Over the years I've been upgrading my gaming setup with an eye towards VR. I still want to play other space games so a decent non-VR setup is also important. Recently I reached a milestone: monster computer (5950X and 3090), simpit (RSeat, Virpil stick/throttle/buttonpads), Butt-kicker (makes the whole thing vibrate), 48-inch 4K 120hz display, and a Valve Index.
Before this, I played Elite on a more modest setup using an Oculus Rift CV1. The VR experience blew my mind at the time. I spent over 1k hours doing combat and exploration in VR. So you can imagine my excitement to play with the upgraded setup above.
Shockingly (to me), today I decided to permanently shelve the VR HMD and stick to using TrackIR from now on.
I'd like to share my rationale below. Mainly to share my experience with those of you who are building a new gaming rig/area/room for yourselves. Maybe this will save you some time/money or encourage you to test out your assumptions. Or if you're stuck in the same predicament I was... you're not alone!
Up until recently, VR was the most immersive way to play Elite for me. I would say by an order of magnitude at least. You simply can't compare a standard gaming monitor to ~120 degrees of view with a sense of depth. But as soon as the simpit entered the picture with a 48-inch monitor, VR became only marginally more immersive. In some ways less immersive!
How can this be?
If you have the space for a simpit I'd highly recommend considering it.
It doesn't need to cost a lot of money as a lot of it can be DIY'd. I highly regret buying an RSeat -- I wish I had DIY'd the entire simpit chassi using wood blocks and a real car's racing seat. The button boxes can be DIY'd too or bought from DIYers on a budget. There's a DIY version of TrackIR (OpenTrack). The HOTAS and monitor can be bought entry-level and upgraded over time.
It's a legitimately fun project (even if it takes years) and this one man's experience is that it blows VR out of the water.
So... goodbye to VR... it was nice while it lasted.
Before this, I played Elite on a more modest setup using an Oculus Rift CV1. The VR experience blew my mind at the time. I spent over 1k hours doing combat and exploration in VR. So you can imagine my excitement to play with the upgraded setup above.
Shockingly (to me), today I decided to permanently shelve the VR HMD and stick to using TrackIR from now on.
I'd like to share my rationale below. Mainly to share my experience with those of you who are building a new gaming rig/area/room for yourselves. Maybe this will save you some time/money or encourage you to test out your assumptions. Or if you're stuck in the same predicament I was... you're not alone!
Up until recently, VR was the most immersive way to play Elite for me. I would say by an order of magnitude at least. You simply can't compare a standard gaming monitor to ~120 degrees of view with a sense of depth. But as soon as the simpit entered the picture with a 48-inch monitor, VR became only marginally more immersive. In some ways less immersive!
How can this be?
- Graphics quality in VR is still bad. It's especially bad in Elite dude to the longstanding aliasing issues it's had. You're going to get noticeable jagged edges in stations no matter what. Switching between VR and monitor+TrackIR is like putting on a pair of prescription glasses for the first time. You'll get all sorts of glare issues, dynamic range issues, etc. There are ways to minimize that stuff in VR (I've spent many many hours doing so) but it never really goes away.
- Wearing a bulky HMD on your face for hours (I like to play for 3-5 hours at a time) is not comfortable. Your face will have an outline after. It's irritated my skin in the past (imagine the sweat build-up). There are solutions like creams and taking breaks.
- If you have a simpit with button boxes (I have 2, example here) then you can't see them while wearing the VR headset. The button boxes aren't a deal breaker since in the past I mapped everything to my HOTAS buttons anyway. However the boxes add a nice level immersion and they're just fun to use. For example in the button box I linked to, the little button under the emergency flap is used for engaging the FSD.
- With a 48-inch display a few feet away combined with TrackIR, your effective field of view is almost the same as VR. Tunnel vision is a big part of that. You do not feel like you're sitting in your room while playing. This excludes depth perception; VR will always be unmatched here.
- Reaching for drinks, my phone, etc is much more convenient. It's not that big a deal but it's yet another cost of having the bulky HMD on my face. Last week I mounted a tablet within reach of simpit seat and it's so cool. I can have Inara or some other reference open there. I could do this with floating screens in VR, but a tablet feels much more tactile and immersive to me.
- You don't have an immersive fallback if VR is not supported. Think FPS in Elite or all of Star Citizen. You may not care about that stuff now (or ever) so I left it at the bottom of the list. I've had a lot of fun playing old school and new early access space games that don't work well in VR.
If you have the space for a simpit I'd highly recommend considering it.
It doesn't need to cost a lot of money as a lot of it can be DIY'd. I highly regret buying an RSeat -- I wish I had DIY'd the entire simpit chassi using wood blocks and a real car's racing seat. The button boxes can be DIY'd too or bought from DIYers on a budget. There's a DIY version of TrackIR (OpenTrack). The HOTAS and monitor can be bought entry-level and upgraded over time.
It's a legitimately fun project (even if it takes years) and this one man's experience is that it blows VR out of the water.
So... goodbye to VR... it was nice while it lasted.
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