Vr vs track ir

[Drano]

There are two different flavors of NeckSafer. Both of which are a total neck saver for a lot of VR games. It's not compatible with everything tho. VRNecksafer and XRNecksafer. VRNecksafer works in SteamVR only. XRNecksafer works with OpenXR (OpencompositeVR) only. They aren't interchangeable so keep in mind which VR environment you're trying to use them with.

The VR version was the original. Guy that developed it is an IL2 player. Installing it is a bit of a trick as it has no installer. You're adding registry entries, etc. manually. No VR hat views in IL2 like there are in AH. It was a big help. This version allowed you to look left and right in little steps you had to configure to your liking in the app. The steps were a bit immersion breaking but still far better to be able to look around finally. It was a major limitation for the VR players and really leveled the field. So, no verticle steps tho, you still had to physically look way up, and not smooth like TIR. The verticle part was apparently a limitation of SteamVR. You could also map buttons/keys to center or look left and right or hold.

The XR version was his next gen once OpencompositeVR came out. Easy to install with its own installer. With that you could fly IL2 using OpenXR which basically tricks SteamVR. You could then run SteamVR games without running SteamVR! Better performance without that overhead bloat. Cool! So with the XR version the Steam limitations were gone. This one allowed config much like TIR was with smooth views all around and in the verticle too. It's perfect. I've heard of peeps having issues with it not centering in DCS.

Sadly, even after I'd spent a couple of hours one day with the Opencomposite developer we just couldn't get AH to run with it, so AH is stuck with SteamVR and the VR version. A lot of older VR games and even some newer ones won't run on it. I had VRNecksafer running great in AH for a while but I think some update to SteamVR broke it. I can center the view but when I look left or right my view won't return and I have to recenter every time. Haven't messed with AH in a while so I never got to the bottom of that.

Hope this helps.

I remember a guy used to say that a lot.

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[diaster]

I know it has been a while, but I had my two cents into here. I have been using track AR for almost 20 years. And as such, I found it very, very useful recently I started using a reverb G2, and then upgraded to the quest three and in my opinion, there is no comparison to feel of being actual aircraft and being able to judge distance and angles is beyond track IR.. to resolve the neck training issues on my left throttle. I have a button that when I pull back on the button, it switches me to the “look back“ view. I then when I lift the button up, it gives me look left when I push the button down it gives me look right, so I don’t have to train my neck at all. Someone’s on my six I use the back view in and I just moved my head very little left or right .

I also use voice attack to set salvo and other things, like check damage. Starting th game is easy. Start voice attack put on head set, click play aces high, click on use vr in game “on the monitor” center view in aces high startup, log into game. i have to say, beats g2 in every way. Only issue is now and then it pauses the game (freezes) in headset but game continues. i have to removed and replace the headset to get the video t restart in headset. Sometimes this results in ctd,have given a few proxies away this way. Worth it though.

I wish we could use open r toolkit with aces high.

[evilseed]

I know this is coming in late, but I’ve been having major issues with my mouse pointer. The mouse button gets disabled. I’m using an HP reverb and I have to go cycle. The actual hand controllers a few times

IIRC there was a WMR keybind that would switch between game-friendly mode and MS's goofy vision for 3D office work that would take over the mouse.

[Animl-AW]

Everything looks way cooler in VR. The cockpits look like you can reach out and touch stuff. Your depth perception in a close fight is far better in VR than on a flat monitor. That plane over there looks like an actual plane in 3D. The resolution isn't as good generally but that'll get better over time like everything else. You can get higher res headsets but they cost a ton. 400 bucks will get you an entry level headset like my RiftS. The lower res has its advantages tho. When I switched to a 1080 monitor I noticed I had a hard time seeing dots at longer distances. No longer a problem in VR. I see things before a lot of others. So that's some of the good things.

The bad is you'll be craning around more in VR than in TIR. It's 1:1 only--no scaling, but at least in AH you can use the hats to blend VIEWS which is a big help. That and you're gonna need some extra horsepower in your PC to run VR.



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What VR product do you use?

[Drano]

Currently still rocking the Reverb G2 while I can. Sadly, MS has decided to remove its VR runtime, windows mixed reality(WMR) from the OS in windows 11 beyond a certain build. I forget exactly which, might be the current one. Past that build it won't run. I'm still on Win10 for this reason. Closest thing to it right now is one of the Meta or Pimax headsets.

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[Oldman731]

Currently still rocking the Reverb G2 while I can. Sadly, MS has decided to remove its VR runtime, windows mixed reality(WMR) from the OS in windows 11 beyond a certain build. I forget exactly which, might be the current one. Past that build it won't run. I'm still on Win10 for this reason. Closest thing to it right now is one of the Meta or Pimax headsets.

Well, that sucks.  I'm running Win 10 with the Oculus Rift S.  MS has said (repeatedly) that it won't support Win 10 after October 2025.  So, what does that mean?  If I keep using this computer (which MS says cannot run Win 11), am I going to be hacked by the Chinese?

- oldman

[Animl-AW]

Well, that sucks.  I'm running Win 10 with the Oculus Rift S.  MS has said (repeatedly) that it won't support Win 10 after October 2025.  So, what does that mean?  If I keep using this computer (which MS says cannot run Win 11), am I going to be hacked by the Chinese?

- oldman

"No longer support",....I don't think it would stop working, I think you just won't get Win10 OS  updates. You *should* be fine.

Gonna have to read up on their intentions with Win11. Hard to believe they'd remove something, making it unusable, without replacing it with something.

That said, MS makes some weird decisions sometimes.

[Bizman]

Well, that sucks.  I'm running Win 10 with the Oculus Rift S.  MS has said (repeatedly) that it won't support Win 10 after October 2025.  So, what does that mean?  If I keep using this computer (which MS says cannot run Win 11), am I going to be hacked by the Chinese?

- oldman

This is what happens after MS stops supporting a Windows version, roughly in this order:

• You stop getting monthly updates for Windows (obviously)
• Harry the Hacker uses a previously unknown backdoor he's been storing for this situation (didn't happen with XP or 7, Vista and 8/8.1 were so rare no-one bothered)
• Internet browsers stop getting updates. How soon depends on the market share of the obsolete OS.
• Anti-virus programs stop supporting the obsolete OS.

That process can take months or years depending on the market share.

There's options, though.

Microsoft has already announced that they'll provide extended support for customers at least for a year for the cost of roughly $30. For enterprises the extension will be a few years so if the first year proves very popular they might even offer the extra years for home users, who knows.

Another option is to use the quite well documented tricks to update an unsupported PC to Win11. The tricks are provided by Microsoft so that companies can continue using their dedicated hardware until their due date. There's several methods including modifying/adding a Registry key or two to bypass the technical restrictions. The latest and potentially easiest by now is to use a script called Flyby11. The caveat for unsupported update is that you may not be getting the annual version updates for 11 without potentially performing similar tricks. Win11 is still a "work in progress" in a way, new features and requirements may be added without warning. They'll work on supported hardware but not necessary on older machines.

[Drano]

Oldman, that only applies to the WMR headsets like mine where the runtime was literally part of the OS. Oculus and Steam, etc., are 3rd party so they'll still work. There's been talk that maybe someone could come up with a software solution to save WMR but so far no one has stepped up to do it. It will work from what I read on alternative OS like Monado but I ain't a tweaker on that level!

I figure one of two things will happen with mine. Either I'll hit the wall regarding the OS and have to change which will make it useless, or the well known issue with the thing's cable up and dying will pop up. HP improved it then quickly stopped making them. I bought a spare way back just in case. They're made of solid unobtanium now! A shame as it's a nice headset that didn't break the bank. A big improvement over my RiftS.

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[Oldman731]

Thanks, gents, good information.

- oldman

[hazmatt]

The hat views make VR in AH terrific unlike DCS and IL2 where they restrict their vr views to head movements only in the name of " realism "

Eagler

Ya, it was bad enough that somebody wrote this:
https://gitlab.com/NobiWan/vrnecksafer

[Eagler]

Ya, it was bad enough that somebody wrote this:
https://gitlab.com/NobiWan/vrnecksafer

Which is why it should be coded differently in the game to start off with..they should follow hitechs example of a much better implementation of both vr and icon display/control  imo

Eagler

[Randy1]

Windows update 24H2 is the one you want to avoid.

[hazmatt]

This is what happens after MS stops supporting a Windows version, roughly in this order:

• You stop getting monthly updates for Windows (obviously)
• Harry the Hacker uses a previously unknown backdoor he's been storing for this situation (didn't happen with XP or 7, Vista and 8/8.1 were so rare no-one bothered)
• Internet browsers stop getting updates. How soon depends on the market share of the obsolete OS.
• Anti-virus programs stop supporting the obsolete OS.

That process can take months or years depending on the market share.

There's options, though.

Microsoft has already announced that they'll provide extended support for customers at least for a year for the cost of roughly $30. For enterprises the extension will be a few years so if the first year proves very popular they might even offer the extra years for home users, who knows.

Another option is to use the quite well documented tricks to update an unsupported PC to Win11. The tricks are provided by Microsoft so that companies can continue using their dedicated hardware until their due date. There's several methods including modifying/adding a Registry key or two to bypass the technical restrictions. The latest and potentially easiest by now is to use a script called Flyby11. The caveat for unsupported update is that you may not be getting the annual version updates for 11 without potentially performing similar tricks. Win11 is still a "work in progress" in a way, new features and requirements may be added without warning. Thttps://www.linuxmint.com/hey'll work on supported hardware but not necessary on older machines.

I did the registry hack for updates for Windows XP and seem to recall it working without issue for quiet a while.

Here's another option for older computers that I use. I have a couple of laptops and desktops that run Mint. It's interface is pretty familiar to windows and even my young kids can use it.

https://www.linuxmint.com/

I've even managed to get LAC to run on it: (this is a rewrite of the gl-117 program and kinda reminds me of if Zaxxon and AW dos had a baby) It's a Linux project by former AH3er bbosen. Maybe some of you guys remember him. I seem to recall Dale advising him on some aspect of it.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxaircombat/

[Drano]

I'd used TIR for a few years prior to having a VR headset. I remember when it came out all the howls of it being a hack and totally unfair from the hat switch users that didn't have it. Then it became mainstream and a pretty much must have from the flight sim community. Loved how you could tweak it. When I started in VR it took some getting used to having to use the hat switches again and had trained myself to only use the left and right in AH which was enough of a FOV to work fine for me. But I missed how the views worked in TIR and always wished there was a way to use both.

After a while I started messing with IL2. Hey, they came out with a 38 so I just had to! At the time, IL2 had no hat switch views (still don't really) to use in VR so you were REALLY limited in seeing anything behind your 3-9 line without straining your neck pretty badly to do it. It hurt after a while and especially after a long session. Worst of it was I found myself constantly getting zapped by planes I never saw. Probably why I never really switched to IL2.

Enter VRNecksafer. Developed by an IL2 player that had the same issues in VR but was a coder that found a way out of it. IL2 with this add-on app was added the ability to use the hat switches to look around and also look around in the horizontal arc much like TIR except in little steps you could configure. Installation was a bit of a pain that included editing the registry which put a lot of peeps off but it was fairly simple. It worked, but could be a bit immersion breaking with the little stutter steps back and forth. Even so there were the same howls of it being a hack and an advantage and being totally unfair. Whatever. Even so, at some point something changed and I couldn't get it to run in AH anymore. Probably a steam update. The view would not recenter properly once I moved my head.

Enter OpencompositeVR. This app was conceived to run SteamVR games under OpenXR which is really the basis for all VR, including steam. With this you can avoid running steam altogether and so free up a lot of overhead that brings and gain some performance. Worked great for IL2 but sadly AH isn't compatible so we're stuck with SteamVR.

The guy that developed the NeckSafer app came out with an OpenXR version (XRNecksafer) that added smooth views without the steps as well as adding the verticle arc so views just like TIR. Finally! This version was easier to install by running an exe. But, since it only works with OpenXR games, whether through OpencompositeVR or native OpenXR, that version won't work with AH. They aren't interchangeable dependent on the VR runtime used.

If you used TIR and are using VR now, NeckSafer is a great help for your cervical vertibrae and so--aptly named! If you play DCS (I don't) or MSFS which are OpenXR native, XRNecksafer will work for you out of the box so to speak. Give it a try. If you don't like it, just uninstall it. Nothing to lose.

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