Aerofly FS 2 Oculus Rift Support

    • Official Post

    Hello everyone,

    as you might have read in the release notes of the latest LNAV/VNAV update the Aerofly FS 2 now supports the Oculus Rift (and HTC Vive) virtual reality headset. After the update was sent off we got to play with ourselves and it was a blast! Its so much fun to look around seeing all knobs and switches in 3D, moving the camera to the side, looking through the cockpit window and actually seeing the wing tip right there, flying over Zurich airport with all the details on the ground, it was just amazing! Flying aerobatics was so much fun, when you head straight down and know exactly how high you are, you can always look straight up in a loop or look around the nose of the aircraft when leaning to the side... And you actually start to feel when you are getting slower, its incredible how your mind picks up the clues in a simulated environment.

    I found the resolution good, not perfect yet but acceptable. Sitting in the pilot seat I could read the speed tape of the A320 in front of me -
    The implementation of the head movement is quite good I think. Sure its work in progress but I never got motion sick because of short stutters or little lag, that will probably be fixed in the future. In general it was fast enough and I don't think the graphics settings were reduced even. I got more disoriented when I loaded the glider and started a coordinated turn but thats just me with loads of real life gliding and little VR experience.

    I am very much looking forward to the next time that I can try Aerofly FS 2 with the Oculus VR headset!


    Here is a picture of one of our coworkers flying with the Oculus Rift in the Aerofly FS 2 Flight Simulator. (Sorry for the bad image quality, it was dark outside because of a thunder storm :D)

    Have a great weekend everyone,
    Jan

    Regards,

    Jan

  • Just tried Aerofly FS 2 in VR on the Rift. One word: amazing!

    From the moment I was in the cockpit (C172) it felt great. The scale is exactly right and gives you the same feeling of a compact cockpit like when you get inside a real (sports) aircraft. The eye for detail really pays off in VR. The instruments and controls look so realistic. I especially appreciated the 'layers', e.g. in the heading indicator: the rotating part, heading bug, indications and reflection on the glass. The Aerofly cockpits work great in VR because they are correctly scaled and detailed. They are quite readable as well.

    Then, the view outside. Both on the ground and off the ground, it looked amazing. Looking forward to visiting all the available airports. They look super in VR. The view on the scenery looks very realistic and although the ground textures are often 'flat', it is greatly obscured by the 3D objects of buildings and trees. Looks beautiful!

    Flying in VR is as good as always in Aerofly. No, it is better even. The ability to look around naturally is great and it gives you better awareness of where you are. Also the corrects scale and wide FOV makes flying easier, more natural and more fun. My first landing is VR was fine, no need to 'get used to it' or anything (granted I used Aerofly already a lot). One remark: could the lens flare in VR be disabled by default, because it does look ridiculous. Overall, this is really as close as it gets to simulating real flight on the PC (and it surpasses FSX in combination with FlyInside I think).

    So, it is of course just a beta, and there is definitely lag when looking around (GTX670, medium settings) and using the menu. I guess the program uses SteamVR rather than the native Oculus implementation? The lag didn't make me nauseous though, so that's positive.

    In sum, the VR implementation in Aerofly FS 2 is a great start. Performance needs to improve, but I can already see that this is the way people would want to do flight sims in the future ;) So promising and already so good. I'm impressed!

  • Wow , VR support sweet , it the reason I bought it yesterday ,something like 100gb download with Switzerland DC , it's FN fantastic .
    Thanks :)

    Edit .

    Strange , 3D model is extra large now ! , is VR the correct scale for others ?
    Has this anything to do with the now better gui .

    INTEL Core i7 4790K OC 4.5Ghz, ASUS Z97-PRO GAMER --Windows 10--
    ,SSD 240 x2 & 128 GB ,16Gb-Ram,---Strix 980ti-- ,T500rs-ROSO mod /-T500rsDashBoardSRH-,triple screen -CV1 Oculus Rift -- ,Buttkicker Fanatec CSR Elite Pedals v2. FREX Shifter -- Thrustmaster T-flight Hotas X Joystick .

    Edited 2 times, last by JoeMoore (July 30, 2016 at 9:53 AM).

  • The current version is no good for VR here. The scale is way off (too big) and the tracking behaves weird (the position seems to move with head rotation). Tested both in Oculus and SteamVR mode and the problems are similar.

  • The current version is no good for VR here. The scale is way off (too big) and the tracking behaves weird (the position seems to move with head rotation). Tested both in Oculus and SteamVR mode and the problems are similar.

    Well that good someone else noticed this , ever since the small update I guess , sure they will sort it soon .

    INTEL Core i7 4790K OC 4.5Ghz, ASUS Z97-PRO GAMER --Windows 10--
    ,SSD 240 x2 & 128 GB ,16Gb-Ram,---Strix 980ti-- ,T500rs-ROSO mod /-T500rsDashBoardSRH-,triple screen -CV1 Oculus Rift -- ,Buttkicker Fanatec CSR Elite Pedals v2. FREX Shifter -- Thrustmaster T-flight Hotas X Joystick .

  • Seeing the rift support led me to buy this sim, I have to say it's fantastic how accessible it is. Very easy to just jump in and get going.

    I am also seeing some scale issues, all the cockpits are a bit on the big side, the 737 looks especially cavernous compared to reality. Unfortunately if I mess with the scale slider I end up with some very odd head tracking where it feels like I'm on a pivot... Hard to describe but quite uncomfortable and odd, so I'm sticking with the scale at default and accepting that I've morphed into a small child instead!

    On the plus side it makes the instruments easier to read!

    I'm not sure if there is much by way of optimising to be done, but even my fairly hefty rig (core i7 6700k @ 4.6Ghz, 16gb ddr4 ram, 2x EVGA 980Ti hydrocoppers @1500mhz certainly struggles at higher settings. The ATW is working well but the scenery gets Juddery at times. If there is any way you guys can implement nvidia's VR SLI that would be awesome (where one card does each eye).

    It would also be very cool to get leap motion support, it's a very cheap peripheral and I really like the look of fly inside's interactive cockpit using this tech. Certainly worth a play!

    Overall I have to say I'm very impressed what is ultimately a beta experience. This is the sort of thing I will easily be able to pop a friend into and have them flying around very quickly.

    I was slightly disappointed that Geneva (LSGG or "Genf" as you have called it) is a flat airport. Having flown out of there for the better part of 5 years I was looking forward to a more detailed depiction of the airport and Geneva itself for nostalgia - the Jet d'eau Is begging for a fly past! Just as an aside, the Swiss Germans call it Genf, but as it resides in the Swiss French region it should really be called Genève or Geneva.

  • VR support is fixed and it works great again!

    The clickable cockpit is also very functional. I just tuned in to a VOR station and it worked :) Scale looks good again too.

    Positional tracking in the menu doesn't work any more though.

  • Yeah fixed here too - big difference!

    It's absolutely great now that the scale has been fixed - very impressed with how the planes look/feel in VR now. Top job on the quick fix guys!