VR vs Trackir REDO - Which to buy?

Here is the real physical truth behind VR vs TrackIR!

VR can be hard on the neck with all the twisting and turning. Pays to warm up first. But great fun.

If you are considering TrackIR vs VR consider these questions;

Equipment - Can your machine and video card handle VR. Don't except the minimum specs;

Cost - In NZ a Rift S cost twice as much as a new TrackIR set up. If that is no problem;

Resolution - TrackIR is by far the best resolution. Through the Rift or any VR the resolution is significantly less. Don't get fooled by YouTube video's as they are recorded off the screen replicating what is being displayed in the HMD but at the monitors resolution. - However what you lose in resolution you make up for in immersion with VR.

Streaming - If you want to stream or record Youtube videos it is much easier with TrackIR. It is completely doable with VR just not as easy.

If money is not option get both. I will switch between both depending on what I am doing. Money wise for us TrackIR is the best option

Immersion wise VR is the best option.

I strongly recommend you watch these videos from Jar and Sting TV

Either way you can't go wrong, you will never go back.

First track -birthofahero followed by Evolution

[alanharrington]

Being a TrackIR and Oculus Rift S user myself, I've got to say that this is a perfectly reasoned video. I agree totally with your conclusion.
I only ever fly or drive in VR now and only use TrackIR for Arms 3. I just wish you could play Arms 3 in VR!!

[vrcombatgamer]

Great video sir, and your advice of warming up the neck is not said enough and very important especially if you plan to jump right in to dogfighting. I have to tell myself to slow down and not get to quick or jerky with my head movements because you can get into the fight so much and forget about your own physical limitations.

[terryteed]

2 months ago I was restricted to using warthunder, ps4 and a Gyroscopic air mouse for head tracking. Now with the rift s and DCS is like pulling up your big boy pants. Its initial lay out is well worth the money if your serious about sim flying. Thanks Yoda.

[AdmiralQuality]

I end up with a sore neck with TrackIR. I'd probably end up in the hospital with VR. ;)

[kevko]

I have had a rift s for about a year. I am just getting into flight sims now, but have been an avid simracer for many years, playing games like rFactor 2 and iracing. I am eagerly awaiting a trackir 5 that I just ordered. Ordering a trackir 5 in 2020 when I already have a decent VR -- why you may ask?

1) Low resolution and a narrow sweet spot. When you have the headset just right, things look alright. Things in the distance are still a bit blurry, but otherwise not so bad as some people state. Although I have found that reading info from HUDs to be very difficult. However, the passable visuals are only true for a narrow sweet spot straight ahead. Outside of that, it can be quite blurry. After moving your head to look around, it is quite easy for the headset to shift and lose that sweet spot.
2) Hot, sweaty, and uncomfortable if you have a full head of hair. In order to minimize headset shifting when moving around, you have to strap the headset on pretty tight. That makes things get hot and sweaty pretty quickly, and with hair that feeling becomes even worse. One thing that I have noticed about people that love VR and never seem to have this problem is that they are often bald. No offense to the video maker. :)
3) Game optimization and performance requirements. I have an i7-9700k and a rtx 2070 super. Not top-end, but pretty high up there. I have to turn down the settings in games way too much for my liking to achieve the fps I want. And usually, the level you have to turn it down is much more than you would expect because game optimization for vr is really hit and miss. Some games like iracing work great. While others, like rFactor 2, have poor performance in comparison.
4) Not being able to see buttons is a pain. Perhaps not as big of a deal in flight sims, but in racing sims, if I am using a round wheel with high rotation, it can be easy to not know exactly where the buttons are at a given moment in time. Having the VR headset puts you in an amazing whole other world, but whenever you need to interact with the real world, it can be a pain in the butt.
5) Monitors aren't so bad. Playing racing sims in VR is cool, but after picking up the latest F1 game to play with friends, which doesn't support VR, I found having to race on a monitor again to not be so bad.

Just my 2 cents on the matter. I think that VR is the best version of 3D you can experience, and head tracking is amazing. Looking forward to the trackir for the headtracking, and am personally fine without 3D if it means that I don't have to deal with the drawbacks of VR.

[glennledrew]

Good video to inform anyone who has no familiarity with head trackers!

I would like to point out something. Watching you in the inset, I see by your head panning and tilting that when directing a fairly large virual head swing, your face is directed well away from the screen. This means your eyes must swivel in the opposite direction of your head swing so as to keep the screen in direct view. For instance, when tilting up to look straight up out the canopy, your eyes have to 'look down over your nose' in order to keep the screen in view.

This results in part because your screen is smallish, and located fairly far from you. I estimate the screen subtends an apparent angular width of about 30 degrees.

I've overcome this kind of limitation by using a closely located, large-ish monitor that subjects an apparent angular width of nearly 90 degrees. Like IMAX! To ease eye strain, I use reading glasses for comfy focus. I have my TrackIR set up so that as I swivel my head over the full range of in-game panning, my eyes never have to swivel in their sockets. If my virtual view is dead 6, my eyes, without having to swivel at all, are looking directly at the screen about 3/4 of the distance between screen centre and screen edge.

An added benefit of an angularly large display, is a nearer to 1:1 correspondence in image scale when using typical wider FoVs for general cruising or turn fighting. If my game FoV is set to 90 degrees horizontal, and to my eyes the apparent screen width is the same 90 degrees, the image scale is 1:1 This makes for what I call the 'poor man's VR.'

So, for those who prefer a non-VR solution, get a larger monitor and set it closer in front of you. The immersion, improved SA, and elimination of eye swiveling of any significance will make for a very attractive alternative to VR.

[jamesohara]

If you have neck or back problems then opt for TrackIR, with flight sims you really do want to be turning round and looking behind you, if you have arthritis in your neck like I have, whipping your head around is just not on.

[StarBellySneetch]

I really appreciate this. All the good and bad. I’ll stick with VR with small tag mod, but I’m pretty excited for the fast evolution of resolution. Even better days ahead!

[tfk_woody]

You had me until the tanker egress. What happened to protocol? oh sorry Hollywood...
Very good points on both systems. I have Yodas Oculus CV1 and its still amazing. I run it on a ten year old i7, 1060 6gb, 8G RAM and a SSD and I can host a MP server smoothly for 10 or so people. My graphic settings are pretty high and overall it is absolutely awesome, however I am looking to upgrade both PC and headset. But it does prove you don't need the latest system to run VR successfully.
Awesome video.

[oliverf]

Hi Yoda. Im from NZ too. love DCS. I had the samsung Odessy +. I had to get rid of it because I could get any work done with the distraction lol

[Luminoso]

last month, my extensive vr-gaming triggered a Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) sending me for 3 days to hospital due to the intensive movement of my head (as seen on your video). i switched now to trackir. imo it‘s better, the graphics are way better and more kind to my eyes. i see my keyboard and mouse. imo vr is a gadget and with trackir you got technical side of the sim more. 4k60 is amazing on big screen.

[dustin]

one thing that needs to be mentioned is that learning is much easier outsided of VR. Whenever I need to learn a system I'm on flast screen using smooth track and open track on an old android phone.

[McMHaufen]

Thanks for that video. Comin from track ir and now using a rift s for three days. The immersion is a blast but i dont know if i can accept the graphics in dcs multiplayer. Spotting is absolutely crap. And when you dont have iff like in the F-5 it is very hard. And the god damn motion sickness is driving me crazy. But i will keep trying. Iam playing video games for almost 25 years. The VR experience gave me the most WOW factor i can remember in gaming.

[JordanOwnby]

My wife got me Track ir 5 for valentines day. I went through two of the sensors in a week. The first one just completely stopped tracking, the seller sent a second one and after a couple uses I could hear something shaking. Plug it in, red lights for 2 seconds, then no lights and no tracking. Fortunately the seller is being really cool about it and I'm getting my money back.

The only thing I can think of is that I had to adjust the sensor quite a bit to get it where I wanted it, but I certainly wasn't rough with it. I wouldn't be so irritated if it was 50-75 bucks for something that fragile, but 165 is too much. The head tracking was awesome with default settings too. Super disappointing.

[DDOPAMINE]

Ur setup looks awesome! Wish I had that. I'm a noob in DCS and using a logitech 3D wingman lol. that thing is probably more than 15 years old.
U dogfighting in the F18? tho? Auch, when I finally get my F-16 skills up imma put that 120 right on your head and fly past at mach 1.5 because it's op like that :') .. oh and ofcourse I need to actually be good at the game first and get trackir which won't happen for awhile... auch for me.

[Dinkydoo]

Thanks for a very useful video. Also great to see someone my vintage (I started on the ZX81) giving advice!

[safetydoggo]

My main issues with VR:
- the massive performance hit and subsequent loss of graphical fidelity
- the fact that the best bang for your buck headsets are owned by facebook (privacy concerns and fuck facebook)
- the uncomfortable nature of having a sweaty box strapped to your head
- the fact that you cant see your hotas or keyboard/mouse, making hitting the right buttons more difficult

[welsh]

I can see the benefits of vr only when your on a deliberate tasking but it would be useless for CAS work as you have to take down 9 liners.

[topprime]

I'm using HP reverb. I feel hard to spot enemy during WVR.
I normally depends on my aim-9x seeker or ACM mode.

Do you think that Track IR with 4k monitor(I already have the monitor) make easier to sopt bandit during WVR?

[lucianomicale]

hi, the problem is that with the new patch vr performance has worsened...wonder why they do not improve it...