Condor 2 in VR is finally AMAZING!

[isch]

Hey everyone,


this is going to sound like a commercial, but I sincerely just wanted to quickly share my opinion on Condor 2 in VR. In short: shockingly fascinating!

I have had several different headsets since the Oculus Rift CV1 and I tried them with Condor but was always disappointed by the low resolution and graphics quality. It just never was worth the eyestrain and headaches I would get from it. I always ended up returning or selling every single headset.

Today, I am on the Pico 4 and I can tell you with confidence: I will never go back to Condor in 2D! Once you figured out the apps and tweaks you need for Condor to work with the Pico, it is an amazing experience. I exclusively fly on the ArcAlpin scenery for its beautiful textures and I constantly find myself in utter awe of the perfect immersion. This is the closest you will ever get to real life flying while sitting comfortably in you office chair!

The best thing about it is, that it runs perfectly smooth (which is of outmost importance in VR) on my very modest PC. I get constant 72 fps with all highest settings in Condor and "Godlike" resolution at 150 mbps within Virtual Desktop (which I recommend getting), which makes it a perfect experience. With the newest version of Revive you can now even activate MSAA in Condor which makes it even better.
I have tried MSFS and DCS before and they are, whilst looking even better obviously, simply unplayable with todays hardware, still.

By the way: you might get a comparable experience on Quest 2/Pro or Reverb G2. If you are looking into getting one of those. My GPU is a RTX2070, so if you have the same or anything better you will be fine. You should not get an AMD GPU if you are planning on playing wireless VR though, because their video encoder is very bad. No Problem for wired VR (e.g. Reverb G2) however.

If you are still reading this, you should absolutely give it a try!


Best regards

[ryanto]

I agree that it is amazing to fly with VR. I have a reverb G2, and, even though it was hell to configure (thank you to the guy who did the tutorial), I couldn't fly in 2D ever again : the experience is truly amazing and after a few seconds, it allows me to forget it's only a simulation.

On the other hand, I find the graphism harder and harder to deal with. The planes are okay, as far as I'm concerned, but the scenes are not good enough. FS2020 is kind of the the king in this field, but as you mention, the hardware is not there yet (i have a 4080RTX). Also, I feel like Condor is closer to my real life experience when it's about the physics itself but I'm far from being an expert. I'm therefore not really using fs2020 for gliders.

Condor is my favorite simulation at the moment, and I think it will stay. I just hope the scenes will be more detailed in the future (Condor 3, who knows ? )

on this post ( viewtopic.php?f=29&t=21352 ), OXO mentioned that the hardware will have higher requirements, so I'm really hoping that the scenes will have better resolutions and quality.

Recent progress has indicated that for full beauty, there will be an increase in requirements. However you will be able to turn the graphics back and run on weaker computers.

I cannot yet give any figures, so don't ask

[isch]

On the other hand, I find the graphism harder and harder to deal with. The planes are okay, as far as I'm concerned, but the scenes are not good enough.

Have you tried the Arc Alpin scenery? To me, the visuals are breathtaking, as long as you stay high enough at least.

I even find that mountains and ridges especially, look better in Condor Arc Alpin as opposed to MSFS. MSFS has a weird morphing and melting effect going on with steep slopes, no matter the graphics settings, which is extremely irritating and a total immersion breaker. To me anyways.

I actually didn´t know Condor 3 was in the works. Great news!

[6266]

... I just hope the scenes will be more detailed in the future (Condor 3, who knows ? ) ...

That has nothing to do with Condor 3, it depends of the availability of high resolution satellite images. You can have all my landscapes with high resolution textures, if you pay for it. Prices are between 20 and 40 Euro / km², so a usual landscape in my size will be between 6 and 12 Mill. Euro.

Pay for it or accept lower resolution. Or ignore license agreements and pay maybe later, it can cost your house ...

[kingjamez]

... I just hope the scenes will be more detailed in the future (Condor 3, who knows ? ) ...

That has nothing to do with Condor 3, it depends of the availability of high resolution satellite images. You can have all my landscapes with high resolution textures, if you pay for it. Prices are between 20 and 40 Euro / km², so a usual landscape in my size will be between 6 and 12 Mill. Euro.

Pay for it or accept lower resolution. Or ignore license agreements and pay maybe later, it can cost your house ...

For commercial use, high res is expensive. Not for personal use though. The XPlane community and to a lesser extent the MSFS folks have figured this out. I use a number of different sources including bing and google to build my own personal ortho in Xplane and it's amazing.

[6266]

For commercial use, high res is expensive. Not for personal use though. The XPlane community and to a lesser extent the MSFS folks have figured this out. I use a number of different sources including bing and google to build my own personal ortho in Xplane and it's amazing.

Can you please post the links to those license agreements where they allow it?

[Big Mike]

'Virtual Desktop (which I recommend getting)'

Isch....are you running steam?

Or is it this link? https://www.vrdesktop.net/

Thanks

[wickid]

For commercial use, high res is expensive. Not for personal use though. The XPlane community and to a lesser extent the MSFS folks have figured this out. I use a number of different sources including bing and google to build my own personal ortho in Xplane and it's amazing.

This is illegal, even for personal use...

For example from google maps terms of service:

3.2.3 Restrictions Against Misusing the Services.

(a) No Scraping. Customer will not export, extract, or otherwise scrape Google Maps Content for use outside the Services. For example, Customer will not: (i) pre-fetch, index, store, reshare, or rehost Google Maps Content outside the services; (ii) bulk download Google Maps tiles, Street View images, geocodes, directions, distance matrix results, roads information, places information, elevation values, and time zone details; (iii) copy and save business names, addresses, or user reviews; or (iv) use Google Maps Content with text-to-speech services.

The only reason MSFS can do it is because they own the bing map data. This is prohibitively expensive for Condor.

[isch]

Guys I appreciate your input, but could you please take your satellite imagery licensing topic elsewhere? Thank you.

'Virtual Desktop (which I recommend getting)'

Isch....are you running steam?

Or is it this link? https://www.vrdesktop.net/

Thanks

Yes, this is the one. I highly recommend it for wireless VR, especially on the Pico 4 because the official streaming app is ridiculously bad. Run it on the GODLIKE preset and at max. bitrate. Anything equal to or better than an RTX2070 will do the job just fine.

[JLN]

I fully agree with Isch. Flying in Condor in VR is fantastic. Once you have your head on the shoulders of the pilot you are IN your glider. You can easily look where you want. You turn the head while turning or thermalling, it’s so easy...and the view...once you are reasonably high it’s superb, especially in non flat countries..(Special mention for AA2, 5000m in the alps..whaou ! ) but even on flat land you can enjoy being IN. Have a look under you : easy even if you don’t lean out...but you could !
Flying in group is another experience. You see other gliders on your side or in front of you. You overtake one and see it scrolling slowly on your side...
Those who have not tried cannot imagin. Every people to which I have given my headset on pause for Condor and on a chair for him or her has been stunned !
And when you have landed you can see your glider from outside ! Except if you are in a very Very great room you cannot turn around it but if, you could do.
Condor is made for VR !! And VR is now affordable .
For me I have a Quest 2 for more than 2 years and I have done all my flights with it from the first I flew with.
Yes I have a facebook account. with nothing on it.
I would be very interested to know the percentage of VR users.
Regards

[Kaibeth]

Absolutely love VR flying. It is a must for helicopters in X-Plane.

I have never flown Condor in Pancake Mode, and likely never will.

[OXO]

Pancake mode

[BenNZL]

Hi everyone, I'm having the issue that condor exits 10swconds or so into my flight using revive 1.92 and Pico 4 just wondering if anyone else has this problem and any solution

[Crakob]

Hi everybody,
Finally I love vor VR too. Did two attempts in the past years with rift s, but was not impressed.
Now I got a quest3 and I love it. Even on a 1660 gtx it’s ok.

What I really like is the flying close too clouds now. They look totally different than in 2d.
In 2d one thought one could fly through a mist, and than suddenly got a white out.

But in vr, it’s like expected. As long as one can see through you can fly through without getting a white out. Really nice.

[Crakob]

Me again,
this weekend i got my new PC. (Old one was 17 years old, but with an 1660)

The new one is supposed to handle Condor3 in VR AMD CPU and a 3080Ti

Maxed out all settings in C2 and in the ocululs software. Even with 90 Hz the Performance HUD from the debugtool says : still 80% headroom

Oh boy, what a difference. With the 1660 all edges were "rough" and pixelated. And in Flatland or multiplayer the FPS dropped to 30-35 with stutter.

Now it's so smooth and crisp. Really fantastic with rocksolid 90 FPS

(But i should have go with an Intel setup. My first AMD and i did not know, that it takes soooo long to boot. About 3-4 minutes
I learned that's supposed to be normal for AMD PC's)