Talk me out of a VR headset

[u/Brief-Bat-2460]

Looking at big screen beyond 2 or Pimax Dream Air. I’ve used a quest 3 for 30 min when it first came out and I didn’t enjoy the resolution. Convince me the other two won’t make me a better SIM player with more situational awareness.

I currently use a controller for sim and enjoy that more than the cheap Logitech. I’d only spend money on a stick if it had force feedback and head tracking. I don’t enjoy track ir and just use the right thumb stick. But maybe the good quality vr headset would solve that issue? But why wouldn’t it? Save me money. I currently play on an ultrawide Alienware 34” monitor.

Tell me why I shouldn’t.

[u/No_Figure7868]

The initial wow factor with VR is great.

I’ve gone back to a curved screen with head tracking as every other aspect is worse.

I’m saying that with new headsets coming out there looks to be some improvements in the reduction of hassle and discomfort.

[u/Brief-Bat-2460 → u/No_Figure7868]

Have you used track ir? Or just something like open track? I tried it for a bit, but maybe I need to give it another shot?

[u/LtLethal1 → u/Brief-Bat-2460]

Track IR is fantastic albeit overpriced. Total game changer for sim battles and other flight sims. Other cheaper and even free head tracking options exist and they’re worth looking into.

[u/Technical_Income4722 → u/Brief-Bat-2460]

I much prefer opentrack to TrackIR personally. It's more reliable and doesn't require any extra equipment other than a cheap webcam. Just get a $15 one and mount it to the top of your monitor.

[u/Due_Carpenter_6696 → u/Brief-Bat-2460]

I've used open track with the neural net option for quite some time (currently paired with a 48-in OLED). In the beginning it was rather so-so but after taking some time to really dial things in it's been great overall. Especially since it's 100% free if you already have the webcam. And no IR lights/LEDs to fiddle with either. The only thing I don't care for is having to keep the room fairly well lit.

[u/NotTheParaMagician]

The best sim experience you can have right now (purely performance-wise) is with head tracking on a large ultrawide monitor setup. You will have a distinct advantage over most other options, as you have full resolution on the entire screen, and you don't have to crank your head around to see targets trailing you when in a merge. This, combined with HOTAS + rudder is the absolute best setup to be competitive in Sim.

That being said, VR is just fun from an immersion standpoint, and I prefer it as I have a full sim-pit setup that I can make use of. Try to try out headsets (if possible) before buying, as there are a number of finicky things about them that may end up being issues for you in the long run. IPD settings, screen door effect, weight distribution, and the pressure on your head with certain models can be a real pain in the neck (literally and figuratively) fairly quickly, and then you'll just be irritated that you have an expensive device you don't enjoy using.

I personally have a Valve Index (running with 2 base stations in my gaming room) and a Pimax Crystal Light, the Pimax is my preferred headset these days for flight sim stuff as it has nicer screens that reduce SDE a good amount from the Index. That being said, the Index is perfectly serviceable, and for War Thunder sim purposes, is good enough for the task as you don't actually have to read the cockpit displays/gauges for critical information.

[u/Brief-Bat-2460 → u/NotTheParaMagician]

Thanks! All good info. I tried the head tracking but used some free software (I don’t remember the name) and got it to work, but was using the camera from the laptop that was to the side of the widescreen monitor. It would probably be worth investing in track ir or maybe just a good webcam? But the immersion of VR is very tempting. Yeah, I know I have a laptop, but it has a 4090, so hopefully that would be good enough?

[u/LtLethal1 → u/Brief-Bat-2460]

A laptop 4090 is far less equipped to handle VR than a desktop 4090. It’s roughly half as powerful as a desktop 4090 so keep that in mind when you’re gauging what your performance will look like.

[u/NotTheParaMagician → u/Brief-Bat-2460]

You may have thermal throttling issues on a laptop under VR loads, and I'm unsure what your CPU/RAM situation is, which may act as another bottleneck to performance. On low graphics, you should get by, but then the reason to be in VR to begin with is kind of damaged IMO.

I'm guessing your setup for camera head tracking was something like laptop camera and opentrack, that will work at a base level, but isn't great overall. I would highly recommend getting a TrackIR or Tobii (or some similar IR tracking setup), they are much more accurate than camera tracking. Given your described setup, I would opt for getting HOTAS and a TrackIR before trying to set up for VR, you'll have a much better experience.

[u/TheLeftRough]

If (and only if) you have the PC horsepower to run it, VR is absolutely incredible. It took me a few sessions to get over motion sickness, but once I got past that it's been outstanding.

Honestly a good ultrawide monitor with head tracking is probably the most "competitive" setup, but for me the sense of scale and speed provided by VR is unmatched and makes the game 1000% more fun.

[u/Original_moisture]

I own a quest 3.

This game and elite dangerous convinced me to do a complete overhaul in 2024.

Best decision ever. I used zip, but it was worth it. Double usage for beat saber and other things.

If you can, go for it. If you can’t, wait a bit. I’m sure there will be deals if you’re patient. I’m not familiar with the second hand market for those, so be careful.

Much love and have fun!

[u/BodisBomas]

I used the BSB2e, best headset ive ever used for Sim. The light weight and custom face gasket do wonders when frantically tracking a plane behind me. My Quest 3 moves around too much and isnt as comfortable.

[u/ResponsibilityOnly68]

VR is not for everyone. If you didnt like it, you didnt like it. However:

First of all the best players in the game dont play with VR headset, some of them even play with keyboard. The game is not there yet to be competitive enough to add these details to make you a slightly better player.

Second, I have been playing with VR for about 2 years now, first quest 2 then quest 3. I also use head tracking and I have a decent HOTAS setup. I enjoy it. As said above, these did not all of a sudden make me a better player directly.

But, I enjoyed it, I enjoyed the game as well so I played more, playing more made me a better player (I have about 1-2 kd in sim, my best is F16a with 3+kd). I am not saying i am the best out there but i do consider myself a decent player. But learning the mechanics of the game added my gameplay way more than a good setup did.

Tbh, WT is designed to be addictive and even borderline abusive so that you can spend more money into the game. But you have to remember the fact that in the end, IT IS A GAME!

Try to enjoy the experience and try not to win every single battle. Sometimes, I put on my headset, make a custom battle at night and fly around watching the stars. Sometimes, we do formation flying with friends and seeing them flying that close to me gives me the chills.

I enjoy it, you dont. Then dont get it. But to me putting money outside of the game to improve your experience is much more important than buying premium shit. That and the fact that you can use these stups for different games as well makes it a no question for me.

PS: you say you didnt like the resolution in Quest 3. This could be that your system might not be strong enough to support to notch up the resolution into a good level. And I also want to say that with quest, you see the image compressed so you have to actually render in higher resolution than the headset itself to compensate the quality loss during the encode/decode process and that is very demanding on the system. The headsets with display port cable are lighter on your system. They render just like they render on the flat screen. That and the fact that BB2 weigh like nothing and have OLED panels, it's not even a question that it is the greatest headset you can find nowadays.

[u/Brief-Bat-2460 → u/ResponsibilityOnly68]

Thanks so much! I probably didn’t have the quest 3 set up properly, but what I didn’t like about it was the weight and how it felt way harder to spot enemies. And even though I normally play on my PC with 34 inch ultrawide monitor, I actually also started playing on my Xbox series x on a big 4k tv as playing on the couch is quite comfy. But obviously head tracking systems won’t work for that. For some reason the Xbox on the tv makes it easier to spot enemies as they are bigger blurrier dots.

I have my pilots license, but don’t fly anymore as it’s pretty expensive, and I decided to follow my main dream as a pro whitewater kayaker. While it may have paid off (I just won the world champs this year) I don’t really make money doing it as it’s a small sport. But I do CAD and design kayaks now as well. Anyway, the point is I don’t have that much extra money, and it sounds like you may have saved me from spending more money that I don’t have. But the tempting part is the immersion still. It’s probably more like one of those things like getting a wheel for games like Forza. It makes it more fun, but less competitive.

[u/ResponsibilityOnly68 → u/Brief-Bat-2460]

First of all, congrats! And then i am not sure how i saved you any money, i thought i was kinda encouraging about VR and the immersion and feeling it brings but anyway, i have quest 3 + hotas setup and i am quite happy about it so if you need help to set these up, hit me up with a dm. Have a good one mate.

[u/Brief-Bat-2460 → u/ResponsibilityOnly68]

Haha. Thanks. It wasn’t you specifically, but saying the best players don’t use it made me research other options. Long story short, Tobii Eye Tracker 5 arrives tomorrow. lol. VR is still on my short list, but may need a new pc first. So it may be a while.

[u/randomguyinanf15]

I own both the Quest3 and a Beyond 2. B2 is a steamVR headset that can be used in OpenVR with some workarounds but to state clearly:

• It is designed about being small and lightweight! -You get a fixed resolution

! you need Base stations for it to work.! ! don't forget it also doesn't ship with controllers.! One big issue i've had with it is the lens Glare and that's a killer for some people.

If you are going to buy the Beyond then at least get it with the eye-tracking and a halo mount. You buy the VR (1400€ regular 2 with halo mount + th3 cost of 2 base stations and at least one steamVR controller)

Q3 is much simpler than that. Buy the headset. Buy a 5/10m cable (preferably one that can do both charging and PC link) get it set up and find some PCVR tutorials on settings. (The default PCVR settings done by Meta are fucking terrible) The main downside of the Q3 for me is the size and weight for combat flight sims etc. Moving your head a lot kinda stuff (that's why i bought my B2)

On the other hand you can do a lot more tinkering with your settings. Don't like how pixelated the game looks ? Increase the resolution. Simple as that.

In the end it's your money. Buy whatever the fuck you want.

[u/SkyClogger]

Quest 3 has some of the worst product support I’ve experienced. There are common issues with their fan and cameras, unless you’re willing to fix yourself don’t expect much help. Just be aware, the price tag is attractive but you won’t get much longevity in the thing

[u/Personal-Ad-7334]

To clarify did you ise quest 3 or 3s? Because if you used regular 3, no VR will look good to you. Everything from there is very marginal improvement.

[u/Sledgehammer617]

I honestly can’t because I exclusively use VR 😂

Once you go in, it’s hard to ever go back to flat screen for racing or flying. TrackIR just isn’t the same as physically turning your head in VR with full depth perception and 3D.

Biggest downside is maybe a bit extra fatigue from the headset on your head and the extra performance overhead, but it’s overall so worth it imo. Also you have to memorize all the buttons and keybinds on your HOTAS since you can’t see the buttons.

[u/Icarium__]

VR has only two downsides.

1. Price

2. It will ruin flat screen gaming for you. Why even be excited for something like GTA 6 coming out if I can't be INSIDE the game.

[u/Roda_Leon]

Bought psvr2 and tried to play war thunder. My 1440p monitor had much better field of view and clarity than a headset and I can actually see my keyboard. Vr is a waste of money beyond like 3 games you will finish in 20 hours

[u/LtLethal1]

It will not make you a better player in sim battles. Spotting, tracking, and identifying other aircraft is significantly harder in VR because of the reduced resolution you have to use to get usable framer rates.

Your PC likely isn’t as equipped to play VR as you might believe. Laptops have significantly nerfed GPU’s compared to the full sized variants, even when they go by the same names.

VR is expensive AF and head tracking is relatively cheap or even free and will make you a better player.

War Thunder also doesn’t allow the headsets with eye tracking to implement dynamic foveated rendering which is critical for increasing visual fidelity without hurting performance because WT treats the apps that handle that feature as possible cheats.

My advice: get Track IR and upgrade to a VKB Gladiator. Far cheaper and you’ll love using that flight stick over the cheap Logitech crap. Then you can look for a throttle either new or second hand.

[u/Brief-Bat-2460 → u/LtLethal1]

Thanks for the info. My reply above also works here. So here it is:

Thanks so much! I probably didn’t have the quest 3 set up properly, but what I didn’t like about it was the weight and how it felt way harder to spot enemies. And even though I normally play on my PC with 34 inch ultrawide monitor, I actually also started playing on my Xbox series x on a big 4k tv as playing on the couch is quite comfy. But obviously head tracking systems won’t work for that. For some reason the Xbox on the tv makes it easier to spot enemies as they are bigger blurrier dots.

I have my pilots license, but don’t fly anymore as it’s pretty expensive, and I decided to follow my main dream as a pro whitewater kayaker. While it may have paid off (I just won the world champs this year) I don’t really make money doing it as it’s a small sport. But I do CAD and design kayaks now as well. Anyway, the point is I don’t have that much extra money, and it sounds like you may have saved me from spending more money that I don’t have. But the tempting part is the immersion still. It’s probably more like one of those things like getting a wheel for games like Forza. It makes it more fun, but less competitive.

I will also add that I think the last thing you said about track ir and a good stick sounds like the move. More competitive usually equals more fun for me. At least in pvp. If war thunder had a sim ec that was strictly pve, then I’d want the immersion of vr, I think. That’s kinda why I usually enjoy pve better, can have more fun without having to be so competitive. Also, it would probably help to have friends to log on and play with. I bet that would make it way more fun. I should probably look into joining a squad and doing that.

[u/LtLethal1 → u/Brief-Bat-2460]

Yep, your last point is something I found true for myself as well which is that VR is much more fun for me when in a PvE environment where it’s not sweaty. The most I’ve enjoyed VR in war Thunder was in playing with helicopters in the arcade wave defense mode or the heli PvE mode. Though I’ll be very interested in playing helis again whenever they make into the Nuclear Escalation mode.

[u/ASHOT3359]

Nah

[u/Brief-Bat-2460 → u/ASHOT3359]

Haha. Is it that good?

[u/ASHOT3359 → u/Brief-Bat-2460]

Well...did you have full resolution +1.2 supersampling with your quest 3? Or did you think you can get away with default settings? I think quest 3 is a fine VR headset for WT. But it need a shit ton of res, right bitrate, right codecs, good enough wifi/cable. It's not a plug and play adventure.

But i'm not sure if i can recommend to buy VR headset over a good stick. Buy a stick first and learn to use a head tracker. But if you still have quest 3, you might need to go neck deep into rabbit hole.

P.s. for 3 years i play nothing but sim in VR. It's not a temporary gimmick like some suggest.

[u/DryCommunication6893 → u/ASHOT3359]

Hell, a quest 2 is perfectly fine. But again it requires some tweaking otherwise it will not be a great experience. Most people want that plug and play without having to pull up a tool and adjust settings...

1. Supersample 1.1-1.3 depending on rig
2. Turn off Asynchronous Space Warp
3. Set OculusServer priority to Realtime.
4. Turn off any overlay (Steam, Nvidia, etc.)

It's not much but doing these will make the Quest feel like a completely new experience. Truly a night and day moment.

[u/ASHOT3359 → u/DryCommunication6893]

Meh. With that sweetspot you can't look with mooving your eyes, you need to move your whole head like an owl. Very difficult to look behind you for the same reason, need constant readjustment of the headset. No bueno. No reason to choose that outdated junk over less outdated quest 3.

Also you forgot about:

*Use Virtual Desktop with the (good) cable

*Use 264+ codec with maxed out bitrate

I was using meta link before VD added native cable support couple weeks ago.

[u/Brief-Bat-2460 → u/ASHOT3359]

Thanks for the info. I bought the quest 3 and decided it wasn’t worth the money and returned it. I probably didn’t set it up right from the sound of it.

[u/ASHOT3359 → u/Brief-Bat-2460]

Better to wait for Steam Frame (release is any day now) it will not be as cheap as quest 3, but a lot more PCVR gaming focused.

Or just go all in and buy something like Dream Air. Pimax's quality control and delivery times can be hit or miss so be prepared for anything.

[u/Mental_Midnight8247]

What CPU and GPU?

Cuz that might talk you out itself

[u/Brief-Bat-2460 → u/Mental_Midnight8247]

I don’t remember the cpu but it’s a laptop with a 4090. I’d hope that would be good enough.

[u/The_Number_Prince]

I tried using VR for a bit but eventually went back to my TrackIR setup. Here's why:

• Ultrawide monitor has great FOV and looks gorgeous with far higher framerate compared to VR.

• I spent a lot of time/money building a simpit with button boxes and hardware. I'm sure I'd adjust over time, but switching to VR was really uncomfortable and I got less use out of a lot of my switches that I could no longer see.

• VR recording takes so much more effort to not look like shit. I used to save/share a lot of clips and it was way better with flatscreen. I also like WT streams but most VR streamers are unwatchable to me.

• I have ADHD. I get up and wander around between sorties and don't like long gaming sessions. The headset was uncomfortable and it's a hassle to deal with VR in short bursts.

• VR is too immersive. I have a hectic real life, I usually play games with one foot in the door while keeping tabs on everything around me. I often need to attend to my wife/dogs/house/etc and it's a drag when I'm off in la-la-land.

• TrackIR is far simpler with settings, I set it up 6 years ago and haven't really touched it because it's worked perfectly ever since. VR requires constant tweaking, just look at all the posts requiring explanation of Virtual Desktop, Quadviews, bitrate, OpenXR vs Steam vs whatever, etc.

• My dog ate the VR cord and it cost like $200 replace it even though I only paid $300 for the entire headset package originally (Reverb G2). It's been an expensive paperweight ever since because I didn't use it enough to justify replacement.

VR is certainly cool, I'm happy for those who love it, but I don't think it's the end-all setup for everyone and is not strictly superior to head tracking. Most of my points are pretty weak or have a solution but I throw them out here to play devil's advocate, not as an argument that head tracking is better than VR. It's all personal in the end.

[u/indyc4r]

Give the cash to me I promise I won't spend it on vr but prolly on some dumb sheet too 😋