My Valve Index just shipped

[Brainling]

So I DCS'ed finally.

It's definitely better. I need to play with the settings more to dial it in I think. It's definitely much, much clearer and I can use MFD's much easier now. Seeing buildings and stuff on the ground was definitely easier, but I need to get in the air with other people to try spotting at different distances. Sometime this weekend maybe we can all hope on and see how it does in meaningful flight.

 

[Anson Bennette]

Let me know when u guys are on. It would be interesting to hear how it handles the different cards. I've just ordered the 2070 Super myself

 

[Nejtun]

Still Tweaking my DCS settings for the valve Index. but right now I am getting a flat 60 fps with a Titan X Pascal. not sure if I can stop the game from going into re-projection mode but before on my vive I was getting 45 fps which is perfectly smooth.

Your new 2070 super should handle things just fine I think, in fact anything over a 1070 should be good just with varying amounts of eye candy. DCS is quite CPU greedy though so the higher you can overclock your CPU the better!

 

[Brainling]

I got my DCS settings dialed in finally last night. I have playable frame rate on the ground, and 100% non-issue frame rate in the air. I did some actual combat flying with some friends and wow. Just wow. I can't describe how much better and clearer the Index is for DCS. It's completely playable now. I was able to use my sensors, read text on my DDI's, see the people I was flying with from reasonable distances, easily read things in the cockpit. Flying formation was incredible with that kind of clarity. I was able to really tuck up to my flight lead and fly his wing easily.

I'm definitely fully converted to VR for DCS at this point. My TrackIR is basically just used for Falcon BMS now since BMS doesn't have a VR implementation.

 

[Kinger]

That's a MIGHTY ringing endorsement coming from you Matt considering our conversations around DCS and VR in the past. Sounds like I really need to try Sneetch's Index at some point to see if I feel it's better than what I experience with the Rift S. (Close, but still not where I'd like VR to be.)

 

[Brainling]

I’m not trying to blow smoke up your butt and tell you it’s perfect. There are still some issues, notably that famous DCS “shadow swim” is still terrible in VR, very immersion breaking. Thankfully you really only notice it when you’re on the ground getting your jet up and ready. There are still performance issues, especially on heavily populated MP servers.

I’m simply suggesting that as someone who takes their ability to be capable in the jet more seriously than immersion, it’s reached a point where I feel I can have both. Tons of room for improvement, but I feel confident saying that I am no longer losing a huge chunk of my combat capability by being in VR.

 

[Kinger]

I’m not trying to blow smoke up your butt and tell you it’s perfect. There are still some issues, notably that famous DCS “shadow swim” is still terrible in VR, very immersion breaking. Thankfully you really only notice it when you’re on the ground getting your jet up and ready. There are still performance issues, especially on heavily populated MP servers.

I’m simply suggesting that as someone who takes their ability to be capable in the jet more seriously than immersion, it’s reached a point where I feel I can have both. Tons of room for improvement, but I feel confident saying that I am no longer losing a huge chunk of my combat capability by being in VR.

Who doesn’t love a little smoke up their behind I say?

Anywho, you are using only one lighthouse right Matt? Any issues with the headset losing track when checking six? I’m still on the fence with this thing....miss VR to some degree in DCS, but also read comments that the Index is not THAT much better visually than the new Rift S which while I felt it was an improvement over the OG Rift it wasn’t good enough for me to keep it.

 

[little P]

My sister bless her heart as part of my birthday gift bought me one of these cheapo headsets that you put your smartphone in as she "wanted me to be able to play two player with your VR" (I didn't have the heart to tell her that this £5 bit of plastic wouldn't be able to do that)... BUT.

Here's the thing.

I put my Samsung Galaxy S8 into it which has a resolution of 2960 x 1440 and loaded up titans of space mobile version expecting it to be rubbish.

It blew me away! There was zero screen door effect, and everything was crystal bloody clear!

Now I know obviously these things are only really useful for watching vr movies on and some of the little mobile vr games are cute to let the kids have a go but honestly the clarity, and complete lack of screen door effect really shocked me. It made me think how amazing VR would be if it was this clear with the room scale functionality of my OG Vive.

I was wondering how the image I saw through this cheapo headset with my Samsung galaxy S8 as the screen would compare to something like the Index, Rift S, or indeed even the Oculus Quest which all have very similar resolutions.

I don't know enough about it to compare the image I saw using the S8 compared to the panels used in the aforementioned HMD's.

I still can't get over how clear it was though, really blew me away!

 

[Kinger]

Arrrrghhhh........so as usual I'm jonesing for VR, but I'm scared to order another headset only to be disappointed. I really fear as if I'm such a visuals or performance snob that only something like a Reverb will be for me. (And that is definitely not a gold standard when it comes to reliability at this point let alone availability.)

 

[Brainling]

Who doesn’t love a little smoke up their behind I say?

Anywho, you are using only one lighthouse right Matt? Any issues with the headset losing track when checking six? I’m still on the fence with this thing....miss VR to some degree in DCS, but also read comments that the Index is not THAT much better visually than the new Rift S which while I felt it was an improvement over the OG Rift it wasn’t good enough for me to keep it.

No I use both lighthouses. Up on photography lighting stands, about 7'ish feet above my play space (which is centered on my rig seat). If I had a complaint with the Index it's that the lighthouse tracking can be very finnicky. I understand how important it is for room scale, but for someone who mostly doing seated stuff the need to have the lighthouses very specifically setup and visible can be annoying. I really think "inside out" tracking like the Rift S has is better for seated cockpit stuff.

 

[Kinger]

No I use both lighthouses. Up on photography lighting stands, about 7'ish feet above my play space (which is centered on my rig seat). If I had a complaint with the Index it's that the lighthouse tracking can be very finnicky. I understand how important it is for room scale, but for someone who mostly doing seated stuff the need to have the lighthouses very specifically setup and visible can be annoying. I really think "inside out" tracking like the Rift S has is better for seated cockpit stuff.

Well crap. Just ordered an Index today along with a lighthouse hoping that’s all I would need. Guess I’ll give it a go and see what happens. I seem to recall only needing one with my Vive back in the day, but I wasn’t flight simming as much back then. Mainly Iracing.

 

[Brainling]

It may work fine, I don't know. I just know that i've found the tracking and lighthouse situation way more finicky than my OG Rift (which I used one sensor for). I've got it all setup and worked out now, so it's fine and works adequately, but it was more annoying that my OG rift.

 

[Kinger]

Seem to be some posts on Reddit by users only using one so we shall see.

 

[little P]

So close to pulling the trigger on one of these. I've been watching some of @Nejtun's videos and some through the lens comparisons and it really does look clear. I'm sure I'd see a big difference coming from an OG vive and I have £50 steam credit so the HMD would only cost me £400. Could just use my existing wands and lighthouses as the knuckles controllers seem a bit meh at the moment and not as much support for them as I'd like. Would rather have someone use the frunk for leapmotion which I'm sure isn't too far off.

My only worry is if my old trusty 980Ti and 2700K could run it If it could run it at 90Hz I'd be fine with that until the big PC upgrade next year.

 

[Nejtun]

Pull the trigger @little P ! meanwhile this is Dirt rally 2.0 , I recorded this at 1600x 900 with a 6000 bit rate , but it has some stutters, I am stumped how to get rid of these at twitch streaming limits (6000 bit rate of course) so please someone help me out :'(
BTW P if you can run your vive you can run the index at 90 hz just with less effort. but any upgrades are good upgrades

 

[Kinger]

Just got mine today and flew a little in DCS. I like it so far..........

 

[Kenadian]

I recorded this at 1600x 900 with a 6000 bit rate , but it has some stutters, I am stumped how to get rid of these at twitch streaming limits (6000 bit rate of course) so please someone help me out :'(

I'm guessing you're not seeing stuttering when you play, just in recording?

Are you using NVENC or H264 in capture?

You may want to try changing these to see if it makes any difference.

Aside from that, a bitrate of 6000 at 1080p 60FPS is very hard on your CPU. Maybe try lowering it to 5000 and possibly lower the CPU priority as well.

 

[Nejtun]

I'm guessing you're not seeing stuttering when you play, just in recording?

Are you using NVENC or H264 in capture?

I have made some changes since, this WAS at 1600x900 but with NVENC , x264 finally managed to smooth things out i got 1080p at 60 and I think i managed to smooth it out , NVENC was punishing my graphics card too much for this title though, Dirtt rally really takes the card to its limits

 

[Kenadian]

Encoding NVENC and running VR may be too much demand on your Video Card on some titles?

If you have CPU headroom it's likely better to use x264.

 

[Nejtun]

Having to make a lot of little adjustments depending on what VR title I am trying to stream too @Kenadian , ATS was pretty good, DCS had some issues and I have yet to try Dirt rally 2.0 live. If I can't get it looking good I will just not bother streaming the difficult titles.
Would rather not show it at all than start turning things down and having it look like minecraft.