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Comment by anjc | Hacker News Reader

This looks amazing, and I'd love to switch back to MS after having to switch to XPlane. However: no VR no buy.

No matter how many improvements they've made, VR + 13 year old FSX will be much more immersive and useful. It's insane that any sim developer would not even have VR on their post-launch road map. If running their engine at a sufficient framerate is an issue for VR, then it's insane that they didn't consider this from the ground up. Even 25 years ago VR was a consideration for flight sim developers (anyone remember EF2000 and the VFX1?).

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I'm holding out for VR too. The headsets are just not good enough yet. The view outside the cockpit is easy, but showing the in-cockpit instruments without pixellation or picket fence effects was not quite there yet last time I checked.

Have you had an opportunity to try the latest-gen headsets such as the Index, Rift S, or any of the PiMax HMDs? The resolution and overall clarity has improved significantly from previous generations.

I use a CV1 with XPlane and...OK the instruments are pixellated from a fully seated position, but lean forward a few inches and they're legible. Any such issues are fully compensated by the sense of height you gain and positional awareness. I could never go back to a monitor setup for flight sim.

If my CV1 is fine, I'd imagine that the current headsets are more than adequate for reading instruments.

As a counter point, I have a Vive and while I use it for other games like Elite or Beat Saber, I can't use it for XPlane enjoyably. Controlling the flight stick with the motion controllers feel like trying to control it by poking down on it and is not good for precise or gradual movements.

But I can't map everything to my HOTAS so I need to switch to the motion controllers if I need to operate the autopilot or adjust the qnh etc.

Even on a Cessna there's enough cause to e.g. match the magnetic and gyro indicators that it's unavoidable that this quickly becomes annoying.

And yes, reading the instruments is also difficult.

I find the touch interface in XPlane to be fine. I can hold one Oculus Touch controller and also use that hand to hold a hardware yoke and throttle. But I would be very happy if something could track my fingers and I had haptic pads on my finger tips.

Definitely agree on trying to use Touch controllers to move the yoke...frustrating.

Thanks! Maybe it's time for me to jump in.

I was like you before I went VR but I was blown away. It's so much better than people make it out to be. You forget the pixels after a few moments getting very into the experience. Nowadays I don't even want to play Elite Dangerous anymore without VR!

Have tried HP Reverb, the resolution is very impressive, they're a bit pricey and the windows mixed reality shenanigans is nowhere near as polished as steam or oculus but you can run them through steamvr for the most part.

The instruments are perfectly legible on the Valve Index.

I prefer the blade element theory physics of xplane. I started with Flight Simulator 4 waaaaay back in the day and I used to like the microsoft flight simulator, but since a long time I'm only using Linux which Xplane runs natively.

It's probably more that there isn't enough of an install base to make it worthwhile, sadly. Of course as a Rift owner myself, I think it'd be a damn shame if VR never arrived for MSFS2020.

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