maintain 60fps. The game needs to go through some heavy engine optimisation as there's currently little visually to justify the performance.
And by all accounts from developer statements, smooth framerates wasn't a concern for them as much as creating a realistic flight simulator was. It's unfortunate that VR is
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The problem with VR will always be motion in vision not being in sync with motion in reality, effectively disconnecting your eyes from the rest of your body.
The only thing they should really make virtual with VR glasses is a really big screen high resolution display, that remains fixed in place relative to the glasses, hugely reducing the impact of motion sickness and being much cheaper than a high resolution 150" display. Much less processing power required for a better and far more enjoyable visual image
Re: Lame (Score:1)
PSVR does this, also a great headset.
Xplane? (Score:1)
Re: Xplane? (Score:3, Informative)
been addicted to xplane for a few years now and also use it for keeping my helicopter licence and training fresh. Even have VR setup with it working in Linux at 90fps.
Huh? (Score:2)
"90 fps refresh; what's worse is that even in this low-fidelity baseline, you'll still face serious stomach-turning anguish in the form of constant frametime spikes. "
So there is no settings to cap the fps at 90?