4618

What’s all this then? I am also a newb. What all do I need that’s not in the box? I don’t think I have a thunderbird cable.

4619

Have you tried Beat Saber with the G2 controllers? Is the tracking good there?

My G2 is expected to arrive tomorrow. I am planning on swooping up as many of my favorite PSVR games via a hopeful Steam Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale in the next week. Beat Saber will be one of them.

@scharmers I took a peek at some War Thunder VR stuff in a few videos. Okay, that looks really tempting. I suppose it is free to look at (and that, my friends, is how they get you!!!). Is there a cliffs notes version of what the default games comes with or if there is a good WWII era starter pack? Is this going to be one of those games where I can get a BF-109, but mine is the free, bronze/ 1 star one, and the platinum/ 5 star ones are 8000% better but take 500 hours or $16.99 to unlock? I think my PS4 HOTAS 4 came with something for a P-39 unlock, but maybe that’s just PS4. Do the games mix eras or sides? It would be weird to fly a BF-109E against a FW-190 or an F-16.

4620

Planes are broken down into tiers & nationalities.

You start off with one tier I aircraft in each nationality. Everything after that is grind or money. Additional tier I aircraft are easy to acquire (and upgrade their parts), gets grindier/more expensive after that.

There are “gold aircraft”, ignore those.

As far as mixing, the click-to-play arcade battles mix up all the aircraft of a particular tier. However, there are also “historical” battles, but you’ll need to grind/buy aircraft at tier III or higher, I think?

After that, I don’t know. I don’t plan on spending a penny on the game at the moment. Grinding out the tier I aircraft is fun enough, and if I feel the need to go whole hog, I’ll just go back to Il2 BoX (I have all the addons except Normandy).

I would recommend picking up the BoX games when they are sale (and only then). You can actually dumb them down enough controls-wise to make them playable for non-piccolo enthusiasts.

Don’t pick up DCS because it is not finished, will never be finished, and relies on a predatory EA program where aircraft are released far too early and take too long to see actual release shape. I’d rather spend spend money on WT. (Cue angery schurem noises)

4621

I’m a laptop gamer. It’s a toss up if I can get a VR headset to work. My backup plan after Christmas and better availability is a gaming PC setup. So getting this working now is cool, if it does.

But laptops are tight on space and ports. Mine does not have a display port. That’s right on the box for requirements, along with a USB-C port.

The fix for mine specifically is a Thunderbolt3 to Displayport 1.4 adapter.

Fingers crossed.

4622

Yeah, Beat Saber was fine, at least for my old-guy-with-no-rhythm skills. And I was playing the Oculus versions under ReVive. (The feedback did work, BTW, someone asked about that earlier.)

I’ve been swamped with work and haven’t had a chance to use the G2 again, so can’t report back on the controller binding procedure yet. But once I figured out that you need to do it, it’s pretty straightforward, and you only need to do it once per game.

It’s just that that’s one more time than you SHOULD have to do it. :)

4623

Adam digs the Oculus Quest 2. And… when did Adam get so old?

4624

wow, that ultra-velcro is really cool

edit: but much more cool was https://policingequity.org/

4625

Adam Savage is starting to remind me of Tom a bit. Same feel to talking about his favorite things. I like watching him talk about the stuff he likes, even when I don’t care much for it.

4626

@Editer I have some newb questions. About the G2, does it come with plastic shipping covers on the lens? I am noticing a very prominent horizontal line on both lenses which are maybe anti scratch shipping film on each lens. I don’t want to poke and pry too much though. Whatever it is, it creates a faint horizontal line when I’m viewing through it and a very noticeable shaded wedge on each eye when viewing the lenses when not on my head. At first I thought they were cracked, but maybe it is a protective shipping wrapper? Is it?

Also, I’ve never used PC VR. How am I supposed to turn on or turnoff the set? How do I get to Steam to try Squadrons? Also, I am seeing the volume flip from 50 to 100 as I move around. Why might that be? Trying to troubleshoot / install this is a bit of an experience. There is almost nothing telling me how to use the thing.

Edit: I just used a flashlight peer into the headset. I can clearly see blue tabs on the outside edges of each lens. I am guessing I am supposed to remove them? Should I treat the lenses or use any cover protector (like a phone)? Do I leave the covers? It seems like a really dumb question, and it is. I just want to make sure as I foolishly used my eyeglasses cleaner on my PSVR at the start and realized later they have a special treatment and that was a bad idea. My other basic interface questions stand. It’s easy to find the Windows store, but not much else. As far as I can tell, if the PC is on, so is the headset. The controllers seem to go on and off from holding the Windows buttons a few seconds.

4627

Finally got my Quest 2 ‘elite strap with battery and carry case’ set, which I pre-ordered at the same time as Quest 2 way back!

Yeah, the strap itself is so much better that the stock one. Kinda like the Rift S. The case is neat but the zip feels like it’s about to break every time I use it. :|

4628

-Quietly sniggers in 635k of low memory.

Edit: I’m sorry, I can’t offer anything constructive yet as I haven’t taken delivery of mine yet. But welcome to the PC masterrace. Its a knockout race, but you’re allowed to get back on the bike if you step off.

4629

Yep, it does! I didn’t notice them at first and was a bit disappointed in the image quality. If you look closely, they’re transparently blue, and come off the edges of the lens a bit. Peel them off and you’ll get a huge visual quality upgrade!

On Steam, you need to download Windows Mixed Reality for Steam VR. Once that’s installed, you’re set. You can pin SteamVR in the WMR courtyard thing, or just launch it directly.

The set will turn off after a period of non-use, or you can click a button on the desktop Mixed Reality Portal app to put it to sleep.

Haven’t seen that one…

I’ve found some good info at reddit.com/r/hpreverb

Also, there’s a lot of info in the Troubleshooting section at https://reverb.danol.cz/

Nope, just use a lens cloth to wipe them if they get dusty. And yeah, remove the plastic protectors for sure.

Once you get SteamVR up and running it’s pretty straightforward. I pretty much ignore the Windows Mixed Reality app.

4630
4631

I have been around the block on PC masterrace. Tonight’s VR was worse than a throwback to days of yore. It has been like trying to edit out some boot files, but blindfolded. I learned tonight that WMR doesn’t give one F about trying to teach you anything other than how to shop on their store with your new toy. I also learned that trouble shooting in VR is a whole extra layer of frustration as I felt blindly about for controllers or a keyboard while trying to keep forward viewing position.

Ugh. What a miserable first impression. Things I wish I knew before (thank you @Editer):

  • There is a bug with x570 motherboards. If you try to use the USB-C on your MB, you could be in for a world of frustration as your PC will fight for primary sound and video output between desktop and VR headset sources. Luckily I had another USB-C option as part of my GPU.

  • There are blue lens covers that protect the lenses while shipping

  • The Windows Mixed Reality home that they dump you in is a shithole prison of frustration as you are left with a high priced toy to faff about like an infant in the Matrix.

  • You MUST install WMR and Steam VR from Steam to start to have hope.

I think I am starting to make progress. However I have one huge issue that I could really use some help on. The main game I bought the G2 for is Squadrons and it is having issues. I have finally gotten to a place where I can launch it, but once in the game looks terrible.

Something is way off on the colors and lighting. The immediate loading screen has huge god rays blurring around the white lettering and loading symbol. The initial automated dogfight as the game loads to the Lucas sign seems to have no ships (or they are really dark) as disembodied lasers shot around. Once the game loads to the hangar the colors are really off for the pictures along the bottom. It isn’t the case, but it sort of looks like the game was forced into a 16 color mode. Things are dark and the colors are wrong. Things are too green or too yellow. It is like a display TV that someone messed up all the contrast settings. Explosions in the game are washed out. Its like the color is just all wrong for some reason. My few other Steam VR choices don’t share this color distortion.

Any suggestions?

4632

Boy is it late…

Re: Squadrons color issue= High Dynamic Range needs to be set to “off”. It messes everything up if it is set to on. Squadrons is super sexy now. More later, when it’s not so…late-r.

@schurem Ok. I am not a sim guy, but I can say the G2 is pretty darn impressive. I knew the visuals would be great. I can really see the cockpit in amazing detail including all the geometry, dials, faded unlit bits behind lit numbers, and so much more. It is really something. So far I am not so convinced that distance vision is all that and a bag of chips. It is better than other VR, but I think flat still is supreme for picking targets out (facing, type, etc.) at extreme range.

What was really a surprise though was the sound. Wow. I mean…WOW! I have some really good Sennheiser audio cans for my PC. I can appreciate an open sound stage. I have seen commercials where gamers blab about hearing new sounds they have never heard before. Well, I have played dozens of hours of Squadrons with several peripherals across multiple platforms. I am hearing sounds that are completely new to me with the G2 audio. There is a shower of chips raining across the hull as you take damage. There are sirens when capitol ships take critical damage. There is a positional hum to shield envelopes. There is a lot, and I never heard it before. There is a lot I can see and see clearly now too. I expect a more traditional flight sim with a much more developed soundscape would be amazing with this headset.

Anyway, today was quite the ride from would be Christmas morning giddy, to sailor mouth frustration, a chain of back and forth with discovery, then ending on a super thrilling X-Wing experience. And exhaustion. I will still say WMR is hot garbage for an introduction.

4633

I have a first gen wmr helmet, but didn’t you get a tutorial teaching you how to use stuff before being dumped into the cliff home?

Do you mean install the extra program “stramvr for Windows mixed reality” in steam? I found steamvr easy to get going, but maybe i got lucky.

4634

Some useful info here, particularly the SteamVR resolution bug:

4635

Technically, yes??? There was just a quick bit about pointing at the gems and using teleport move. Then you are in the house. Part of the problem was I had already used VR. Thus I was trying to find where smooth movement, FoV comfort blinders “off”, etc’ all were right from the start. I still have no idea where to find these settings. If the settings button does anything on the controller, I can’t tell.

Based on videos I found, there may be more guidance if a user leaves the Cortana/ always on microphone setting active. I didn’t. This is maybe just me, but Microsoft has been wanting to big brother their users for a long time. If they want to creepily ease drop on me, they have to do it just like Google, Amazon, and Apple do-- by ignoring my privacy settings and doing it without my consent. Anyway… Also the bugs with the G2 flipping out between audio and video sources (x570 MB and maybe still something else as the cause) makes it such that what is in the cliff house doesn’t work reliably. After a bit of sleep this morning, I think they just want the user to walk around and be in awe of a virtual desktop and avoid sending the user to other storefronts at all costs. I already have experienced VR and I have a large investment in another storefront, so I just found their lack of guidance thoroughly frustrating.

@Ginger_Yellow Yes, that video plus @Editer 's prompts were the turning point for me last night.

In general I think the G2’s WMR is not that bad to someone that knows something about the turf fencing (and how to navigate it) of PC VR. If this was my second headset, it would not have been such an issue. However, as a first experience, it is really, really bad at guiding the user. I think this is sort of their design, but I was not a first time in, dumbstruck by VR, type. I knew where I wanted to go, I just couldn’t figure out how to get there. In some ways I still can’t, but at least I know the basics now. The bugs also are really not helping. On some boots, I can use their virtual buttons and windows spaces. On other boots, I can’t click anything. Sometimes I can’t even get the headset to pick up the video until I reboot. These two things (wanting the user to wander and general bugs) really soured things.

If I still have trouble today, I will try the USB-C adaptor. From my reading last night, my current rig is dead center of their buggy hardware profile.

4636

Good job on the perseverance buddy. You fucking earned all of them pixels now!

4637

There’s a learning curve to VR. It’s still in its infancy as far as initial usability is concerned, regardless of whose brand is on your facehugger.

But it sure is neat.