
IL-2 Sturmovik and Oculus Rift - javanix
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/09/06/best-of-gamescom-il-2-sturmovik-and-oculus-rift/
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marknutter
As a Rift owner, the most immersive demos I've tried by far have been ones
where you are sitting in the cockpit of a ship or car. It's much easier for my
brain to "believe" those demos, probably because it's not getting psyched out
by the lack of 3 dimensional spacial tracking or the 'floating head' feeling
you get when playing FPS's.

~~~
venomsnake
The moments I saw what the rift was capable of I was thinking of simulations
Renaissance.

Mechwarriors, Descents, Freelancers - anything where your in game "avatar"
isn't tied to the camera can benefit immensely from the technology.

~~~
randall
Wow. Can we please have a mechwarrior / descent renaissance?

~~~
witras
Retrovirus was okay-ish, and despite 6DOF very nice to use with a mouse. I
hope they make a sequel and include Rift support.

The Descent1/2 source is freely available, so some brave soul will probably
add Rift support.

~~~
nsxwolf
The first experience I ever had with a stereoscopic head tracking display was
with the original D1 in '96 or so, so some sort of stereoscopic support must
already be in the code.

Coincidentally the second game I tried with it that day was Mechwarrior 2.

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the_french
I'd like a dev environment to be made in oculus rift. Why simply limit
ourselves to games (though very cool and fun)? To me it seems like the oculus
allows for an entirely separate reality to be created. Imagine putting on the
rift and instead of your desktop you can have a wall with 100 monitors in it?
Move you editor to the side have a build above you etc...

~~~
jlgreco
It is a great idea, but I think the Rift will need to get a wildly better
resolution. A 1920x1080 real screen isn't going to be able to show you a very
good virtual screen in 3d space.

~~~
venomsnake
With smartphone ppi pushing above 400 it will be solved in the second or third
generation. It will be possible today too but you have to jack up the price
threefold.

~~~
devx
You also have to think about the latency, and if I'm not mistaken they already
want 60 FPS as the default, and I know Carmack wants 120 FPS eventually,
because framerate is apparently a lot more important in that kind of virtual
environment, because it's more obvious when you have dropped frames. So 120
FPS is probably "ideal", but not practical yet (the screens aren't there
either).

Add to that 2x or 4x (4k) the resolution, and you're going to need really
powerful hardware and very fast cables. HDMI 2.0 and Thunderbolt 2.0 barely
support 4k @ 60 FPS, but I suppose that's getting pretty close. There are
probably other bottlenecks, though.

~~~
leoc
120Hz monitors are already standard equipment for professional PC FPS players:
apparently it makes aim significantly easier. It does seem to usually take
some drastically lowered settings to get anything resembling 120Hz minimum
from the video card, though. Of course there's also the problem of getting
120Hz panels at the sort of DPI that Oculus needs. (The 120Hz LCDs were
apparently an unintended by-product of the LCD manufacturers' drive for 60Hz
3D.) This is one area in which LCDs are still playing catch-up to CRTs, by the
way.

~~~
zobzu
it doesnt make "aim" easier. it reduces the perceived latency.

~~~
leoc
It reduces the perceived latency, thus making aim easier. If you want to make
a habit of being rude to strangers in public, you should be very, _very_
careful to have your facts exactly right before you do it.

~~~
zobzu
woot, getting threats on the public HN!

reducing latency doesn't make aim easier, it makes prediction easier. aiming
is pointing at the right pixel at a given moment. since i figure there can be
confusion, i put quotes on "aim", too.

if you were playing FPS at a high level you'd also probably make the
difference between prediction and aim itself, because they're 2 different
skills that you train differently.

my words were actually too exact for your sake, ironically - and not actually
rude but honest.

So, now that you have been, I'll just let you know that you, sir, are just a
random asshole. (note: i still have my facts exactly right)

~~~
leoc
> woot, getting threats on the public HN!

Excuse me? I didn't threaten you in the least.

> reducing latency doesn't make aim easier, it makes prediction easier. aiming
> is pointing at the right pixel at a given moment. since i figure there can
> be confusion, i put quotes on "aim", too.

> if you were playing FPS at a high level you'd also probably make the
> difference between prediction and aim itself, because they're 2 different
> skills that you train differently.

I have repeatedly heard/read high-level TF2 players describe 120Hz as
improving their 'aim' \- their choice of words. This applies to hitscan as
well as projectile aim, and most certainly includes flick hitscan aim, where
any kind of prediction is at a minimum. While we're at it, here's a Q3
professional
[http://www.stermy.com/shoutbox.php](http://www.stermy.com/shoutbox.php) :

> Yes, 120hz LCD are WAY better than 75hz LCDs and will improve your
> aim/accuracy quite alot.

On the other side, I think I've yet to see an FPS pro refer to 120Hz as
improving 'prediction' as such (though no doubt it does).

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fry_the_guy
The more I read about the Oculus Rift, the more I want to try one.

When the first generation of a technology looks this good, it really makes you
excited for the 2nd and 3rd generation.

~~~
jlgreco
I've had my doubts about the Rift, but most of those were centered around
problems I see with using the Rift in games like FPSes. The author of the
article has totally sold me on the Rift for simulator games though. I want
one.

~~~
vladimirralev
I can't understand how are you going to reach for the controls though. In all
simulators you need use the keyboard extensively - power up the engines,
flaps, landing gear. Then you need to remember weird hotkeys for radios,
autopilot or rarely used functions. You need to type in a lot of numbers when
doing routes or changing frequencies. I don't know how can you type with this
thing on your head. And then you will need to find you mouse/stick to resume
flying normally. Something is still missing here.

~~~
Pxtl
Realistically serious full-sims are going to be facing a lot of problems.
Light-sims that can play on an XBox gamepad and thus won't require the full
keyboard should fare much better, and likewise sims that fit nicely onto a
standard flightstick+throttle controller.

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gfodor
The fact that simulators work so well lead me to believe that there _has_ to
be some semantic hack to get an FPS-like game feeling right. What sits between
MechWarrior and Quake? How about Adventures of Professor X?

That said, regardless, space sims are going to be insanely awesome. I'm
looking at you, Star Citizen.

~~~
bobbles
Could it just be that in mechwarrior / car sims your avatar is 'sitting' and
so your brain expects your body to be sitting at the same time?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Easy to test. Someone needs to make an FPS mod in which players are moving in
electric wheelchairs or something similar.

~~~
gfodor
On that note, I feel like the OculusVR could provide for a really illuminating
experience as to what it's like to go through life in a wheelchair in the
first place.

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azernik
When playing the old IL-2, I remember looking around with a joystick hat
taking me out of immersion right away (and being a really hard way to get
situational awareness, too). As soon as I heard descriptions of Oculus Rift, I
knew I'd want to play similar games with it, but I didn't realize IL-2 itself
was getting a remake. Very cool.

~~~
zokier
In the meanwhile I've heard that TrackIR works really well with sims (some
saying it being almost as essential as a joystick)

~~~
azernik
Interesting. Never heard of that before. Looking at a video, the only thing I
can see that might be a problem is the motion scaling (where rotations are
scaled up, so that a normal monitor will stay in your field of vision even
while you look "behind" you). For people who've tried it - is that something
that's easy to adjust to, or does your brain nag that things aren't quite
right?

~~~
bobmoretti
As an avid flight simulator enthusiast, here's my experience with head
tracking:

At first, the motion scaling and latency are awkward, but you still use it
just because it frees up your hands.

After a few hours, though, you adjust to it, and it feels natural and
immersive, like you're actually looking around outside.

For simulation games, head tracking is less important than having a joystick,
but only just.

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mentos
Rift owner here as well, I haven't tried Sturmovik but I have been playing a
similar game called Warthunder which I found to be really immersive. First 15
minutes of playing brought that child like wonder out of me that I haven't had
since I stood in an aisle of 'Toys R Us' watching someone play Super Mario 64
(first 3D game I'd ever seen).

The last few days I've been having an absolute blast playing Half Life 2.
Hands down the best experience I've had in the Rift so far. While some say FPS
are a difficult fit for head tracking I'm finding it to be very
natural/immersive.

And this is all with the first generation low-res dev kit so I'm really
excited to see what next generations bring.

~~~
malbs
It's pretty cheap to pick up IL2 on gog. I think I got it for around 10 bucks.
Worthwhile!

~~~
leoc
That's an old version though, IL-2 1946, while the article is about the
sequel, IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad, which is still in development
[http://il2sturmovik.com/](http://il2sturmovik.com/) . Fortunately it seems
that someone has got both 1946 and WWI sim Rise of Flight working with the
Rift:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ConJqygVOqE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ConJqygVOqE)
.

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ByronT
This is the first time I've seen "rhubard" used as a verb.

