VR in P3Dv4 with Windows Mixed Reality headsets

[Daube]

Hi all,

I am finally the owner of a VR headset and I started using it in P3Dv4, using the native VR of the simulator (no FlyInside, for now...). It works well but I'm looking for more information, tips and tricks, etc... in the P3Dv4 context.

Of course, the VR experience is really stunning, as everybody has read several times already (and yes, it IS beyond anything you could read).
However I'm still trying to understand the various settings, with various questions like:
- What does this or that mean?
- Should I adjust this in StemVR or somewhere else ?
- Should I use any additional software (like, does the Occulus traytool work/is necessary for my WMR helmet?)

I'm not sure how many people took the plunge and went for a WMR headset.
I know a few of you guys went for the Occulus Rift or the Vive, which have their own settings and software, but there is little to no feedback at all regarding the WMR headsets. That's why I created this topic.

If anybody has any tips to share, or even just questions to ask, you're welcome here

[Navy Chief]

So you got the Samsung Odyssey WMR? NC

[Daube]

No, I couldn't buy it at good price. It's not sold in Europe, and people selling them are obviously taking advantage from this situation.
I got the Lenovo Explorer instead. Same headset as my brother, who let me try it for a few hours in the past few months. Not the best choice on the technical level, but the safest one for sure.

[Daube]

I'll just take the opportunity to describe how I installed the headset on my computer.

First of all, the computer itself is an i7 8700k not overclocked yet (3,7 GHz), coupled with an NVidia GTX 1070ti and 16 GB of RAM, running on Windows 10.
I have not activated or connected the two controllers, as I would need a bluetooth key for them to work, and I don't have that at the moment.
Also, these controllers are useless for P3Dv4 native VR for the moment, so I just kept them in the box.

I have connected the headset to the computer using a USB-3 connector on the motherboard and the HDMI connector on the video card.
As soon as it was connected, Windows 10 recognized it and triggered the download of the Windows Mixed Reality program. That took a while (half an hour) because of my slow internet connection.
Once the WMR was installed and running, I launched Steam and downloaded these two products (download for free):
- SteamVR (1,6 Gb if I remember correctly)
- SteamVR for Windows Mixed Reality (6 Mb, very fast)

The last thing to do was to launch P3D. I rebooted the computer first, just in case...
In P3D, after launching a flight, I went to the menu and an item about VR appeared. Inside it, a choice was there to enable the VR, and clicking on it triggered both WMR and SteamVR, and the display appeared in the helmet.

I had to edit my settings to tune them down quite a bit to achieve a smooth movement in the headset. Fortunately, in the headset, the far objects are not so visible, so I could decrease drastically the lod radius, the shadow draw distance and the autogen draw distance, while keeping the autogen density to the max. This gave a comfortable balance thanks to the FPS boost, and I couldn't recognize the loss of quality in the headset display.

Now the only problem I have is the readability. Not only for gauges, but also for distant objects. The low res display is the origin of these limitations of course, it's not a secret for anybody anymore. But I'm still trying to find any tweaks/settings that could bring any kind of improvement

[Navy Chief]

Unfortunately I can't be of much help with the readability difficulty. Do you wear glasses? I do. Actually got fitted for contacts JUST to use the Odyssey! NC

[Daube]

No I don't wear glasses, so adapting to the headset was quite easy for me, fortunately.
Your choice of lenses is not bad at all, I think. Probably the most comfortable solution.